#contender for one of the best shows of the year | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

youvebeenlivingfictional · 9 months ago

Text

Bad Faith Part Two

Part One | Masterlist

Pairing: Harvey Specter x Reader

Rating: Explicit - 18+. Minors, kindly get off my lawn.

Notes: Not beta-read because when is it ever. Read this over six times but there are probably twenty typos that I'll spot the second I hit post, so. Anyway! Welcome to part two of two!! Thank you for reading 💖

Length: 14.2k

Warnings: Angst; fluff! Huzzah!; Reader’s married surname is Hayward; reader is depressed for swaths of the chapter; unhealthy coping mechanisms; lovers to enemies to allies to lovers; explicit sexual content - vaginal sex, oral sex, hate sex, safe sex

Summary: Your life was four walls, a cruddy bed, rickety furniture. You spent too much time awake when you should’ve been sleeping; too much time reminiscing when you should have been moving on; too much time dwelling on the time that you spent with men in your life that probably wouldn’t spare you another thought.

“Ross. Mike Ross.”

“Cut the Bond schtick.”

“I’m a contender.”

“Not a chance. Besides, we’ve been over this; you’re Q at best.”

“Could do a lot worse than Desmond Llewelyn or Ben Whishaw—Hang on, you think you’re Bond?”

Harvey stopped, gesturing over his body sweepingly before scoffing, “Please.”

“Please is right,” Mike muttered, tucking his hands into his pockets. “You always go to this thing?”

“...I’ve been once or twice.” In truth, Harvey hadn’t been to the New York City Estate and Properties gala in years. He hadn’t had occasion or reason; the last time he had, he’d made sure that she wouldn’t be there before he’d agreed. Tonight his purpose was manifold—drink good champagne, eat good food, and warn Hayward off of pursuing his lawsuits against his client’s property.

His client. It wasn’t as simple as all that, but these days, he’d managed to separate her from the work. It was clinical—and clinical was exactly what he needed.

“Did you see the menu for dinner? I didn’t see a menu.”

“Get your fill of canapes. I’m talking to Hayward and then we’re going.”

“What?” Mike pouted. “But I thought we were staying for the ceremony.”

“You thought wrong. Keep your eyes peeled. Sooner we get this conversation over, the sooner we can get away from this den of cobras.”

“Never have a mongoose when you need one.” Mike nodded over Harvey’s shoulder. “Found Mrs. Hayward.”

“Thought she didn’t like you calling her that.”

“She doesn’t, but around here, it might be better to use that rather than use her maiden name and have someone ask me who the hell I’m talking about…You gonna talk to her?”

“What for?”

“So she at least knows what suit to look for when she wants to avoid you.”

Harvey’s chastising glare was met with a wide, smug grin.

“Come on,” Mike groaned. “You haven’t spoken to her in weeks.”

“And have you considered that that may be why things have been going so smoothly?”

“Fine—I’ll give you another reason you should say hi to her.”

“You better make it a good one this time.”

“Jessica is catching on to the fact that you haven’t touched this case with a ten foot pole.”

Harvey winced slightly as he swallowed the last of his champagne.

“Fine,” He grudgingly conceded, setting the empty champagne flute on a passing waiter’s tray. “Point me.”

“She’s at your two o’clock.”

Harvey turned accordingly, pushed out an annoyed sight—and then felt what breath he had left catch in his throat.

‘Stunning’ was the first word that came to mind, but in his heart, Harvey knew that it didn’t do her justice. For his lingering, abiding annoyance with her, and with them—with the whole goddamn situation—there were moments when Harvey remembered why he’d fallen in love with her in the first place.

She didn’t want to be there. Harvey didn’t need to ask to know that—it was common sense. But that didn’t stop her from showing her face, from being impeccably dressed, and maintaining what had to be a meticulously constructed poker face.

“...You do know what staring isn’t talking, right?”

Mike’s amusement cut into Harvey’s reverie, and he cleared his throat to refocus himself.

“Keep an eye out for Hayward,” Harvey ordered before he forced himself forward, slowly weaving through the crowd.

What the hell was he even going to say to her? Hi wasn’t going to cut it; Come here often? Was almost as stupid. How about something about her dress—Whether or not it was new? That had to be safe, neutral ground—

Harvey had been so focused on what he planned to say that he hadn’t clocked her turning to face him. He chalked it up to panic radar—her hype-sesitivity given the current situation. He stared. She watched. And then—

“Come here often?”

Damnit. Stupid, sure, but at least it wasn’t hi.

“...Annually, at least.”

Was it your imagination, or was Harvey…Nervous? At the very least, he seemed as confused as you were at the fact that he was talking to you.

“I’m a little surprised that you made a showing,” He admitted.

“I could say the same for you. Does Jessica have you prospecting clients to get back in the good graces of the real estate department at the firm?”

Harvey’s eyes narrowed with playful intrigue,and for a moment, you saw a flash of the man that you used to know—the man who gave you that same look when you slipped your panties off and tucked them into his jacket pocket to find later.

“What did Mike tell you?”

You shrugged nonchalantly, glancing around.

“Nothing impor—...Tant.” You trailed off, falling still and quiet as your eyes landed on Steven.

Well, he was hard to miss.

Standing at 6’3, with a manufactured tan, swimmer’s build, full head of gracefully graying hair, and veneers that made his smile look like a neatly arranged row of chiclets gum, Steven Hayward was the very picture of the kind of health that only wealth could buy. With the stress of the last few weeks, you knew that you weren’t looking your absolute best. You’d had so many sleepless nights; you’d swapped out your favorite catered meals in favor of cheaper alternatives, or dollar slices of pizza, or ramen from the bodega down the block from your apartment, pulled gently from beneath the cat that seemed to always be napping on the exact flavor that you wanted.

You were certain that Steven lost no sleep over the decision to divorce you, or to pull the rug out from beneath you. You expected him to be in tip-top shape—but you saw hints of his rage as he grew closer.

“Oh—Hell,” You mumbled, tipping your head toward Harvey. “You might wanna clear out.”

“You kidding? I’ve got a front row seat to the prize fight of the century.”

“Target acquired.”

You frowned at the sound of Mike’s voice, but you didn’t turn to look at him as you muttered, “Target?”

“Darling.” The term of affection oozed past Steven’s bleached-white teeth. He stopped just a couple of steps from you—not near enough to touch, but close enough to see the anger sparkling in his dishwater gray eyes. A pulse of vindication swept through your chest at the tense smile, and the tight pull of his jaw.

“Steven,” You greeted cordially.

“I’m surprised to see you this evening.”

“If I had a nickel.”

“Oh, but you do. Putting all of those properties up for sale, I expect you plan on having more than a few nickels.”

“What can I say? A girl’s gotta get by.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“Have you considered unfreezing our joint account?”

He chuckled humorlessly. “Anything but that.”

“Then wire me half.”

“You haven't earned half.”

It was meant to cut you down and lay you out, but you refused to bow to this man publicly when the other attendees must always hold you in such low regard as it was.

“I agree,” You offered, and before Steven could preen in his false superiority, you clarified: “I deserve more.”

Steven bristled, shoulders bunching tight.

“Perhaps I should just take this evening’s expenses out of that half.”

You furrowed your brow pointedly, shaking your head.

“Mmm…I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

“Really.”

“Mm…N—...No—?”

“Perhaps you’ve been so busy hocking your clothes like a dog snuffling for scraps—” Your face flared with embarrassment as Steven pressed on: “But there was meant to be a reception at my penthouse this evening.”

My penthouse. If it had only been the two of you in that room, you may have slapped him. How had he been able to detach, to force you from his mind and his heart so quickly? Had he ever loved you? Had any man?

The heat of Harvey’s body suddenly seemed to flare just behind you.

“Ah!” You nodded sagely, “It’s all coming back to me.”

“What could have happened there, I wonder?”

“You must not have taken care.”

“Of what?”

Of me. “Of anything.”

Steven took you in for another long, cruel moment before he jutted his chin over your shoulder.

“Friends of yours?”

Ah yes. Your personal legal peanut gallery. You glanced back to confirm their positioning before raising your hand to gesture:

“This is Mike Ross.” The name seemed to knock something loose in Steven’s mind as he shook Mike’s hand.

“Ah, Mr. Ross. I saw your name on some documentation this morning.”

“You’re about to see it a lot more, Mr. Hayward.”

“And this is Harvey Specter.”

Your stomach lurched as Steve’s eyes widened slightly, lips curling into a smile.

“This is Harvey Specter?” He didn’t bother to hide his amusement as he proffered his hand. ”I didn’t realize I sent you the worst possible port in this storm.”

“You didn’t,” Harvey insisted, grasping Steven’s hand firmly. “You sent her to the best.”

“Try not to drop her this time. My arms aren’t open anymore.”

Your hands tightened where they were clasped around one another. You forced yourself to keep your gaze set stalwartly on Steven, rather than watch the contentious (and no doubt, painful) handshake that the two of them were sharing.

“Well,” You chirped. “This was a lovely little catch-up.”

“Yes,” Harvey chimed in, finally extricating his hand from Steven’s and tucking it into his pocket. “We must do it again sometime. Preferably at a deposition.”

“Maybe in court,” Mike added. You had to fight down a smile at the sudden swell of support, and a wave of warmth that swept through you. Steven’s eyes narrowed just a touch more before he nodded.

“I do hope you’ll stay for my speech.”

“Who’d you have write it for you this time?” You asked.

“I took a crack at writing it myself.”

If that was true, it was sure to be a mess and a half. You always had been the one to draft his speeches or remarks—or you paired down any drafts sent over by the agency’s PR department.

“I look forward to it.”

Steven gave you one last look before he turned away, slapping on his businessman smile as he went, and raising a hand to signal someone like a politician trying to garner votes.

“...Why didn’t you mention the forgery charges?” Mike asked.

“It’s too soon to tip our hand...What table are you sitting at?”

“Thirteen,” You sighed.

“Lucky number,” Mike muttered.

“Go change our place cards,” Harvey ordered. “Put us on either side of her.”

You whirled around to face him, stunned at the tight irritation pinching his features.

“So we are staying for dinner?” Mike grinned. Harvey blinked flatly at him before reiterating: “Go.”

You watched Mike duck through the crowd, heading for the dining room.

“Were you not going to stay for dinner?”

“I’ve gotta eat some time. Come on,” Harvey nudged your arm with his, “Buy me a drink.”

“It’s an open bar.”

“Good. Then it won’t break the bank.”

The press of Harvey’s warm hand to your lower back was far more steadying than it should have been, and it managed to dampen the enraged fire in your belly.

“How’s that good faith deposit doing, anyway?”

“I threw 98% of it into an HYSA.”

“Smart move.”

“I should’ve made moves like it sooner.”

“Better late than never.”

“I guess.”

“...You don’t have to stay for dinner.”

“We’re going to.”

“On either side of me as well, I’m flattered. I wasn’t planning on having guard dogs this evening.”

“As long as you don’t try to keep us on short leashes.”

“Depends on whether you plan on doing more barking or biting this evening.”

“I’ve barked enough for now.”

“Biting?”

“If you play your cards right, sure.”

You didn’t bother to hide your open shock at the blatant implication, but when you looked at Harvey, you found him giving you a surprisingly warm smile.

“Looks like speaking with Steven has put a little pep in your step, Mr. Specter.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“What did?”

Harvey leaned heavily against the bar, focus set elsewhere as he tried to catch the bartender’s eye.

“You and I both know that this is going to be a long road. I like a good fight.”

“You don’t say.”

“It’s important to me that you’re ready for it, too.”

You nodded a little. “It may also be prudent for us to keep that fight directed at Steven, and not toward one another.”

Harvey took the two proffered champagne flutes, passing you one and holding it up to cheers:

“I’ll drink to that.”

It wasn’t perfect right away. You and Harvey still butt heads from time to time. On the purchases that the judges ruled that you were able to move forward with, you disagreed over terms—purchase price, contingencies, negotiations. But the knots unpicked sooner and sooner, and you reached resolutions faster. Mike hardly had to intervene anymore. Harvey gave Jessica status updates openly, and you abidingly ignored the smug, self-satisfied smiles that she gave you as you left her office.

With the service and tenancy contracts, the two apartment building sales that aren’t mired in paperwork still chugged along slowly. You knew that it was protocol, but it was excruciating. You felt ill every time you got an email from Mike or Harvey, expecting correspondence that spelled disaster. Every little bit of good news only brought marginal relief.

You spent most of your days in your apartment, packaging clothing or jewelry that you’d sold online. You got your packages sent off by five in the evening, and the rest of your night was your own—though it often ended similarly. Your logical mind often gave over to your emotions in the evening, and you allowed yourself to slip into quiet, depressed oblivion. The methods varied—slurping down two packets worth of dollar-pack ramen, and chasing that with a few bottles of beer as one of your favorite shows played in the background; curling up in your bed and staring at the ceiling at 8 PM, and laying wide awake with your mind racing until the sun came up; hunting through property listings online and plotting a comeback that felt like it would never come.

You never had visitors. Aaron was so entrenched at work that you only got the odd text from him. Your former friends seemed to have further aligned themselves with Steven after his triumphant speech at the gala—during which he had gone out of his way to omit any mention of you from his historical record. You had avoided seeing much of Jessica outside of the office, certain that she would council you on a good divorce lawyer, or encourage you to begin dating, or level another lecture about the stupidity with which you had bungled your last marriage.

For as well as you knew she meant, you didn’t have the time or patience—and some little part of you, some stupid, naïve part that knew well enough that the war was already lost, was convinced that Steven would change his mind.

It was unlikely, considering the magnitude of his cruelty over the last couple of months, and further exacerbated by your actions before the gala. Steven would not let you back into his arms, his home, or his heart. You didn’t truly want to be let back into his arms, or his heart, but you missed his home. You had taken such care in the planning, the curation, the furnishing, the upkeep. You were proud of it. You had been happy, and comfortable, and so goddamn foolish.

Now you were tired, and lonely, and you spent so much of your day feeling stupid.

Sometimes, when the wind blew just a little too hard and rattled the flimsy windows, you let the sound of it cover your sobs against the paper-thin walls that connected you to your neighbor’s apartment (you’d learned just how much sound bled through when you first became privy to your neighbor’s light argument, which had then turned into a full-on shouting match. They’d sounded like they were in the same damn room with you, wall be damned).

It was one such sob session that you managed to hear someone knock on your door. You sniffled, shifting on your bed. You were certain that the sound was from next door, or that you’d misheard the rattle of the window. But when you heard the second, insistent round of knocks, the source couldn’t be mistaken. You sniffled, setting your beer aside onto the bedside table crowded with empties and pushing yourself off of the bed. You swiped haphazardly at the tears on your face as you walked over to it, calling out, “Alright, for fuckssake!” When a third round of knocks rapped against the door.

You threw it open, finally, wincing at the invasive flash of the flickering fluorescent hall light. You weren’t sure what was worse: the flickering, harsh strobe, or Harvey’s stunned confusion.

It may have been a tie.

“…What is it?” You mumbled.

“Have you been crying?”

“Little bit.”

“Are you drunk?”

“Getting there.”

“…Get dressed.”

“What?”

“Get dressed,” Harvey insisted, nodding over your shoulder. “We’re going out.”

“Harvey, I’m really not in the mood,” You sniffled.

“We won’t go far.”

“Then why are we going at all?”

Harvey opened his mouth to answer, but was cut off by a sudden crash! and the swell of yelling voices from next door. His eyes darted toward it before he nodded.

“I’m not listening to that all night.”

“Who the hell says you’re going to be here more than five minutes?”

Your heart stuttered as Harvey’s hands planted firmly on your hips, steering you back into your studio before he nudged the door shut with his foot.

“Get dressed. And hurry up.”

You weren’t sure what it was—his touch, his firm insistence, or your own distaste for your screaming neighbors—but you turned around and began dutifully rifling through one of your remaining trash bags of clothing.

“Where are we going?”

“There’s a diner around the corner.”

“A diner? How down heel of you, Mr. Specter.”

“I can appreciate the simple things.”

You snorted, straightening with a pair of jeans and a sweater. “Since when.” You glanced guardedly toward him before you nodded him toward the door. “Turn around.”

“You can afford better than that place, you know.”

You didn’t answer him. Instead, you shoved a handful of cheese fries in your mouth and leaned back to chew with laborious slowness. You expected Harvey to fill the silence, but he didn’t. He just watched, and waited, and stared at you until you swallowed. You nudged the plate toward him, offering: “Want one?”

You avoided his openly chastising gaze, tired of the fact that it was the only look you get from most of the lawyers in your life these days.

“You have that good faith deposit.”

“I told you where it went.”

“The brownstone payment is on the edge of clearing escrow. Look for somewhere else to live.”

“Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not a good idea.”

“Steven isn’t going to weasel into every potential deal and hold it up.”

“Forgive me for my skepticism, but I don’t exactly have many friends in this city anymore.”

“...Are you planning on going somewhere else?”

You’d be lying if you said it hadn’t crossed your mind. There were cities here you could rebuild your life and your practices, places where you were sure Steven wouldn’t bother to try and strike down your attempts to rebuild your life.

“Maybe,” You admitted. “I liked Cambridge.”

Harvey’s lips twitched with a gentle, regretful smile. It was his turn to reach out and swipe a few fries and chow down.

“Realty up there is pricey,” You added. “Could make a polite killing on student housing.”

“How does one make a polite killing?”

“Decent rent and coin-operated laundry. Maybe some paid parking, a few overpriced but conveniently placed vending machines.”

“Redbull?”

“I was just thinking about snacks, but you know what, Redbull isn’t a bad idea.” You reached out, picking up a fry and drawing it through the splodge of ketchup remaining at the edge of the plate. “Why did you come over?”

“I wanted to let you know that the inspections are finished.”

“On which?”

“The properties that you didn’t know about.”

“Anything stand out?”

“A foundational issue on one of the apartment buildings, but it doesn’t cost enough that it should’ve stopped work.”

“What about the others?”

“Nothing that popped as catastrophic.”

“You have the print-outs?”

“In my car.”

“Why are they in there?”

“I was going to offer to take you for a drink, but you seemed to beat me to it.”

You scoffed, shifting in your seat. “Don’t get all high and mighty on me, Specter.”

“You do that often?”

“What, drink?”

“Yes.”

“Are you accusing me of having a problem?”

“I’m asking if you do that often.”

“Once in a while.”

“New for you?”

“Relatively.”

Harvey eyed you critically for a few moments before he nodded. “Call me the next time you want to have a drink.”

“So you can talk me out of it?”

“So you at least don’t do it alone.”

“I’m usually not in a talking mood when it happens.”

“We don’t have to talk.”

“Oh, please. As if you don’t love the sound of your own voice.”

“Call me anyway.”

You were quiet for a moment before you nodded. “You know, the thought of you dropping by may just be an effective suppressant.”

Harvey’s smile widened a little. “Do you want to put the other houses on the market?”

“I want to walk through the apartment buildings myself before I go through them.”

“What about the ones in the Hamptons and the Cape?”

“I’ll drive up.”

“And Gstaad?”

“A little trickier.”

“Could bill it.”

“I doubt it.”

“You could, under discovery.”

“This would not be covered under discovery.”

“How would you know that?”

“I’m sorry, remind me who used to quiz you for the bar?”

Harvey scoffed softly, averting his gaze to the diner counter. “Well, this may surprise you, but a few laws have changed since then.”

“And this may surprise you, but not only am I aware of that, I’ve also been pretty deeply entwined with lawyers since then. So I’m pretty comfortable making that assertion.”

“And this? You think I’m not billing for this?”

“Oh, I hope you are. I hope you bill for every second that it took you to walk up the steps to my apartment. I want Jessica to pay for my cheese fries. You know why?”

“Because it would kill her?”

“It would drive her nuts.”

“I can’t wait to give her the itemized total.”

“I await the enraged phone call.”

“You don’t have to walk me back up, you know."

“Sure I do. Gotta work off those fries. Besides, I’m billing for this until I officially drop you off.”

You rolled your eyes, nudging Harvey’s shoulder with yours. Your depressed, tear-ridden, sobbing buzz had worn off over the course of dinner, and you didn’t think that the mood would creep back in once you were alone again.

“I’ll walk through the apartment buildings tomorrow and see if I can get up to the Cape at some point in the next couple of weeks. The pictures and notes from the inspection look promising. If I dip into the good faith deposit, maybe I could get the Cape Cod house fixed up and sold before the summer.”

“Or you could keep it as a rental property.”

“Mm.” “You always liked the Cape in the winter…For some reason.”

“I kinda like when it’s all grey and gloomy…and quiet.”

“Be a good base for your Cambridge operation.”

“Oh, please,” You chuckled. “It’s not even close. The red line doesn’t exactly go all the way to Hyannis.”

The two of you slowed as you neared your landing, listening closely.

“...Think the coast is clear?” Harvey murmured.

“For now, at least.” You fished into your pocket for your keys. “Thanks for dinner.”

“Sure. Remember what I said.”

“I will.”

“Call me if you need anything.”

Anything. That was new. You nodded, gaze set on your keys as he turned to go back downstairs.

“...Harvey?”

“Yeah?” He stopped just a few steps away, and you had to scrounge up your courage to turn and look at him again.

“I don’t, um…” You swallowed thickly. “I’m gonna wanna talk about it.” You watched Harvey’s face shift with grim understanding.

“I don’t want to litigate that.”

“Isn’t that your job?”

“Not like this.”

“Not tonight,” You reiterated, “But…Sometime. Please.”

Harvey’s jaw went tight, but he gave you a short, firm nod before he turned away. You watched him round the corner, and listened until his footsteps faded and the front door opened downstairs.

The apartment buildings weren’t anything special. Stripped of most of their insulation, and with several of the windows already removed, the wind that pushed through them made the buildings sound like they were breathing. It was eerie, and chilly. You tightened your coat around yourself as you went from floor to floor, eyeing damaged pipes, areas where someone seems to have come in and rooted around for copper wiring, and the billowing plastic that marks off some doors that have been removed.

The paperwork on this building listed the purchase date as nearly a year ago.

A year ago, you and Steven had been discussing expanding your current operations. Maybe he hadn’t gotten sick of you yet. Maybe he’d bought you the buildings as a present and stopped work when things turned sour…Whenever that had been.

There had been signs, sure, but Steven always had been temperamental.

You pushed the thought away as you drew in a deep breath, turning toward the stairs. It wouldn’t do to overthink this just now. If needed, you could panic looking at the Hamptons, or Cape Cod…Or Gstaad, if you ever found a way to get to Gstaad.

You reached into your pocket as your phone buzzed, drawing it out to find an incoming call. You groaned, stomping your foot petulantly before you raised it to your ear.

“Jessica, I’m a little busy—”

“I need you to come into the office.”

Your fingers tightened around your phone as your palm began to sweat.

“What happened?”

“I’d rather discuss this in person.” “Jessica.”

“Come to the office.”

She hung up without another word. You swallowed thickly, lowering your phone and watching her call blink and then disappear. If she wasn’t willing to discuss it over the phone, whatever it was had to be very, very bad.

“Cheese fries?”

“Jessica,” You groaned, “Come on, there is no way that that’s why you called me here.”

“No, it isn’t. But I’d like to remind you that you should remain fighting fit and cheese fries are not the way to do it.”

“My life has fallen apart and dipped into a moderately humiliating place. I think I’m allowed to have a few cheese fries. Why did you tell me to come in.”

“I have someone that I would like you to meet.”

“I’m not going to start dating anyone now.”

“Well, we can attack that another time. This is for your defense.”

“Harvey’s on that.”

“Your divorce.”

“You know that I can’t afford a defense right now.”

“I don’t mind getting a start while you get the pieces in place.”

The man’s voice caught you off-guard, and you turned to find a man leaning in the doorway. Your brow furrowed a touch as you took him in—the long lean of his body, the neatly fitted charcoal suit and sky-blue tie, the curl of his dark hair, the twinkle of his warm chestnut eyes, and his small, intrigued smile.

“Well that’s very kind of you, whoever the hell you are, but I don’t exactly have anything on the board right now.”

“The fact that you even have a board is encouraging.”

“...This metaphor is beginning to exhaust me.”

“This,” Jessica stepped past you to gesture the man deeper into the room, “Is David Alford.”

“Alford?” You repeated. “Like the plea?”

“No relation. What would you know about an Alford plea?”

“I know of it.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, I used to date a lawyer.”

“Lucky guy.”

“I don’t think he’d agree with you, as evidenced by the fact that he is no longer my boyfriend.”

“It’s nice to meet you.”

You shook his hand lightly, still wary from the ambush.

“Look, Mr. Alford—”

“David, please.”

“—I don’t know what Jessica’s told you about my situation—”

“She didn’t have to tell me much. Forgive my bluntness, but your name has come up in our circles over the last couple of weeks.”

“Well, forgive my bluntness, but it’s not my circle anymore.”

“It could be again.”

“Are you going to get me a circle back in the divorce?”

“I’m gonna get you whatever the hell you want in your divorce.”

You let out a soft, disbelieving laugh, unable to help yourself.

“O-kay,” You lowered your hand.

“Why don’t I see what we can do about getting some coffee,” Jessica offered. “You two talk.”

Your brows furrowed as she waved the two of you more deeply inside. Jessica, at least pretending to get coffee? Damn, she really did want the two of you to talk. You gave David a polite smile as you lowered yourself to sit.

