#curious because every time i start to refer to it i go “the… well known.. semi-rarepair”

[maxthesillyy]

LIS mutuals/fans. is amberfield considered a rarepair? or is it too widely known.

[biteofcherry]

Yours to have

Bad Moon Rising Masterlist

Alpha!Ari Levinson x omega female reader

summary: It's the ceremony of your mating with Ari.

warnings: mystical vibes of ancient rituals; a/b/o dynamics; a pinch of exhibitionism; slight breeding kink; primal kink; shifters; shifter!Ari; wolf!Ari; shifter!Reader; no bestiality

word count: 5.4k

Author's Note: This is a tad different take on the usual claiming/biting in the a/b/o universe. The magic is more at play here in forming the mating bond, not the actual biting. As you read, you'll understand what exactly I changed about it and why. Also, a person called godi appears in this piece. The title of godi refers to a priest/ess of old pagan religions, leading mystical rituals (it's mostly Old Norse origin, but here it's simply used as a term to name the pack's sort of priestess).

The little sip of black currant liqueur you took before all the guests gathered in the wide, unfenced backyard didn’t help easing the tempo of your heart rate, as you finally took a step outside. 

The silvery sphere of the full moon rose above the treetops, crowned in a gold and reddish halo as if the goddess herself knew of the special celebration about to take place. 

Both packs were present - or you should say one pack, as now your people were merged into one under the rule of Ari. People stood to the sides, making a wide path for you to cross toward the arch weaved of evergreen branches, where your future mate awaited along with the pack’s godi. 

It was the redhead who stole curious glances your way ever since Ari’s pack started mingling with yours. What you saw at first as some sort of jealousy, because Ari kept his claim on you known right away, relentlessly so, turned out to be mere curiosity. Perhaps also a mystical knowledge, which a godi was supposed to possess. 

Her name was Alara and she was going to lead the ceremony of your mating. 

Times were modern, shifters tended to bind themselves in very human-style weddings, but the Alpha had to honor old traditions. Especially if he chose to mate with an Omega. It was a stereotype as old as time and as such was expected to follow the ancient traditions. 

In the weeks leading to the ceremony you spent some time with Alara, who taught you every step of the ceremony. It wasn't common knowledge, though there were parts of it passed on through generations via spoken tales. Like you were aware of the fact the ceremony had two phases and only a very few, selected shifters would be present for the second part.

The rather primal part. 

Tiredness should weigh on your tense body, since you woke before dawn, but the anticipation and shot of excitement kept you fully energized. The early morning was part of tradition, as well. You walked into the woods with the first rays of sun to gather greens for the wreaths you were going to weave for yourself and your mate. 

Mugwort, chamomile, wild ferns, St. John’s wort and a few twigs of juniper. You wore yours on your head as you slowly crossed through the backyard. In your hands you carried the twin wreath for Ari. 

You were going to crown him with it, as a symbol of you choosing him to be yours. Later, when the second part of the ceremony started, he would take yours off of your head, as a symbol of taking your nonexistent virginity. 

It was laughable, if you were cynically honest. Neither did you choose Ari, not really, nor were you a virgin. Not for a long time. 

Something that Ari didn’t seem to care about. 

Like he didn’t care that you were much older than overly fertile young women he could have chosen from. A small part of you found it quite pleasing, that he didn’t chase after girls half his age, but voiced his interest in you - someone who was merely a few years younger than him. 

You walked barefoot, your simple white dress flowing around your ankles. It was no point in buying an actual, elegant wedding dress, considering you wouldn’t be wearing it for long once you got to the second part of the ceremony. 

You wore no undergarments either. 

You didn’t think Ari’s aware of that fact, but the way his gaze slid up your body as you approached him suggested he might be.

Then his eyes settled on your face and a certain lightness seemed to turn his irises aglow. There was seriousness and respect for the traditions carved onto his handsome face, but his mouth curved at the corners slightly, soothing and encouraging you.

Ari was barefoot, just like you; wearing elegant, linen pants and white shirt that was buttoned only halfway up. 

It was so characteristic of him, you noticed. Over the weeks leading to your mating you’ve had enough opportunities to spend time with Ari - usually not out of your own volition, but because he was crossing into your space and inviting himself over. And most of the time at least two top buttons of his shirts were undone.

You wondered if it was some poor style choice, or if he ran so hot that he needed them unbuttoned.

Those thoughts invited others, more brazen. If he’d walk around the house without a shirt? If he slept naked? Questions you tried to convince yourself you didn’t care for, but which you’d very soon learn the answers to.

You stopped in front of Ari, lifting the wreath in your hands for him to admire. When he bowed his head, you put it on him. A startling flutter to your heart sprinkled warmth through your limbs as you looked at him crowned with a wreath you weaved. 

Lanterns cast amber glow across your bodies as you placed your hands in Ari’s. It was neither their warmth, nor the evening’s sweet dispersing incalescence, but a simmer of heat ignited in your belly when you touched him. 

Ever since he marked you with his cum, feeding you a dollop of it, it seemed your body attuned to his closeness with growing hunger. 

You tried not to imagine how worse it could get once he fully claimed you. 

Alara bound your hands with colorful ribbons; each for a different vow you spoke. Then she lifted an ornamental chalice, filled with sweetly smelling mead and a pinch of herbs. 

With your hands bound, both you and Ari carefully took the chalice. He lifted it to your lips first. Pleasant thickness of it coated your tongue and slid down your throat, leaving a burning sensation that only spurred the fire in your belly. 

In the books regarding mating ceremonies you read about a particular ingredient that used to be added to wine or mead for the bride to drink. According to Alara that hasn’t been done in at least a century and you really hoped she was truthful. It would be really disgusting if you were made to drink Ari’s cum in front of everyone, even if it was only a splash of it. 

Apparently it used to be added to strengthen the bride’s desire for her mate. 

You knew it would work. You still remembered how your body responded to the taste of Ari when he caught you. 

You tipped the chalice slightly when it was Ari’s turn to take a sip; his eyes a glowing blue that seared through you as he held your gaze over the rim. 

With your hands still bound, Ari pulled you forward. He took your mouth in a bold kiss that burned stronger than the rich alcohol you just consumed. Loud cheers resounded around, but were faded compared to the pounding of your own blood rushing through vessels as you melted under the demand of Ari’s lips. 

There was amusement and giggles as you and Ari worked your hands free of the bindings. No scissors or claws could be used to cut through them, you had to work the knots together. Then the bundle of colorful ribbons was placed in a small, carved box. 

You gasped in surprise - the sound dispersing on your palate - when Ari kissed you again. 

Hands completely free, he grabbed you fully, dipping you backwards as his tongue dipped between your lips. The chorus of applause included a few howls. 

You felt a little dizzy (and a lot hot) when Ari pulled back. If not for his arm loosely wrapped around your middle, you may have swayed. Eyes glazed, though you weren’t certain if it was due to the potent mead, or the reality of mating Ari hitting you suddenly; you stared up at him. 

With the spark in his iridescent irises, you sensed he was equally excited for the next part as you were terrified of it. 

But your fear didn’t make you flee; not this time, at least. It was that kind of fear that lured to follow into the darkness and experience the thrill of being consumed. Curiosity and apprehension combined into an addictive kind of sensation. 

Was it why you felt that spark of arousal whenever you ran away and Ari gave chase? 

The first thought making you run could be of rebellion, of trying to free yourself of the Alpha’s clutches. But the chase made it into heady titillation. 

The unknown of the mystical, sacred part of the ceremony spiked that fear, but the aspect of doing it with Ari - whatever raw, dirty act it would be - heated your body in anticipation. 

Alara addressed the gathered people, calling upon them to feast in joy for your union. Then she took one of the lanterns and led a small procession deep into the woods. Five other shifters fell into step behind her - three of Ari’s pack and two of yours. Chosen for their hierarchy in the pack, they were granted great honor to be witnesses to the second part of the ceremony. 

Though you briefly wondered, if Dante wasn’t asked to do it also as some sort of twisted power play. He was a member of your old pack and it seemed Ari respected his knowledge, experience and dedication to protect people. However, there was no doubt Ari would have learned that you and Dante used to date. 

It ended more than three years ago, the two of you remaining somewhat friendly if distanced. But male shifters tended to be extremely possessive. Ari was borderline so. It wouldn’t surprise you if the honor to participate in your ceremony wasn’t also Ari’s way of emasculating Dante in case he harbored any lustful thoughts of you. 

Ari’s fingers intertwined with yours as you followed Alara through the darkness of the woods. The lantern was merely symbolic, as your shifter senses allowed all of you to move through the night quite easily. 

When you reached a wide clearing, the five shifters spread around, taking positions in a spread semi-circle. Alara led you forward to the middle of the meadow where a few items had been prepared in advance. 

“You shall undress each other, so the Moon can bathe  you in her glow,” Alara’s voice was soft and melodic, her lips curved in a gentle smile, but her eyes were sharp and wild. Gold swirls painted on her face seemed to pulse with life.

Breath hitched in your throat when Ari’s hands smoothed along your shoulders, the straps of your dress easily giving in as he pushed them off. Leaning close, he reached behind you and unzipped the short zipper of your dress, then pulled the delicate fabric off your body. 

Trying not to think of being completely naked in front of him - and in front of five other shifters! - you unbuttoned his shirt, one small button after another. Your fingers itched to explore the expanse of Ari’s chest, but you stifled that craving and managed to touch as little of his skin as possible as you pushed the shirt off his shoulders. 

Staring at his chest, you popped the button of his pants open and lowered the zipper. You couldn’t make yourself look Ari into the eyes, fearing to see the heat in them and perhaps a sense of dark, lustful victory. 

It was better not to peek down, too. The glimpse of Ari’s cock you got when he came all over you after he caught you in the woods was enough of torment in the past few weeks; tempting your body into overdrive as you dreamt of it. 

You stepped away from the pile of clothes and faced each other. Heart pounding in your chest, you finally lifted your gaze to Ari’s face. Without Alara’s prompting, as if he knew each step of the ceremony by heart, Ari took off his wreath and placed it at godi’s feet. 

Then he reached for your wreath. In a slow, gentle move, he took it off. 

It was only a symbol, one you previously rolled your eyes at, but the moment Ari’s fingers gripped the green weaves and deprived you of them, a light, pleasant sting pierced your core. 

Your wreath was offered at Alara’s feet as well; the godi served as a conduit of the Moon goddess. 

“Shift.” The command was simple, unyielding enough that you didn’t protest, even though you were surprised by it.

When Alara taught you stages of the ceremony, she didn’t mention letting your wolf out. You hesitated only a few seconds, before you gave in to the pull itching beneath your skin. For a split of a second you got to admire Ari’s wolf with your human eyes, then you were seeing him through your wolf’s. 

You were a streak of silver, light coloring that some of your former partners expressed to be the moonlight itself crushed into fur. Though you weren’t the smallest of wolves, placing yourself as rather average among shifters, you seemed tiny compared to Ari’s wolf. 

Your Alpha was a beast of fairy tales. So big and domineering. His thick fur was a spectrum of bronze, with some streaks glinting gold, some reddish, the tip of his tail as dark as black. 

In that moment it hit you how perfect of a predator he was. As a human you noticed his scent that blended him so easily with the forest - pine and moss and resin. His wolf form blended into the woods even deeper, allowing him to gain the upper hand in any season, any part of the land. 

Ari’s paw dug into soil as he made a move toward you. Something flicked through your hindbrain, or perhaps it was your human side all along, but you suddenly felt the need to bolt. 

To tease him, maybe. Or perhaps you couldn’t suppress that remnant of rebellion against this union.

Your wolf barely managed to turn around and start forward when Ari leaped. The massive wolf crushed you to the ground, your wolf yipping as he trapped you beneath him. Then his jaw locked on your neck, sharp teeth piercing enough to be a warning. 

A shudder rippled through you, your head dropping down in submission. Ari snarled and for a moment you found yourself scrambling to understand what he wanted. But your wolf knew. With another pitiful yip she went lax, surrendering completely. A lick of approval soothed the spot where his fangs nipped you.

Slowly, Ari eased back. You remained in your position, not daring yet to move. Then suddenly a low growl of his reverberated through your bones.

It yanked on that shifter thread inside you, forcing an immediate shift. 

Never before had anything like it happened, it was always your own volition to change into wolf form and back into human. And Ari just proved to you how much power he held. 

Alphas supposedly possessed that ability - to force any shifter into immediate change, but you never saw Dimitri do it to anyone. You didn’t think Ari’s done it to scare you, or belittle you in any way, rather you felt it as his help to guide you into the next step of the ceremony. 

Yet it still elicited a scary realization, how truly he could overpower you. If you ever ran away in your wolf form, he could command your immediate shift into human and gain more advantage. 

Ari gently helped you up onto your feet, having shifted into human form himself. The care and respect he showed contrasted with the display of raw power. 

Your gaze shifted to Alara, a glint of offense at not being prepared for that part of the proceedings. She only smiled as she beckoned the two of you closer.

“The wolf’s submission had to be natural, had to be earned,” she explained. “If I warned you of it, then it could provoke you to either fake it, or fight it just out of spite.”

You wouldn’t tell her that you felt your wolf submit to Ari weeks ago, when he tackled you to the ground after chasing you through the woods. The bitch gave in then. 

Alara picked a bowl filled with sweet scented mixture. Linden honey, cloves, lovage and crushed cranberries for the red color. She lifted it up to the sky, muttering a string of blessings, or spells, or whatever curse. Then she lowered it towards Ari. 

“Under the Moon’s keen eye, brand what’s yours to have.” 

She held the bowl as Ari dipped his hand in the mixture. He marked a spot on your temple first. Then smeared the honey across your mouth. Your lips parted, letting the sweet taste in. And letting a little gasp out when Ari’s hand left streaks of sticky concoction across your breasts.

You couldn’t tear your gaze away from Ari’s eyes when he dipped both his hands for more mixture and then splayed one on your ass and his other palm over your abdomen. 

He crouched down to better drive his fingers up the inside of your thigh and then along the juncture in your hip, before ending the sweet swirl in the thatch of your hair right above your softly pulsing clit. 

Each streak he painted on your naked body seemed to seep into your skin and feed to the fire already burning you with need. 

