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a-kaash-me-outside · 10 months ago

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a bit dirty - ch6

in which you hook up with osamu in a club bathroom and that's just the beginning. prev | ch6 [masterlist]

// a really great idea ~ ᴏsᴀᴍᴜ x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ~ 7392 ᴡᴏʀᴅs

a look into this chapter: 18+ minors dni nsfw, squirting, sex in a bed!!, a lot of feelings and love!!!!, intimacy in more than just the bedroom fr, names names names pet names a million pet names, oral f!receiving, afab she/her pronouns

tori talks: oh good god guys we're finally here. thanks to everyone who is going to read this last chapter even though it literally took me over 6 months to write it. i hope you enjoy it and i'm glad it's over and that it happened. ily all. hope u enjoy. ♡ ʀᴇʙʟᴏɢs ᴀɴᴅ ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴs ᴍᴇᴀɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ ♡

you’re not sure you’d admit it to anyone, but walking into osamu’s apartment for the first time feels like coming home after a long day at work. you can see yourself here, more than you can in your own apartment or your childhood home. you feel just a little bit more like yourself, shoulders relaxing in a way that you didn’t think they needed to, breath a tiny fraction steadier. you’re not sure you’ve felt this comfortable in a really long time.

you don’t have to ask him where to put your shoes or where to hang your jacket, and he doesn’t take them from you either. he doesn’t put them away for you or tell you to hang them on the hangers in the empty closet down the hall.

when he unlocks his door and pushes inside, you mimic his motions, placing your shoes gingerly on the rack to the right of the closet between his white sneakers and black work shoes, hanging your jacket on the empty hooks above the spot where you've just retired your shoes.

stepping deeper into his apartment, he offers a small, “so, welcome,” he says, gesturing to the living room, one hand softly wrapped around yours as he tugs you along. stepping past the barrier of the front door, further into osamu’s space, you don’t feel like a guest here. you just feel like you belong.

“oh my god, it’s so clean in here,” you say, a few paces ahead of him now, but he refuses to break contact, to let go of your fingertips so he walks quickly along with you.

“well, yea, i’m not really ever home,” he explains, shrugging, as you walk around his living room eyes stopping at the neatly organized coffee table with cork coasters and a yellow hard-covered book titled this book will make you kinder, at the photos on his wall of him and his brother and him and his restaurant and him and suna, at the plants in the window sill and the dustless, dirtless ledge beneath them.

you shake your head, “no, that’s not true. you come home after work and you’re here before you leave for work, and i’m sure you’re super busy leaving in the morning and super tired when you come home at night, so it’s really impressive that it’s really clean.”

he lets out a half-laugh, a breathy light scoff in the place of a real response. you turn around, looking at him directly with a mischievous look on your face, “unless you cleaned your apartment just for me tonight?”

osamu’s quiet, a very telling silence, a wordless admittance. “oh my god!” you say, hands on your hip, and the slight hold that he has on your fingertips isn’t broken yet, his hand now pressed against your side, fingers curling around your hip as he pulls you a little closer.

“okay!” he admits, “so i am pretty tidy anyways, but there may have been a few dishes in the sink and the bed might not have been made and the couch cushions didn’t look that good before but-”

you shake your head, clicking your tongue, pulling your bottom lip between your teeth as you tease, “how presumptuous of you that i would come back here after our date?”

“i didn’t think we’d just fuck in the bathroom again, baby, what was i supposed to do, you literally said-” he says, trying to explain himself, unstoppable smile on his face as he pulls you even closer to him.

“do you think i’m that kinda girl? to just fuck you on the first date?” you ask, palm flat against his chest now, the other hand snaking up to lazily drape around his neck.

he shakes his head, wrapping his arms around you tight around your arms and shoulders, holding you in place as he laughs so deep that it sends tingles and shivers down your spine and skin. “you’re very funny, y’know that?” he asks, squishing you against his chest as he presses kiss after kiss into the top of your head.

“you made the bed? fixed the couch cushions? samu, i mean, really, what did you think was going to happen tonight?” you giggle, emphasizing every other word dramatically as you squirm in his tight grasp.

“i mean,” he says, leaning back to look at the warmth on your face, the fluster that lies with it, “you are here, aren’t you? i couldn’t have been that wrong if the cleaning paid off.”

you giggle harder now, leaning up and pressing a kiss into wherever you can reach in his strong hold. “i sure am,” you agree. he loosens his grip, hand falling down your arm to thread his fingers with yours again. he pecks a small kiss against your lips and then your cheek.

“you sure are,” he says, warmly.

you really could’ve stayed in the middle of his living room forever surrounded by couches and books on shelves and an impressive entertainment system. you didn’t need any of it either, didn’t need a place to sit or things to keep you busy, you’d be really happy just staring at osamu for the rest of time, at hearing him laugh, at feeling his pulse in your palm.

“can i getcha a drink?” he asks, pulling you out of this mellow, love-struck state in the name of hospitality.

“only if i can come with you,” you say, looking over his shoulder into the kitchen. your motivation is 70% wanting to stay with osamu and 30% wanting to see what his kitchen looks like: what kind of mugs he has, where he keeps his silverware, if his knives and pans are on display or tucked away in cabinets.

“clingy,” he teases, smile huge because there wasn’t any way that he was leaving you alone for even a second.

“fine! i'll stay in here,” you pout.

he doesn’t respond, only laughs and pulls you by the hand, “come on, pretty.”

you don’t protest anymore, following along happily into the kitchen, forcing yourself to sit on the barstool in front of the bar rather than snoop in his cupboards and drawers. he’s hesitant to let his touch fall from yours, to let go of the contact he has on your hand and your hip, but he does, presses a small kiss into the side of your head, and walks deeper into his kitchen.

from here you can see the kettle on the counter and the knives on a metallic strip above the black countertop. the pans are nowhere to be seen. they must be hidden away somewhere safe. you don’t say anything and neither does he as he pulls wine glasses and mugs and cups out of the cupboard and places them on the countertop in front of you.

and you still don’t feel like a guest.

it feels like osamu getting you a drink is because he loves you, like you could get up and get your own if you wanted to, like you already knew where the tea bags were and the spoons and the shelf that the sugar resided, like next time you would return the favor, let him sit down for a minute while you made the two of you tea or poured another glass of wine.

“what’s it gonna be?” he asks, gesturing to your choices on the bar in front of you.

“y’know you could’ve just asked me that before pulling out all the cups?” you tease, eyes moving from cup to mug to wine glass.

he shrugs, “not as visual.”

“what are you in the mood for?” you ask, reaching to pick up the mug, black ceramic with a gray stripe along the base. you turn it over in your hand, running your fingers along the matte texture. yeah, this feels like a mug osamu would own.

“anything, really,” he says, smiling before the rest of the flirt even comes out of his mouth, “as long as i’m drinking it with you on my couch, i will be very happy.”

you roll your eyes. it’s really unfair how predictable, yet how adorable, he is when it comes to things like that. “alright, how about wine now, tea later?” you ask.

he rests both of his hands on the edge of the counter for a moment, nodding as he does, removing the cups from the counter and pushing the mugs towards the tea kettle. “sounds like a plan, angel,” he says, disappearing behind the pantry door and coming back with a bottle of wine.

he doesn’t recork the wine or put the bottle back, leaves it exactly where he sets it on the counter in a rush to just drink wine on his couch with you. he carries your glass for you as he guides you back to the couch.

sitting on the plush, perfectly set cushions, tucking yourself into the corner against the arm rest, osamu pressed up against you, pulling your legs over the tops of his, his hand resting comfortably on your calf, you’re not sure you’ll ever really be ready to go back to your own cold, lonely apartment. when you close your eyes, you can see this moment next week and next month and three years from now.

your first glass of wine isn’t even finished before he interrupts your current conversation of favorite movies and media with a stupidly cute, nervous question, “so, can i ask you now?”

you want to be stunned or at least fake it, but you can only lean closer into him, setting your wine glass down on the coaster on the coffee table to wrap both of your arms around his bicep. “ask me what?” you tease.

he shakes his head, “y’know that night i thought you were so out of my league.”

you lean backwards, mouth agape, eyebrows furrowed in disbelief, “no fucking way.”

“swear,” he laughs, leaning forward to set his glass down next to yours, “and i was out of my depth, had no idea what i was doing, just couldn’t stop staring at you-”

“oh, i know,” you say, recalling his smitten, lingering stare so perfectly that your face feels warm, “every time i would look over in your direction you would be looking at me like this.” you mimic your recollection as best as you can.

he puts his face in his hands. “that’s so embarrassing,” he says, and it’s muffled by his palms. you wrap your hands around his wrists, pulling them away from his face and kissing the backs of them.

“no, no, it was cute,” you say, but he still groans. you continue, “samu, i was into it, obviously.”

he explains further, “sumu was like shoving me over there so blatantly that i almost didn’t go over there.” he shakes his head at the memory, at the alternate universe where his stupid brother alone failed to start the best chain of events of his life. “and then omi leaned over to me and was like, ‘i'll distract your dumbass brother, go have a good night, you deserve it.’”

“remind me to thank him then,” you say, softly, shifting against the couch to lean against his shoulder instead of the armrest.

“will do,” he says, smile in his voice as he snakes his arm around your waist, hand resting on the side of your thigh. “i’ve thanked him plenty for both of us, but it might mean more coming from a new mouth.”

“you just say the most romantic things like it’s nothing,” you say.

“i don’t try,” he admits, “just hard not to be romantic when i’m with you.” he reaches across you with his other arm, pulls you further into his lap until both of your knees are on either side of his thighs and you’re facing him. “sorry,” he mumbles, “wanted to look at ya.”

“you’ve gotta be doing this on purpose,” you whisper.

his fingers scrape against the tops of your tights before rooting on your hips. he shakes his head. “it’s all you, really,” he whispers back. “these thoughts just come into my mind and i say them. love you so much, you make it easy.”

you’re very grateful for this position because it’s effortless to lean down and crash your lips into his, to wrap your arms around his neck and pull him deeper into the kiss, to feel his chest lift to kiss you harder. he tastes like expensive wine and a little bit like you still and you might cry, he’s just really perfect.

he places his hand on your shoulder, holds you in place as he leans back into the couch. the pout is already forming on your lip, so he runs his thumb across it gently. “will you be mine?” he asks, adding before you’ve even answered, “let me love you with labels.”

“oh my god, samu, you’re going to kill me, y’know that?” you say, hands cupping both of his cheeks before kissing him sweetly. “how do you expect me to keep up with this?”

“just say yes,” he says, quickly, “that’s enough for me.”

“of course,” you say, forehead resting gently against his, kiss placed on his nose and then the high of his cheekbone. you repeat it again just in case he missed it the first time, “of course.”

“i’m sorry that i didn’t make this happen sooner,” he says, soft sigh accompanying his remorseful tone.

“stop that,” you hush him.

“i mean it,” he says, sitting up into you a bit more, “if i would’ve figured my shit out sooner, we could’ve been doing this for months.”