“I’m sorry she dragged you in here.”

“Wasn’t much of a drag. My office is a block away.”

“Well, then I’m glad you haven’t come far for nothing.”

“Nothing?” His brows jumped as he sat beside you. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m not currently looking for a divorce lawyer.”

“You need one.”

“That is beyond the point, Mr—”

“David.”

“...Mister David,” You bit out pointedly, and fought back a wave of annoyance at his amused smile. “I’m not sure how much Jessica has told you, but there are a lot of things up in the air right now. I’ve socked away some money for my defense, but not enough.”

“How would you know what’s enough?”

“...Let’s pretend that I don’t know anything about the law, or the legal quagmire that I’ve gotten myself into. Let’s pretend that all I know about my soon to be ex-husband’s business is that he has a lot more money than I do. The two of us went into our marriage with about 600 bucks and a dream held together with tape and spit. I have watched, and I have helped my husband build up his business for the last eleven years. I have signed contracts, I have signed purchase orders, I have signed mortgages, I have signed deeds. Even if I wasn’t paying attention to what I was signing, I would know that Steven has amassed a lot of cash, a massive legal team, as well as a significant number of holdings—in both our names. He has a lot of power in this equation, and I do not. Whatever comes down the pike, it is going to be a protracted legal battle. If I was optimistic, I would figure that this would take about a year, but I’m not, and I know that it could take a few.”

David’s dark eyes darted fascinatedly across your face before he offered: “But you do know a lot about Mr. Hayward’s business.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Because it was your business, too.”

You averted your gaze from him as that washed over you. His acknowledgement made your heart knock hollowly against your ribs, and it took all of your strength not to slouch dejectedly in your chair.

“...Yes,” You agreed. “It was.” “I understand that you’re discouraged. I would be, too, a lot of women are in your position.”

“Exactly what position is that, Mister David.”

His smile flattened with nerves, and he let out a huffed, joyless laugh.

“I mean, having been served—”

“A piping-hot plate of out on my ass?”

“If that’s what you’d like to call it—”

“I call it that because that’s what it is, not because I like it that way.”

“I understand. Look,” David shifted in his seat, twisting to face you a little more. “I think that regardless of when you get your pieces in place, you have a real case here. I think I can get you half.”

If you had a touch less decorum, you would have jumped out of your seat and screamed—both from the excitement, and the certainty that David Alford was out of his mind. Instead, you blinked twice, and once you managed to unstick your tongue from the roof of your mouth, asked:

“Half?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“There is no way.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“I don’t think I would, because I’m almost certain that’s impossible.”

“Well, it certainly would be before.”

“What exactly has changed?”

“You didn’t know me. You do now.”

You smiled in spite of yourself at the brash, almost fearless way that he said it. As skeptical as you were, you knew that this was exactly what you needed: someone as bold, confident, and fearless as—

“What a cozy little conference this is.”

You turned back at the sound of Harvey’s voice, smiling a little. “Looking to join the fun?”

“If I can hazard a guess at Jessica’s matchmaking, Alford is the one joining the fun.”

“Specter,” David greeted, pushing himself out of his seat. “Haven’t seen you at the squash courts recently.”

“I’ve been trolling the back nine,” Harvey offered, shaking David’s hand. “Nice to see you, Pleas and thank you.”

Your brow furrowed at the term. “What?”

“It’s what some of the guys at the club call me. You know, my name—”

“Alford pleas and thank you.” You scrubbed your hand across your brow. “God, that’s dumb.”

“We can’t all be queens of quip.”

“You poor things,” You shot back scathingly. Harvey shot you a wink before turning back to David.

“So, David, whaddaya say?” Harvey plied. “You filling the gap?”

“Yeah, I’d love to fill ‘er in.”

You didn’t miss his innuendo, nor the speculative, open, sweeping gaze that David leveled at you. Your brows inched toward your hairline, stunned at his brazenness. Surely you hadn’t seen it right—

“Coffee?”

Your focus was broken at the sound of Jessica’s voice, and the sight of a coffee tray being wheeled in behind her. You let yourself be busied by it. You focused on your coffee, made it the way you liked, and let Jessica and David and Harvey talk about what you could reasonably expect out of the divorce battle.

Reasonably, as if this entire situation hadn’t been insanely unreasonable.

But you let yourself sit, and listen, and save your speculation for the train ride home.

You must’ve read his look wrong, or misunderstood. He didn’t mean it like that.

And even if he did, finding that look intriguing was incredibly appropriate. But it didn’t matter! Because he didn’t mean it like that.

…And even if he did, it was probably just something that he tried to bring you on board. But it didn’t matter, because he did not mean it like that.

…

Though if he did, it really wouldn’t matter, because it would be grounds for him to be disbarred. Nothing was going to happen…Even if you did find him attractive, and found his blunt approach and self-assured nature very, very hot.

But you were not going to fuck him.

“Don’t fuck him.”

You had expected the warning to come from Jessica, but to hear it from Harvey of all goddamn people made you gape at him in shock. He just gave you a knowing look before he turned back toward the beer that he was opening.

Your urge to have a drink that evening hadn’t been strong, but it had been there, and it had made you think of Harvey’s offer from the day before. You hadn’t expected such a quick response to your simple text of ‘Beer?’, but he had turned up a mere half hour later, a fresh six pack in hand. He had shrugged off his jacket, tossed it on to your bed, and walked over to your kitchenette—where he proceeded to say the most heinous thing.

“Excuse me?” You finally managed.

“You heard me.”

“I don’t think I did, actually, not properly, because it sounded like you just gave me an order that you had no business giving.”

“I have plenty of business.”

“No—”

“Don’t—”

“No no no, you do not, not here, and not like that.”

“I’m just saying,” Harvey turned from the counter, planting his hand on the cruddy formica, “That I know—”

“Do not say that you know me.”

His expression darkened, and you watched as he drew in a deep breath. “I know him.”

“...He has to be good, or Jessica wouldn’t have pulled him on to my case.”

“He’s a good lawyer, but he’s a scuzzy asshole.”

“I know the type.”

“You think I’m a scuzzy asshole?”

Your gut dropped at the hint of anger seeping into his tone.

“I meant Steven.”

Harvey turned away, hand curling into a fist and knocking lightly on the counter.

“Just…Be careful with him.”

“You are the last person that has any right to lecture me on the care that I ought to take with the men in my life.”

“I’m not lecturing you—”

“No, you’re warning me off, like a little kid that’s playing too close to an electric fence.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fine by me, as long as you don’t fuck David.” “Alright, you know what,” You pushed off of your bed, striding over to your door. “Get out.”

“We’re not done talking about this.”

“Yes, we are. Get out.”

“We’re not done until—”

“We’re done when I say we’re done!” You began to yank your door open. Harvey was across your small space in a moment, palm flat against the door as he shoved it shut behind you.

“And what the hell gives you the right to decide that?”

“Because it’s my turn!” You barked. “I get to decide when we’re done now.”

“It stopped being your turn when you stormed out of my office.”

“Then make the damn decision yourself and get the fuck out of my apartment!”

“If you want to ruin that man’s career and your chances of getting anything that you want out of your divorce, you go right ahead.”

“I am not going to fuck him, and I’m not going to get him disbarred, you ass.”

“Good.”

“And I deeply resent the implication that I’m so sex-starved and desperate that I’m willing to fuck anyone who gives me any goddamn attention.”

“I did not—”

“Yes, you did, you did the second you opened your mouth. By rights, if that’s your view of me, I should’ve tried to not only fuck Mike, but you, of all people.”

“I never implied that you were sex starved, but if you were, you could do a lot worse than Mike—”

“Oh, really—”

“And a helluva lot worse than me.”

“Oh, please! There is no way that I could do worse than you. There are dictators that I’d sooner fall into bed with.”

“If all you’re cutting out is the bed, I can work with the rest.”

You could’ve slapped him. He was close enough, and you could just imagine it—the way the flush of red would look spreading across his cheek.

“What makes you think I’d ever allow you anywhere near me again, Specter?”

“I’m pretty damn close now.” He shifted closer, stopping as the tips of his shoes brushed your socked feet.

“Against your better judgment.”

“You want to put me in my place, sweetheart, you go right ahead.”

“Don't call me that.”

“Why not.”

“Don’t you dare call me that.”

“Give me a good reason not to.”

“You haven’t earned it back.”

“Any idea of how I might do that?”

You bit him. You grasped his tie, tugged him in, and sank your teeth into his lower lip. You expected an argument, but Harvey just groaned, grasping you by the hips and shoving you back against the door. You released his lip, groaning as he swept his tongue into your mouth. Your hand unwound from his tie, breath leaving you in harsh puffs as Harvey’s smearing kisses trailed down your jaw to your neck. You arched up into his touch as his hands slipped under your t-shirt, palming and squeezing whatever skin he could reach. You reached down, hands fumbling with nerves and heat as you worked off his belt.

Every time your mind began to race, Harvey managed to quiet it, with his teasing tongue, and nipping teeth, and grasping fingers. For all of his big talk about getting David disbarred, Harvey suddenly seemed to not give a damn about his own career—

You whined as Harvey yanked down the cup of your bra, knuckles toying with your pebbling nipple. You palmed his hardening cock through the soft fabric of his trousers, thrilling in his moan, and the press of his hips up against your touch. His fingers snaked beneath the band of your sweatpants, sweeping against your clit before swiping slower.

“You’re already so goddamn wet,” He growled, easing a finger into you. You pressed into his touch, gritting your teeth as he goaded: “You like pissing me off this much?”

“Condom?”

“Left pocket.”

You reached into his pocket, brushing against his cock as you drew out the foil packet. Why wasn’t it tucked somewhere discreet, like his wallet? You pushed the thought away as you ripped the foil packet open with your teeth. Harvey let go of you just long enough to shove his pants down around his thighs, then push your sweatpants.

“Turn around.”

You passed him the condom before doing as you were told, leaning heavily against the door. You expected a stretch, but slick heat pressed between your spread thighs. Your mouth dropped open in a moan, eyes squeezing shut as Harvey lapped and laved your slick, heated skin. You reached back, fingers scrabbling to grasp the neat coif of his hair.

“Harvey, damnit,” You gasped. “Just fuck me already.”

He groaned in dissent, giving your lips one more sucking kiss before straightening fully. You felt one palm smooth over to your thigh, and saw the other rest against the door as he eased into you. Your lips parted with a gentle whine at the pleasurable throb of his cock stretching you. You planted your hand on the door beside his, steadying yourself as you adjusted.

He didn’t give you long. Harvey drew back before his hips snapped sharply. You pressed your cheek to the door, skin growing clammy between the flimsy particleboard and the hot panting of your breath. The harsh slam of his hips forced your body uncomfortably against the door. You let your eyes slide closed as Harvey’s hands covered yours, drawing them just above your head as he intertwined your fingers. The door rattled in the frame with each thrust. You whimpered as Harvey pressed his face into your neck, felt his hot breath and the rumble of his groans against your skin.

Your thighs ached, and your heart pounded, and your cunt throbbed, and goddamn it felt so fucking good.

The swell of your orgasm rose and crested sharply, and you didn’t bother to hide the shuddering of your moan, your grip tightening on Harvey's hands. He followed close behind, hips pounding and juddering before he slowed. The two of you stood still for a few long moments, listening to one another’s panting and coming down. Harvey carefully extricated your hands from yours, drawing away and leaving you half-bare and chilly against the door.

“...I need a beer,” Harvey muttered, voice hoarse.

“You left one on the counter.”

“You want one?”

“Yeah.”

You reach down, tugging up your sweatpants as you gently peel yourself back from the door.

“It’s probably going to be lukewarm,” Harvey warned.

“I don’t care.” You drew in a shaky breath as you walked back toward your bed. You’d already sworn that you wouldn’t let him into it. You lowered yourself to sit beside it, looking at the door as the swirl of confused thoughts shifted back to the fore. You watched Harvey tie off the condom and drop it into your trash bin. You tracked his movement—from cleaning up, to doing up his pants, to washing his hands. You didn’t bother to hide your open speculation as he opened another beer, then took the two up. You drew your legs together, biting your lip as your slick cunt pulsed.

Harvey lowered himself to sit beside you, holding a beer out and lightly knocking his against yours before you each took a drink. You winced a little at the taste. You should’ve listened to him—the taste of lukewarm beer was not appetizing. You saw Harvey reach up out of the corner of your eye as he loosened his tie.

“...What was that about getting someone disbarred?”

“Shuddup.” There was no heat to how he said it, and that was probably why it made you snort a laugh.

“Harvey?”

“What.”

“Did you come over planning to fuck me?”

“What?”

“Why was there a condom in your pocket?”

“I had a date.”

Your brow furrowed as you took that in.

“...When?”

“Tonight.”

“Why aren’t you there?”

“Because I’m here.”

Harvey Specter broke a date. Harvey Specter broke a date for you. You leaned back against the bed again, biting the inside of your cheek to quell a wide grin.

“Don’t read into it,” He added.

“I’m not reading into anything…Apart from the fact that you seemed pretty sure you were going to get laid.”

“I was.”

“Arrange for that, did you?”

“No need to arrange anything. I’m just good like that.”

“Well. Can’t argue with that. For the record—”

“What.”

“You really have no say over who I do and don’t fuck.”

“I know.”

“Good.”

“...You going to the Hamptons next weekend?”

“Yeah.” “How are you getting up there?”

“I was going to take the train.”

“I could give you a ride.”

“You already have.” You cast Harvey a knowing smile, grin widening as he shot you a sidelong, unimpressed glance. Your smile turned to giggles as Harvey seemed to smile in spite of himself.

“You really think we could stand to be in the car with one another for more than twenty minutes?” You prodded.

“If not, we could always pull over and work out our differences.”

“Pfft. No other weekend plans?”

“Nope.”

“Didn’t promise a rain check?”

“Didn’t specify when it might happen.”

“Mm. And why would you want to come with me?”

“Steven could be watching those properties, waiting for you to turn up. You could benefit from having back up.”

“You make it sound terribly sinister. Have you figured out how to bill Gstaad yet?”

“I’m working on it.”

“Keep me updated.”

“Sure.”

“I don’t mean for, you know—I don’t want a vacation.”

“You’ve earned one.”

“Whatever, I just don’t like to put something on the market without doing a walk-through myself.”

“I understand.”

You leaned back against the bed a little more heavily, gaze wandering toward the door, where a little bit of your makeup was smeared from the press of your cheek.

“...Harvey?”

“Mm?”

“Can we talk about it?”

“The sex or the other thing?”

“The other thing.”

“I’ve already had one fight with you today. I don’t think I have the capacity for two...Do you?”

You shook your head.

“Some other time,” He promised.

“Sure.”

You had seen the paperwork and the inspector’s notes, but to see the house in the Hamptons was a whole other story. The long gravel driveway was lined with a horse fence on the left, and a plain wood fence on the right. You didn’t bother to hide your open, stunned stares as you passed the stables. It was hardly the first time you’d seen a home like it, but it was unfathomable that Steven seemed to have not only put the house in your name, but completely forgotten about it.

Harvey pulled the car into the neatly manicured lot.

“Do you want to start in the stables, the house, the pool, the tennis court…?” He shut the car off, waiting for your reply. You shook your head.

“I only care about the house,” You admitted.

“So we won’t be walking the expansive lawns? I brought my sneakers.”

“Do I even want to know how expensive those sneakers are?”

“They’re worth more than your apartment.”

“I’m willing to believe that.” You climbed out of the car, eyeing the inspector’s report as you rounded toward the front steps. You turned from the paperwork to take in the house’s appearance more clearly. It was…Ugly. The large, L-shaped, gray-brick building had the modernistic development of the fast-casual apartment buildings in the city, with some of the gauche touches of your penthouse, like the expansive floor-to-ceiling covering nearly the entirety of the bottom of the floor. You could see a balcony on the left side of the house, and another around the other end of the L.

“...This is different.”

“It’s criminal,” You muttered.

“Are you saying that because he forged your signature, or because it’s ugly as sin?”

“Both. Come on.”

You walked up to the front door, punching in the code that the realtor had given you to get the door open.

The foyer was as flat and uninspired as the outside of the house—white marble floors, grey walls, and sterling silver furnishings. You grimaced as you looked around.

“Are we doing a complete walk through of this millennial grey gulag?”

“If you’re going to hate it, you can wait in the car,” You offered, glancing toward Harvey. “Apparently there are fifteen bedrooms and nine bathrooms, and I don’t know how much of your cute commentary I can deal with today.”

“Seemed to handle it fine in the car.” Harvey turned left before you could say or do anything else, and you followed him, looking down at the property’s map.

“This place oughta have one of those fricking mall maps with a star labeled ‘You Are Here’,” You grumbled.

“Now who’s making cute comments.”

–

“My feet hurt,” You groaned, plopping onto a boxy, stiff-cushioned couch.

“You’d think after the last couple of months of living in that walk-up, you’d be in better shape.”

“You’d think.”

“It’s all those cheese fries.”

“Oh—shut up.”

“So, what do you think?”

“I think we throw it on the market for 18 million and I forget that it ever existed.”

“Why list it in your name, though?”

You shrugged, looking around. “Maybe it was in both our names when he bought it and the outcome was such a disaster he decided to leave my name on it. I think he designed it.”

“Really?” Harvey’s brows rose as he looked around.

“Oh, god yeah. Steven can be smart, but he’s never really had any design sense. I wound up taking charge on some of our early flip projects because he just didn’t have the eye for it. He always tried, but I kinda wound up following behind and fixing his messes. If I had to guess, he bought this place to show me that he really could do it, and he just…Can’t.”

“Do you think Cape Cod and Gstaad will be the same?”

“Doubtful. The report for Cape Cod said that the house was originally built in 1950…what. Four?”

“Something like that.”

“It looks like he gutted it like he did the apartment buildings and realized how much of a project it would be. Gave up on it.”

“And Gstaad?”

“Work out how to expense the trip and we can talk.”

Harvey chuckled, wandering closer. “Should we christen it?”

“Christen what?”

“This house.”

“How?”

Harvey’s brows waggled salaciously, and you laughed, pushing yourself off of the couch. “Oh no, Specter. No way—”

“Why not?”

“You wanna christen every room? You don’t have the stamina for that—And I don’t have the patience.”

“What about just in here?” He curled his arm around your waist, drawing you closer. “On that stupid couch, over the piano…How about up against the windows?” His voice dropped to a murmur. “There’s no one around for miles.”

You rolled your eyes despite your amusement.

“If you said that with the Kubrick stare, I’d think you were going all Jack Torrence on me.”

“Heeeeeeeere’s Harvey.”

“Ugh! God, let’s just go,” You pushed out of Harvey’s arms, heading for the door. “It’s kinda creepy being here, you know. Like Steven’s watching.”

“The house can’t be haunted, he’s not dead.”

“He is to me.”

–

“When are you planning on going to Cape Cod?”

“Mm…Probably next week.”

“Driving up?”

“Taking the train.”

“Again with the train.”

“I don’t have a car and I’m not going to rent one.”

“Are you staying overnight?”

“No.”

“You’re going to go up and back on the train in one day? That is a long day.”

“I can handle it.”

“You’d be more comfortable in a car.”

“Yeah, obviously—Eyes on the road, Specter.” You reached out, poking his cheek as he glanced over at you. He batted your hand away lazily before turning back to the road.

“Why do you always insist on doing things in the most difficult way possible?”

“Because in most cases, the most difficult choice is also the most cost-effective. Efficiencies can be cruel, Harvey.”

“Cruel is an understatement.”

“I can handle a day on the train.”

“If you say so.”

“I do say so, thank you.”

“Stubborn.”

“...Do you wanna come up when we get back to my place?”

“What for?”

You tipped your head to the side, waiting for Harvey to glance over before you teasingly waggled your brows.

“Oh, so now you want to?”

“I wanted to then! But I couldn’t do it if I felt Steven looming over me. C’mon, Specter,” You reached out, gently teasing your nails along the back of his neck, and grinning as he shifted slightly in his seat. “See if you can get me any more out of breath than walking up six flights of stairs.”

“Hey, there you are! Jessica needs to—What’s that face for?” Mike’s concern fell away at the sight of Harvey’s self-satisfied smile as he stepped off of the elevator. Harvey gave a dismissive shrug. What the hell was he going to tell Mike? That he’d spent the weekend somewhere other than his place? That he had fallen asleep with her, and remembered how serene it used to be to wake up with her? That they’d hardly left her cruddy apartment—hell, they’d hardly left her bed?

“Nothing. What were you saying?”

“Jessica needs to see you.”

“Right now?”

No sooner had the words left his mouth did Jessica step out from around the corner, drawing him up short.

“Yes,” She insisted firmly. “Right now.”

Harvey had the strange sense of a child being marched to the principal as she led her way to her office. She shut the door behind the two of them, striding past him to her desk.

“Can this wait?” Harvey hedged. “I’ve got coffee going cold on my desk.”

“Well then, I’ll make this quick. Did you have a nice time this weekend?"

That should've been his warning. It was a solid leading question, and one that, on any other Monday, he would not have hesitated to answer. His eyes narrowed slightly, before he decided—Yes, she must have known that he drove to the Hamptons. Someone would have told Jessica: Mike was still in the habit of offering updates when he thought they would be helpful.

"Yes," He finally answered.

"Was it a productive trip?"

A second warning. Jessica was a strategist, and Harvey knew that any lawyer worth a damn didn't ask a question that they didn't already know the answer to. Still, he chose a carefully middle-of-the-road answer:

"She was happy to go through the home herself, set a listing price. Hopefully we can get it on the market and on its way as soon as possible.”

Jessica took that in thoughtfully, lips set in a placid smile.

"Were there any outstanding features?"

A third and final warning, but Harvey couldn't help but lean into it:

"Are we talking about the tennis court, the pool, the stables, or the thousand lawns?"

Jessica let out a tepid, flatly amused, "Hm," Before beckoning him closer. "Well if those all caught your eye, it would explain why you missed the cameras."

Harvey froze in his step, blood running cold. There was no way—Cameras? His gaze dropped to the laptop that she turned to face him. The black and white footage was grainy, but clear enough. Harvey watched as he wrapped his arm around her, drawing her into his chest. He could still feel the heat of her body, and the plush slide of her sweater beneath his fingers. He could see the gentle, adoring way that she gazed up at him before she nudged him away, leading the charge out of the house.

‘It’s kinda creepy being here, you know. Like Steven’s watching.’ He didn’t know how, but she had felt it.

"Where did that come from."

"I'll give you three guesses."

"Let me explain—"

"Explain what!" Jessica slammed the laptop closed, rounding the desk with self-righteous strides. "Explain what idiotic idea led to you putting on a show?"

"We didn't know that there were cameras."

"How long has this been going on?"

"We only went to see that one house."

Jessica's expression darkened as she shook her head.

"Don't play dumb with me, Harvey," She warned lowly. "How long have you been sleeping with her."

It hit him low in the gut. For a moment, he was too stunned to speak.

"She told you?"

"No, she didn't tell me. She didn't have to. It'll be plain as day to anyone who sees that footage."

"That’s not true, we were just—"

"Just what?"

"I was teasing her! It didn't mean anything."

"If I call and ask her, she'll say the same thing?"

He was certain of it. "Yes."

"Would she swear to it under oath? At a deposition? In court?"

His surety faltered, and his mouth worked wordlessly before he pursed his lips tightly. Jessica shook her head again.

"I am not the only one with access to this. Luckily for you—for both of you—she still has a friend or two on the inside. Aaron Delaney sent this to me before he deleted the original. He works closely with Steven, and has access to a few property accounts. He got an alert on his phone that someone had used the keypad to open the door."

"Has Steven seen it?"

"He isn't sure, but I'm not willing to take that chance. Louis will be taking over the Hayward case, and Mike will be assisting him."

"No, Jessica, that's not happening."

"It is, because I'm telling you that it is. You should be relieved. You never wanted it in the first place."

"Things are different now."

"You're damn right they are! What the hell were you thinking? Both of you?"

"Let me see this case through."

"If you see this through and Hayward does have access to this footage, you could be disbarred. You're going to hand the files over to Louis by the end of the day. He is expecting them. Mike will bring him up to speed and assist him until this mess is cleared up."

Harvey lowered his gaze to the floor as Jessica stepped around him, opening the door and waiting beside it. He curled his hands into fists in his pockets as he strode resignedly from the office.

"And so help you," Jessica warned as he passed, "If I hear that you are holding Louis up in any way."

Harvey only made it a few feet from the office before he pulled his phone out of his pocket, hurriedly dialing her number. It rang once...Twice...Three times...And went to voicemail.

"Damnit," He hissed, lowering the phone to redial. "C'mon, c'mon..." It rang once, "Pick up." Twice...

"Hey you."

"Where are you?"

"What do you mean?" She laughed, "I'm on my way to see Jessica for our check-in."

Fuck.

"How close are you?"

"I just got off of the elevator. Why?"

Harvey whirled around, eyes desperately searching for her through the gaggle of associates, paralegals, and lawyers going about their business.

"She knows."

"What?"

He could hear her frown. Harvey took three steps toward the elevator bay before he saw her come into view—and lock eyes with Jessica. He saw her body go tense, before her shoulders sagged with dejection.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Hell," She sighed before hanging up.

"I'm not going to even begin to approach what you may have been thinking—"

"Jessica—"

"—Putting not only your future, Harvey’s future, and the future of this firm in jeopardy."