A thought to chase Ari’s fingers with your mouth, to suck them clean so he could slip them into your wet pussy, flashed in your mind. It was Alara’s voice addressing you that stopped you from making a fool of yourself. 

“Under the Moon’s keen eye, brand what’s yours to have.” She tipped the bowl your way. 

Fingers dripping with red stained honey, you reached up to touch Ari’s temple. When you brushed your fingertips across his mouth, you almost pouted in disappointment he didn’t nip at any of your digits. 

Focusing on regulating your breath, so you didn’t pant, you used both of your hands to mark Ari’s huge biceps. Then, just because you were getting needy and annoyed with yourself because of that, you scratched his chest a bit as you smeared the mixture across his pectorals. 

Perhaps you saw it in the way Ari’s eyes darkened, or maybe it was already the bond building between the two of you, but you felt certain that he liked when you scratched him. 

Your eyes followed the line your fingers drew along the thatch of hair leading down Ari’s belly and lower. Scooping more honey from the bowl, you knelt at Ari’s feet and dragged both hands up his muscular legs, until you gripped his ass.

Your breath quickened as you stared at the half-hard cock rising toward Ari’s belly. Slowly, you swiped your hands from the back of his thighs to the front, using all of your melting will to not taste him right away.

Instead, you boldly looked up. Ari’s pupils were blown wide as he stared at you - on your knees, lips inches away from his cock, about to mark it as a part of him for you to have. Holding his gaze, you wrapped your fingers around him. 

If it wasn’t for Ari’s self restraint, you probably would follow the instinct, the hunger tempting you to move your hand and start what would inevitably happen in a few minutes anyway. After all, sex was the culmination of the ceremony. But Ari’s own fingers gently caught your wrist. 

He helped you up. Again that night. 

For as amused as she had to be, Alara didn’t spare you a knowing, mocking look. She put the bowl away and picked another dish. This one a simple terracotta pot, bearing marks of time. 

“For Nature, the Mother of us all,” Alara intoned, “make a pledge to the earth to show your readiness to fall in with the cycle.” 

Ari knelt down and started digging with his bare hands while you filled both hands with seeds and flower bulbs from the terracotta pot. Kneeling on the ground as well, you planted them in the furrow created by Ari. Then both of you covered the seeds with soil, your hands joined as you did so. 

You washed your hands in the bassinet with fresh water that Alara placed beside you. She poured into it what was left of the honey mixture, then dipped a small bouquet of ferns in it and used them to sprinkle the mixture over you and Ari.

“Blessed be this union!” Alara bellowed, hands stretched high toward the night sky. “Moon, our goddess! As you cast your light upon your favored, embrace his mate. Through the eyes of the witnesses gathered here, watch as they seal their claim on each other.”

Arms slowly dropping, Alara stared at you as she took a few steps backwards. Silence stretched in tense anticipation. 

It dawned on you then. That was the most important part. The culmination.

And there were people around, about to witness your coupling. 

Ari’s hand cupped your chin, preventing you from looking anywhere else but him. No one else should matter now. No other shifter, no woodland creature, nor the stars peppering the sky. There was only your mate. 

He tilted your head back slightly and leaned in. Tip of Ari’s tongue flicked against your bottom lip, licking off the sweetness. Lips trailed sticky kisses across your cheek, until his breath tickled the shell of your ear.

“You’re ready, little Omega,” he purred, slipping a hand between your thighs. 

At the bold touch of his fingers spreading your slick folds, your hands flew to Ari’s shoulders. Fingernails of your right hand needled his skin, while you gripped a fistful of his hair with the other. 

“You’re already mine,” he sounded more than pleased; he sounded drunk on victory after months of chase. “But I’ll pound it into your tight pussy, so you feel that bond with every step.” 

He growled in satisfaction as you moaned, rocking your hips into his hand. He stretched you with a firm stroke of his fingers, driving in two at once and pressing the heel of his palm into your clit. 

Gripping the back of your neck with his other hand, Ari kept pumping his fingers and curling them until your juices were spilling over his palm. 

“Ask me!” He demanded, licking off more of the honey around your mouth. 

“Alpha,” your voice was raspy and breathy, “fuck me! Knot me. Claim me!” 

It was only your heart soaring and fluttering like a hummingbird trapped in grip, though it felt as if the earth itself shuddered beneath you from the force and heat of Ari’s kiss. 

Perhaps there were more potent, illegal roots added to the mead Alara made you drink earlier, or to the honey mixture that soaked your bodies. Or maybe it was the vowed bond that grew taut and intense in its demand to be fulfilled in the most primal way.

Whatever spurred it, made you desperate. Needy. Your mouth opened pliant to Ari’s, ready to swallow whatever he fed you, ready to offer pleasure in return. Your hands roamed over his body; touching and squeezing and scratching. 

When he eased his fingers out of your fluttering cunt, you almost whined in protest. But then he was gripping your hips and flipping you onto your hands and knees. 

Your hindbrain took over, the wolf bitch coming to the surface just beneath your human skin. But it wasn’t only the wolf side that craved the warmth of Ari’s thighs pressing against the back of yours. Your human side wanted it to. The woman who resisted his claim was eager to bend forward and offer herself. 

One of Ari’s big hands gripped your hip, the other moved between your bodies to guid the tip of his cock into your entrance. 

With a broad lick up your spine, Ari laid his weight above you. He nipped the nape of your neck, more playful than he did in his wolf form, and you instinctively followed the unspoken command. You stretched your arms forward and dipped your upper body low, cheek pressed to the ground. 

“Good little Omega,” Ari purred, kissing your neck. 

A loud cry spilled from your lips, resounding through the clearing, maybe through the whole forest, when Ari sheathed himself inside you in one stroke. 

He paused. To relish in the feeling, or to give you a moment to adjust - if it was the latter, you didn’t think it would help. Ari wasn’t some monstrous beast to have a dick you couldn’t take. It was impressive, but in very reasonable size. And yet, something about it made you quiver in fear (and excitement) of being split in half. 

The first languid thrusts drew moans from both of you. Ari drove deep on each push, forcing your pussy to give up completely and nudging your cervix on a few passes. Then his pace increased, his filled heavy sack slapping against your clit. 

Rough fingers dug into your hip, undoubtedly leaving bruises that would bloom later. His other hand roamed below your body, squeezing your breasts, teasing your belly. Ari’s mouth was in constant movement along your neck and shoulders: kissing and licking, teeth grazing your skin in a prelude to the bite. 

You pushed up against him eagerly; the embarrassment at the sound of the skin slapping and wetness squelching on each thrust burned away. You didn’t care! Didn’t care who watched, or how loud you were, how you dripped. There was only need for more of Ari; need for him to help you chase that release you’ve been yearning for since your lips touched his. 

Fingers gouging the soil, you keened when on the next thrust Ari’s cock grazed a spot that instantly had you clenching around him. 

He groaned; the sound deep and low, sinking into your skin where Ari’s mouth hovered on your shoulder. 

Your pussy pulsed, tightening around his dick, and he only made things worse still fucking into you relentlessly; prolonging the madness of your fizzing pleasure and tipping you into another climax. 

Your scream rose as the blinding aftershocks of your orgasm were joined by the pain-and-pleasure shot of Ari’s teeth piercing your skin. 

He bit into the crook of your neck, his jaw locked mercilessly as he drew blood and mauled your skin. Few seconds later Ari gurgled his growl of pleasure with a mouthful of your blood, as he bottomed out inside your quivering cunt and his knot inflated. 

Another tremor rocked you, albeit softer, but stretching into infinity. A simmering orgasm that seemed to go on and on and on as spurts of thick cum filled you. As if each splash of Ari’s spend instigated a tiny climax. 

Harmonized howls resounded in the night, for the first time reminding you of the audience you had. The five chosen shifters who had to change their form into wolves at some point, though you didn’t even register when. 

You stayed locked with Ari for long minutes, your labored breaths synchronizing. Ari’s teeth retracted, his tongue soothing the wound. 

You’d be wearing that scar for months. Many more would be added, you suspected. Due to his possessiveness, or his primal nature so close to the surface, but you were certain Ari would be biting you every time he fucked you. He was going to leave marks of possession so visible other shifters would instantly drop their gaze upon catching a sight of them. 

Only you would be wearing the bite. While mates tended to exchange bites, so each was marked as claimed, an Alpha couldn’t be bitten. Not even by his mate. 

For an Alpha a bite meant a loss of status, a chink in his power; it would be a sign of weakness and submission. Traits an Alpha couldn’t display.

But there were other ways a mate could mark an Alpha. Which is why you felt that need to scratch him from the beginning. To rake your nails down his back and over his chest, leaving deep red lines of your own possession. 

Still a little breathless, you reached one of your dirty hands behind you. Prickling Ari’s neck with your nails, you turned your head enough to kiss him. 

Slowly, Ari pulled back and moved your body along with him. You rose onto your hands and knees. Knot almost deflated, he withdrew from you inch by inch. Copious amount of fluid spilled out of you; a glistening mixture of your slick and Ari’s cum. 

It splashed onto the soil in thick drops; right over the seeds you planted earlier. 

With his arm across your front, Ari helped you up into a sitting position, serving for you as his recliner. Your head rested against his shoulder as he kept you spread; kept you exposed so the Moon and the others could see you dripping down. 

Alara knelt at your side, bowing her forehead almost to the ground then lifting it. She placed her right hand on top of Ari’s where it rested low on your belly.   

“As your essence has fertilized the seeds in the soil, may the Moon’s glow bless your fruitful coupling.”

Her hand didn’t linger, but Ari’s stayed splayed on your abdomen as Alara scooted back. You didn’t roll your eyes at the obvious eagerness to get you pregnant (both from Ari and the pack’s godi) only because you were still quite overwhelmed with the intensity of the whole ceremony. 

Also because there was still need thrumming in your pulse.

Alara signaled the other shifters and they approached in a practiced formation, back in their human forms. They each picked the dishes that were used in the ceremony, then followed Alara out of the clearing. 

You and Ari were left alone. 

His hand stayed on your belly, the other sliding up between your breasts, fingers curling around the front of your neck. Ari trailed small, soft kisses along your shoulder, then scraped your jaw with his teeth.

“This is what I imagined from the moment my eyes set on you for the first time,” he confessed, the undertone of pure satisfaction clear in his voice. 

“You wore a crown of flowers for the festivities and I knew I’d be taking off your bridal wreath and locking you on my knot.”

A tremor blew goosebumps on your skin. That very first evening you sensed trouble from catching the attention of an Alpha, but then you didn’t yet know how severe his determination was. He’d chase you to the end of the world to claim you. 

You twisted in his arms, facing him and climbing into his lap. You cupped Ari’s face, smudging dirt over his cheeks. You could’ve held onto your resentment and rebellion, making the whole experience and nearest future a very miserable for you both. Somehow, you couldn’t make yourself do that. Not even that morning, when fleeting thoughts of giving a last run crossed your mind. 

You were Ari’s now. As he was yours. 

He’s shown you over the weeks that he’s ready to build this relationship with you. If the way he led the pack was any indication of how he’d be as a mate, you had a chance of creating something indestructible. 

“And now you have me.” You rolled your hips, enjoying the twitch of his cock against your thigh. “Are you going to gloat?”

“A little bit,” Ari shrugged, flashing you a sexy grin. 

“Mostly-” he palmed your ass and pulled your hips upward- “I’m going to worship you.”

He dropped you down onto his cock, hissing in pleasure as your heat enveloped him again. Your small moan at the stretch made his eyes ignite. 

“Come, little Omega,” Ari laid down on his back and you braced your hands against his chest as you sank fully onto his cock. “Take me. Take your mate.” 

Ari groaned as your nails drew more lines across his body, leaving pink trails that would gain in color in a few hours. 

With his hands squeezing your ass, he urged you down as he thrust up into you. Your nails needled deeper, giving him a meek reflection of the sting you felt each time he bottomed out. When he knotted you again, you’d undoubtedly draw blood. 

Then he’d sink his teeth into you again, stating his undisputed dominance even as he allowed you to claw him.

Your wolf growled her pleasure at the prospect. 

[lowkeyrobin]

JUICYFRUITSNACKS ; asylum

summary ; you're mully's friend and tag along to explore a haunted mental asylum

warnings : language, ghost talking bullshit

disclaimers ; I only referred to him as juicy bc idrk if he's cool w us calling him his real name and I'm not trying to be parasocial 💪

word count ; 2.2k

y/f/I = your first initial

masterlist

Juicy enjoyed spending time with his boys, a lot. They were the best of friends, after all. But he also really enjoyed spending time with both them and you.

You've known Mr. Mully since you were young. You didn’t know the rest of his friends super well, but you took a liking to Juicy. You and Juicy weren't tight or anything, but you were friends nonetheless.

Tonight, you were exploring a haunted asylum with The Boys and Sam and Colby. You tagged along, wanting to experience some paranormal shit because why not. You’d binge-watched all of The Boys’ previous videos at haunted places and wanted to get a slice for yourself.

The group of you plus the camera people sit on the floor around one of the REM pods, with Sam acting as the communication between worlds. The blonde had sound-proof headphones on, connected to the spirit box in his hand, and a bandana wrapped around his eyes for proof that he couldn't see nor hear anything you guys were saying to the ghosts.

You sat next to Juicy in the corner, being the only person, other than Mully, you really knew out of these people. You intently listen as the guys hold a full conversation with whatever spirit/s were in the room for a solid hour or so, watching as they all freak out after receiving creepy replies or ones referencing their names.

You and Juicy would often share looks or glances, usually scared, confused, or curious.

After that, you split up into two teams to complete challenges around the building. You were with Colby, Mully, and Eddie, while Sam hosted the opposite group with Josh, Juicy, and Narrator.

"We're team Demon"

"We're gonna catch a big demon"

"Yeah, we got big D"

"We're team C(y/f/i)EM." Eddie nods, "C-(y/f/i)-E-M"

"Stop stalling"

"Fuck"

The four of you head over to the men's infirmary, Eddie, with the camera around his neck. Last time The Boys were here, they went down the dark, scary, main hallway with only the flash of their phone cameras. You go all the way down the hall, and all the way back, your only source of light being the camera flashing for a split second.