“yeah, but you don’t know if everything would’ve turned out the same way,” you say, bringing your hands up into his hair, “if that would’ve been too soon or if we needed to go through all we went through to be as strong as we are now, there’s no way to know, really.”

he smiles at you, not opening his mouth to say anything, just soaking in the moment, humming at your astute thought. you continue, “i guess i just mean that, yea, getting more time with you would’ve been great, but we can’t do anything about that. so i’m just really glad to be with you now, here, drinking wine and sitting in your lap and kissing you.”

“and you say i’m the romantic,” he murmurs, kissing you once more.

“you are,” you argue.

/\ /\ /\

neither of you even finish your first glass of wine. even if you had, there was no way the two of you were untangling from each other and making your way into the kitchen for another, not in the middle of unimportance conversations about your thoughts on christmas lights or osamu’s thoughts on the type of pet he’d like to have one day.

but as the hours tick on, as the clock hands droop lower and lower, osamu knows that you need some sort of transition period to staying the night. “cup of tea before we go to bed?” he asks, head resting against the back cushion of the couch staring into your eyes with as much love as he can.

“are you being presumptuous again, samu?” you tease, but your eyelids are getting heavier and you can’t put a lot of effort into the taunting.

“i’m sorry, princess, do you want to stay the night?” he asks, gut-wrenchingly sincere.

“i would really love that, yea,” you say, flustered in the backfiring of your banter, “and tea sounds really nice too.”

he nods, once, short and happy, ready to move you off of his lap to go get the two of you a final drink before bed, but you get off of him first. “i’ll get it,” you offer, waiting with bated breath for him to fight you on it or to be weirded out by the forwardness of raiding his kitchen to feel the domesticity a little harder.

he doesn’t protest at all, lets the smitten, lingering stare last for a few moments before saying, “only if i can come with you.”

before you’ve made it to the kitchen with osamu in tow, he stops you, plants in place in front of the hallway to his bedroom, and nods towards it. “but first, can we get you into some comfier clothes?” he asks. “nighttime tea tastes better when you’re in comfy clothes,” he reasons. you can’t disagree.

you follow him down the hall to his room. you don’t get a good look at his plainly decorated room or the nicely made bed as you wait in the doorway. he returns quickly with a t-shirt of his. “you can change in the bathroom across the hall if you want,” he offers.

“you know you were inside of me in a fancy restaurant bathroom hours ago, right?” you ask, narrowing your eyes, pushing past him into his room and taking off all of your date clothes. osamu folds them neatly as you set them on the bed. when he picks up your torn tights, he can’t hold back his small laugh.

“oh yea, so funny,” you joke, “you can probably throw those away.”

“but they’re perfectly good for having sex in public bathrooms,” he jokes back.

you pull his shirt over your head, soft cotton taking the place of going out clothes and the difference is already lulling you to sleep. you’re determined to make osamu tea, but you can’t promise most of the cup won’t go cold on the counter.

it doesn’t take long for osamu to be on you, arms wrapped around your waist, hands roaming over your body, “you look so good right now.”

“shut up,” you say, pushing him away with the least amount of resolve anyone has ever had, “imagine how i feel looking at you wearing stuff like this.”

“you look better in it than i do,” he says, shaking his head.

“not possible,” you say back.

he leans down to kiss you once before reluctantly pulling away, walking back over to his dresser to change into comfier clothes as well. if you weren’t so stupidly tired, seeing osamu shirtless and in super casual sweatpants would’ve been the perfect catalyst for your first night together having sex in a bed.

tea. sleep. tea. sleep. tea. sleep. you remind yourself.

“c’mon, angel,” he coaxes, pulling you by your hand back down the hallway and into the kitchen. he leans against the countertop, doesn’t say another word or try to make you tea despite your earlier statement.

you start the kettle with the push of a button, pull the mugs from across the counter in front of you. you pluck two tea bags from the glass jar where they live. you have to open a few cupboards before finding the spoons, but the sugar is right where you think it will be.

“i think knowing that you take sugar in your tea is both the most surprising thing and also somehow completely aligns with who you are,” you reason, pouring the gently boiling water over the tea bags. by the time you finish your sentence, you’ve noticed the enamored look on his face, but you don’t have time to comment on it as he replies.

“that’s because you know me really well,” he says, nodding, loving smile still lingering. you put half of a spoonful of sugar into the cup, stir until it dissolves and then slid it against the countertop to him. he wraps his fingers around the warm cup, brings it to his lips, blows on it gently as if that’s going to do anything at all, and then takes the smallest sip. “perfect.”

you lean against the edge of the counter, holding the mug in your hands, waiting for the air to cool down the steaming beverage. “i think i’d be really okay with ending every single day of my life just like this,” you admit. if his eyes go wide or he recoils even the smallest percentage, you’ll blame it on the eventful day and the exhaustion that’s quickly overcoming you, but they don’t. his features soften, hand reaches across the counter to rub the back of your hand.

“me too,” he reciprocates. “you’ll have to stay over more often,” he doubles down.

“what?” you ask, taking a sip of your tea. you can feel the warmth hit your stomach. “have dinner ready for you when you come home and spend your nights off intertwined on the couch?” everything that you’re saying is getting closer and closer to practically asking to move in, but osamu doesn’t seem to mind.

“exactly that,” he murmurs, “you’ll have to see if you like my bed first, though, before you resign yourself to coming over every night.”

“every night?” you ask, cheeky smile the only form of teasing that you’re giving right now, “maybe we should go check it out then.” you take one more sip of your tea and then set the cup down on the counter. osamu doesn’t even do that, pulls you away from behind the counter and down the hall.

you climb into his bed, under his covers without asking or another mention. osamu joins you, climbing into the other side, and the two of you don’t waste a single second, curling up against each other, limbs lazily tangling, pressing up against one another as close as you possibly can.

“the first time we’re in a bed together and we’re not even having sex,” he says, softly, reaching over and turning off his bedside light. it takes a few moments for your eyes to get adjusted, to make out the shapes of his face in the dark.

“crazy, right?” you ask, smiling as you snuggling into his chest impossibly closer.

“i like this though,” he admits, traces his fingers up and down your arms, “just being in bed with you, falling asleep with you, means i get to wake up with you.”

you hum at his voice, soft and deep, and the darkness looks the same as it does with shut eyes, but you’re trying your best to not let the sleep take you that fast. “can you keep me awake?” you ask.

“you’re literally falling asleep as we speak,” he says, your eyelids fluttering shut as if to make a point. you shake your head, but you don’t say anything else. “why do you want me to keep you awake, babygirl?”

“cause i wanna be in this moment a little while longer,” you reason, breath taking over your voice as the darkness and warmth pull you into a comforting hug.

“we’ll have plenty of time for moments like this later,” he says, kissing the top of your head. “plenty of time, so go to sleep, angel.”

you’re not even embarrassed at how quickly you listen to him.

/\ /\ /\

if last night wasn’t enough to convince you that you were exactly where you needed to be for the rest of your life, waking up in osamu’s arms definitely was. they’re strong around you, wrapped tightly around your waist, nose nuzzled into the back of your neck, legs intertwined with yours.

you’re incredibly surprised that you’ve woken up first, but the second that you start to stir, osamu’s grip loosens, and his head peaks over your shoulder and he places a small kiss on your cheek. “mornin’,” he says, raspy as he talks off the sleep.

you turn in his arms, laying flat on your back so you can look at him directly. “good morning,” you say back, lifting your head to kiss him. “very good morning,” you say again.

“cute,” he murmurs against your lips, “stupidly cute.” you reach your arms up, draping them over his neck loosely to pull him down into you. “do you want breakfast or something?” he asks.

you shake your head, pushing his hair out of his eyes. “no,” you say, “well, maybe later? i think right now i just want, y’know, this.” you gesture with a small nod not really towards anything in particular, just to the situation.

he laughs, kissing the side of your face, “alright, this it is.”

you don’t say much else. nor does he. it’s all stolen kisses and roaming touches and silent exchanges. you don’t feel the need to talk, don’t have much to say, you’re communicating just fine without them.

every touch is getting needier, every kiss is getting longer, sloppier, more desperate, and the only thing that you’ve been able to think about for the last hour is all of the promises that have been made to you about after date things.

it doesn’t help that he’s on top of you now, tops of his thighs resting between your legs, hands on either side of your waist just looking at you like that. the first thing you say in over an hour is, “what, samu?”

he laughs, pushing his fingertips up your body, under the hem of his shirt, pulling it up and up until your entire stomach is exposed. “god, you’re so hot,” he says, grabbing onto your waist to pull you closer to him.

“samu,” you whine.

“what, doll? it’s true,” he says, pushing your shirt up even further now, tits on display so pretty that you can feel him begin to grow hard against your inner thigh. “so pretty,” he murmurs. he tugs your shirt off, tosses it to the side with no regard for the tidiness of his room anymore.

you’ve really never been this exposed before when you’ve had sex with osamu, always an article of clothes on, but now the only thing stopping you from being completely naked is the thin fabric of your panties and osamu’s fingers are already hooked in the waistband. you don’t protest as he drags them down your thighs, picks up your legs and rests them on his shoulder as he does.

he presses a kiss into the side of your leg, slowly drops them back around him. your stomach is in knots, can barely breathe with the way that he’s looking at you, eyes traveling down your body so slowly that you can see each point that they linger a second longer.

“fuck, you look good,” osamu says, leaning down to kiss your shoulders, your collarbones, your chest.

“shut up,” you murmur, fingers threading into his hair, scratching against the back of his head as he scrapes his teeth against your sensitive skin.

“no, i’m serious,” he says, leaning back, “you’re so fucking pretty, gorgeous actually.”

“ew, shut up,” you push him away jokingly, gently, “or i’m not going to let you fuck me unless we’re fully clothed ever again,” you joke.

he laughs against your neck, breath and vibrations tickling the wet skin. every single kiss feels personal, hand-crafted and perfectly thought of just for you. the placement is direct and purposeful and you can feel his love in every single one.

“god, i’m going to take my time with you,” he says, pulling away again. you can feel the blush blooming under your skin, warming up every inch of you, igniting fires in your stomach.

“first time that we have a lot of it,” you joke, coaxing him back up to your lips. “and first time that i don’t have to be situated on a sink or the floor.”

“so you’ll be perfectly comfortable,” he says, kisses trailing between your tits and down your stomach, “while i eat you all morning long.”

“samu,” you say, crook of your elbow rising up to your face to hide behind it. he reaches up, pulls it away from your face.

“don’t hide from me, doll, look so cute like that,” he says, laying between your thighs, pushing them open with familiar hands. you give in to the gentle pressure so easily that you swear you hear the faintest laugh coming from Osamu, but the light kisses peppering your thighs that follow gain your focus instantly.

it should feel agonizing, the way he takes his time dragging his lips across every part of the skin between your legs, kissing and biting lightly. but the longer he’s there the more laughter flutters through your chest, the more your cheeks flush, the more loved you feel. you bring your hands to his face as he rests his head against your knee cupping one under his jaw and using the other to push his hair back a little.

“make me feel so pretty, samu,” you mumble. he makes no attempt to answer, just holds your gaze with loving eyes as he brings himself to ghost near your already soaked pussy, the feeling his breath overwhelming any of your other senses.