"I wasn't thinking."

"Clearly."

"We didn't even do anything at the house!"

"That doesn't make the slightest bit of difference."

You slid down in your seat as Jessica paced in front of you, her pace and turn reminiscent of a caged tiger.

"I did you a favor and this is how you repay me?" She finally stilled, nailing you with a cold gaze. You folded further under the crush of her look, so similar to the disbelief that she had leveled you with at her apartment not too long ago.

"I'm sorry."

"You should be." Jessica strode around her desk. "Your case has been reassigned to Louis Litt. Mike will stay on, provided you haven't fucked him, too."

Christ. "I made a mistake, alright? I told you I was sorry, and I meant it," You insisted. "Don't bring Mike into this when he hasn't done anything wrong."

Jessica bristled as she lowered herself into her seat.

"I don't want you associating with Harvey until this is over."

"Oh—Come on."

"If this footage were to come out, Harvey's conduct and ethics will be called into question. He'll be dragged into your divorce proceedings. Is that what you want?"

Your stomach churned uneasily as you considered it. You knew she was right. You shook your head a little, trying desperately to swallow past the lump that was forming in your dry throat.

"Louis and Mike will be in touch."

"Okay." You turned, heading for her office door, and stopping just before you opened it.

"...Is now a bad time to remind you that bringing Harvey onto my case was your idea?"

The chilling glare that she leveled with answered for her: Yes. It was a very bad time to remind her.

“You slept with—”

“Shut the door and keep your voice down,” Harvey warned stonily. Before either of them could move toward his office door, Donna hurried into view, reaching for the handle.

“You don’t wanna hear this?” Mike’s brows rose. “You of all people?”

Donna waved him away, offering, “Intercom,” Before she shut the door. Harvey sighed heavily, lowering himself into his chair.

“What happened?” Mike stepped closer to the desk. “I’m just—You two hate each other.”

“Thank you for the reminder. I forgot about that.”

“Harvey, c’mon,” Mike shook his head as he tried (and failed) to keep from smiling. “What happened?”

“I went over to hang out.”

“At her apartment?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, and? Instead of hanging out you…Let it all hang out?”

“Get out of my office.”

“If that was at her apartment, what happened in the Hamptons?”

“Nothing happened in the Hamptons. The footage just…We got close, that’s all.”

“That’s not enough to disbar you.”

“Because you’re the expert on being disbarred? It’s enough to call my ethics into question…And Jessica’s right, no one needs that headache right now.”

“So I’m stuck with Louis because you got close? Where’s the Specter spirit? No way are you going to watch this one from the sidelines.”

On any other case, no, he wouldn’t. Harvey would insist on backseat driving. But on this one…He grimaced, dropping his gaze to his desk.

“I want regular updates,” He insisted. “That’s all.”

Mike nodded slowly, conceding: “Okay. But I’ll be ready when you change your mind.”

"I'll come over."

He sounded so positive about it—like nothing had happened, or changed. You eyed the remaining trash bags, trying to scrounge up the conviction of an excuse.

"I don't think that's a good idea right now."

"Why not?"

You know why. You shifted your phone from one hand to the other, tucking it between your shoulder and your ear as you reached out, gripping a bag to make it crinkle loudly.

"I've still got some sorting to do."

"I'll help you."

"Not tonight, Harvey."

"...She's not in charge of us, you know."

You tipped your head back against your wall, closing your eyes. "She's actually very much in charge of you."

"At work."

"I know, but I just..." You winced. "I think she's right. We should lay low for a while. If Steven did see that video before Aaron sent it to Jessica, we're both going to have a whole new mess that we're stepping into."

"I'm ready for it."

"...I don't know if I am."

His silence on the other end made you want to crawl out of your skin. "I can only fight one battle at a time, Harvey—And right now, I'm barely managing the big ones."

"Fine."

You knew that fine coming from him. It wasn't fine. It was I'm shutting down. It was I'm finished with this conversation. It was I'm finished with you.

"Harvey—"

You lowered the phone from your ear as the line cut off, watching the inevitable flashing and darkening of his contact. You bit the inside of your cheek, fighting back a fresh wave of tears. How, after all this time, was Harvey Specter still able to make you cry?

You became solitary again. Life narrowed. You saw Aaron a time or two, but he was so busy either working or gathering intel that you were hardly able to keep up with him. For as much of a lifeline as she had been, Jessica was still pissed, and you hardly spoke more than you needed to. Mike was a dear, checking in to see how you were doing, but most correspondence led inevitably to discussing closings, proceedings, contracts (and you couldn’t blame him for it; he was only doing his job).

Louis was…A lot. He was very eager, that was clear, and had been working hard to push the sales of the apartment buildings and the home in the Hamptons through. David and his firm were digging into discovery, and were making headway.

But you had so little life outside of your divorce. Most of your pieces were sold off, so you hardly had any day-to-day tasks to keep you busy—and everything in New York was so goddamn expensive. It felt like you spent $50 just stepping out your front door. There were days when you simply didn’t. It was cheaper to stay in, and quieter (so long as your neighbors didn’t have a screaming match that day).

Your life was four walls, a cruddy bed, rickety furniture. You spent too much time awake when you should’ve been sleeping; too much time reminiscing when you should have been moving on; too much time dwelling on the time that you spent with men in your life that probably wouldn’t spare you another thought.

Walking back into the firm was uncomfortable. You’d avoided it for as long as you could, but Mike insisted that there were a few documents that absolutely had to be seen and signed in the office. You’d made it an entire three weeks without so much as getting anywhere near the building. You found yourself avoiding even glancing in the direction of Jessica’s office. It was alright, though—Donna was a smiling, comforting presence the second you stepped off of the elevator.

“Find the place alright?” She teased.

“I did, thank you. I’ve only been here a dozen times in the last couple of months.”

“It’s been a few weeks. We thought you’d forgotten where we were.”

You smiled tightly. You were certain that she knew everything that had gone on—she was the eyes and ears of the place.

“You know, it’s the funniest thing,” You drawled sarcastically, “I kept coming to the right building and getting off on the wrong floor.”

“Happens to the best of us. C’mon.”

You frowned as she led you away from the usual conference rooms, and even further away from Louis’ office. You couldn’t imagine where the heck she was taking you—and your confusion deepened as she opened the door to a room lined with files. She nodded you inside, a knowing smile on her lips as she warned:

“Two minutes.”

Two minutes? Until what?

“Thanks, Donna.” Harvey’s voice made you freeze, and you could do nothing but watch Donna close the door behind herself. You looked down at the floor, your hands wringing as you heard Harvey come closer. You felt him stop close behind you, close enough to feel the heat of him.

“...Are you going to look at me?” He hedged softly.

“No need. I know what you look like.”

He sighed softly, stepping around to stand in front of you. You watched as his shoes and pant legs came into view.

“...And you’re just going to look at my shoes now?”

“They’re nice shoes. Look expensive.”

“They are.”

“Figures.”

“I’m sorry.”

You looked at him fully, finally, stunned. You were surprised at how drawn he looked. Sure, his suit was impeccable, and his hair was frustratingly perfect, but you could see tiredness around his eyes.

“You’re going through hell right now,” Harvey went on, “You don’t need me to pile on to that. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

You nodded slowly as you took it all in. “Well. We should never have, um…” You cleared your throat, averting your gaze again. “It was stupid.”

“You regret it?”

“It’s not worth risking your career over.”

“That’s not what I asked.” Harvey closed the space between the two of you, and you had to force yourself not to lean into him the way you wanted—the way you’d missed for weeks.

“Harvey,” You warned softly. “I can’t keep playing tug of war with you like this. I’m already at the end of my damn rope.”

“I know.”

You closed your eyes at the feeling of his palms sliding warmly over your arms, trailing down until he could gently intertwine your fingers.

“I’ll be on my best behavior,” He promised, “Until we’re on the other side of this, and your business with the firm is closed out.”

“And then what?”

“And then I’ll give you hell.” You spluttered a laugh, unable to help it. Harvey chuckled softly, his nose nudging yours gently.

“I should go,” You warned softly. “Louis will come looking for me.”

“Donna will keep him at bay.”

“She said two minutes. It’s been at least three—” You hardly had time to finish your protestation before Harvey kissed you. You swayed into him, lips slipping tenderly against his as he used his grasp to draw you flush against him. You wiggled your hands from his, curling your arms around his shoulders to keep close. You startled at the two knocks on the door, and smiled as Harvey groaned in irritation.

“I should let you go,” He mumbled. You nodded, murmured,

“Probably.”

But neither of you rushed to move.

“I'm sorry to see you go. I've enjoyed our time together."

You sort of believed it, given the pinched, almost pained look that Louis leveled you across the desk. And, for all of your work with him over the last three months, you'd gained a sort of affinity for the man...Even if he was a little intense in a way that sometimes confused you. You smiled, taking up the final few documents that you would need for your record.

"I appreciate that, and thank you for all of your hard work, Mr. Litt. It's been..." You weighed your words carefully, "Interesting."

"For me, too. Reach out if you need anything else—doc review, mover recommendations, tickets to the ballet. Anything."

"Tickets to the ballet? I'm impressed." You held your hand out, smiling as he stood and pumped it enthusiastically. "Thank you again."

You were hardly four steps out of Louis' office when you found yourself flanked in the hallway.

"We should celebrate," Harvey insisted.

"And how would we do that?"

"Dinner at La Belle Vache."

Your brows rose as you glanced toward Mike.

"’The beautiful cow’?"

"Harvey's idea."

"With a restaurant name like that, it would have to be."

"Hey, that is not fair! I could be posh."

"It wouldn't suit you, Mr. Ross."

"Is that a yes or a no to dinner?" Harvey plied.

"When?"

"You busy tonight?"

"If I told you I had plans, would you believe me?"

"Not for a second."

"Well, I do."

"Cancel 'em."

"It's with my divorce lawyer."

"And here feels like a good stopping point for me." Mike wheeled around, striding back in the direction that he came.

"What the hell does David want with you after hours?"

"Deposition starts next week. We're drilling testimony."

"As long as that's all he's drilling."

"Watch it, Specter." You reached out, jabbing the down button on the elevator before turning back to Harvey. He pouted contemplatively before offering: "What about this weekend?"

"I think I could swing this weekend. Is dinner on the firm?"

"It's on me."

"Do you think..." You trailed off, glancing toward Jessica's office, "That the powers that be will approve?"

"Honestly?" Harvey lowered his voice,"I don't give a damn. It's been months. Your business here is wrapped. If Jessica wants to give me a good reason why I can't see you, she's welcome to try—but it won't work."

You bit the inside of your cheek to quell a smile as you reached out, gently straightening Harvey's tie.

"Very forceful, Mr. Specter."

"You like it?"

"It's kinda hot." You turned back and stepped onto the elevator as it chimed.

"This weekend," You finally agreed. "Invite Mike—He's earned several dinners."

"He sure has."

The doors began to close, but Harvey darted in, catching them before they could shut all the way. He darted in, pressing a swift, warm kiss to your lips before he drew away again. You grinned as he stepped back, allowing the doors to close.

"As long as that's all he's drilling."

The memory of Harvey's teasing warning was on your mind throughout your time with David, and you found yourself fighting back smiles all evening.

"Do you have any plans for the weekend?"

David watched you from beneath his lashes as he asked, and where that look had intrigued you once, you knew better. You gave a short, firm nod, and insisted: "I have a date."

Your battle with Steven was far from over. You still had forgery cases pending, and your divorce case had hardly begun. But things felt a little lighter these days.

You had a direction, you had cash flow...But you didn't quite have the plan that you once did. You had told Harvey months ago that you were considering moving to Cambridge. It hadn’t completely ceased to be true, but it wasn’t your only consideration anymore.

There were moments when you could see the glimmer of a life to carve out for yourself: a smaller real estate firm with a few employees—maybe Aaron, if you could lure him away from Steven; a more comfortable apartment than where you were now, but you could live with where you were for a few more months as you got things in order; and, at the very least, a friendship with Harvey. You didn’t know if what the two of you were doing would be sustainable, and you weren’t sure whether either of you really wanted to know—but after all this time, you thought that maybe the two of you deserved another chance.

“Impressed?”

It was a fair question, but you were doing your best to school your expression. You didn’t want Harvey to know outright how much you did like his apartment. It was nothing less than you expected—large (though not quite in the palatial way that your old penthouse was), tastefully decorated, with a gorgeous view. You knew why Harvey had brought you up, of course, but now he was just showing off.

Dinner had been its own round of grandstanding. You and Mike had watched, bemused, as Harvey had gone out of his way to pronounce all of the dishes in a French accent to the clearly not French (but feigning awe) waiter (who you were sure had to deal with this multiple times a day). Harvey had also taught you and Mike a thing or two about wine—or he had tried to, until Mike seemed no longer able to help himself and corrected Harvey on multiple facts about the Rhône valley in the south of France.

It had been a far more pleasant evening that you had expected to have, and far more jovial than you’d had in a long time. Mike and Harvey were close; you and Harvey had a history; you and Mike had become friends over the course of your time working with him. When Mike had insisted that you all had to do this again sometime, you believed that he meant it. And when Harvey had invited you both up for a nightcap, Mike had politely declined with a smile and a shake of his head, offering:

“I think I should let you two have some time to do…Whatever it is that you need to do.”

You hadn’t been entirely sure what he’d meant, or what Harvey had told him. You were almost certain that he would’ve been told why Harvey had been taken off of your case in the first place. And sure, now and again, over dinner, you and Harvey had caught one another’s eye, maybe shared a smile. Maybe he’d rested his hand on your knee a time or two, given it a squeeze—because he could. Because the two of you were close and on even footing for the first time in a while.

“It’s…” You trailed off, shrugging. “Certainly an apartment.”

“Oh, please,” Harvey scoffed, taking two wine glasses down from the cabinet. “You’re impressed.”

“It’s nicer than I thought it would be.”

“You’re dazzled.”

“I like the kitchen.”

“You’re helplessly turned on.”

“‘Helplessly’ is pushing it.”

“So you admit that you’re turned on?”

You rolled your eyes, no longer bothering to fight your smile off.

“Maybe,” You offered, settling onto the couch and kicking off your shoes. Harvey joined you moments later, passing you a glass of wine and gently clinking his against yours before you each took sips. His gaze remained heavy on yours, and he leaned in for a gentle kiss as soon as you lowered your glass. You hummed, raising a hand and cupping his jaw. You leaned back just a touch, smiling as he crowded closer, dipping his head to brush kisses along your neck as his warm palm gently smoothed up your thigh.

“...Harvey?”

“Sure, I can show you the bedroom.”

You laughed softly, shaking your head a little. “Can we talk about it?”

He groaned, forehead dropping heavily against your shoulder. “Why do you always insist on ruining a perfectly good time?”

“Like when?”

“Like when we were in the Hamptons.”

“You thank your lucky fucking stars that I put a stop to that.”

“Yeah,” He grumbled, leaning back. You watched him swirl his wine in his glass.

“Please,” You pleaded softly.

“...I didn’t write the note.”

Fuck.

“Okay.”

“I wrote a note, but…Not that one.”

“Who wrote that one?”

“Scottie.”

“...Okay.”

“I couldn’t find the one I’d written, she insisted that I couldn’t leave you with nothing.”

“Well, she was right.”

“Yeah.”

You that that sink in for a moment before you pressed: “Why did you leave?”

“I had doubts.”

“About me?”

“About us. You know how my parents were, you know…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “You know what I saw.”

“And you thought I would do that to you?”

“I was afraid of it.”

“If you were afraid of it, then you thought I was capable of it.”

“—And when you got married to Steven so quickly—”

“Oh—!” The heavy, stunned, indignant laugh was pained as it left you. You pushed off of the couch, standing and walking out of Harvey’s reach. You heard him sigh heavily behind you, chased by the clink of him setting his wine glass down as he muttered, “This is why I didn’t want to talk about this.”

“Do you know why I got married so quickly?” You whirled around to face him.

“Because you loved Steven?”

“I never said that. I thought I loved him a bit, sure, but I was afraid that this,” You waved a finger between the two of you, “Would happen again. I thought he would leave. I was afraid that I would spend my entire life being left. So when Steven showed me the slightest bit of attention, I latched on. We eloped. He wanted a big wedding, but I just,” You waved your hand around, “I couldn’t do that a second time. Any of it. I didn’t get a new dress, neither of our families were there, because I knew that they would all watch me, and him, and they’d be thinking it: Is it going to happen again?”

“You’re saying your entire life with Steven was my fault?”

“I’m saying that I made a choice, and that what happened with you was a factor—Not a fault, a factor. And why!” You let out another harsh hysterical laugh as tears welled in your eyes, “Why didn’t you just talk to me? What did I do then to make you think that you couldn’t talk to me?”

“I wasn’t ready!”

“And we could have talked about that! What made you think that I wouldn’t have been alright with moving the wedding back, or going to counseling with you, or whatever you would have needed to get us there?”

“You wanted to get married.”

“I wanted you, Harvey! I would have waited, I—” You turned away, sniffling heavily as tears slipped from your eyes. “Fuck. Ugh.” You raised your glass, draining it before striding over the counter, desperate to put some more distance between the two of you. You set the glass down and yanked a paper towel off of the roll, swiping at your under eyes to clear away any running mascara. You blew your nose as well before balling up the tissue and lobbing it toward the trash can. You heard Harvey’s approaching footsteps, and you pulled in a deep, stuttering breath as he rested his hands on your shoulders.

“...There’s no way for me to take back or change what I did.”

“Would you if you could?”

“Yes.”

“...Okay.”

“Do you believe me?”

“I don’t know.”

He sighed, pressing a kiss to the back of your head as his hands soothingly rubbed over your arms. You sniffled again, swiping away a stray tear before resting your hands on the counter.

“You changed the way that I love, Harvey,” You shook your head. “For better or worse, whether you meant to or not, you changed it.” You glanced back toward him. “I can’t get those bits of myself back. You took them from me.”

“I know. I took them from both of us.”

You nodded, slowly letting yourself lean back against him. His arms curled around your middle, and you heard a soft, almost relieved groan leave him. You let your eyes close as he pressed a kiss to your temple. The two of you stood there in silence for a few moments, allowing yourselves to settle.

“...Stay tonight?” He murmured after a few moments. You nodded, smiling as his hold tightened on you again, as if wary that you would change your mind.

He had a few more smile lines. His hair still mussed the same; he still made little mumbling noises as he slowly rose from sleep to consciousness. He was still a furnace to sleep beside, and he still held you through the night. It was almost a relief that none of that had changed.

Waking up in his arms made you feel like it had when you were younger: safe, and loved, and wanted. You hadn't appreciated it when you'd had it just a few months ago, but you were desperate to catch on to every little bit of him now.

You were never going to be able to turn back the hands of time—to go back and warn him, or yourself, or someone that your first wedding day would be a disaster, that it would set you off on a path that you could never have anticipated for yourself. Discussing what had happened hadn't truly healed any of your old wounds.

But as the sun began to creep over the Manhattan skyline and seep into Harvey’s bedroom, you felt closer to peace than you had in a long, long time.

Harvey snuffled, nuzzling your shoulder as his fingers curled in your borrowed nightshirt.

“You awake?” He mumbled, the same low, gravely murmur that you had once loved, and missed.

“Mmmhm.”

“Want coffee?”

“Yes.”

He yawned widely, pressing his face into your shoulder and warming your skin through the fabric. “Bagels?”

“Sure.”

“‘Kay.”

Neither of you made a move to get either. Instead, you combed your fingers through his hair, closed your eyes, and listened to the steady rise and fall of his breathing as you both fell back asleep.

Tag list: @missredherring ; @fantasticcopeaglepasta ; @massivecolorspygiant ; @blueeyesatnight ; @amneris21 ; @ew-erin ; @youngkenobilove ; @carbonated-beverage ; @lorecraft ; @moonlightburned ; @milf-trinity ; @millllenniawrites ; @chattychell ; @dihra-vesa ; @videogamesandpoorlifechoices ; @missswriter ; @thembosapphicclown ; @brandyllyn ; @wildmoonflower ; @buckybarneshairpullingkink ; @mad-girl-without-a-box ; @winchestershiresauce ; @gina239 ; @technicallykawaiisoul ; @coldheart-lonelysoul ; @kathrinemelissa ; @jacxx2 ; @pillowjj ; @chanaaaannel ; @avampirescholar ; @kmc1989 ; @mythical-goth ;

#Harvey Specter x Reader #Harvey Specter x You #Harvey Specter/Reader #Harvey Specter/You #Harvey Specter fic #Harvey Specter imagine #Bad Faith

723 notes · View notes

mostlysignssomeportents · 9 months ago

Text

Apple to EU: “Go fuck yourself”

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/06/spoil-the-bunch/#dma

There's a strain of anti-anti-monopolist that insists that they're not pro-monopoly – they're just realists who understand that global gigacorporations are too big to fail, too big to jail, and that governments can't hope to rein them in. Trying to regulate a tech giant, they say, is like trying to regulate the weather.

This ploy is cousins with Jay Rosen's idea of "savvying," defined as: "dismissing valid questions with the insider's, 'and this surprises you?'"

https://twitter.com/jayrosen_nyu/status/344825874362810369?lang=en

In both cases, an apologist for corruption masquerades as a pragmatist who understands the ways of the world, unlike you, a pathetic dreamer who foolishly hopes for a better world. In both cases, the apologist provides cover for corruption, painting it as an inevitability, not a choice. "Don't hate the player. Hate the game."

The reason this foolish nonsense flies is that we are living in an age of rampant corruption and utter impunity. Companies really do get away with both literal and figurative murder. Governments really do ignore horrible crimes by the rich and powerful, and fumble what rare, few enforcement efforts they assay.

Take the GDPR, Europe's landmark privacy law. The GDPR establishes strict limitations of data-collection and processing, and provides for brutal penalties for companies that violate its rules. The immediate impact of the GDPR was a mass-extinction event for Europe's data-brokerages and surveillance advertising companies, all of which were in obvious violation of the GDPR's rules.

But there was a curious pattern to GDPR enforcement: while smaller, EU-based companies were swiftly shuttered by its provisions, the US-based giants that conduct the most brazen, wide-ranging, illegal surveillance escaped unscathed for years and years, continuing to spy on Europeans.

One (erroneous) way to look at this is as a "compliance moat" story. In that story, GDPR requires a bunch of expensive systems that only gigantic companies like Facebook and Google can afford. These compliance costs are a "capital moat" – a way to exclude smaller companies from functioning in the market. Thus, the GDPR acted as an anticompetitive wrecking ball, clearing the field for the largest companies, who get to operate without having to contend with smaller companies nipping at their heels:

https://www.techdirt.com/2019/06/27/another-report-shows-gdpr-benefited-google-facebook-hurt-everyone-else/

This is wrong.

Oh, compliance moats are definitely real – think of the calls for AI companies to license their training data. AI companies can easily do this – they'll just buy training data from giant media companies – the very same companies that hope to use models to replace creative workers with algorithms. Create a new copyright over training data won't eliminate AI – it'll just confine AI to the largest, best capitalized companies, who will gladly provide tools to corporations hoping to fire their workforces:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/09/ai-monkeys-paw/#bullied-schoolkids

But just because some regulations can be compliance moats, that doesn't mean that all regulations are compliance moats. And just because some regulations are vigorously applied to small companies while leaving larger firms unscathed, it doesn't follow that the regulation in question is a compliance moat.

A harder look at what happened with the GDPR reveals a completely different dynamic at work. The reason the GDPR vaporized small surveillance companies and left the big companies untouched had nothing to do with compliance costs. The Big Tech companies don't comply with the GDPR – they just get away with violating the GDPR.

How do they get away with it? They fly Irish flags of convenience. Decades ago, Ireland started dabbling with offering tax-havens to the wealthy and mobile – they invented the duty-free store:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty-free_shop#1947%E2%80%931990:_duty_free_establishment

Capturing pennies from the wealthy by helping them avoid fortunes they owed in taxes elsewhere was terribly seductive. In the years that followed, Ireland began aggressively courting the wealthy on an industrial scale, offering corporations the chance to duck their obligations to their host countries by flying an Irish flag of convenience.

There are other countries who've tried this gambit – the "treasure islands" of the Caribbean, the English channel, and elsewhere – but Ireland is part of the EU. In the global competition to help the rich to get richer, Ireland had a killer advantage: access to the EU, the common market, and 500m affluent potential customers. The Caymans can hide your money for you, and there's a few super-luxe stores and art-galleries in George Town where you can spend it, but it's no Champs Elysees or Ku-Damm.

But when you're competing with other countries for the pennies of trillion-dollar tax-dodgers, any wins can be turned into a loss in an instant. After all, any corporation that is footloose enough to establish a Potemkin Headquarters in Dublin and fly the trídhathach can easily up sticks and open another Big Store HQ in some other haven that offers it a sweeter deal.

This has created a global race to the bottom among tax-havens to also serve as regulatory havens – and there's a made-in-the-EU version that sees Ireland, Malta, Cyprus and sometimes the Netherlands competing to see who can offer the most impunity for the worst crimes to the most awful corporations in the world.