You and Dos, as the three were heading back, were moving around as the camera flashed to mock a spirit. The boys were laughing about it, still scared a spirit would jump out and attack them. Once they got back and looked over the pictures, they didn't find anything and considered it a mission complete. You, however, wanted to go down by yourself as you'd been hearing whispers almost the whole time you'd been in this area.

You couldn't tell if it was you hallucinating from exhaustion or if you were actually hearing things, but you wanted to see what it was as curiosity always got the best of you. You graciously take the camera from Eddie and line yourself up at the start of the hallway, the boys turning off their flashlights for you.

"Dude, you're acting like a horror movie character" Colby comments with a chuckle, "This is the dumbest shit ever"

"Says you," you whisper, making your first few steps down the hallway.

You can whispering belonging to Eddie behind you, but also some other, unintelligible whispering sounds that definitely didn't belong to one of the guys, nor was it even behind you. It sounded like it was more in front of you if anything.

You squint in the dark, then take a picture, using the flash to illuminate your way forward. You look into the doors on each side of you after progression another couple steps, unable to see, though. You're just trying to find where all that whispering was coming from. It was like someone was moving through the rooms to lead you down the hallway.

You continue, taking pictures every handful of steps so as not to walk into something and know where you were.

"You okay?" Mully calls, your silence giving him a weird feeling in his stomach.

"Yeah" You reply quietly, taking another few steps forward. "I hear whispering. Like, it's not stopping. I wanna find it" You mumble.

"I swear to God, if you go missing, we are not liable!" Eddie exclaims, "Why the fuck are you investigating?"

"I'm curious!"

"Curiosity always kills the cat, but okay" Mully chuckles.

You make your way to the end of the hall, whispering as loud as it possibly could be, like it was directly in your ears. You feel a shiver trail down your spine, and a wave of cold, like the feeling after just opening the freezer, hit you out of nowhere.

"Holy shit!" You exclaim, quickly stepping back while taking a photo, "Uh-uh, nope! Pussying out now, bye-bye!"

"What happened?"

"Are you okay?"

"Dude, what happened?"

You quickly run back down the hallway, not bothering to use the camera flash as they turned their flashlights back on after hearing you yelp and your footsteps running back to them. You quickly hand the camera back, the uneasy cold feeling not having left you at all.

"Holy shit, what the fuck?" You speak, catching your breath as you lean against the door, looking down the hallway. "Dude, I got to like, the end of the hallway and the whispering I was talking about, it was like, in my ears. Then I felt like that kind of cold feeling like when you open a freezer up, like how it just hits you and sometimes gives you goosebumps instantly. I swear I felt like an actual force on my shoulders, I can't even make this shit up"

"Bro, what the hell?"

"You're kidding"

"No way"

"Dude, I can not be more serious right now." You nervously smile, shaking your head. "That's one of the freakiest things I've ever experienced. Like, I'm genuinley scared now, I've never been this fucking, like, paranoid over something like this"

"Nah, I'm getting the fuck outta here" Eddie shakes his head, reaching for the door as you move out of the way for him. Mully quickly follows in agreement, as both of them wanted to go home the most out of all of you.

Dos follows them as they shout for you and Colby, trying to jog away and go find the others in the main building.

You and the leather wearing brunette walk side by side in silence, following the trio in front of you fairly closely. You stand in a circle, waiting for a text back from Juicy as to where they were, not wanting to walk around the whole building in search of them. He quickly makes his way down to you guys, deciding to lead you all back up to where they were located.

Mully and Eddie strike up a conversation while Colby listens, standing next to you, who's staring down at his feet and the grass. You were mostly trying to make sense of what you felt in the men's infirmary, feeling confused and shocked, as that's the most paranormal action you'd ever felt for yourself. Juicy arrives, picking up on your nervousness in silence, yet decides to not point it out while he talks to Eddie, Mully and Colby before you all walk up a million flights of stairs.

Juicy, unknowing to you, was staring at you again. He'd been doing it all night. You were the only person oblivious to it, however. Eddie and Mully quickly catch onto his attracted gazes towards you, though staying silent as they'd definitely be joking about it soon enough to the others. They were talking about it with Colby once you were far enough away, trying to get more people to help with the job of wingman-ing. The brunette quickly notices he's staring and that the others have caught on, and quickly joins in on the conversation, wanting to try and hide the fact he was doing it again.

From sitting criss-cross-applesauce on the floor earlier, back to even at lunch outings earlier this week, he’s been doing it for a while. He’s a little surprised you haven't noticed, or at least brought it up.

He was so clearly head over heels it wasn't even funny anymore. He was downright in love.

You look back up and then behind you, looking around just to take in your surroundings again. You listen to their conversation, rocking on your heels. Juicy's mind races a million miles a minute, mind cluttered by you, the conversation at hand, and the video being recorded tonight.

On the walk up to Sam's group, or Group Demon, you're the first to walk up the stairs, leading the other boys towards them. You were good at following directions, leaving Juicy to talk to his friends behind you. Juicy and Mully walk up side by side behind Dos and Eddie, a light conversation between them before Mully shakes it up.

"What's with you and Y/n? You got a crush on them or something?"

Juicy, flustered and a bit embarrassed, quickly shakes his head no. "No, no, not at all. What? Why? They’re your friend"

Mully rolls his eyes and Eddie quickly shouts back. "Yes you do! Stop lying to yourself!"

Mully nods, “They’re your friend to, y’know”

You clearly had no idea what any of them were talking about, still leading them onwards.

"Shut up!" Juicy whisper-shouts.

After finding Sam, Josh, and Narrator, you walk into the church and sit down on the wooden benches. Eddie stands at the podium, a large cross behind him. You sit next to Juicy on the right side of the room with the other members of The Boys. Colby and Sam sit together on the left side of the room.

Eddie recites a prayer in Spanish before speaking. "Tonight we party"

The room explodes into boyish cheers and laughter, all of you standing up. Eddie laughs before speaking again.

He shouts, "Sit down!"

You all go quiet and sit down.

"Fuck God!" You exclaim.

"Yeah, screw Jesus!" Juicy shouts

"God can suck my balls" Josh comments with a shrug.

"Oh my God, you're swearing in the house of the Lord!" Colby dramatically gasps

Eddie quickly recites another prayer, asking for the forgiveness of your sins. The REM Pod in the bench in front of you begins beeping, signaling some motion.

"Oh fuck no, bye guys!" Eddie quickly speaks, running back to sit next to Juicy.

"Bro, Mully, sit up" Josh laughs, watching you walk up to the podium after agreeing with the others to have a mini main character priest moment. "Sit up, dude. Service is commencing"

Mully groans. "What?"

"Sit up!"

He groans again as he sits up, no longer laying on the front bench. Josh and Narrator both mock his groan, playfully shouting at him as you clear your throat.

"Good morning everyone! It's..." You look to Juicy as he had his phone on him, which you knew.

"4:25"

"It's 4:25 in the morning. Early service today" You chuckle, "Coffee is right over there" You point to the side where a few trashed cans of energy drinks lay on the floor.

"How much do you dare me to drink it?" Juicy asks you.

"You blink for a moment. "You're gonna get AIDS if you even touch it, but be my guest, man"

They laugh, chanting Pope Y/n as it echoes off the walls.

"Today, my friends, we confront Juicyfruitsnacks and his undeniable crush on Y/n" Eddie laughs, looking over at the brunette next to him.

"Yo, what?"

"Huh?"

"Oooo his ass got caught!"

"You can't hear it but I'm cackling right now"

Eddie quickly pulls Juicy up to the podium with you, pushing you to the side. He stands at the podium with the younger brunette in front of you/to your side, as you both stand confused.

Eddie nearly raps as he speaks. "Today we are bringing this lovely couple together to wed in holy matrimony. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, bless, preserve and keep you; the Lord mercifully grant you the riches of his grace, that you may please him both in body and soul, and, living together in faith and love, may receive the blessings of eternal life. Amen. Juicy, Y/n, would you like to read your vows?"

The Boys laugh as you and Juicy share a smile and laugh as well.

"Since when were we getting married?" You question

"Since I had to become a wingman" Eddie shrugs as he replies. "So did they. Mostly Mully." He points towards the crowd of boys watching.

"What is happening right now?" You awkwardly laugh.

Juicy laughs as well, "I mean, he isn't lying"

The room is now silent.

"Wait, what?"

"Can I take you out sometime?"

You glance over at Eddie and then the boys, then look back at Juicy.

"Uh, sure"

The others explode into cheers you'd probably be able to hear outside, and the older brunette quickly wraps the both of you in a hug.

"Dude, too much has happened tonight, I got creeped on by a ghost and now I have to mentally prepare myself for a date"

"You love me!"

"Love is a strong word"

"They're already having couple-fights!"

"Eddie, I swear to God"

"No swearing in the house of the Lord!"

[vettelsvee]

AFTERGLOW | Mick Schumacher

f1 masterlist | wattpad | ao3 | instagram

mick schumacher x vettel!reader

summary: mick's girlfriend knows that something's wrong with him. after talking to her dad and her stepmother, she decides to face her boyfriend.

word count: 2956

warnings: angst. bad language. mick being aggressive. use of y/n.

you can send your one shots requests here! feedback, as well as comments and reblogs, are truly appreciated!

If Sebastian's retirement announcement had hurt you, the way you boyfriend had been acting towards you, for no apparent reason, hurt even more. 

You were on you father's terrace, with your legs stretched out on a chair in front of you and the sun shining on your face as you watched the latest news about Taylor Swift. Beside you, Hanna was tending to her baby, who was in her arms playing with a small plush toy you bought her that surprisingly become her favorite. Sebastian appeared out of nowhere carrying a tray full of snacks and drinks, which he carefully placed on the table before immediately caressing the heads of the women in his life. The German sat beside his wife facing you, his eldest daughter.

As much as you enjoyed visiting your family for no reason, today's visit had a reason with a name and surname: Mick Schumacher. Since both of you had finally decided to start a romantic relationship, everything had been a bed of roses. However, the past few weeks have been hell. The boy's behavior towards you had changed radically. What used to be a daily routine filled with laughter, gratitude and support had turned into distance and avoidance, as if they you college students living together during the school year because they had no other choice.

Before starting to speak, you poured yourself some lemonade that Vettel had made hours earlier with her, and took a slight sip despite being really thirsty. You felt nervous as you began to initiate the conversation, but the warm looks you father and stepmother were giving you helped you relax.

"I need to share something with you," you began, "because if I don't tell someone, I feel like I'm going to end everything I've fought for all this time. Plus, I feel like you're the ones who can help me the most in this regard," you added.

The couple exchanged curious looks, not knowing what you were referring to. Any idea passed through Hanna's mind, while the Aston Martin driver could only think of the possibility that his little one might be pregnant. Hanna could see the panic in her husband's face; she simply placed her free hand on the German's thigh and gently caressed it, trying to calm him down. They shouldn't jump to conclusions too quickly, and that seemed to be what his wife was telling him as she gave Sebastian a glance.

"I've noticed that Mick has been behaving very strangely lately," you began to explain. "I don't know what's going on in his head, but we hardly talk, we don't usually go out of the house like we used to and... well, let's say we don't show as much affection to each other anymore," you said apologetically, trying not to get angry at the laughter your father was making. "I feel like the Mick I've known all this time has been just a mirage, and I don't know what to do about it."

Sebastian and Hanna exchanged knowing looks, and the woman let him speak first.

"Y/N, I understand what you mean, but you have to know the pressure Mick faces daily," the blonde explained lovingly. "Formula 1 is like that: it doesn't just drag you, but also those you love the most. Your boyfriend has many eyes on him, and as if that weren't enough, he bears the responsibility of carrying on his father's legacy."

The older blonde agreed with her husband. She passed the little one to Seb, got up quickly and sat next to you,now cry out of frustration, and started to caress your hair lovingly as a comfort.

"Your father is right, Y/N, and I have to agree with him because I've been with him for almost twenty years," Hanna commented. "Every person has a completely different way of dealing with stress. Sebastian used to yell at me every time he breathed, and look," she pointed at him, "here we are. Some people open up to anyone they meet, and others shut themselves off to avoid worrying those they love the most," she stated. "Just because Mick isn't like he was a few weeks ago doesn't mean his feelings towards you have changed. Sometimes, they just need space and a little time to silence the demons in their heads."

You nodded, taking a sip from the glass you held in your hands to calm your nerves. You let out a sigh you had been holding in for quite some time, worried about the possible reaction the two in front of you might have. They continued to talk about more trivial matters, and that conversation, although short, had been very meaningful, was set aside, although not for the girl, who continued to torture herself wondering what she could do to make Mick feel better while listening to talk about baby care and nurseries.

"Thank you, dad. Thank you, Hanna," you replied, getting up from your seat and looking at the adults. "I guess I needed the advice of someone who might have gone through the same thing as I am right now," you objected. "I promise I'll do my best not to despair anymore. I'll let you know when I know more."

The couple got up shortly after you, already heading towards the door, possibly to return to the apartment you shared with Schumacher. Sebastian, still holding the baby, opened the door, unable to say anything else. Hanna, on the other hand, smiled warmly at you and gave you a hug.

"Remember, we're here for you, sweetheart," your father's wife said kindly. "Communication is key in any relationship. If you see that Mick is still not ready to talk about it, give him space, but don't forget to remind him that you're there for whatever he needs."

You nodded and left the residence, leaving the driver and his wife somewhat worried about what could happen between you two.

You opened the door to your home with trembling hands, feeling a pressure in your chest from the concern about the scene your eyes would encounter as soon as you entered.

The first thing that greeted you was the sound of hooves scratching the parquet floor, which soon grew louder as Angie approached rapidly to welcome you home again. You bent down, leaving your belongings aside, and took some time to caress your furry friend, whom you had grown fond of since the moment her owner introduced her to you. While admiring the way the animal's tail moved, you began to hear the running water from the shower, a sign that Mick was home, as you had hoped.

Sitting on the couch and staring at the TV, whose screen was filled with deceptive advertisements for food and clothing, you heard a door open and steps that seemed to be approaching you. You took a deep breath and prepared yourself for what was about to come when you saw her boyfriend walk past you, wearing only a towel wrapped around his waist, drying his hair with another smaller towel.