“just want you to see yourself through my eyes, princess.” the end of his sentence comes with a long, slow swipe of his tongue against your hyper sensitive clit and it feels good to finally not worry about who can hear you.

you dig your head back into the pillow, hair already a mess after a perfectly restful night’s sleep. you can feel his eyes burning into you, even if you can’t see them, even if your focus is really anywhere but the agonizing feather-like touches between your legs.

it’s a shame, you think, but only for a moment, that his mouth is so busy that you can’t hear him call you pretty names or poke fun at you for whining so much. only for a moment.

if there’s one thing that osamu cannot be called it’s all-or-nothing. osamu doesn’t do all-or-nothing; he does slowly, consistently, comfortably, and then all. this is no exception. he runs his tongue between your puffy lips, smears your juices all over your sensitive pussy with the tip, and then he eats you- not like a man-starved, but like a man who he gets to indulge in his favorite dessert.

his fingertips are digging into the fat of your hips, palms pressing to keep you in place, to keep you from squirming, and it’s working. he lets you scratch your nails into his hair, down the back of his neck, resting on the tops of his shoulders. you don’t guide him, don’t buck your hips impatiently, you don’t need to. if he isn’t lapping exactly where you want him to, you know he will be soon, you know it’s deliberate, you know that he knows what’s best for you even if you have to wait for it.

you’re not sure you know how many times you come on his tongue, how many are attributed to just his tongue and how many are attributed to the noises that he’s making, the grunts that are coming from his throat, the mumbled praises that he’s whispering against your soaked folds, the squeaking of the mattress from the soft grinding that he’s doing against the blankets.

without a watch, you’d have claimed you were there for hours, all morning, just like he said. you’re not sure if he would’ve stopped either, if you hadn’t sat up on your forearm, somehow more out of breath than he was, and tugged on his hair. “samu, baby,” you whine.

you can’t help it, the even-more-breathless-breathlessness that hits you when he looks into your eyes, bottom of his face soaked with you, licks his lips, wipes the rest of it with his palm, and crawls slowly up to meet you. he kisses you hard, as hard as you’ll let him, and then he kisses you again, and then he kisses your cheek, and then your jaw, then your neck, mumbles against your skin, “what do you want now, bunny?” he’ll give you anything. “i’ll give you anything.” you know that he will.

the opportunities are endless. the world is your oyster. anything that you ask for, he will give you, and it will be wrapped with neat paper and a pretty bow with a handwritten note several miles long. you swallow, eyes searching his face for nothing in particular, just because he’s pretty and because he’s yours.

“i don’t think i have anything to ask for, because you’re already mine,” you whisper.

his face lights up, skin hot and flushed on the highs of his cheeks and traveling down his neck and chest. for a second it looks like he short-circuits, like you’ve broken him just by telling him the truth, and then, in a second, the world catches back up to him.

he shakes his head slowly and then you’re on top of him, sat with both legs on either sides of his, strong hands steadying you before you can even clock that you need to be steadied. “you’re really asking for it, huh?” he asks, and now you’re feeling warm.

“i- what are you talking about, samu,” you say, eyebrows furrowed. you can feel his hips- and yourself- lift off the bed as the fabric between the backs of your thighs and the tops of his is replaced with soft skin. you yelp softly as you’re lowered back down, hands on your inner thighs pushing you back just enough for his cock to rest between them.

you’re soaking wet, making a mess between your lips and on the insides of your legs and now all over his hard cock, slowly pushing through your pressed together thighs. he brings his hips off the bed, steady thrusts rocking the mattress ever so slightly, both his hands squeezing the outsides of your thighs. he clicks his tongue, “saying shit like that, angel, you know i’m not going to be able to help myself.”

“samu,” you repeat, breathless. “what ar-.”

he cuts you off, sliding his thumb from the tip of his cock to the base, his leaking head slipping between your messy lips until it’s teasing your hole. “sound so in love with me, baby, need to fucking feel you around me so fucking bad right now,” he breathes, sharp inhale punctuating his sentence as he pulls you by your hips until you’re fully seated on his cock.

you don’t know if the warmth is coming from the blush or touch of his skin or the desire that’s burning in your core, but it’s there, and before you can even fully register what he’s saying, he’s honest-to-god whimpering, spouting more lovey bullshit, “god, it’s like falling in love with you made you fit even more perfectly around me.” he lifts you slightly, fingers digging into your hips as he lets you slowly fall back down onto his cock.

he tilts his head into the pillow, but immediately picks it back up, locking eyes with you before letting his gaze fall down your body, like he can’t believe you really exist, like he can’t believe he let himself relax into a position where he couldn’t see you at all times, like he “can’t believe you’re fucking real,” he grunts, “and that you’re all fucking mine.”

“osamu, if you don’t knock it off,” you say. you’re only half-joking. you’re not sure that you could take him talking to you like this for much longer. you feel so full, every part of you feels so full. you slide your hands down his chest, palm against his rapidly beating heart acting as leverage as you start moving in time with him.

you close your eyes, partially to focus on the parts of you that are on fire right now, and partially so that you don’t have to keep looking at how much osamu is looking at you. he can’t keep his hands off of you, can’t keep his eyes off of you.

“can’t help it, pretty, not when i get to savor it like this,” he says, brings his chest up and wraps his arms around your back, holding you securely to him. he kisses the side of your face, whispers in your ear, “not when i finally get to fuck you in my bed and tell you that i love you and see you- all of you.”

“are you trying to make me cry or something?” you ask, placing both of your hands on either side of his face, forcing his attention on just your eyes and the hints of shyness strewn all over your face.

a slight smirk is followed by raised eyebrows and a tiny kiss to the temple. osamu flips you over, lying you gently on your back while you’re still fully encompassing him. “that can be arranged, puppy,” he says, kissing down your neck, nipping at your shoulders and chest. he slams his hips into you and you can’t help the pleasured, high-pitched moan that comes as a result. in fact, you can’t help the ones that come one after another after another as he keeps snapping his hips, insides of your thighs growing raw from the impact.

you’re babbling at this point, a symphony of half-finished words and tiny whimpers, and when a single tear breaks free of your blurred waterline, osamu can’t hold back. “fuck, holy fuck, babygirl, you sound so good, don’t stop, princess, keep making those cute fucking noises, fuck, sound so good.”

you shake your head no and hope that he understands what it means, that you won’t stop as long as he doesn’t. you’ll cry and scream and make cute little noises for him forever if he never pulls out of you.

you’ve always known that fucking in bathrooms has been disadvantageous, you just couldn’t pinpoint it, not when it always felt so good anyway. you never thought the space bothered you or the hard, cold various materials of sinks or the fact that people were often only a door away; you never thought any of that mattered until now, now when you can cry for him and feel the softness of the blankets beneath you and the plushness of the pillow behind your head.

“baby,” you cry, “i’m- you’re gonna- fuck, i love you so much. i’m-.” you throw your head back, you can’t finish your half-constructed sentence before osamu is fucking you faster, harder, wrapping an arm around your lower back and lifting you up the slightest bit to angle you perfectly. your hand moves on instinct, reaches down between your legs and circles your throbbing clit for only a second before you’re squirting all over him, a release of pressure drenching him as you gasp for air, drawing in enough breath to cry out his name.

you place your hand on his lower abs, eyes closing softly to center yourself. you could’ve passed out right here, slept for a million years, and you’re not sure you would’ve completely recovered. your body is shaking, throat is sore, and when you open your eyes, osamu is looking at you with such adoration and awe that you’re certain you’ve missed something.

“the first time we’re not in a fucking bathroom and you fucking make me squirt,” you mumble, shaking your head, “what are we going to do with you?” you ask, removing your hand from his stomach, silently letting him know you’ve recovered enough for him to keep going.

“i don’t care,” he says, kissing your jaw, “i don’t care what you do with me for the rest of my life, that was the most amazing thing i’ve ever seen.”

“you made a mess,” you tease.

“i made a mess?” he asks.

you nod.

he breathes a laugh before accepting responsibility, “i made a mess,” he confirms.

“so you’ve gotta do one thing for me,” you say, circling your hips, matching his lazy thrusts as you wrap your arms around his neck.

“anything,” he says. and you know that he means it.

you use your loose grip around his neck to coax him closer to you, your lips now pressed against his ear. “need you to make a mess inside of me, samu, please,” you say, low enough to send shivers down his spine from the tone alone. his hips stutter. he wants to regain composure, to not give in to blowing his load deep inside of you just from you saying his name and asking him nicely, he really wants to savor it and last a little bit longer.

but you’re so wet. you’re drenched, but you’re still so tight and sucking him in so nicely, perfectly sculpted for him, gummy walls still clenching and fluttering from your orgasm, and you kiss the skin right below his ear and you say, “please, i’ve been waiting for it ever since i fucking met you, please, don’t make me wait any longer.”

and he can’t.

he wouldn’t.

he doesn’t.

he snaps his hips forwards, pressing himself flush against the insides of your thighs and releases deep inside of you. you can feel his cock pulse with each stream, feel yourself getting fuller and fuller and fuller with each throb and accompanying grunt. you can’t get enough. you don’t want it to ever stop, but it does. he keeps himself deep inside of you for a moment, not wanting to lose the feeling just as much as you don’t.

when he starts to get soft, he pulls out, come dripping out of your hole and onto the blankets below just adding to the mess the two of you have created in the span of a few hours. he doesn’t exactly know where to go, what to do. the two of you could’ve passed out just like this, intertwined together and had the most incredible sleep of your entire life, if it weren’t for the huge mess beneath you.

“what now?” you mumble, not moving.

you feel osamu flop next to you. you’re not sure if he’s avoided the mess or if he’s embraced it. part of you wants to stand up and apologize and start throwing his bedspread in the washer, but that part of you isn’t winning, not today. if that part of osamu exists, it’s not winning either. he wraps his arms around your waist, rests his head on your chest, pulls you into him.

“are we just going to lay in this?” you say, laughing. it sounds ridiculous coming out of your mouth, but you’re sure it wouldn’t take much convincing for you to not have to move from this very spot. osamu doesn’t answer you, but you feel him unwrap from your body and then get off the bed. you go to sit up, but you don’t make it that far, opening your eyes as osamu pulls the blankets out from under you and throws them in a heap in the corner of his tidy room. he opens the closet door and comes back with a spare, small, but clean blanket.

he reassumes his position on the now-much-more-acceptable bed, throwing the blanket overtop of you and him and cuddling into your side. “is that better?” he asks, but he doesn’t really expect a response. your small smile and content hum is all he needs.

after only a few moments, recuperated by a clean blanket and strong arms, your body is ready to move onto the next thing, ready to get up and start making breakfast or start kissing him again or start getting ready for work despite how long you have until your shift. your skin is antsy, pulse is quickening. there are a trillion things in your head that you want to do with osamu, plenty of dull activities that seem like they’ll be much better with him by your side. you want to see them. you want to do them.

osamu shifts and pulls you into his chest, kisses the top of your head. “love you, angel,” he murmurs into your hair. “love you so much,” he says again. you feel calmer now, the most at ease you’ve ever been, because you know that there’ll be time for all of that, plenty of time, hours and hours of time to do all of the things that you want to do with osamu, more time than you know what to do with, you just know it.

for now, all you have to do is lay here, in bed, surrounded by warmth in more ways that you thought were possible, maybe let sleep take you again or stay awake in these passing moments, it doesn’t really matter. your exhale is steady, matches with his. you close your eyes and you can see this moment next week and next month and three years from now.

you look happy there.

you look really happy there.