And that's why Google and Facebook haven't been extinguished by the GDPR while their rivals were. It's not compliance moats – it's impunity. Once a corporation attains a certain scale, it has the excess capital to spend on phony relocations that let it hop from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, chasing the loosest slots on the strip. Ireland is a made town, where the cops are all on the take, and two thirds of the data commissioner's rulings are eventually overturned by the federal court:

https://www.iccl.ie/digital-data/iccl-2023-gdpr-report/

This is a problem among many federations, not just the EU. The US has its onshore-offshore tax- and regulation-havens (Delaware, South Dakota, Texas, etc), and so does Canada (Alberta), and some Swiss cantons are, frankly, batshit:

https://lenews.ch/2017/11/25/swiss-fact-some-swiss-women-had-to-wait-until-1991-to-vote/

None of this is to condemn federations outright. Federations are (potentially) good! But federalism has a vulnerability: the autonomy of the federated states means that they can be played against each other by national or transnational entities, like corporations. This doesn't mean that it's impossible to regulate powerful entities within a federation – but it means that federal regulation needs to account for the risk of jurisdiction-shopping.

Enter the Digital Markets Act, a new Big Tech specific law that, among other things, bans monopoly app stores and payment processing, through which companies like Apple and Google have levied a 30% tax on the entire app market, while arrogating to themselves the right to decide which software their customers may run on their own devices:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/07/curatorial-vig/#app-tax

Apple has responded to this regulation with a gesture of contempt so naked and broad that it beggars belief. As Proton describes, Apple's DMA plan is the very definition of malicious compliance:

https://proton.me/blog/apple-dma-compliance-plan-trap

Recall that the DMA is intended to curtail monopoly software distribution through app stores and mobile platforms' insistence on using their payment processors, whose fees are sky-high. The law is intended to extinguish developer agreements that ban software creators from informing customers that they can get a better deal by initiating payments elsewhere, or by getting a service through the web instead of via an app.

In response, Apple, has instituted a junk fee it calls the "Core Technology Fee": EUR0.50/install for every installation over 1m. As Proton writes, as apps grow more popular, using third-party payment systems will grow less attractive. Apple has offered discounts on its eye-watering payment processing fees to a mere 20% for the first payment and 13% for renewals. Compare this with the normal – and far, far too high – payment processing fees the rest of the industry charges, which run 2-5%. On top of all this, Apple has lied about these new discounted rates, hiding a 3% "processing" fee in its headline figures.

As Proton explains, paying 17% fees and EUR0.50 for each subscriber's renewal makes most software businesses into money-losers. The only way to keep them afloat is to use Apple's old, default payment system. That choice is made more attractive by Apple's inclusion of a "scare screen" that warns you that demons will rend your soul for all eternity if you try to use an alternative payment scheme.

Apple defends this scare screen by saying that it will protect users from the intrinsic unreliability of third-party processors, but as Proton points out, there are plenty of giant corporations who get to use their own payment processors with their iOS apps, because Apple decided they were too big to fuck with. Somehow, Apple can let its customers spend money Uber, McDonald's, Airbnb, Doordash and Amazon without terrorizing them about existential security risks – but not mom-and-pop software vendors or publishers who don't want to hand 30% of their income over to a three-trillion-dollar company.

Apple has also reserved the right to cancel any alternative app store and nuke it from Apple customers' devices without warning, reason or liability. Those app stores also have to post a one-million euro line of credit in order to be considered for iOS. Given these terms, it's obvious that no one is going to offer a third-party app store for iOS and if they did, no one would list their apps in it.

The fuckery goes on and on. If an app developer opts into third-party payments, they can't use Apple's payment processing too – so any users who are scared off by the scare screen have no way to pay the app's creators. And once an app creator opts into third party payments, they can never go back – the decision is permanent.

Apple also reserves the right to change all of these policies later, for the worse ("I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further" -D. Vader). They have warned developers that they might change the API for reporting external sales and revoke developers' right to use alternative app stores at its discretion, with no penalties if that screws the developer.

Apple's contempt extends beyond app marketplaces. The DMA also obliges Apple to open its platform to third party browsers and browser engines. Every browser on iOS is actually just Safari wrapped in a cosmetic skin, because Apple bans third-party browser-engines:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/13/kitbashed/#app-store-tax

But, as Mozilla puts it, Apple's plan for this is "as painful as possible":

https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/26/24052067/mozilla-apple-ios-browser-rules-firefox

For one thing, Apple will only allow European customers to run alternative browser engines. That means that Firefox will have to "build and maintain two separate browser implementations — a burden Apple themselves will not have to bear."

(One wonders how Apple will treat Americans living in the EU, whose Apple accounts still have US billing addresses – these people will still be entitled to the browser choice that Apple is grudgingly extending to Europeans.)

All of this sends a strong signal that Apple is planning to run the same playbook with the DMA that Google and Facebook used on the GDPR: ignore the law, use lawyerly bullshit to chaff regulators, and hope that European federalism has sufficiently deep cracks that it can hide in them when the enforcers come to call.

But Apple is about to get a nasty shock. For one thing, the DMA allows wronged parties to start their search for justice in the European federal court system – bypassing the Irish regulators and courts. For another, there is a global movement to check corporate power, and because the tech companies do the same kinds of fuckery in every territory, regulators are able to collaborate across borders to take them down.

Take Apple's app store monopoly. The best reference on this is the report published by the UK Competition and Markets Authority's Digital Markets Unit:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63f61bc0d3bf7f62e8c34a02/Mobile_Ecosystems_Final_Report_amended_2.pdf

The devastating case that the DMU report was key to crafting the DMA – but it also inspired a US law aimed at forcing app markets open:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/2710

And a Japanese enforcement action:

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Japan-to-crack-down-on-Apple-and-Google-app-store-monopolies

And action in South Korea:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/skorea-considers-505-mln-fine-against-google-apple-over-app-market-practices-2023-10-06/

These enforcers gather for annual meetings – I spoke at one in London, convened by the Competition and Markets Authority – where they compare notes, form coalitions, and plan strategy:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cma-data-technology-and-analytics-conference-2022-registration-308678625077

This is where the savvying breaks down. Yes, Apple is big enough to run circles around Japan, or South Korea, or the UK. But when those countries join forces with the EU, the USA and other countries that are fed up to the eyeballs with Apple's bullshit, the company is in serious danger.

It's true that Apple has convinced a bunch of its customers that buying a phone from a multi-trillion-dollar corporation makes you a member of an oppressed religious minority:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Some of those self-avowed members of the "Cult of Mac" are willing to take the company's pronouncements at face value and will dutifully repeat Apple's claims to be "protecting" its customers. But even that credulity has its breaking point – Apple can only poison the well so many times before people stop drinking from it. Remember when the company announced a miraculous reversal to its war on right to repair, later revealed to be a bald-faced lie?

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

Or when Apple claimed to be protecting phone users' privacy, which was also a lie?

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

The savvy will see Apple lying (again) and say, "this surprises you?" No, it doesn't surprise me, but it pisses me off – and I'm not the only one, and Apple's insulting lies are getting less effective by the day.

Image: Alex Popovkin, Bahia, Brazil from Brazil (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Annelid_worm,_Atlantic_forest,_northern_littoral_of_Bahia,_Brazil_%2816107326533%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

Hubertl (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2015-03-04_Elstar_%28apple%29_starting_putrefying_IMG_9761_bis_9772.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

602 notes · View notes

lalunanymph · 2 years ago

Text

rin used to believe he was undeserving of love until you came along to show him otherwise.

-> fem!reader, mdni for seggsy love-making :>>

a/n. rin as a character was made for love *drops mic n runs*

“look at me.”

your boyfriend’s voice, so deep and resonant, filled you with a sense of love so strong, you were sure you could just crumble.

rin hovered above you, his presence like the sun, burning painfully behind your closed lids, but intimately spreading warmth over every inch of your skin.

it’s maddening how much of a hold he has on you. rin was inked into your soul like a tattoo, every beat of your heart whispering cadences of love for him and him alone. brushing back his glossy dark green bangs from his face, you take the opportunity to cup his cheeks.

(those cheeks that stubbornly held onto remnants of some puppy fat—never fully melting away even as he’s already a man of 25).

your thumbs draw slow patterns on the high planes of his cheekbones, and rin is almost drowning from the overwhelming pangs in his heart at how soft you look right now; how perfect you were for him in every sense of the word.

mine, his heart sang. all mine.

and rin would never admit it out loud but he’s a terribly selfish man when it comes to you.

… especially when it comes to you.

for years he had to contend with living in his older brother’s shadow—manipulated by his apathy and disinterest to become the best at everything he could be—that he almost failed to realize how many precious moments he let slip away.

you were close to being one of those chances he nearly lost.

but, ever since he saw you in the stands, wearing his jersey (even though the only thing he knew about you was that your face was far too pretty to be sitting this close to the barrier)—rin was already yours.

(he thanks his stars every single day his sharp eyes caught your lovely grin from amongst a sea of nameless faces.)

it’s pathetic, really.

rin wishes his stupid heart wouldn’t be this soft; this susceptible to a drop of kindness.

he thinks he doesn’t deserve it.

who is he, really, to have the privilege to feel your soft breaths caressing his ear as you shakily tell him ‘please—need you deeper in me, rin’?

how does even begin to fathom that he is deserving of your glassy smile when you hook your thighs tighter around his slim waist?

nobody. i am nobody.

“rin,” you keen softly, carding your fingers through his hair, lower lip taken hostage by your perfect teeth. “you feel so good, baby.”

your nails stab into his shoulder, but he ignores the bite of pain because it reminds him of how completely, tragically and wonderfully human he truly is. not some soccer demi-god striking through the endless thicket of upheavals and callous disregard to reach for the heavens where the gods resided.

but a man.

purely and wholly human and so, so deserving of love.

rin lets his emotions run wild in this bedroom; letting the love, passion and yearning consume him till he’s gasping for breath, getting onto his knees so he can worship you like you absolutely deserve.

the world tilts for a split second, your sanity anchored only by his strong arms around your waist. rin has you straddling his lap, your thighs hooked around his mid-section like an ever-loving vine. this position drove his cock deeper into you, moulding as one with your walls like he was made for you.

“rin,” you gasp, slotting your face into his neck, unable to take the piercing teal stare worming its way into your soul. “nghmm—f-fuck… can feel so deep in me…”

your words fade out into a whine and rin thinks his clandestine grin could’ve rivaled a cheshire cat’s. his strong hands effortlessly grasp at your waist, rocking you up and down his cock to hit all your sweet spots; drinking in every drunken moan of his name leaving your pleasure-soaked lips.

“look at me,” he commanded again, but this time, there’s an edge to his tone—desperation.

it made him throb all over when you meekly peel yourself from his neck, fixing your teary eyes onto him. he knows the intensity of this situation; how hard it is for you to look him at him squarely when he’s wrecking your body so confidently and passionately.

(you would always be the moon and he was your burning sun, piercing hot with vitality).

rin remembers how he used to be like a caged tiger waiting to be released; his long dormant affection for anyone waiting for the right catalyst.

that’s when you came along and everything was all right with the universe for the first time.

the tears sticking your lashes together make his heart double in speed, and rin’s panting like he’s on the verge of scoring a risky goal. the bed frame shakes underneath his relentless thrusting and your eager reciprocation. he can feel the sweet, tight muscles forming his nirvana squeezing down oh-so-perfectly on his cock like the prettiest love confession.

“good girl. good, good, girl… so good. there you go, there you go,” he coaxes, kneading your ass feverishly with his large, sturdy palms. “you’re so close, fuckkk—you’re close. let’s cum together, baby. do it with me? please.”

rin has never shamelessly begged for anything in his life quite like how he’s begging you to cum together with him. he’s delirious, one step closer to whiting out from the sheer pleasure. he feels nothing but your cheek press to his cheek, your breaths shared as one; the slightest tickling pressure of your lashes against his forehead.

the both of you were as close as humanly possible but rin is a greedy man. he wants more—demands for more.

“tell me you’re mine.” his strain words drew a lick of surprise on your features, but the snarl on his face was enough to tell you that he was putty to your addictive pussy. “tell me you’re mine and mean it.”

a simple enough request considering he meant everything to you.

“yours,” you hiccup, pressing an open mouth kiss to his jaw. it’s sloppy and desperate but it appeases him nonetheless. his nose rubs against yours, and you feel your heart kick up a notch when he starts to graze your lips with his; giving you soft, barely there kisses that contrast vividly with his heavy thrusts. “i’m all yours, rin. all yours.”

“f-fuck…” he lines his forehead with yours, and something about how intimate this position is, how needy his perfectly hot and rough his hands felt running down your back, has you close to tears.

rin tilts his face to slot your lips closer, and tastes your tears staining his tongue.

he doesn’t comment on them; merely smears them away one by one with his mouth, peppering your cheeks and chin with heavy, sloppy kisses that distract him from the tightening coil in his belly. you kiss him back ardently—passionately—with everything you have; everything which wasn’t already his.

his ears are ringing and his breath is coming out in dense pants. rin is drowning in you; your scent, your taste, your arms around him, your tongue in his mouth. it pushes him down the edge the same moment your pussy seizes around his cock.

those sweet muscles flutter and squeeze with such immaculate perfection he could weep, and rin swears he does; swears a tear dances off his lash line and splatters somewhere on your shoulder. i’ve never cried before, he told you once during your earlier dating days.

what a goddamn lie that turned out to be.

you careen down the edge with as much poise as he did; which is to say, you press him deeper into the crook of your neck, body writhing in this white-hot dance with his name echoing off these walls.

rin can barely feel his legs when he sets you back down onto the bed, curling himself above you as the dear curve of his head rests solidly in between your breasts—a familiar weight you love.

tangling your fingers in his hair, you gently scratch his scalp and he grunts, in a daze from his orgasm and clingier than usual

“rin?” your soft voice blends as one into the warm afterglow.

he hums and lifts his head, drowsy teal eyes and sated little smirk eliciting a sweet giggle from you.

“i love you.”

he sighs happily, content when you start to card your fingers through his hair again.

there’s not a lifetime in this universe where he doesn’t imagine himself to be yours.

“i love you, too.”

and there’s not a moment in your life where you ever underestimate the privilege of fully owning itoshi rin’s heart.

©️ all works belong to lalunanymph. do not copy, repost or claim as your own.

#itoshi rin x reader #itoshi rin x you #itoshi rin smut #rin itoshi x you #rin itoshi x reader #rin itoshi smut #blue lock x you #blue lock x reader #bllk x you #bllk x reader #short ‘n’ sweet 🎀#🦢 writes

2K notes · View notes

absolutebl · 6 months ago

Text

This Week in BL - It's the Dog Days of BL Again

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

May 2024 Final Week

Ongoing Series - Thai

Wandee Godday (Sat YT) ep 5 of 12 - The side couple is so damn pouty and adorable. So far as Yak and Dee are concerned, I love that they kept up with the cosplay stuff and didn’t just drop it as a one off. I'm just genuinely enjoying seeing how much fun they have together and watching them accidentally falling in love with each other and trying not to.

Linguistic corner!

I don’t normally watch any BTS stuff, but for reasons known only to my serotonin-seeking brain, I’ve been watching a few for this show. And I MUST talk about the way Great speaks Thai. It’s so different from all of the other Good GMMTV Boys. He’s way more casual. Not rude, but definitely not as formal or as polite as any of the actors around him. It’s difficult to describe but just LISTEN to the way he hops registers and pronouns pretty consistently. Sometimes in the same sentence. He even softens his polite particles. I've never heard an actor do that out of character. It’s fascinating. I wonder if it has to do with the fact that he is older (then most of his costars) and comes outta the Bangkok club scene, and was older when he joined GMMTV. Frankly, it’s the closest I’ve ever seen on TV to the way people actually talked in Bangkok.

My Stand-In (Thai Fri iQIYI) ep 6 of 12 eps - honestly these two shows are neck and neck for my favorites running right now and Wandee got the edge because it left me smiling, but yesterday, Stand-In would have come out on top. Such a great show. It’s so sinister. So not romantic. Which makes me feel like... it's not really a BL. And, yet, I DO NOT CARE. Because I’m enjoying its little evil soul so much. “Poor Joe” is pretty much all that goes through my head the whole time I'm watching, and I'm enjoying poking at that pain.

We Are (Weds iQIYI) ep 9 of 16 - I love all of the 3rd wheels. Kluen is kinda great. And I’m not just saying that 'cause I have a crush on Title, it’s because Kluen is so open and genuine. (Unless they fuck up his character.) I even enjoyed the backstory for Fang and Tan. Honestly, the friendship group is the reason to watch this show, they’re great and funny, and make everything enjoyable. It’s a soap opera, like Only Friends, but gentle with its characters and us watchers. Which is what I really want from my BL. I don’t want all of this Friend Zone backstabbing bullpuckie.

Knock Knock Boys (Thurs Gaga) eps 1-2 of 12 - I like it, frankly more than I expected to. It’s a bit slow moving, but the characters are interesting and the dynamic of everybody living in the same house together is fun. I haven’t seen this style of housemates centered Thai BL in years. I identify FAR too closely with the crass-talking bug-killing pansexual. On a completely different note, I really hope Best and Seng have an NC scene together. Last week I would never have said that, but now I think they have good chemistry. Am I crazy?

Only Boo! (Sun YouTube) ep 8 of 12 - They are sickeningly sweet boyfriends, and Moo is such a brat and so demanding. It’s charming. There was even a little bit of dancing together which I’m sure made @heretherebedork happy. Dancing okay but NO SINGING.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

At 25:00 in Akasaka AKA 25 Ji Akasaka de (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 7 of 10 - Asami's past was cool to see. I enjoyed that his character finally got fleshed out and given some solidity. However, it felt like it came a little too late. Even though I know this is the way Japan tends to roll with BL timing. I wanted to like him sooner then this. Now I'm not really that invested.

Living With Him AKA Kare no Iru Seikatsu (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 8 fin - It was an extremely good and very satisfying ending for a JBL, which we cannot expect, so I'm disposed to dole out top marks for that. Also we definitely have a new contender for Namgoong award for best wingman. (Japan's favorite: the bespectacled variant.)

Summation:

Kindly Ryota goes to uni and ends up rooming with his former childhood bestie, Kazuhito. Kazuhito doesn’t have a girlfriend for, as it turns out, cute roommate reasons. Same director as Old Fashion Cupcake, the framing is gorgeous and it is a stylish piece. As a friends to lovers cohabitation narrative this was a classic 2000s sweet yaoi. I enjoy that kind of tradition out of Japan even if it (and the characters) come off as a little slow as a result. Still, it's nice to get a traditional BL out of Japan that is satisfying, not slapstick, AND did not hurt us. 8/10 recommended

Blossom Campus (Korea Thurs Gaga & iQIYI) ep 5-6fin - gonna have to wait until next week, for mysterious hotel wifi reasons.

It's airing but...

You Made My Day (Thai YT) ep 1 of 5 - mini series staring the I Will Knock You couple Tar & Bom, started but I couldn't find it. I also didn't try very hard.

The Time of Fever AKA Unintentional Love Story 2 (Korea movie) trailer released to Korean theaters 5/25. HoTae & DongHee, side couple from Unintentional Love Story are back! Same actors, same character names. I love them. I NEED TO SEE THIS. How?

OMG Vampire (Thai Sun ????) ep 2 of 10 - yeah I can't find it. Comments from last week suggest this is not my thing anyway, but Lee Long Shi very much IS my thing, so... maybe I'll put it on hold for a bit and y'all can let me know.

In case you missed

VBL (Taiwan) is released 'Special Episode' epilogues to their 4 2023 series on Gagaoolala, Viki & Viu - watch each on the respective shows' page: You Are Mine, VIP Only, Stay By My Side, Anti Reset.

My Biker 2 (Thai movie trailer) suposedly released somewhere, search me.

The Time of Huannan (Taiwan movie) went to theaters, not sure if we will get this, and it may not be BL.

And here's a 2023 that I missed and finally watched:

After Sundown AKA Saengrawi

ZeeNunew vehicle from 2023, recut into a movie on YouTube. It's from Mandee and horror, yet I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

Pronoun use is ter/chan or rao (no nai or pom) because of the historical setting + softness of the relationship.

It's oddly sweet and wholesome, for a ghost story. Phloeng and Rawee enter into an arranged marriage for confusing prophetic reasons and a twisted fate, solving a mystery of the past that is haunting Phloeng's family and harming Rawee. Honestly, it makes no actual sense, but it's kinda historical, and very pretty, so I enjoyed it more than I should. 8/10

Next Week Looks Like This:

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

June Releases

6/7 My Love Mix-Up (Fridays Thai Adaptation not sure where this will air) - I do love G4 and I did like the original and maybe this time these characters will actually kiss? I'm actually fine with this pick-up. I kind of enjoy seeing different countries remake the same IP. Especially if it's IP I'm mostly unfazed by.

6/7 The Last Time (Thailand Fridays YouTube?) - Convoluted story of loss and possible reincarnation or something?

6/9 Love Sea (Thailand Sundays MAME warning iQIYI - New characters to the Mameverse. While travelling, a writer has a one night stand with a very irritating man. YES I WILL TRASH WATCH THIS. Drinking will happen on Sundays I guess. (Look, I do usually travel on weekends, so it may end up being Monday Mame Trash - which jives.)

6/14 Let's Eat Together Aki and Haru 2 AKA Aki wa Haru to Gohan wo Tabetai 2 Haime! (Japan movie Gaga?) - Continues the (frankly) lackadaisical story from part 1.

6/15 Sunset Vibes AKA SunsetXVibes (Thailand Saturdays) Star Hunter and MosBank on iQIYI so if nothing else it's gonna be a wild and sexy ride. A one night stand but "uh-oh he’s my boss," adapted from a web series. I’m game. Maybe it’ll have a better story than Big Dragon? Maybe it will have a plot? We can but hope.

6/26 The Rebound (Thai Weds VIU?) - MeenPing are back in their 3rd BL together, a basketball based romance (Meen was a national basketball player, so yay for that). I like this pair better than most (I still do miss Meen with Est but Est has a fantastic looking new BL coming from GMMTV so yeah...) Anyway I'm up for a sports romance starring a man who, yah know, actually played that sport so... I'm game (pun intended).

(Speaking of, why can't Est be a merman? This... I ask you?.)

Why You? (Khmer movie - Billed as a horror romance BL this is supposed to release this month.

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

In my world we call this smug. (Only Boo!)

LOOK AT HIS ARM?! This has been your Goodness Gracious Great Guns Of Huge 2024 moment.

(All Wandee Goodday)

(Last week)

Streaming services are listed by how I (usually) watch, which is with a USA based IP, and often offset by a day because time zones are a pain.

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @sunflower-positiiivity

@rocketturtle4 @blglplus @anythinggoesintheshire @everlightly @renafire @mestizashinrin @bl-bam-beyond @small-dark-and-delicious @saezurumurmurs

Sigh, Tumblr in it's infinite wisdom doesn't like too many tags.

There's these tricks, remember.