You decided that things couldn't go on like this, so you approached the boy more angrily than you thought, who was preparing dinner, obviously, just for himself.

"Yes, love, I had a great time with Seb and Hanna. Thanks for asking how my day went!" you shouted sarcastically.

Schumacher turned around, leaving the wooden spoon on the bowl in which his salad was being prepared. Your face was fully red, and your aggressive demeanor reminded him of Sebastian's moments of fury at Red Bull. The German looked at you coldly, and you only felt his blue eyes radiating hatred, something you had never seen in the boy before.

If you weren't up for games that night, neither was Mick.

"I don't care how your day went," the blue-eyed one responded disdainfully, "but if you had such a great time with your perfect family, maybe you should consider moving in with them."

The driver’s statement hurt you more than if you had been stabbed in the stomach. You couldn't believe the words coming out of the mouth of the one you considered the love of your life. When you opened your mouth to reply and yell a thousand worse things at him, the words got stuck in your throat. Schumacher made a move to leave, but you reluctantly took his hand to keep talking to him. For you, things weren't going to stay like this. 

"After everything we've been through to get here, is this how you're paying me back?!" you exploded, releasing all the anger you had accumulated. "Is this the way you planned to treat me from the beginning?"

The driver turned to you, his jaw tense. His arms were crossed, and he was squeezing his clenched fists tighter and tighter.

"I don't know what you're talking about, blondie," he spat with disdain. "If you feel so bad, maybe you should reconsider what this relationship means to you."

You approached him with fury, and began to hit him in the chest with your hands. You were tired of, at any point in your life, the people she loved the most ending up hurting her.

"You have no idea what you mean to me!" you got closer and closer to Mick, who seemed to feel small compared to you. "You became my everything when I had nothing, but now you've become a stranger with whom it would seem ridiculous to say that I've shared traumas from my life that no one knows."

"You have no right to judge me, Y/N!" roared the boy with a voice filled with aggression. "You don't know what I have to face every day: criticism, expectations, my father, you, the team..." He raised his hands in the air as he spoke. "Do you think it's easy being in this messed up world?"

"It's not just about you, Mick!" you exclaimed, tears starting to blur your vision. "It's about us and everything we've been through together!"

Words continued to fly in the room, laden with pain and anger, exchanged between the couple as if in a tennis match. You had reached a point where the argument wasn't focused on trying to resolve whatever was happening between you, but on hurting each other with hurtful comments, fighting to see who could inflict more damage.

"This makes no sense, Y/N," Mick shouted in frustration. His gaze was filled with panic and accumulated anger. He felt it increasingly difficult, at that point in the argument, to contain his rage.

"Love, please, calm down," your voice trembled. "We're not getting anywhere, just giving the neighbors a free show that we'll regret later," you pleaded.

Schumacher didn't relent. He felt a wave of helplessness washing over his body. He reached out his muscular arm and grabbed the first object he could find, a frame with a picture of him with you and Angie on a day you spent in the mountains, and threw it against the wall mercilessly. The sound of impact and shattering glass echoed throughout the room, accompanied by the sobs and gasps of air from the young woman.

You couldn't help but step back, feeling increasing pressure in your chest and filled with fear. You knew the boy was losing control of the situation, and you were afraid it would escalate to physical violence against you. You had experienced that kind of abuse with your mother, and you didn't want to relive it with the same person who once told you that love didn't hurt.

"Mick, stop, this isn't you!" you cried out in anguish. "What's wrong with you?"

The German clenched his fists tighter.

"I've already told you, Y/N: you don't understand! You can't possibly understand. The pressure, the expectations... it's all overwhelming," he sighed anxiously, "and I feel like it's going to break me at any moment."

You approached him slowly, but at a safe distance, in an attempt to calm him down that you hoped wouldn't be in vain.

"We're in this together, sweetheart. Why don't you confide in me instead of shouting at me like a madman in an asylum?"

"Because I don't want you involved in this," Mick looked at you with a mix of anger and pain. "You've had enough worries in your life already."

You went cold, speechless in response. The blonde seemed to have calmed down. Now, his gaze begged you to keep speaking because, if not, he would go crazy at any moment.

"Mick, I love you," you continued as best you could, "and that means I want to be there for you, even in the toughest moments. You can't expect me to walk away when you need me the most."

"It's not that simple, Y/N," the driver paced back and forth, seeking a way to remedy everything he had caused during those weeks of tormenting Gunther. "The pressure is overwhelming, and the comparisons with my father are becoming less bearable," he confessed. "People don't care how hard I try. They always end up making me feel like I’m not good enough."

The blonde took a deep breath, struggling to keep calm while seeing that the root of the problem was surfacing:

"And how do you expect our relationship to work if you shut yourself off? I can't guess what's going on in your head if you don't tell me," you said in a barely audible whisper.

"Because I don't want to be a burden to you!" he retorted. "I don't want you to see me as a failure."

Determined to end all the fuss, you took a step forward and, despite the boy's protests, ended up taking his hands and directing his gaze to yours.

"Mick, you're not a failure: you're human," you said. "Making more or fewer mistakes is completely normal, and I'm here to support you and make you see that," you expressed sincerely. "I don't care what people think or say about you. To me, you'll always be the best at what you do, and there won't be a comment that will change my mind."

He looked at you. Angie had clumsily approached the boy's leg, stroking him and causing him some tickles with her fur, something that made you laugh in that moment of tension.

"What do you want me to do, Y/N? How can I move forward with all this?",

Feeling her resistance beginning to dissipate, you rushed to give him a hug, something the boy didn't reject. You both had missed each other, and the gentle caresses you shared in that brief moment were proof of that.

"Start by trusting me. Share what worries you and what you're afraid of. You don't have to fight alone: you know I'm here for whatever you need."

Mick, with his eyes full of tears threatening to fall, held you tightly to his chest, trying not to hurt you.

"I'm sorry, Y/N," he whispered with a trembling voice, "for everything. My contract with Haas... it's over. Gunther doesn't trust me for next year."

You quickly pulled away from Mick. You had been left in suspense, and your boyfriend's pale face had already given you many clues, such as why he had told you before the cooling of your relationship that he didn't want to continue racing, or how Seb's retirement didn't affect him as much as you had thought it would.

Mick had faced very painful and traumatic experiences, such as his father's accident. However, although his dismissal might seem less significant than the former, for his girlfriend, it was more serious because there was nothing worse than someone compromising your mental health, and that was exactly what Gunther Steiner had been doing to her guy.

You approached him with slow steps and hugged him once again.

"Darling..." you whispered, trying to sound as understanding as possible. "It's okay, alright? Gunther doesn't deserve you. Besides, I'm sure that when something bad ends, something better begins."

Schumacher collapsed into your arms, tears finally escaping from his eyes. The mask he had been wearing for all the previous weeks had finally shattered, revealing a vulnerable version of himself that he didn't want you to discover.

"I feel like a failure," the blonde sobbed with a choked tone due to the tears. "I've fought so hard, I've given everything I have even when I couldn't anymore... and it seems like it's never enough."

You hugged him tighter, tenderly, hearing the boy's quick heartbeats loud and clear.

"You're not a failure, Mick," you revealed to him. "You have so much talent and you can do great things, it's just that you started your career in a crappy team with even crappier treatment," the boy laughed, music to your ears. "This is just a bump in the road, and you and I are going to get through it together."

"I don't know what I'd do without you, love," Mick looked at you tenderly, mentally regretting his behavior over the past few weeks.

"I'll always be here for you, truly," you continued, gently stroking his cheek. "You're so much more than race results, and I won't stop telling you until you believe it, even when you get tired of hearing me say it so much!"

You ended up laughing heartily, initiated by Mick. Maybe you weren't the perfect duo in the eyes of others, but you were for yourselves and those who knew you best.

If the invisible string theory was real, you and Mick were proof of it. You could even say the same about the multiverse hypothesis: in this one, and in millions more, a stubborn blonde couple, no matter the problems you had to face, would end up together, whatever it took.

[pedriscroquettes]

awww poor gavi being so stressed i was wondering is the only reason he pushes himself so hard for studying too bc he wants to compete with reader or are there other deeper reasons? you dont have to answer if its spoilery im just curious !

another academic rival!gavi blurb for y’all 🫶🏽

warnings. injury trauma & lowkey suggestive content.

a/n. guys i’ve gotten attached to them i’m afraid…

the bond that had formed between the two of you had caused the two of you to begin studying together. your dad has once walked in on the two of you staring intently at your professor’s old lectures trying to figure out what part of the solution method you had missed. he was so confused but you simply glared at him and he never brought up the topic again. to be honest even if he has asked anyways you wouldn’t have known what to tell him. you couldn’t just tell your father that you were hooking up with the boy next door because it was the only thing helping you from losing your sanity.

currently gavi was trying to finish his research paper for his sports medicine class. he was quite frustrated that his professor had also asked his class to not only write about the physical effects of an acl tear but the psychological effects as well. you were too engrossed in your own work that you didn’t notice how intensely he was looking at images he was using for reference. the picture of the player in pain brought back memories he had hoped to have forgotten about.

for his fifteenth birthday his father had gifted him lower section tickets to a real betis match. he remembered how excited he was to see his hometown team play, to see them on the pitch. he also was looking forward to entering the stadium and getting that fuzzy feeling in his stomach as he analyzed every inch of the stadium hoping to play a match in there in the future.

the game had started off slow with both of the teams not allowing each other to score. that is until things heated up between both teams. one moment the ball would be in real betis’s box and the next in the opposing team. gavi was excited that the game was building up, he just wanted to see someone score a goal already. then it happened a player from the opposing team had finally gotten fed up with the defense and how they couldn’t keep the ball away from their goalpost. so he did the job himself tackling the real betis forward.

the crowd immediately burst out into chants yelling at the referee to give him a red card, which he did. but gavi could only stare as the player lay on the ground screaming in pain. his screams replayed in his mind from time to time. he had never been able to shake off the image of the player being taken away in a stretcher. he thought that had been the worse thing to happen that night but then the next day he saw on the news how it was confirmed the player would never play again. the injury forcing him into early retirement.

that day he realized that if he did achieve his dreams they could always be stripped away from him. so he spent hours studying. he didn’t miss a single class from then on out. fearing that if one day his career was taken from him he wouldn’t have nothing to do. he’d just be gavi the failed football star with nothing to his name except a bunch of “what if’s?”

“pablo?” you called his name for the fifth time.

“huh? oh hmm?” he perked his head up noticing your concerned glare.

“what happened?” you sat up on his bed.

“nothing just daydreaming.” he was lying and you could tell.

you stood up and walked towards his desk. the cold floor making you tingle as you made your way towards him. careful to not cause a mess on his desk you slip into his lap. he welcomes you as he scoots you closer to his body. he doesn’t realize he’s grinning like a little kid until you tease him about it. his cheeks going pink at your teasing.

“nothing? pablo you’ve been staring at your laptop for like ten minutes without writing anything and you’re going to lie to me? yeah okay.” you playfully confront him about his lying.

“really it’s nothing! can’t a boy live?” he smiles up at you.

“okay fine don’t tell me.” his hand begins roaming your back trying to discreetly make its way to your ass. which you simply shove away. “no. if you can’t be honest with me you can keep your hands to yourself.”

“oh so it’s like that now?” he laughs but quickly stops once he realizes you’re being for real. “oh come on!”

“you can do whatever you want as long as you tell me what’s wrong.” you reply.

so he does. he tells you about his fears and you tell him about yours. you assure him that he’ll be fine and he assures you that you’ll eventually figure out what you want to do after school. his kisses change that night, they have feelings to them now. you even stay for dinner, the paéz family happily welcoming you. aurora teases his brother that night but she also notices the way her brother looks at you. with the same look she looks at her boyfriend.

[hoshologies]

ALL GREEK LOVE, LEE H.

synopsis — you spent the entire summer telling your family that you weren't going to join a sorority. now not only are you an initiated member of delta eta sigma, but you've been elected to the social chair position for you chapter. that's all well and good until heeseung lee, the newly elected social chairman for lambda rho and well-known in the greek community, reaches out to you to start planning runouts between your respective chapters. and now you're spending a lot more time with the cutest boy you've ever met.

genres &&. warnings — romance, fluff, meet-cute, smut, strangers to friends to lovers!au, college!au, greek life!au &&. underage drinking, afab!reader, tipsy sex, dry humping, oral (f!receiving), fingering, overstimulation.

word count — 15.7k.

from the author — not to be totally sorority girl, but the way i see greek life depicted in college au fics is CRAZY. now that i'm back hardcore into my kpop stan era, i rewatched the drunk-dazed mv and was like hmm... so the ultimate plan here was to write heeseung filth but also portray greek life a little more accurately because even if i'm not a huge fan, one thing about me is i'm gonna make sure y'all KNOW that greek life isn't just parties every weekend.

jokes aside, i really hope you enjoy this fic and my first real return to writing. likes, reblogs, and feedback are always welcome. and honestly, if you have any questions about greek life that you just have to know the answer to, i'm an open book.

if you enjoyed it, feel free to buy me a ko-fi!

the entire summer before starting your freshman year of college, you had told your family that you weren’t going to join a sorority. in your mind, there was a specific mold that one needed to fit into to join a sorority and quite frankly, you checked none of the boxes of those stereotypes. 

yet here you sit, months later, in your sorority’s chapter meeting. and you’ve just been elected to the social chair position of the chi nu chapter of delta eta sigma. 

truthfully, you’re not quite sure how you ended up here. you hadn’t formally rushed the week before school, but a couple of drunk girls at a frat party at the beginning of the semester had told you that you should rush their sorority. maybe you’d been a little desperate to branch out or maybe you were just a little curious of what rushing looked like, but a few days later at the student organization fair, you’d found the booth for the sorority the girls had told you they belonged to, delta eta sigma, and signed up for their informal rush.

by the end of october, you had been extended a bid, assigned a big, and promptly initiated into the chapter in what you jokingly referred to as a cult ritual (how could you describe it any other way? all white outfit? candles? promises to not divulge secrets about rituals that happen behind closed doors?).

and now, just three weeks after officially joining the chapter, you’ve ended up on the programming board somehow. you’d gotten a call from the selection board while sitting in the drive-thru of mcdonalds, waiting impatiently for your order of fries and a sprite as a treat for doing well on your gen psych quiz. the girl who’d called you said you’d made “quite the impression” on the sorority since accepting the bid and that they (including the chapter advisor) thought you’d be the perfect fit for the social chair.