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♡ ʀᴇʙʟᴏɢs ᴀɴᴅ ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴs ᴍᴇᴀɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ ♡

tori talks more: i do not know if i'll be around to write more to be honest with you. like i probably will at some point, but who knows. maybe when the new movie comes out. maybe ill do a jjk pivot bc i just finished it. feel free to scream in my inbox abt it or this or whatever. ily all and im so glad i could finally finish this. <3 :)

#osamu x reader #osamu smut #hq smut #hq x reader #osamu x reader smut #hq x reader smut #haikyuu smut #haikyuu x reader #haiykuu x reader smut #miya osamu x reader smut #osamu x reader fluff #osamu fluff #osamu fic #hq fic #toriwritesshit #abd update!

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piratefishmama · 11 months ago

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Beware The Thorns | Part 9

Robin Buckley made it her job to know things about people in Steve Harrington’s life. That was something she’d always done. Ever since they’d been bound to chairs back to back in a basement, ever since Steve had goaded, pushed, and insulted their captors, spitting vitriol, forcing them to focus entirely on him leaving her with barely a scratch, a sore jaw from where one of them had slapped her across the face but that was it.

Steve had been hospitalised for over a week with his injuries.

And in that time, the senior Harringtons had laid waste to the entirety of the group that’d held them captive, and had forged an odd little friendship with Buckley&Buckley, a P.I husband and wife duo who were endlessly grateful for Steve’s sacrifice to ensure their daughters survival.

A friendship that continued for years after the senior Harringtons passed their empire onto their son in their passing.

She wasn’t even supposed to be there, she’d taken it upon herself to investigate something to prove that she could. To prove that she was ready to join her parents in their work. Wrong place, wrong time. But it gained her Steve, he was worth the nightmares.

Which was why she spent her Monday morning going to a coffee shop she didn’t actually enjoy on the east side of the city, drinking overpriced black ‘artisanal’ sludge, which usually she’d be an advocate for, fuck Starcucks an all that jazz, but this place?

Dumpster fire masquerading as a ‘hip new coffee joint’, ran by a douchebag in a beanie with a moustache that didn’t fit his somewhat misshapen potato sack face shape.

All to meet with one very pretty young lady, who seemed to actually enjoy the coffee the shop served.

“I need to know where he’s going to be.” A very pretty lady, who held her coffee cup to pursed, painted red lips, bright blue eyes on Robin’s face. “And I need to know if he’s already locked down a new client, I’m assuming these are things you’ll know… as his friend.”

“Mmnnn, I mean. You’re not wrong.” She took a sip then placed her cup back down on the cork coaster provided. “I do know where he’s going to be, and I do unfortunately know his hook up schedule, but what makes you think I’m going to tell you any of it? As his friend, it’s kind of my job to keep that information on lockdown, isn’t it?”

Robin liked Chrissy. She’d always liked Chrissy, same as Robin always liked Eddie, they had similar vibes. Wearing a mask of thorns to protect the pretty petals from those who’d do them harm. She didn’t know how they knew each other, didn’t know enough about Eddie to make assumptions as to where they’d met, but Chrissy was the closest thing Eddie had to a best friend, as far as Robin knew.

Chrissy was the only friend that Robin could get to without it immediately getting back to Eddie. Eddie’s little game friends, Gareth, Jeff, and Dougie? They’d tell him the second she reached out, would sound an alarm and she’d never get anywhere near him, claiming they were ‘being good friends’, but Chrissy was smarter by far. Chrissy was just enough of a best friend, to know when Eddie happened to need something that he didn’t want to admit to needing.

Just enough of a best friend to be able to tell him he was being an idiot, and not just immediately side with him.

Like Eddie’s very own Robin.

“It is, but I’m hoping that I’m right in the fact that he’s probably been miserable since he ended things with Steve, right?” It all kind of hinged on that. On Eddie’s real feelings behind his little mask. “Steve’s pretty miserable… it’s depressing”

“So miserable he’s sent you out to track Eddie down? Or are you doing this sniffer dog bit on your own initiative?” Robin opened her mouth to reply, but Chrissy continued as if she hadn’t asked a question, asking another instead, “what makes you think he’d be miserable?”

“Which question am I answering here?”

“Mmmmm second one please.” Chrissy took another sip, so nonchalant. She had an energy about her that Robin felt strangely familiar. A countenance Robin had only ever seen in one other person.

“I know he was acting, I know there are sides to Eddie that Steve never saw, that Eddie never let Steve see—”

“Like all the sides of Steve that Eddie never saw?” Robin tensed, brow furrowing “oh unclench, Robbie, the Cunninghams and the Harringtons go back generations, pretty sure Steve and I would have wound up in some stupid arranged marriage had the Harringtons not been against it.” Robin didn’t like not knowing things, why did she not know that? How had she missed Chrissy of all the potentials to have told Eddie about Steve’s life? How did she not know that Steve ought to know Chrissy? “I never said anything to Eddie and I don’t intend to, but… why should I let Eddie be dragged into such a messy life? There’s so many fish in the sea, Robin, why should I let my best friend be dragged down by a shark?” At least now Robin knew why Chrissy’s personality, her eerie calm felt so familiar.

She was Steve in prettier packaging.

“I’m at a disadvantage here, aren’t I?”

“Oh very much so, but you’re very cute so I’m letting you off.” Robin blinked once in surprise, then did her best to quell the pleasant buzz that thrummed through her veins at the not-so-subtle compliment “Please answer my question, why should I give you what you want?”

“He… Steve… He loves him, Chrissy… Steve has done bad stuff, don’t get me wrong, he’s done awful things to people, but I’ve never seen him like he is whenever Eddie’s around. It’s like he’s drowning in the dark and Eddie’s just… a light at the end of the tunnel, an if Eddie loves him too, which I think he does… why should they be apart?”

“And now the real reason, not the Hallmark movie one?” Chrissy raised a brow in boredom.

“I… I don’t know, Chrissy. I don’t know. I don’t. I’m running on best friend fuel. Steve needs him, or at least needs closure from him, and as his best friend I’m duty bound to try and get that for him. I’m sure you don’t love Eddie’s job. Right? He wouldn’t have to do any of it if he just—”

“Gave up his freedom and all the work he’s put in to establish himself in his field for a slim chance at happiness with one of the most dangerous men in the city?” Chrissy leaned back in her chair, one leg crossing over the other as she crossed her arms over her chest, coffee cup left to rest on the coaster.

“Better the devil you know though, right? Wouldn’t you rather him be with someone you know won’t hurt him… than with someone you don’t?” Chrissy’s eyes finally left Robin’s face, dipping down to the right as she thought about it.

Eddie wouldn’t be alone for long, he’d find a new client, he’d be on someone else’s arm, and he’d continue his life unchanged with a risk of being hurt.

Or… or he could have what he wanted.

Chrissy knew what Eddie wanted. They’d spent more than enough evenings on his couch with ice cream mooning over Steve Harrington and while she’d have loved to tell him that he was trash, he was a monster in sheep’s clothing… he just wasn’t. So she’d kept quiet.

She let Eddie pine away for a life he could have if he took a chance, never telling him why he shouldn’t.

“What if this new client wouldn’t hurt him?”

“Let’s be real Chrissy he’s probably already planned on reaching out to Tommy to fill in the gap in his schedule, you and I both know what kind of trash heap Tommy Hagan is.” An easy cash grab that’d probably make Eddie feel like shit. “Do you want to risk Eddie’s happiness on a what if, or do you want to tell me where he’s going to be so Steve can be there and sweep him off his feet?”

In retrospect, Robin should have probably been suspicious when Chrissy sat up straight, when she looked at Robin as if she was assessing her, and she definitely should have been suspicious when, with a short “Alright then,” Chrissy plucked a pen from her bag and a little notepad, and jotted down an address and a time. But with a small victory in her hands, and a front row seat to Chrissy’s perfectly perky… ponytail retreating for the door with their business concluded.

She really wasn’t thinking all that hard.

#PirateWrites #BewareTheThornsFiclet #No Upside Down AU #Steddie #Escort!Eddie #Shady!Steve

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missn11 · 5 months ago

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Colourful Pride Flag Clouds collection out now!

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Size: 9.6cm x9.6cm

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the-blind-assassin-12 · 10 months ago

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Change of Plans

A/N: Although I am SEVERAL days late at this point, this is a gift for @something-tofightfor - HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RACHAEL! I hope your day was all that you wanted it to be, and that this year is the best fucking one yet. I so badly wanted this to be done in time, but you know me. Anywho, I love your guts and I hope you enjoy this chaotic little cake I whipped up with the help of one of your favorite cowboys.

Word count: 4k

Warnings: listen, don't do what Reader does here. Other than that... just some language. It's very tame. But don't do it.

Summary: Jack is there on business. You're there for pleasure.

He noticed you right away.

Sitting in the waiting area near gate A-7, right leg crossed over your left and an open book in one hand, you caught his eye -

Well hello, gorgeous.

- and he had to repeatedly free his focus from your direction, reminding himself why he was at the airport in the first place.

Damn it, Agent, you’ve got a job to do.

You turned the page of the book you were reading, letting out a sigh and stretching your neck, and Jack adjusted his position on the barstool he occupied so that he was forced to change his line of sight. He cleared his throat, lifting his glass to his lips and taking a sip. The bold, smoky flavor of the deep amber whiskey coated his tongue, and by the time he swallowed he was back on his task.

He’d been sent to locate and detain a known associate of a crime boss that Statesman was attempting to bring down. Intel gathered from Agents assigned to the case suggested that the associate - a mid level player who occasionally dealt in black market weapons - would be traveling through Louisville on his way to meet with the mysterious and nefarious man they knew only as The Gatekeeper. The current theory was that The Gatekeeper was operating out of San Francisco - or more specifically, out of a secret underwater lair that was built into one of the foundational structures of the Golden Gate Bridge, hence his nickname. But Statesman had been unable to confirm that yet. Catching up with the Gatekeeper’s gun runner was their best bet when it came to pinning down his location for sure, and since he had the most experience with facial recognition and planting trackers, the assignment had gone to Agent Whiskey.

So let’s find this shit kicker and get on with it so I can get on with… He resisted the urge to turn back in your direction.

Setting his glass down on the cork coaster it was served to him on, he brought his newly emptied hand up to tap the arm of his gold wire glasses. At the touch of his fingertip, the stealth lens screens activated, and he used them to scan the faces of the people moving through the terminal. So far none had hit as a match for the Gatekeeper’s associate, but since the man was clever enough to book himself tickets on multiple flights that day to make it harder for anyone who might be looking to follow him, Jack had to keep checking until he either found his target or the last of those flights had taken off.

I’ll find him. Soon as he shows up I’ll-

But Jack didn’t even need to finish the thought, because his lenses detected the person he’d been waiting for before he could. Just as he was about to get up from his seat and position himself to intercept his target, though, he saw something else flash across his lenses.

Mission directive has changed. Do not detain. Intel from Kingsman suggests associate may also be working with Golden Circle remnants in Canada. New directive is only to place the tracker and not to pursue until we know for sure who he is meeting. Agents in Vancouver and San Francisco have been put on alert and will be activated as needed.

