#but that calls into question how to handle the character that said character would swap with...interestiiiing

[puppyluver256]

So the answer is probably "very yes", but has anyone considered a XBC2 roleswap AU with the Drivers and their main Blades?

I'm just imagining human!Pyra getting on that boat somehow (idk if she'd be a salvager like normal Rex) and then finding blade!Rex but blade!Rex is either Future Redeemed Beefcake Rex by default or close enough to Future Redeemed Beefcake Rex (and also I feel Addam would prolly be in place of Mythra and vice versa). Also a Gormotti Dromarch could be a fun design, as well as a Nopon Poppi / artificial Blade Tora :o

EDIT: Searched for it and yup, at least One person has dipped their toe into the idea...but in 2021, so they didn't have FRBC Rex to base Blade!Rex on so anyone who does it now could still go for that! Hell, even the one I just saw could pick it back up with FRBC Rex inspo now XD

[signanothername]

What do u think of the trope where Blue/Swap joins the bad guy???

I have complicated feelings about it?

I love the trope in of itself, I think it would be a really interesting trope to explore

The problem tho? I never once saw it executed in a way that grabbed my attention or made me actually love the story it was used in

It immediately goes to the “asshole” Dream and Ink and “kind found family” Nightmare gang trope

Which again, if you don’t know, I hate the trope of Dream being somehow an asshole or somehow treating Swap as tho he’s less than him

Ink is a whole different story where the fandom simply villainize him just cause he’s soulless

And the kind found family Nightmare gang is a trope I love, but just like the trope of Blue joining the Nightmare gang, it’s poorly executed most of the time (and I mean, how can you call it a “Blue joins the bad guys” when the “bad guys” are shown to be good guys????)

Like, I opened so many different fics only to be hit with the same execution of this trope over and over, eventually just losing interest bxhxhdhdh

The idea of Swap not being able to “keep up” with Ink and Dream or is somehow neglecting himself to take care of Dream just doesn’t really intrigue me (or even make sense to me)

Like don’t get me me wrong, I’m an absolute sucker for the “Swap is literally the only anchor Dream has left in his life otherwise he’d fucking break down” but I dare say Swap is more than capable of handling it without it weighing him down to a significant degree

This is Swap for god’s sake, he’s literally Papyrus’ personality but in a Sans body, if anything, he’s the one who has his shit together the most and is able to go on with a genuine happy and determined smile on his face, no matter the shit that happens to him, it would make a lot more sense for Dream to be the one to try and catch up with Swap than the other way around

I get that the trope tries to show the limitations of Swap as a mortal compared to Dream and Ink who are both pretty much immortal, but what people tend to do is that they completely twist Swap to be absolutely pathetic just for this trope to work

Which *shakes the fandom* I promise you don’t have to completely change a character up to make a trope work

Like I saw stories that made Blue to be somehow a weak depressed anxious guy trying so hard and is failing and whatnot and I question myself whether that’s even Swap anymore hchcchcjvj

I think the problem I usually see when people try and write different tropes for different characters, is that they try to make the trope make sense, and so they twist the character around to fit around the trope

Which, imho, is ineffective, you should understand the character, and then think of how the character would deal with a certain situation and how that leads to the trope you’re trying to write, one step at a time without having to ignore/erase important personality traits of the character

Of course, that doesn’t mean the trope you’re trying to write can’t fundamentally change the perception, personality, or behavior of a character, but you have to show how it affects the character to such a fundamental degree, show how can the character be heavily influenced and affected in a way that makes sense for said character

For example, I’ve seen people write Swap neglecting to eat cause he’s trying to “keep up” or sometimes Dream and Ink don’t give him the chance to cause they pressure him to go on another mission or push him too hard

Here are some problems I see with this:

- why is the Nightmare gang even somehow attacking every single day? Have they got nothing better to do? Especially with the fact they’re a found family now?

- why is Dream and Ink going out for “missions” every day if the Nightmares aren’t attacking, like damn what are they even doing?? What are these “important missions”?? Since when was Ink so obsessed with “missions”?

- Swap would absolutely not let that shit stand, if anything, he’d be very vocal about it and tell Dream and Ink to sit down and eat his great delicious tacos (Swap’s voice always has power behind it, and his actions are a direct reflection of his beliefs not what others push him to do)

- Ink has a home in the doodlesphere, he wouldn’t even be around enough to push Blue, while Swap has an AU and a brother, there is pretty much no way he’d be with Dream and Ink 24/7, and if he was somehow, you think Swap Paps would let it slide? And even if we go with the idea of Swap not being part of an AU anymore, you think Swap himself would neglect himself just to please others even when it doesn’t align with his own beliefs?

And those are only few of the top of my head, I’m pretty sure if I sat down and thought about this for a few hours, I’d be able to write you a whole other set of problems

Not saying you can never write Swap neglecting to eat, you absolutely can, it’s just needs to make sense for Swap as a character, what would it take for Swap to start neglecting his health? It’s not others pressuring him or pushing him I can tell you that much

So yeah, good trope, not so good execution (for me at least)

I guess I’m way too focused on the logic of it to truly enjoy it for what it is, but then again I always love to complicate things way more than I need to

Not every trope or story has to make sense completely, but I guess seeing Swap be completely made into a pathetic mess with no actual grounds to support it beyond “he’s mortal and his friends aren’t“ just ruins it for me dhdhhdhd

[narrators-journal]

The senku fake dating fic was so good!!! We need a part 2 <3 (this isn't pressure or anything I just find your writing so good and need more :>)

Sorry that this took so long, and that I can’t say with a lot of confidence that this has the same charm as the first part. But I hope it’s an amusing follow-up at least. Senku’s character is...questionable to me? But I may be a bit too close to it. Anyways! I hope you enjoy, and I hope this is as funny as I find it lololol.

“What the fuck was that, Ishigami?!” You snarled with indignant fire in your cheeks as you slammed the hotel room’s door as best the thing would let you. “You asked me to be your date to this stupid fucking thing, so I played your date. What else was I supposed to do?!” He snapped back, his crimson eyes sharp as they glared at you. “Maybe not whip out this wild fucking tale of love at first sight or whatever?!” “I did not say it was love at first sight. I pointedly said you annoyed the shit out of me at first. That’s more realistic.” “Yeah! For a rom-com!” You countered, though the man only flopped onto his bed with a groan as you stood at the foot and glared a hole through him. “Dude, this whole scenario is from some rom-com! Might as well lean into the cheesy crap.” He sighed. “Besides, why are you even mad? My tale was plenty romantic, your aunties and grannies were eating it up. You should be offering to up my pay, not chewing me out for doing my job.” He pointed out after, which only worsened the heat in your face. “Did you not think that this would make it near impossible for them to not ask about you in the future? Unless you’re gonna come to every family reunion, birthday, and engagement party for the rest of our days, I’ll have to tell them we broke up. Then you’ll become that ‘one who got away’ to my family.” You hissed, though you didn’t mention the issue of him having flustered you. That was an unnecessary factor for the red-eyed leek to know as he scrolled on his phone. So, you continued, “I’ll be ten years married and still hearing wistful musings of how my life might’ve been if I’d married that nice young man who was so deeply in love with me or some crap.” “You really over think shit, has anyone told you that?”

You shot your apathetic room mate a dirty look, but he didn’t bother with a glance towards you. Which, you were used to. While you and Senku weren’t best friends, you’d spoken a few times in your time as roomies, and each time, he had a skill for not looking at you as he tossed his barbs and snide remarks like darts. He generally just had a skill for being a bit of an ass too.

Which, on some level, was always fun. It took the pressure off of you to be polite and cordial when he’d trudge out of his room and snatch your coffee from your hands as if he was two seconds from crashing. It was entertaining to swap remarks with him, and hear the, admittedly, funny cuts he could cook up towards you. At least, after you’d met Taiju, and it had truly sunk in that Senku really was just like that with everyone. It was worlds easier to not take offense to being called an elephant or compared to an unsocialized chihuahua when you’d seen him tell Taiju that a rock had more braincells than him without a glance. And maybe, a little endearing..

However, at the moment, that parlay of words and chilly smugness only pissed you off further. It seemed to only dig into the melancholic well of anger, happiness, and embarrassment in a way you didn’t enjoy at all. “Fine then, if I’m just over-thinking, what do yousuggest I do to get rid of any future questions of you?” You asked, your words sharpened by the annoyance at yourself, thankfully. “Easy. Just tell them I died in a car crash.” “SENKU ISHIGAMI.” The only response you got was the leek-haired man’s devious cackle. “That’s a horrible way to handle it!” “Eh, not really. They won’t ask much if they think I died.” He pointed out, almost smug at his suggestion as you growled and flopped onto your own hotel bed. Your face buried into the lavender-scented pillow.

As if he could sense your frustration at the idea, though, Senku did offer an alternative. “I mean, if you really don’t want to lie and you’re so worried about your family missing me, we could just. Date for realsies. That way you wouldn’t have to weave a web of lies. And I could come to your other functions.” Which, sat in the air between you for a long, slow moment while you chewed on it.

When you lifted your head to look at him, he didn’t seem to be lying, he looked as he always did, as if the answer had been obvious, and he was amused at your not seeing it. Though, after what he’d said at the dinner...you couldn’t help but think the glint of amusement in his cherry eyes was an honest, affectionate bit of playfulness. Not pure condescension. But, you were still skeptical as you pushed yourself up from the bed and turned to face him on his own mattress. “Are you being serious? Do you seriously want to date me?” You asked, and Senku shrugged, “Sure. I don’t see why not. Though my pay will have to be upped to fifty a date. I need to pay for next year’s classes.”

You gave a bit of a furious scream and threw your pillow as hard as you could at that. The fluffy, lavender-scented mass able to smack Senku in his laughing face before you flopped back onto your bed. Your back now to him, your cheeks alight with a fresh wave of embarrassment, and his maniacal laugh in the air. Of course the bastard was fucking with you. Senku wasn’t an ass, but he had enough of a mean streak to tease you so viciously. Fine then, fuck face. You’re gonna regret those words, though “Fine since you offered, we’re gonna date. That solves my problem, and you can finally say you get girls.” You snarked, pointedly not looking back at the scientist in a similar way he often didn’t look at you when talking to you. “Fine by me. I need a test subject that’s closer than Taiju is.” Was his simple response. Ever smug, as if he’d won.

God I hate this man.

[dr9com9ge-ix]

Hello! :D

So I got a couple questions

First: How do you get text to be a different color? (besides the colors provided by tumblr) I think it looks super cool :3

Second: Are you okay with people drawing their ocs to fit the Sunshine Suburbia au? Not to force you to insert them or anything, but just for funsies? If not that's okay /gen

I also want to say that I love your art, I wish I could transfer it into physical food and eat it /vpos

Anyways that's all, have a nice day :D

Howdy!

1: (ALOT OF JARGON WARNING!)

So I mainly edit my Sunshine Suburbia posts using Tumblr on the computer (Aka On my browser, This stuff is impossible on mobile as far as I know…) which allows you to swap from rich text editor (The default, and only option on the mobile app) to HTML (Alot more flexible on what you can do- BUT a headache to look at because it’ll be a GIANT wall of format along with your post’s text)

So once you’ve managed to get the HTML editor up you’ll need a hex code which represents the color you want your text to be- (ex: the code I use for Jevin is #0a01fe). The easiest way to get these is using your art program of choice (In my case, Procreate fw!) and color picking said color and checking the Hexidecimal section on where you pick colors!

You could manually input the HTML coding for colors but I really don’t like looking at HTML code for very long (Augh headache) so I use this text editor https://spacegen.carrd.co/ by another user called luna ! I copy paste the generated code to the Tumblr HTML editor (Usually replacing the text I had put in there, You can also italicize, bolden, etc using the spacegen editor ) and go to preview at the top of the editor and wow volia! More specifically colored text!!

Notes:

- Line breaks / Read mores break when you swap over from Rich Text to HTML but colored text does not break when you switch from HTML to Rich Text.

- Please be aware of what background your text will be seen on… It’s kind of why Wenda’s text isn’t colored on the Sunshine suburbia blog… Can’t guarantee people can read it as not everyone uses a dark bg- Same goes for Black / Tenebrae and some characters having texts slightly off from their actual colors. (Too light on white bgs, Too dark on black bgs…)

2: I’m absolutely fine with people drawing and writing their ocs to fit the Sunshine Suburbia au! Excited even! It’s even how I’d likely handle people interacting with the askblog (NOT THIS BLOG, DO NOT RP WITH THIS BLOG, THIS IS MY PERSONAL ART BLOG!!!! MY THERAPIST WILL HEAR ABOUT YOU IF YOU DO THAT!) as I sort of want to avoid crossovers mostly to keep the setting from getting messy! (I’ll likely detail this in the Visitor guide post on the Sunshine suburbia blog itself)

I’m just not cool with like— Trying to squirm in relationships (Mostly romantic and familial… But knowing someone before/ being friends with them is fine- It doesn’t have as many implications as the latter…) on the characters as they have their own things going on unless they’ve extensively discussed it with me WHICH I highly doubt would happen and alot of the times it doesn’t fit with the AU… But art and writing to fit them into the AU without those previous elements is COOL AND I’D LOVE TO SEE EM- PLEASE TAG ME IF YOU DO THAT!

I’d also try to provide more info about the world in there as the blog goes on to help with that- (Don’t be scared to prod for world building questions in this case… Most are not spoilery but most of the asks on this personal blog are bound to be a bit looser than what I’d give on the actual blog itself)

And also thank you! I’ve been told by a friend my art tastes like tv static (in a cool way!) Thanks for the ask! ^^

[coldbrewghoul]

From Top to Bottom - Richtofen University AU

Chapter 6: The The Schrödinger Equation

Flying sparks aren't always a good thing. Sometimes they start fires.

Notes: POV swap: Reader (X) and Edward Richtofen (Primis) | both characters are switches | hurt/comfort, angst w/ a happy ending, mutual pining, smut heavy plot | This started as a one shot, but I couldn't walk away from it so it's been expanded into a full work.

TW: age gap, situationally inappropriate relationship

-X-

You felt so good wearing your favorite gray wool slacks again. While making Professor Richtofen’s eyes pop out of his head at the sight of you in the tiniest skirts you could find (and having a bemused Lea help you hem them shorter) had been incredibly fun, you’d missed the comfort of your less scandalous clothes. You contemplated wearing the tie, but you’d grown a bit anxious after you analyzed how violently you’d been throwing caution to the wind lately, so you settled for leaving it on the neck of the old teddy bear you kept on your bed. There was a note on your door to see your tutoring supervisor after classes today that made you cringe – you’d been uncharacteristically late or didn’t show up consistently all week and Professor Peck was not an understanding man.

But that didn’t matter as you power walked to class, excited to see Edward again. You got a little thrill every time you thought of his first name. You’d known what it was, but it was foreign, detached from him until now. You were in such a rush to get to him you forgot to slow down and catch your breath before bursting into the classroom. Our classroom. He looked up at you and you could see him try to control his reaction to your presence. His body relaxed; his usually stern face softened. The whole world seemed to soften around the two of you. You fought to restrain your own reaction to his presence as you walked to your seat.

He tapped his pen to his lips as you walked past his desk, and you were thrilled to see your bite marks on it. God, you’d thought it was hard to concentrate on class before… Professor Richtofen seemed to be handling everything much better than you were. For the first time in a week, he was back to lecturing normally, confidently striding around the room and terrorizing the class. You loved watching him stand behind his desk, both hands on it, as he glared at the students. He is glorious. Occasionally, your eyes would meet and he would light up before tearing his focus away, snapping a question to some poor student who probably didn’t know the answer.

The bell ringing now only brought disappointment, as it called for the end of your limited time in his presence. Slowly, you packed up your things so you could be the last to leave. He quickly checked the coast was clear before excitedly whispering. “ Dinner tonight.”

You nodded, trying to tell him with your eyes how much you adored him. Even if all he wanted from you was sex you knew firmly now what your heart had been trying to tell you: you loved him and you were his for whatever he wanted you for.

“You look like smart girl,” a voice grunted next to you when you stepped out the door. You yelped in surprise, but then relaxed when saw who it was. Normally, you’d be more worried about the sudden appearance of a weird drunk man, but you knew Nikolai was harmless. You’d always tried to be extra nice to him after he had brought Lea back to your dorm one night, having discovered her way too drunk at a rugby party.

“Whoa, hi! Um… sir. Thank you?” You said, taking a polite step away from the janitor who reeked of vodka.

He grunted in response. “Be more careful, huh? You are too smart for all… this.” He gestured wildly.

“For… college?” You were so confused.

“Tell soft smart girl be careful.” He wavered a bit and you worried he would fall, but then he leaned on his cart for support and walked away.

-X, Professor Peck’s office-

“What the fuck, (y/n)!”

You grimace and take your verbal beating. To be fair, you’d kinda ( definitely ) earned it. “Sorry, sir.”

Professor Peck was head of the Mathematics Department and therefore was your secondary academic advisor along with Professor Richtofen. He was also your acting supervisor for your campus job. Where Richtofen was a reserved and distant kind of stern instructor, Peck was… loud, to say the least, but he was also much more openly caring about his students.

“So what… are you pregnant or something?”

“What? No! Jesus…”

“Look, I get it - fucking is fun, but you got to be careful. I know a doctor or two that can help rid you of that chance forever… you know, quietly. You’re too fucking smart to waste your brain making babies and cooking for some asshole who fucks his secretary.” God, he was so fucking crass, even for you. You understood the European distaste for Americans when you talked to guys like him or worse, Dempsey … but he did make you grin.

“I’m not pregnant. I have no plans to get pregnant. I take precautions and is what you’re offering even legal? ”

“You’re too smart to be asking stupid questions, (y/n),” he snapped. “Point is, give it to me straight. Is this unreliability shit gonna happen again?”

“No, sir. I’ll get it together.”

“Fucking good. You got an addition to your schedule. Tried to tell you yesterday, but you never fucking showed, so get your ass to your study room. Some rugby asshat needs help keeping his grades up for some fake degree they got him going for so he can keep getting more brain cells knocked out on a damn sports field…”

“Gee, tell me how you really feel,” you tease, relaxing a bit. Peck was rough, but he was a good Professor – at least he’d always been decent to you.

He laughed. “If I did, I’d be fired. Now get the fuck out of here and make some idiots smarter for me.”

“ Yes, sir! ”

You headed to your assigned study room in the library, trying not to get distracted about the fact that later tonight you’d be heading to the same place to meet with Edward. Your good mood faltered the moment you saw who was waiting for you at the door to your study room. This guy again?

“Hey,” Roger said.

Your heart was racing as you felt a spike of anxiety. After catching you in the lab he’d asked about you and now he’d signed up for tutoring… Was he just interested in you or had he figured out why you’d been up on the counter peering into the vent? If it was just a crush then he was harmless, just another boy that would make a pass at you and you were good at turning those down. After an inner debate, you decided that tutoring him would give you an opportunity to get some answers to these questions.

“We meet again,” you smile, trying to be subtle about your attempts to steady your breath.

“Planning on standing on any more furniture today?”

You forced a laugh. “Nope. I got that all out of my system.” You unlocked the door and motioned him into your study room.

The room was basically a small office. There was a bookshelf, two blackboards and a table in the middle with a few chairs. It was sparse, but it was nice that it was assigned to you so you could leave the study materials you used for tutoring here instead of carting them around. He settled into a seat at the table, immediately pulling out his workbooks. For you that was usually a green flag for a good tutoring session, so you sat down next to him.

“What subjects are we working on today?”

“Math,” he said sheepishly. It was the common answer. “But first, can I apologize?”

“Huh,” you tried to act like you didn’t know what he was talking about, but you adjusted your sweater sleeve around the wrist he’d grabbed.

“It was really stupid to grab your wrist. I wasn’t thinking and I could tell I’d made you feel uncomfortable. I… It’s stupid, but I got an apology gift.” He pulled a small box out of his bag and placed it between the two of you.

You blinked. Well, that was also a green flag. Okay, so probably crush. Honestly, you’d had enough dumb flings that, before Edward, you might have given him a chance. Poor guy. You started preparing how you were going to turn him down when he eventually asked you out, while picked up the box and opened it. What is this? This had to be the weirdest present you’ve ever received from a guy.

It was a simple silver chain with a glass bauble charm. Inside the glass was a bug. What???

“Apparently, it’s a stink bug, which sounds terrible, but it looked interesting and you like bugs, so I thought you’d like it and not mind the name…” To his credit he looked embarrassed. “After they told me you’d be my tutor I was with my mates in a gift shop, and it reminded me of you, and I thought I could… clear the air? So, it wouldn’t be weird, and we could just focus on studying.”

Right. The insect lie. Honestly, this was a sweet gesture. You relaxed and laughed. “It’s very pretty. Thank you.” You slipped the box into your bag and pulled out your pencil case.

He very visibly sighed in relief, looking at his knees and nodding his head. “Cool. Good. Um, you're welcome.”

Despite your initial reservations, your tutoring session with Roger went well. He focused on studying for the most part and only asked a couple of personal questions. You were starting to wonder if this guy even had a crush on you like you originally thought, or if he was just trying to be friendly. He didn’t bring up the lab incident after the apology either.

“Thanks,” he said. Awkwardly, he put his hand out to shake.

God, you hated that handshakes were a social standard. Like, hi stranger, want a job? We gotta hold hands. It was silly, but it wasn’t his fault this was the norm. You braced yourself and shook his hand.

-X, later that evening-

You walked through the halls, trying to act casual. There were very few people wandering around at this time of night and most of them were poor, frazzled PhD students who wouldn’t notice you anyway. Richtofen was leaning on the wall next to the library door reading a book when you arrived. As soon as you reached him you both silently slipped into the library and headed straight to the back study rooms. Neither of you said a word the entire way. When you’d unlocked your study room he grabbed you, pushed you in and kissed you fiercely. You were so enraptured by his passion you barely noticed him pragmatically shutting the door with his foot.

“I hate this,” he admitted when he pulled away from you. “You deserve better than sneaking around late at night.”

“I’m sorry, I-I wish I were older?” You weren’t sure what to say. Now that the novelty of the professor fantasy was wearing off, you admitted the reality of spending the rest of the year sneaking around just to spend time with him was a little daunting.

“That would make things easier, ja?” He chucked, placing his bag on the table and looking around.

You still had some of your equations up on the board for a project and you got just a tiny bit nervous as he looked them over, his fingers stroking his mustache absentmindedly while he examined the math. He was just so… well, slender, for one. His waist was so tiny in comparison to his shoulders. You stepped up to him and wrapped your arms around his waist, resting your cheek on his back. You felt him sigh, relaxing.

“Fräulein, you have such an elegant way of working calculations.”

“Mmm, talk dirty to me, Professor,” you teased.

He turned around to put his arms around you and give you a bemused smile. “Is that all I am to you? A good lay?” He sounded playful, but there was a touch of tension in his voice.

“Well, you are a good lay…” you poked before getting serious, “but no. That’s not all I want you for. I also want you to tell me that my calculations are elegant, and when my theories are way off base -although I might argue with you on that one- and I want you to tell me what time dinner is and I want you to hold me… or let me hold you while you look at chalkboards, and I think I’d love to help you work on your projects and make you breakfast and –-“

When his smile couldn’t get any wider, he interrupted you with a kiss. “I want all of that too. How about we start with what time dinner is, ja?” He pretended to check his watch. “It’s now.”

He got his satchel and went to work setting up the meal he’d prepared. You were a little impressed as he plated… something, you honestly weren’t exactly sure what it was, but it looked good. He pulled out a wine bottle, two pint glasses ( “I was worried wine glasses would break…”) , and even a candle that he lit with a match. You waited patiently for him to finish and pull out a chair for you. As miserable as being holed up in your study room was, it was oddly romantic. ( And apparently the dish was called beef rouladen.)

Secretly, you were worried that he would get bored of you if sex wasn’t involved. You’d heard that could be a problem in relationships with significant age gaps. The other problem that usually arose was the older one being in the relationship to infantize the younger. Barely five minutes into dinner you knew neither would be a problem for you two. Once settled in to eat, you found the conversation came easy because both of you wanted to talk passionately about the same thing: science.