“it’s a solo position, so you won’t have a co-chair like community service does, but given your grades so far this semester and the impact you’ve made on the chapter already, we would really love to see what you can do in this position! would you be interested?”

so really, how could you say anything but yes? you still don’t think you fit all that perfectly into the chapter, but they were giving you an opportunity to get involved and to make yourself fit. your name is announced for the social chair, one of your senior pictures pasted up on the powerpoint, and the girls around you smile and snap their fingers. from the executive board seats up front, your big smiles at you, eyes sparkling with something akin to pride.

a few days later, as you’re getting lunch at the student union, your phone screen lights up with a notification from groupme. a name you vaguely recognize is paired with a message that gets cut off after a few words.

heeseung lee: hey! this is heeseung from lambda rho and…

as you sit down with your salad and dr. pepper, you click the notification and read it in full. at the very top of the new message thread is heeseung’s picture and it clicks where you recognize him from. he’s friends with your big and he’s involved in a few of the bigger student organizations on campus, namely the activities board, so you’ve seen him in the student union fairly often.

[1:36 pm] heeseung lee: hey! this is heeseung from lambda rho! i’m friends with liv and she told me that you just got elected as the new social chair for your sorority. i just got slated into the same position for my frat.

[1:36 pm] heeseung lee: i know we won’t start running things until next semester, but i just wanted to reach out and touch base with you. i’m really looking forward to planning runouts with you next year :]

[1:37 pm] heeseung lee: sorry. i hope that wasn’t too weird. i guess i’m just a little too excited and want to get a bit of a headstart on things. have a good day!

you laugh to yourself, shaking your head as you set the phone down to take a bite of salad. before getting involved in greek life, you always assumed sorority girls and frat guys were airheaded and mean, people who peaked in high school, trying desperately to drag those glory days out. obviously since then, you’ve come to realize that while it is true in some occasions, most times, greek life members are the opposite.

heeseung, who you’ve never spoken to before, is proving that.

[1:42 pm] hi heeseung! not weird at all, i promise. and i’m really excited to plan events with you next semester too :]

by the beginning of february, you haven’t done much with your position. granted, the semester has only really been in full swing for about a week and a half and you have two full semesters to do plenty of things, but you’re itching to start planning. the binder you were given after the officer transition ritual has so many good ideas, everything from runouts with frats and sororities to both formal and semiformal.

while you’re brainstorming ideas for potential social events late on a tuesday night, your phone lights up from its spot on your nightstand, the short bell sound ringing out. you reach for it absentmindedly as you finish writing down the idea you had (rent out skating rink??? check budget). since the beginning of the school year, you’ve become desensitized to the groupme icon when it appears in your notifications, so much so that you barely register heeseung’s name upon first glance. it takes a second look for you to realize who’s texted you.

[9:12 pm] heeseung lee: sorry for texting so late. i just wanted to see if you wanted to meet up some time and start on some ideas for a runout?

[9:12 pm] heeseung lee: obviously not now!! but if you’re free some time this week, we could meet somewhere and talk. i spent all of winter break brainstorming stuff, so i’d really like to run it by you if that’s ok.

[9:14 pm] hi again heeseung. i was actually planning on getting lunch tomorrow at the student union after i’m done with class at 11 if you’re free then?

the second you press send, you immediately start second guessing yourself. does it come off like you’re asking him to have lunch with you? because that wasn’t your intention. really, you just meant that you’re going to be on campus proper for a little bit and wanted to offer to meet before you got lunch. not that it would be a bad thing if he asked if you could get lunch together; liv likes heeseung well enough and you’ve seen him around, and he really does seem nothing but nice, so lunch really couldn’t hurt— okay, take a breath. it is not that serious.

you take a deep breath and then let your muscles go lax as you exhale. better. 

it feels like ages pass before he texts back. you’re worried you’ve scared him off, but it really shouldn’t be that stressful. it’s just a text and he’s the one who wanted to meet up in the first place anyways; you just offered a time and location. but finally, your phone dings again and his name lights up your screen.

[9:21 pm] heeseung lee: actually that works perfect!! i get out of class at the same time and usually grab lunch at the u before heading to the activities board office. wanna meet by the dining area next to the office?

[9:21 pm] sounds like a plan!! i’ll see you then!

heeseung, you realize as you set your phone down and put away your binder for the night, is the only social chair of any of the greek organizations who has reached out to you to start getting the ball rolling. he seems to be just as anxious as you are about doing this job well, which makes you feel at least a little validated. nervous and jittery though you may be about meeting him for the first time tomorrow after only having chatted with him over text twice, the idea of him feeling the same as you brings a strange form of comfort. with enough of it, you actually start looking forward to seeing him tomorrow as you lay down to sleep, mind running a mile a minute with what it’ll be like to meet him after all of the things you’ve heard about him from liv. by the time you slip into the embrace of sleep, anxiety has boiled down into anticipation.

at 11:02 the next morning, heeseung nearly scares the hell out of you when he shows up at the designated meeting spot. you’re so invested in your twitter scroll that you don’t notice when he walks up. it’s not until he says a soft “hi” that you jump and almost drop your phone in the process. when you look up, there’s a worried look on his face.

“sorry! i didn’t mean to scare you!” 

after a moment to catch your breath, you shake your head and wave his worry off, though the gesture doesn’t do much to make that worried look on his (undeniably pretty) face. “it’s okay, heeseung. really.”

to really seal the deal, you shoot him a gentle smile, trying to prove that your heart isn’t about ready to give out anymore. you feel blessed when he returns it, all quirked up at the corners and smile lines and soft, plush cheeks. silence falls, the two of you smiling and staring at each other like idiots until heeseung shakes himself out of his stupor.

“anyways…” he clears his throat and moves his gaze towards the food court. “what did you want to get to eat? my treat.”

you look up at him, at the way he’s pointedly not looking at you and instead examining the restaurants just beyond the dining areas. you know, the restaurants that have been the same for the last five years probably and will be here for another five, the ones he’s grabbed food from at least a couple of times since the semester started and even more since the beginning of the school year. 

“you don’t have to buy me lunch, heeseung. it’s-”

he finally turns to look at you again, that same easy smile still pulling his features into a soft form of happiness. “it’s no problem, really. just an act of good faith. all greek love and whatnot, you know?”

you laugh a little at that, conceding but allowing him to choose where he wants to get lunch from since he’s the one paying and you don’t really have a preference. by the time you’re sat opposite each other at a table with meals from the burger stall, your stomach is rumbling. you’re about half of the way through your burger when heeseung looks up from his fries, clearing his throat to get your attention.

“so…” he starts. it’s clear he hadn’t planned what he wanted to say before catching your focus, so an awkward silence settles over him, eyes on you but focused somewhere off behind you like he’s looking through you instead. you tilt your head, lean in close, which snaps him out of the trance and he restarts. “right, ideas for events. i have a binder from the last social chair of my frat with a bunch of things he did during his time.”

“oh! i do, too!” you interject. “there’s a bunch of stuff that the last girl did and then things some of the girls before her did too.”

heeseung’s grin breaks back across his face, bright and warm; you swear, a smile from this boy alone could break up the threatening winter storm currently hanging over campus. “there’s a bunch of good ideas in mine. but i’m not quite sure how well they’d work right now because of the weather.”

“are most of the ideas outside?” you inquire, taking a sip of your soda while he confirms your suspicions. when you put the cup back down, you wave off his concern. “no worries then. almost all of mine are ones that can be inside, so we could go through those if you want!”

heeseung nods and smiles that morning sunlight smile of his, and you can’t move quick enough to pull the thin pink binder out of your tote bag. he clears away some of the trash from the table so you can lay out the binder, intro page on full display. for the next five minutes, the pair of you pore over the pages upon pages of ideas, sleek white cut through with black ink that lists the idea, the locations, how much it costs. 

you’re so invested in going over everything with him that you hardly acknowledge when heeseung stands and moves into the open seat beside you so neither one of you is craning your neck. you simply adjust the binder so you can read through the pages comfortably. it isn’t until heeseung points one out excitedly and you look up in startle that you finally notice that he isn’t a foot away but inches, noses just centimeters apart.

right now, this is the most compromising position you could possibly be in with a boy you hardly know and you find yourself praying that nobody from either of your chapters decides to walk by. of course, neither of you have anything to hide – this is a simple brainstorming session, of course, absolutely nothing more – but liv and your small group of friends would never let you live this down if they saw it.

heeseung clears his throat after seconds that stretch into years and you break your gaze from his painfully (how can you be blamed for staring? he’s that soft kind of pretty that hypnotizes). “um… so i think rollerskating could be fun…”

it is a good event that your sorority has done with the other frats and sororities in the past, one that you were playing around with as a potential plan to pitch to him. the fact that he picked it out on his own accord makes you bristle with something akin to pride, a feeling so warm and comforting it has you leaning just a little closer to him.

let the girls see me, you think as your sweater-clad shoulder brushes against his own. there are worse things they could catch me doing.

“actually… this was one of the ones i was going to suggest if you didn’t find any that you were really interested in…” you say quietly, voice nearly lost in the din of the dining area of the student union.

heeseung looks at you, blinking slow and round and soft, as if each flutter of his eyelids is a moment of his brain processing your words. “really… maybe it’s a sign…?”

his voice is just as soft, matching your energy in one swift go. you wonder if he’s thinking the same thing as you, if he’s feeling that it seems like you’ve known one another forever despite only knowing each other for fifteen minutes max; it seems like your souls themselves are in complete synergy, so why would it be so farfetched to wonder if maybe you knew each other in a different life to have caused that synchrony?

you laugh a little and shrug, shoulder brushing against his softly; the movement is short and sweet, but your heart rises in you like the high tide, washing through your veins with foam and salt and the kind of breeze only the ocean can bring, chill and warm all at once. “maybe so.”

silence settles over the table like sand stirred on the ocean floor, the both of you lost in your own worlds. heeseung has dragged his soda to this side of the table and sips absentmindedly, gaze focused miles beyond the horizon of the hallway. he’s completely checked out when your consciousness wanders back into your body and you take the moment to study him a little: the even slope of his nose, high cheekbones paired with plush skin, long eyelashes that brush the apex of his cheeks when he blinks, a flutter of dark against light. 

there are worse boys you could be caught staring at.

you’re still thinking about your lunch with heeseung hours later, even when you’re out getting your weekly tuesday night ice cream with your big. liv is going on about how her professor for her linguistics class pissed her off during lecture today, but you’re not absorbing a single word of any of it. you remember vaguely that he openly disagreed with her during the lecture and they got into a debate in front of the whole class, but beyond that, you don’t know much else.

“god, he’s just the worst. i can’t believe– alright, you’re in the stratosphere right now. what’s going on?”

you snap back to reality, eyes wide and goosebumps prickling up under the sleeves of your sweater. you shake your head, trying to brush away the conversation she’s trying to prompt, even though it’ll be futile because liv can’t let things go for the life of her. “nothing! everything’s fine, i swear.”

liv’s eyes narrow and a single dark eyebrow quirks up. “yeah, i’m not buying it.”

you glare playfully at her, eating a spoonful of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. when you swallow, you answer with a pointed, “when do you buy anything i say? really, liv. it’s nothing.”

“did someone say something to you? i’m part of panhellenic and on the all-greek council. if someone did something, i can handle it.”

you shake your head earnestly and wave a hand for extra emphasis. “olivia. seriously. nothing happened.”

your big is silent for a few moments, studying you intently. her shady blue eyes, usually wistful and giving the impression of being miles away herself, cut right down to your very bone, as if she’ll find the answer she’s looking for written into your skin or soul, carved into your heart. eventually, she sighs and slumps back against the booth.

“alright, fine. i’ll believe you this time,” she says in a voice that hints at disappointment. “but you’d tell me if someone did say something to you, right? i’m serious about getting things taken care of if someone does something like that to you.”

you smile, reach across the table, rest your hand over her. “yes, liv. i would tell you if somebody treated me badly. you’re the only friend i have who would be willing to go to jail if needed. but i promise the situation doesn’t call for that right now.”

she perks up a little at your words and takes a deep breath, nodding. she’s back to her bubbly self, resuming her rant about her asshole linguistics professor who definitely shouldn’t have tenure. the whiplash her behavior gives you definitely just secured her an award for “most melodramatic” at formal in april (which, fuck you have to start planning that soon too).

you remain checked into liv’s rant, assenting when she asks you for your opinions on this professor who you’ve never met and never plan on meeting, and offering advice when she wants it. but you still find yourself wandering off at times, mind focused on heeseung.

you’re not sure why you don’t want to tell her about meeting with the boy earlier; she’s one of his friends and she’s always spoken so highly about him, so you shouldn’t feel embarrassed. in fact, she’s mentioned in passing a couple of times (mostly when she’s undeniably hammered) that she thinks you and heeseung would make a cute couple, even though she’s never seen the two of you interact, let alone exist in the same room.

but there’s something special about the thirty minutes you shared with heeseung. you met in a public place, sure, but something about it felt and still feels so sacred to you. it’s something you want to keep a secret for at least a little while. that soft sunshine smile and the low tide brushes of shoulders are things that, for now, belong solely to you and heeseung. it won’t kill liv to be left out of the loop for a while.

“do you think we should have it closer to midterms?” heeseung’s voice is pure static, like he’s going through a tunnel, even though there’s only half a campus worth of distance between you.

the two of you have graduated from groupme dms to phone calls over the course of three days. heeseung is saved affectionately in your phone as sseung with the deer emoji, one that you picked out as he sat across from you after you’d exchanged numbers; he doesn’t know about it, but he reminds you often of a deer caught in headlights with the way he stares at you all wide-eyed when you try to catch his attention.