Jack blinked twice to acknowledge Ginger’s message, then used the movement of his eyes to send a question in response.

Received. Return to HQ?

He had his jet on standby there at the airport in the event that he needed to abscond with The Gatekeeper’s man, and he assumed that since that was no longer necessary, Champ and Ginger would want him to come back and await further information. Keeping one eye on his target, he used the other to read the new message that flashed across his lens, finding it to be a surprise.

Negative. Don’t want to risk the chance of counter tracking. Take the Pony somewhere for a few days first. Vegas or Denver are preferable but Mexico City is also available.

Well, shoot. Looks like I’m takin’ a vacation. My favorite kind of mission.

Ginger had listed cities where Statesman owned properties that were reserved for off duty use - for when Agents had to lay low for a while, or for when they needed a safe place to recover from injuries sustained in the line of duty. There were several more located around the world, but judging by the selection that was presented to him, they wanted him to stay close enough to either have him back in Kentucky in a matter of hours, or send him to California or British Columbia in a pinch when the intel on who the associate was meeting with came back.

Received. Target inbound. Contact when directive complete.

With that, he lifted his finger up to tap the arm of his glasses once more, the screens deactivating so that he could remove them, folding them for safe storage in the inner pocket of his jacket. In a turn of luck, his mark headed straight for the bar he was seated at and sat down two stools over. He showed no signs of having made Jack for a secret operative, not even bothering to look in his direction as he ordered a drink from the bartender.

Perfect.

Jack’s grin was imperceptible as he used his thumb and pointer finger to pull one of the small “buttons” from the cuff of his jacket sleeve. Flattening it with a tight pinch, he dropped the bio-tracker into his own beverage and watched as it dissolved into the liquid. It finished just as the bartender placed a rocks glass of whiskey on a coaster in front of Jack’s target. He waited for the other man to take a sip, and then he closed the distance, scooting over one stool so that he was right next to him, and then he greeted the man with a jovial tone.

“Did my ears deceive me just now, or did I hear you order the Statesman 12 year, my friend?” Jack pointed to the other man’s glass while holding his own.

The other man turned to face Jack, a semi-scowl on his face, his annoyance over being addressed by a seemingly drunken stranger as a “friend” clearly written in gray-green eyes. “What?” He glanced down at Jack’s glass and then at his own. “Oh.” He grunted and gave Jack a nod before taking another sip of his drink. “Yeah. You drinking the same, I take it?” He arched one eyebrow and turned back to face the television screen behind the bar without waiting for the answer to the question he’d just asked.

“Smoothest bourbon there is.” Jack held up his glass, inspecting the contents. To anyone else’s eye - even the man beside him - it would appear as though he were simply appreciating the way the overhead lights streaked through the rich amber liquid. In truth, he was making sure that the button-turned-tracker had been completely infused into the drink. Seeing that it was, he glanced over and caught his mark with his own glass midway to his lips once more.

Slow down there, son, leave some for our toast.

Reaching for the man’s elbow, he stopped him from draining the last of his beverage. “How about we both raise our glasses to good taste and safe travels?”

The other man jerked his arm away as though he’d been burned, the motion accompanied by a deeply frustrated sigh. Checking his watch, he rolled his eyes and shook his head at Jack. “Sure Fine. Just make it quick, I have a flight to catch.”

As he presented his glass for the toast, Jack aggressively clinked the rim of his against it - with just enough force so that some of his drink had sloshed into the other man’s glass without him noticing. “Quick it is. Safe travels.”

“Uh huh.” The sketch of a scowl was back as the man nodded again, knocking back the remainder of his drink, including the tracker. “Same to you.” With that, he slapped a fifty on the bar and left his empty glass, on his way to whatever gate would take him to whatever scumbag was waiting for him.

The Gatekeeper or the Golden Circle… or whoever the fuck else. We’ll know soon enough.

Taking his glasses back out of his pocket, Jack unfolded them and put them back on his face. With a tap of his finger the one-way screens hidden in the lenses activated again, and through a series of blinks and subtle eye movements, he sent confirmation of his mission back to Ginger Ale.

Tracker planted. Target in motion.

Before he got a response, though, he was distracted by a voice coming from over his shoulder. “Excuse me? Is anyone sitting there?”

He turned towards the speaker and his eyes widened, lips lifting into a slight grin when he saw that it was you.

Hot damn, she’s even prettier up close.

His grin grew at your sudden, small intake of breath when your eyes met. “All yours.” Using one hand, he pulled the stool out for you as Ginger’s message started to scroll across his field of vision.

You muttered a thank you as you chewed your lower lip. “You didn’t have to-”

Well done Agent Whiskey. The tracker is live and we are following its movement. Which location did you select?

“Now darlin’, what kind of gentleman would I be if I only did what I had to do?” He smiled, covertly answering Ginger’s question.

Not sure yet. Stay tuned.

You let out a sound that was almost a laugh, shrugging. “You’d be like most gentlemen I’ve known, I guess.”

Agent, we need to know-

Jack brought his hand up and tapped the side of his glasses, closing the communication screen and letting Ginger’s message go unfinished. It wasn’t the first time he’d done it and it wouldn’t be the last. He always eventually got back to her and never made her wait too long. But his focus had been drawn to you all afternoon, and now that you were sitting directly beside him, he wasn’t going to rush the interaction he’d been putting off for hours.

“Then allow me to introduce to you a different kind.” He reached up and swept his hat from his head, laying it on the bartop, and extended his free hand to you. “Jack Daniels.”

– – –

15 Minutes Earlier…

You checked your watch with a sigh, noting that you still had a little under an hour before you’d be called for boarding.

It’s fine. That means I can start another chapter now. You rolled your eyes. I’ll need a new book for the flight home at this rate, though.

It was one of those flights that didn’t make sense - with a 4 hour layover in a city that was completely out of the way of your destination. But that was why you’d been able to find tickets for only $48 each way, less than three days out. Things at work had been hectic, and you weren’t sure if you were going to be able to get the time off until the very last minute. So even though it certainly wouldn’t have been your first choice if you’d been able to book it months ago when the trip was first brought up, you were perfectly content to take the unnecessary stopover in Louisville on your way to Las Vegas.

Doesn’t hurt when the people watching prospects are this interesting, either.

You glanced over at the nearby bar and the astoundingly attractive man seated there who’d snagged your attention as soon as he arrived. He, like a handful of others in the terminal, wore a dark felted Stetson But unlike most, it suited him. As did his perfectly tailored suit and-

Oh, fuck, he’s wearing glasses now. And they look damn good on him, too.

You cleared your throat and forced your thoughts back to your trip and your reason for taking the less than desirable layover. Even though it meant spending hours alone in an airport, you were excited, because it also meant being able to see several of your friends who lived far away, and being able to celebrate your birthday with them. Well, not just your birthday. The trip was meant to be a group celebration to make up for the fact that you hadn’t all been able to get together for a birthday in years. Since there happened to be two of you who had birthdays in January, that was the month that was chosen. But the dates that were settled on had included your actual birthday smack dab in the middle of them, and you were looking forward to having something fun to do with people you missed.

Which was why you groaned as you read the notification that popped up on your phone regarding the flight status.

Delayed - Mechanical Issues

“Fuck.” You muttered under your breath, closing the airline app and tapping your phone screen to open the group chat so you could fill the others in on your situation. Before you finished typing though, your phone vibrated in your hand and a picture popped up of two of your friends - Jess and Maddy - both wearing ear to ear smiles at Harry Reid International, the text from Jess simply reading two words followed by several exclamation marks: We’re here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kayla chimed in next, responding with an emphatic YAY! and sending a screenshot of her GPS, showing that she was just under 2 hours out. Be there so soon!

Nat still had her phone on airplane mode since she’d only taken off from LAX about an hour earlier, so you didn’t bother waiting for an update from her before you finished typing your own.

Bad news, my flight out of Louisville is delayed. :( Mechanical issues… No idea when I’ll be there now, but I’ll keep you all posted.

You sent the message and tucked your phone into the outer pocket of your bag as disappointment set in. As it was, the rest of your friends were already supposed to arrive half a day before you. But now, it was looking like you were going to miss out on the entire first day of the trip.

Or more.

Frowning at the thought, you tried not to let yourself get too upset until you had a better idea of your situation. You told yourself that it could be something quick and easy to remedy - maybe you’d only have to wait one more hour. Maybe less. Either way, you decided that since half of the group was already there, it meant that the vacation had unofficially started, and it was time you treated yourself to a drink.

And if I know Jess and Maddy, they’re doing the same right now.

You picked up your bag, slinging the strap over your shoulder, and headed towards the bar. It was moderately crowded, only a few stools left vacant scattered here and between other travelers. But as you got closer you noticed that the man you’d caught yourself spending more time watching than any of the others was still seated there - and that the seat beside him had just become empty.

Perfect timing.

That confidence lasted only until the man spun at the sound of your voice, and seeing him up close had nearly knocked the breath from your lungs.

Oh, shit. He’s-

By the time he’d given you his name along with his hand to shake, you’d noticed things about him that you hadn’t from across the room. Like the flecks of tan and gold that lightened his dark brown eyes, the distinct bow of his upper lip beneath his mustache and how it rested against the plush pillow of the lower one, the way you couldn’t see a stitch of leather on him aside from his boots, but the smell of it - along with bergamot - clung to him and made him even more appealing.

You swallowed, his warm hand wrapping around yours and squeezing as you managed to tell him your name. “It’s nice to meet you, Jack.”

Without letting go of your hand or releasing your eyes from the lock his own had on them, he repeated your name back to you, the sound of it making your face grow warm. “Pleasure’s all mine, I promise you.”

When he winked as he withdrew his hand, you knew you were screwed. You ordered yourself a drink - something local, a bourbon you’d not seen before called Statesman - and Jack, though approving of your choice, simply asked for a glass of water. As you brought the glass to your lips, another thought popped into your head.

But am I really screwed, though? Because… he seems just as interested as I am.

Over the next half hour, you and Jack made small talk and subtly flirted in smirks and glances. You asked him what brought him to the airport that day, to which he’d answered:

“Had some business here earlier. But that’s done, so the rest of my evening is completely free.”

You shook your head at that, taking another sip of your drink. Damn that’s good. “Don’t you have a flight to catch?”

At that, he grinned and spread his large hands wide. “Ah, well, that is one of the perks of being my own pilot.” He raised one eyebrow and leaned towards you. “I can leave whenever I choose.”

Okay, I wasn’t expecting that. That definitely makes him even more attractive somehow, though.

You mouthed the word wow and let out a stunted laugh as you reached into your bag to retrieve your phone. Some time had passed and you were hoping that there would be another notification about the status of your delayed flight. “That must be nice.” You groaned as you saw that there was nothing new from the airline, and several texts from your friends expressing their dismay over your travel woes. Shaking the phone in your hand, you sighed. “I’m here on a layover that got delayed and the rest of my friends are already in Vegas.” Looking over at him, you wet your lips with your tongue. “I’d love to be able to just… hop in and take off whenever I wanted to.”

– – –

Well, shit. Did she just say Vegas?