For one, you could listen to him talk about the history that led up to modern surgery practices forever. Part of it was the way his eyes lit up about how creative some procedures were, or the risks involved in the experiments that pushed our current understanding of the human body. In turn you gushed about how chemistry confirmed mathematics as the universal language, which he ardently agreed with. You two ended with a heated debate about the Schroedinger equation.

“This… This has been lovely,” Edward sighed, kissing you before getting up to clear the table. “Truly the best date I have been on.”

“ Edward…” you frowned at him, “…we’re hiding in a study room. I’m worried you might have been on some very bad dates.”

“As it happens, I have been on some very bad dates. I have found that no amount of loveliness in the environment can make up for a lack of loveliness in the personality of the person you are with, mein lieb.”

Wait… what? You frowned. “Edward, did you… lie to me?” Why would he lie to her about that?

“What?” He looked at you utterly confused.

You stood up and crossed your arms. “If you didn’t lie to me then what you said doesn’t make sense. And now that I think about it… how you said it that other time before doesn’t add up to what you told me either… it didn’t have the first part!”

“ Fräulein … I can very honestly tell you I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Oh, there you go again talking in German and yes, it sounds lovely, but I don’t understand it!”

“I-I’m sorry… It is my native tongue so… does it bother you?” He tried to take a step towards her, but she stepped back.

“Only when you don’t tell me what it means,” you hiss.

“ Fräulein? Oh well it’s… sort of a phrase for women –“

“No, the other one.”

“Please, I don’t understand why you’re angry,” he pleaded. You hated seeing the hurt in his eyes, but… if he’d chosen to lie didn’t that mean it was important? You stood your ground.

“Edward, tell me what ‘ mein lieb’ actually means. And then tell me why you lied about it .”

“Ah... that."

[amaya-writes]

Death Note spoilers!

For the event, can I request reborn!L Lawliet? He died in 2007, so he would be 15 today, so I just wanted some fluff with teen!reader (platonic or romantic, whatever) maybe being friends from school and liking true crime, chatting, just doing normal teen stuff without a care in the world :') thank you so much

Event Masterlist About The Event

Notes: I was going to make this romantic but ran out of ideas lol

Warnings: n/a

Characters involved: L Lawliet, mentions Watari

Gender-neutral reader, you/yours

You had been friends with L ever since you saw him win a middle school dodgeball match by using physics.

You thought he was one of the coolest people you knew. He thought you were annoying.

L Lawliet wasn't exactly the type of teenager people would talk about. His real name was Ryuzaki but for some reason unknown to most he had decided to be referred to as L sometime during elementary school, a decision everyone seemed to automatically accept.

He was quiet and went about his days at school perched on his seat at the back of the class with his owlish eyes observing everyone around him.

Everyone thought he was weird. Even the teachers.

The only reason they never said anything was because of how awfully smart he was.

You prided yourself on being one of the top students in your class. But that was before L came along.

You might have been smart, but he was on another level.

Perhaps that was why you had originally been so vexed by him. Him and his stupid sliver tongue and quick reflexes that ensured even if he was regarded as an outcast, no one could ever ridicule him for it.

Especially not when he came from such a rich family.

You heard rumours about how he had a butler who would follow him around wherever he went. And how that butler was responsible for the chemistry teacher's sudden disappearance a week after she dared to mark L's answer wrong.

The second part was obviously a lie. But you found that it was enough to intrigue you even more.

In the end, it was your love for true crime that brought the two of you together.

There was a famous detective known for his books about the serial killers cases he had handled in your country who had a book signing in your city, and you just had to go.

As luck would have you found a familiar raven-haired boy standing outside the bookstore just as you arrived.

At first, you thought he would avoid you. But that was before he dropped by your table after the book signing to cheekily impose on your reading.

"He was never imprisoned."

"What?"

L took your question as an invitation to occupy the vacant seat across from you.

"The killer. He was a politician who got away with it just because his party refused to believe he could ever do such a thing."

The two of you were quick to share your sentiments about how awful that was, and before you knew it, a simple talk about a book both of you adored turned into reading recommendations and swapping social media.

Apparently, L had only downloaded Tiktok and Instagram to watch videos about the cases he liked to keep up with but actively spent time tweeting about all sorts of things.

You thought the two of you would be restricted to discussions outside of school after that but were pleasantly mistaken the next day when you found L excitedly leaning against your locker ready to talk about how your favourite author had announced they were going to do a podcast.

The two of you became quick friends after that.

It started with both of you reading together and listening to true crime but quickly turned into L tugging you along to a million bakeries and forcing you to play chess with him in exchange for long walks through the park and shopping sprees.

You learned the reason he wanted to be called L was that his late mother had named him Ryuzaki, and he seemed to hold a grudge against everything related to her. He learned about your struggles with perfectionism and need to be the trophy child of your family.

You loved fashion almost as much as he didn't, and he held an interest in all the sports you had never once bothered to learn.

The two of you were different yet somehow still so awfully alike.

It helped that you both lacked any artistic abilities whatsoever. Whether it be dancing, singing, or art.

That was where your other friend came in.

Unlike L who didn't have any friends before you, you had secured a tight-knit but fun group of friends you cared for deeply. One of them was a digital artist who had even gone viral on Tiktok, the other an aspiring doctor who was secretly a theatre kid.

You were acquainted with a few others too, but L preferred to stick around you or the other two.

Everyone else seemed to be glad that you were helping L come out of his shell.

The two of you quickly turned from the peculiar pair everyone would gossip about to normal best friends, and over time people began to stare more when you weren't accompanied by one another.

You cared for each other deeply and would often spend hours on end holed up in L's ridiculously large bedroom as you did everything from reading to studying to watching bad comedy horror movies.

One school year turned into another, and you soon began to think of L as someone you would be friends with forever.

[mirror-to-the-past]

your reblog about swap aus reminded me of a thought I had once. I'm not fan of aus in general, but I once did entertain thinking about the main cast having different involvements in "the incident" and what they would do (it's really fun). In general I had a hard time imaginating anyone would do something as drastic as Basil, but that made me think, if anyone was in sunny's place, would Basil do the same for them? how I see it, he would try but the others wouldn't let him, but what do you think?

Took me a hot second to try to figure out a response to this- it's an interesting question, I just had to give it some thought. When you say "would Basil do the same for them," I assume you mean the extent of his loyalty. I can't answer to that with certainty, although if you've hung around my blog, you might realize my bias in how Basil might have some level of favoritism towards Sunny. He was likely feeling some tumultuous level of confusion, not just witnessing something so horrible take place, but the additional factor of two of his most key support figures forsaking each other (ever reliable Mari lashes out at Sunny, and then as a result of the confrontation, Basil loses his older sibling figure he looked up to for her sense of grace and capability. Meanwhile, Sunny, his best friend, the kind, "perfect" good listener who's *always* there for Basil's problems, etc, you get the point. Sunny lost his head, then took away Basil's older sibling figure, and therefore also took away Basil's feelings of safety with his best friend. He couldn't handle it, and backtracked into denial-land, trying to salvage what he could of the situation and that which he loved, as best as he could, from his perspective.). So, all that to say, not to imply that the others in the friend group weren't important to Basil either, but they might not have fulfilled a specific, unique social role for him in the way Mari and Sunny did. So, I don't know if Basil would feel as determined as he was in the original Incident if the people involved were different characters. Maybe, maybe not.

To answer the second part of your ask, that's a much simpler answer I feel more confident in, and it's pretty much that I agree with you. Like what I said in the reblog, the Incident only played out as it did because of the unique combination of Basil's insecurity-fueled trauma response and Sunny's tendencies towards passivity, not wanting to be blamed/hated for his actions, and coping via a disassociated state. If it was anyone else, they'd probably, like everyone jokes, call 911. Even if Basil proposed his plan in any other kind of circumstance, they might not even internalize their feelings of guilt as much as Sunny had, at that point, to think it necessary to hide their "mistake." I could see Aubrey/Kel just cutting Basil off without even registering whatever he was saying, and clinging to a belief like "No, they're okay! They're gonna get to the hospital, and it's all gonna work out! It has to!" Perhaps their stubborn belief would lead to a agreement on Basil's end, and a positive version of Basil's "everything is going to be okay," line. Who knows. And Hero, with his perspective, just wouldn't even humor something like Basil's idea. Rather than trying to hide something like that, he'd probably just be honest and subject himself to public scrutiny and judgement, thinking he deserved it.

TL;DR: Sunny's biggest mistake was actually being the only person to trust Basil to a degree the rest of the squad probably wouldn't.

[jikookiekosmos]

Pick Your Fighter || jjk (Part 1)

➥Pairing: gamer!jk/gamer!reader, fuckboy!jk

➥Summary: Jeon Jungkook has it all - talent, charm, and the looks that have every girl falling at his feet. Add being the Arcade Champion of 5 years to that list and he feels like he’s on top of the world. He’s in for a rude awakening, though, when he’s faced with his greatest challenge yet: you.

➥Genre: enemies to lovers, (attempts at) humor, angst, smut, fluff

➥Rating: 18+

➥Words: 13.5k

➥Content Warnings: fuckboy!jk (I feel like that’s a warning on it’s own), mentions of insecurity, cursing (fuck is like jk’s fave word lmao), jk doesn’t like to share, yoongi has to put up with a lot bless him, mentions of gaming (particulalrly Overwatch and Mortal Kombat which I’ve played before so I felt like I knew enough to include them), jk likes to tease the reader, mentions of a blowjob, reader gives back what jk dishes out, jk is a sore loser, alcohol consumption, the word ‘whore’ is used once, jk handles jealousy the only way he knows how: fucking (not the reader this time but don’t worry we’ll get there), oral (m. receiving), protected sex, penetration, rough sex, somewhat dom!jk? (he gets a little rough and kinda mean so), hair pulling, crying during sex, oral (f. receiving), jk can’t get reader out of his head

A/N: ok so I know I said this would be my next one shot but I decided to split it into multiple parts instead! I figured it’d be easier that way since there’s a good bit I have planned for the over-arching storyline. This part is more so to introduce everyone to the characters, things will start heating up in the following chapters. I don’t have any kind of specific update schedule but ideally I’d like to get updates out every few weeks at the latest!

Forever giving a special thank you to @dntaewithluv​​ for being my biggest supporter here and my best friend. You always help me stay motivated during my writing processes and I love you so much ❤️ also thank you for beta-reading for me as usual, you’re the best~

I hope anyone who reads this enjoys it! Please let me know what you think, if you’d like~

taglist: @inlovewiththemoonn @min-nicoleee @fan-ati--c​ @sugaslittlekookies @1-in-abillion @yopjm @emsuzz @dreamsindreamss @justvibingsblog 

⊱──────── ✬ ✬ ✬ ────────⊰

��Jungkook, I don’t care how good you are at this game,” Yoongi started as he rubbed his temples, “you still need to listen to me.”

Jungkook groaned. “I’m listening, alright? Damn, lighten up, Yoon.”

He was currently sitting with his feet propped up on Yoongi’s desk tossing a small rubber ball in the air, looking bored out of his mind. Yoongi glared at him once more before sighing and turning back to the board he was writing on.

“The tournament is a little different this year, they have more contestants-”

“More people for me to beat, then.” Jungkook smirked and tossed the ball once more with enough force that it hit one of the ceiling tiles before returning to his hand.

Yoongi could feel a headache coming on. Jungkook was his best friend and he loved him to death, but times like these made him wonder if becoming Jungkook’s sponsor may have been one of the worst decisions he’s ever made.

“Please pay attention,” Yoongi croaked. After staying up most of the night talking with other sponsors about tournament planning, he really didn’t have the energy to deal with Jungkook being uncooperative.

Jungkook must have been able to detect this since he pocketed the ball and sat up straight, now focusing all his attention on his tired friend.

“Alright, you’ve got my undivided attention. I’m all yours.” He motioned to the board before crossing his arms over his chest. Yoongi sighed, running a hand through his brown hair and shooting a grateful glare Jungkook’s way before he picked up where he left off.

“Ok so as usual, you’re in the fighting division. Most of your competitors are repeat contestants, but there will be a few new names. Would you care to know anything about them like their stats, years of experience, all that?”

Jungkook simply shook his head, much like he always did every time Yoongi presented him with this question. If there was something Yoongi would never understand, it was the fact that Jungkook had the inside scoop for this every year, but he never took advantage of it.

“You know I don’t care about all that. Not like it matters anyway, my skills don’t depend on anyone but me.” He ran a hand through his unruly dark hair before letting it settle back in front of his eyes.

Yoongi nodded. “Fair enough. Figured I’d try anyway in case you changed your mind.”

Jungkook flashed him a brilliant smile. “Since when do I change my mind on anything? You of all people know just how stubborn I can be.”

Yoongi chuckled as he started writing on the board again. “That I do, Kook.” He finished filling in the initials of the contestants in the different branches, Jungkook’s eyes watching him the whole time. When Yoongi was finally done, he capped the blue marker and laid it on the table next to the board. Jungkook hopped up out of his chair, rolling up the sleeves of his black hoodie before he placed his hands in his pockets.

“Wanna hang out tonight? You’ve been pretty busy lately; it’d be good for you to blow off some steam.” Jungkook could be cocky, arrogant, and was considered the epitome of a fuckboy by most people, but he definitely had a soft spot when it came to Yoongi. A decade of friendship tended to do that to people sometimes.

Yoongi smiled as he stretched. “Sorry kid, I can’t tonight. Already got plans.”

Jungkook frowned. He hadn’t been expecting that.

“Can I ask what those are?”

Yoongi snorted as he grabbed his bag from his desk. “What are you, my keeper?” Jungkook huffed in frustration when Yoongi passed him. They were walking out of the arcade now, having used the back staff room for tournament planning.

“If you must know, I’m hanging out with Y/N tonight.”

At the mention of your name, Jungkook could feel himself bristling. It didn’t have anything to do with you specifically, it was more of the fact that he had to share his best friend with you. Jungkook was a selfish person and he hated sharing anything, which of course included his best friend who was probably the most important person to him on this miserable planet. Yoongi knew this but he never backed down, always telling him to ‘suck it up, Kook, because she’s not going anywhere.’

You and Yoongi met a few years ago when you both were baristas working at the same café and an instant friendship formed between the two of you, much to Jungkook’s dismay. He could avoid you much easier now that he was living in his own apartment, but during those years he shared a space with Yoongi, he saw more of you than he preferred to.

And that wasn’t even taking into consideration the fact that you both annoyed the fuck out of each other, so a hang out session with all 3 of you posed a slim chance of being successful.

“Ah, again? What’s that, like the third time this week?”

Yoongi turned slightly so he could pat Jungkook’s cheek, making the younger boy duck before he could continue. “Aww Kook, are you jealous?”

“Absolutely not,” Jungkook grimaced, delving his hands further in his pockets. “Just don’t see what you find so fascinating about her is all.”

Yoongi frowned. “Jungkook, she’s really not that bad if you give her a chance-”

“Yeah, well, maybe I don’t want to.” He kicked at a stray pebble on the street as they continued walking in the direction of their apartment complex.

“Then that’s your loss. Which sucks because, regardless of what you believe, she doesn’t have a bad opinion of you.”

Jungkook snorted. “Bullshit. Everyone has a bad opinion of me. Even you sometimes.” He finished his statement with a grin and Yoongi hoped that meant he was joking.

He wasn’t.

Jungkook knew there were 2 things in this world he was an absolute beast at: gaming and fucking. He was aware that most people didn’t like him beyond his gaming ability and, at least where women were concerned, how he was in bed. When he wasn’t making other Overwatch players scream at him through his headset because he was winning, he was making women of his choosing scream into his mattress.

And that was exactly how Jungkook preferred things.

Yoongi knew this as well, and he’d witnessed Jungkook go on this self-destructive spiral over the last several years with him being one of the only people Jungkook could count on. It pained him to see Jungkook have such a low opinion of himself regarding most things, and he hoped that in time, Jungkook would be able to see just how great of a person he truly was.

A deep sigh escaped the older man as they rounded the last corner before their complex came into view. “We can hang out tomorrow, Kook. Promise.”

Jungkook was still frowning but it seemed to soften a bit at Yoongi’s offer. He couldn’t really be mad at Yoongi for wanting to spend time with other friends when he had his own as well. Maybe he’d call up Tae and see if he wanted to play a few matches tonight if he wasn’t too busy.

Which is exactly what Jungkook did once he was settled for the night. He and Tae played Overwatch for a few hours, swapping plays of the game (POTGs) between each other and laughing at the distress from the opposite team members after each round.

These two were in their element here, and it made sense considering Tae was actually entered into the PC games portion of the arcade tournament where he’d been champion for the last few years. Both of them carried their division titles proudly and had grown a lot closer because of their mutual interest in gaming and other things they found out along the way.

Basically, Tae was probably the second closest person to Jungkook behind Yoongi, but even that was a stretch. Jungkook didn’t allow people into his life easily, and it took years for Tae to break down those barriers.

He didn’t see that happening with another person anytime soon, and he was completely fine with that. 2 people was enough to keep up with, anyway…at least, that was how Jungkook viewed it.

⊱──────── ✬ ✬ ✬ ────────⊰

You were in the zone, tongue gently peeking out of the corner of your mouth as you focused on the TV in front of you, expertly pressing the buttons on your controller to land a perfect combo. The timer had barely even started and you already had your opponent’s health down to a third of what they started with. Of course, competing against AI opponents had nothing on those in the real world, but hey practice was practice, right?

You’d just managed to K.O. your computer counterpart – raising your arms in a tiny victory pose as you did – when you heard the doorbell ring. You hopped up and jogged to the door, opening it without another thought. There was only one person it could be; you rarely had company, and when you did it was typically always the same person.

Yoongi grinned, arms full of bags that you knew had to contain yours and his favorite snacks. It was customary whenever you would spend nights like these together, either he or you would stop by the grocery store before convening in one of your apartments, having made purchases of snacks and goodies galore.

“Yoonie!” you greeted him cheerfully, reaching out to take a few of the bags so he could enter your apartment properly. When the two of you had everything set on your dining room table, he pulled you into a hug.

“Hey there.” His glance drifted over to your living room area where the TV was projecting its light throughout the otherwise dimly lit room. “I see you’ve been busy.”

You shrugged. “I had a couple of extra hours to kill after my shift ended earlier. Besides, the tournament is only a few days away. I need to be in the best shape possible for it.”

It was a Wednesday night, but neither of you had work the following day, so you offered for Yoongi to drop by and help you with some pointers for the competition since it was your first time entering. That invitation had now turned into the usual sleepover you were accustomed to, but Yoongi still kept his word on helping you out.

With the tournament happening Saturday, you didn’t have many days left to train and get ready. You didn’t doubt your ability – you knew you were good at games, despite the stereotypes that say otherwise – but it never hurt to practice.

Yoongi interrupted your thoughts by ruffling your hair, chuckling when you swatted his hand away. “If you ask me, I think you’ve prepared enough. I’ve seen what you can do and you’re honestly one of the best I’ve seen at this particular game.”

The game in question was Mortal Kombat II, one of the games in an old school fighting series that you grew up playing with some friends from many years ago that you didn’t talk to anymore. And while you may have drifted from people during different stages in your life, your love for gaming was one thing that remained constant throughout.

“Thanks, Yoongs.” You couldn’t help but crack a smile at his praise, especially since you knew it was genuine. And high praise it was, considering he’d seen a lot of expert players in his time of helping with the tournaments.

“Anytime. Now,” he plopped onto the couch and you resumed your seat on a cushion you placed on the floor in front of your coffee table, “let’s talk strategy.”

You had picked up the controller to start the next round, but at his words you laid it in your lap instead and cocked your head to the side while giving him a confused look. “Strategy?”

Yoongi nodded. “Strategy. You’re gonna need at least a semblance of one if you want to stand a chance in this competition.”

You gulped. “I-I thought I’d just go in and give it my all.”

Yoongi smiled gently, reassuringly. “I know. And that is what you need to do. But you also need to consider every possible scenario. This isn’t just playing against a friend you know or a random person through a server. You’re going up against other trained experts, with some who have been doing this for years.”

You looked down at the controller in your hand, unconsciously squeezing the plastic. Strategy? You hadn’t really put much thought into it, outside of perfecting your skills and just doing your best. Above all, this was supposed to be something fun for you. Just an extra outlet and a way to maybe potentially make more friends who shared your interest in this hobby.

But with the way Yoongi was talking, it sort of just scared you.

“I’m not trying to scare you,” he continued. Sometimes you swore he could read your thoughts, but that wouldn’t surprise you, seeing as he is your best friend, after all. “I just want you to go in with the right mindset for what to expect.”

“I appreciate it,” you mustered up what you hoped would be a convincing smile. You could tell Yoongi didn’t buy it, but he didn’t press further.

“Ok, new plan. I’ll watch you play a few rounds and then give you my opinion on anything I think you might could change to improve what you’re doing. Sound good?”

You agreed, genuinely smiling this time. “Sounds good.”

After almost half an hour of you playing while Yoongi quietly observed you, he finally spoke up again.

“Alright, I think I’ve noticed something that you can work on.”

You paused the game and turned toward him, giving him your full attention while your hands rested in your lap.

Yoongi leaned forward so that his elbows were on his knees, hands clasped together while he pursed his lips. “You have this…thing you do. Right before your K.O. combo. It’s almost like you hesitate for a second.”

You blinked a few times, trying to recall when you might have done that. “Really?”

“Mhm. I’ve never picked up on it before, but then again, I’ve also never watched you with a critical eye before now either.”

You frowned, forehead creasing with the effort. When did you hesitate? You pretty much went in for the final blow as soon as you were able to-

“I know you’re probably trying to remember when you did it, but I’m telling you it’s always that split second right before you go in for the kill. And that’s not really a problem, except…” Yoongi trailed off, leaving you nearly bouncing on your cushion with the curiosity that consumed you.

“Except what?”

Yoongi brought his eyes up to stare into yours, and the seriousness you found there made you gulp again.

“Except there is one player I know who only needs a second of hesitation to turn an entire match around.”

You understood immediately who he was talking about.

“Jungkook.”

Yoongi nodded in affirmation. “Yup. Kook is the undisputed king of turning around an entire game within a pivotal moment all because someone hesitates. And it doesn’t even have to be a conscious thing, a lot of the time they do it without realizing. But he can pick up on it nearly every time, and it’s always something he uses to his advantage.”

Honestly, you weren’t surprised. Jungkook wasn’t the reigning champion for just any old reason. He had the skill and the talent to outshine everyone who had faced him in the past.

This year, however, you were a new challenger. And the idea of taking him down a peg from actually beating him at his own game excited you more than it probably should have.

Still, you couldn’t help but wonder…

“Why are you telling me this though? Aren’t you rooting for him, too? I mean – you’re literally his sponsor so that has to be against a code of ethics or something along those lines.”

Yoongi’s laughter took you off guard, but the sound made you smile nonetheless.

“You’re right. I probably shouldn’t be telling you any of this or helping you out at all. But,” he leaned forward more so he could boop your nose from where you were still seated in front of the coffee table. “You’re my best friend, too. And that matters more to me than any sponsorship or shit like that. I’ll be rooting for the both of you equally.”

You scrunched up your nose a little at the contact before you beamed at him. Never had you expected to have a friend as amazing as him in your life, but you were grateful for it every day.

“Besides,” Yoongi went on, straightening his posture again before sinking back into the couch, “I also did offer to tell Kook about his competitors and their strengths, weaknesses, all that.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Oh? And what happened with that?”

A gummy smile spread out across his face. “He didn’t wanna know. So, it’s his loss.”

You hummed as you thought it over. “That makes no sense, why wouldn’t he-”

“You’ve known him long enough to realize that he is perhaps one of the most stubborn people ever, maybe even the most stubborn. He’s too prideful to accept ‘handouts’ of information like that. One day I think that pride of his might be his downfall,” Yoongi started trailing off near the end there, but you could still just barely make out what he said. You didn’t feel like you were supposed to have heard it, though, so you didn’t ask for him to elaborate.

“Well, I’m not too prideful to ask for info. Are there any other tricks or secrets you can let me in on about our boy Mr. Jeon?” Your tone was teasing but you also wouldn’t turn down any additional info Yoongi could offer you.

Yoongi groaned. “God, do not let him hear you call him that. I swear it’ll go directly to his head and make his ego swell even larger.” You giggled and Yoongi smiled.