167 notes · View notes

batsplat · 6 months ago

Note

Your post about sete/vale rivalry is literally so informative it's like a pivotal post to fully understand the way valentino's mind works. You're his friend just up to the point you are not (mainly after perceived crimes not backed up by any real proof apparently). Valentino literally turbodivorced every guy he was friendly with in the paddock (and the irony of two of those turbodivorces happening in the same place isn't lost on me)

I did do my best to keep marc out of that post and let the parallels speak for themselves but like. yes

what's interesting to me about this rivalry is that it's... kind of his first rodeo. I mean he'd obviously had rivals before and a feud and all that and him and biaggi were constantly *gestures* - but one of the most common complaints about valentino is that he switches up towards you when you actually become a serious threat. which!! I still fully believe to some extent is natural, this is sports, they're competing, and I take more seriously with some of valentino's victims than with others. (melandri is always the one where I'm a bit? valentino no offence but why would you bother, in 2005 there wasn't a title fight and in 2006 valentino actually got on really well with two of the four other main contenders and at the very least didn't actively have a problem with dani. so maybe just a melandri problem question mark.) but I do feel like sete was... maybe not the first, but the first that was this extreme. and, very much topic for another post, but he really does learn a lot from the sete rivalry. a lot of the tactics and performance art and all of that, how he uses all of it to demoralise his enemies - this rivalry was kinda the blueprint

but, at the same time, of course it was a different valentino that marc ended up fighting, and not just in terms of how fast and competitive valentino was at that stage of his career. this is something that's quite hard to get across sometimes, because the natural inclination is to just... look at all the past instances in which valentino was a dick and conclude that he has, in fact, always been a dick. but he wasn't just statically malevolent for a twenty plus year career, and it's important to... reinsert context to assess how he developed as a rider and as a character during that time. it's not twenty non-stop years of valentino feuding. and marc is facing a valentino who had inevitably changed as a result of years of injury and poor results on a poor bike. valentino was pretty open in 2012 that he was returning to yamaha after two years on a donkey of a bike to, y'know, see if he was still fast, if he still had it in him - because he genuinely did not know (stop me if this reminds you of anyone more recently). he was so frustrated in 2013 with constantly finishing in fourth place that he took the truly radical step of firing his crew chief jb. one more try, one more change up to see if he could still be fast

it was only in 2014, where, okay he was losing to marc, but he could feel that he was competitive again, he could semi-regularly beat jorge and dani at the very least... then comes misano and he beats marc in a direct fight, draws an error out of him, gets him to crash, and marc shows up at his ranch and manages to strongly signal that he does actually really want to beat valentino. and that, in a way, shows that he was beginning to take valentino seriously as a competitor again (which I would suggest he wasn't doing at the end of 2013). that's something that's easy to miss about the ranch episode: yes, it's notable how much they were treating each other like hardened rivals, but it was also notable they were doing so in 2014, given the kind of season marc was having. maybe it truly was the worst possible timing. maybe it truly was the race in misano that made both of them go. hey. this really could be happening

but it's still a humbled version of valentino, it's still a version of valentino who has already kind of had to make his peace with the fact his time might very much be over. to me, in a way it's more dramatically satisfying if he did make peace with it, if he was more or less all right with marc making the sport his own. okay, there's always going to be a little bit of bitterness, a little bit of envy... because he wished he could still do what marc was doing, of course he did. but by the end of 2013, he knew it was more likely than not he would never be involved in another title fight. he thought his career might be ending after the 2014 season. he told the world if he wasn't competitive in the early races in 2014 then that would be that, and I think he meant it

there was no guarantee he'd have a season like 2015 - sure, he was working harder than ever and making radical personnel choices, all in the hope he still had something more to give... but he didn't know it would happen. it was really really unlikely!! there's a giddiness to him in early 2015, almost like he couldn't quite believe himself he'd get that chance. and then, yes, he does withdraw from marc, he does go back into title fight mode... but relatively speaking, this is still a more agreeable version of valentino. this is still a version of valentino who is determined to not start shit with jorge - it's odd to watch, but in those 2015 pressers valentino is constantly engaging him in conversation, at a time in which the marc chatter was already dropping off pretty sharpish

(incidentally, I think vale was proper pissed off at how jorge reacted to the whole sepang thing and how jorge was angry with valentino, which is very funny to me. like at catalunya 2016 vale's going!! I actually made an effort with this bitch!! I was nice to him for three years, does that count for nothing??)

valentino also doesn't blow shit up over assen, even though by his standards marc should be giving him plenty of reason to. he's definitely cooled off towards marc, but he's still giving him the benefit of the doubt where he wouldn't have done so with past rivals - which, yes, I do think partly reflects how he felt about marc, but also reflects how he was approaching that year and that phase of his career as a whole. he didn't really want drama; he wasn't really looking for any distractions from the actual title fight. which doesn't mean that he wasn't already changing his behaviour towards his competitors in response to the demands of the season - it's just a question of the extent. here from a write-up of assen 2015 (I don't entirely agree on the point of the effectiveness of valentino's mind games, though I do agree - like valentino himself does - with the general idea that most of the work needs to be done on-track):

in the end, he cracked. I guess that's what generally happens when you put someone under that kind of pressure - you make them revert to type. valentino wasn't arrogant or entitled or over-confident in that season, he was desperate. he'd been given this unexpected chance and he was throwing everything he had into making it work. body, mind, soul, all of it, wringing himself out in pursuit of this dream. he could feel it slipping away at several points that season... that four race jorge win streak where he led every single lap and it was kind of like? okay, you just can't do anything about that. valentino can't match that, not at this stage of his career. or brno, after which they were level on points and jorge led on countback and it just felt like valentino so obviously had a consistent pace deficit that surely this could only go one way. all these moments where it felt like it might actually be over, in the least dramatic way imaginable. in many ways, this wasn't really a title fight that should ever have been so close - and it's to valentino's credit as a rider, his versatility and willpower, that he was even able to push things as far as he did. but he did know he was hanging on by a thread, and he ended up playing the last hand he felt he had available

obviously, it wasn't really rational calculation that made him do what he did in sepang - though there probably was an element of, y'know, might as well. but he believed he detected a pattern of behaviour in marc - not entirely incorrectly, because it did feel like marc approached his battles with valentino differently - and fashioned himself a conspiracy on the basis of it. he hoped it could change the momentum one last time; he decided to make one final roll of the dice. and then, of course, marc reacted in a way that has ensured valentino will never stop believing in his conspiracy theory. because of course marc did, because of course he never would have taken it lying down. because valentino knew from the moment marc engaged him in that battle at sepang that it was almost certainly all over, because he lost his temper - which usually helps him, except when it doesn't. because they both lost their tempers and ended up just wanting to hurt each other, to prove a point. because that's who they both are

the main point I'm trying to make here is kind of.... it's just how I personally read the sete stuff - yes, these are the same patterns of behaviour, yes, a lot of parallels do obviously present themselves. I've long felt that sete is the single most significant valentino feud to understanding what happened with marc. he's the only other one who valentino was friends with, the only other one valentino felt hurt by on a personal level, the only other one who valentino changed his behaviour towards from one day to the next. and I think under the right circumstances, if you give valentino enough of an excuse and enough of a prize to aim for and have planted enough seeds of suspicion in advance... you can get this situation where the competitive paranoia takes control and he buys into this whole betrayal narrative and he decides he needs to go nuclear. and it also gave him a script to follow - one he knew could work because it had. except of course it could have gone very wrong in 2004 too. what happens if he's so desperately determined to ruin sete that he bins it in phillip island and finds himself only barely ahead in the points going into the title decider? compare that race to phillip island 2009 - obviously, there's a sizeable difference between the level of opposition (especially at that circuit) and the '09 race probably wasn't winnable, but he still ends up eventually deciding to settle for second behind casey because he doesn't want to risk losing the championship to jorge. he's not casey's biggest fan either, but he never came close to losing his head fighting him. it's different. he might do some of his finest riding when he's angry, but where there's anger there's also volatility. and, on occasion, there's also some really bad choices

if 2004 is the moment where he's properly learning to play these games, then 2015 is him falling back on these tools when he really had basically discarded them. it'd been five years since he'd engaged in mind games in earnest (I know him and casey were constantly at it in 2011-12, but whatever the hell that was about, whatever part of their psyches they were appeasing there, it obviously had fuck all to do with on-track competition). that's a long time! there's a 2014 interview where he's asked about his work on the 'mental side' against his rivals:

the first thing he immediately stresses is that there's zero point in doing any of this if you're not fast enough on-track to back it up. if you are fast, sure, you can do some off-track 'work', especially if you know it makes your rivals suffer :) but it won't have the same effect without the on-track performance. so even if we want to say valentino hadn't mellowed post-2012, even if he hadn't grown one jot humbler in his heart of hearts, even if he wasn't swayed by any genuine fondness for marc, he still knew the maths just didn't work out in his favour with his current opponents. he couldn't deploy his favourite tactics against jorge because jorge insisted on spending the entire season either two spots ahead or three spots behind valentino, and the off-track stuff just can't work if you're never sharing space on-track. it could and did work against marc, but he wasn't trying to score psychological victories against marc! certainly not by the time they reached assen and marc was basically out of that title fight. so there wouldn't have been any point in trying to fuck with either of them in that way off-track and, well, it could easily backfire. which is something valentino understood perfectly well until they were 88.9% of the way through the season, and then he changed his mind at what was almost the very last possible moment. which I think speaks to how desperate valentino was to make a mistake like he did at sepang: he felt it was all he had left to try

the other way in which marc comes into this whole thing is that.... I mean, he knew about all this stuff! this is the thing right, maybe he wasn't watching the sepang 2004 press conference as an eleven year old and later going 'huh' but broadly speaking, he will obviously have been aware of how this went down, qatar controversy and all of it. he's sitting right there in that jerez 2015 presser when valentino is asked about sete and in response valentino says sete played 'dirty games'. he's obviously aware of the whole jerez 2005 situation, not least because he copied valentino's overtake in his third ever premier class race. which in turn sete was watching unfold, and is still having thoughts about in 2023:

so it's kind of... y'know, you've got marc, you've got someone who's still very much the heir apparent despite all the drama between him and valentino. if you're sete, do you look at marc and see somebody who valentino hurt in similar ways to what he did to you, or do you look at marc and see another version of valentino? do you see both? it's again that thing of, if you have a problem with some of valentino's more aggressive riding then you will definitely have a problem with marc. because of course marc is the escalation, because valentino generally picked his moments a bit more and adjusted his levels of aggression more to the situation, whereas marc is mostly just Like That. so sure, if you're sete gibernau you can look at marc and see another one of valentino's victims, but at the end of the day you're also going to see his legacy

and this from 2017:

not an original thing to say obviously, half of motogp has said it at one point or another. but. still. meaningful to me!

that tension between 'fellow valentino rival' and 'valentino's successor' is imo inherent to the jerez pass situation, because (along with laguna seca) it's an example of marc actively inserting himself into valentino's legacy. and the thing is, right, these aren't just neutral fun passes that everyone remembers because they looked cool: they're the biggest flashpoints of their respective feuds. marc did to jorge what valentino did to sete - and then he did the most valentino thing imaginable and went to jorge when he must have known jorge would still be furious, making him publicly reject his handshake and starting up a whole lot of discourse™ that would take forever to die down. marc knew immediately how controversial what he did would be and was completely at home in the chaos. it's not just the pass that does valentino proud, it's the shamelessness

while that race might not have had the same repercussions as '05, at the end of the day you do have to remember that those passes have a lot of baggage and controversy attached that marc is also making himself a part of. in the case of laguna, it's valentino addressing livio suppo in the presser because of all the grief suppo and casey had given valentino over the '08 overtake. in the case of the jerez pass, it's sete talking about how alienated he is by this whole approach to riding that marc so completely embodies. and the whole thing has come up quite a few times since 2013, because everyone loves bringing up last corner passes at least once a year when they show up again at jerez

so for instance we have this clip from 2016 (fourth race of the season, vibes still in hell), where the riders are asked whether they'd prefer to be in first, second or third position heading into that final corner. not all too much to say about this one, really. jorge, who it seems has at long last learned his lesson about what to do when you've got a lunatic sitting on your rear wheel headed into the final corner of a race, stresses that he'd protect the inside line - not least because these two fuckers would dive on the inside through the grass if you give them half a chance. also, decent gag from marc! good on him. not always easy for those who have decided they hate him so much so that they refuse to laugh at anything he says

then we have this from 2017 - where sete is in the room - asking four riders who they'd want to arrive at jerez's final corner with. three guys give pretty boring answers, though you'll note in 2017 valentino does actually mention his battle with sete (*gestures with his head in sete's direction*) in the same breath as the one between "marc and jorge". those three boring answers are followed by a great response courtesy of jorge. the question doesn't actually specify, but obviously jorge immediately zeroes in on valentino and marc since they are. you know. the two guys with a history of doing last corner jerez crimes. and they're also two confirmed lunatics, though jorge believes that valentino at least might be a little less reckless now that he's a little older. hey, maybe even marc has become 3% more sensible at the advanced age of 24 (funnily enough, vale when making that overtake in '05 was two years older than marc is in this clip). it's a sweet moment - but, without wanting to belabour the obvious, it's also another way of showing how irrevocably linked both the passes and the blokes executing them are. both valentino and marc are 'hard brakers', to put it lightly. two peas in a pod, from a man who would know

we do also of course get sete reacting to valentino's answer. idk what this facial expression is but I sure am compelled by it (thank u to dani pedrosa for working with sete in 2017 so that we'd get live sete reaction shots. I am very grateful)

okay so those two I included because. well it's just kind of neat and fun that this is a parallel they won't ever escape. linked legacies and all that. but I am actually building up to a point here, and it's to do with how even post-2015, it's not like marc is always overflowing with sympathy and compassion for valentino's other victims. he knows his lore! he will know at least the general details of the sete relationship and how it deteriorated and what valentino did to him afterwards! so let's bring in austria 2017, a time at which the vibes between the two of them aren't actually. catastrophic. exhibit a:

so in this presser, valentino is asked if his overtake on jorge at catalunya '09 is the favourite of his career, and he says it was special because it was the last corner - he can't remember any other examples of him making a last corner overtake in the premier class. at which point marc taps valentino to point out sete:

youtube

the expression marc makes in the thumbnail - that's how he looks when he's eagerly waiting for valentino to put two and two together. the thing is, right, this whole feuding business, the way valentino treated his rivals, how he was pretty awful to them... all of it will have been stuff that marc actively enjoyed as a fan. and even post-2015, when marc has experienced some of the very worst valentino has to offer, marc still finds the whole jerez thing pretty funny, not just the overtake but what it meant for the relationship between valentino and sete. he makes valentino aware of sete in the room, because of course he would never forget valentino's greatest hits. like, remember why this exchange is funny: everybody knows this overtake was a super controversial thing and a big source of tension between the two of them and valentino's forgotten about it. and marc's laughing at this!! in 2017!! "after we have a bit problems" and marc thinks it's hilarious!! buddy

one more presser moment, from 2019. just a bit of context here - earlier in the presser they were asked about dani getting a corner named after him at jerez and valentino went 'yeah good for him but I wouldn't want a corner named after me !!' and marc talked about how he'd gotten a corner at aragon named after him the year before. so now, the riders are asked what their favourite bit of the jerez circuit is. the joke here goes a) marc says 'last corner' the way he does because everyone knows he did a terrorism there, b) jack miller says 'you mean jorge lorenzo corner' because everyone knows it's funny marc did a terrorism on jorge there like a day after jorge got the corner named after him, and c) marc says 'it's valentino corner' because everyone knows his move was copying the move valentino did on sete. and... 'valentino corner'... first of all why would you do this to your literal teammate jorge lorenzo... but again the whole reason this exchange is funny is because the premise is that they did the same thing, valentino to sete and marc to jorge. implicitly, it's making the link between the pair of them and how they terrorised their rivals in the same way. still. in 2019

speaking of legacies, there's a moment in the 2016 catalunya presser where valentino is asked how that duel compares to his past duels in 2007 and 2009 at that circuit (notice the blatant and unchallenged sete erasure - 2004 and 2005 were really great but okay). and valentino says he counts it on the same level as the jorge fight - "was three great battles with three great opponents". which, y'know, I really love 2016, I think it's fantastic, but marc makes a mistake on the penultimate lap and denies us the most dramatic of finales. like I think it's completely reasonable and nice for valentino to count it in that same camp as the 2009 duel, but I also think it wouldn't have been crazy or disrespectful or anything if he'd gone 'yeah that was great but not quite the same thing'. this definitely might be reading too much into it (surely not) but given how valentino has since occasionally left marc out of the rivalries list, said he wasn't his toughest rival etc etc, I do think it's kinda notable that during that moment of 'reconciliation', valentino allowed marc to be part of his legacy - even if it's just in a small way. 'great valentino catalunya battles' is a pretty cool group of races to be a part of, y'know? the infamous overtakes, the duels, these are the things people remember. these are the things marc remembered, as valentino's fan - inevitably, it'll mean something to him. it's a legacy he wants to be a part of, by fighting valentino, by emulating valentino, and sometimes valentino lets him and sometimes he'd rather leave marc out in the cold. you'll note that in 2019 he doesn't really engage with the "valentino corner" gag from marc and instead goes with the far more neutral turn 5 as his own pick

in the very very immediate aftermath of sepang (aka december 2015), marc did openly make the comparison between himself and valentino's other rivals:

and it's informed his whole approach since then - it's a big part of why he's tried to be quiet about the drama with valentino over the years. he knows how valentino behaves towards his rivals, he always has. he knows he can't beat valentino off-track... but (beyond his undeniable mental resilience) he's just fortunate enough that with his talent and the way their career windows have overlapped, more often than not he's been able to out-perform valentino on the track. and y'know, it's an interesting element to the whole thing I feel... marc was a fan of valentino's for a lot of reasons - he was very much a fan of the complete package, if you will. including what valentino did to his enemies! it's not like that aspect of vale was some kind of closely guarded secret; it was like a top three valentino rossi talking point for years and years. (part of the subtext of assen 2015 is marc not really enjoying being on the receiving end of one of those classic valentino scam wins, when marc had been intending to do that to valentino.) again, those overtakes of valentino's weren't just famous because they were cool, they were famous because they helped valentino fuck with his rivals. it's not just about emulating his on-track aggression, it's about emulating how valentino did his best to get in his rivals' heads. when we talk about marc 'being a fan' of valentino, then it shouldn't be ignored that this involved marc being a fan of what an absolute and utter asshole valentino was. and like with all things relating to valentino, I'd wager marc has pretty complicated feelings about this. at the end of the day that's also part of his make up as a rider... but it also really burnt him personally...

it's almost like an identification thing, isn't it. if you're marc and you're thinking about valentino's past rivalries, whose shoes are you placing yourself in? in many ways it should be valentino's rivals, because of course some of their experiences mirror marc's. and there's a rare moment in the winter of 2015, when he's still in the process of trying to make sense of everything that's happened, where he does make the connection. but apart from that, he's shied away from it - even when he's criticising valentino, he's generally not framing what valentino did to marc as indicative of some broader character flaw. it's casey and jorge who explicitly make that link, not marc. he's still kind of... idk, separating that out. obviously, marc would far rather be valentino's successor than another one of valentino's victims, even if he hasn't really been given a choice in the matter and has ended up being both. I don't really have any evidence to back this up, but my guess is that deep down he feels like what valentino did to him was different from what he did to those other guys. and in some ways he's right and in some ways he's wrong

unfortunate, isn't it. you're a fan of somebody with a reputation for fucking with his enemies, which is fun and neat and you kinda want to copy how he does it - maybe put your own spin on the whole thing but you're still into the general vibe. you enter the sport at a time when you can still fight your hero, but he's kinda washed and he's too old to be starting new feuds (*bzzzzt!!* incorrect! you are never too old to start feuds) so there's no real danger. and you share a bond you think on some level is different from whatever those other guys had going on, even sete gibernau, whoever tf that is. and then you become real rivals and realise how extremely not enjoyable it is to be losing to him yourself and you really want to show him and maybe you do push it a little far along the way. but it'll be okay. it's all fine... until he decides it's time to destroy you. and on one level you do obviously see the parallels because you're not an idiot... but on the other hand, none of that stuff, none of what he did to those other guys - it wasn't ever going to stop you from being a fan of his. it's the bits he did to you that are the problem. and at the end of the day, you'll never quite be able to let go of the twelve year old boy inside of you who found jerez 2005 really, really cool

anyway

#anitalianfrie #rosquez #//#sg15 #4693 #society if tumblr allowed you to upload more than one video per post >>>>#I hate how speculative the last few paragraphs are. badly sourced psychological analysis but well #this wasn't actually meant to be a sepang 2015 post bUT this was a follow-up post waiting to be written lbr. give me an excuse etc #anyway this post is incredibly incoherent but. shrug. idk how to fix it so whatever #i've seen a few posts here that slightly have the tone of 'oh if only marc had known how valentino behaved towards casey stoner'#listen. he did know. he probably thought it was fantastic. idk what to tell you #you'll note the dec 2015 quote implies casey 'lost' the off-track battle with valentino which I'm not sure casey would be a massive fan of #marc and vale both had a bit of a case of not like other girls about each other and y'know in a way that's still true. just in a sadder way #batsplat responds #curse tag #idol tag #brr brr

165 notes · View notes

mayaflowerxs · 1 year ago

Note

hellooo can i request a smut abt jaemin and fem reader in a secluded/private pool just like the one's in inferno😩 thanksss!!

AFTER HOUR PRIVACY

Synopsis: On a tv show to find love, your journey with the beloved Na Jaemin all began in the pool.

Warning: Smut / Fluff /, swear word usage, alcohol consumption, pool sex. Little to no plot! So sorry it took AGES, I’ve been super busy but I’ll try my hardest to upload more!! Please enjoy and sorry it isn’t the best!

Pairing; Jaemin x f!reader

Splashing can be heard following a series of giggles. Besides that, only the the crickets are what keeps the night from utter silence in the villa. Way past midnight, with all other contenders fast asleep with the exception of two.

It was currently day 3 and although it was still all fairly new, you had already embarked the start of what can be of something nice with the charismatic Na Jaemin, 23 year old citizen from Jeonju-si ,South Korea. Contrast to your first impression of the man, you had quickly gotten close with him. Hitting it off way easier than you’d ever thought. Before you knew it, you would be taking a late night swim with him.

Even though, the two of you are already partnered up, with someone else.

Cornered, Jaemin’s arms are at your sides. On a mission to tickle you, a mischievous grin on his face to get you to laugh. Squirming and pushing at his chest, he’s too strong to stop him. “NaNa stop! They’re going to hear us.” You whisper shout at him through a fit of giggles. Shrugging his shoulders, he stops tickling you only to pull you in by your waist. You instinctively wrap your arms around his shoulders, nuzzling your face in his neck to stop the snickering.

It was wrong to be doing this. To be out this late when the rest of the villa was asleep, and especially to be doing this when the two of you are clearly not partners. It’s not fair to neither person who’s currently sleeping alone in your shared beds.

“We don’t owe them anything.” Jaemin tries to reason with you. Raising a brow, you pull back to look at him clearly.

“I know what you’re thinking. It’s only been 3 days, its still early days. We owe no loyalty.”

“But shouldn’t we at least tell them that you know…we’re…” “Hooking up?” Smacking his arm, he only snorts and leans in to press a sudden kiss to your cheek. “You’re cute when you worry.” Smacking him once more, he fakes a wince. “What’s that for?” “For being an asskisser.” Smirking his voice lowers an octave. “baby for you, I’ll gladly do all the ass kissing-“ An attempt to kiss you, you press your hand on his lips. “Not happening, you already ruined my hair.” You sigh and pull back, not noticing the slight look of disapproval on the boy’s face when you do that. In a small span of time, he’s noticed he’s grown needy for your touch. His arm was quick to rest on your side immediately afterwards. He stares as you take your hair out of the messy bun, hair still kept dry.

“Oh I’m sorry, how about I fix that real quick.” Jaemin shrugs before he picks you up, arms tucked under your legs. Wrapping them around his waist, “Jaemin, what are you doing?” Eyes widening when you notice he’s beginning to back up, going further to the deeper side of the pool. “Don’t you dare wet my hair.” You try to push him off but to no avail, his hold on you is kept strong. Last thing you did before the both of you are plunged into the water is wrapping your arms around his toned shoulders.

Coming up for water, splashing him when he breaks the surface only to grin in your face. “What an ass!” You try to move the sticky strands of hair out of your face, he only laughs and when he tries to swim closer to you, he’s only met with your knee attempting to aim at his lower region. “Ok! Ok! I’m sorry.” Ignoring him, you swim over to the other end of the pool. Picking up the glass of wine you left on the edge and just as you take a sip you felt his presence behind you. Arms on either side on you, caging you in, his chest on your back as he rests his chin on your shoulder. Mouth close to your ear as he lays small air kisses, “M’sorry y/n, please forgive me.” Attempting to give him the silent treatment, Jaemin picks on it immediately and results in pressing soft sensual kisses to your neck.

Wrapping his arms around your waist, hugging you closer to him. Hands massaging your soft wet skin. “Y/n, baby I’m sorry. Please forgive me?” Eyes closed as the feeling of his mouth and hands on you make you seem to be in some kind of hypnosis, you can only hum before you force yourself to focus. Shaking your head, you’re just about to move away from him when he pushes you up against the edge of the pool. “No?” He asks, pitch slightly risen, the question in it sounds taunting. “Would you like me to prove to you just how sorry I am?”

“Jaemin, I think it’s time to go inside-“

Squealing when he suddenly turns you around and lifts you up, propping you to sit on the concrete. Feeling much rougher than the smoothness of the water. “Let me show you just how sorry I am.” Pulling you to the very edge by your legs, bringing you closer to his face, your eyes widen. “Jaemin the cameras. What if the others see?” Not responding, he merely uses his forearm to push your back onto the concrete, spreading your legs to get full access to your bikini bottom. “Just relax baby. They turn the cameras off after 1 am.”

“But Jae- “ Throwing your head back with a moan, mouth slightly gaping the moment you felt his tongue on you.

Pushing your bikini to the side where he has no struggle in attaching his mouth on your sopping cunt. Tongue flicking everywhere, a finger on your clit as he proceeds to rub figure eights. Strands of his wet hair sticks to his forehead, his back muscle tenses the longer he’s hovering over you. Sounds of slurping can be heard the faster he eats you out. Fighting the urge to close your legs, your nails failing to dig into the hard ground results in them running through the wet locks of the man that has left you breathless since day one.

Your chest rises with every hard intake of breath you make. It felt good, amazing. He certainly wasn’t a man with little to no experience, he knew what he was doing. He knows how to get you going especially when he makes sure to look up at you, keeping his eyes on you. Even when his mouth was occupied, you could still notice when he smirked with every moan that left your pink lips. “Jaemin-“ You try to push his head away from you, you were close. He knew that and so he grabs your hands and pins them at your sides.

Sucking harder, focusing on your sensitive bud until he had you shaking for him. Not stopping even when you had already came on his mouth, not when half his face was drenched. His own grunts can be heard the faster he laps up your pussy, seeing the drunken look on his face is enough to know he’s gotten addicted to your taste.

“Jaemin, babe.” You whimper, legs shaking with every passing second that it stays held up. His grip on your wrists on tightens when you try to pry yourself of him. The man going down on you pulls back only to spit on your red throbbing pussy and reattach himself to you. Soon you begin to feel another orgasm beginning to start back up. Fully making out with your pussy, you watch as the pussy drunken man before you loses himself to your essence. A look of bliss on his face almost as if he’s been starved for who knows how long.

He can’t get enough of you. Since the moment he met eyes with you, he knew you would be wrecking him every which way. You would be on his mind from when he wakes up in the morning to when he falls asleep, but unfortunately wouldn’t be who he gets to partner up as it seems someone else also happened to have his eyes set on you. But he can’t blame them, you’re gorgeous, you have great banter with anyone even though he prefers if it was only with him. You have no problem turning him on and even though he’s currently partnered up with someone else, he can’t help but think of the many obscene scenarios he wishes to fulfill with you and only you.