Clearing his throat, Jack reached up to tap the arm of his glasses. Several missed messages came through at once, all from Ginger, but he blinked them away as he spoke. “Well, I know we’ve only just met, and I’m not trying to make any suggestions-” Though I could. “- But I happen to be going to Sin City myself tonight.” He had to contain his grin at the flash in your eyes as he used the nickname for the gambling town. “I’d be more than happy to take you with me.”

Destination selected. Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

You sucked in a breath at his proposition, and though he knew you were likely considering saying no, he hoped you’d say yes. “I… Jack, I couldn’t ask you to-”

“You’re not. I’m askin’. I’ll show you my license and everything to prove that I’m legit, but darlin’, I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t want to.” He tilted his head towards the window. “No tellin’ how long they’ll need to fix that bird, and if your friends are already there…” He trailed off and shrugged, returning his gaze to you. “My jet is fully fueled and ready to go. I could get you there so you don’t have to miss out too much. More than you already have, I mean.”

He could practically hear Ginger’s reply when it came through, but he fought the urge to let out a snort as he read it.

IT’S ABOUT TIME, AGENT. Make sure your friend buckles up. We’ll contact you when you can return to HQ.

You bit your lower lip again, and he couldn’t help but watch the way your teeth dug into your flesh. “I…” He saw the rest of your protest dissolve the same way the tracker had earlier, your eyes shifting from skeptical to excited until that’s all he saw in them. You laughed, then, lifting your hand and holding up one finger. “Alright. I’ll… yes. I’ll take you up on it. But on one condition.”

Received. Will await contact. Over.

Jack reached up to tap his glasses before removing them and stowing them in his pocket. He leaned in closer to you, concentrating on the quirk of your lips and the mixture of impulse and instinct in your eyes. “Let’s hear it.”

“You let me buy you a drink once we get there.” You said it over the rim of your glass as you finished the last of it, eyes on him as you swallowed.

An excuse to go out with a beautiful woman? That’s the condition?

Jack flashed you a smile. “I think those terms are more than agreeable, ma’am.”

– – –

What the fuck am I doing?

You half laughed at yourself, but at the same time there was something about Jack that made you feel like you could trust him. You were aware that that could be a danger in and of itself, but your gut told you he was a good man, and you had always felt that you were a good and accurate judge of character.

How’s it any different from meeting a guy and getting in his car with him? It’s not, really.

It was, and you knew it was, but you hadn’t been wrong yet. And as much as you wanted to get to Vegas to see your friends, you also found yourself wanting more time to get to know Jack. He was offering you the chance to do both of those things, and even though you were looking for one, you couldn’t find a downside.

Pulling out your phone, you opened the group chat and sent one text before switching it to airplane mode.

Change of plans. Met a (really good looking) pilot who was on his way to Vegas and offered me a ride. Sending a screenshot of his license number in case I go missing hahaha. Just kidding. I’ll be fine. See you soon!

You knew what they’d say when they saw your message.

Jess would likely just send a thumbs up - or possibly a photo of herself giving a thumbs up.

Maddy would emphasize your message and respond with something like Okay but don’t die!

Kayla’s message would be a more whimsical reaction like Jesus take the wheel! (Wait do planes have wheels?) or Life is short, take rides from hot pilots when you can with the peace sign emoji.

And Nat would send advice from several documentaries and podcasts she’d seen or listened to, about what to do if you were being abducted.

You laughed to yourself again at the entire situation.

“Alright, Jack.” You hopped down from your stool and picked up your bag. “I’m ready when you are.”

He stood, taking his hat from the bartop and placing it on his head. “No time like the present.” Running his hands over his clothes, he smoothed out his suit jacket. “Follow me, darlin’. And give me that.” He pointed his chin towards your bag. “I’m a gentleman, remember? Where would my manners be if I let a lady carry her own bags?”

You shook your head with a smile and handed over your carry-on, leaving you with only your purse. “I don’t know. You’re teaching me about gentlemen, remember?”

You knew when you saw his eyes darken that you’d made the right call.

“Oh, sugar. I remember. Few hours to Vegas. Plenty of time for me to teach you things.” With that he started walking and you were left to follow, slightly stunned at the implications in his tone and in his words.

This is definitely going to be a trip to remember, that’s for sure.

Thank you for reading! If you would like to be added to or removed from the taglist, please feel free to let me know by sending a message or filling out the form on my masterlist! :)

tags: @something-tofightfor @dihra-vesa @littlemisspascal @mishasminion360 @nyctophiliiiiaaa @practicalghost @tanzthompson @harriedandharassed @woodlandmouth @trickstersp8 @imtryingmybeskar @wildmoonflower @mswarriorbabe80 @theredwritingwitch @silverstarsandsuns @competentpotato @pedro-pedrito-pascalito @jedi-in-crocs @hannahkatharine @novemberrain221 @chiyo13 @myloveistoolittle @Noisynightmarepoetry

#HAPPY BIRTHDAY RACHAEL!#pretend this was on time #jack daniels x reader #jack whiskey daniels x female reader #jack daniels x female reader #pedrostories #jack whiskey daniels fic #kingsman the golden circle #jack daniels x you #agent whiskey x female reader #pedro pascal character #agent whiskey fic #jack daniels fic #it's cowboy times

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clickedge23 · 1 year ago

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Cork-back coaster

This cork-back coaster is a perfect match for your favorite mug! Create a homey feel while protecting your coffee table or nightstand from mug stains and moisture. The coaster is waterproof and heat-resistant, designed to last a long time. Buy it for yourself or as a lovely gift for your friends and family. • Hardboard MDF 0.12″ (3 mm) • Cork 0.04″ (1 mm) • High-gloss coating on top • Size: 3.74″…

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#cork #cork back coaster #coaster #mug #coffee vibes

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yourcoffeeguru · 1 year ago

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Pimpernel Drink Coasters Set of 6 Cork Back ORANGE & LEMON Theme made in England || SWtradepost - ebay

#coasters #english coasters #oranges and lemons #christmas #tableware #swtradepost #ebay #cork back coasters #vintage drink coasters

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toxicdogs · 7 months ago

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I made some things! coasters to be exact! - they are in my shop too wowow

#i might have a new hobby..#these were fun to make but untill I got a good quality tool #it hurt my hands SO BAD #but i have a good tool now so ya know #ima burn so much shit #gideon the ninth #my art #the locked tomb #my shop

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desognthinking · 10 months ago

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recruitment drive. 5.3k. (or, the haunted house designers au.)

Suzanne sends the pre-meeting email just one and a half hours before the onboarding call is scheduled to begin. Beatrice knows this because her watch buzzes just as she emerges from the bathroom, wringing her hair dry after her post-run shower.

It’s still the middle of the night back in America. Beatrice thinks Suzanne just doesn’t sleep.

She makes herself a pot of tea and carefully sets her mug down onto its cork coaster at the dining table. Her phone, face-down on the table, vibrates thrice as she boots up the laptop.

She flips it over: three texts from Lilith. That’s two too many.

A curious sense of anticipation, and perhaps the shallowest hints of doubt, settles over the skin of her neck as she loads up her unread mail. It’s uncharacteristic of Suzanne to forward basic administrative material at such late notice. Especially since it concerns mere formalities like the Zoom link for later, and the confirmation of the meeting participants – an email that should take less than two minutes to formulate. After all, everyone already knows the team heading the expansion project.

Beatrice had mentioned this to Camila once, recently, during their weekly lunch call. Week six or six thousand into their strictly enforced remote work sojourn (the only way, Suzanne said, she could ensure that no Extra Responsibilities would be surreptitiously taken on) and she was already pacing the room from boredom and overthinking.

Camila had reminded her that, in her defense, Suzanne had just been out on that scouting trip in Peru without reliable internet. Whatever spare bandwidth she did have was probably best served hurdling over the mountains of administrative obstacles these new pop-up Houses inevitably would create. Not fretting over Zoom links.

Camila, as always, is sensible; probably the most sensible of them all. So Beatrice very seriously, and very conscientiously, takes a deep breath and runs through that one breathing exercise she’d found very helpful from her therapist.

Suzanne is a stickler. She holds her cards carefully close to her chest, arranged back and forth in some pattern nobody but she can see, and Beatrice trusts her fully. And that’s all that should matter – as Suzanne had made glaringly clear, even before she’d sat the three of them down one by one in her office, and then emailed them the remuneration clauses – that she’d wanted Beatrice for the job, had worked to convince her for it.

For an industry chest-deep in the currency of terror, Beatrice had – has never been lured by the screams.

It is tradition for a House’s creative team to prowl the exit on opening night. Maybe grab a drink and share a toast to the accompaniment of desperate footsteps sprinting out, or breathless, choked sobs at the gates.

Beatrice doesn’t like that. Ever since she got personally banned by Mary from coldly going through the whole maze (yet again) with a clipboard on Night One while bona fide, ticket-purchasing customers were busy hollering their heads off, she’s preferred to go home right after the ceremony to a mug of hot chamomile and a dogeared autobiography.

She plans to keep it that way, too. There is nothing more distasteful than cheap gore, or cultish fantasy, or whichever half-baked nightmare slough some over-excited writer could dredge up from the hallucinatory afterburn of a weekend bender.

She carefully takes a sip of her tea, gazing out into brightening but still charred-gray skies. She’d had an interview in Tales of Terror last year, and hadn’t known whether to be flattered or dismayed at the opening paragraph.

‘You wouldn’t guess this is the home of the woman responsible for some of the most blood-curdling, spine-chilling effects, traps and rooms of the last half-decade. Nothing in her fourth-floor unit screams Creative Psycho. Every pale beige curtain in her flat is drawn wide, light flooding in. There are no letterboxd-worthy poster displays from the indie foreign films she watches religiously for research – only a framed print collection of early twentieth century European urban landscape paintings. There are no carpets, it’s almost unsettlingly clean, and there’s not a single ounce of bedragglement. Beatrice tells us, mild mannered and polite almost to a fault, that this is how she likes it.’

(Are you sure you want me?)

“Precisely,” Suzanne had said, careful and stern, “we need precisely that.” She’d been rolling a brass knuckle tightly over the surface of her desk as she spoke. Beatrice thought it produced a gorgeous, rich sound.

“We need reinvention. Reinterpretation. Things should not be left to stagnate, for their own sake,” she’d stared at Beatrice meaningfully. “This applies to people too.”

Beatrice had simply stared back, uncertain.

“Besides,” Suzanne turned away, the edge of her mouth twisting up like she knew something Beatrice didn’t, “As I’m sure you know by now, the workload will be shared.”

It made sense then that Suzanne had last year taken them aside to allocate them as leads to three of the flagship site’s Houses that season. Upon their successes she had allocated them, despite protests, those purely consultancy and remote assistance roles for this year’s season.

Two years ago Beatrice and Lilith were section heads in their respective maze portions. Camila, then freshly poached by the firm, was primary set designer of the same House. That year they huddled together night after night and sixteen-hour days to cobble together something out of the most dysfunctional House of that year’s stable of nine.

The lead for said House was a man called Vincent. He was woefully incompetent to the point of unintentional sabotage. He had, of course, slunk away quietly upon the season’s conclusion, but until then the three of them had had to spend wee hours crawling up and clawing at walls and reinforcements and contractors that had been given contradictory instructions.