“But no, I can’t give you any more info beyond that, because that would be basically violating my terms as sponsor. Can’t give you everything now, can I?”

“I meeean, you could…”

He chuckled. “But I’m not going to. End of discussion.”

You pouted lightheartedly and Yoongi simply shook his head, his smile growing wider.

“Honestly, what am I going to do about you two? You know, you’re both more alike that either of you want to admit-”

You covered your ears. “Sorry, can’t hear you over how ridiculous that sounds.”

“Case in point,” Yoongi replied as he pulled your hands away. “What you just did is a very Jungkook thing to do.”

You clutched at your chest in feigned horror. “Min Yoongi, you take that back right now.”

He laughed at your distress. “Nope. Now, show me what you’re going to do about that habit of yours. We have all night to figure it out.”

A grateful smile stretched across your face as you saw him settle in and get comfortable. He was rummaging through one of the snack bags, and the familiar warmth you always felt around him blossomed in your chest once more.

You really loved Yoongi so much, and not at all in a romantic way, but very much in the ‘you’re my best friend and I’ll protect you with my life forever’ kinda way. And you knew Yoongi felt the exact same about you.

So you did as he said and picked up your forgotten controller again, spending the next several hours perfecting your technique until you both agreed it was acceptable.

You were ready for the competition.

⊱──────── ✬ ✬ ✬ ────────⊰

Meanwhile, in the apartment complex down the block from yours, Jungkook was laughing at Taehyung’s screams of disbelief as their opponent took him down a third time during that round.

“What the fuck?!” drifted through his headset and Jungkook could only chuckle. He knew Tae was good, of course; he was great at the game, actually. But it was times like these where he somewhat enjoyed seeing Tae crumble a bit when he lost. Tae liked to walk around as if he was the god of Overwatch himself, so it was nice to occasionally see him shaken up.

Yes, Jungkook was a hypocrite, and yes, if anyone ever beat him at his best game, he would be pissed off as well.

“Fucking Mercy, they aren’t supposed to be offensive, stop shooting at me and heal your party members!”

Jungkook took out the other team’s healer just as Tae was finishing his cry of rage. He could hear Tae’s breathing then, followed by him clearing his throat before speaking again at a more normal volume.

“Thanks, Kook.”

“Don’t mention it, I do need you back here to cover for me, though.” Jungkook was playing as Widowmaker like he usually did, so he was set up ready to snipe the other team’s members whenever they appeared in his line of sight. Of course, Jungkook was more of an offensive player, so he didn’t stay in one spot for too long.

“On my way, just keep an eye on that bitch Mercy for me, will you?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jungkook muttered in response. “By the way, how are you feeling about the tournament?”

It was the question Jungkook asked every year in the days leading up to the competition, so Tae always expected it.

“I’m feeling fine about it, I know most of the players since a lot of them are repeat competitors from last year.” He stopped speaking for a moment to focus on shooting down and enemy who was trying to sneak up on Jungkook, making Jungkook hum in appreciation as he did.

“My sponsor got me inside details on those I didn’t know, too, so I feel more prepared. What about you? Did Yoongi give you the hookup?”

“Nah, I turned it down.” For a few seconds, the only sounds that could be heard were the clicks of their mouses and keyboards.

“Dude, you have probably the best sponsor for this kinda shit, why do you always say no? Seems dumb if you ask me.”

“Good thing I didn’t fucking ask you then, dick.” Jungkook wasn’t actually mad at Tae, this was just how they liked to tease each other; lighthearted banter sprinkled with vulgar language. Jungkook figured it was somewhat poetic if you really thought about it.

“Seriously, Kook, I don’t get you sometimes. And we’re on the same wavelength a lot.”

Jungkook sighed. “I just don’t feel the need to know, alright? I like going into it blind and coming out on top. The victory is sweeter that way.”

He could hear Tae’s noise of disapproval just before he got another headshot. His last shot ended up being the POTG, bringing a smile to his face as he watched the video playback.

“I mean, I get that I guess. I did hear a rumor though that we got some chicks joining this year, so that ought to be interesting.”

They were in the queue now waiting for the next match to start. Team members from their previous game asked if they could stay on their team, but Jungkook and Tae both declined the invites as usual. They preferred to keep to themselves, even though some of their prior teammates were damn good.

“There’s no way, we’ve never had that before.” Jungkook readjusted his headset, carding a hand through his dark mop of curls before rolling his head around on his shoulders, stretching to get more comfortable.

“Well, there’s at least 1 for sure. I know that much because my sponsor confirmed it.”

At this, Jungkook’s curiosity was piqued. “Oh? Did he say what division?”

“Nah, it’s not mine and that’s all the info I got. Wouldn’t it be something though if they were going up against you?”

Jungkook laughed loudly in his empty apartment. “Me? A girl facing off against me? God, you’re fucking hilarious, Tae.”

“I’m being serious though! We don’t know yet-”

“I’ll humor you for a second then, alright? Say I do go up against a girl. We already know what that outcome will be. And I do hate seeing women cry, especially at my expense, but I’m not going easy on anyone I compete against.”

Taehyung hummed on the other end as 30 seconds left on the countdown timer signaled another match was about to start. “I know you won’t, but I do think it would throw you for a loop, so it’s better to mentally prepare for that kinda curveball now.”

Jungkook scoffed, getting ready for the next round. “Yeah, sure, alright. I’ll ‘prepare’ for it.”

⊱──────── ✬ ✬ ✬ ────────⊰

The next few days flew by thanks to your work shifts and you practicing pretty much every night leading up to the tournament. There wasn’t a reason for you to overdo it, but you liked to compete against others and do your best, so you practiced whenever you had the chance.

And it had paid off. Yoongi told you he could definitely see an improvement in the way you played.

“If I’m honest, I think you have a really good chance of going far. Not that I thought you didn’t before, but it’s even more evident now.” He gave you his signature gummy smile while the two of you were seated in the competitors waiting area.

“Thanks, Yoonie. By the way, where’s Jungkook?” You craned your neck to look around Yoongi, but the tall, dark-haired boy was nowhere to be seen.

“Ah, he’s probably chilling in the back. Says he has no interest in seeing other competitors play besides the ones he’s facing against. He does this every year.”

“Interesting,” you mused. “Does he know I’m competing this time?”

Yoongi shrugged, moving to stand. “Dunno. He didn’t say anything about it, so I doubt he knows. To be completely honest, I can’t wait to see the look on his face when he finds out.” He grinned.

You followed suit and stood from your spot, since you were in one of the first matches. “Bold of you to assume I’ll even go up against him.”

Yoongi’s grin widened. “Something just tells me you will. Call it divine intuition.”

“If you’re wrong, you owe me a coffee,” you suggested. It pulled a chuckle from the boy, which is what you had hoped for.

“Deal. But if I’m right?”

“Then I owe you a coffee. Or whatever beverage of your choice.”

“Sounds good to me,” Yoongi replied, leading you to where your match was set to start. “Best of luck, just remember what you’ve been working on and I’m sure you’ll be fine.” He gave you one last pat on the shoulder before leaving to go find Jungkook, or at least that’s what you assumed.

His first match wouldn’t be for a little bit, you knew that from the roster, but you didn’t want to focus on him right now. Your priority was pushing your nerves away and embracing the adrenaline rush that always came to you when competition was involved.

It was that kind of mindset that got your through your first match with a flawless victory. You took that feeling with you the rest of the way through your matches until the final one, where you knew you were going to need all the motivation you could muster.

⊱──────── ✬ ✬ ✬ ────────⊰

Jungkook miraculously somehow didn’t run into you at all during the tournament. This was probably because of 2 reasons:

1) He had no idea you were there to start with and 2) he didn’t stick around long enough to see who else was competing in his division whenever he finished his matches.

As soon as Jungkook defeated his opponents – which generally happened within the first minute or so of playing – he would make his way to the back room where he would scroll mindlessly through his phone until his next round time approached.

He blew through all his matches, ignoring Yoongi’s encouragement to stick around and watch the rest of the games unfold. Occasionally he would check in on Tae and watch him play a few games, but he knew Tae was bound to win so there wasn’t really much of a point to.

At last, it was time for the final match. Jungkook stretched as he was leaving the back room of the arcade, walking confidently with his hands in his pockets. He smirked the whole way there, admiring the looks he got from patrons who had been viewing the tournament the whole time with excitement.

He made it to the arcade machine before his opponent did, but he didn’t mind it at all. He rolled up his hoodie sleeves and ran a hand through his hair before letting it slightly fall back into his eyes. He peered over the heads of those in the crowd, looking for Yoongi since he was supposed to be around for every one of his matches.

When he spotted Yoongi, he smiled, watching as the man weaved his way through the thickening crowd. Jungkook’s smile faltered, however, when he saw who was following behind his friend, their hand wrapped up in Yoongi’s own.

“What the fuck?”

⊱──────── ✬ ✬ ✬ ────────⊰

“No fucking way,” you heard Jungkook exclaim when you got close enough. You rolled your eyes as you settled into your spot beside him, and he was still staring at you as if you had multiple heads.

You were growing impatient with his gawking so you whirled to face him. “Can I help you, Jungkook?”

He cracked that stupid, shit-eating grin you were unfortunately used to. “Nah, just wondering why you’re here. You lost, babygirl?”

“Ugh, do not call me that,” you answered immediately, focusing instead on Yoongi’s solemn face behind him instead of his words. “And no, I’m not lost. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”

Jungkook looked genuinely confused, it was almost laughable.

“Uhh…you do realize you’re in an arcade, yeah?”

You just nodded curtly, looking at the clock on the wall. There were still a few minutes left before your match was set to start, but you seriously just wanted it over with already.

“Arcades are where people go to play games,” Jungkook continued, speaking slower as if to get the point across. You huffed and your grip on the joystick in front of you tightened.

“I’m aware of that. I’m not fucking stupid.”

Jungkook’s sudden laughter annoyed you further. He propped an elbow onto the machine, leaning over and almost closer to you. “Never said you were. But if you know that, then again, why are you here?”

You gestured vaguely to the arcade machine in front of you. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Jungkook’s face dropped and it finally looked like he was understanding.

“Wait. You play games?”

“It would appear so, yes.”

“And you’re here for the competition?”

“Yup,” you popped your lips on the ‘p.’ “Why else would I willingly be around you this long?”

You didn’t even know why you were saying those words and you could tell Yoongi was surprised as well. You and Jungkook teased each other, sure, but you never showed any real animosity towards him.

However, he was really starting to irritate you with his ‘you’re a girl so you obviously don’t play games’ bullshit. You never tolerated it from anyone else before and you certainly weren’t going to start now.

Your words didn’t seem to faze him, though; if anything, he got even more cocky because of it.

“Damn, I don’t remember you being this feisty before. I like it.”

You groaned before he continued.

“What’d you have to do to get in by the way, did you blow the guy at the door or something?”

Out of the corner of your eye you could see Yoongi stepping forward while others around you ‘ooooh’ed at Jungkook’s jab. You held up your hand somewhat so Yoongi would know you could handle this, and he stopped moving.

“Nope, I’m here because of pure skill. And unlike some people, my talents extend past gaming.” You crossed your arms and stared at the clock again, seeing there was less than a minute now until you both would be able to start. Amidst the murmurs of the crowd you two had drawn, you heard Jungkook’s boisterous laugh.

“Oh babygirl, if you wanted to see my skills outside of this, I would be happy to oblige-”

“That’s enough, Kook,” Yoongi finally made his way up to you two and clapped a hand on Jungkook’s shoulder. “Let her be. Just compete against her and show good sportsmanship about it.”

Jungkook’s brows knitted together. “Wait…so she’s actually my final opponent? Like for real? Yoon, you gotta be fucking with me.”

“Well, I’m not, and you would’ve known that if you paid attention to the results at the end of each round. But you didn’t and you’re here so suck it up and play.”

Jungkook’s bewildered expression nearly made you laugh, but you almost felt bad for him.

Almost. He got himself into this situation by ignoring Yoongi’s help, so you wouldn’t feel too much pity for him.

“If that’s too much for you, forfeiting is always an option.” You busied yourself with readjusting your necklace you were wearing while you causally threw that offer out there.

Jungkook glared at you then, and the usual fire rekindled back to life in his eyes. This is what you liked to see, since you were competitive by nature yourself.

Now the real fun could begin.

“In your dreams,” he grumbled, moving back to a standing position and cracking his knuckles. You recognized this as his ‘fighting prep stance’ since you’d observed it in the years prior when you would watch the tournament. This way, you knew Jungkook meant business and you couldn’t be more thrilled about it.

The person who was in charge of tracking time signaled that the two of you could start, so you rolled your shoulders back and prepared yourself.

“Ladies first,” Jungkook gestured to the arcade machine as he let you have first pick from the character select screen. “It’d be unfair for me to put you at a disadvantage early on.”

“Wow, such a gentleman,” you rolled your eyes and selected your best fighter. You couldn’t wait to wipe that stupid, smug smile off his face.

Jungkook only shrugged. “What can I say? Gotta make up for it now so I don’t feel too bad about the defeat I hand you later.”

“You sure talk a big game, now let’s see if you can back it up.” You crossed your arms while you waited for him to choose a character. He looked you up and down once before he gave you a lopsided grin.

“With pleasure.”

Jungkook looked at your character choice and scoffed, making you feel hot with exasperation.

“Kitana? Really? Well, guess that makes sense, seeing as you’re a girl and all.”

You bristled at the comment but quickly shook it off, fingers flexing around the joystick. You were both playing Mortal Kombat II, much to your delight, seeing as this is the game where some of your favorite characters had been introduced. You loved the classic first game, but you were more in your element with this one for sure.

“Pick someone, Kook. Don’t keep me waiting.”

He grinned and chose a character, clearly wanting to say more but deciding against it.

“I’ll go with Sub-Zero. He’s not my best character, but I’ll consider this a special match and go easy on you just this once.”

If you’d been gripping the joystick any harder, you’re sure you would have tore it off.

“Just fucking fight me already,” you grumbled, determined to not let him get the best of you. He was eating it up however, taking his sweet time choosing the stage for the two of you to fight on.

Once the stage was chosen and the game countdown ended, you got to work. The arcade combos were a little different than what you were used to, seeing as you generally played on a console with a controller, but you were a fast learner.

Unfortunately, you weren’t fast enough, seeing as Jungkook beat you in the first round. You had already known his gaming skills were impressive, but even he surpassed what you thought he could do.

“Aye, way to go, Kook!” You heard someone cheering from the crowd, and when you turned to look you could see it was Taehyung, who you knew solely by association. Jungkook turned too, giving his friend a thumbs up before returning his attention to the screen again.

You could tell from the corner of your eye that he was fixing his gaze on you, that ever present cocky grin at home on his face. You didn’t give him the time of day and instead looked to Yoongi in the crowd.

Yoongi was looking at you with soft eyes, and you saw him mouth ‘Proud of you.’ which reinvigorated you with a newfound confidence.

There were still 2 rounds to go, only 1 if he beat you again, but you had faith in yourself. If you could beat him even once just to see him squirm a little bit, then you’d be happy.

The next round started and this time, you chose a different technique. You worked on getting behind him at every opportunity so you could attack that way.

You heard Jungkook let out a surprise gasp beside you when you landed a combo that took out a significant chunk of his health. His movements started faltering and you used that to your advantage, landing more combos until finally, you had his health down to the last little bit-

You finished him off with a K.O. and the entire crowd quieted down. No one had ever beat Jungkook in any of the rounds he played during his 5 years as champion here and you had just put an end to that streak.

Behind you there was a cheer and you recognized who it was immediately. Yoongi was cheering for you, clapping his hands. You gave him a bright smile, noticing how Jungkook beside you had whirled around to also face Yoongi. You chanced looking and flinched at the pure venom Jungkook was sending Yoongi’s way with his glare.

Yoongi didn’t care, though. He told you he was there for both of you and supported you both equally, and he intended it to stay that way. A few other people in the crowd cheered now, and you noticed how Taehyung was staring at you with his jaw slack.

You swallowed. Was this really that big of a deal?

According to Jungkook it was, because he was starting the next round before you were properly situated. You worked fast to get your bearings about you and just barely avoided his first hit.

Your strategy from the previous game wasn’t going to work this time, that much you knew, since Jungkook was countering everything you’d thrown as him so far. You were almost sure you heard him actually growling as he ducked closer to the machine, as if that would help him play better.

As much as he was deterring your attacks, you were doing the same, and the countdown timer for the round was down to 30 seconds before either of you had gotten the other’s health down halfway.

Then, for reasons you were unsure of, Jungkook had faltered yet again in his technique.

It could’ve been because he was still flustered by your previous victory, but you weren’t letting the chance go to waste. You snuck behind him and landed your most powerful combo, getting his health down to a tiny sliver.

Jungkook looked absolutely defeated, trying his hardest to block your attacks and save his last little bit of health. It was to no avail, however, and the final round ended just as the previous one had.

You did it. You beat Jungkook. The Jeon Jungkook. You beat him at his own game.

The two of you had garnered quite the crowd during your match. There was a moment of pure silence before they erupted into cheers loud enough to almost make you want to cover your ears. Yoongi was rushing forward to congratulate you, and the smile on your face was widening by the second before you could even attempt to stop it.

Or at least it was until you looked over. Jungkook was bracing himself against the machine, staring at the screen with sheer incredulity, jaw clenched and looking like he might fall over any second.

You reached out a hand. “Jungkook-”

“Don’t fucking touch me,” he growled. You retracted your hand and took a step back. Tae was approaching him from the other side, a look of concern on his face. He looked up at you, eyes unreadable, and all you did was nod before you turned away to try and find Yoongi.

When you did, you were met with a hug so tight it knocked the breath out of you.

“You did it, you actually fucking did it! I still can’t believe it. I’m so proud of you!” Yoongi was beaming at you so brightly you couldn’t help but smile back, even though you were still worried about Jungkook. When you looked over your shoulder, you noticed he and Tae were both gone now.

You didn’t know why, but something about that caused a dull ache to gnaw away at your chest.

“We need to go celebrate. Let me call Luna and see if she wants to go out for drinks.” Yoongi was raising the phone to his ear before he asked “You down?”

You nodded, always happy to spend time with Yoongi and his girlfriend who you had also grown close to. You bit your lip as you continued to think about Jungkook, not used to this newfound worry.

“Perfect. We can get together in a few hours at the bar down the street.” He started talking through the phone receiver and you scanned the crowd one last time, hoping to see that unruly dark hair somewhere in the sea of people.

But you couldn’t find Jungkook. And that shouldn’t bother you, but for some reason, it did.

⊱──────── ✬ ✬ ✬ ────────⊰

“Jungkook, slow down!” Tae was jogging after Jungkook in an attempt to catch up to him. Jungkook had started speed walking away from the arcade, hands deep in his pockets and hood pulled up over his head. He didn’t even stop to get his second place prize because the very thought of it made his stomach churn.

How the fuck could something like this happen to him? And why did it have to be you who did it?

He was cursing your name under his breath when Tae finally managed to make it to his side, catching his breath as he held onto Jungkook’s sleeve.

“Kook, wait,” Tae said in between breaths. “Talk to me. What’s wrong-”

“Don’t you dare ask me that when you know good and fucking well what’s wrong.” Jungkook sneered and it made Tae cringe. He’d never seen Jungkook seething like this in all their years of friendship, and quite frankly, it made him feel unpleasant.

“Ok, so you got beat. Not a big deal, alright? Stop acting like it’s the end of the world.”

Tae’s attempt to lighten the mood did the exact opposite. Jungkook whirled around, eyes swirling with emotion, almost as black as obsidian.

“Not a big deal? Not a big deal?! How about you,” he stopped for a moment to poke Tae squarely in the chest, “get defeated and then come tell me how it fucking feels.”

Tae frowned, shoving Jungkook’s hand away. “Kook, in case you’ve forgotten, I did get beat. My first year in the tournament I got my ass handed to me during the last round of the last match. Do you remember what you told me? Hm?”

Jungkook stiffened because yes, he did remember, and now it was coming back to bite him in the ass.

“Firstly, you laughed and said I needed to suck it up and ‘get good.’ Granted, you were 19 then, so I let it slide because maturity and all that. But it’s basically the same thing, you lost and you need to take it in stride-”

“Tae, this shit isn’t supposed to happen to me. It’s me. I’m not supposed to be beat like this.”

“You’re not fucking perfect, Kook!” Tae had raised his voice in exasperation, but he took a deep breath before he continued. “Look. I’m going out tonight with a few others to celebrate me winning my division. And I’m not inviting you so I can rub it in your face, but I am inviting you because I think going out would help.”

Jungkook didn’t respond, instead choosing to stare at the pavement underneath their feet. They were only a few blocks away from the arcade but they had stopped beside one of the downtown restaurants.

“In fact, I’m highly encouraging you to go out tonight. Get tipsy, maybe meet someone and fuck all that frustration out of your system. You seem to be pretty good at that, from what you always brag about.”

At this comment, Jungkook cracked a tiny smile. Tae was right; maybe going out would be good for him. He needed some kind of stress relief after what he had just endured, and if that entailed drinking and fucking someone until all they knew was his name, then so be it.

“Fuck it, let’s go then.” Jungkook shrugged his hood off of his face and fixed Tae with his signature smirk.

Tae wrapped an arm around his shoulders and they continued walking. “That’s my boy! We can get ready at my place, unless you wanna head back and change first-”

“Nah, I can pick up chicks just as easy in this as I can anything else.” And it was true; Jungkook’s success rate with picking up women was relatively the same regardless of what he wore. His outfit of choice usually consisted of what he wore now: dark hoodie, fitted jeans, and some style of black combat boots to complete the look.

Tae nodded. “Fair enough. Off we go then!” He chatted the entire way back to his apartment, and Jungkook was only half-listening. The other parts of his brain were preoccupied with thoughts of someone it shouldn’t have been.

He found himself thinking about you, and your crestfallen face when he had snapped at you back at the arcade. He felt like maybe that should bother him-

-but every time he thought about the utter and humiliating defeat he suffered at your hands, he just got mad all over again.

So now, the only thought he would allow to enter his mind that pertained to you was a simple one: fuck you.

⊱──────── ✬ ✬ ✬ ────────⊰

Yoongi texted you to let you know he and Luna were waiting outside your apartment to drive to the bar. You had changed into something a little more on par for the occasion; a dress that hugged your figure and was long enough to reach mid-thigh, but still modest in the way that it left plenty to the imagination. Luna had actually bought this particular dress for you during one of your many shopping trips with her, so you knew she’d be delighted to see you in it.

You were proven right when you heard the excited squeal coming from the window of the passenger seat as you carefully stepped down the stairs outside your apartment.

“You look hot, that dress suits you so well,” Luna gushed to you as you got in the backseat and fastened your seatbelt. Yoongi chuckled from the driver’s seat.

Luna playfully smacked Yoongi’s arm before he put the car back into drive. “Yoonie! Doesn’t she look great? You better tell her right now.”

Both of you laughed at Luna’s persistence and then Yoongi locked eyes with you. “Yeah, you do look good, Y/N. You usually do though, so I don’t know why you,” he broke off to tickle Luna, making her giggle, “forced me to say that.”

“Because she should hear it from everyone!” Luna huffed as if to say that should have been obvious. Yoongi looked at you through the rearview mirror.

“Sorry, she’s already had some to drink tonight, so she’s a little more eccentric than we’re used to-”

“You love it and you fucking know it,” Luna cut him off with a kiss on his cheek. He smiled and returned it with a quick peck on the lips. You heart soared at the scene in front of you.

You were one of those people who ‘loved love,’ despite not being in a relationship yourself. You weren’t ready for something like that again, not after how your last one ended, but you could always be happy for those people who were in loving, healthy relationships. Especially if you were close to them, like you were these two.

“Alright, should we be off, then?” Yoongi put the car into drive and glanced once more at you and Luna in case either of you protested. You simply nodded and Luna was looking at her phone now, so Yoongi took that as his cue to leave.

The three of you arrived not much later since the bar wasn’t far. Your apartment complexes were thankfully located in a good part of town surrounded by popular venues so there was always something to do.

When all of you were seated and had drinks of your choice, you finally chose to ask the question that had been plaguing your mind.

“Has anyone checked on Jungkook?”