So now, that he’s here. Alone in the middle of the night in Spain. On a beautiful villa with you spread out for him, how can he not appreciate every second he gets with you. Even if he may become greedy?

High pitched moans are ripped out of you, breath hitched as your orgasm is much stronger than the first. managing to turn your hands, your fingers begin to rub soft circles on Jaemin’s veiny ones. Something that helps him get out of his daze. With one last kiss to your clit, he pulls away and lowers your legs. Pulling you over to him until he plants his wet lips on yours. Moaning into his mouth when you get a taste of yourself. “You tasted like cherries, my favorite.” Jaemin says to you huskily.

A hand of yours reached the back of his neck. Fingers curling the ends of his hair, you notice the adorable look on his face. Lips swollen, tired face but his eyes still held a hint of lust in them. The idea that he may be harder underneath the water only wants you to continue this reckless behavior. Pulling him closer to you, you lean into his ear. In a whisper,

“Fuck me.”

A small groan can be heard, shrieking when he suddenly pulls you in the pool only to have you pressed on the wall of the pool and bent over on the edge. Hand tugging your top off to reveal your perky tits. Grinning when you feel him kneading your ass before you feel it.

His tip rubbing up against your pussy lips. Gasping at the sudden friction. Jaemin keeps you bent over, his arm pressing your back to keep your tits on the cold ground. “Be good.” He says sternly before he thrusts in. Gasping at the intrusion, you couldn’t believe the size of him. He wasn’t huge but definitely bigger than what you had imagined.

Yet again, the man takes you by surprise when he doesn’t seem to pick up pace. Instead he keeps his thrust slow and sensual. Making sure to hit every inch of you warm tight walls. His angry red tip kissing your cervix beautifully, the bulge on your lower abdomen becoming prominent of his tip. You felt slightly embarrassed that it had only taken 3 days for you to sleep with a stranger that you just met, but when he begins to fuck you harder you can’t seem to care.

“NaNa..” You whine, this only riles the man and soon he picks up the pace. The water moves with harsh waves with every movement he makes. Some of it spilling out of the tub, your face on the ground, hand gripping your hair as you try to focus on your labor breathing. Starting to feel yourself lose any sense due to his throbbing cock, Moaning when you suddenly feel him pull you up. His left hand wrapping around your neck as the other wraps around your waist securely. “Look at you going dumb on my cock.” He snickers in your ear.

“Feels so fucking good.” You manage to get out.

“Yeah? Better than what you’ve had lately?” He asks while giving a particular forceful thrust. Having to set your arm on the rail in order to gain balance. “So much better!” You agree.

Turned to face him, you feel his arms come underneath your legs. Scooping you up until your clinging onto him, he re-enters you. This time he’s no longer soft, sensual but instead he rams into you. Knocking the breath out of you, he pounds into you as you rest your arm back on the rim of the pool. Your tits bounce in his face, enticing him to lean in and soon he does,

Mouth attaching itself on your harden nipples. Sensitive to his tongue as he proceeds to nibble on them slightly. Sucking until he leaves them red and with hickies on them. Rotating between each tit, his face nuzzled in them even when he’s bouncing you hard on his cock. “Fuck Jaemin, keep doing that.” You plead, throwing your head back. His lips quickly to find your neck. Sucking until they too are covered in his love bites. No longer caring if either one of your partner’s find suspicion. They’ll have to find out one way or another,

That you’re his from here on out. And he does not plan on sharing you. Not when you’re wrapped around his dick so nice and tightly. Not when your tits are practically begging to be fondled with. Not when you moan his name so prettily, like his name was always mean’t to be moaned out by you. You got him perfectly wrapped around your finger and he does not care.

So, if he must go back to his shared room with the other contenders. To have to go back to sharing a bed with his partner. To have to see you get in bed with another man, he might as well make this night memorable for the both of you. A silent promise for more in the future.

Grabbing a leg of yours, he pushes you back on the ground and lifts your leg to gain a better angle. Better access to hitting deep within your bruised cunt, and when your walls tighten around him immediately he knows he found your g spot.

Feeling glorious, he doesn’t stop hitting the exact spot. Hair sticking to his forehead, its unknown if whether its water or his sweat. He ignores the fact that it’s getting in the way of his vision. He eyes dead set at the connection between the two of you. Watching how your pussy begs to be filled with his cock. How it tightens every time he thrusts back.

“Jaemin I’m so close!” You hiccup, he coos.

“You going dumb on my cock baby? Am I taking your breath away? I see how much you’re struggling to breath baby.” He taunts with a shit eating grin.

Rolling your eyes, head tosses back its quickly pulled forward when you feel his hand coming to wrap around your throat. “Open those pretty eyes princess, want you to look at me while you come on my cock.” Despite the struggle, you try your hardest to keep your eyes open. You rest your arm on top of Jaemin’s whose hold doesn’t relent on your throat.

You hear the way he’s beginning to groan excessively. He too about ready to reach his peak. How uneven his thrusts are, he’s faster, messier and relentless. His breathing is uneven and his brows are furrowed with determination.

“Shit!”

You feel your orgasm hit you like a powerful wave. Jaemin is quick to pull out, shooting his load on your stomach. Painting your body with white hot cum. Some of it going on his abs. Catching your breaths, Jaemin leans in to press a soft kiss on your temple. “You okay?” Sending him a soft smile, you nod and cup his face to press a real kiss on his lips. One you know he wanted for a while now. Seeing the look of content on his face, you chuckle and allow him as he begins to wipe his cum off your body. Helping the two of you out of the pool and helping you put your bikini back on. Pulling up his trousers.

Entering the building, the two of you head over to the bathroom. Realizing it’s a bad idea to shower if you don’t wanna wake anyone up. The best course of action would to simply change. And just as the two of you are about to head into the bedroom, you stop when you notice something on Jaemin’s abdomen. “What?’

His eyes widen when you suddenly get on your knees. “What are you-“ a low gasp falls out of his mouth as he stares amazed, tongue out as you begin to lick at his abdomen. Licking him clean of the excess semen that spurted on him. It was hot to say the last, but the tip of the icebreak may have been when you looked up at him with a cheeky smile. Feeling the familiar rush flowing down to his dick, he groans in frustration when you stop once you licked him clean and walked off not before sending him a wink.

“Goodnight.”

Now horny and with a hard on, Jaemin will have to fall asleep the you on his mind yet again.

Only now, he’d have to plan the next open opportunity where he can get you to himself. Away from the others, away from your partners and somewhere where he can fuck you to his hearts content.

To show you, he isn’t the only one that can be left wanting more.

#nct x reader #nct scenarios #nct imagines #nct smut #nct reactions #jaemin nct #nct jaemin imagines #nct jaemin scenarios #nct jaemin smut #na jaemin #na jaemin imagines #na jaemin x reader #mark nct #nct haechan #nct jeno imagines #nct renjun #nct jisung #chenle nct

574 notes · View notes

lilacgyuvin · 9 months ago

Text

out of my league — k. gyuvin

pairing: nerd!gyuvin x popular!gn!reader

synopsis: it’s valentine’s day! what better way to confess to your longtime crush (and the highschool’s most popular student) than with a letter shoved through their locker. just don’t let jiwoong find out.

wrd count: 6.3k (DAMN OKAY BITCH!!!)

warnings: highschool!au, slight hurt/lots of comfort, bully!jiwoong (srry someone had to do it), bullying, one km s joke, reader isn’t a bully, eunseok of riize sneak, jiwoong is really mean 😭 a little crack, funeral talk, not to be taken seriously this is fiction!!

a/n: yk i had to write smth with valentine’s day coming up!! i lobe gyuvin gyuvin pls be my valentine pls plsplspls

“I put a note in their locker.”

It probably wasn’t the best sentence starter, which Gyuvin realizes only after Taerae starts to choke on his strawberry soda mid-chug. Despite his eyes practically bulging out of his head paired with a boisterous gasp amidst hearing Gyuvin’s doings, Eunseok reaches a lending hand out to his suffocating friend’s back.

“You what?!” Eunseok screams in a hushed tone, despite being the only three occupants of the classroom. If Gyuvin didn’t think it was a stupid idea then, well, he certainly does now. He honestly wasn’t going to tell anyone at first; the embarrassment mixed with the fear of rejection almost made him drop the whole plan as a whole. However, binging 3 romance dramas back to back gave him the confidence he’d never thought he’d have otherwise if it weren’t for the male leads and their suave ways, which is what leads him to where he stands today: sending a confession letter to his longtime crush which also ended up being the cause of his friend’s premature death. Thanks, Choi Woong!

Taerae unfortunately survives his cough attack and uses his regained ability to breath properly to discourage Gyuvin’s efforts even more. “Jiwoong’s gonna kill you man.”

Yes, that’s exactly what he wanted to hear right now. He decides against answering with sarcasm and opts out to rolling his eyes as hard as he can at the mention of he-who-shall-not-be-named.

“He didn’t see me put it in,” He certainly didn’t, and Gyuvin knows this because he showed up an hour earlier than normal to slip the note in, partly to avoid Jiwoong and to also beat his inevitable numerous contenders. “Plus, they’re not even dating. They don’t like him.”

Eunseok and Taerae share a glance. They look back at Gyuvin. “Did they tell you that.”

Gyuvin’s starting to get tired of rolling his eyes. Of course they didn’t tell him that, they’re nowhere near close. While they’ve coexisted in the same space for the past four years, their friend groups are on complete opposite sides of the spectrum. They’re admired by everyone, in numerous clubs, and is practically known by the whole school. The only club Gyuvin’s a part of is the Epic Gamers Club™ held at Eunseok’s house every other day. And as far as being admired goes…

“Yo. Gyuvin.”

Oh fuck, it’s so over. Gyuvin is going to die. What’s-his-face is here and Gyuvin is going to die, all because he couldn’t confess to his crush like a normal person. How did Jiwoong even see him? It’s not like he handed the letter to them in plain sight, and there’s no way in hell Jiwoong showed up to school an hour early.

Well, none of that matters anymore. Jiwoong is now walking into the once peaceful confines of the classroom, his goons right behind him, and Gyuvin’s about to meet his end.

All he asks is that Y/n is at his funeral.

Despite coming into the classroom for Gyuvin, Jiwoong is kind enough to make time to mess around with his friends first. Wedging himself in between the three desks facing each other, Jiwoong snatches Taerae’s glasses off his face and tosses them to the floor, and at the same time shoves Eunseok’s tuna mayo kimbap out of his hands. So much for escaping the lunch room.

After watching his friends scramble for their discarded items, Jiwoong turns his back to them in favor of facing Gyuvin, his signature smirk plastered on his face.

Kim Jiwoong: The entire school’s boy crush and simultaneously Gyuvin’s worst nightmare. Going into high school, Gyuvin didn’t think he’d have problems with anyone, his plan was simple: make a decent amount of friends, stay in the honors program so he can get into his dream university, and best his all-time score in Super Smash Bros Ultimate. Oh, and get into his first relationship (since the girl he ‘dated’ in the second grade didn’t count, according to Taerae).

He guesses he strived too hard at the second thing though, as in their freshman year Jiwoong was left at second place in their classes overall academic ranking, and Jiwoong was never second.

Ever since then, Jiwoong has tried everything to sabotage Gyuvin’s grades, which ended in failure each time. So, he just stuck to messing with him. Now Gyuvin wouldn’t really mind if he had got reprimanded for his actions, but he gets away with it— every time. Sneaking slaps upside his head when passing him through the halls, pushing and tripping him during gym, and ‘accidentally’ spilling his drink onto his uniform (which is what initiated classroom lunches amongst him and his friends in the first place): he got away with it all, for four damn years. All because of that facade he puts up in front of everyone. With his perfect grades combined with his charm, he’s adored by students and faculty alike— all but the few who were unfortunate enough to be victims of his ridiculing, Gyuvin included.

The devil himself opens his mouth once again. “I haven’t seen you in a while, you hiding from me?” His smirk forms into a smile, yet it doesn’t reach his eyes, and it holds the same sinister tone as his previous expression did.

Gyuvin looks up at him, disdain hidden behind the neutral shield he’s learned to master in favor of avoiding a swift blow to the face (not that it ever stopped Jiwoong from landing one, anyway). “No.”

At that, Jiwoong’s smile drops, his eyebrows furrow in fake confusion and he starts to look around the empty room. “But… you’re having lunch. In an empty classroom. When there’s a perfectly good cafeteria waiting for you downstairs.” Jiwoong’s friends snicker by the door as he leans down to be eye level with Gyuvin. “Don’t you find that rude, Gyuvin? The staff make sure the cafe is cleaned spotless for scum like you to eat, and you’re eating in the classroom?”

Literally what the fuck is he even talking about. It isn’t uncommon for students to eat in the classrooms, and he knows this because Jiwoong’s literally done it before. It’s in that moment that he realizes Jiwoong just came in here to mess with him, which means he doesn’t know about the letter which means that he won’t die today. Looks like he’ll live to see another day after all!

His newfound happiness isn’t long lived, as in the span of one second, Gyuvin blinks and his food is nothing but a pile of solids and liquids on the classroom’s floor.

Jiwoong gives him a mean snare, despite the fact that all of Gyuvin’s attention is to his now germ-infested food. “And now look, you made a mess.”

Gyuvin can barely hear him and his friends laughing with the way his ears are ringing— no, practically blaring throughout his head. His bulgogi over rice is on the floor. His fucking bulgogi over rice, the last of its kind (as his mom let him have the last of the leftovers), is now nothing but a concoction of soggy meat and rice sautaed with his strawberry milk.

Usually, Gyuvin would be the bigger person and walk away; he’d shut his mouth, clean up the mess, and go about his day. But for some reason, he doesn’t feel like being the mature one today. Maybe it’s the never ending grating laughter coming from his friends, maybe it’s because he’s tired of Jiwoong pushing him around, or maybe it’s just because his mom’s bulgogi is the best bulgogi, and now he can’t have any, all because Kim Jiwoong was bored.

Without a second thought, Gyuvin rises from his chair, lifting his arms to push at the chest of an unexpecting Jiwoong, who stumbles onto the desks of Gyuvin’s friends behind him (he’ll apologize to them for that later). Jiwoong unfortunately finds his footing rather quickly, and doesn’t waste a second as he roughly grabs Gyuvin by the collar, dragging him to the nearest wall and slams him against it. “You fucking crazy? Huh?!”

Those dramas must be really getting to me, Gyuvin thinks. It becomes obvious when he doesn’t shut his mouth after Jiwoong’s question. “Fuck you, Jiwoong.”

He doesn’t even mean to spit in his face, but it happens when he speaks, and he can feel his past self crying tears of joy. He’s been wanting to do this for four years. Maybe the bulgogi sacrificed itself for this very moment. Thanks, Bulgogi. I’ll never forget you.

Jiwoong dryly laughs, lolling his head to the side like the psycho he is. “Yeah, you’ve clearly lost your mind. I’m gonna fucking kill you.”

Okay, remember when Gyuvin thought he was free from begging murdered and would live to see another day? He’s starting to think he spoke too soon.

It’s like things are moving in slow motion; Jiwoong releasing a hand on his collar in favor of making a fist angled straight at Gyuvin’s nose, his friends standing from their seats in dreadful anticipation, and the swift breeze that comes from the door being swung open.

“Leave him alone, Jiwoong.”

Ah, his guardian angel.

In less than a millisecond, Jiwoong’s vice grip on Gyuvin’s collar is released, and the fist ready to knock him out is lowered to his side. A deep sigh escapes his throat before he turns to the agitated student. “Go back downstairs, Y/n. This is nothing.”

Gyuvin almost laughs wholeheartedly at Jiwoong’s weak attempt to redirect them. As if he could get them to do anything he said.

Y/n cooks their head to the side, which in Gyuvin’s book is a telltale sign that they’re about to read the fuck out of Jiwoong. “Yeah, it was nothing, until you decided to come in here and bother them for literally no reason. Do you seriously have nothing else better to do?”

Gyuvin can feel an amused smile crawling onto his face as he watches Jiwoong scramble to find an excuse. Seeing Jiwoong try his hardest not to physically deflate in front of his friends would never get old.

And neither would his good-boy facade, apparently! Despite being caught in the act by Y/n for the millionth time, Jiwoong still attempts to save face by pulling out the puppy eyes plucked from the deepest pits of Hell, paired with the fakest apologetic look Gyuvin’s ever witnessed, and turns to be face to face with Y/n, caressing their arm in what he thinks is a comforting gesture. “Come on, don’t be like that. What, you want me to apologize?”

“Yes.”

Like he’s just heard he’s due to get castrated tomorrow morning, his hand’s cease the petting motion and Jiwoong does a double take. “You serious?” He looks into their eyes for any signs of humor behind them (which is stupid for issuing an apology, Gyuvin thinks), and when he doesn’t find any, he drops the act faster than Gyuvin can say ‘COD sucks’ and pinches the bridge of his nose, letting out the loudest groan known to man. “Oh my- fine.” Jiwoong looks to his right, locking eyes with him, “Sorry for knocking over your piece of shit lunch, Gyuvin.”

Piece of— his mom’s bulgogi?! Of course Jiwoong wouldn’t know the significance the lunch held for Gyuvin, but he wouldn’t care anyway, so Gyuvin breaks eye contact and rolls his eyes as far into his head as humanly possible.

Gyuvin, now making his way to his book bag to retrieve napkins for his late lunch on the floor, can’t see the look of disbelief on Jiwoong’s face, but he sure can hear it. “What, you’re not gonna accept my apology?”

Gyuvin doesn’t stop fetching for the tissues even when he hears Jiwoong’s footsteps approaching him, and neither does he stop when they come to a halt. “He doesn’t have to do anything,” When he finally retrieves the napkins, Y/n is at his side on the floor, grabbing the empty plastic bag on his desk. “Now if you aren’t going to help clean up, then leave.”

Jiwoong furrows his eyebrows. “You don’t need to help them, Y/n.”

“I also don’t have to meet with you at the cafe after school.”

Oh, Gyuvin knows that one hurt. Everyone knows Jiwoong’s been dying to ask Y/n out for a while now (mostly because he’d never shut up about it), and boy was Gyuvin right. He stumbles over his words as he raises his arms before dropping them. “Come on, Y/n. It’s Valentine’s Day.”

Despite the obvious hurt in his voice, they don’t even spare him a glance, focusing on the mess in front of them. “..So? We’re not dating, take Minjeong or something.”

A beat of silence passes, and he thinks Jiwoong died of embarrassment until a scoff erupts from his throat. Okay, there was no way Gyuvin would miss out on seeing Jiwoong’s face after getting rejected before he could even confess, so he raises his head and fully suspects Jiwoong to be sulking or something. He was so wrong. When Gyuvin looks up, Jiwoong is staring right at him, his eyes holding nothing but disdain and revulsion. Wow, Gyuvin thinks, if this is how he reacts to them just simply helping me, what’s he gonna do when they accept (which they hopefully will) my confession? He’d rather not think about that right now actually, and he doesn’t have to any longer, as Jiwoong turns on his heels and makes his way out of the classroom, his goons behind him, but not before mumbling a parting gift for Gyuvin. “Fuckin’ freak.”

So original. Anyway, Gyuvin’s just glad he doesn’t have to deal with him for the rest of the lunch period. His friend’s are quick to his side, and he reassures them that he’s fine. “I’ll go get more napkins.” Eunseok nods and rises from the floor, and is halfway through the door before he stops when he realizes Taerae isn’t behind him.

He cranes his head to the side, and from the corner of his eye he can see Taerae still at Gyuvin’s side. Unbelievable. “Um, Taerae.” He raises his head to his friend standing, and doesn’t get the hint until Eunseok is nudging his head towards the hallway in a ‘get-the-fuck-out’ sorta way.

He looks between Gyuvin and Y/n before his whole body straightens, finally getting up from his crouching position. “Oh! Um, yeah. I’m going to get napkins too.” While Taerae walks towards his other friend, Gyuvin raises his head, and Eunseok gives him a thumbs up in support. It’s in that moment that Gyuvin decides pizza’s gonna be on him at tonight’s Epic Gamers Club™ meeting.

A beat of silence passes, only the sounds of his poor lunch being scooped up into the bag are heard, until Gyuvin musters the courage to start the conversation.

“Thanks for helping me.” He doesn’t have to stop his task to know that they’re smiling. “Of course, I’m sorry about him.” They say in a remorseful tone.

Gyuvin hates the way they apologize on Jiwoong’s behalf, but at the same time he can’t help the way their kindness makes him feel all warm and gooey inside— They're just too good for this world. “You don’t have to apologize for him. You’re not his babysitter.”

His last comment seems to make Y/n laugh. ‘Huh, I’m just funny like that, I guess’ (It’s what he’s thinking, but his friends would agree to disagree.) “It sometimes feels that way.”

Gyuvin hesitates to ask his next question; they’re not exactly close, but he’s been feeling all sorts of confident recently, so he does anyway. “Why do you hang out with him? With them?” ‘Them’ being the rest of Jiwoong’s posee who think they’re hot shit; being all types of mean to other students just because of their looks or their parents’ social statuses. Gyuvin doesn’t think he hates anything more than a snobby rich asshole, which is what induced Gyuvin’s question in the first place, because Y/n isn’t a snobby rich asshole, yet they hang out with a group of them. It’s a question he’s been dying to ask for years now, and all it took was for Jiwoong to fuck up his lunch. Gyuvin almost mentally thanks him, but he barfs in his mouth a bit just thinking about it.

A few seconds pass, and it seems like they’re trying to find an answer to the question themselves. A nervous sigh passes through their lips as they wipe at the strawberry milk staining the floor. “Well, I guess I just fell into it? The friend group, I mean. When I first transferred, I thought they were really nice. At least they treated me that way. I don’t know why.”

‘Because you’re smart and all types of talented and you’re fucking gorgeous’ and a thousand other things is what Gyuvin wants to say, but he keeps his thoughts to himself and lets them continue. “But yeah, they’d always push me to hang out with them, and I guess by the time I realized who they truly were, everyone had already established their friends groups.” At this point is where they ran out of napkins and there was still a bit of the mess left over, so the two sit across from each other, leaning on the legs of the desks behind them. Despite loving the alone time they’re getting, Gyuvin hopes Eunseok and Taerae come back with more tissue soon, or else he’d have to explain the mess to his teacher, thus taking the fall for Jiwoong once again. His sulking that came from just thinking about the possibility is interrupted when Y/n speaks again, in a more hushed tone this time. “I guess I’m just scared of being alone.”

Woah, Gyuvin’s never thought of it that way. Having no friends was a valid fear, hell, Gyuvin felt that way before he met his. He can’t imagine how it would affect Y/n. The school’s most popular student: a loner— they’d never hear the end of it.

He hates that they feel like they need to hang out with pieces of shit to avoid being lonely, when that isn’t the truth at all. As delusional as it may sound, Gyuvin is right here. Who cares if they don’t have similar interests? They can introduce each other to all their different hyper fixations and special interests. And so what if they’re from seemingly different worlds? Gyuvin would swim across all the oceans and walk over thousands of miles if it meant getting to be with Y/n. Every time they’re paired to work on an assignment together, whenever they congratulate him on yet another academic achievement, when Y/n spots him in the hallway and stops to talk to Gyuvin and only Gyuvin. It never gets old, his heart beating a million times over with how kind and effortlessly funny and drop dead gorgeous they are. Fuck, he thinks, I don’t know if I’ll be able to go on if they reject me.

Gyuvin never wants them to feel alone, he needs to let them know that such a thing can never happen. He can tell his silence goes on longer than expected with the way they start to nervously fiddle with the edges of their uniform sleeves. He says it before he can think about it for another second. “You don’t have to be alone. I-I know we’re not close, but you can talk to me.”

With the speed in which their head lifts from their fixed view on the ground, Gyuvin doesn’t know if he’s successfully swooned them or if he effectively fucked up his chances at being anything to them. He needs to save face, so he raises his hands in defense, his eyes widening in pure fear. “O-only if you want to! Like. Just in case you felt like it or whatever.” Yeah, it totally wouldn’t put me into anaphylactic shock if you were to seek me out in any way shape or form!

Gyuvin lowers his hands, leans back on the legs of the desk, and watches as Y/n’s expression transforms from one of shock, to pure adoration. Their eyes soften in a way Gyuvin’s never seen before, and if he were to look a little closer, he swears there are tears swimming at the brim of them, threatening to fall.

‘FuckifImadeY/ncryI’mgonnaenditall’ is the one thought running through Gyuvin’s head as he waits for a response. He isn’t joking either— he’s sorry to his loved ones and all that, and he supposes the Epic Gamer Club™ would have to go on an indefinite hiatus with the emotional trauma it’d leave on his friends. He wonders if his dog would be brought to his funeral?

Turns out he won’t have to plan out his funeral arrangements after all, that becomes clear when a warm smile meets their eyes, and the tears dwindle to a glassy thin layer over their eyes. “I’d love to. Thank you, Gyuvin.”

Oh Gyuvin thinks his heart just exploded, but like, in a good way. A love explosion, if you will. He doesn’t waste a beat before he’s sporting a smile of his own, sitting straighter than before. “Anytime.”