They built an easy partnership, eventually – disciplined and stone-smooth efficient to the extent that Beatrice reluctantly allowed herself to catch a few agonizing hours of unguilty sleep each night.

And through necessity she had come to know them as well, as only a truly nightmarish haunted house build will have you know a person.

After that wretched time they had been wrenched apart. The OCS had multiple Houses to churn out at full steam and speed every season, and a brutal reputation to maintain. The cruel prize of a job well done involved getting split up, even if for bigger, better things.

But the point is, they’re tried and tested. Beatrice likes that. She isn’t sure she would have agreed to taking on this challenge otherwise, and she knows Suzanne knows that, too.

It is a weight on her shoulders, irregular and uncomfortably shifting across her shoulder blades; a worry that any success she has in executing such an endeavor would be largely circumstantial.

Last summer, long before everything had been set in stone, Shannon sent her a link to an Instagram post. It detailed some theories and speculations over an unnamed upcoming OCS expansion. A strategic leak, perhaps, although Beatrice worked far too distantly from the marketing team to be certain.

They were lying next to each other on the mud-streaked safety mats they put over the wooden boards beside the building site. Her building site. The one with the credits board, hooked up at the exit, that would bear her name first at the top.

It had been the muggiest, most intolerable time of the day when Shannon, overseeing production on this half of the Houses, had come round, somehow hoisting a bulky IKEA carrier over her neck and under her left arm. She pulled out a variety of chips and buns that she’d gone down to the shops to buy, and handed them out far too cheerfully for someone who must have already half-melted in the heat. When Beatrice raised her eyebrows, glancing over behind the barriers where Mary’s motorcycle very conspicuously was parked, Shannon merely winked – poorly – and pretended to be very innocent.

She stayed to help, afterwards, peering over the storyboards pinned up on the board like it wasn’t the thousandth time she’d gone over them. That year she’d also had her own House to take care of, in addition to the small matter of co-running the entire season’s program. So Beatrice tried to weakly bat her away, but she pulled out a banana from some back pocket, peeled it, took a large bite with a moan so obnoxiously loud Beatrice turned red, and shushed her.

At this point construction was going ahead in full force, and Beatrice would frequently navigate every step of the maze and inspect every bolt and hidden door with a pocket-sized Moleskine in her hand and three gel pens in her pocket. Yasmine, her head writer, preferred to make notes directly onto her phone, stopwatch dangling from her wrist and an earbud in her ear as she ran over the preliminary audio cues for each section. Ambling behind them, Shannon found a nail and tried to spin it as long as she could on her fingertip. When the nail rolled off into a groove, irretrievable, she dusted off her hands very innocently on her cargo pants and off the back of her greasy tank top. Then she folded her hands behind her back and looked up very seriously to examine overhead mechanisms that Beatrice ‘might be too short to see clearly’.

With the work lights strung up, the innards of the House did not look particularly scary.

To Beatrice it was a purely cerebral challenge, despite the very physical layer of sweat, powder, and grime that pressed itself under one’s skin. A puzzle to fit and form and reverse-engineer under cool light; door mechanisms and false ceilings and spring-loaded foam sprays, optimized and timed within fractions of a second. Clean, clockwork.

And as if to prevent her from getting hauled fully into the vortex of her mind, Shannon accompanied the little pilgrimage around the set, pressing a water bottle firmly into Beatrice’s hands every half-hour. It made Beatrice feel like a moody little child, but she accepted it grudgingly every time.

At the end of the day Beatrice sent everyone home twenty minutes early, and ordered dinner for her and Shannon to eat out on the boards. Fast food, Shannon insisted, and she would be paying for it, because “do you know what day it is tomorrow?”

“It’s not my birthday.”

“It’s better than your birthday.”

And to Beatrice, that was true, so she kept quiet.

After that, they lay down for a while, two cans of soda cracked open and resting on the square of wood beside them that hadn’t been covered by the mats. Shannon sent her the post, then, and when Beatrice complained limply that she couldn’t read the comments because she didn’t have an account, Shannon rolled her eyes and handed over her own phone.

She made a peculiar dialect of eye contact with Beatrice as she did so; weighty, certainly, and telling.

The post itself featured garish word art splattered over a mangled, heavily-filtered edited image of one of the previous seasons’ Houses – a fan favorite, actually, from the year Beatrice had first joined. Back then she was still working shifts on the engineering team, not even yet being assigned a maze section to look after its technical execution.

There was a rumor, the post said, that the OCS was considering broadening its operations to seasonal pop-ups in different cities. All-new sets, all-new storylines, all-new takes on the haunted house experience. What do you think? The caption asked, Do you want more of the OCS brand of sleek, seriously messed-up and sickeningly chilling?

Below that a disclaimer: Not appropriate for young children! Please remember that this is not your typical carnival house of mirrors.

A staggering amount of likes and comments. Beatrice clicked to expand the latter, saw the word ‘legacy’ in the topmost one, and then quickly swiped to close the app entirely.

Mary and Shannon grinned up at her from the home screen, half-buried in sand somewhere on their Greek island-hopping honeymoon.

Shannon raised her eyebrows as she received her phone back, and Beatrice suddenly understood the meaningful look she’d been given. Are you ready?

She reached out blindly for her soda can and finished the rest of the drink in one long, shuddering gulp.

At lunch the next day, Beatrice’s fifth year OCS anniversary was celebrated with some fanfare in the makeup and fittings trailer, where Beatrice had spent the whole morning hunched over fabric textures she could barely distinguish from each other.

Everyone came down from their sets, even Mary and Shannon. Beatrice thought they must have been exhausted; they had stayed late the previous night, after Beatrice had left, to thread their way softly through the OCS’ gaping campus of half-built sets. Simply looking over their modest kingdom. It had a certain wistful luster; in this summer twilight it was a garden of greenhouses, transparent and skeletal. A complex slowly unfurled over the years. Ghostly-quiet, too, in a way it could never be in the throes of peak season.

Mary waited for Shannon at the gates of the House, silhouette sharp against the work lights, as Beatrice had gotten up to pack for the night. Up by the lockers she glanced over, but looked away when their hands fell gently together. They walked slowly away, murmuring things she couldn’t hear.

When Beatrice bolted the gate to leave, it clacked too loudly, and they’d called over to say goodbye, dark intertwined shadows stretched grotesquely and longingly over sawdust towards her.

Nevertheless they had made it to the celebration the following day, Mary holding aloft a large creamy cake. Unlike the customary employee milestone cakes, dark and billowing and elaborately stylized with elements of houses previously worked on, Beatrice’s was plain white, with light blue frosting.

The celebration moved outside to the large, white refreshments tent, industrial fans blowing hot, coarse air. Beatrice marveled at how everyone seemed to be able to fit under its canvas. The team working on her House had all come, of course, pooling money for a hamper, and so did a surprising number of others across the other sets.

Lilith and Camila arrived together, squeezing through the throngs to the unsteady plastic table at the center. “We were not bringing your gift into this slaughterhouse,” Lilith huffed, “you’ll have to go back to the office to get it.”

“What is it?”

Lilith scoffed. “Why would we ruin the surprise?”

Camila put her hand on Beatrice’s shoulder. “What we’re really here to say is that we’re proud we’ve been able to work with you during these five years, and we hope we’ll get a chance to do it again.” Beatrice looked at Lilith, who shrugged, stabbing her paper plate.

Mary, still slicing up the cake and handing them out, stopped to meet Beatrice’s eyes. She grinned.

It was many months later, deep into November, that Suzanne had made the formal pitch in her office. By then social media was awash with rumors of possible locations where the OCS could plant their pop-ups. Names, too – there were spreadsheets and Clue-esque checklists on Reddit lining up members of every significant OCS creative team in its past iterations in vertical rows. There even were columns of ‘evidence’ For and Against each individual’s involvement in the as-good-as-guaranteed pop-ups project.

Beatrice couldn’t tear her eyes away as the online crowd reached a consensus, drawing red circles in damning permanent marker ink again and again and again around the names that everything pointed towards. She closed the browser before getting to the point where the discussions dissolved and devolved into bitter catfights over creators’ artistic styles, as they always did.

Suzanne’s office, for as long as Beatrice had worked at OCS, felt like something out of a natural history museum. It was all burnished wood, walls fully doused in dark, rich green, and glass display cases of her collection of Southern European invertebrate fossils. Symmetrical tiles underfoot and over them, a thick carpet that swallowed the clap of footsteps. In Beatrice’s early days here it had been a terrifying place; severe and gloomy even when the heavy curtains were fully peeled open to let light in. The exacting botanical sketches on the walls, too, did not help in the least. Even now she thought it would make for a wonderful basis for a section in a House – a museum, of course, or perhaps a town hall.

Some might think her an unlikely horror creator – easily spooked by many things and a fervent hater of surprises, but Beatrice thought it was a good thing, for a designer, to be able to find something genuinely terrifying in everything.

She took a seat gingerly at Suzanne’s beautiful oak desk, angled so as to always make her seem taller and larger. So that the light would fall in a certain slanted way across her face, carving a cavern of contrasts down the thin scar through her eye.

“Suzanne.”

“Beatrice.” Suzanne inclined her head, expressionless. From a drawer she took out a stapled set of papers, and flicked through the corners thoughtfully. Her leather chair let out a sigh as she leaned back and appraised Beatrice silently for a minute.

“It’s time” she said, “for a new challenge.” She placed the papers down in front and to the left of Beatrice, next to the handmade tin man figurine gifted from her son.

For Beatrice it had never really been about the horror; the thrill of smelling blood in the water, and Suzanne knew that.

“Some details have not been hammered out yet, but you have a role here should you accept it,” she said, at the end, sliding the papers into a manila folder. “You all are ready for it.”

Beatrice bit her lip. It was hard to argue otherwise, if not for her, then for the others, at least.

Camila, who she traveled with halfway across the world on a budget airplane that rattled and croaked just to take hundreds of terrible reference pictures in poor lighting with their bad phone cameras.

One evening, Beatrice had eaten something foul, and she’d found herself slung across Camila’s lap, cringing in the back seat of an overpriced taxi without a working AC. Groaning with each bump of the road and helplessly dipping her head further into the crook of Camila’s arm. Throughout the ride she had gently brushed her fingers through Beatrice’s damp, clumped hair, whispering things Beatrice could no longer remember, and dabbing her clammy, chattering cheeks dry every two minutes with her own sleep shirt.

Beatrice insisted she get back to the hostel to get some rest while she was kept overnight for monitoring and IV rehydration. It had been a rocky trip, and a break would do them some good. Instead Camila had spent the next one and a half days finishing up three days worth of location scouting, and then had it all packaged into a neatly organized folder by the time Beatrice was ready to go again.

There was nothing imaginable, Beatrice thought, that could truly faze her.

And Lilith. The most capable person Beatrice knew to spearhead the overall production and creative direction of something like this.

Not just because Beatrice knew she would genuinely do a marvelous job masterminding and knitting together a house of horrors. Beatrice also considered it important that, if she were to join the team, a satellite unit stationed thousands of miles away from the safety of the Cat’s Cradle headquarters, the team would be led by people she trusted.

Or the equivalent of ‘trusted’. Whatever you call the thing between two people who fly desperately over to each other’s homes with some regularity to scream and claw at particularly unyielding scenes and transitions and then fall exhausted into sleep in each others’ beds.