Yoongi’s face dropped a little bit and Luna just rolled her eyes.

“Yoongi tried to but Kook is being a giant baby and won’t accept his calls. He’s probably out getting trashed or something.”

“Luna,” Yoongi said with a little bit of a stern tone.

“What? It’s the truth. And I’m tired of seeing you two sulk about him. We are here to have fun. Jungkook can be a problem for tomorrow.”

Luna made it clear the situation wasn’t up for debate as she raised her glass. Yoongi looked at you and shrugged before doing the same, and you joined in, clinking yours against theirs in a toast for…something.

You weren’t really sure. Luna didn’t say anything, so maybe you thought it was for forgetting about Jungkook.

That was, unfortunately for you, easier said than done. It was made even harder when you saw that familiar head of curls walk into the bar several feet away.

“Fuck,” you said under your breath, chugging down the rest of your drink which admittedly was probably not your smartest idea. Yoongi pursed his lips and followed your line of sight. His eyes widened when he saw Jungkook.

“Well shit, who would’ve guessed he’d come here, too.”

“Certainly not me,” you let out a nervous laugh, feeling the alcohol finally start to settle in.

Luna was just coming back from the restroom and when she noticed Jungkook too, she rolled her eyes and grabbed your wrist. “You. Me. Dance floor. Now.”

You didn’t have time to protest, nor did you really want to. You knew Yoongi wanted to talk to Jungkook, and this would give him the perfect chance to.

“We are getting as far away from that asshole as possible,” Luna grumbled. When she had secured a spot on the floor, she started dancing, helping you move in time with the beat as she kept her hands on your waist.

Your anxiety was ebbing away slowly, thanks to the combined effort of Luna’s distraction and the alcohol finally taking effect, and you eventually forgot about Jungkook altogether for the time being.

⊱──────── ✬ ✬ ✬ ────────⊰

Jungkook walked into the bar behind Tae, a little less cheery about the outing than he had been a few hours prior. He just wasn’t really in the mood to mingle and would much rather sulk on his bed and re-watch old episodes of his favorite anime shows.

“Kook, find us somewhere to sit, I’ll go grab some drinks. You want your usual?” Tae was doing his best to help liven the mood and Jungkook really did appreciate him for it. He offered a small smile, even though it didn’t quite touch his eyes.

“Yeah, thanks TaeTae.”

Jungkook maneuvered himself through the slew of people standing around, trying to find an empty table that could seat a few others since he wasn’t sure how many would be joining him and Tae tonight. On his way to a free table he froze, recognizing the man sitting not 10 ft. away from him instantly.

Jungkook wasted no time walking over and spinning their chair around, met with a flustered Yoongi as he did.

“Jungkook, hey,” Yoongi managed to get out, clearly caught off guard since he’d been facing the opposite direction.

“Hey,” he said flatly. He didn’t take the time to think about why Yoongi might be at a bar alone and instead opted for getting straight to the point.

“You abandoned me.”

Yoongi’s face fell. “Kook-”

Jungkook held up a hand. “No, let me finish first, then you can say your piece.” He took a deep breath and Yoongi waited.

“You were supposed to be on my side, you know? Like fuck dude, I already have to share you with her in all other aspects of my life, but this was the one thing that was supposed to be sacred, supposed to be mine.”

Jungkook knew deep down he was acting like a child, but the image of Yoongi cheering you on while you defeated him would forever be burned into his brain and he couldn’t help but think of it as some form of betrayal.

Yoongi waited to see if there would be more before he straightened up in his chair. “Look kid,” he started, seeing Jungkook flinch at the term. “I know you’re upset, and you have a right to be. You feel like this is the end-all-be-all but it’s not. And regardless of how you feel, that’s no reason to take it out on me or Y/N just because she beat you.”

Jungkook backed up a step at Yoongi’s words, the hurt written all over his face. What hurt the most, though, was he knew Yoongi was right. It wouldn’t be fair for Jungkook to realistically hold a grudge against him or you.

But dammit, right now he was going to try.

“So you are taking her side. I should’ve fucking known,” Jungkook muttered. Yoongi took a deep breath and placed a hand on Jungkook’s shoulder, half expecting him to move, but slightly surprised when he didn’t.

“I’m not taking anyone’s side and I know you know that.” He squeezed Jungkook’s shoulder for emphasis and Jungkook gulped. Yoongi was right, yet again.

Sometimes he really hated just how much Yoongi was right.

“Why are you here anyway? And why are you by yourself?” He was changing the topic, a typical Jungkook move to deflect attention away from what was bothering him. Yoongi wasn’t a fan of it, but for right now he didn’t want to fight back about it.

“I’m not by myself, Luna and Y/N are here too, we’re celebrating-”

Jungkook cut him off with a groan. “Of fucking course she’s here too.” He threw his hands up in exasperation and walked away from Yoongi, ignoring the call of his name as he got further from his best friend.

Jungkook parked himself at the table he’d found previously, turning all the way around so he wouldn’t have to see the table with Yoongi. The table where you would eventually find your way back to.

Honestly if Jungkook had to see you one more time today, he thought he may genuinely lose it-

“Yo, is that Y/N?” Tae’s voice cut through his thoughts and he gritted his teeth together.

“I don’t know, is it,” Jungkook answered in a mocking tone, ignoring Tae’s look of confusion while he took a sip of the drink now in front of him.

“I mean…pretty sure it is. You know her better than I do, but if that is her, she’s kinda really hot.”

This comment made Jungkook’s eyes dart up and look around, although he wasn’t sure why. Maybe he just wanted to confirm that Tae was looking at someone completely different.

But as he followed Tae’s line of sight, his eyes fell on you, and for a moment his breath was stolen from him.

He’d never seen you quite like this before, letting yourself go as you danced, seemingly not caring about the fact that your dress had hiked up high on your thighs, barely covering your ass now-

Tae was right, much to Jungkook’s disappointment. You looked good. Really good.

And he really fucking hated it.

“Yeah, that’s uh- that’s her.” He downed another quick gulp from his glass, shaking his head as the liquid surged down his throat.

“Holy shit,” Tae responded as he also took a drink from his own glass. “She’s by herself too; wonder if she’s here with a date.”

Jungkook looked at Tae with eyes full of horror, as if Tae had just admitted to committing one of the worst possible crimes. “You cannot be fucking serious right now, dude.”

Tae swirled his glass as he stared at it, the ice clinking against the sides. “So what if I am?” He brought up his gaze to pierce Jungkook, his eyes unreadable. “What does that matter to you? Last I checked, you pretty much despise her.”

Jungkook swallowed. Tae had a point – if he went and hit on you, it shouldn’t matter to Jungkook in the slightest. But for some reason the very idea of it made his blood boil, and he tried to drown that feeling in more alcohol.

“It doesn’t matter to me specifically, I just don’t know how you could consider sleeping with the enemy.”

Tae erupted into roaring laughter, patting the table with his hand as if Jungkook had just told him the funniest fucking joke. Jungkook grimaced.

“Oh man, ‘sleeping with the enemy,’ that’s a good one, Kook.” When Jungkook didn’t join him in his laughter, he rolled his eyes. “For fuck’s sake, she beat you in a video game. Lighten up and let a man get laid, yeah?”

Jungkook thought the burning sensation of anger that befell him now was from Tae’s proclamation of you having beaten him earlier. When he realized it was what else Tae had said, he downed the last of the contents in his glass and slammed it down onto the table.

“Fuck,” he cursed out, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked out at you in the crowd once more, painfully aware yet again of how attractive you looked tonight, and how much it was driving him crazy that he noticed.

It really pissed him off that you were out here having fun, looking this good, and his friend was fucking fawning over you as if you didn’t just ruin part of his life earlier.

He needed to find a girl and fast.

Luckily, he managed to spot a familiar face near you on the dance floor, currently cozied up to another girl. Tae had already started making his way to you – or at least that’s what Jungkook assumed he was doing – so he followed suit and strolled into the thicket of people himself.

As Jungkook passed by, he could see Tae was already putting the moves on you, and you were smiling so sweetly at him that it almost made Jungkook’s stomach flip. He tried to avoid you, but you weren’t letting him off the hook that easily.

“Jungkook,” you called for him as you tugged on his sleeve. With a frustrated sigh, he turned to face you and immediately regretted it when he did. Tae had moved slightly off to the side, chatting with someone else now, but still in your general proximity.

This close to you – and it was pretty fucking close considering you were both standing in between a sea of other dancing bodies – he could see just how plump your lips were and how much your eyes still managed to shimmer in the dim lighting of the bar.

Jungkook’s breathing was stuttered, but he quickly regained his composure.

“What do you want,” he asked, tone dripping in pure malice. You frowned and he almost wished he could take it back-

-but his brain reminded him he’s supposed to be pissed off at you, so he didn’t do that.

“I just wanted to make sure you’re ok is all. You rushed off before I could talk to you-”

“Why the fuck would I want to talk to you after you humiliated me like that,” he was having to raise his voice to be heard over the music, but it must’ve looked to you like he was getting angrier, if the way you slightly cowered was anything to go by.

Nonetheless, you turned your chin up at him in defiance, and that stirred something inside of him, but he chalked it up to the buzz setting in.

“For the record, I never intended to humiliate you. And despite what you may think, I don’t dislike you. I actually really enjoyed playing against you-”

“I don’t want to stand here and listen to this,” he tugged his sleeve from your grasp and started to walk away, but not before he added over his shoulder “Have fun being a whore for someone else tonight.”

He didn’t dare look at your face and he was mentally kicking himself for letting those words fall from his lips. He’d never treated you that way before, and now wasn’t a good example of a time to start when you were just trying to check on him.

Sober Jungkook would have handled that much differently, but Tipsy Jungkook?

Yeah, he could be a bit of a prick sometimes.

He managed to make it to the other girl without much trouble, only bumping into other dancers a few times. When he was in front of her, she blinked her eyes and her smile stretched slowly into a grin.

“Well, if it isn’t Jungkook,” she said in a neutral tone. “It’s been a while.”

He nodded to the other girl who was still clinging to her back, looking a little worse for wear. “Yeah, it uh, it has."

“So what brings you over here then? Surely you didn’t come all the way across the dance floor just to see me?”

He gave her his best confident smile, and the way she melted under his gaze he knew he had her hooked.

“That’s exactly why I came over here,” he ducked down to continue speaking to her where only she would hear, his lips ghosting along the shell of her ear. “I remember how good you feel wrapped around me and I just couldn’t stay away.”

He pulled back to see the way her eyes widened and her breathing quickened.

Oh yeah, she was going to end up in his bed tonight.

“I-I um…I need to make sure my friend gets home safe first. I’m DD tonight so-”

“Not a problem, baby. You still have my number, right?” She nodded, clearly affected by his voice that was oozing charm and sounded as sweet as honey.

He flashed her another dazzling smile. “Great. Just text me later and I can send you my address again.”

He was going to have her text him and make it seem like he was being considerate, but in actuality, he forgot her fucking name and wasn’t bothering to try to remember it. Plus, her taking her friend home would give him a little more time to sober up so he could fuck her properly the way he wanted to.

As the girl moved to get her friend away from the crowd and outside, Jungkook was confidently strolling back to his table, making sure he double-checked that he had everything before calling an Uber. He also needed to let Tae know he was dipping out.

Unfortunately, Tae was still enamored by you, so Jungkook was forced to see you in some capacity at least one more time before he left.

“Hey, Tae, I’m about to get an Uber back to my place. You gonna be alright?”

Jungkook tried his hardest to ignore the way your arms were wound around Tae’s neck and how Tae had his hands practically digging into your waist, holding you flush against his chest. From where Jungkook was standing, he could see the cleavage spilling from your dress now since you were squished up against Tae.

He shut his eyes quickly and looked to the side. Not for your modesty or anything like that, but because he was getting turned on by fucking cleavage of all things, and not just any cleavage, but yours.

“What? Oh, Kook, hey! Yeah, I’ll be fine. Y/N offered to give me a ride home.” Jungkook saw Tae wink at you and his jaw clenched.

“Yeah ok whatever, just get home safe.” After that he strolled back to the table and confirmed he hadn’t left anything before stepping through the door of the bar out into the cool night air. An Uber arrived to pick him up a few minutes later, and Jungkook was just thankful he was still wearing his hoodie because he’d never live it down if a fucking Uber driver of all people noticed he was somewhat hard.

⊱──────── ✬ ✬ ✬ ────────⊰

Hours later he was hard again, but this time he had his dick shoved down the throat of the girl from the bar.

She had dropped to her knees almost immediately after making it to his bedroom, and he wasn’t going to complain. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, still mostly clothed, as was she, but the way she was taking his cock had her makeup smearing as tears rolled down her face.

“Fuck, just like that,” he praised her, grip tight in her hair as he pushed her down further. He could hear the choked gasp when he hit the back of her throat, and he at least had enough of a memory to know that this girl in particular liked choking on his cock.

Nonetheless, he still let her know that if it was too much she just had to tap his thigh and he’d release his hold on her. She hadn’t yet though, so he picked up his pace as he began thrusting harder into her mouth.

“Shit, baby, your mouth feels so good,” he was letting out soft moans, not quite worked up enough to be loud, but thoroughly enjoying himself still. Getting sucked off was probably one of his favorite ways to relieve stress.

Everything was going fine until he looked down again-

-and instead of seeing her face, he was picturing yours.

“Oh shit,” he exclaimed, and the girl thought it was because of what she was doing, so she moaned around him in her mouth, the vibrations bringing him more pleasure.

He closed his eyes tightly, swallowing once before moaning again. He figured it was just a fluke, a one-time thing, it wouldn’t happen again-

But when he looked at her a second time, your face was still all he could imagine.

And that got him a lot closer than he wanted in that moment.

Picturing you instead of the girl on her knees in front of him had his high approaching faster and he was severely confused by it. Maybe he was still too tipsy to really differentiate what kind of images should and should not be arousing him?

Well, he knew that was a lie; Jungkook had very much sobered up so he couldn’t blame what was happening on the alcohol.

So he instead decided to place the blame on you and your outfit choice for the night. It wasn’t his fault you chose to go out dressed up like that, drawing the attention of plenty of other bargoers, he was sure.

And the idea of you taking Tae home had him tangling his fingers in the other girl’s hair so hard that she actually whimpered, which was something he had not heard from her before.

He had enough of a mind to check on her, pulling her off of him to make sure she was alright. She simply pouted and nodded her head before he guided her back and she swallowed him down in one go.

Her throat constricting around him again had him focusing on her and what her sinful lips can do.

Maybe if he tried looking down just one more time…

He did and immediately had to pull her off. Because she had just hollowed out her cheeks and holy fuck imagining you like that for him almost had him blowing his load-

Yeah, this could not be healthy for him. He needed to fuck her and come back to his senses.

“What’s the matter,” she asked and he almost cringed at the sound of her voice. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, who he wanted to hear.

“Nothing, I just really wanna fuck you now,” he pulled her in for a kiss before asking “Do you want me to?”

She nodded her head vigorously, making him smirk. He started shedding his clothes and she did the same. Jungkook got off the bed to find a condom, and when he returned she was already on the bed in the position she knew he liked: face down, ass up.

He figured that he really must have left an impression on the women he fucked if they remembered all the things he liked.

He settled in behind her and ripped the foil with his teeth, putting the condom on a second later. He smacked her ass, relishing in the sound she let out when he did. He had the decency to make sure she was wet enough too despite her practically begging for him, lunging two fingers inside of her and stretching them out. The feeling of her slick walls told him she was more than ready to take him.

He pushed in slowly at first, inch by inch so she could get adjusted to the stretch. She was holding onto the bed sheets, sighing out his name, begging for him to move. Once he bottomed out, he swiftly pulled back until just the tip remained sheathed in her heat, before ramming into her all the way.

“Oh fuck, Jungkook,” she moaned out, his thrusts moving her more up the bed and almost making her collide with the headboard, if it hadn’t been for his forceful grip on her hips pulling her back. He grunted with the effort, pleased that now he could stare at the back of her head instead of her face, and maybe now he wouldn’t be thinking about you-

Well fuck. He was still thinking about you while trying not to think about you.

When had you invaded all the corners of his mind? And how the fuck was he going to get you out?

He was pulled back to reality when the girl let out a whine, noticing that he had slowed down somewhat.

“Jungkook, fuck me, please,” she begged for him and he felt his cock twitch. What he wouldn’t give to have you underneath him begging like that-

It was obvious to him then that maybe what he needed was to just fuck and get it over with and then the thoughts of you would disappear, too. Clearly trying to fight it wasn’t getting him anywhere, so he let it consume him instead.

And it certainly made a world of difference.

If he closed his eyes, he could picture you laid out underneath him, ass up in the air and screaming for him to pound into you until you couldn’t walk anymore. And God, the sounds you would make, he could just imagine it now-

“Jungkook,” the girl moaned out his name again, pulling him out of his reverie. He didn’t want that, didn’t want to hear her calling out his name.

“Shut up and take it,” he gritted, not really caring about being mean since again, he knew that she was one of the ones who liked it. The excited whine he was met with further confirmed that, and he kept fucking into her faster. He flexed his fingers, digging harder into her flesh when he felt her walls tighten around him.

He was focusing on you again, thinking about what you sounded like, wondering whether you would moan or whimper the harder he fucked into you, picturing how you looked when he had you completely fucked out. Each image that flashed through his mind made his release seem more and more inevitable until-

“Go harder, Jungkook, please,” the girl practically screamed from under him. He smacked her ass again, harder this time, making her whine.

“I told you to shut the fuck up and take what I give you,” he growled. “And since it seems you can’t listen,” he continued, pulling her up by her hair, “it looks like I’m going to have to make you.”

His hand that had wound its way into her hair snaked around and clamped over her mouth, muffling her cries as he fucked her harder and deeper. The new angle with her up almost flush against him had his hips almost stuttering.

“Fuck, that’s it,” he moaned out, letting his head fall back and his eyes screw shut from the ecstasy he was feeling in this moment. His long hair was damp with sweat, and his abs were flexing with the exertion as he somehow again managed to pick up his pace. The girl was screaming into his hand now, her tight walls clenching around him and coaxing out his orgasm much faster now.

“Holy shit, you feel so good around me--” he had just enough of a grip on himself to stop before he continued, because he knew the next word that was about to come flying out of his mouth was your name, and that would be a bit hard to explain to the girl he was fucking into oblivion right now.

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum soon, fuck, shit,” Jungkook was getting more vocal now as he felt the coil in him threatening to snap, not sure if she was also close yet, but using her to get himself there anyway. He’d return the favor, of course, but he needed to get off first and get you out of his mind.

“Gonna let me use this pussy however I want?” he moaned by her ear, being rewarded with another loud scream and the flutter of her walls around him. “Yeah? Gonna let me fuck you the way I like? Fuck you hard enough you can’t walk for days?”

The girl was nodding behind his palm, tears running down her face again. Fuck, what he wouldn’t give to have you crying from pleasure, pleasure he was giving you.

She reached a hand around and tugged on his locks, pulling a loud groan from him and providing him with the last push he needed to drag him over that edge.

“Fuck, I’m cumming, ah-”

Moments later he filled up the condom, listening to the girl’s continued cries behind his palm and still imagining she was you as he thrusted a few more times to ride it out. When he was done, he removed his hand from around her mouth and pulled out of her carefully, letting her fall back onto the bed, her breathing rapid.

He had just experience what was easily one of the best orgasms he’d had in a while, and he was still breathing pretty hard himself.

After he disposed of the condom, he crawled back into the bed, flipping the girl over and surprising her. He pulled her down the bed to where his face was in between her legs, spreading them wide for him. He looked up at her fucked out expression, pleased with himself that even though she hadn’t cum yet, he had still managed to ruin her this much already.

When her eyes landed on him, she moaned again. He gave her a smile and simply said “I’m not done with you yet,” before he attached his mouth to her clit.

The reaction was immediate, the girl nearly screeching as her hands found purchase in his hair again, tugging at the dark strands and making him groan in return. He flicked his tongue across her clit fast and with enough pressure to have her squirming, and when he plunged two fingers inside and crooked them just right, he knew it wouldn’t be long before she’d be falling apart.

“Jungkoo-”

He placed a smack on her thigh, making her stop herself with a moan.

“Just moan for me. Don’t speak, just wanna hear all those pretty sounds you can make,” he instructed her before he continued his ministrations against her cunt. She obeyed him and he was grateful for it.

He didn’t want to hear her talk, because whenever she did, it messed up the illusion that it was you. He blamed his continued thoughts about you on him still being in his post-orgasm high, picturing you as the one squirming with your hands buried in his hair as he had you exploding all over his tongue again and again.

The vision made him shut his eyes with a grunt, causing his dick to twitch again. Before he could get lost in the idea further, he felt the girl clench harder than she had the whole night, followed by a loud scream and gushing of her release around his fingers. He continued to fuck into her with his fingers at a rapid pace, collecting every bit of her release with his tongue before she pushed him away due to oversensitivity.

When it was all said and done, they were laying beside each other in the bed, the only sound being their shared labored breathing as they both stared up at the ceiling. The two of them knew how this would go: either she would ask to stay the night, or she would leave. Jungkook always left the decision up to his guests unless he just didn’t vibe with them like that, so he didn’t make any moves to ask her to leave or help her get comfortable. The choice was up to her, and she knew it.

Instead of voicing what she wanted, however, she did something unexpected.

“Where the fuck did all that come from,” she asked, still somewhat breathless. Jungkook propped himself up on an elbow so he could look down at her, relieved now that he was actually seeing her face and no one else’s.

“What do you mean? You know I’ve always fucked you good.”

She chuckled at that. “No, I know, believe me. You’re still one of the best I’ve ever had.” He smirked at that while she continued. “But something about it was…different tonight. It’s a good different but still different.”

Jungkook’s brows furrowed. “Care to elaborate?”

“Well,” she thought about it for a second, “for a little bit it felt like you were just using me for your own pleasure, instead of simply acting like you were. Like, you were basically fucking me to get out something that had you worked up. Not that I’m complaining,” she added when she saw Jungkook’s expression, “I just thought it was interesting. That’s all.”

Jungkook nodded curtly, not even reacting when the girl placed a gentle kiss underneath his jaw. When she leaned back, she patted his cheek.

“I’m gonna head home, but maybe I’ll see you around, yeah?”

Jungkook nodded again, giving her a parting kiss before watching her gather her things and leave his bedroom. He heard the click of his front door being shut once she exited, and suddenly his apartment was much too quiet for him.

Hell, maybe he should’ve asked her to stay this time around. At least that way he’d have some company that could keep him out of his head where his thoughts were still filled with you.

He sighed heavily and got up to take a shower, scrubbing the events of the night away and hoping that with each second he spent under the waterfall, he could wash away those pesky lingering thoughts about you. He soon realized that was just wishful thinking and when he laid down in bed once more, now clean and in fresh clothes, his mind was running rampant.

He didn’t like it. He was supposed to hate you, like utterly despise you. But for some reason, he felt like he couldn’t do it anymore, and he didn’t know why.

And that terrified the absolute fuck out of him.

⊱──────── ✬ ✬ ✬ ────────⊰

➥Part 2

➥PYF Spotify Playlist (songs I listened to for inspo)

➥Series Masterlist

➥All Works Masterlist

[fireflykaizoku]

Hey!! I'm obsessed with your soulmates swap aus, really i love them they're so good i can't even explain 😭

Could i ask you one with kid but no one can really see they exchanged bodies 'cause they are literally the same? Like y/n has the same character as kid so they seems literally the same as always and it's quite a problem.

Thank you if you do, have a nice day 💕

helloo anon my love! ❤ i'm so so glad you like them! i'm sorry i took long, by the way! but here it is, and i hope you like it! have a nice day ❤

— What are you looking at? — you snapped at someone at the bar. That person was looking at you for you don’t even know how long.

— (Y/N), calm down. It’s your birthday, don’t stress trying to fight again. — one of your friends asked, holding your arm. — Just leave it.

You sighed, taking a sip of your drink. It was easy for you to get irritated and start a fight, you had quite a temper, and honestly, you don’t know how your friends put up with you. The only reason why you didn’t get into more fights, it was because of them.

— I swear, your soulmate better be someone calm. — another friend giggled. — Imagine if they have that temper.