“maybe? but people have to study. i’m not sure how often your guys are in the library, but i see at least thirty girls at the library every single night, so i’m not sure how willing they’d be to give up a night of studying, even if it is only for an hour, that close to midterms.”

heeseung’s small, thoughtful hmm is audible over the speaker and you smile to yourself over a basket of clean laundry. you’ve spent maybe three hours max with him over the last couple of days and already you have a pretty decent grasp on his personality and habits. right now, you can picture the way he likely looks up from his phone or planner and stares off past the beige cinderblock wall of his dorm room, turning possibilities over in his head.

“no, you’re right about that. i didn’t even consider it.”

you shrug as though he can see you, folding a pair of sweats and setting them to the side. “i’d definitely like for it to be soonish though. it doesn’t have to be planned super far in advance, you know what i mean? we’ve still got… what? a month until midterms?”

“i think so, yeah.”

you nod to yourself, hanging up one of your shirts. “okay, so what about two weeks from now? that lands us right in between now and midterms, so it’d be a happy medium.”

he’s silent on the other end of the line and you pause in your hanging of another shirt, worried that he’s thinking you’re stupid. of course, heeseung would never think anything like that about anyone because he’s the sweetheart to end all sweethearts. still, you worry because what this boy thinks of you is ridiculously imperative to your day to day functions.

three days, you remind yourself. you’ve known him for three days. there’s no reason for his opinions to hold this much weight.

you wonder if heeseung knows just how easy it is to like him, to be around him; if he knows just how much you want to see him all the time because he’s completely taken over your every waking thought. liv’s comments about him made in passing never could have truly captured just how amazing he is, nice and caring and so so pretty. you’re almost embarrassed to be this head over heels for him, but when he laughs over the phone or focuses all of his attention on you over a table in the food court, that mortification burns away into something soft and sweet and slow.

“i think that’s a great idea. not too soon, so we can make sure our chapters know it’s happening, but not too late that it disrupts any midterm studying.”

you breathe a sigh of relief and smile to yourself, resting your hands against the lip of the laundry basket. the rational part of your brain knew he was going to agree, but the part of you that so desperately craves his approval was disgustingly terrified that you wouldn’t receive it. now that you have, though, a heat rushes through you, pride warm and bright because you offered a good solution to the minuscule obstacle.

“yeah, exactly!”

you can just imagine the grin on heeseung’s face right now, delicate like freshly fallen snow. the image fills you with the giddiness of a high school girl, glad to be the one to have caused such a beautiful sight. “okay, cool. i’ll talk about it with the executive board, get it approved and whatnot, but i think we should be set, besides who’s paying for what.”

“what do you mean?” you question, brows furrowing as you finish up the last of your laundry.

“what do you mean?” there’s a playful, teasing edge in his voice. “someone has to pay to book the rink and the shoes, and don’t you think there should be snacks?”

“oh… yeah, i guess so.”

“so i was thinking we’d cover the booking and you could cover the food… but only if you’re cool with that! obviously, it’s not a big deal or anything, but i figured we should get that in order too so we can a specific date set and everything.”

“no, no! that works fine for me! i honestly hadn’t thought that far ahead, so it’s a good thing you did.” the line falls silent for a few moments, static crackling softly between you. there’s just something about the idea that you’re so close yet so far from each other, physically distant but holding each other close like this over a quiet cellphone line. it’s comforting to have him like this, you find.

“but yeah…” you break the stillness with your voice soft so as to not completely shatter the tranquility you’ve cultivated here. “that’s… that’s good thinking, heeseung.”

“hanks…” his own words mimic the same volume, nearly lost in the haze of the phone. “so… i’ll run it by the exec board and let you know?”

you hum a quick mhmm and tell him that you’ll do the same. there should be no reason that you’ll be denied, but the fact that liv, seeing as she’s vice president of programming, is part of the exec board and will find out that you’ve been, at the very least, talking to heeseung on a semi-regular basis (see: every day this week since tuesday afternoon) is a little nerve wracking, mostly because you’re ninety-nine percent sure she’s been hinting at trying to set the two of you up.

and when you say hinting, you mean pointing him out on campus or at parties and saying something like “really, i think you two would get along so well! you should go and talk to him.”

she was right about that, but the last thing you need right now is her finding out that you are catching feelings, all without her meddling. but you’ll make peace with the fact because you have to.

liv sidles up to you two weeks later on a thursday night, knit-clad arms crossed over her chest. you don’t even have to look at her to know she’s wearing a smug expression right now. “so…”

you don’t even physically react to her presence, instead choosing to gaze out over the rollerskating rink in your little college town. “so… what, liv?”

she nudges you with her shoulder and leans with her back against the wall separating the rink floor from the carpet of the sitting area. “you and heeseung, huh? i’ve been telling you for ages that the two of you would get along!”

you scoff playfully and roll your eyes, finally turning your head to look at her. “can you not start sentences like that?”

“like what?” she asks innocently.

“like heeseung and i have something going on. all we did was plan one runout together. we’ve only met, like, one time in person.”

you regret the words almost as soon as they leave the tip of your tongue because the second she hears the phrase “in person,” she’s already causing a scene. even though her voice is somewhat drowned out by the music blasting over the speakers, the absolute tenacity with which she gestures with her entire body draws more attention than it should. melodramatic as per usual.

“in person? when was this? and why was i not informed?” the questions liv asks a million times come out more like exclamations than anything else, too caught up in melodramatic distress to adjust the tone of her voice correctly.

you shrug absently, turning your head back towards the rink. heeseung is standing on the opposite side, talking to a few of the guys from his frat. he looks nice in his blue and green sweater and loose jeans, brown hair tousled from the winter breeze outside. “a couple weeks ago. and i didn’t tell you because it just wasn’t that important. we literally only had lunch just to talk about ideas for this.”

liv whines your name and stomps a foot like a child throwing a tantrum. “yeah, but i’m your big. i wanna know these things! and i’ve also been trying to set you two up forever! you didn’t think i’d want to know that you’d finally met him, even if it wasn’t because of anything i’d plan? my feelings are hurt.”

“first, this is exactly why one of the awards for formal this semester is going to be most over dramatic and exactly why you’re going to win,” you start, shaking your head and rolling your eyes. “second, i knew you would want to know, but i also knew this is how you’d react. i didn’t think you’d want to know about us setting up an event together, like… there’s no tea to spill or whatever. it’s just boring stuff. i don’t even know him that well.”

a bold-faced lie if you’ve ever told one; you know heeseung down to the cologne he puts on every morning. and maybe there was a little more to the event planning sessions. at least five times over the past two weeks, heeseung has approached you either in the food court or at the library, and taken the seat opposite of you to chat and study a bit. not to mention, you’ve texted every single day since the two of you officially met for the first time.

but again: nothing liv needs to know. heeseung, for now, is just your little secret. the conversations you’ve shared, the little details you know about him, the sweater he’d given you a few days ago when you’d gotten cold at the library and your own sweater had gotten soaking wet due to rain and your lack of an umbrella, those are your things, special and personal and entirely yours.

“ugh. the two of you are so boring,” liv moans dramatically, tipping her head back. “i hope you hang out more after this, but only if you tell me about it.”

you shrug and glance back across the rink. heeseung has shifted positions, his arms crossed over the railing and by some stroke of luck, he’s looking at you, looking otherworldly under the shifting blue and purple lights. he smiles softly, just a quick phantom of a grin, and the only think you can do is return it with that same gentleness and warmth.

“maybe,” you say, glancing over at liv and then back at heeseung. “i guess we’ll just have to see.”

a week later, you’re sitting in your dorm room on a friday night, finalizing edits for a midterm paper, when there’s a banging at your door fifteen minutes before ten.

“heyyy! let me innn!” liv’s voice is airy and slurred through the door, so you can already guess what she’s here for.

with a heavy sigh, you stand and make your way to the door, opening it and finding your big leaning against the wall on the opposite side of the hallway. she’s dressed in her usual party attire: ripped jeans, black tank top, dirty shoes reserved specifically for the sticky basement floors of frat houses. she’s holding a metal water bottle in her hands; you can only guess what she’s mixed in it tonight.

“what’s up, liv?” you ask, leaning your shoulder against the doorframe, even though you don’t need an answer. you hadn’t anticipated her being here, so you’re already decked out in your comfy night clothes, prepared for a night in only. 

“lambda is throwing a party and you’re going with me,” she says peppily, practically jumping up and throwing herself into your room.

“liv-“

she whips around on her heels to face you, eyes glowing in the soft gold of your fairy lights. “no fighting me on this. you’ve been working hard and you need a break. so you’re going to dress like the hot bitch you are and then we’re going to lambda.”

liv is rooted to the spot, though she sways a little on her feet, and makes it known without words that she is not moving until you get ready for this dumb frat party. eager to get her drunken glare off of you, you sigh and nod, closing the door behind you, shutting off your desk light, and moving towards your wardrobe, rifling through the hangers to find a proper outfit.

you’ve been to lambda rho’s house before and it is nothing to write home about… unless, of course, you’re talking about how absolutely filthy the basement is; they have the best sized basement out of all of the frats on campus, but you swear they have never done anything to clean the floor. the first time you went, you’d been having a great time drinking well-mixed jungle juice and dancing to the best songs of the 2010s when you noticed that every step you took sounded like velcro. the floor was so sticky that you were literally having to put pressure behind pulling your shoes from the concrete. it totally killed the vibe.

but the jungle juice and occasional jello shots are great, so you persevere. besides, lambda throws the best parties on campus and you’re clearly the person to trust on party hot takes since you only go back to frats you have a good time at (sorry, sigma pi).

plus, heeseung is in lambda rho and he has to be there since he’s the social chair and all, so… you note that out of the maybe five parties you’ve been to there since the beginning of the school year, you’ve never once seen him. granted, he’s only required to be at any parties hosted while he’s the social chairman, so maybe he just didn’t go to any last semester. or maybe he’s a wallflower like you, choosing to stand on the outskirts instead of in the center of attention.

lost in your haze of heeseung thoughts, you don’t really register that you’ve finished dressing and that liv has sat you down at your desk to fix your hair. somehow, while very much drunk, your big has an easy time styling it. she’s focused intensely on the task at hand, but also manages to carry on a one-sided conversation, not realizing that you’re not responding to her. but when she moves her hands from your head and sets them on the back of your chair, you’re amazed; she’s always been good at styling and fashion (hence why she’s been in charge of the homecoming student org dance and cheer competition every fall for the last two years), but you weren’t expecting her skills to be up to par while buzzed to hell and back.

“there we go, ready to wow heeseung,” liv says matter-of-factly, a proud look on her face. when you glare at her through the mirror, she smiles and shrugs lazily, reaching to grab her water bottle and phone from your desk. “what? he’ll be there tonight and i’ve heard through the grape vine that he might have a little crush on you, so…”

you whip around at her words, hands braced against the back of your chair. something like liquid anxiety prickles under your skin, sending goosebumps across your arms. liv is friends with just about everyone in greek life, so “the grape vine” could quite literally mean anybody, but who did she find that out from anyways? when did heeseung say anything like that? did he even actually say that or is she just deadset on shipping the two of you together until it either happens or falls through?

“what?”

she looks back at you over her shoulder, one hand resting on the doorknob and your dorm keys in the other. there’s a mischievous glint in her dark eyes and your heart drops; how did you get such a schemer as a big? “oh, yeah. i was hanging out at the lambda house the other night with yeonjun. you know? heeseung’s big? and he maybe mentioned something about it. why do you wanna know?”

she sidles back up to you, pulling you out of the chair by your shoulders. “do you maybe… i don’t know… like him back? why are you so nervous?”

you shake your head, trying to will the goosebumps on your arms and lightning in your veins away. you’ve claimed a million times over the last few weeks that there is nothing more going on between you and that boy, no matter how pretty or sweet you might think he is. heeseung is just a friend, someone you just so happened to click really well with and just so happened to plan a really fun event with. there’s nothing else to say about it or the way you get excited when his name shows up on your phone or how your day immediately gets better when he walks up to you at the library without texting you first, your favorite snack and coffee in hand and a smile on his face.

there’s nothing there to unpack. you think.

“i’m not nervous. and i bet yeonjun just misheard heeseung. the two of us are just friends. i’ve told you that a million times and i’m sure he’s said the same thing.”

liv just laughs and ushers you towards the door. “okay, okay… sure, sweetheart. let’s get over there before they run out of alcohol.”

jay, the self-appointed dj for every lambda rho party, is blasting year 3000 by the jonas brothers when you and liv arrive in the basement. there’s already a large group of bodies on the dance floor, but the bar area is still pretty crowded and getting worse. liv links her arm with yours so that you won’t get separated, even though there’s no chance of you getting lost or anything.

the two of you make your way towards the bar where yeonjun is “bartending,” a term he insists on using despite the fact that all he does is pour cups of vibrant red jungle juice. blonde hair hangs over his forehead and his skin is glistening with sweat already, looking weirdly ethereal under the colorful lights that fill the room. when he sets eyes on you and liv, he smiles brightly and leans against the bartop.

“hey, you two! glad you finally showed up!” he shouts over the music. “jungle juice?”

liv nods enthusiastically, mimicking his posture and crossing her arms on top of the counter. “yes please! any chances you have jello shots tonight too?”

the boy looks around before he leans in closer to answer. “don’t tell anyone else, but i made some just for you two since you’re my favorite customers.”

liv rolls her eyes and swats at his bicep, but she’s smiling anyways. “we’re not customers, jun. you’re not even getting paid to do this. when are you gonna stop acting like you’re a real bartender, huh?”

he clenches his hand over his heart and stumbles backwards, feigning pain. “you wound me so, liv. i did something nice for you and this is how you repay me. i can’t believe this!”

but in the midst of his monologue, he bends over to open a mini fridge behind the bar and returns with a couple of jello shots. he tells you to take them here while he gets your drinks and hide them the best you can so nobody gets up in arms that he’s providing something outside of the night’s menu. he’s always been especially nice to you, mostly because of liv and his undying love for her (though platonic or romantic, you’ve never been exactly sure about), so it’s all you can do to thank him and listen to his pleads for secrecy regarding the contraband jello shots. when he’s back above bar, you switch off, him discreetly tossing the small cups in the trash.

liv, finally armed with her precious red solo cup, turns to talk to some other friends, leaving you and yeonjun alone. the music is so loud you can hardly keep your thoughts straight, which is great for keeping your mind off of what liv said earlier, but doesn’t last long when yeonjun leans in ever closer, his cologne enveloping you entirely.