“Take some time to think about it,” Suzanne had said, afternoon light shining harshly so that the whole room was a prism of contrast. “Let me know what you think.”

So here they are.

“Subj: OCS Halloween Pop-ups - Onboarding”. Beatrice puts down her mug, takes a deep breath, and clicks the email from Suzanne.

Her phone rings.

“What is it?” Beatrice copies the zoom link at the top of the message and pastes it into the top of a new tab. With her other hand she holds her phone to the shell of her ear.

“Have you seen the email?” Lilith is terse and tight, even through the phone. Her voice is faraway; Lilith has her phone on Speaker and on a table or drawer somewhere while she looks at something else. Unusual. Her calls are usually curt, succinct, and fully focused. It makes Beatrice’s ears go hot and buzz with static.

“I’m reading it now,” she says, scrolling and scanning the words.

It’s a short email, in Suzanne’s usual clipped style. No attachments if she can help it. Below the zoom link there is a brief four-point meeting agenda, a reminder to be punctual, and finally a brisk thank you.

In-between these lines Suzanne has appointed lead and three accompanying names of the members of the steering team of the OCS’ first expansion project.

Lilith’s name is listed second. She's not the Creative Director.

Silence.

“You’ve read it.” The statement is biting; almost a sneer. Beatrice smells the bitterness licking under the corners of its thin, cool veneer. Sticky.

Beatrice rereads the four lines. She rereads it again. She opens her mouth, then closes it.

Ava Silva.

“Who is she?” she exhales, finally. Weakly.

There is a scoff on the end of the line. Echoes of slippers marching down parquet, a door slamming, and then, quietly, an uncontrolled squeak of leather. A furious stream of mechanical clicks, as Lilith’s hands race over the keys of her expensive desktop setup. Beatrice can picture her in her room as if mirrored before her: Lilith still in her terribly fancy robe, sprawled ungainly before the expanse of her monitors in her glassy, austere, home office.

Her voice is suddenly much closer over the call, and Beatrice pictures the phone wedged to her ear by her shoulder.

“Ava Silva,” Lilith spits, in a dry, desiccated whisper. “Is a Disney rat.”

Beatrice raises her eyebrows, pulling up the matching LinkedIn profile. The most recent post was uploaded a week ago – it seems to be an incredibly effusive Farewell-slash-Thank You post for, indeed, the Disneyland Anaheim Imagineering team and the Creative Development department. She scans the prose: candid and emoji-laden, bordering on unprofessional.

Beatrice counts seven Disney Princess puns, and one awful Star Wars quote to cap it off. There are eight – yes, eight – images attached to the post, all full-sized so that the page runs on like a travelog blog post.

The last image appears to be a mountain of goodbye swag. These include, Beatrice notes: a Moana beach ball, a matching Buzz Lightyear set of wheelchair spoke guards and cane covers, and a Sven the Reindeer onesie. The rest of them are all pictures of the woman who must be Ava, with her now ex-coworkers. All adorned with Mickey ears and pin-studded lanyards, in front of various rides and experiences she probably had a hand in creating.

No, Beatrice scrolls back up to information messily hidden in the overlong farewell paragraph: Specifically, two of these are rides for which she’s been part of the main creative team. Three more that she’s played some role in creating, whether at the design phase or in later consultancy during implementation.

One picture is a solo snapshot of Ava in a bright yellow baseball cap and remarkably tiny denim shorts, in front of a Disneyland hotdog stand. She’s holding an extra large hotdog, absolutely drenched in ketchup and mustard, high over her head like a trophy. Her smile, Beatrice thinks, is dazzling.

She swipes down on her trackpad too quickly.

The last picture is of Ava and two others standing on a boulder in front of a massive Zootopia indoor roller coaster, while crowds in the background swarm the attraction in a snaking queue. ‘My pride and joy / baby / first full lead’, Ava has captioned it, ‘aka Great Zootopian Escape 🫡 . Just opened !!! I will be back 2 visit :’)) ’

Beatrice sighs.

“What the hell is Suzanne thinking,” Lilith mutters, teeth gritted; tone cold. She’s shaken, and Beatrice knows it.

She herself can barely stop herself from scrolling, and scrolling, and scrolling. That’s enough, she snaps at herself, and her hand leaves the touchpad with a short jerk. There’s no point.

“Good morning,” Suzanne says flatly, the moment the call holds five participants. “Thank you all for joining the call punctually.” Her face is crisp and too-sharp against the blurred-black virtual background.

Like they wouldn’t have come anyway, even if thoroughly rocked. Three stern, stiff and silent faces look straight ahead. Suzanne probably prefers them this way.

Beatrice looks quickly through the five rectangles on the screen and finds the label that she seeks.

🗿Ava Silva’s iPad 🗿.

“I would like to welcome a new member to the OCS.” Suzanne begins. She nods: “Ava Silva.”

There is a light smattering of the hand wave emoji reaction floating up from the toolbar from 🗿Ava Silva’s iPad 🗿. The device itself seems to be held up very close to her face so that all Beatrice can see is patchy pixelated bits of nose and cheek, shaking about as Ava presumably works to send the emojis.

Beatrice clenches a stress ball in her fist. It had been gifted to her for April Fools’ Day by Mary and Shannon. Something about clenching and unclenching, although Shannon had been laughing too hard to deliver the line in full.

“Ava has been a Creative Development Director at Disneyland and worked on numerous attractions both there and at Universal.” Suzanne pauses. “So, to put it crudely, this is something of a coup. We are very happy to have her with us to lead this creative expansion of the OCS brand.”

Beatrice’s phone, which has been relentlessly buzzing, skates across the table. She turns it over, a stormy headache already gathering steam: dozens of unread messages from Camila and Lilith, and more still on their way. Sighing, she shoots off a quick ‘Later, please.’ and then puts it on a tea towel on the kitchen island, out of reach.

“As you may imagine, it was not easy. She was… highly sought after by various studios and companies. Miss Silva,” Suzanne deadpans, “you are a difficult woman to track down and convince.”

The image of Ava’s face, very close to the camera already, wobbles further. It jostles like she’s jabbing at her screen fiercely. A good while later, after Suzanne had moved on entirely, her delayed message would finally deliver through the Zoom chat:

🗿Ava Silva’s iPad 🗿: thats only bc i don’t read my emails lol! Glad 2 be here too 🥰

“You will all be working very closely together. In case anyone has forgotten…” Suzanne begins summarizing the contents of that fateful paper packet that she’d handed over in her office last November. The words, the clauses, are identical, but Beatrice can’t help but see it all in a different light. It sinks in more completely.

Close collaboration to envision and map out the overall direction and themes for the pop-ups. Planning and writing for each house. Liaising with and consulting Admin back at the Cradle, yes, but otherwise almost entirely shouldering production independently. All of that now with Ava Silva thrown into the works.

For Ava’s sake, Suzanne briefly recaps the typical in-house workflow of the production of a Haunted House. Steering team meetings to establish expectations and aims; brainstorming and ideation and finalization of directions; traditionally an in-person bootcamp-esque intensive where the engine of development truly shifts into gear; followed by an ever-accelerating process of recruitment, research, sourcing, production, and testing. A process that should be second nature suddenly feels daunting.

“Now, this meeting is taking place so late because we have only just secured the venue permits for the pop-ups. I have briefed Ava already, and she will be able to explain this separately.”

Beatrice doesn’t have to turn around to hear her phone begin to rattle furiously behind her again.

“Finally, Ava,” Suzanne says, “let me introduce the rest of the team.”

First there is Camila, who Suzanne praises modestly for her extensive set design and art experience. Beatrice knows she’s always had a soft spot for her – resilient and optimistic and ready to put her teeth into anything.

But in sharp contrast Camila’s face now is neutral and unreadable. The usually bright, tasteful splashes of color in her room are muted against the only two lamps she’s chosen to keep on, shades down and twisted away so her face sits in half-shadow.

Lilith, then, in her icy postmodern tech den. Her arms are folded and her eyes are cast somewhere. Distant and acidic.

Beatrice snaps back to attention when Suzanne mentions her name. She keeps it short and sweet: Beatrice’s original training was in engineering, and so, beyond her job scope, she’s best equipped to provide the team with technical and mechanical expertise.

Ava nods. From what Beatrice can surmise from her patchy rectangle, she is not in a room at all.

No. She is, it seems, on some kind of wicker chair on a sun-dappled porch or veranda, lined by orange and beige walls and pillars veined with vines and hanging pots. A pair of sunglasses, perched on the crown of her head, keeps slipping down, and every few minutes Beatrice sees her lift a finger to nudge it back into place.

Her iPad seems to be on her lap, because it’s shuffling precariously at a strange angle focused on Ava’s chin as she flits about, constantly in blurry motion.

When Ava holds up the iPad, there seems to be an inscrutable wall of something behind her, simultaneously metallic yet moving in dashes of color. For a moment, her video lags and freezes, and Beatrice gets a better look.

They’re birds. Dramatic plumages and muted tones of all kinds of domestic birds. In cages of every shape and size and color, decked from floor to awning, hanging off bars and resting on customized stands. The whole place is full of them. The iPad tilts as Ava adjusts herself and Beatrice finds that there’s more to the side, off-camera, too.

Suzanne does not comment on it. “Ava, any thoughts?”

Ava unmutes herself, grinning.

Beatrice’s earbuds erupt in utter, screaming, avian cacophony, and everybody winces at the exact same time.

Ava – muffled by bird screeching – yelps, mutes herself, and switches off her video.

The call melts into thirty seconds of stunned silence.

“Oops sorry”, types 🗿Ava Silva’s iPad 🗿 in the chat.

Beatrice can see Lilith physically take a deep breath and count one to fifteen out loud. Camila is in disbelief; shocked and a little delighted. Beatrice reflects on the strange, confusing mess of large feelings, and decides that she possibly wants to throw up.

Suzanne bites a lip and frowns.

Deep breath, Beatrice reminds herself. Exhale. Inhale.

Ava’s camera switches back on eventually, and this time, she has, in each ear, one bud of a pair of half-untangled earphones. The wires are frayed and taped over with red duct tape, and the sounds of the surrounding aviary are now blessedly punched out.

This time, too, her iPad appears to be propped up on something. The earphone cord stretches dangerously taut when Ava scrambles to sit back into her chair.

“Sorry,” her voice careens back into the call. “I’m crashing at a friend’s home at the moment. It’s also kind of a bird shop.”

“Anyway,” she takes a deep breath, grinning, “I’m so happy to join the team. I love horror, and haunted houses, so much. And like, the OCS is– wow. It’s such a dream.”

She lifts her arms to either side excitedly to gesticulate, and Beatrice watches Lilith balk at the unabashedly kitschy Universal Monsters tie dye oversized t-shirt. Ava leans in just enough that Beatrice can see the crudely cartoonish red-and-white design on her black flask, swirling about.

Bite me I’m scared scrawled over a crude cartoonish vampire.

“So,” Ava goes on excitedly, “I have a lot of ideas, and I can’t wait to get started.”

#warrior nun #wn haunted house au #although there is very little actual haunted house in this #this extract is all set up #no long game plot they just crawl around scary places and design scream houses 😌#anyway. hi 😳

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