— It’d be a chaos. — you laughed, forgetting about the fight you almost started before. — But I guess the world couldn’t handle a couple like that. I hope they’re level headed.

It was late when you went back home, and you fell asleep right after, hoping you wouldn’t have a hangover the next morning.

Your peaceful slumber got interrupted with a loud bang on the door. Since when your roommate got so aggressive? You barely had time to open your eyes, and realize you were sitting on a chair, in front of a desk, in a room that wasn’t yours. It smelled like oil and metal. What an awful time to switch bodies with your soulmate.

You knew it’d happen eventually, but it wasn’t something you looked forward to, unlike your friends who acted as if it was such an event.

— Kid, the ship just docked. — someone said. — We’ll go get some supplies and head to a bar.

— Go away! — you screamed, still in shock while looking at that body which obviously wasn’t yours.

The man had scars on his chest and right arm, while apparently he didn’t have his left arm, replaced with a heavy mechanical one. You looked at the long coat over your shoulder, the vest and his pants and couldn’t help laughing at his fashion taste. How tacky.

— What a clown. — you whispered to yourself, still laughing. — Out of all people, this is my soulmate? How lucky…

You got up and headed to a bathroom, maybe when you washed your face and actually felt awake, you could find a solution to switch back and go home. Looking at the broken and dirty mirror, your soulmate was very attractive. He had red hair, no eyebrows, a scar on the left side of his face, and goggles. He’s someone you’d look at if you saw him at a bar.

— Now, how do I find him? — you asked yourself. — Well, if he’s in my body, I’ll call my house. I’m sure there’s a den den mushi here somewhere.

When you left the bathroom, you tried to find the transponder snail. It took a while, walking from room to room, but you finally spotted one in what seemed to be the captain’s bedroom. You started calling your house, hoping that your soulmate would answer.

— What?! — the man answered. — If you’re the person who is in my body, you better find a way to switch back.

— Look, I’m not happy with this situation either. I want to go back to my body, so what do we do now?

He sighed, obviously as annoyed as you were.

— I’m the captain of this ship, so you tell my crew to come here to your island so we can switch back. Don’t let people know what’s going on, I don’t want anyone to know about that. I have a damn reputation.

— Are you even that relevant? — you laughed.

— Watch it, just because you’re my soulmate it doesn’t mean you can talk to me like that.

You rolled your eyes, hanging up before replying. First, you went to the kitchen, feeling thirsty. Luckily they had some beer. You took one, and soon enough, you found one of the crew members that stayed on the ship. You demanded to go to your island quick.

— We need to go there. It’s important, and don’t ask any questions, I’ll be working on something or whatever.

You went back to Kid’s workshop, slamming the door behind you. Being in another body was annoying. You didn't know who this person was, you were far from home, and his mechanical arm was so heavy it was bothering you.

When a tall blonde man wearing a mask knocked on the door, opening it right after, you just told him to go away, threatening to throw something at him if he didn’t leave. After that, everyone left you alone.

The only time when anyone knocked on the door after that, was the next morning, when someone said they arrived at the destination.

Finally!

— I’ll be back soon. I don’t want neither of you following me around, got it? — you asked and the crew nodded.

You left the ship, going towards your house. And when the door opened you saw your figure, which was very weird.

— Took you long enough! — he said with a frown. — How do we switch back now?

— I should’ve know you don’t understand about soulmates. — you sighed. — We need to kiss.

— Is that all? — he seemed surprised, thinking it was too easy to be true. — Then let’s kiss now!

— It’s not a simple kiss, you fool. It’s a kiss when we’re in love, which it’s probably not going to happen, so we need to figure something out.

Kid yelled, complained, cussed, and finally accepted how things really were. You two tried to talk without bickering on each other, trying to think of another solution. And after a long discussion, with you yelling at him, both decided that you needed to stay with him on the Victoria Punk until you could switch back.

The crew kept whispering, curious about who was that small person that their Captain just brought to the ship. Maybe an affair? A new member or an ally? No one dared to ask him directly, though, especially since he was in a bad mood.

Kid still didn’t want the crew to know, even though Killer was smart enough and could probably help. You spent many times together at his workshop, seeing him work while you complained you were bored. At night, you two agreed that sleeping in his room would be the best. The red haired man let you keep the bed, saying he didn’t want his body to be sick or in pain, apparently. Whenever his mechanical arm got too heavy, he tried to ease the weight or help you take it off.

Eventually, you had longer conversations with him, seeing you two had a lot in common, surprisingly.

The showers were a little weird, especially during the first few times, when he kept saying your body was very hot, making you feel flustered for the first time in your life. But after a while, it just felt normal.

It has been almost a month since you two met. The ship had docked and everyone was at a bar. A man was flirting with you, or well, with Kid, while thinking it was you. Indeed, you used to draw attention from people when you went out, and you forgot about that until a man was approaching Eustass, complimenting his beautiful looks.

Feeling annoyed, and perhaps even a little jealous thinking that other men wanted you, he got up from his sit and pulled you into a kiss. Of course, the crew had their eyes open. Who knew the mysterious person Kid brought was that straightforward, and who knew their captain would let someone steal a kiss from him.

The kiss wasn’t romantic or cute. It was full of passion and desire, it was unexpected and possessive, as if he was saying “you’re mine”. He bit your lip, and it felt like he was claiming you. Honestly, it was a good feeling, as if you’ve been waiting, without even knowing, for him to make this first move.

You felt butterflies, something you’ve never felt before.

When you opened your eyes, you saw his figure towering over you, and a grin that wouldn’t leave his face so soon. He pulled you closer, making it clear that you were his. He didn’t even ask, but your answer would be “yes” anyway.

— I can’t believe we finally switched back. — he laughed, flexing his arm. — I missed my body.

The crew gasped.

— Switch back? — Heat asked. — Wait, you were in (Y/N)’s body this whole time? And (Y/N) was in your body?

— I must say, I’m surprised. I couldn’t notice any difference. — Killer said. — You two are very alike.

At first, you two seemed offended until realizing the masked man was actually right. You two has the same personality, and it wasn’t what you expected your soulmate to be. Someone peaceful and quiet would be fun, but someone who could raise a little hell with you could be even better.

— You’re annoying sometimes, but I want you to sail with me anyway. — he said gently lifting your chin with his index finger, still with his signature smirk on his face.

[one-real-wrimonkey]

New au idea (it's a little au of au.) After the kavado fiasco palpapunk gets Rex transferred to the corasant guard with the excuse that he would to unstable to be on the front lines in an attempt to make Anakin more reliant in him.

Sorry if spelled something wrong.

Yessss.

There is nothing wrong with an AU of an AU, half my Corrie Guard works are different endings post following Hound letting the information out, lmao. And don't worry about the spellings, sometimes I get things so wrong the spell checkers can't work it out.

I'd also like to clarify in advance that some of the opinions Fox has on characters or their actions will be how he perceives them etc and some of his thoughts or opinions on a character may counter what we from an outside perceptive know.

---

The news was crushing. Firstly that Rex'ika had been taken by those Zygerrian slave taking monsters, and then a ruling that his actions on the mission had been reckless so soon after the mess on Umbara and between that and his injuries he was being redeployed.

To Coruscant.

To the Guard.

Part of Fox would almost have preferred he be sent back to Kamino, almost, but not quite.

Rex'ika was coming to the Guard, his vod'ika, the little brother they'd taken into their batch so so many years ago.

He was coming to the Guard.

Fox was terrified, but he wasn't sure if it was because Rex was going to be in danger, or because he was going to learn the truth.

And then Rex would tell Cody and Wolffe and Bly and Ponds and the truth would come out and everything would get out and there would be chaos. The Guard wouldn't just be cowardly paper pushing meat droids, they'd be the weak cowardly paper pushing meat droids who couldn't defend themselves from some rich Senator who'd never held a blaster or thrown a punch.

Like being spat on and insulted wasn't enough already.

Vode an, except when you were in the Guard.

There was more to it, to Rex's joining them, he was certain of it. Rex'ika worked with Skywalker, Skywalker was close with Palpatine, Palpatine was... Fox wasn't sure what but he didn't want him near his brothers. Palpatine was the reason Skywalker hadn't been on Umbara, the reason that Krell had been allowed to play with the clones like toys, the reason so many of Rex's vode were dead... the reason for a lot of things.

Skywalker was the reason Rex was being transferred to them, at least the reason Palpatine was having him transferred. He wasn't certain why, but with how close Skywalker was to Palpatine, how he acted around them sometimes, especially after a meeting with Palpatine, that Jedi wasn't to be trusted. He was dangerous, saw himself above them whether he realised it or not, and he could have them killed if he wanted.

It they'd been sending Rex almost anywhere else, he'd have been glad his brother was getting away from Skywalker.

Getting closer to Palpatine was hardly something he wanted though.

.

.

.

Fox watched the LAAT arrive, and watched his vod’s so clearly unique blue armour appear.

He stayed to the edge of the landing pad until the LAAT had taken off again, and Captain Velt, who lead one of the Lower Level Security Teams and would be, hopefully, looking after Rex and keeping him out of the Senate Building, had introduced himself.

And then he strode over.

Velt knew what he had planned, and had in fact anticipated it, but it wasn’t often one of their vode was brought into the Guard rather than bringing in Shinies, and he knew well enough that Fox was going to be protective of his batch-mate, adopted or not. Velt stepped back as he approached, nodding to Rex and then going to his own squad.

“Rex’ika, with me.”

“What, Fox, where… shouldn’t I...?”

Rex gestured to Velt and his squad.

“No,” Fox grabbed him by the wrist and started pulling, not letting Rex resist, “you come with me, right now.”

He dragged his brother through the halls into the Command barracks, thankful that for all he was clearly annoyed about it, Rex didn’t fight him.

“What was so important, Fox? If you really wanted to catch up you couldn’t wait until I'd settled in?”

He had a meeting in 20 minutes he couldn’t miss, which meant he had no time to address the subtle barb he’d been offered, nor to sugar coat what was happening on Coruscant.

"Vod, you have a lot to learn about the Guard if you're going to survive here."

“Fox, I'm sure General Skywalker will try to get me back to the 501st soon. And I can manage a few weeks handling paperwork.”

“No, no, vod, it’s not paperwork and fun times here. Rex, it’s horrific, and I'm not letting them decommission you because you didn’t know how to protect yourself here.”

“It’ll be a few weeks...”

“Palpatine had you transferred here for a reason, I don’t know what, but I don’t trust Skywalker much better. He’s dangerous, vod.”

“I think I know my General better than you.”

“So you’ve never noticed how he acts after a meeting with the Chancellor, because last time he had one he shoved a shinie into a wall. He's dangerous, maybe not to you when he’s in a good mood, but... but that’s not what you need to know. You're here, you need to survive here. Besides, no-one leaves the Guard except in a body bag,” he left out the or worse, Rex didn’t need that yet, “Rule one...”

“Fox wait...”

“Rule one, you don’t ever, and I mean ever, fight back. Rule two, keep your armour uniform, so if you’re ever accused of anything or slated for reconditioning or decommissioning you can be swapped around. Rule three, no matter how weird or demeaning, you do what you’re ordered. Rule 4, if they call you it or clone or anything like that, don’t argue or try to impress on them your name or anything like that, just do what they say. Don’t react. Now I'm trying to get you put into one of the units that takes patrols rather than on Senate Security, but I can't make promises.”

Rex looked blown away, and a little shattered, but this was reality and he couldn’t afford to be soft on his little brother.

Not if he wanted Rex to live.

His comm buzzed a warning.

“Look, Rex’ika, I have a meeting, but the rec room and commissary are down the hall to the right, I’m sure someone can help you settle in and... I'll answer any questions you have properly tonight.”

He wondered if his voice sounded as defeated to his vod’ika as it did to him.

It didn’t matter, he slammed his buy’ce on his head and headed up to the Senate Building.

He couldn’t keep the Chancellor waiting, not even for his youngest batch mate.

———

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed.

Thanks for the ask, I love the idea for this AU though I’m not sure yet how or if I’ll continue from here. If anyone has ideas or wants to take it on or anything like that go nuts (obvs let me know lmao).

Like I said at the top, Anakin is nice to the 501st, but all Fox sees is someone close to Palpatine and someone who is always aggressive to them after spending time with Palpatine. He sees Skywalker as a threat and he has to focus on his siblings first. Similarly the vode don't hate the Guard and wouldn't see them as cowards, but due to Palpatine's manipulations, on both Fox's mind and the vode as a whole, these are Fox's beliefs.

Also Anakin is kinda unstable due to palpatine manipulating things, and similarly that why the Jedi can't see whats happening to the clones on Coruscant, but normally (and if/when they find out) they'd be horrified and do what they can to help.

Inbox always open. (-:

[robininthelabyrinth]

im currently obsessed with the thought of a role swap au where jiang fengmian and madam yu are the ones who die young and cangse sanren and wei changze are like "welp! gonna settle down in lotus pier and raise a couple bonus kids" like sdkfjlksdj just imagine how different the yunmeng siblings would turn out, especially jiang cheng

“Well, shit.”

Cangse Sanren stopped trying to wrestle Wei Ying into his shirt – he’d decided that he was a monkey today, with the associated claim that monkeys did not require clothing – and turned to look at her husband. She’d managed to crack open that reserve of his more and more as the years went by, but he still tended not to swear anywhere outside the bedroom, and never in front of Wei Ying.

“What happened?” she asked. “I assume it’s something a bit more of a problem than the usual night hunt requests.”

“Something happened at the Lotus Pier.”

“Oh?” That sounded troublesome, so she put Wei Ying down and lightly kicked him in the ass, sending him tumbling head over heels and giggling madly the entire time. “We’ll settle this later, you hear me? Now get lost or I’ll eat you, little cabbage.” He ran off at once.

“Now,” she continued, putting the shirt aside. “Lotus Pier. What does Fengmian have to say?”

Her husband maintained a semi-frequent correspondence with him on behalf of both of them – she liked Jiang Fengmian, really, and she was happy to hear from him. It’s only that she liked being free more.

“Nothing,” Wei Changze said, and that’s when Cangse Sanren noticed that her husband was an unhealthy shade of pale. “He’s – he’s dead.”

“What?” She snatched the letter away from him. “What – him and Yu Ziyuan both? Impossible! They’re – they’re sect leaders. Of a Great Sect! What happened?”

“We have to go back at once,” Wei Changze said. “I’m sorry, I know it’s not your favorite place –”

Nowhere that tried to trap her was.

“– but I owe everything to him, and his children...the rest of the world is going to eat them alive.”

Cangse Sanren was weak when it came to children, especially those around the same age as her own.

“Oh, fine,” she said. “I’ll go get Wei Ying ready, you start packing, we’ll head out at once.”

“I don’t know what we can do even if we do go,” he said, folding the letter and putting it away. “I was a good friend of Jiang Fengmian’s, but in the end I was still only a servant –”

“Enough worrying,” she said. “First we need to get there.”

By the time they got there, little Jiang Cheng – even younger than her Wei Ying – had already learned to sit on the sect leader’s seat, but not enough to hide the sheer terror in his eyes, and Cangse Sanren was immediately incensed by the very sight of it, pulling out her horsetail whisk and applying it to the leeches that came to a situation like this and saw in scared child only as an opportunity for power.

“Dear, please stop beating all the Jiang cousins,” Wei Changze said. “It’s not going to change anything. The ceremony’s done; he’s sect leader whether we like it or not.”

She bared her teeth to show what she thought about that. Stupid human rules; sometimes she didn’t like them one bit.

“How about you go introduce Wei Ying?” Wei Changze suggested. “And before you say that I’m just trying to get you out of the way to reduce tension in the political situation: you’re absolutely right, I am. Please go anyway – I’ll call you back if there’s anyone else that needs a beating.”

It was very nice to have a husband that understood her.

Cangse Sanren quickly figured out that Jiang Yanli was Jiang Fengmian’s daughter in all the important ways, being calm, easy-going, and generally capable of handling things without becoming overly distraught, and Yu Ziyuan’s daughter in the sense that there was steel in her spine when she stood in front of her younger brother and interrogated Cangse Sanren as to her intentions.

It was, in Cangse Sanren’s private opinion, an improvement on them both.

Jiang Cheng, though – he wasn’t what she’d expected at all, not the way Jiang Yanli was. Maybe it was just the trauma, but he was softer than she’d expected, more vulnerable, more introspective; he took everything seriously, frowning more than he smile, always paying careful attention to everything everyone said even though he was neither especially studious or naturally talented. Every once in a while, his temper would get going and he’d be vicious, lashing out with a poison tongue that was mostly just cute because he hadn’t learned to use it properly, but it was very obvious to an objective observer that he only ever reacted that way when he felt hurt.

No matter what, though, he always tried very hard.

Jiang Fengmian would have hated you, Cangse Sanren thought, and abruptly felt guilty about the thought. Based on her understanding of the man’s character, though, the way he liked people who were free and lively, people who smiled no matter what the circumstances, people who didn’t make trouble or stick too closely to the rules, the way he disliked those that were the opposite to that – no, she was being uncharitable to a dead man’s memory.

Even if Jiang Cheng wasn’t the type of person Jiang Fengmian would have liked best, he was still his son.

“My husband was your father’s servant,” she explained, kneeling down to look at little Jiang Cheng. “He used to help him with all the things he had to do when he first became Sect Leader, and now he’s here to help you.”

“Where were you before?” Jiang Yanli wanted to know, her arms protectively around Jiang Cheng’s shoulders.

“Travelling,” Cangse Sanren said, even though she knew the question had been more about why they hadn’t been there. “Would you like to meet Wei Ying?”

That right there was the best testament to their characters she could find: they liked Wei Ying at once, and he liked them in return.

By the time Wei Changze came to find her, Cangse Sanren had already resigned herself to staying in the Lotus Pier for the short term future, with an option out for long-term, and she told him as much.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” he said. “I was speaking with Sect Leader Nie – how much do you know about war?”

Cangse Sanren blinked. “I’ve heard bad things?”

She appreciated that he asked, though. After this long, he recognized that there were certain things one simply did not encounter when one was raised on a celestial mountain by an immortal that was only sometimes a person.

“We may not be able to avoid it, if we stay,” he said. “And – I have to stay. I owe it to Jiang Fengmian. But if you wanted –”

“Too late now,” she said cheerfully. As if she’d leave him! “I introduced Wei Ying, and now he has a shijie and a shidi; he’d be heartbroken if we abandoned them. We’re in here for the long haul. Now…tell me about this war. Who would be the most efficient first kill?”

[weirwoodking]

what do you think sansa's endgame is? and i'm not talking ships. like what do you think she'll be doing by the time the books end.

Anon, you accidentally made me write an essay.

So, to try and guess where Sansa could be at the end of the story, we have to look at where she’s heading currently.

She’s currently in the Vale, stuck under the control of Littlefinger. I think Sansa’s arc in TWOW will revolve around breaking free of his manipulation. There’s a line in Bran’s first ASOS chapter that seems to foreshadow this:

Sometimes he could sense them, though, as if they were still with him, only hidden from his sight by a boulder or a stand of trees. He could not smell them, nor hear their howls by night, yet he felt their presence at his back . . . all but the sister they had lost. His tail drooped when he remembered her. Four now, not five. Four and one more, the white who has no voice.

These woods belonged to them, the snowy slopes and stony hills, the great green pines and the golden leaf oaks, the rushing streams and blue lakes fringed with fingers of white frost. But his sister had left the wilds, to walk in the halls of man-rock where other hunters ruled, and once within those halls it was hard to find the path back out. The wolf prince remembered.

—Bran I, A Storm of Swords

It’s hard to find the path back out, but not impossible. I do believe Sansa will return to “the wilds” that belong to her and her siblings.

George was asked once if Sansa still has skinchanging powers even though Lady is gone, and he said she does. We’ll probably see that aspect of her character start to make an appearance in Winds, especially since the presence of magic ramps up with each book. I think it would make sense if she bonded with a bird (such as a falcon or a hawk), seeing as she has quite a lot of bird imagery (particularly caged bird imagery) in her story. Sansa “flying free”, both literally and figuratively, seems like a logical step for her arc.

I do wonder how her connection with the “pack” will be handled. All of the Stark kids except for Sansa have the telepathic bond through their wolves, so I wonder what GRRM will do with Sansa there. It’s heartbreaking, that she doesn’t have that mental connection that the others do. I don’t know if that could somehow be reformed without Lady? There are a lot of unanswered questions about the Stark kids skinchanging powers (and the telepathic bond). Why did their powers only show up when the wolves did? How far do their powers go? How powerful could they become once they’re properly trained? How does the telepathic bond work? Is that a thing that other skinchangers can do? Is it there because of the wolves or is it through the kids themselves? Is it forever broken with Sansa because Lady is gone, or could Sansa reform that connection through another wolf that joins the Stark warg pack? Would it make sense narratively and thematically for GRRM to give Sansa another wolf?

Anyway, no idea what he’ll do with that. (Some sort of scene where Sansa is like “I don’t have a wolf anymore”, and then all the other Starklings crowd around her for a giant group hug and say “that’s okay, you’re still a part of the pack no matter what” is something I could see happening. It’s not like the other kids would treat her any less for not having a direwolf, she’s still their sister.)

A common speculation I see for Sansa’s endgame is that she could become the new head of House Arryn. And, well, the aesthetic of Sansa being Lady of the Eyrie/Lord Protector of the Vale/Warden of the East is definitely cool. The Queen of Birds up in a mountain palace with her flock all around her like a winged army? That’s some gorgeous imagery.

But...

I don’t think Sansa would ever willingly choose to stay in the Vale if she had the option to go home to Winterfell:

She awoke all at once, every nerve atingle. For a moment she did not remember where she was. She had dreamt that she was little, still sharing a bedchamber with her sister Arya. But it was her maid she heard tossing in sleep, not her sister, and this was not Winterfell, but the Eyrie. And I am Alayne Stone, a bastard girl. The room was cold and black, though she was warm beneath the blankets. Dawn had not yet come. Sometimes she dreamed of Ser Ilyn Payne and woke with her heart thumping, but this dream had not been like that. Home. It was a dream of home.

The Eyrie was no home.

—Sansa VII, A Storm of Swords

One of the largest themes in the stories of the younger POV characters (Theon, Jon, Dany, Sansa, Arya, Bran, Rickon (even though he’s not a POV character)) is that of home. Just go on A Search of Ice and Fire and search for the word “home” in each of those characters’ chapters. I think Sansa will end up at her home, with her pack. We know she must return at Winterfell at some point, as she has the final part of this prophecy to fulfill:

"I dreamt a wolf howling in the rain, but no one heard his grief," the dwarf woman was saying. "I dreamt such a clangor I thought my head might burst, drums and horns and pipes and screams, but the saddest sound was the little bells. I dreamt of a maid at a feast with purple serpents in her hair, venom dripping from their fangs. And later I dreamt that maid again, slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow."

—Arya VIII, A Storm of Swords

The wolf howling in the rain is Grey Wind (or Shaggydog/Rickon, since it’s raining on Skagos when Jon dreams of his “black brother”), the clangor is the Red Wedding and the bells are the ones on Jinglebell’s hat when Catelyn sawed at his throat, and the maid at the feast is Sansa. And Sansa will “slay a savage giant in a castle built of snow.” That castle is obviously Winterfell, although the fandom has yet to concretely agree on who the “savage giant” is.

Evidently, Sansa will return to Winterfell, and she probably has to get there before winter really starts setting in, or else the journey would be nearly impossible in the deadly weather. So, probably at some point in the next book.

Now, I believe that there’s a big moment coming for Sansa in TWOW: the moment where she unrepresses/uncovers her memories. Sansa knows a lot of important things. She knows the truth about Jon Arryn, she knows that her hair net was used to poison Joffrey, she knows that Littlefinger was involved in the disappearance of Jeyne Poole. Sansa’s memory swapping/adjusting/erasing/repressing (whatever you wanna call it) is important to her character. It’s her brain’s way of coping with the trauma she’s been through.

I think that one of these memories coming to the forefront is going to trigger something big: Littlefinger’s downfall. I speculate that what will most likely come out in the open first is what happened to Jeyne Poole. Sansa finding out what Baelish did to her closest childhood friend could definitely be what turns her against him.