His friends aren’t back, the period isn’t over yet, and he doesn’t want to stop the conversation there. So, he talks about the thing that’s been plaguing his mind for the past week. “I saw your locker. You got a lot of letters.”

Y/n laughs bashfully at the mention of the hundreds- no, thousands of letters they received today. When they arrived at school, they opened their locker and was bombarded with a sea of pink and red cards that practically drowned them, and by the time second period rolled around, their desk was stuffed to the brim with even more advances in the form of candies and cute plushies. “Yeah, I haven’t even gotten to a single one yet! I’ll do it before school ends, though. I’m glad people like me enough to get me things.”

They’ve got to be kidding. The spring semester of freshman year was absolutely rocked by the wave that was Y/n’s arrival. Despite coming from a normal, middle class family, they were quick to rise in popularity. At first, it had just been their beauty that seemed to draw everyone in, but as soon as they were able to showcase their physical and academic skill, along with their endless heaps of kindness, they became more than just a pretty face, and the whole student body can testify to that. Unfortunately, by the 4th day into the new semester Jiwoong and his loser-ass friends had already sunk their claws into Y/n and scooped them up before any other group could. But yeah, anyone who doesn’t love Y/n is crazy and is probably most definitely going to hell.

‘I hope you read mine.’ It’s at the tip of his tongue, he’s straightening his posture to sit taller and ask them with his whole chest, and—

“More napkins!” is the opener Taerae decides to go with as he and Eunseok barge into the confines of the classroom. “Uhh sorry we took so long, we were arguing about…” he turns to Eunseok who just shrugs his shoulders before turning back to the two. “.. who the strongest avenger is.”

Gyuvin wants to roll his eyes, partly because they couldn’t have come up with a lamer excuse even if they tried, they unknowingly sabotaged his unplanned confession, and cause the strongest avenger is obviously Scarlet Witch.

He decides against it, rather locking eyes with Y/n who he finds is already staring at him, and they exchange equally bashful smiles. Gyuvin isn’t mad at his friends, not when they invade his and Y/n’s space to help clean the last of the mess, and not when they use the rest of the lunch period to bombard them with questions like, ‘have you read kimetsu no yaiba?’ and ‘where would you go if a zombie apocalypse broke out?’ (they answered with staying in Seoul, which prompted Taerae to blatantly tell them they’re going to die, which in turn earned himself a slap from Gyuvin).

He isn’t mad because he still has a chance: today, at 3:00 in room 124 after school like his letter specified. He hopes, some way, that through the piles of letters and candies and plushies and whatever the hell else, they somehow recognize Gyuvin’s from the crowd, and pick him.

It’s time.

It’s time, and Gyuvin’s got it all figured out: Although school’s ended 45 minutes ago, he knows Y/n is part of the cooking club, so he isn’t keeping them behind or anything. He used that time to run to the flower shop a few minutes away and get them their favorites along with a stuffed animal. The classroom he initiated the meeting place in was one that was barely used by students, let alone teachers, so they wouldn’t be disturbed. Oh! And it’s on the first floor, so if Jiwoong happened to find out about his advances and decided to sabotage him with his friends, then he could jump out the window without sustaining any injuries.

Gyuvin’s got it all figured out, so why’s he practically shitting bricks right now?

There are a lot of reasons really— the main one being the fear of rejection which he’s afraid he’ll never be able to live down which will lead to him maybe most certainly doing something drastic.

But it’s 2:58, two minutes before Gyuvin’s letter says for them to meet, and he has to pull himself together. He decides pacing around the room a billion times isn’t gonna do the trick, so he opts out to sitting on the teacher’s desk instead, setting the flowers and plushie behind him. He pulls out his phone and at the same time receives a text from Eunseok.

eunseokie <(˶ᵔᵕᵔ˶)>: let us know how it goes 🫡 also please don’t die today

eunseokie <(˶ᵔᵕᵔ˶)>: taerae brought danganronpa and you know how he likes to voice the lines aloud. you’re nagito we need you

Along with Taerae’s ridiculous gaming antics, Gyuvin finds it amusing how Eunseok also thought about the possibility of Jiwoong finding him out, and it makes him laugh, somewhat calming his nerves down. It’s comforting to know that if this confession doesn’t end up going well, he’ll at least have his friends to fall back on.

“What’s so funny?”

The sudden voice echoes through the empty classroom and Gyuvin almost lauches his phone through the ceiling with the way he jumps.

His heart drops a million times over and he nearly passes out, but he doesn’t, as an angel was sent before him. The angel, if you will.

Standing by the now closed door was Y/n, the sun cascading over their skin to only amplify the seemingly everlasting glow on their face. The same tender smile that they gave Gyuvin a few hours earlier was back, and he looks down and—

They’re holding his letter.

Out of the swarm of all the pinks and reds, through the heart-shaped candies and the softest plushies, none of them are in sight but Gyuvin’s. Gyuvin’s, with the stupid Evangelion washi tape on the side preventing the envelope from falling open after he accidentally ripped it, the one with animal crossing stickers plastered every which way because Y/n mentioned the game once, the one with emoticons drawn on by Gyuvin himself in hopes of standing out in the sea of letters: it was in the grasp of Y/n’s hands, fiddling with the edges as they approach Gyuvin in what to him feels like slow motion.

He honestly feels like he could cry. Oh shit, is he crying? Gyuvin sets his phone down to raise a hand to his cheek, which is thankfully dry, but the action brings him back to reality and he realizes that he’s been staring for longer than normal, so he manages to use the little breath he has left to muster what he can.

“You came.” It’s not much, but it’s the best he can do, and way better than just staring at them in pure silence.

“Of course I did.” They say it like it’s the most obvious thing ever, which only serves to throw Gyuvin off even more.

“But- what about everyone else?” What he really wants to say is ‘why me?’ Throughout the day he’d pass by their locker, their desks, even Y/n themselves; everyone seeking them out were more than worthy candidates. Whether it were their looks, their popularity, or the fact that they were confident enough to confess straight to their face— all of them were more worthy than Gyuvin could ever be. So why were they here, at 3:00 pm in room 124 like the letter read?

They shrug, a knowing smile plastered on their face. “You said you wanted to talk?”

“Oh! Right. Yeah.” He opens his mouth, breathing in a handful of air before speaking again, “...I forgot what I was gonna say.”

It wasn’t a total lie! He was caught completely off guard, it was kinda expected to forget the speech he’s been practicing for weeks now. It doesn’t seem to phase Y/n though, for they simply shrug again, and begin to remove the letter from the envelope in their hand. “That’s okay. Maybe if we read your letter it’ll jog your memory.”

‘Dear Y/n,

I know we aren’t close, but you’re not like anyone I’ve ever met before. Please meet me in room 124 @ 3:00pm today, so that I can express my feelings in full.

— Kim Gyuvin’

It sounded like poetry when Gyuvin read it in his head, aloud in his room, and then to his mom for a second voice of opinion (she said he was better than Shakespeare, which went straight to his head). But now Gyuvin isn’t too sure how that made the final cut, he cringes a million times over when they read it out loud.

He scratches the back of his head and tries to hide his mortification as much as possible. “Sorry, I know that’s pretty vague..”

“It’s okay! You can say whatever’s on your mind, I’m all ears.”

Holy shit, this was really happening. He doesn’t know why, but he wasn’t expecting to get this far. Maybe he thought Y/n was too good for him, and he really did think about the possibility of Jiwoong finding him out, but none of that matters anymore— not when his dream come true is standing right in front of him, when they could be doing anything else right now and they decided to be with him. The fact that they’re even giving him the time of day is enough to fuel him with more confidence than those romance dramas ever could.

He stands up from the desk, and takes a deep breath. “I really like you Y/n, I have for a while now. You’re smart and funny and really pretty, and you’re always nice to me. I know we don’t like all of the same things, but that doesn’t bother me. I want to learn more about you, I want to learn everything about you. I hope you feel the same way, and if not, I understand. I just wouldn’t be able to live with myself if we graduated without letting you know how I feel.” Without turning around, he reaches for the flowers and stuffed animal, trying his best to steady the nervous look creeping onto his face as he holds the items out between the two of them. “Please be my valentine! And then something more. If you wanted to.”

Gyuvin’s rant has finally come to an end, and he doesn’t realize they’re tearing up until he’s holding the items up for them to take.

Oh my God he’s seriously made Y/n cry, he’s got to end it now. It’s what he’s thinking until his personal space is being invaded by the warmth of the bone crushing hug Y/n has them in before Gyuvin can even apologize.

Despite their face being shoved into his chest, tears wetting his uniform vest, they still manage to muster a coherent response. “I’m glad you told me before graduation. Of course I’ll be your valentine.”

Wait, what? Gyuvin stiffens in their hold when he both realizes that he hadn’t returned their hug and that they said yes?! “Oh my God really? Wait. I’m sorry, I know this is what I like, wanted, but can I ask why?” their hold on Gyuvin releases a bit as he continues, “Is this just you being nice? Cause if so—”

In the span of two seconds, their warmth is gone, and Gyuvin can’t even sulk the lost feeling before he’s being punched in the arm. “Ow!”

Their tear stained face holds a look of offense, like Gyuvin just wronged their entire lineage. “You think I’m crying just to be nice?” Oh, he thinks, thats a good point. “I like you too, dummy. You’re really smart, and you never stoop to people like Jiwoong’s level whenever they bother you. Also, you get really cute when talking about your dog or those games you like.”

They actually listened to his stupid rants? How could he not blush at that? It spreads from his cheeks, all the way to the tips of his ears, and fails to go unnoticed by Y/n. “And when you blush. You’re just a big cutie.”

Oh Gyuvin’s having one of those love explosions again, but like, a million times worse. This can’t possibly be good for his health. In a poor attempt to hide his bashfulness, Gyuvin brings his hands up to cover his face, his words muffled by the makeshift shield. “Oh my God. I can’t believe this is happening.”

And apparently Gyuvin’s suffering is funny? Because now they’re laughing, coming closer and raising their own hands to grab at Gyuvin’s wrists, successfully pulling them away from his face. “Don’t be shy now! You’ve come so far.”

They’re right, he has come so far. So why cower away now? He’s quite literally got them in the palm of his hands (or vise versa, he should say), and he’ll be damned if he lets them slip away now. With their hands now holding his wrists at their sides, Gyuvin doesn’t have half the mind to think before he’s leaning in, landing a feather-light peck to their lips. ‘Oh fuck, am I doing this right?’ It isn’t until now that Gyuvin remembers he’s never actually kissed anyone before, and panic follows quickly as he pulls away, their faces still mere inches away. “I-I’m sorry. I don’t really know what I’m—”

Their lips are suddenly on each other again, but it’s Y/n who initiates the kiss, and it's beyond better than Gyuvin’s. It’s light and refreshing, like how Gyuvin feels whenever they’re around. Their lips are as soft as their hands in his grip, and he can feel them smiling against his as they continue. He never wants to let go of this moment.

He ends up not minding when it does end though, for when they both pull away, Y/n finally lets his wrists go in favor of holding his face in their hands, which has Gyuvin practically melting into their touch. “If you apologize one more time, I’m going to punch you again.” They smile, despite having just threatened him.

Gyuvin doesn’t mind, though. They could hit him with the force of a hundred meteors, and he’d still forgive them. So he just smiles, basking in the warmth of their hands. “So, what’d you wanna do now?”

Y/n ponders for a moment, and perks up not long after. “Wanna go grab food?”

Oh, Gyuvin could cry. Y/n came straight from the cooking club, where they make full course meals that they get to eat at the end, so there was no reason for Y/n to be hungry. Yet Gyuvin’s lunch was ruined by what’s-his-face, and there was no way he wasn’t starving by now, and they remembered that.

He doesn’t wanna ruin the mood with his crocodile tears, so he sucks up his tears as much as he can, and smiles fondly instead. “Sounds perfect.”

Gyuvin’s still in a minor state of shock when they walk out of the school's doors. The person who he’s been pining over for the past four years likes him back, and they’re going on a date. Is this a date? He doesn’t want to ask, rather basking in the sun from both the sky and the one right next to him. He’s kind of worried that Jiwoong is gonna find out, but he can’t find it in himself to care all that much when his valentine is holding his hand as they make their way to the train station.

He takes note of their warning from earlier, but he has to ask. “Are you okay? Sorry for making you cry.”

Gyuvin’s ready to take a punch, but he’s lightly shoved instead, making the both of them lose their footing a bit before walking in tandem again. “It’s okay. And yeah, you’re just really sweet.” They turn to him and smile, squeezing his hand lightly. “Okay, let’s learn more about each other starting now. What kind of ramen do you like?”

“Wanna check out the new spot downtown and find out?”

Gojo’s boy toys (◕ε◕*)

3:40 pm

You: bros.

eunseokie <(˶ᵔᵕᵔ˶)> : bro??

taetae ˶^•ﻌ•^˵ : was that a good bros or a bad bros

You: we kissed

You: we’re going out for ramen now

taetae ˶^•ﻌ•^˵ : ?$/;&/??@

taetae ˶^•ﻌ•^˵ : BROOOOOO

eunseokie <(˶ᵔᵕᵔ˶)> : omg i’m crying

eunseokie <(˶ᵔᵕᵔ˶)> : gyuvin im crying

taetae ˶^•ﻌ•^˵ : he is crying gyuvin

taetae ˶^•ﻌ•^˵ : we’re so happy for you bro.

You: thanks guys 😄

i’ll still be home in time to play so

just sit tight

taetae ˶^•ﻌ•^˵ : tell y/n i say sorry for saying they have zero survival instinct!!!

eunseokie <(˶ᵔᵕᵔ˶)> : AND FUCK YOU JIWOONG

a/n: in no way am i implying that doing things like reading manga or playing smash bros is weird, i just took things that’ve gotten me called a nerd 😭😭 also being a nerd isn’t bad i love my nerds 🫡 stream beautiful monster stan p1h get get get get a guitar bai

#yall ngl i don’t watch romance dramas #so idk if that choi woong is a good guy fr #i just looked up male leads don’t come for me!!!#also eunseok is a good wingman bc he has a girlfriend. who is me. im his gf #ZHANGHAO OST SNEAK #gyuvin x reader #gyuvin x you #kim gyuvin x reader #zb1 x reader #zb1 x you #zerobaseone fanfiction #zerobaseone fanfic #zerobaseone x reader #eunseok fanfic #taerae fanfic #gyuvin fluff #gyuvin angst #zb1 fanfic #noelle.writes

325 notes · View notes

medievalandfantasymelee · 6 months ago

Text

COME ONE, COME ALL to the MOSTE ILLUSTRIOUS TOURNAMENT of the FINEST, the MOSTE PUISSANT and HOTTEST MEN MEDIEVAL MEDIA HAS TO ITS CREDIT.

Be it known that we shall accept submissions of the hottest men OF THE PEOPLES’ CHOOSING from any live-action* TV or movie media property set between the years AD 500 – 1550 (Tudors WELCOME!!), and any fantasy properties which emulate said period!

KNOW ALSO that we, by the grace of this fine hellsite and with the counsel of the moste honorable and illustrious @hotvintagepoll (many thanks), have made

THESE GUIDELINES here given:

ANY HOT GUY who appears in any movie or TV show released in ANY YEAR, from ANY COUNTRY, shall be deemed eligible for entry. Below are listed examples of eligible properties. If YE BE NOT CERTAIN whether your hot guy is eligible, submit him anyway!

Examples of Eligible Properties: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-03), Game of Thrones (2011-19) House of the Dragon (2022), Wolf Hall (2015-2024), The Tudors (2007-2010), Ladyhawke (1985), The Princess Bride (1987), The White Queen (2013), Rise of Empires: Ottoman (2020-2022), Vikings (2013-2020), The Last Kingdom (2015-2022), Diriliş: Ertuğrul (2014), A Knight’s Tale (2001), BBC’s Robin Hood (2006-3009), The Last Duel (2021), The Story of Minglan (2018), The Borgias (2013), Robin Hood (1939), Outlaw King (2018), Pilgrimage (2017), Legend (1985), Braveheart (1995), The Green Knight (2021), Excalibur (1981), Beowulf & Grendel (2005), The Lion in Winter (1968), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), The Black Adder (Blackadder Series 1, 1982), Rashomon (1950)

Remember: This is just a list of examples—WOW ME!

These following titles are examples of properties that do not fall within or emulate the stated time period and therefore DO NOT QUALIFY: The Three Musketeers (Any Version), Pirates of the Caribbean (2004), Barbarians (2020), Gladiator (2000), Ben Hur (1959), Shogun (2024), Elizabeth (1999), 300 (2006), Troy (2004), Xena: Warrior Princess (1995-2001), Disney's Robin Hood (1973)**, Yojimbo (1961), Shakespeare in Love (1998), King Arthur (2004)***

For the purposes of this tournament, "Man" and "Guy" are defined as any bi-pedal humanoid male character played by a man. As such, characters belonging to non-human races such as Hobbits, Orcs, Elves, Demons, Fauns, Werewolves etc. ARE admissible, and, indeed, encouraged.

If you have propaganda you forgot to include in your submission, just hold onto it and send it in an ask after the Tournament begins.

You may submit as many hot men as you like but please submit only ONE ENTRANT per submission.

Do not hesitate to submit ANY hot guy you think may qualify, no matter how popular he is. There is no such thing as a shoo-in with these tournaments. If you think "Someone MUST have submitted him already!" Everyone else is probably thinking that too and then he may well NEVER get submitted and we don't want that.

Do not worry about how many submissions your hot guy might have had already--I need to get a sense of who the strongest contenders are in order to fairly seed the draws, and the best way to do that is volume of submissions.

We are voting on the hotness of the characters. While the actors who portray them are of course a major factor in this, we are not voting on the actors themselves, therefore propaganda pertaining to the actors real lives (aside from anecdotes relating to their portrayal of the character) is not admissible.

By that same token, in the case of historical figures (e.g. Henry VIII) we are judging hotness based on the fictionalized portrayals of them in these properties, not on historical fact.

Regarding immortal/time-travelling/dimension-hopping/extremely long-lived characters, regardless of when the character was born, the main action**** of the story must take place within the Medieval Period (see dates listed at the top of this post) or Medieval-esque fantasy fantasy realm in order for them to be eligible for submission. As such, characters like the Pevensie brothers (The Chronicles of Narnia) and Ash Williams (Army of Darkness) are admissible, but Asgardians (the MCU Thor films) are not.

I, as the Administrator and Master of Revels of this tournament, am exercising discretion in the admittance of characters from works by Shakespeare, since many of them have no set date.

Re: characters adapted from books/written works - Book quotes by/ about your character are not admissible as Propaganda for their tv/ movie counterparts unless said quotes were also written into the show/movie.

Book illustrations and fanart are not admissible Propaganda

SUBMISSIONS SHALL REMAIN OPEN UNTIL MIDNIGHT, JULY 1st

The Tourney shall begin at a date yet to be determined with the Melee (Qualifying Rounds), wherein the entrants with the fewest submissions and least propaganda will duke it out in a free for all brawl to determine who will enter the Lists.

SUBMIT YOUR ENTRANTS HERE TODAY!!!

-- Master of Revels

*The "live-action" qualification does have a caveat: exception may be made for those CGI films which were all the rage in the mid-00's that used the motion-capture and likeness of the actors; for example characters from, Robert Zemeckis's Beowulf (2007) are admissible.

** this one doesn't qualify, not because it isn't the right time period, but because it falls solidly under the "Animated" category.

***Yes, sadly we are deprived of the beautiful countenances of Clive Owen, Mads Mikkelsen, Ioan Gruffudd et al because the producers of this film in their infinite wisdom and in an attempt to seem "more historically accurate" chose to set it during the Roman withdrawal from Britain, which occurred in the 5th Century (About a CENTURY earlier than Authurian tradition) and is generally agreed to have ended by AD 410. It therefore does not fall under the Medieval umbrella and is not eligible for submission.

**** "Main Action" here defined as "More than half an hour of a movie and more than two episodes of a series"

#medieval fantasy #asoif/got #lord of the rings #a knight's tale #the last kingdom #vikings #the princess bride #house of the dragon #medieval films #tumblr polls #fantasyandmedievalmelee #tournament poll #game of thrones #got

134 notes · View notes

syntheticavenger · 5 months ago

Text

On My Mama - Two

Thank you to @cocobutterqwueen for the support while I was trying to map out this second chapter!

Santiago 'Pope' Garcia x Female Reader

Tyler Rake x Female Reader

Andy Barber x Female Reader

Jax Teller x Female Reader

Word Count: 6.2K

Warnings: 18+ ONLY, language, more angst, jealousy, a lot of male posturing, persuasiveness.

Summary | Being a single mom with a complicated relationship with your ex-husband makes for an interesting summer after a school event and an unexpected errand puts you front and center with some eligible contenders for your attention.

True to Jax’s word, you’re in and out in less than fifteen minutes, happy to leave Melanie as she gave you a polite but pointed stare when you tried once more to pay him. He wouldn’t have it, slipping you his card in case you needed anything else, his cell written on the back. Not wanting to get in between Melanie’s distraction, there’s nothing left to say but to lobby another gracious thank you his way and slip into the driver’s seat.

You found out much more than you ever wanted to in those short moments, Melanie whispering in your ear whenever he was out of earshot every detail that she had gathered about him. A single father to a son, a seven-year-old named Abel, rumored to be part of a biker gang – Vice President, Melanie had told you dramatically, her eyelashes batting when she says it like a secret – and more importantly, the best mechanic she’s ever had.

Nevermind that her husband doesn’t particularly like that she takes her car to get repaired here, a fact she reminded you about at least three times. Melanie’s daughter tells every single bit of her mother’s business and Mia, at her young age, parrots it right back to you, laughing when you sometimes widen your eyes at the somewhat scandalous details, such as when Melanie bought store bought cookies and passed them off as her own, telling her daughter to stay quiet.

But as you had learned, there was no such thing as a secret to a five-year-old.

🌤

The late 90’s music blares through the speakers, pushing your cart down the aisle to continue your search for marinara sauce. School nights are hard to plan for, especially with Mia’s ever changing appetite.

This week it’s all about pasta, opting for spaghetti for dinner, even as you feel a small wave of guilt for the vegetables you will puree in the sauce. Reaching for a jar, a familiar face catches your attention, Laurie Barber giving you a wave when she approaches.

You know Laurie well enough to know that she has some gossip to share, usually between her and Melanie trading stories during field trips or snack day rotation.

“How have you been?” she asks, a hint of mischief in her smile. “I’m so happy I ran into you.”

“Oh?” you reply, noticing that she looks around before she finally speaks to make sure the coast is clear.

“You didn’t tell me your ex came to the parents’ lunch,” Laurie accuses playfully. “I had to find out from pictures?”

“Pictures?” you repeat, Laurie nodding her head, digging her phone out of her purse.

“Of course there are pictures! I’d seen him with Mia when you had pictures of him with her as a baby but holy hell, that man is handsome,” Laurie praises, showing you a photo of Mia in Santiago’s arms, both of them looking intently at a finger painting. “Him being at the school is a good sign, right?”

“I don’t know,” you mumble, Laurie slipping her phone into the pocket of her pants. “It’s a start.”

“Still not on the mend, huh?”

“We’re divorced, Laurie. There’s no going back.”

“Don’t I know it,” she agrees. “It’s been at least three years since Andy and I divorced and I never look back. We got a great kid out of it and Andy’s moving on up in the world and he’s up for pretty big promotion.”

“Andy? That’s great.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t see him. He saw you,” Laurie teases, seeing you shake your head in response.

Every single mother throws themselves at Andy Barber.

You aren’t one of them.

“I guess I must have missed him,” you reply, Laurie shrugging her shoulders.

“You know Andy. I wish he wasn’t married to his work that much so he could get out and see the world, maybe date a nice girl who understands that sense of righteousness that he can’t seem to shake.”

“It’s nice that you’re on good terms.”

“Are you and Santiago not?”

“No,” you say quickly, hating that you feel like you’re now put on the spot. “I mean, we’re good, I guess. I was surprised that he wanted to see the school, he’s pretty much been against her going to public school since before she could even talk.”

“Avon Academy isn’t close to being terrible. He’s always had impossibly high standards, hasn’t he? Didn’t he go to a boarding school in Switzerland?”

“He did. If he had his way that is probably where our daughter would be right now.”

“Alone?” Laurie says incredulously. “She’s five!”

“No, not alone. I’d most likely be in some apartment in Zurich, trying to keep myself busy.”

“Sounds like a dream.”

“It’s lonely,” you respond, Laurie nodding, realizing that you aren’t willing to give up more details.

“Well, selfishly, I’m glad you and Mia are here. I’m also thankful for Santiago for gracing us with his presence.”

You crack a smile then, Laurie trying to contain her laughter as you both laugh. It’s absurd to discuss anything regarding your ex-husband but you know that Laurie is a safe space for you and that little bit of relief is what you need.

“Speaking of hot dads, Melanie told me you got your tire fixed. Jax Teller, huh?”

“Oh, God,” you mutter, running a hand down your face. “She really tells everything, doesn’t she?”

“Your fault for giving her a ride. Come on, don’t be shy.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Well, I’ve seen him like once and he wasn’t even on a motorcycle. He showed up in a truck to pick up his son.”

“Abel is seven, Laurie.”

“Still disappointing,” Laurie reminds you. “Barely got to see him up close and personal.”

“He’s nice.”

Laurie lets out an inelegant snort at your response.