“you should thank heeseung for the jello shots, by the way. i honestly hadn’t even thought to make some for you and liv because i was busy with other stuff, but he asked about making some since he knows they’re your favorite.”

your heart clenches a little at the idea that heeseung wanted to make sure that you had things you liked at his frat’s party. it’s nice to have someone looking out for small things like that, even if it means breaking a rule or two. yeonjun rests his hand on top of your head and pats gently, a knowing look in his eyes.

“listen, i know that you swear up and down the wall that you and him are just friends, but for what it’s worth, he likes you a lot. he just won’t say it. you know him. he’s kinda bad with words. it’s not really my place to make his confession for him, but just… you know. give him a chance.”

you nod dumbly and give him a half-baked smile when he pulls his hand off your head. a few girls walk up, vying for their own drinks, so you take that as your cue to walk away, red solo cup cradled in your hands. any hope of not thinking about heeseung lee has been completely undone by both liv and yeonjun. 

suddenly, you are far too sober.

two hours later, you’re five drinks in, only kept track of by the cups you have in your hand, and you’re feeling pleasantly buzzed. the lights are a little brighter, the music a little louder, liv’s arm hot and grounding around your shoulders. she’s completely gone, despite the fact that she’s only had three cups of jungle juice. she’s serenading you with dancing queen by abba, somehow getting every single word wrong. 

“fuck, i’m way too drunk for this,” she says, breaking off a line in the middle of the second verse. “i’ll sing for you next time. promise.”

you laugh and lean against her, shaking your head. “okay, livvie. sounds good.” you’re content to end your sentence there, but you have an increasing awareness of how hot it’s gotten. the amount of people packed into the basement, especially in the center of the dancefloor like this, has contributed greatly to the heat and you need some time to cool down before it makes you sick. “listen, ‘m gonna get some air. ‘t’s getting really hot.”

liv nods and hugs you to her, voice chipper but slurred heavily. “‘kay! i’ll see you in a few.” she lets you go and breaks out into the next song, somehow worse than dancing queen.

you slip out of the crowd, already feeling a little cooler now that you’ve escaped from the hot press of bodies. standing on the outskirts of the dancefloor, you consider your options. there’s the open window that a cool breeze passes through or the door by yeonjun’s bar, which you know leads directly outside with a staircase up to the back deck. while you initially planned to be within arm’s reach for liv’s sake, your ears are starting to ring from the loud music and the choice is made for you.

you wave to yeonjun as you make your way towards the door. he pauses and leans over to ask you if you’re leaving, looking a little concerned, but you shake your head and tell him what you told liv. and then you tack on the information that she’s incredibly drunk, so he should watch out for her because knowing her, she’ll be tapping out sooner rather than later. he nods in understanding and lets you go, turning back to the two frat guys, jake and chan, that are standing at the bar.

the temperature difference between the basement and outside right now is jarring, but welcomed nonetheless. you carefully traverse the stairs, not quite confident in yourself to take them confidently, seeing as your sight is currently swimming a little and your head is light. getting to the top is a feat and you feel immediately better once you’re on the back deck.

you’re so out of it that you don’t realize you aren’t alone as you lean against the railing, reveling in the way the wood digs into your forearms and the chill bites at you through the sheer long sleeves of your black shirt. you’re still very much buzzed, but you feel a little more clear-headed now that you can hear yourself think.

the sound of your name startles you and you swear you jump ten feet in the air before you whip around, hand against your heart. heeseung is halfway out the back door, a cup in his hand and that deer caught in the headlights expression you’ve come to know well over the last month or so. 

“jesus, heeseung. you scared the shit out of me!” you say, catching your breath and leaning back against the railing.

“i’m sorry! i didn’t mean to!” he finishes stepping out of the house and onto the deck with you, the door swinging shut behind him. he’s so earnest in his apology that you can’t help but smile, dropping your hand and instead taking a sip from your drink that you carried out here with you.

“you have a habit of sneaking up on me, huh?”

he joins you at the railing, leaning against it the way you are, and raises his own cup to his lips (perfect and plush and pink… enough of that). he shrugs as he drinks, wincing when it goes down rougher than he expected. the liquid that sloshes against the side is not the same color as yours, so you can only assume that one of the guys gave him something a little stronger than whatever they threw together for the jungle juice.

“i guess so,” he says through a small cough. “i don’t mean to, if that makes it any better.”

you laugh a little, nudging him with your shoulder. “it’s not a big deal, if that makes you feel better. i think it’s kinda funny.”

heeseung smiles at that and nods, keeping his eyes trained on the drink in his cup. it’s only when you’re committing his side profile to drunken memory that you realize the blush that’s crept up the back of his neck onto his cheeks and the tip of his ears. except, that sober voice inside your head argues it could just be from the cold. 

but neither of you have been out long enough for that to be the case. it’s not even that cold out here, just a little bit chilly. drunk you is having sneaking suspicions, ones that sober you would never entertain, and this is the first time you’re seeing heeseung at one of his frat’s parties, so you might as well take advantage of it all as much as you can.

“yeonjun told me what you did… the jello shots for me and liv, i mean,” you clarify the second you realize how the first sentence sounds without context. “thanks. i didn’t think you were really paying attention to that kind of stuff.”

heeseung turns his head to look at you, eyes a little wide but that soft, perfect smile offsets it nicely. he looks a little surprised that you found out about it, but not upset that yeonjun mentioned it.

“well… i mean, of course i do. that’s kinda… what i do, you know?”

he’s beating around the bush. yeonjun was right; heeseung never talks about his feelings and he sure as hell won’t offer you the words you’re waiting to hear right now. so, drunk you reasons, why is the only way to confess through words? he’s shown you how much he cares, he’s been doing it for weeks now. maybe you were suppressing your own feelings to keep liv off your back about it all, but in doing so, you’ve been diminishing heeseung’s own attempts at telling you. 

this whole thing with him has never been simply friends. love at first sight feels a little much, but you certainly have something between you and you have for weeks on end at this point. maybe it’s time to reward this beautiful boy for being so patient with you.

just as he’s beginning to turn his head away to look back towards the house, you set your cup on the railing and capture his face in your hands. there’s no moment for either of you to process what’s happening, just that one minute there’s a platonic amount of distance between you and the next, your lips are on his and it is warm and unpracticed and still unbelievably perfect. heeseung goes pliant and soft under your touch, his free hand resting gently on the small of your back. his fingers curl gently into your shirt, tethering himself to you. his other hand is still grasping his solo cup and you find yourself wishing he’d just drop the damn thing, even if it means the both of your shoes get soaked in whatever he’d been served (whiskey, you’d guess, from the smokey taste on his tongue).

he’s the first to pull away, eyes still closed for moments after. his breaths come shallow and his cheeks have gone impossibly red, his hand still against your back. you study him from this angle, closer than you’ve ever been, and somehow, you’re finding him prettier than ever before. maybe it’s the alcohol talking or the sudden lovesickness for him, but you don’t care because you finally kissed heeseung lee and left him breathless.

“what- um… what was that for?” he asks quietly, eyes fluttering open. his pupils are blown wide and awestruck (you think that’s the right word in your jungle juice induced haze).

you shrug, inching yourself a little closer towards him. he turns to meet you so your bodies run parallel to each other and finally sets his offending cup on the railing next to yours. “got tired waiting for you t’make a move.”

he makes a sound in the back of his throat and turns his head to look elsewhere, as if looking at you might make him drop dead. any doubt you had from earlier in the night that he’d told yeonjun that he liked you is swept away in a single moment; he can deny it all he wants now, but you already know the truth, so what’s the point?

“liv told me that she heard through the grape vine that you liked me…” you say softly, voice trailing off into the muffled sounds of a kesha song blasting in the basement. “is that… true?”

you watch as he draws a deep breath, squeezes his eyes closed, steels himself for whatever answer he’s about to give. with all your liquid courage now, confessing might not have been a big deal, but you know that if you’d been sober, it would be just as hard as this. but you swear you saw him drinking jungle juice down in the basement an hour and a half ago, and now he’s drinking something stronger, so he must be so naturally shy that not even alcohol can wipe it out.

finally, he lets his breath out and focuses his attention on you again, his eyes soft and pleading. don’t break my heart. please.

“yeah… yeah, i got a little drunk last weekend and told yeonjun that i thought i had feelings for you when he got me back to my dorm. i’m sorry if that makes you uncomfortable or if it ruins our friendship. i j–”

you kiss him again, hot and heavy and full of longing and words you don’t dare voice because you’ve liked him for a long time too; you were just too afraid to admit it to yourself. but now he’s spilling his heart out and you’d rather walk barefoot through broken glass before you let him go on thinking for a second longer that his feelings aren’t reciprocated tenfold.

you step impossibly closer, your bodies pressed tight and heavy, the seam unbreakable. heeseung’s hands (both thank god) rest on your waist, holding you close. he bristles under your touch as you leave one hand on his shoulder and the other sneaks around to the nape of his neck, fingers curling into the fine, soft hair there. your nails scratch lightly against his scalp and his chest shudders against yours, some small, refined gasp of approval passing from his mouth to yours as he takes his turn to kiss the breath out of you.

it’s a tiny noise, barely noticeable, barely passing as a soft breathy moan. but you hear it and it’s embarrassingly enough to have your knees going a little weak. well, it’s not just that minuscule noise; it’s everything, it’s the way heeseung’s lips move against your own with an uncharacteristic amount of surety, the way his fingers have slipped under your shimmery black top (a “donation” from liv’s closet last homecoming), the way you can feel his body coming alive under your attention. if this is going where you think it’s going, the dreams you’ve been having about him at least once a week since you first met are about to come true.

heeseung is the first to break away again, but he looks less nervous than the first time. no, this time he looks flushed and tousled and so attractive it should be illegal. when he shifts his weight from his left to right foot, his body brushes against you and the heat of him is unmistakable. even if you couldn’t feel it, you can see the way his eyelids flutter and feel the way his chest shudders against yours. you can’t help yourself; you need him.

“come back to my dorm,” you whisper breathlessly, words manifesting physically in a cloud of fog. “please.”

the boy squeezes his eyes shut again, looks up towards the sky, draws that deep breath he’s so fond of right now. you almost back out, almost say it was a joke; he just confessed his feelings and you kissed twice, so maybe it’s all a little much for him. you really like him and you don’t want to scare him off; besides, what you’re feeling right now is nothing you can’t take care of on your own back in your dorm room. just as you’re about to tell him that he can say no, he’s seemingly talked himself up enough because he looks down at you, smiles, kisses you on his own accord, and then takes your hand.

“lead the way,” he says.

you and heeseung stop at least five times on the way back to your dorm room to makeout, giggling into each other’s mouths as he presses you against a tree on the greens or as you pull him into the pools of darkness between streetlamps. every moment has him growing more confident, more certain that this isn’t just a hookup or a dream.

somewhere along the way, you text liv and tell her that you’re heading home because you’re not feeling well. it’s not farfetched, seeing as you’d broken away from her in the first place because you were feeling too hot. what happened between your departure and when the text is sent is entirely irrelevant right now. what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her and she’ll hear about it sooner rather than later anyways. 

it takes you maybe a full twenty minutes to reach your building, a feat considering how drunk you are and how obsessed you’ve been with heeseung for the last half hour. you fully expected it to take longer, but now, you stand under the golden glow of the entry to your dorm building, heeseung unlocking the door for you because you’re a little too gone right now and unwilling to take your hands off him,standing next to him, your arms hugging his free one while you lean your cheek against his shoulder. he fumbles with the key, muttering about how they should change to a keycard system instead, but he gets it eventually and you’re in.

after that, it’s practically a mad dash up to your dorm room on the third floor. your hand is twined tight around heeseung’s as you lead him up the stairs, too impatient to take the elevator right now. somewhere in the back of your mind, you’re glad that you took the time to clean your room today after class; heeseung will see a polished side of you, one that puts laundry away as soon as they’re out of the dryer, one that has glowing golden fairy lights above the window that gild your room in warmth, one that leaves books and binders stacked neatly in the shelf on your desk. not that he’ll be paying attention to any of it anyways, what with the way you can feel his cock pressing incessantly against you as you unlock your bedroom door, hot and straining.

agonizing seconds stretch into what feels like even more agonizing hours, but eventually, you get the door unlocked and guide him inside, stepping into the glow of your string lights that you’d left on before you left. you don’t even have to turn yourself around to look at him because he does it for you, turning you by your waist, pressing you fast against the back of the now-closed door.

his mouth is on yours in an instant, tongue swiping over your bottom lip, no doubt tasting the fruit punch yeonjun had added to tonight’s jungle juice recipe concoction. his hands are on your waist, curling hot into your skin, black mesh of your shirt scratching against you. it’s nice, how respectful he’s being right now, still ever the gentleman he’s been for the last month, but you don’t want nice and respectful right now. you’ve had literal dreams about this since you met him, driving your attraction to him higher with every one; you want mean and messy and rough, and that’s what you’ll get if it’s the last thing you do.

so in a bid to urge him towards where you’re really hoping this night goes, you grab at one of his wrists and drag his hand up to your chest, pressing his palm against your breast. you can feel his breath hitch against you and you smile into the kiss because how can he still be so shy when he’s kissed the breath out of you at least five times in the last forty-five minutes? either way, he gives a tentative squeeze and it feels mind blowingly good; you’ve never been one to really care much about attention focused on your tits, but heeseung makes it feel like maybe you should.

you get lost in the feeling of his lips on yours, one of his hands kneading at your chest, the other slowly slipping under your top, rough fingertips drawing up and down the skin of your stomach, so far gone that you don’t notice the thigh he’s slotted between your legs until he grinds it up against you. it’s sudden and so well-earned, some much needed friction that you’ve been craving since that second kiss on the deck in lambda rho’s backyard. he does it a second time, the hard plane of his thigh coming up hard against your clit, and your knees buckle a little, dropping you further onto him. you moan sweetly into his mouth, tilting your head back against the door as the hand on your waist works your hips against him with a scary but uncharacteristic practiced certainty. he takes the absence of your mouth against his to trail kisses on your neck, his teeth dragging along the sensitive skin, nipping and leaving love bites in his wake.

a well aimed grind of your hips, guided singularly by the boy in front of you, has you falling forward against his chest, your forehead pressed into the junction between his shoulder and neck. you keen against him in frustration, the crest rising but not breaking, no matter how hard to try to get it to.