Warning, I’m going to mention the sh*w here for a second. George has said that he wrote Sansa and Jeyne’s interactions into season 1, and that he tried to build Jeyne as a character, but her scenes were cut by the showrunners. Clearly, George cares about her, her friendship with Sansa, and her value in the story, he was very upset about the deletion of her character and of Sansa’s friendship with her.* I believe the reveal of what happened to Jeyne will be a major part of Sansa’s story in Winds. She’s repressed her memories of Jeyne and her disappearance because it is, understandably, too much for her mind to handle thinking about.

The reveal of this memory could be a catalyst to the other memories coming forward, especially since they involve Littlefinger. I think Sansa will be a key part in wrapping up the political aspect of the story, she can reveal the truth of why the Stark-Lannister conflict began all the way back in book 1. She can expose Littlefinger’s lies and schemes. That’s where I think her narrative is heading, at least in TWOW.

I’m not sure what Sansa’s story arc will be in ADOS (I’m not sure what anyone’s story will be in ADOS, but Sansa’s is a bit more of a blank page than others). If the Littlefinger conflict gets wrapped up in TWOW, I don’t know where her story will go from there. Supposedly, she could be in Winterfell at that point. What will happen then… well, then it’s Long Night time. Sansa is not one of the “key five players” (Tyrion, Dany, Arya, Bran, and Jon), but I still think she’ll have an important role in the book. I think Sansa and Arya’s relationship is something that will be focused on a lot through both of their chapters in the final novel. We’re going to see Ned’s quote, “you need her, as she needs you”, really matter.

No matter where her arc goes over the next two books, though, I do think she’ll end up at Winterfell. And like I said, I don’t think Sansa would choose to leave her home again after returning. I think that her story will end with her staying at Winterfell with the other kids. The Stark children would never willingly leave each other after reuniting. Jon literally describes the separation from his siblings as “a deep ache of emptiness, a sense of incompleteness.” And, of course, the iconic line Ned delivers to Arya: “The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.” I don’t see any of their endings being them as “lone wolves” again.

So, to answer your question, I think the endgame for Sansa will be her back in Winterfell with her family, where she belongs, where she is strongest. I do suspect, however, that there will be some sort of epilogue at the end of ADOS, possibly a “10 years later” or somewhere along those lines. Where she’ll be then, I have no idea. She’ll probably be involved with something politically by then, like ruling or advising.

*Based on what George himself has said about the show’s post-season 4 portrayal of Sansa, I don’t think her story will be similar in any way to the show’s very different version of her character (same goes for everyone). George is typically very mild when talking about the show, saying stuff like “they chose to go down a different path with the story”, but this is one of the only times he flat out criticized the show for how wrong it is. He was very upset the show cut out her storyline. He has also said that “every character has a different end” in the books. So take from that what you will.

[peggyrose19]

It is done! And is 3 times as long as my english essay needs to be, yet I guarantee that will take me longer. Anyway. I proofread this thrice, yet I’m sure there’s still a mistake in there somewhere. This fic was again inspired by Miller and the Blog. Characters belong to the wonderful @lumosinlove. I say she’s wonderful each time and each time I mean it. 

@im-oknutzy-trash, @heyitssmiller, @peanut-the-goalie, @spookydiyharrypotterbat, @donttouchmycarrots, and @apumpkinpuff all wanted to be tagged so there you go. Hope you all enjoy!

Interrogations 

“So,” Mrs. O’Hara said in that tone of voice and Finn knew he was in trouble. 

“How’s work going?” 

“It’s fine,” he mumbled, taking a large bite of his pizza. “Just finished a big case.” 

“Really? How’d it go?” Alex chimed in. Finn fought the urge to glare at his older brother. 

“It went okay. We finished the job. One of my partners got injured pretty badly, but he’s doing better now.” 

His stomach turned as he remembered Leo getting shot, lying unmoving on the ground as blood gushed from his stomach. Leo being transferred to the hospital, unresponsive to the EMTs. Standing with Logan by Leo’s bedside, his face pale, his breathing regulated by a machine. Those days had been the hardest. When they weren’t sure what was going to happen, if he was even going to make it. There had been close calls, too many to count, when Finn felt like he couldn’t even breathe. 

“Oh no!” his mom exclaimed, shaking him back to the present. “That’s terrible. What happened?” 

Finn fought to keep his voice from shaking, “Um, he was shot.” The whole family winced. They were all intimately familiar with guns, and knew the damage a bullet could do. 

Hurriedly, he added, “But he’s home now. He’s doing a lot better. Lupin says he should be able to come back to work in a week or so.” 

His mom squinted suspiciously at that, but thankfully didn’t press it. The table moved on to a different topic of conversation and Finn let out a soft breath. 

That had been the worst week of his life, pacing the endless hospital hallways and sitting by Leo’s bed, with Logan at his side, begging him to wake up. Now, a month later, he was at home again, going out of his mind with boredom and begging to go back to work. They had talked, the three of them, before Leo had been shot. Logan had asked to keep them a secret, for just a little while. He wasn’t ready to come out yet. So Finn had vowed to keep it a secret. 

His thoughts wandered so far from the conversation, he didn’t notice Alex asking him something until the room fell silent and he felt everyone’s eyes on him. 

“Sorry, what did you say?” he asked, flushing at the attention. 

Alex laid his fork down with a clatter and fixed his brother with a fierce look. “You gonna tell us what’s actually going on or do we have to guess?” 

Finn swallowed. “Nothing’s going on, I’m fine.” 

“Uh huh.” Alex glanced at his parents. “We’re gonna have to guess.” They both nodded with a bit too much excitement for Finn’s liking. 

And then everyone began talking at once. 

“Were you fired?” 

“Or promoted?” 

“Did you get a big case?”

“Did you get injured too? 

“Is it about your team?” 

“Is this about a girl?” 

Finn froze at that last one. “What? No. God.” 

“Ah.” His dad smirked knowingly. “So it is about a girl.” 

“No. Stop it.” Alex reached over and ruffled his hair. 

“Aw, look at him getting all flustered. You should’ve brought her with you.” Finn glared at him. His heart was pounding now, and he felt a bit as though he was going to be sick. 

“It’s not about a girl,” he repeated, gritting his teeth. 

“A boy, then?” Alex asked sarcastically and Finn froze. 

Alex’s eyes grew wide. “Finn?” 

He sighed. 

“Finn, is it about a boy?” Finn just shook his head, gritting his teeth and stared at the table, willing himself to not say anything. 

“Honey?” his mom asked and he snapped. 

“Alright, fine!” Finn shouted. “It’s about a boy, you guessed it. Congrats. I really wish you hadn’t because they asked me not to say anything, but I guess it’s too late now.” 

The room fell silent. If possible, Alex’s eyes grew even wider. 

“They?” 

Finn froze as he realized what he’d just said. “Shit,” he muttered. He pressed his thumb and forefinger to his eyes as tears began to form. Without another word, he stood and left the table. 

His bedroom hadn’t changed much; the few things he’d left were still there, although a bit neater than he’d left them. He flopped onto his childhood bed and took a deep breath, willing tears back, before pulling out his phone. With shaking hands, he dialed Logan’s number.

“Hey, Fish!” Logan answered cheerfully. “How’s the city?”

“Lo-” he choked on a sob.

“Finn?” his voice turned concerned.

“Is that Finn?” Leo’s voice asked faintly in the background.

“Yeah, but something’s wrong,” Logan replied, sounding as if he’d turned away from the phone.

“What?” Leo’s voice was louder now.

“I don’t know.” Then, facing the phone again, Logan said, “Finn, I’m putting you on speaker, okay babe?”

“Kay,” he whispered.

“Hey, love, you alright?” Leo’s gentle voice came through the phone and Finn fought another sob.

“They know.” There was a moment of silence, and Finn could almost see the two swapping confused glances.

“Who knows what?” Logan asked.

“My family, they know about us.”

“Oh.”

“I’m so sorry, I know you said you didn’t want to tell anyone, but they kept asking me questions and I slipped and said-”

“Hey hey hey, Finn, it’s okay,” Logan said, effectively stopping his rant. “Just take a deep breath for us, yeah?” Finn complied, taking a shaky breath, and felt his heart rate drop just a little.

“Keep breathing, love. Just like that.” He did, until his pulse stopped racing and tears stopped threatening to spill over.

“Okay. I’m good,” he said, voice still a bit shaky.

“Good,” Logan said, then added, “And look, Finn, I know I said I wasn’t ready yet, but I don’t mind, really.”

“Me neither.”

“Yeah. Besides, it’s been months since we had that conversation. A lot has happened since then.” Finn heard faint rustling, and knew Logan had pulled Leo in closer. He ached to see them, to be with them, to touch them and hold them.

“I miss you guys,” he sniffed.

“We miss you too,” Leo said a bit sadly.

“Thanks for being so cool about all this.”

“Finn, we love you.” Logan’s voice was soft, teasing. “Your family knowing about us is not the end of the world. In no universe would we be mad about that. And I’m pretty sure Alex already knew. I mean, come on.”

Finn laughed a little. “Yeah, it wouldn’t surprise me. He was the one who guessed it.” They lapsed into silence for a moment, before Finn let out a long sigh. “I should probably go fix my mess, huh?”

“Mess?”

“Well, I just kinda left the table without providing any explanation whatsoever.”

Logan laughed, bright and loud. “Of course you did. Go, talk to your family. We can call again later.”

“Alright.”

Logan laughed again, “Go. I love you.”

“Love you!”

Finn smiled, “Love you too.”

There was a light knock on the door as Finn hung up and set his phone down. “Come in!” he called, sighing quietly.

The door cracked open and his mom poked her head in. “Hey honey. You okay?”

He glanced at her tiredly. “Yeah, I’m okay.” She smiled a little, and perched on the bed beside him.

“Who was that you were talking to?”

“Mom.”

“Sorry. You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s… it’s okay. That was… um, that was my boyfriends. Leo and Logan.”

She placed a hand on his shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell us?” she asked gently, without judgement.

“We decided not to tell anyone yet,” he said, then swallowed. His next words were barely above a whisper, “And I was scared.”

His mom pulled him closer, wrapping her arms around him. “I’m sorry we made you feel uncomfortable. And that we bugged you so much at dinner. That wasn’t fair of us.”

“You’re forgiven,” Finn mumbled, face pressed into her shoulder.

She pulled away and pressed a hand to Finn’s cheek, turning his head so he was looking at her. “I support you, no matter what. You know that, right? I support you and I love you and will continue to do so because I am your mother, and I will be until the day I die. Okay?”

“Okay. Thanks, Mum,” Finn said, his voice thick.

“Now, tell me a bit about these boys of yours.”

Finn smiled despite himself. “They’re amazing. They both speak French, which I do not know. But, it’s ho- er, cute.” He flushed. “Logan’s from Quebec and Leo’s from New Orleans. He always complains that it’s cold.” His mom laughed a bit at that. “I’ve known Logan for a little while, but I met Leo when Remus put all three of us together for a case. It’s how we got to know each other.”

His mom gasped. “Wait! The boy that got shot, was that one of them?”

“Yeah. Leo. He almost didn’t make it.” Finn’s voice wavered then.

“Ohh. Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I didn’t know how,” he whispered. “He didn’t wake up for so long and Lo and I were so scared. I didn’t know how to handle telling you about them when I wasn’t even sure he would survive.”

“Oh, honey,” his mom sighed and hugged him tight. “I’m glad he’s okay.”

“Yeah, he’s doing a lot better,” Finn sniffed. “Re is letting him start work again next week, which is good. He’s started to go a bit stir-crazy. Right now he’s probably driving Logan crazy at home.”

“Do you guys live together?”

Finn nodded, a bit guiltily. “We got an apartment together a few months ago. It’s really nice.”

“That sounds wonderful, Finn.”

“Yeah it is. And it’s… yeah- it’s us.” They fell silent.

“I love them, Mum,” Finn said quietly after a moment.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m glad.”

Finn smiled.

“You realize you’re gonna have to tell your dad and your brother everything you just told me, right?”

He sighed, “Yeah.”

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than a thump sounded right outside his door. Finn frowned before he crossed the room and tugged the door open. Alex and his dad collapsed at his feet.

“Were you spying on us?”

“No?”

“Yes,” Alex responded at the same time as their dad. 

They scrambled to their feet. 

Finn glanced at his mom and they both burst out laughing.

“Guess I don’t have to tell them,” he gasped out. “Since I’m assuming you both heard everything.”

“It’s possible,” his dad answered. He at least had the decency to look mildly embarrassed. Alex, on the other hand, was grinning from ear to ear, looking unabashedly proud of himself.

“Do you guys want to call them with me?” Finn asked nervously.

“You sure you won’t mind?” his mom asked and Finn shook his head.

“No. No, they’d love to meet you guys.” Hands shaking only a bit, Finn grabbed his phone and called Logan again, this time using FaceTime. “Hey, Lo,” Finn said when his concerned face popped up. “Is Leo there?”

“Finn!” Logan exclaimed. “Yeah, he’s right here.” He turned the phone so that Leo was in frame too, both of them grinning at him.

“You feeling better, sweetheart?” Leo asked. Finn flushed a bit, feeling Alex’s eyes on him.

“Yeah, a lot better. I have someone here with me, actually.”

“Hi!” Alex blurted out, shoving his face into the frame. Finn pushed him away, rolling his eyes. “That would be my idiot brother, Alex. And these are my parents.” Finn turned the phone towards his mom and dad, who both waved.

“Hi boys, it’s nice to meet you,” his mom said.

“You, too,” Leo said politely.

“Hi!” Logan waved cheerfully.

“Leo, I heard what happened to you,” his mom said. Finn stiffened. “I’m so sorry. Are you feeling better? Do you want us to send you anything?”

Leo smiled. “I’m doing much better, thank you. And I don’t need anything, your son has been taking very good care of me. But thank you for the offer.”

“Hey!” Logan protested. “I help too!”

“Yes, of course you do, love.”

Finn grinned at them.

“Well, I’m glad you’re doing better. And I’m glad you had Finn there to help you out.” She smiled. “Alright, we’ll leave you three alone now. It was very nice to meet you both!”

“Nice to meet you too!” Leo and Logan chimed.

Finn rolled his eyes at his parents. “Okay. Bye.” Finn’s parents chuckled at him, his dad ruffling his hair once before they left, dragging Alex with them.

“They’re so in love,” Finn heard faintly through the door and he shook his head, laughing. Alex O’Hara, oblivious to the meaning of the word ‘subtle’.

“Your brother is very...enthusiastic,” Leo said carefully.

“Yes he is.”

“Hey, we were about to watch the hockey game that’s on tonight,” Logan said suddenly. “You wanna join us?”

Finn smiled softly. “I think I’m gonna get some sleep. I’m exhausted from being interrogated all evening.”

“Alright. Get some rest, sweetheart. We’ll call you again in the morning.”

“We love you,” Logan added. “Sleep well.”

“I love you too. I’ll see you in the morning.” Logan blew him a kiss, and Finn grinned before hanging up the phone.

As he laid back on his bed, he sighed heavily, relaxing into the mattress. He thought of everything that had happened over the past hour and smiled a bit. Of all the ways he’d imagined coming out to his family, this certainly hadn’t been one of them. But he certainly couldn’t complain about their reactions.

as always, thank you for reading! i love you all 😘

[quicksilversquared]

More than a Match

Felix Graham de Vanily is back in Paris for the summer, determined to make amends with his cousin. While standing in for Adrien at a photoshoot, he has to deal with a most disagreeable character by the name of Lila.

Unstoppable force, meet immovable object. There can only be one winner here, and Felix is not about to lose.

links in the reblog

Felix Graham de Vanily was more than a little apprehensive about returning to Paris for his mom's summer movie shoot, and for good reason.

The last time that he was in the city, he had caused no small amount of chaos. He had threatened his relationship with Adrien over a (in retrospect) petty, poorly-considered attempt at revenge- how badly their friendship had been damaged really remained to be seen- and gotten off on the wrong foot with all of Adrien's friends, which could make finding people to hang out with more than a little difficult. During that same revenge attempt, he had truly behaved poorly towards one of the city's superheroes, and he would have to try to apologize for it if he could get close to the superheroes again without endangering his life. On top of that, he had palmed his uncle's ring, which- well, was it really stealing when Mr. Agreste had gotten them through less-than-honest means in the first place?- with the full expectation that it would be at least a year before he and his mom returned to Paris, so his uncle might have simmered down by then.

It hadn't been anywhere near a full year yet. His uncle would no doubt still be furious about the retrieval of the ring, and so Felix had to be very careful with it.

Right now, that meant wearing the ring on a strong chain around his neck, hidden under his shirt. If he was going to be spending more than the odd minute here or there in the Agreste mansion, he and his mom might end up looking into getting a safe box for them to lock the ring up in, so that his uncle wouldn't steal it back.

"Don't let on that you're nervous," his mom coached as their train pulled into the Paris stop. "Be confident, don't react to questions about the rings. With a little luck, perhaps your uncle will assume that he misplaced it. Emilie always said that he would mess with his ring when he was designing and she was worried that he'd end up taking it off and misplacing it for good. He's already called me once demanding the ring back and I told him that we didn't have it and maybe he had just lost it."

Which meant that Felix could just act bored about the accusation instead of being surprised. That was useful information.

"I also got us an apartment that's a bit further outside of the city center," his mom continued after a moment. "Both to stay out of the way of the majority of the akuma attacks, and to give us some space from your uncle. We're near a subway line, though, so it'll be easy enough to go and visit."

Felix nodded. His mom had already mentioned that, and he knew that there was a third reason, too: apartments of a decent size close to the city center were expensive. Their family might be wealthy, but (largely due to his father's influence, Felix suspected) they still had never be people to throw money around without due consideration first. "But Uncle Gabriel won't bother to come out and bug us?"

"Of course not. When was the last time that he left that house of his? And if he does- well, I have no problems with kicking up a legal stink. Gabriel would do well to remember that the only reason he has connections to the Mayor's family is because of Emilie and I, so he has no advantage there." Amelie sniffed. "Not that he'll bother to remember that. If anyone asks him, I'm sure he would say that he worked himself up from nothing and made all of his connections himself with his superior bargaining skills."

"Ah, yes, the scowling and yelling and refusing to meet in person is very persuasive, I had forgotten."

Amelie laughed. "Yes, exactly. Emilie was the one who handled more of the PR and meetings with investors, really. If Gabriel had been trying to do it himself, he would have failed miserably." She shrugged, turning back to him with a large smile. "Don't let your uncle ruin your summer, Felix. He roars and rages a lot, but he's always been all bark and no bite."

Felix nodded, taking a steadying breath as the train came to a complete stop and they got up, reaching for their bags. "Right. Of course."

Somehow, he got the impression that that would be easier said than done.

  Really, it- it wasn't as terrible as Felix had thought. The summer had started out slowly- he had seen Adrien at dinner shortly after arriving in Paris, and then Felix had spent a week and a half entertaining himself while his mom started filming on the movie and his cousin finished up his school year.

It wasn't bad, really. He found a small bookstore that was cool and quiet, and he settled down there in a corner to read. It was nice and it was peaceful.

Alas, it was not to last. His mom expected that he would go hang out with Adrien, and so... Felix did. The first three times that he went over, the two of them simply hung out in Adrien's room for part of the day and played some of the video games that Adrien had around. His cousin seemed on high alert at first- Felix certainly noticed fewer things lying around his room, and there were several things with locks on them that hadn't had locks before- but willing enough to try again. By day three, their conversations were far more relaxed, and Adrien spent nearly an hour telling Felix about all of his friends. He wasn't bragging about having them, Felix could tell, but was just genuinely happy to have them and wanted to share that with him.

...unfortunately, Felix knew that it was more likely than not that a large number of Adrien's friends would not be very thrilled to meet him. He had not made a particularly good first impression, to say the least, and they- unlike Adrien- had not had any other interactions with him to go by. Felix didn't resent them for their judgement of him (after all, he rather deserved it, he could admit that much) but it would make meeting them a bit awkward, particularly if Adrien hadn't had a chance to mention how things were going now first.

Or if Felix hadn't done anything obvious to make amends for his earlier behavior. Thankfully, an opportunity to both put off the inevitable meeting and to make things up to Adrien properly practically fell in his lap after Nathalie scheduled a photoshoot right when Adrien was hoping to get together with his friends.

Or, rather, when Adrien had put a meet-up with his friends on his schedule and Nathalie deleted it last-minute to replace it with yet another photoshoot, because apparently she didn't know the meaning of fun. Or being nice, or kindness, or not being a terrible human being, really.

"Are- are you sure that you want to model, Felix? It's not exactly the most fun thing in the world."

Felix nodded resolutely, glancing towards his cousin's door and hoping that no one was eavesdropping on their conversation. "You want to be with your friends, and I would like to make a good impression this time around before meeting them anyway. It's no big deal. I can sit and make clothes look good for an hour or two."

At last, Adrien nodded in agreement. "I- okay, if you're sure. I'll text you the time and location, so you have it, and-"

"Won't your bodyguard be expecting to drive you there?"

Adrien paused. "...oh. Oh, yeah."

Felix tried not to sigh. Oh, yes was right. Clearly logistics weren't his cousin's strongest point.

"Well, I can ask him to bring me there early, so that I can have some time to relax in the park!" Adrien said after a moment's thought. "And then we can meet and swap outfits there- or I'll bring an extra, actually, it'll be less hassle. It'll be harder for me to get to Marinette's place from there, but I'll manage it. There's a bus line nearby that'll get me close enough."

"Your father actually lets you out enough for you to know how to take the bus?" Felix inquired, unable to help feeling a little incredulous. His cousin hadn't been allowed to walk to his collège, which was only a few mere blocks away, so he had assumed that his uncle had required use of the chauffeured car for all of his other travel. "Count me impressed."

A quick grin flashed across Adrien's face. "He doesn't let me out, exactly. I tend to sneak out. And then, of course, I need to know how to get where I'm going fast, or else I'll get picked up by the Gorilla right away before I have a proper chance of escape."

...that was just sad.

"Anyway, I should probably coach you if we're actually going to do this. You know, give you some pointers and all. Uh." Adrien twisted his ring around, glancing up at the ceiling as though that was going to help him any. "Um."

Felix rolled his eyes. "I hardly think that I'll need extensive coaching to be able to sit in front of a camera and pose."

"Yes, but-"

"Will I need to know several dozen poses to do in rapid-fire succession? I've heard that some models do that."

Adrien sighed. "No, Simon prefers to take more organic shots. I've been learning the fast poses on my own, in case I ever get a photographer who needs that or if I end up branching out and start modeling for catalogues instead of just ads, but Father prefers Simon's artistic vision. So he'll tell you what he wants in general, then give tweaks. Like, there's some moving my head around, maybe, but..." He trailed off, shrugging.

Well. If Felix actually needed any advice to pass off as Adrien during the photoshoot, he was pretty certain that he would be more or less out of luck. With advice like that, it would be a wonder if he wasn't left completely unprepared when he arrived.

"I've not had, like, professional training as a model or anything," Adrien added after a moment. "It's all been informal, which is maybe a bit unusual considering what father's like the rest of the time, but maybe it's good for publicity somehow or something." He shrugged, looking remarkably unbothered by the prospect of his father basing his decision on how to treat Adrien during photoshoots on what would sell best. "So just listen to Simon and don't forget to look towards the camera unless he tells you otherwise, and don't be too stiff but don't slouch, either, and-"

Felix tried not to sigh.

  "If- if Lila's there, just- ugh. Just don't agree to anything she says, and- well, she still tries to lie to me all the time, even though I know better than to trust anything she says. She loves manipulating people, so..."

Adrien's comment about his sometimes-coworker- probably the most intriguing and useful part of his "advice" for the photoshoot once he actually managed to think of something to say- ran through Felix's head as he arrived at the site for the photoshoot, a lovely little park in a less busy part of the city. This Lila character sounded like trouble, and he wasn't much interested in trouble. Or in being manipulated, for that matter.

How very fortunate, then, that Felix had more than a little experience with manipulation. He would be able to spot any attempts coming from a mile away. From what Felix could gather, this Lila person was a sloppy manipulator at best, relying on flashy stories and crocodile tears to keep her influence. They were things that would perhaps work in the short term but would wear off and become ineffective in the long run, particularly once people started picking up on inconsistencies. Eventually, things would backfire on her, and then she would be left alone and hated.