“Nice? Nice is my neighbor across the way who wears a cardigan and a polo shirt and offers to water my lawn. Jax Teller is not nice. He looks like he could rail you into next week and send you off with a pat on the -”

“Laurie!” you admonish, hearing her laugh.

“I’m kidding but also,” she trails off, tapping the tip of her nose. “You know it’s true.”

Laurie’s cell goes off in her purse, picking up her basket.

“Shit, it’s Andy,” she mutters. “Probably needs me to pick up Jacob. I’ll see you at Jacob’s birthday party. Can’t wait to have a slice of your homemade cake!”

With a nod, she rounds the corner, speaking quickly while you add a box of noodles to the cart when you realize what she told you.

Birthday party?

Birthday cake?

🌤

“You said what?” you ask softly, Mia chewing as she hums.

“I said you could make Jacob’s birthday cake,” Mia offers proudly.

Placing your fork down on your plate, you stare at the wrinkled birthday party invitation that you had to dig through Mia’s unicorn backpack.

“Sweetheart, remember we talked about this? You ask Mommy first.”

“I did,” Mia insists, a smear of marinara at the corner of her lips. “You made mine when I asked.”

“Yes, you asked me to make yours. You did not ask me to make Jacob’s.”

Her little face scrunches up in displeasure at your hesitation, swallowing her food before she defends herself.

“But you’re good at it! Jacob’s daddy said you make the best cake in the whole world!”

“Mia,” you warn, seeing her little shoulders slump.

“No cake?” she asks pitifully, her lower lip trembling. “Please, Mommy? It’s his birthday. He has to have cake.”

“I don’t even know what flavor he likes.”

“He likes banilla!”

“Vanilla,” you correct gently.

“Vanilla and he likes vanilla frosting,” she enunciates. “He told me so.”

With a sigh, you get up, Mia following suit, nearly on your heels when you check the pantry to make sure you have everything you need.

“You’re going to make it?!” she asks, clapping her hands together excitedly. “You’re the best mommy in the whole world!”

“I’ll make it if you promise to finish your dinner.”

Mia gasps, running back to her chair as she climbs up, ignoring your warning for her to wait for you to help her, slurping spaghetti into her mouth.

“We gotta get a gift,” Mia reminds you, as if she didn’t just tell you last minute. “He likes cars.”

“We’ll go tomorrow after school, how does that sound?”

“Okay.”

She finishes her food, watching as you pick her empty plate up from the table, remembering her manners as she wipes her sauce coated fingers with a napkin.

“May I be scused?”

“You may,” you agree, seeing her jump off the chair as it slides backward slightly, nearly giving you a heart attack when she bolts up the stairs.

“Don’t forget to brush your teeth!” you call out, hearing her slam the bathroom door.

Pulling out a mixing bowl, you start adding in the ingredients, hearing Mia singing loudly at the top of her lungs.

🌤

You have to hand it to Laurie.

The woman knows how to throw a birthday party. As if directly ripped from a Pinterest page, you and Mia walk through a blue and silver balloon, Laurie’s headband green with alien googly eyes that move back and forth when she hugs Mia.

“Jacob’s out back,” she tells Mia, holding out a pair of headbands – one like hers and another that is hot pink with the same eyes but with lashes. Mia plucks the hot pink ones from her hand, handing them to Laurie so that she can place them on her head, smoothing out her hair before she does so, both of you knowing that she’ll either lose it or break it by the end of the day.

Laurie spies the cake you hold, the piping in blue with an astronaut on the left.

“God, I love your cakes,” Laurie murmurs with glee, taking it from your hands. “I was so happy that Mia said you would do it because I was at my wit’s end with him and trying to make up his mind. First it was a western themed party and then it was a dinosaur party and finally, at the very last minute, he wanted a space party. Gotta love the indecisiveness.”

She looks at your green sundress, settling on your white Mary Janes.

“Finally,” Laurie teases. “You got smart and finally wore flats.”

You were never sure of a dress code, especially with a child’s party. Every party in the city that you attended, kid or not, you were dressed up, right down to the sky high heels. After the last birthday party, you’d gotten wise once your heels had sunk into the grass, leaving a stain that you couldn’t get out.

You pass a contingent of parents, mostly fathers, talking in a huddle, beers in hand while you follow her into the kitchen.

“Andy will be so thrilled that you made a cake. I swear he kept asking. Do you know those peppermint brownies you made last Christmas? He took half the pan home and -”

“I did not,” Andy denies, his gaze settling on the cake when he steps into the kitchen. “Well, well, well. Looks like Jacob got his wish after all.”

You forgot how handsome Andy Barber is up close and personal, his mischievous smile on display when Laurie rolls her eyes.

“Jacob got his wish,” Laurie repeats to you, moving behind you after she sets the cake down. “I’m going to check on the bounce house. Make sure he doesn’t take a slice before the birthday boy, hmm?”

She’s out of your line of sight before you even have a chance to answer, Andy opening the fridge, pulling out a beer before he pauses.

“Do you drink?” he asks cautiously.

“I do.”

Still holding the beer in his hand, he glances at the pitcher on the top shelf.

“Beer or what I think may be a cosmopolitan. Laurie always has some sort of signature drink for these types of things.”

“I’ll take a beer,” you offer, Andy placing it into your hand after lobbing off the cap.

“Good choice. Last time we had a mom who downed three Tom Collins before she realized what hit her.”

You don’t dare share that you’re a lightweight, taking a swig of your beer while Andy leans back against the counter.

“I saw you at the parent luncheon, didn’t I?”

“I was there,” you confirm.

“That lunch was something else,” Andy comments, making a face. “I thought Jacob was teasing when he mentioned glue. Turns out the kid was onto something.”

“Glue?”

“You didn’t try the sandwiches?”

“No,” you say, trying to stifle your laughter at the look of pure disgust on his face. “I’m sure we’ll get a letter of an apology like we did with the dirt pudding cups last year.”

“I must have missed that.”

“You’d remember,” you point out, suddenly feeling self-conscious when you notice his eyes lingering on you. “What?”

He straightens up, looking over your shoulder, his index finger moving in a circle.

“Turn around?” he asks, your eyes narrowing suspiciously as you turn, seeing the ties of your dress float around you.

“Shoot,” you mumble, placing your beer down to try to reach behind you.

“I can help you,” he offers, keeping still when you feel his hands pick up the fabric, carefully drawing them together, the warmth of his breath on your back as he checks to make sure you’re comfortable. “Too tight?”

“No,” you respond, feeling him tie it quickly, the faint scent of his cologne lingering as he ties it slowly, your eyes looking up at the ceiling, staying still, feeling the slight tug of the bows before you feel him step back to look in approval.

“Better.”

“Thank you,” you mumble, feeling embarrassment wash over you when he waves your appreciation away.

“I was hoping I didn’t touch you with cold hands,” he answers. “Or get into your personal space.”

“I didn’t feel a thing.”

“No comment about the personal space?”

He smiles, lifting his beer to you before taking a sip.

“Seriously though? Thanks for the cake for Jacob,” Andy thanks you, nodding toward the cake. “This kid hasn’t stopped talking about it once he found out. I gotta admit, they’re pretty damn good. I don’t know what you put in them but I can’t just have one slice.”

“I do the buttercream by hand.”

“Really? Tastes like heaven, that’s for sure. Not sure what you do for a living but if you made that career, I’m just you’d make a fortune.”

“Project manager,” you say, Andy nodding in response. “Wish I had the time. Baking relaxes me.”

“I’d be happy to eat your cake anytime,” he says, trailing off when he realizes what he’s said, laughing to himself as your eyes widen, biting down on your lips at the comment to keep from laughing yourself, when you hear Laurie coming back inside. Eyeing the cake, she looks up at you, turning to Andy.

“Cake is still intact. Guess she distracted you enough.”

🌤

Pete nudges Tyler in the side when you pass by, herding a small group of Jacob’s friends outside who were late arrivals, Laurie calling out to them outside to get their gift bags.

“You’re a married man, Pete,” Tyler reminds him.

“And I wouldn’t trade it for the world, but I have eyes, you know,” Pete counters. “Judging by the rest of us gawking, we all have eyes.”

Tyler can see Hunter running, playing tag with the other kids as they laugh and scream. He catches a glimpse of you, beer in hand as he sees Andy next you and Laurie. It’s a scene he’s still getting used to, seeing Laurie and Andy divorced but still cordial. It’s wistful thinking to believe he could have the same, knowing that the shared custody took years to be processed.

“Does Barber know that Mia’s dad is back in the picture?” another father asks, raising an eyebrow at the sight outside. “Bold move, Andy. Right next to your ex-wife.”

“He never left,” another man chimes in. “Look at her. You really think he wasn’t that far behind? Surprised he showed up, he never comes to these things.”

“Reconciliation,” Pete says with a confident nod.

“He came because it was a special occasion,” Tyler points out, the men turning to look at him.

“How do you know? She told you?”

“Hunter knows Mia through school, and she told him that her father was going to be there because it was important.”

“So, he’s still out of the picture,” one of them hints.

“I don’t hear any of you offering to step up and take care of his child so unless you’re willing to break up your marriages or take on another responsibility, you’re all creeping on a single mother who doesn’t know that you’re looking at her. Excuse me,” Tyler responds, breaking away from the group as he heads outside.

🌤

“Honey, it’s alright,” you say softly, holding onto the boy’s arms gently to keep him steady after he was dropped off unceremoniously on the door step. “It’s alright. You don’t need a gift, okay? Your gift is that you’re here. Your presence is enough, I promise.”

Tyler peers over to look at the boy who is nodding, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt.

Abel Teller.

No doubt his mother had dropped him off without a word, a far cry from his father, Jax, who would have come in to say hello. He would have most certainly provided a gift, even though it wasn’t required, seeing Abel shake his head when he’s asked a question.

“What’s your name?” Tyler hears you ask, soothing him as you dab at his tears that slide down his cheeks.

“Abel.”

“Hi Abel,” you respond, introducing yourself. “Jacob’s outside. I’m sure he’ll be happy you’re here. Are you ready to go in and have some fun?”

He sniffles, nodding his head when Tyler clears his throat.

“Hunter’s here as well, Abel,” Tyler speaks up. “They’re playing tag, I think. You like that game, don’t you? Why don’t you come with me? They’re still in the thick of it.”

Abel’s eyes light up at the game, following Tyler to the boisterous crowd of children. A few of them recognize him, calling out to him before he leaves Tyler’s side. He can feel you standing next to him, your gaze settling on your daughter who is climbing up the ladder to the slide.

“You know him?” you ask, Tyler nodding as Abel takes off running.

“Yeah,” Tyler says after a pause. “He’s a good kid. His mother… she’s not always present. Father does what he can but when it’s her weeks to take him, it gets a little complicated.”

“I can’t imagine.”

He can hear the uncertainty in your tone, your fingers gripping your beer bottle tighter. He can tell you’re thinking about Abel and before it can go deeper, he nods at the beer in your hand.

“Need another one?”

At his question, you look at him in confusion before he smiles. You’ve been nursing that same beer since he’s seen you, absentmindedly ripping at the wrapper with your nail when no one is looking, a nervous habit that he finds adorable.

“I’m good,” you answer. “Thanks though.”

“How’s it taste?”

You look up at him, unsure of why he’s asking by the way you raise an eyebrow.

“Great,” you tell him, forcing cheerfulness into your confirmation.

He laughs then, seeing how stubborn you are.

“Never met a woman who liked room temperature beer. You’re one of a kind.”

He sees you smile then, nodding at your lie.

“It tastes terrible,” you admit with a laugh. “But I was running around and by the time I got back to it, I didn’t want to ask for another one. It’s like coffee. I end up reheating it at least four times because I don’t have the time to finish it in one sitting.”

“I can get you another one, you know. No pressure, of course,” Tyler says, putting up his hands.

“I would like one,” you tell him, placing the bottle in his outstretched hand. “Thank you.”

“Thought so. I’ll be right back.”

Mia stops mid run to wave at you, grinning wide when you wave back, taking off after Hunter and Abel when Tyler hands you a beer.

“Thank you,” you say, looking back at the kids when Laurie gives you a pleading look, motioning with her hand that the cake needs to be cut.

“Shall we?” Tyler says.

Laurie calls out to Jacob, the kids lifting their heads so quickly that it reminds Tyler of meerkats, nearly a stampede as the dads remind them to slow down as they head toward the table.

🌤

Forks clink dully on the paper plates, frosting smudging on faces and clothing, moms swooping in to wipe mouths and clean off messes. Mia sits between Hunter and Abel, picking up a buttercream star and eating it, eyes closing in bliss as she dances in her seat.

Collecting discarded plates, you nearly run into Andy, who holds out a trash bag for you to toss them in.

“They’ll sleep good tonight,” Andy assures you, seeing the trio run into the house. “And I know I said this already but the cake… you just knocked it out of the park. Amazing.”

“Thank you, Andy.”

Between the number of kids and adults moving around you both, you focus on cleaning up the leftover cups of juice and water while Andy picks up the plates, working together in unison.

You don’t really know the ins and outs of his and Laurie’s former relationship, only that they seem to have the co-parenting thing down to a science, no ill will, just a simple partnership that works well for them. Without meaning to, your mind wanders to if they sleep together, much like you and Santiago, watching his tongue run over his lip as he focuses the tower of plates in his hand to the trash.

You blink the impending thought out of your mind. It definitely isn’t any of your business and it only makes you more embarrassed that you have no self-control with Santiago.

Which is only half-true. You’ve been cordial when he asks about Mia, sending him pictures of her at the birthday party.

And you’ve conveniently ignored his text from the picture with you and Mia under the balloon arch.

Nice dress.

“Seriously though,” Andy says, any hint left of Santiago disappearing in a flash as he smiles at you. “Thanks for coming and helping. Laurie couldn’t do this without you, and I know I couldn’t clean this up alone. Crazy how people love coming to parties but when it’s time to clean… it’s suddenly time to go home.”

“I’m still here, Barber,” Tyler interrupts, holding up a trash bag. “Did you forget about the poppers with the streamers in them? They’re everywhere.”

“When Laurie throws a party, she goes all out, I told you,” Andy informs him.

Laurie stands, rubbing her lower back with her fingers when the doorbell rings. The small clean-up crew continues on, tidying up before the vendors come and finish up. A soft whisper of your name from Laurie makes you move away from the Andy and Tyler, both of them engaged in sports talk.

Hunter and Mia are asleep on one side of the large sectional, Jacob laid out in the middle and Abel on the other side. Standing in the entryway, Jax zeroes in on his son before he engages in a hushed conversation with Laurie for a moment, both of them turning their attention on you when you approach.

“Sorry,” Laurie says, frustration in her voice as she gives you a small squeeze of your hand. “I’m going to send Abel home with a gift bag. Would you mind showing Jax where he is?”

Jax gives you a glance when you give him a smile, hearing him sigh behind you.

“Sorry to come so late,” he says in a hushed voice as he looks on at the sleeping kinds. “Got word last minute that my ex wasn’t going to pick up Abel and I was doing a double at the shop.”

“He’s been fine,” you assure him, watching as he carefully picks up his son without waking him, brushing back his hair as he focuses on his son’s face for a moment. It’s a tender moment, one that you don’t pay attention to for too long, unsure of what to say. You can feel the anger radiating off of him, muttering to himself as he places a kiss on Abel’s head.

“We’re going home, buddy,” he says, Abel’s eyes opening for a scant second before closing once more.

Laurie meets you at the door with Abel’s gift bag, Jax extending his hand to you as you shake it, Laurie giving him a hug, careful not to wake Abel.

“You know he’s welcome here anytime,” Laurie tells him, the sliding glass door closing in the distance.

“I appreciate that, Mrs. Barber.”

“Laurie is fine, Jax. Do you have my number?”

When he shakes his head, Laurie has her phone in hand, waiting for Jax to recite his number.

“I’ll make sure she has it too,” Laurie promises, referring to you as he nods, giving you a hint of smile.

“Have a good night, sorry again for being so late to pick him up.”

Laurie closes the door after you both see Abel get settled into the truck, turning around to face Tyler and Andy.

“Teller?” Andy asks Laurie.

“The one and only.”

“Pity I missed that,” Andy murmurs. “I would have liked to ask him a few questions.”

“You leave your interrogations at work,” Laurie fires back softly, keeping her voice down. “He’s a father doing his job.”

“Oh, he’s got a job, alright.”

Tyler checks his watch, heading toward the couch where he looks over the remaining sleeping kids. You follow suit, your cell phone vibrating in your purse that is on a chair.

“Need some help?” Tyler asks, Laurie and Andy still in the foyer, their hushed voices a cue that he’s not ready to let whatever he knows about Jax Teller go.

“Actually,” you pause for a moment, looking at how peaceful Mia looks. “I think I’ll take you up on that.”

He’s gentle when he scoops her into his arms, cradling her to his chest as Mia doesn’t move, her breathing steady as he carries her toward the door.

“Not everything has to be investigated, Andy. Sometimes people can make mistakes and learn from them,” Laurie says, her words fading out when she sees Tyler holding Mia.

“I hope my spirited debate with Andy didn’t scare you away,” Laurie says, shooting Andy a glare. ‘We differ on justice and knowing when to pick our battles.”

Andy stays silent, his eyes locking with yours.

“Thanks again for today,” he says, Laurie nodding in agreement. “Get home safe.”

Tyler waits until you collect your purse, hug Laurie goodbye and give Andy a quick hug, inhaling the scent of his cologne once more that is intoxicating. Underneath that Henley, you realize there is a solid wall of muscle, something you weren’t expecting to feel before you head out the door and down the steps, opening the backseat for Tyler to place Mia in her car seat. Her head falls back on the headrest, still fast asleep when you close the door, checking to see if the movement woke her.

“Thank you,” you tell him softly, waving to Laurie, who is standing in the doorway.

“Don’t mention it. It’s the least I can do.”

Warmth radiates off of him, trying to get the picture of how quickly he had lifted Mia into his arms so smoothly out of your mind.

“I was thinking,” Tyler says, looking over behind you to see Mia still asleep. “If you’re interested, maybe you’d like to go to dinner with me.”

It’s finally cool now that the sun has gone down but your face is warm, nearly burning with anxiety on what to say. You haven’t been asked out on a date since your ex, let alone even entertaining the thought if you were ever asked.

But now you have been asked and you need to give an answer.

You only get one chance at this.

“Sure,” you reply. “I’d like that.”

“Great,” he says. “I can give you my number. There’s no pressure, of course, if you find that you want to cancel or that you’re not interested then let me know and -”

You recite your number, Tyler realizing almost too late as he punches in the number, sending you a text.

“Get home safe and uh, just let me know when you’re interested in going. My schedule is pretty open this week and next.”

You see Andy standing next to Laurie, both of them waiting until you get into the car, turning on the lights and the engine starting before they take a step back into the house. Easing out of the parking spot, you see Tyler heading back inside to presumably get Hunter, text messages popping up on the screen during your drive home.

Birthday party? Is that why you’re all dressed up?

Need a favor.

I’ll be there in an hour.

At the last message, you look at the timestamp when you pull over. The time is nearly ten and the message was sent almost an hour ago. With Mia still fast asleep, you take the quickest way home, unsure if he’s already beat you there.

🌤

Pulling into the garage, you see him leaning against his SUV, your resolve hanging on by a thread.

He never visits at night. Always morning, always in between meetings or a flight, or some appointment.

When the car is turned off, you hear the back door open, looking over as he studies Mia’s sleeping face.

“Out like a light,” he murmurs, smoothing back her hair. “She must have partied hard.”

“What are you doing here?” you ask quietly, his dark eyes snapping up to look at you.

“You didn’t get my texts? Got a late flight out tomorrow, Derek was able to charter it at the local airport, so I figured I’d come and see my girls.”

He unlatches Mia from her car seat, careful when he lifts her into his arms while you get out of the car. In a way, it feels like this should be a snapshot or normalcy, domestic life that you had a taste of once that had been snatched away without having properly processed what had transpired before it was too late.

The promise you had made to yourself still lingers in the depths of your thoughts, propelling you forward when you open the door, letting Santiago carry Mia across the threshold, heading up the stairs slowly while you watch him disappear.

It would be so easy to fall into the same routine. To have him share your bed, to give and give as he takes, lusty promises against your skin that he doesn’t intend to keep because he knows you well enough that you won’t hold him to it.

Placing Mia’s gift bag on the kitchen island counter, you know you could follow him, let his lips trace a line down your neck.

Picking up your phone, you send off a text, heart skipping a beat at what you’ve done. For a moment, you don’t think there will be a reply.

Your answer comes swiftly, Santiago coming down the stairs.

I’m glad you made it home safe.

🌤

Santiago follows you up the stairs, your silk robe billowing out behind you.

“I liked the pictures,” he tells you once you reach the top of the stairs. “I’ve always loved the color green on you.”

“Why are you really here?” you ask, turning around to face him. His shirt is half unbuttoned, revealing a hint of the chest tattoo.

“I told you,” Santiago reminds you. “I wanted to see my girls.”

“Since when?”

He leans against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest when he narrows his gaze.

“Since I saw the pictures you sent me. You’ve always held people’s attention. A child’s birthday party is no different.”

“I wasn’t sending them to you to make you jealous.”

He smirks at your passionate denial.

“And I’m not jealous. I know every inch of your body, every little nook and cranny that makes you come apart. They don’t know you the way I do so no,” Santiago says with a sigh. “I don’t think you were trying to make me jealous, but I think you’re lonely. I think the men in that picture know it too, judging the way they were staring..”

“I’m not.”

He gives you that perfect smile, looking you up and down.

“We both know how this always ends. We’re good for each other. Maybe not emotionally but physically, we’re compatible and we always have been. There’s no one else I would have wanted to have my child, to be the mother of my precious daughter. I can’t get enough of you still.”

He pushes himself off of the wall, settling his hands on either side of your face, your fingers wrapping around his wrists. It feels euphoric, his lips close to yours, body pressed against you, and it feels familiar, like you aren’t living separate lives when he kisses you.

“I can’t,” you whisper against his mouth, his forehead resting against yours.

“You can. I’ll take care of you like I always do.”

Your hand flattens on his chest, feeling his heartbeat when you close your eyes. You want to, you already know how it would end, tangled in sheets and alone when you wake.

Satisfied but alone, yet again.

“I can’t sleep with you anymore. This isn’t healthy for either of us. You can have the guest bedroom,” you answer, moving away from him as he lets you go.

“Guest bedroom,” he repeats, seeing you head toward your bedroom. “I’ll leave the door open if you need me.”

Closing the door behind you, you lean against it, squeezing your eyes shut as you ignore the ache between your thighs.

🌤

Sun shines in your eyes, startling you when you toss away the blanket, looking down to find yourself still clothed, clad in your shorts and t-shirt. The sigh of relief that flows from your lips gives you a sense of calm, nearly laughing to yourself that you had the willpower to deny the man who you’ve willingly given your body to after the divorce.

The savory scent of breakfast hangs in the air, scrambling to get up when you look at the time. It’s well past the time you had meant to wake up, running down the stairs to stop in your tracks.

Santiago cracking another egg in the bowl while Mia carefully picks out pieces of fruit to place them on a tray. Bacon, pancakes and oatmeal is on the table, something you haven’t had the time to make in at least six months with Mia’s busy school schedule.

“Oh, you’re finally up,” Santiago greets you, Mia dropping a strawberry on the counter as she hops off the step, running after you when she clings to your legs.

“Hi Mommy! Daddy and I are making breakfast!” Mia announces loudly, standing on her tiptoes to see what her father is doing. “I want an o-mel-le.”

“Omelet,” Santiago corrects gently, Mia nodding.

“Yeah, one of those!” Mia agrees.

Santiago cleans as he works, wiping off a counter before he checks on the omelet he’s making for Mia.

A ripple of resentment goes through you at the thought of what this means. He and Mia always make breakfast together when it’s his week with her. It’s something Mia looks forward to when she’s packing her suitcase to see her father, knowing that the best you and Mia can do is a rushed breakfast of toast or instant waffles.

Father of the beginning of the day, you think, sitting at the table after Mia points to your chair, Santiago placing a glass of orange juice in front of you.

“Breakfast is almost done,” he reminds you. “Coffee?”

Before you have a chance to answer, a mug of hot coffee is placed next to the orange juice, Mia giggling when he turns back to the stove, flipping the omelet over as she claps her hands excitedly.

Mia whispers to her father, the hushed discussion reaching you. Curious, Mia covers her mouth when she sees you staring.

“Secrets don’t make friends,” you tease her gently.

“We’re going on a tour!” Mia blurts out, Santiago plating her omelet, holding it high above her head.

“A what?” you ask, Santiago placing her plate down and lifting Mia onto the chair.

“A tour,” Santiago repeats.

“I heard her,” you protest, Mia grabbing her fork as she stabs into her breakfast. “A tour where?”

Santiago sits across from you, Mia focused on shoving a piece of fruit in her mouth as he looks at the breakfast spread and back to you.

“We’re touring St. Mary’s today.”

#santiago garcia #santiago garcia x you #santiago garcia x female reader #santiago garcia x reader #tyler rake #tyler rake x you #tyler rake x female reader #tyler rake x reader #andy barber #andy barber x you #andy barber x female reader #andy barber x reader #jax teller #jax teller x you #jax teller x female reader #jax teller x reader

133 notes · View notes