Felix preferred more subtle manipulation, and (unless he was not thinking clearly) only when a situation warranted it. A little nudge here and there to increase the odds of things going his way was rather different than Lila's graceless shoves to make everything go her way, to get the kind of popularity that Lila clearly wanted. His technique was sustainable- after all, infrequent manipulations were less likely to be picked up on- while hers was not.

His cousin hadn't really said much about Lila other than to mention that she might be there and to not fall for her lies, but Felix already disliked her.

"Felix! You got here all right, good!"

Felix pushed away his thoughts and smiled as Adrien ran up. He had a bag slung over his shoulder, presumably with an identical outfit to the one that he was wearing. "Yes, I've had sufficient down time to figure out the system. It wasn't hard to puzzle out."

"Oh, great." Adrien glanced around, clearly making sure that he wasn't being followed, and then passed his bag off to Felix after pulling a smaller bag out from inside of it. "I have an identical outfit in here. Are you good, or...?"

"I'll be fine," Felix assured him. "Go on, go hang out with your friends." He paused and considered Adrien. "Ah, are you going to wear a disguise or something? You know, in case anyone takes pictures of you and posts them?"

Adrien nodded, pulling- surprise, surprise- a baseball hat and a large pair of sunglasses out of his bag. "Yeah, this will work fine! There's plenty of guys in France with blond hair, so as long as my hair isn't visible and they can't see all of my face..."

Felix hoped, for Adrien's sake, that that actually somehow worked and he didn't run into any of his more fanatical fans. Maybe the most basic of disguises would work against most of the population, but there were a few weirdos who probably prided themselves on being able to identify his cousin with the smallest of clues.

"Anyway, hopefully it'll work," Adrien finished after a moment's pause. He glanced back at Felix. "Are you sure you're good?"

"Positive. Go."

Adrien went. Felix watched him for a minute, then made a beeline for the public restrooms building that he had seen earlier. He hated the idea of changing in it, truth be told, but he hardly had a choice.

...well, maybe he could have coordinated outfits with Adrien yesterday and only had to fiddle with his hairstyle at the park instead, but hindsight was 20/20.

Despite Felix's worries, the bathrooms weren't bad at all. He changed quickly and did a fast brushing of his hair into Adrien's hairstyle- it was a little difficult to account for the difference in their hair length in a few places, but he managed it well enough- before leaving the restroom and tracking down the plaza where the photoshoot would be taking place. It was a fairly basic set-up, honestly- a small trailer with the outfits to be worn in it, an equally small tent for changing, a couple chairs for touch-ups to makeup and hair with a screen nearby to block the wind. A few things for lighting and the photography equipment were scattered around, but otherwise it was incredibly minimal.

He had to wonder what normal shoots- ones that weren't solely for the boss's son- looked like. Surely not everything that Gabriel did was so low-budget.

"Ah, Adrien, you're on time- early, even!" A man with a camera hanging around his neck- Simon, Felix assumed- appeared behind him, clapping him on the shoulder and making Felix startle. He chuckled. "That's a nice change from the past couple shoots, hmm?"

Felix only nodded, not sure what to say. In all honesty, he hadn't been expecting the photoshoot's staff to be talking to him much, other than to issue directions for the shoot itself. If he had known that they were likely to be chatty, he would have asked Adrien more questions.

Thankfully, Simon seemed willing enough to move on, immediately turning to the job at hand. The first outfit that "Adrien" was supposed to wear was already in the tent, so if he could just go ahead and change so that they could get started...

Felix was more than willing to comply. The sooner they started, then maybe the sooner they would finish. And while Felix didn't exactly have anything else that he wanted to do- hanging out at his cousin's house while Adrien wasn't there didn't sound like fun, nor was he particularly interested in crashing Adrien's friends' get-together- it was hot outside and changing into a dozen different outfits in quick succession and getting poked and prodded at wasn't Felix's idea of a good time.

Three outfits in, and Felix noticed a girl lingering around the edges of the photoshoot area. She wasn't getting shooed off by security, which meant that it was incredibly likely that she was meant to be there. And sure enough, a minute later, the girl headed into the second half of the changing tent.

That must be the Lila that Adrien had warned him about. Felix had rather hoped that he would get lucky and not have to deal with the liar, but apparently luck wasn't on his side today.

Or was it? Felix gave that a minute's thought. He had been a bit bored thus far, and doing a bit of manipulative sparring might be just the thing to spice up his afternoon. Little Miss Terror wouldn't be expecting it- after all, Felix didn't doubt that Adrien's approach to Lila was rather on the tepid side- and it might be amusing to throw her off her game. Going too far might alert her to the fact that he wasn't actually Adrien, though, and she might tattle, so that added another level of complexity, another thing to think about.

He was so busy trying to figure out how strong he would want to come off that he completely missed Lila snaking up behind him until thin arms slid around him in an entirely unexpected (and unwelcome) hug.

"Adrien! I'm so happy that we get to work together again!" Lila cooed, leaning forward to try to press a kiss to Felix's cheek. She missed when he dodged, just enough to get out of her path but not so far that it would look obvious. Lila pouted, but didn't make more of a fuss. "Aren't you?"

"Mmhmm," Felix murmured noncommittally, disengaging himself from Lila's groping hold smoothly to step away and move into the next pose that Simon had wanted. Lila was forced to back off for the remainder of Felix's solo shots, and then he could escape into the tent to change while she did a few solo shots of her own.

And then came the duo shots, aka the absolute longest forty-five minutes of Felix's life.

(Well. Okay, maybe there had been some other instances when time had stretched out far longer, but as far as normal everyday situations went- well, then this ranked waaay up there.)

Things had gone smoothly when Felix was on his own. Despite never having done photoshoots before- or at least clothing photoshoots, he had posed for a few family portraits over the year- he had gotten the hang of it right away. He followed Simon's instructions with little need for further correction, and the photographer had been beaming.

With Lila added to the mix, though? All of that was completely shot. She was completely unprofessional, and quite handsy to boot. Felix managed to get away from her hands most of the time, dodging where he could and stepping smoothly away to make it look natural, but it was absolutely aggravating.

Thankfully, he got a bit of a reprieve when he loudly complained that she had wrinkled the sleeve of the light coat that he was modeling with her vice grip on his arm and she got scolded.

Unfortunately, that reprieve only lasted for five minutes before she was right back at it. She didn't hold on nearly as tight as before when he had longer sleeves on, sure, but other than that there was no real change. If anything, she was brushing her hands over his shoulders and arms more often than before.

Needless to say, by the time the last picture of the last set of clothes had been snapped, Felix was more than eager to be done, change back to his- well, Adrien's- normal clothes, and be rid of the Italian pest for good.

But Lila clearly had other ideas.

"Oh, I think we could pose for a few more minutes, don't you, Adrien?" Lila purred, fluttering her eyelashes at him. Felix could see where her fake eyelashes were starting to come detached. Clearly she had no idea how to apply them correctly, considering that they had been crooked to start with. "Maybe some, ah, closer poses? Oh! I know! Summer romance always sells, right?"

Felix raised an unimpressed eyebrow. Slick, she was not. Her attempts at manipulation couldn't be any more heavy-handed. Or more distasteful. "I'll pass on that, thanks."

Lila's pout grew. "You don't want to? I think it would be fun! I thought that we were friends." The last word was bitten out with a bit of an edge to it, an unspoken threat. Felix had no idea what it was meant to be.

Forget his cousin coaching him about modeling, clearly Felix had needed more insider info on how to interact with Adrien's friends and classmates.

"It is far too hot outside to be close to anyone," Felix countered tartly, refusing to let himself pause in the conversation. "We have a number of photos already. I see no need to risk heat stroke for more. Additionally, this is a clothes company, not a manufacturer of cheap romance novels, and there was nothing about summer romance in the shoot briefings."

Lila's eyes narrowed. Felix refused to back down.

"Adrien is right," Simon said, glancing over his notes. "And if the shoot goes much longer, we'll go into overtime, and Mr. Agreste hates that. It costs the company money, you know. So we're done for the day. Thank you for your work."

Felix murmured a quick thank-you in return. Lila looked as though she had maybe swallowed a lemon. Before she could recover and come up with a new ploy, Felix turned and strode off to the changing tent to switch back into Adrien's normal outfit as fast as he could.

He made sure to keep a suspicious eye out for any unusual ripples in the fabric of the tent. Felix didn't trust Lila to not try to sneak a peek of him changing. She seemed to have a complete lack of respect for normal boundaries and more than a slight fixation on him (or, rather, his cousin), so Felix wouldn't put it past her to try to look or even snap a picture.

A picture would probably be the more appealing option to Lila, if he was reading her right. Properly hidden so that no one else would discover that she had it, it would make valuable blackmail to get Adrien to play along with her little games.

One final change later, Felix exited the tent to see Lila talking with Nathalie. From the look of it, she had been the one to approach Nathalie rather than the other way around- after all, Nathalie had been standing in the same spot for most of the shoot- and she seemed to be trying to persuade Nathalie of something. And- odder yet- Nathalie actually seemed to be listening.

Felix frowned at that. Nathalie actually listening to someone who wasn't her boss? That was unusual, not to mention incredibly suspicious- and so was the entire inclusion of Lila in the Gabriel photoshoots, honestly. Why would Nathalie- and by natural extension, Mr. Agreste- want to bother working with someone like Lila? She was hardly a talented model. Even though she had had more experience with photoshoots than Felix had, and it was Felix's first time modeling to boot, she had needed more direction (and redirection) than he had. She rarely did exactly as the photographer asked, particularly with several shots alongside "Adrien". She preferred making her poses more flirty and having her hands on "Adrien" whenever she could, even arguing with the photographer about the poses he wanted. Lila was hardly any great beauty, either, and her atrocious hairstyle wasn't doing her any favors. And she was hardly rich or famous to start with, despite what she reportedly liked claiming.

Surely Mr. Agreste and Nathalie wouldn't fall for her lies. Maybe they weren't the sharpest tools in the shed, but they had enough experience to navigate what his father had always referred to as shark-infested waters of the business world. They should be able to pick up on the lies and manipulation without a problem.

...so why was she here? What was Mr. Agreste getting out of their arrangement? Besides higher bills from photoshoot staff because of Lila holding things up, of course.

Felix didn't like this. Not at all.

Nathalie finally nodded, making a note on her tablet, and then she and Lila parted ways. Felix glanced away at once- he didn't want to appear to be inviting her over, after all, he had already had more than enough of her for the day- but he could see her making a beeline for him regardless. Felix deliberately stepped away, headed for Adrien's bodyguard. He would very much prefer to go back to the house now, but Lila was faster.

Faster, and had very sharp nails.

"Surely you weren't about to run off without saying good-bye?" Lila crooned, her voice so sickly sweet that it nearly made Felix gag. "How rude."

"If you put holes in this shirt with your nails, my father will hear about it," Felix warned her instead of replying with a cutting comment about how hypocritical it was of her to call anyone rude. Lila only scoffed and tightened her hold, ignoring his words just as he had ignored hers.

"I feel like you're forgetting about our arrangement, Adrien." Lila's voice had dropped to a hiss. "Or do you want everyone to turn on Marinette, hmm? Think about it."

She didn't give him a chance to respond before giving his arm another painful squeeze and flouncing away, trailing her fingers across his chest as she went. It was probably just as well that she left, really, because Felix really wasn't sure what to say about that.

What kind of arrangement his cousin had with that wretched girl, Felix didn't know, but he didn't doubt that it was neither a good one nor a smart one. Considering that it apparently involved threats against one of Adrien's friends- the friend Adrien had gushed about the most over the past couple of days, coincidentally- there really was no way that it could be a good arrangement.

He brought it up with his mom that night, bringing up the fact that Adrien had thought to warn him about Lila and her lies, but he hadn't mentioned the harassment- the sexual harassment, really, considering the fact that Lila had tried to kiss him and rub her hands all over his chest- that was clearly normal for her interactions with him. That seemed like a rather important thing to mention, and the fact that he hadn't...

"Adrien's probably been raised not to raise a fuss," his mom said once she was done ranting and raving about shameless harlots and the adults who enabled them. "Or- you mentioned some sort of deal. Adrien might have decided the best way to protect his other friend was by just tolerating this monster, because no one's taught him better."

Felix blinked. He had heard his mom criticize her sister before, but not since her disappearance. It was a bit strange to hear, honestly, no matter how the indirect the criticism was, but he wasn't going to point it out.

"Emilie wouldn't want someone harassing Adrien," Amelie said after a minute of angry muttering under her breath. "I'm sure she would have taught him about exceptions to the whole politeness rule after he started attending school and running into less savory people. And she would want me to step in now." Her fingers started tapping against the table, an angry staccato as she thought. After a couple minutes, she spun to face Felix with an eager clap of her hands.

Felix, who was more than used to this sort of behavior by now and who had resumed eating his dinner while she thought, merely raised an eyebrow and set his fork back down on his plate neatly.

"You said that Adrien has regular photoshoots with this girl, correct?" Amelie asked eagerly. Felix nodded at once, raising an eyebrow at how hopeful his mom sounded.

"Yeah. And he mentioned that the start of his summers always has a higher concentration of photoshoots, to make up for not having them during exams and studying. That's why I offered to go for him today, because he's been kept so busy that he's not been able to see his friends. And because he had scheduled something with his friends, and then Nathalie just knocked it off of his schedule to put the photoshoot there instead and that didn't seem fair."

Amelie muttered something uncomplimentary about that, too, then her determined expression returned. "Well, that works in our favor. Tell Adrien that you'll do his next photoshoot, too- if you're willing to, of course," she added hastily. "And then I want you to tell this girl no. Tell her to back off. Enforce your boundaries- which I know you're good at doing."

Felix hesitated. He could see where his mom was going with her plan and why it would make more sense for him to be the one to confront Lila instead of Adrien, but- well, another Lila-filled photoshoot really wasn't that appealing.

But it sounded like he wouldn't have to deal with Lila's nonsense this time and could cut it off like he normally would, abrupt and sharp. He could see her downfall in person, see her expression go from overconfident to uncertain to crushed.

Maybe it was a bit petty and vindictive of him, but... well, Felix was a bit petty and vindictive, so what.

So he nodded. "I can do that."

Amelie lit up, clearly excited. "If I'm reading this girl right from what you've said, your no will mean next to nothing to her and she'll persist. To press charges and win, we'll probably need audio- and I can set you up with something that can hide under your clothes without showing."

Felix couldn't help the grin that flashed across his face. "Very nice."

"If my schedule allows, I'll be there too," his mom added. "As close by as I can be, so I can step in as needed. If Nathalie thinks that she'll be telling Adrien- you- to simply endure the harassment, she has another think coming."

"I like that," Felix said at once. "I mean, I don't like the idea of having to tolerate any more of Lila's company, but I can do it."

"Fantastic." Amelie leaned forward, her eyes narrowed in concentration. "Now, as for the rest of the plan..."

  Convincing Adrien to let Felix take over for his next photoshoot was easier said than done, particularly after Felix told him about the brief face-off that he and Lila had had after the photoshoot. Adrien wanted to step in and work to smooth things over before Lila could lash out at Marinette in retribution, but Felix pointed out that Lila wouldn't be able to lash out at Marinette if Felix carried out the photoshoot like his mom wanted him to. She would be completely and thoroughly discredited, and if she turned into an akuma for it- well, so what? Better her than Marinette, surely, or Adrien.

Adrien hadn't considered that, obviously. After another moment's consideration, and the reassurance that it was Amelie's plan and not Felix's, he had given in and sent a screenshot of his photoshoot schedule to Felix so that he could show his mom and they could plan. Thankfully the next photoshoot wasn't too far out, so Adrien might not have to deal with keeping Lila happy in the meantime so that she wouldn't try to smear Marinette's reputation.

(Apparently Marinette was the only one of Adrien's friends who had been told about Felix's stepping in for a photoshoot thus far, and the only one told about Felix's plan to knock Lila back. He hadn't seen her again in person, but from what Adrien told him, Marinette had already forgiven Felix for the fiasco he had caused during his previous time in Paris.)

(Marinette was also the person that Adrien was going to be spending his time with while Felix was doing the photoshoot. Apparently most of his other friends were going to be busy, but Marinette wasn't, and she had been plenty happy to spend some time with Adrien.

Adrien had been pleasantly surprised by that, since he had been sure that she would be busy, too, but Felix hadn't been. After all, Marinette was in love with Adrien, wasn't she? Of course she would make time to spend with Adrien, that shouldn't have been a surprise.

Or had she not confessed to Adrien again in the months since Felix was last in Paris? He would have thought that she would have.)

"Remember to turn the recorder on," Amelie reminded him as they pulled up near the school, where Adrien was finishing up with a fencing lesson. He and Adrien were hoping to make the swap earlier than they had the previous time, since the photoshoot was pretty much right after Adrien's fencing lesson got out and it would be hard for them to swap without risking someone noticing. "And be very clear vocally about your objections, so that the recorder will pick them all up."

"Will we be able to use the recordings, do you think?" Felix asked, a thought occurring to him last-minute. "Or is it against the law here? I think it's fine back at home, but…"

"I'll deal with it if there's any legal issues," Amelie assured him. "I have connections, and I'm not afraid to use them."

That didn't quite answer Felix's question, but he supposed that it was as good of an answer as any. With one last check to make sure that he looked like Adrien and had everything he needed, Felix hopped out of the car and slipped into the school, making his way to the locker rooms. The fencers were finishing up their last matches, so it was easy enough for Felix to head to the bathrooms and text Adrien to make sure that he would know to come into the bathrooms, too. They wouldn't see each other face-to-face before the photoshoot- after all, Adrien's teammates might question how he had somehow doubled himself if they ran into the two of them in the bathroom- but it would make the trade much easier.

It wasn't long at all before Felix heard someone else enter the bathroom. He straightened in his stall, listening closely and keeping an eye on his phone. That could be Adrien, but it could just as easily be one of his teammates.

Luck was on his side. His phone buzzed, and a message lit up the screen.

Adrien: In the bathroom. Left my fencing bag on the chair near the door- you can take it so that the Gorilla doesn't wonder where I left it.

Felix nodded and shot back a quick message.

Right. See you later.

After another pause, Felix stepped out of his stall, heading for the sinks and washing his hands before claiming the fencing bag that was sitting on the somewhat out-of-place chair near the door. One glance- or rather, one whiff- inside assured him that it was Adrien's bag, and so Felix slung it over his shoulder before heading out into the locker rooms. A few good-byes to Adrien's teammates later and Felix was in Adrien's car, being whisked efficiently away by his bodyguard to the photoshoot.

Trade-off: smooth as butter.

Now that he had been to a photoshoot once, there was far less hesitation in Felix's step as he headed into the small tent to change, then out to hair and make-up for a touch-up. He had to wonder why Mr. Agreste would schedule a photoshoot for right after fencing in the first place as the stylists teased his hair to perfection. Surely the real Adrien's hair would be sweaty and messy after fencing and it would have made more sense for him to have some time for a shower first?

Maybe this was a one-off thing, just happening because they were trying to catch up on photoshoots after exams and they also had to work around Lila's schedule. If she even had one, that was. Something made Felix guess that Lila simply spent a lot of time holed up in her room, scheming and plotting. Maybe she pretended that she had a packed schedule in front of her friends, but in reality...

Well, one had to be really uninteresting to go to the same amount of effort that Lila was to get attention, and that generally suggested a lack of real activities to do.

Just like the previous time, the photoshoot started with individual shots. Felix went through the motions, posing and adjusting his expression as requested. It all went very smoothly...

...and then Lila showed up.

While Lila did her first individual shoot and Felix changed into his next outfit, he pulled the recorder that his mom had given him out. It was small and discreet, easy enough to hide until his shirt or in a pocket without creating any lumps. He got it set up to start recording, then headed outside, resigned to at least a few minutes of dealing with Lila and her grabby hands.

And as expected, Lila started clinging to him the second that Felix got back outside.

"Positions, please!" Simon called. "I want you back to back, but not quite touching, just next to each other-"

"Don't you think that we should be closer, though?" Lila asked immediately, wrapping her hands around Felix's bicep. "We could play a couple!"

"Not for these outfits," Simon told her. "Backs to each other, please-"

"Oh, but I think-"

"I think my sleeve is getting wrinkled," Felix commented, trying to step away from Lila. "And if you don't let go, you're going to bruise my arm."

Lila scowled and finally released him. Felix readjusted his shirt- there were no wrinkles, of course, the lovely light fabric that the shirt was made out of wasn't the type to get creased up by a minute's clinging- and then slid easily into position.

"Good, Adrien, perfect!" Simon called. "Lila- no, not like that, I want your arms crossed- if you stand like that, it looks like you're trying to cop a feel, and no one wants that."

...Felix wasn't even surprised.

The next few shots went the same way. Lila was clingy, but not as incredibly forward as she had been at the end of the previous shoot. Maybe getting her off required several reprimands and comments about how she was messing up his outfit, but she did get off. Eventually.

And then they changed outfits again, and Simon consulted his shot sheet. His eyebrows raised, and then he glanced between Felix and Lila. "The top suggested theme for these outfits is, ah, summer romance."

Felix blinked. That... was not what he was expecting. It sounded like something that Lila would have suggested, not something that Adrien's stick-in-the-mud father or his secretary would come up with.

And then it hit him like a brick. He would bet anything that this was what Lila had been talking to Nathalie about at the previous photoshoot. She had been the one pushing and pushing for a 'Summer Romance" theme for an excuse to get close to him in the previous shoot, and now she had gotten it.

"Oh, that's lovely, isn't it, Adrien?" Lila trilled. She attached herself to his arm, plastering herself against his side. "There's so much to work with there! Hugs, kisses- we'll be so cute together!"

"I'm not comfortable with that," Felix said at once, looking to Simon. "You said that was a suggested theme. Would it be possible to go with another theme?"

Simon nodded, referencing his sheet. "Yes, of course. One of the other suggestions was-"

"Oh, I think we should at least try it!" Lila insisted. Her grip got tighter, and her nails dug in. "Here, let's just start now and not overthink it!"

With that, she bounced up on her toes and tried to press a kiss to Felix's cheek, aiming for close to his mouth. Felix leaned back as fast as he could, dodging her completely in one quick movement.

Maybe he had complained about taking gymnastics as a child, but sometimes it really did come in handy. Perhaps he should consider picking it back up again.

"I'm not comfortable with that," Felix told her clearly, ignoring Lila's scowl and the way her nails dug in even deeper. "And since I said no, we're not doing it."

"Well, I want to!" Lila insisted. "Come on, Adrien! We're friends, aren't we?"

There was that edge again. This time, Felix knew what it meant: by the time the photoshoot ended, she was probably going to start her attacks on Marinette's character. It was an attempt to bring Adrien back under her control.

Too bad she was dealing with Felix, not Adrien.

"That doesn't mean that I'm comfortable doing romantic shots," Felix said firmly. "Particularly if you're going to try to spring unwanted kisses on me. Now kindly let go of my arm. Your nails are digging in."

A scowl flashed across Lila's face before she pasted on her happy face again. "How can you know that you aren't comfortable with it until you've tried it? At least a few shots-"

"Remove your fingers from my arm or I will remove them for you."

Lila's grip only got tighter. "Stop complaining, I'm hardly-"

Felix didn't let her finish. Before she could break any more skin, he grabbed two of her fingers and bent them back sharply. They gave with a (satisfying, Felix had to admit) crack, and Lila snatched her hands back with a cry.

"My fingers!"

"I told you to let go," Felix told her tartly, stepping away and rolling up his shirt sleeve to reveal the dents and cuts from Lila's nails. "Simon, would you mind snapping a picture of this? I have a photo from when she did this during the last photoshoot, but this is far worse."

Simon nodded at once, getting in close and snapping photos from all angles. Across the way, Nathalie finally noticed the commotion and hustled over, glancing between Felix and the sobbing Lila.

For once, Felix was willing to bet that the tears weren't fake.

"He broke my fingers!" Lila sobbed, clutching her hand close to her chest. "Adrien, I can't believe that you would be so mean-"

"Nathalie, I think you should look at this," Simon told Nathalie, pulling her over next to Felix. "Adrien has commented numerous times during photoshoots that Lila is holding on to his arm too hard. He asked her to let go several times in a row before he pulled her off, and- well, I can't blame him, she's drawn blood."

Nathalie's lips pressed together in a thin line as she inspected the injury, and then she pulled out her phone. "I'm going to call Lila's mom, and then I'll call Mr. Agreste. I think it's safe to say that Lila will be fired. This is unacceptable."

Felix could barely hide his smile.

  Twelve minutes later, Mrs. Rossi rushed into the park, her wide eyes locking onto the still-sobbing Lila almost immediately. She rushed to her daughter's side at once, kneeling down beside her.

"Mio caro, what happened?" Mrs. Rossi asked, reaching for her daughter. "Ms. Sancoeur said that you got your fingers broken!"

"What happened is that Lila learned the consequences of sexual harassment," Felix cut in coolly before Lila could speak up, and Mrs. Rossi's head swung to the side, her eyes wide. "Some of the consequences, at least. I will be pressing charges, and she'll be lucky if I'm the only one."

"Se- sexual harassment?" Mrs. Rossi exclaimed, glancing between him and Lila. "Surely that's an exaggeration, Nathalie, how on earth would Lila do anything that could be considered sexual harassment to her boyfriend during a photoshoot? Surely this was just an overreaction to a lover's spat-"

"I was not aware that your daughter was dating anyone, least of all me," Felix told her, since- well, it was true. After all, Adrien wouldn't touch someone like Lila with a ten-foot pole. "Frankly, considering how often Lila lies, I'm surprised that you believed her at all. No one wants to be dating a liar, particularly a social-climbing liar with no respect for personal space."

Mrs. Rossi reeled back. "A- a liar? No, Lila's a sweet girl!"

"They're just trying to frame me, Mommy!" Lila sniffled, and Felix rolled his eyes. Of course she would pull out the mummy card now. "Adrien just a-attacked me out of nowhere, we were just modeling-"

Felix snorted. He had abandoned his Adrien act for good now, and from the looks he was getting from Nathalie, she had caught on to the switch. He held up his injured arm, deciding to ignore Lila completely. She clearly wasn't going to admit that she was in the wrong, so entertaining her at all was a lost cause. "A 'sweet girl', hmm? She's given both me and my cousin bruises from clinging so hard, and now she's broken my skin. And she's been threatening to destroy the reputation of one of my cousin's classmates, all because she's a petty brat who hasn't been properly contained."

Mrs. Rossi shook her head, her eyes wide as she took in the injuries. "No, that doesn't sound like her at all! Why- why would she want to destroy anyone's reputation, that makes no sense!"

"Because I haven't-"

"Because Marinette called her out on her lies," Felix told Mrs. Rossi tartly, raising his voice over Lila's whine. "The lies about knowing all sorts of famous people personally, because she 'saved their cat' or was personally helping them with songwriting or was running a million charities, or the lies about going on a- what was it, a three-month trip out of Paris during the school year, when she was actually here the entire time?"

Mrs. Rossi slumped on the ground. "No, no, I can't- I can't believe this-"

Lila shuffled closer to her mom, still clutching her hand to her chest as she made another effort to squirm out of the situation. "They're lying, mama, don't listen to them-"

"Well, you had better start believing it!" Amelie snapped, appearing out of the nearby trees and striding up to the group. She waved her phone. "I have pictures of your little hussy of a daughter trying to force a kiss on my son, and we have evidence of her refusing to let go of my son's arm. You should be ashamed, really! I don't know how I would be able to show my face in public if my son acted the same way that your daughter has! Lying and manipulation and sexual harassment and threats for months and months and months on end, and what have you done to stop it? Nothing, by the sounds of it!"

"I didn't know-" Mrs. Rossi started, but Amelie cut her off with a scoff.

"You didn't know? Oh, excuse me for not being very impressed there. I've been busy as anything quite often with my projects and modeling and films and charity and events, but you had better bet that I made the time to check in with Felix's teachers! If I didn't have the time to go in before or after school, I emailed them. I made sure that I met his friends. I knew the instant that he started acting out, and I could talk to him about it. Have you done any of that?"

"No, but-"

"And this whole business with Lila being 'out of the country' for months! How did you miss that she wasn't going to school?" Amelie demanded.

Mrs. Rossi flinched. "I- she said that the school was closed because of akuma attacks-"

"For three months? That's not even a good lie! Do you live under a rock? Sometimes the akuma attacks drag on for a bit, but it's just hours, not- not even days! All you would need to do to disprove her ridiculous lies would be to turn on a TV! Or do a Google search, that only takes seconds!"

"I-" Mrs. Rossi swallowed hard, and her voice got quiet, nearly inaudible. "I was busy at a new job, and I- I thought that I could trust her."

"Clearly not!"

"In any case, Lila is fired as a Gabriel model, and we will be plenty transparent with the media as to why should they ask," Nathalie told Mrs. Rossi, consulting her tablet. "Adrien has confirmed that he's been grabbed at just like Felix, and that is unacceptable. Mr. Agreste expects that his son be able to work without being sexually harassed by other models."

Mrs. Rossi only nodded, all of the fight drained out of her. Lila whipped her head back and forth between her mom and the rest of the group, panic starting to spread across her features.

"Mama, you don't believe them, do you-"

"Quiet, Lila," Mrs. Rossi snapped. "I've heard enough. I've seen the evidence. I know that you're lying now."

Lila's face screwed up, and then she suddenly lunged to her feet, right at Felix. "How dare you! I had everything going my way, and you've screwed it up! When- when I get akumatized, you'll regret this, Adrien!"

Felix stepped neatly out of the way, extending one foot just enough to send Lila sprawling back to the ground with a wail of pain but not enough that it would be obvious that it was completely on purpose. "Boo-hoo, cry me a river. Also still not Adrien. Try his stunt double instead."

Lila only sobbed on the ground, clutching at her fingers. Her mom hauled her up, looking completely ashamed as she hustled her daughter away.

"Well, I think that's the end of this photoshoot," Nathalie said as soon as the duo was out of sight. She sighed, massaging her forehead in clear exasperation. "Felix, can I ask that next time, Adrien actually shows up like he's supposed to?"

Felix raised an eyebrow at her. "Why? It's not like anyone will be able to tell the difference."

"Gabriel would be most unhappy-"

"Gabriel is unhappy about most things most of the time, so I don't see how it makes any difference," Amelie told her tartly. She looped her arm through Felix's. "Now, if you'll excuse us, I think that Felix and I have a lawsuit to go file. Good-bye."

As it turned out, Gabriel didn't even have to tell the press why its newest model had been abruptly dropped. An Adrien fan had been hidden nearby and watching the shoot, and had taken video of the entire Lila downfall. It had been uploaded at once, and spread across the internet by other fans.

Fortunately, it meant that- at least in Paris- no one would ever believe Lila Rossi again. The outrage over everything that she had done- and especially the attempt at a forced kiss and the clinging to Felix hard enough to break his skin- was enough that Felix was pretty sure that no one would even try to be her friend out of pity. There was no way that any of Adrien's classmates would miss the news, either, which was really what they were most interested in.

Unfortunately, Adrien's fans were over the moon at the idea of an Adrien stunt double, because it meant that there were two of them.

...and unfortunately for some particularly avid and over-eager fans, Amelie Graham de Vanily was none too thrilled about her son and her nephew getting chased around Paris and was still riding high on the success of her lawsuit against Lila. One dinner with the Bourgeois family later and it was officially against the law in Paris to chase after teen celebrities and to form what amounted to search mobs, and there was going to be further investigation and adjustment as needed to prevent other future harassment. Also- and on a completely unrelated topic- Audrey Bourgeois would be in charge of the wardrobe department on the next Graham Films production.

And as for Felix... well, all of a sudden, Adrien's friends all became a lot more receptive to the idea of inviting him to their get-togethers. Some were still a little wary of him, but that didn't bother Felix at all. After all, Felix was used to people regarding him with some trepidation at home, and he was hardly going to make himself comfortable by acting all warm and cuddly. But several of Adrien's friends were fine with that, or perhaps they just were accepting because they knew that it would make Adrien happy.

Felix didn't suppose that it really mattered either way. He wasn't trying to form lifelong friendships in Paris, just trying to enjoy his summer as well as he could. And with Lila firmly out of the picture- she had been shipped back to Italy to attend boarding school, mostly to keep her away from akumas- and with outwardly friendly company...

Well, the summer was looking bright.

[writing-in-april]

Bowling Ball Baby

Franklin x Female Pregnant Reader

(Franklin is MGG’s character from beginner’s luck)

Gif courtesy of the ever wonderful @imagining-in-the-margins

A/N: I have recently become obsessed with Franklin because of @httpnxtt and @sunlight-moonrise so I decided to write some fluff with a dash of angst for him. I also have smut upcoming for this character as well. Thanks to my beta readers @sunlight-moonrise and @definitelynotkatesblog y’all are amazing!

Warnings: Fluff with a dash of angst, marital dispute at the beginning (is later resolved, and a few swear words.

Masterlist Word count: 1.9k (this was supposed to be a blurb lol)

Fighting with Franklin always left me at rock bottom. We both had feisty personalities but still didn’t fight often, usually just scathing quips when we were irritated. On the rare occasions when we did explode into a fight it was full of screaming, crying, and hurtful comments. Our tempers had been close to boiling over for a while now, my pregnancy hormones were making me extremely irritable and Franklin’s feisty demeanor didn’t exactly mesh well with that.

My 8 month pregnant belly felt like I was lugging around a bowling ball constantly, my back felt like it was being broken everyday. I constantly felt like I was standing on pins and needles, plus the baby felt the need to show me just how strong she or he was by kicking me in the ribs.

The fight had started after Franklin came home from work, I was sitting on our couch with my feet propped up and covered in an ice pack to relieve some of the stinging pain. Unfortunately for my poor swollen feet the ice pack did little to dull the throbbing.

“Hey, Frankie?” I called, hoping I could convince him to swap out the thawing ice pack for a frozen bag of peas.

“Not now, I’m busy.” He answered shortly, his back facing away from me, not fully acknowledging my presence. He was usually extra irritable after work; he felt trapped in his job, like it was holding him back from his dream of bowling professionally..

I huffed loudly, not that he could hear it from the other room, doing god knows what. He returned in a rush with his bowling ball bag in his hand, headed for the door, his Big Z Tires shirt hastily thrown on. My mouth fell open when I realized he was leaving for the alley.

“You’re leaving?” I squeaked, watching him while he hastily shoved a bagel in his mouth.

“I’ve got to go to practice” he muffled around a mouthful, sounding annoyed. I always supported Franklin and his dreams of being the best bowler in Little Falls, but this time I wasn’t going to let him escape his responsibilities of our relationship so easily.

“Could you skip today?” Treading lightly by asking softly. “We haven’t spent any time with each other in like a month and even then it was at the alley.”

His face switched from being annoyed to enraged despite my asking nicely, he was still going to get pissed off- figures.

“How could you be so inconsiderate- you know how important this is to me and the whole town!” he yelled. I was spooked but quickly composed myself before replying.

“I’m not being inconsiderate, you're never here.” I stated in a deadly tone, I didn’t want to make this worse by joining in on his raised voice. “I understand it’s the most important thing in Little Falls, but shouldn’t our baby be more important to you?!”

All I got in response was a dismissive scoff. I could feel myself getting angrier, we’d both said we wanted a baby and for the past month he acted like he couldn’t care less.

“You might as well go move into the bowling alley.” I mumbled under my breath, fiery spite fueling my words.

“Even with the pins, it’d still be quieter than your nagging.” he shot back.

“Excuse me?!” Now it was my turn to shout; he just had to continue to stoke the fire increasing in my belly. I waddled my way to stand right in front of him, ignoring the pain of my swollen feet. I didn't want him to wiggle his way out, if he wanted an argument he was going to get one, he was the one who started it after all.

“All you’ve done is whined and complained these past few weeks.” He was acting like a hypocrite, whining and complaining to me about something we both agreed to do together. I had never felt more alone.

“How would you know? You’re never here to spend time with me!” The timbre of my voice cracked as my heart started to shatter.

“Just stop, ok? I get it you’re pregnant but come on Y/N it can’t take that much hard work!” That comment was the straw that broke the camel's back, my anger turned to melancholy as hot tears spilled over onto my cheeks as I waddled away as fast as I could back to our bedroom.

I could hear his desperate voice trying to get me to come back, offering any pleading or begging he could think of, but I wasn’t having it. As I got to our room I slammed the door shut, making sure to lock it tight so he couldn’t follow me. If he wanted to act like a dick, he'll sleep on the couch for the night. Knocks started to hit the door with his voice barely permeating through the wood imploring me to let him in.

Tears fell down my cheeks while I rubbed my belly, all I wanted was for us to be a happy family, but I needed Franklin to be fully committed. Sinking down onto our bed I contemplated where this left us. I almost packed a bag to stay with a friend for the night but I was too tired to go through with it, the fighting had taken all the energy out of me. The mattress cuddled my body but it wasn’t as good as Franklin, which only made the drops fall harder. My sadness deepened when the knocks stopped, the room now a void, offering no comfort to me. Dread sat in my belly as I drifted off into a restless sleep.

~~~

Physically and emotionally I was strung out, I was in no mood to talk or argue so I had been tiptoeing around Franklin all day, his behavior had made me seriously start to question if he was truly invested in our relationship. Once dinner rolled around I padded my way into the kitchen, the baby had been craving some sweets and I was highly considering just binging on candy.

I glanced over to the stove to find a ridiculous sight standing before me. Franklin had his bowling shirt on- he honestly rarely took it off and had about 5 of them. Covering most of the front of his yellow button up was a baby sling I had bought a few weeks ago in preparation, in it sat my old purple bowling ball I used when I was in Highschool. He must’ve dug it out of our closet as I hadn’t used it since our last competition senior year. A wave of nostalgia washed over me as I reminisced about the old team where we’d first met. I gazed at the 8 pound perfectly round ball, weighing down and stretching the fabric directly in the middle, it looked exactly like what you’d think a bowling ball in a baby sling would look- ridiculous.

“I remember you saying you’ve been craving something sweet so I decided to make pancakes for dinner, I even added chocolate chips.” He spoke, breaking me out of my memory. I hadn’t even noticed he was making pancakes, my focus on the bowling ball strapped to his stomach.

“We’re not going to talk about the bowling ball?”

“Well I was being a dick-” I swiftly cut him off. My rage was being stoked slightly by his whimsical attitude, I couldn’t tell if he was trying to cheer me up or was really that thick and couldn’t understand my frustrations.

“Yeah, that’s the understatement of the century.” I’m sure the steely edge to my tone was not lost on Franklin, and I still wasn’t giving him the satisfaction of eye contact.

“Like I was saying- I was being a dick and I was thinking to myself, ‘Frankie she’s carrying the weight of the relationship right now. You want to get inside a woman’s head? You become a woman.’ So I thought I’d join you in solidarity- as an apology.”

Silence filled my part of the conversation as I pondered his words. It certainly was an odd way for someone to make up a fight, usually people bought flowers, chocolate, or go on a fancy date. Franklin, however, always had a way of apologizing in the most obnoxious and ridiculous ways that were incredibly sweet, but also made me want to bang my head against the wall. He had stopped flipping the pancakes, anxiously awaiting my reply to his apology. The slight char they were getting wafted a burnt smell through the air.

“This is the first thing you thought of for an apology?” I giggled out breaking the tense silence, his shoulders relaxed as he let out an audible puff of breath. I may have found this funny but I wasn’t going to let him off the hook just yet.

“Well- you know me, I’m not very good at apologies.” He said in a regretful tone, turning back to the pancakes finally removing the almost carbonized pancake from the skillet. A cringe made its way onto his face after catching sight of the rubbery burnt cake and swiftly chucked it in the trash. “I really am sorry Y/N.”

“You’re saying that now because your back hurts- Am I right?” I narrowed my eyes suspiciously, still not fully accepting this apology.

“No, that’s not the main reason I’m apologizing, but yes, oh my god my back fucking hurts.” His right hand started to massage his sore back as his other poured in the last scrapes of pancakes, sprinkling it with an exorbitant amount of chocolate chips. My mouth was watering at the sight and delicious aroma.

“How long have you been wearing it?” I asked, trying to distract myself from the heavenly scent.

“Like 10 minutes, I totally understand why you waddle now” Flipping over the last pancake, he started to set the table, his waddles were even more awkward compared to mine because of his long limbs.

“Well now that you understand, you’d better be massaging my feet everyday to make up for it.” I sharply stated though I couldn’t help but slip in a few giggles in between. I had been carrying this baby close to 9 months and Franklin could barely handle 10 minutes without keeling over.

“Yes, of course. I promise.” He set the plates of pancakes down on our round table, then pulled out one of the chairs and helped me sit down. I noticed that he had even set up the silverware in its supposed proper place along with the napkins folded into little triangles, he did go all out to make it up to me.“You know, you're the actual god in this family.” He remarked as he slung off the baby sling, relieving the tension from his back. I wished I could do the same.

“I love you, you big weirdo.” I snorted in response. While his godliness was usually referring to his bowling skills, it was nice to have my literal creation and carrying of life inside of me acknowledged too.

“I love you too” He wrapped his arms around me from behind, pressing soft kisses to my neck and rubbing my belly, silently assuring me that everything would be alright.

[ojcobsessed]

oliver jackson-cohen for flaunt magazine, by jessica romoff, july 2019

***

The first horror movie I ever saw was The Exorcist on my grandmother’s RCA console TV, midnight on Christmas Eve. My grandmother is a Catholic Portuguese woman who was devout to cross stitching and Jesus Christ, resulting in crucifixes nailed into every wall of the living room. So, as every flash and jolt from the TV screen would animate the tortured figurines with chilling white light, I prepared in panic and thrill for each one to flip upside down.

Not only did this movie ignite my passionate love for horror, but actor Oliver Jackson Cohen’s passion as well. Mine lead me to accumulating random 70’s slasher movie memorabilia and sporadic nightmares, while Cohen’s lead him to eventually being the star of hit Netflix horror miniseries The Haunting of Hill House as his character Luke Crain, with a few nightmares as well. The 10 episode show is a modern reimagining of Shirley Jackson’s novel “Hill House” and follows the Crain family during the summer they lived in the haunted home, and flashes forward on their lives decades after the tragic events.

During a phone interview with him, I learned Cohen is much more than just a dedicated actor with a jawline that can cut glass; Cohen is a whirlpool of empathy, an artist who gushes his heart into everything he does, and demands that his character Luke, and those battling with similar struggles, are portrayed more than just their addiction.

With your role in last season, I was really impressed by how you portrayed a character with drug addiction, and how you refrained from making him a stereotypical, one dimensional person - and I was wondering how you avoided leaning on this cliche when approaching Luke?

Thank you, number one, I think we all have seen drug addicts portrayed in movies and tv shows before. Most of the time, they are always portrayed as their addiction, and I don’t think that’s very true for anyone who knows anyone who has substance abuse problems; there is actually a fucking person there. So it was very clear from the get-go that I had a responsibility to present a fully formed human being, and they actually brought in a specific writer to write Luke’s character- who was a heroin addict in recovery. I said to Mike, the director and creator of the show - before we even started that it’s very important that Luke is the sum of all his parts and is not just his addiction. So I think that the way I approached it, is that when I first began doing all the research and the pre-work before we started filming, I started looking at documentaries, because I had never done heroin before, so I thought, Oh I’ll start looking at documentaries - but then I realized quite early on that that was putting a judgement on him. And I don’t think it’s fair - because behind anyone who has fallen into this trap is someone who is deeply struggling. And I felt it - I felt a huge amount of, not pressure, but a need to show the person behind the addiction and show the person who is actually struggling, and why he had become an addict. So I focused on that - so I spent no time whatsoever seeing Lucas as a drug addict; I saw him as someone who was struggling to come to terms with everything that he had experienced and happened in his life. And so I focused on anyone who is trying to numb themselves, that know they’re running away from something. So I built up the terror of that, instead of focusing on “I need my fix.”

Was there something that happened in your own life, that was out of your control and not your fault, but regardless someone judged you because of that - perhaps driving your connection to Luke’s character?

Oh 100 percent, and that’s what is so interesting, because I don’t have a substance abuse problem - but I think that out of all the characters I have ever played in the past 10 years, there’s the most of me in Luke. Like, all of that stuff of just trying to function, and the vulnerability, and just trying to be normal, and being so ashamed - all of that is my own shit, and so [laughs] I didn’t need to be a heroin addict to understand the pain that he was going through, so, so much. I think it’s incredible getting to play someone like that because, in a weird way it felt like therapy - I was able to go to work everyday and just be all the parts of myself. I think it’s interesting as well for men, there’s this whole thing about having to be a certain way, having to always be strong, and I think inherently a lot of people do feel incredibly fragile. So all of that stuff of Luke is me, and my stuff, and I didn’t have to pretend - I just got to go to work and be as vulnerable as I feel. You know we all have incredibly complicated lives and incredibly complicated upbringings,  and I used all of my stuff: I was diagnosed with PTSD a couple of years ago so all of that is in there with Luke - and it felt incredibly cathartic to be able to kind of put it all out there and be there.

When your work is something that is so emotionally rigorous, and strenuous, it must be very draining dedicating yourself to a character who is really struggling his whole life  - How do you unwind and decompress from this intensity?

[Laughs] I….you know what, I’m not very good at it. I feel like I’m one of those people, I’m sort of with the school of thought that you either go to work and you fucking do it  - and you do it for real, or go home. I’m not into this whole I’ll just pretend! thing, so it’s probably not the healthiest way of working. But I feel it’s necessary, and then I don’t know how to handle it. There were a couple of days on set where specifically we were filming all of Luke’s episodes or the stuff where he’s sort of roaming the streets - that got way too intense. We would rap at 6 am and I would go back to my house and sleep for a bit, and then wake up and just be so out of sorts: I would have to call people at home to reassure me that everything was okay.

I imagine the intensity can be overwhelming

Yeah, I mean, it sounds really wonky - but I think that when you’re messing around with stuff like that, and you’re tricking your brain into thinking something is real, and then on top of that you’re drawing from your own personal well of shit that probably should be kept untouched - it’s gonna be messy at times. So yeah, it gets… it did get a little hairy. But again I felt that it was important - and I think all of us across the board in the cast felt that it was so important to do that - to give Luke a voice. And what’s been so interesting when the show came out, it was so overwhelming, the response, specifically from people that have struggled with addiction. And it was so warming to hear these stories from people, so I think it was necessary for all of us as actors to go to those dark parts of ourselves, and put that out on screen.

Is there something that you wish you knew before you began acting in a horror TV series? Or about a TV series with intense family drama with horror influence?

Hm..I don’t know. Just… it’s all good. [laughs] it’s gonna be all good.

Honestly, that’s pretty solid universal advice. And I was wondering, are you a fan of horror in general?

Yes! Huge

And is this a genre that you want to continue with?

Yes, I had never done anything horror before, so this was a dream. I remember I watched The Exorcist when I was like eight or something, and it completely terrified me - and I still to this day have nightmares about it. I think what’s so clever about horror, and I think specifically with what Mike has done on our show, it becomes a metaphor for something else. So specifically with Hill House, if you take away the house and all the ghosts and all the horror elements, it’s about childhood trauma. So you can swap out what all those kids went through, the horror they experienced, can be swaped out for sexual abuse, or physical abuse, or anything like that. So you manage to kind of navigate all of these horrific things we kind of don’t want to look at, in the veil of ghosts, so it becomes palatable for an audience. I never knew this, Netflix told me this, that horror is the most watched genre in the whole world.

Really!?

Across the board, yeah! I thought it would be comedy. But that’s why Netflix made the show. Because they realized that actually there was such a massive market for horror. So yeah, a really long winded answer to your short question - yes I was a fan of horror, I always have been.

Me too! I’ve never thought about how horror can be a metaphor for trauma. That’s so fascinating. Just one last question - I know that you can’t say too much about the second season… right? Or they’ll shoot you.

Right [laughs]

So, see if you can answer this: if Season 1 and Season 2 were mythical creatures, what would they be?

[Laughs] What would they be… ahhh...I genuinely don’t know how to answer that question. They’re both just beasts from the darkest corners of our minds. Season 1…. Uh… what I can say - is that season 1 I believe was amazing, and with what they’re doing with season 2 is even…. More incredible.