“seung,” you cry against his skin, fingers curling tight into his sweater. “need more please.”

you almost sob in relief when you feel him nod against your neck, more so when you notice his own hips are stuttering against your leg that is bracketed by his. it’s enough to make you moan, the idea of him needing it just as much as you that he’s trying to hold himself back from getting off on your thigh too.

pressing your palms flat against his chest, you guide heeseung backwards in the direction of your bed (which you’re very suddenly glad you haven’t lofted). when the back of his knees hit the edge of the mattress, he makes quick work of kicking his shoes off and then scrambling up so that his back rests against the wall. you follow suit, toeing off your party shoes and crawling onto his lap where he’s waiting patiently, his eyes wide and the browns of his eyes drowned out by his pupils. he’s breathing hard, chest heaving.

he looks up at you as you situate yourself, his hands coming to rest on your waist again. the expression on his face is nothing short of worshipful, like you’re a deity here to wrench your well-earned respect from his hands. and he is clearly ready to hand it over without a single fight. he guides you down onto him and you follow his hands willingly, your thighs straddling his and your clothed cunt just barely grazing against his hard-on until you settle down completely in his lap, not a centimeter of distance between you. the friction and pressure have both of you gasping wordlessly and heeseung tugs desperately at your hips. you fall into him, arms around his neck and pulling him to meet you halfway, lips locked once more. you give a tentative roll of your hips and heeseung moans into your mouth, just the reaction you were anticipating.

“fuck,” he moans the second time you do it. “you’re so good.”

you’re already hot, seared through to the bone, but you feel yourself go even warmer under heeseung’s praise. you’ve imagined this a million times over the last few weeks, but nothing could ever compare to the real thing. you kiss him harder, breathe him in deep to prove to yourself that this is real, that heeseung lee is under you right now, bucking his hips up into you and matching your movements, about to make you come just from a little bit of dry humping. it would be embarrassing if you weren’t both half-gone and ridiculously desperate.

you continue to rut against him, panting hot and heavy into his mouth as he swallows every single moan and whimper you let out just to return them tenfold, his hands working you over him with a rushed ease. every roll of your hips is met with his own presses upwards. he’s working you higher and higher with each move, closer to the precipice, and while you’ve never before thought you’d find yourself in a position like this, if heeseung makes you come without taking a single item of clothing off either of you, then so be it.

as if he’s read your thoughts, he presses you back and away from him. you open your eyes for the first time in minutes and take him in: messy hair, flushed cheeks, bruised lips. no wet dream could have ever prepared you for how beautiful he looks right now.

but no matter how pretty you think he is in this moment, the sudden absence of friction has you whining loudly, pitched high and tight. when you speak, your voice trembles out of frustration. “heeseung, why’d you stop?”

he sucks in a breath and moves to push at your shoulders some more. “don’t- fuck- don’t wanna come yet, not like this.”

if you weren’t already so fucked out, you would have giggled, but right now, you just feel exasperated. he’s right; you don’t want to come like this either, but you’d also come to terms with it because it would mean that you would at least be getting the release you’re so desperately craving. and that’s been ripped away from you, at least for the moment. but when he looks up at you again, his eyebrows furrowed and eyes still wide with need, you fold immediately.

“tell me what you want.” he’s practically begging you and it sends a thrill through you, liquid lightning straight to your heart. “please.”

and how can you deny him when he’s asked you so sweetly or when you’re just as needy as he is? at this point, whatever he’d offer, you would take gladly. he’s gazing at you now, waiting anxiously for an answer, not that you have a set one; you want him in any way he wants you, nothing else matters more than that. but you take in his swollen lips and lithe fingers and your mind is off to the races.

“i-” you start, but stumble over your words. you’d been incredibly forward when you’d kissed him first, but you’ve lost all of that fire now. you can’t bring yourself to ask for what you want, even though you’re certain he’d do anything you’d ask of him.

“c’mon,” he coaxes, fingers kneading into your shoulders to ground you. “whatever you want.”

the sound of his voice is earnest, nothing short of honest, and it makes you want to trust him more than anything. so you do. you draw in a steadying breath and curl your hands into his sweater as you work yourself up to it.

“will you-” another breath. “would you eat me ou-”

“yes,” he immediately answers. you don’t even get a chance to finish the question. “fuck. i thought you’d never ask.”

he moves his hands to cup your face and pulls you into him, kissing you sweetly, his nose bumping against yours. the minuscule break in sexual tension, while in most situations would be a mood killer, is nice because it just further cements that this isn’t some random one night stand; you want to see him every day for the rest of your life after this, if he’ll let you.

somewhere between the kiss and when he breaks away from you, he’s maneuvered you so that you’re laying back against your pillows. you’ve also managed to discard your shirt (thank god, the glitter and mesh combo was starting to irritate your skin something fierce) and he’s working to get your pants off, fingers fumbling with the button; it’s as frustrating as it is adorable and he swats your hands out of the way when you reach down to help him, deadset on doing it himself, which he does manage (eventually, after a few incredibly long moments). you help him shimmy down your jeans and panties by lifting your hips a little and then you are inarguably bare in front of him, a position you’d never imagined you would be in.

and maybe heeseung is a little wonderstruck too because for a few long seconds, he sits there and stares at you in all your naked glory (or nearly naked glory, seeing as you haven’t taken your bra off yet, but he doesn’t seem to mind). you’re starting to get a little bashful and have to nudge him with a bent knee to pull him out of his stupor. he’s impossibly red at the tips of his ears as he murmurs a sweet apology that comes accompanied by a “you’re just so pretty.”

before you can muster a reply, he’s situating himself between your legs, hands pressing softly against your inner thighs to draw them apart, set eyes on his real destination. you lift your head just a little bit, watching as his eyes widen as he takes all of you in, his breath hot against your folds. his fingers curl tight into the soft skin of your thighs and you whimper at the sting, equally painful as it is exhilarating. he makes an indistinguishable groan in the back of his throat before he’s completely devouring you.

plenty of your wet dreams about the boy between your legs right now have included this very scenario: his nose bumping carelessly against your clit, a suddenly confident tongue making a show of licking up all of your arousal, your thighs already trembling. but they never could have prepared you for the actual thing because he’s giving you what is quite possibly the best head you’ve ever had.

heeseung is eating you out like a man starved, it’s absolutely obscene. his tongue works you up fast, every little moan he lets out only contributing. somewhere in the midst, he says something that sounds like “you taste s’good,” but his words are drowned out by your own moans and the sound of his mouth working you over. every pass of his tongue over your folds is as close as you’ve ever gotten to heaven, but you’re lacking something to really shove you over that precipice; and now you know heeseung is so whipped he’ll do anything you ask him to.

“seung,” you gasp out breathlessly, untangling one hand from your comforter so you can wind your fingers into his hair. he looks up at you, doe eyes big and wide and glimmering with his eyebrows drawn together, a questioning look without pulling away to speak. you’re about to ask him when his nose bumps hard against your terribly sensitive clit and your word breaks off before the first syllable can even leave your lips. “fuck— seung, can you— can you add your fingers?”

you’re not quite used to asking for what you want, at least verbally; maybe it’s because any previous partners weren’t keen on getting you to verbalize, maybe it’s because they never particularly cared and just did what they thought was good. but heeseung is pliant and willing to please in any way he can, so you feel less embarrassed this time around because he’s made it entirely clear that your pleasure is his main priority.

he doesn’t nod, doesn’t say anything, just closes his eyes again and goes back to work. you almost think he either didn’t hear you or is straight up ignoring you before you feel it. he pulls his hand from your right thigh slowly, letting his fingertips drag lightly against your skin; the menace is teasing you, where did that come from? but you don’t even have much time to internally complain about him holding out on you because he’s suddenly slipping two fingers into you, long, deft limbs that expertly seek out that spot inside you. he presses against it once, twice, three times, each one drawing out a whine from you.

it’s just what you need, the extra friction pushing you up that incline, closer and closer to the dropoff. when your back arches off the bed and your thighs close around his head, boxing him in against your pussy, heeseung knows he’s got you right where you want to be and then he doesn’t let up. it’s an onslaught of pressure, four different points of sensation, and you’re on the verge of tears. he’s making a complete mess of you, utilizing all he can to get you over that edge. you’re whining his name like it’s the only word you know, “yes” and “fuck” and “oh my god” getting lost in your slurred speech; he’d be evil incarnate if he denied you what you’re so beautifully begging for.

he presses incessantly at that spongy place inside you, nose bumping against your little bundle of nerves, moans growing more frequent, all while his tongue tries to catch every single drop of arousal. and then there you go, ecstasy taking over like liquid heat in your veins. his name sounds like pure euphoria on your tongue, mixed with your moans and whines. he thinks he could come just from this alone, your cum in his mouth and your thighs pressed tight around him, but he holds off because there’s only one place he wants to leave his release (if you’ll let him, that is).

“shit.” 

you sound fucked out, completely gone and heeseung swears he’s never heard anything sexier. you tug at his hair a little bit, feeling completely overstimulated but still so good, a shock to your system as he pulls his fingers out of you and lets his tongue work over you just a little bit longer (to make sure you’re clean, he reasons to himself). 

eventually, he does pull away and you have to fight the urge to whine again. his eyes are unfocused and glossed over, his chin practically dripping in your arousal. hell, his tongue darts out to get the last little bit of your cum at the corner of his lips and you nearly orgasm all over again.

“was it good?” he asks softly and you barely hold yourself back from laughing. he just made you come harder than any previous partner ever has, given you the best head in the world, and he’s asking you if it was good? he’s insane for thinking it was anything short of perfect.

but you don’t say that. you reach for his sweater, fingers curling tight into the cotton and tugging him down towards you. he catches himself by his hands, his arms bracketing you easily, before he completely crashes into you. there’s a long moment where he just stares down at you, lovestruck and pretty, before he lowers himself to kiss you. you can taste yourself on his lips, on his tongue, and you moan a little bit, feeling a little embarrassed, but one of his hands moves from its place on the mattress to cradle your cheek and that alone drives it away. 

one of your arms sneaks over his shoulder, your fingers tangling into the damp hair at the nape of his neck, while the other sneaks under his sweater, the shirt he wears underneath until the tips of your fingers brush the soft, pliant skin of his stomach. you can feel the gentle ridges of abs and a small piece of you shivers with giddiness. regardless, you enjoy a few seconds of running your fingers over his stomach before you push a little more incessantly at the offending pieces of material. he takes it for what it is: a plea to get rid of the clothes. after all, it’s not fair that you’re almost entirely undressed and he hasn’t taken a single article off.

you watch dazedly as heeseung sits back onto his heels, your eyes following his arms as he crosses them over himself, grasps at the hems, pulling them over his torso, his arms, his head before they land haphazardly on the floor next to your bed. every inch revealed to you makes your mouth water, his skin taut and soft and glowing in your fairy lights. you can’t help but remind yourself that dreams and an overactive imagination could never live up to the real thing because he’s very much the most beautiful person you’ve ever seen.

you’re entirely prepared to continue your makeout session, but heeseung seems to have other ideas because once his tops are discarded, he begins making work of his jeans. you make a soft noise in the back of your throat when you realize what he’s doing and he looks up at you, fingers stilling at his belt, his eyes wide.

“is something wrong?”

he sounds so sincere, it kind of makes you want to cry. but you shake your head earnestly, propping yourself up on your elbows so you can look at him better. “no, no! everything is fine. i guess i just wasn’t expecting you to take your pants off so soon.”

he quirks an eyebrow at you and dons that pretty little smile of his, teasing but not really. “well, you’re almost completely undressed. figured it was only right that i do the same, y’know?”

and you laugh a little because it’s true and because he’s just so cute, he laughs too, soft and quiet. you generally think sleeping with someone is fun, but you’ve never had as much fun as you are right now. maybe it’s because it’s with heeseung and you like him so much already, so the playfulness comes easy; it doesn’t feel tense the way it has with others.

so you watch him handle his belt, the button on his jeans, the zipper. you watch, mouth watering once more, as he slips out of them, leaving his boxers, which have a dark wet patch on them. the sight alone would make you groan, but you can see the outline of his cock and you almost lose it completely. so you decide to resume the impatient act because you are still very much so; as cute as the playful routine is, you haven’t forgotten the exhilarating rush of trying to get to your dorm as fast as possible and the unpracticed fumbling that’s followed since then.

you reach for him and he doesn’t hesitate, letting you pull him on top of you by his shoulders, fitting your mouths together in a messy kiss, all teeth and tongues. your hands are in his hair again, his own slide underneath you to make work of your bra, unclasping it and then pulling the straps away from your shoulders, down your arms, making you let go of him for a quick few seconds so that he can pull it off completely and toss it god knows where in your room.

you’re distantly aware that you’re entirely bare to him now, but his mouth is working at your throat, dragging his teeth along the sensitive skin of your neck (he is strangely good at distracting you, you’re learning), so you don’t feel as shy as you did just a handful of minutes ago. either way, he’s sucking hickies into your shoulders, your collarbones, any skin that has a little bit of give to it that lets him leave love bites in his wake. so lost in the haze, you realize a little too late that he’s working his way towards your chest, but it doesn’t even matter, not when he has one hand kneading at one and his mouth at the other, tracing lines over your skin to quell the sting of each pinch, each little nip of teeth. your nipples pebble under his attention and while this never usually does much for you, you still find yourself getting antsy because it’s heeseung. everything he’s done for weeks has gotten you worked up, why would that stop now?

it doesn’t help that he’s grinding against you, his hips canting against your own for any semblance of friction. your arousal is no doubt contributing to the wet patch on his boxers and the idea of it almost has your eyes rolling into the back of your head. his cock feels hot and heavy against your folds, the head bumping against your clit, and all of it feels so delicious that you let out a crisp, high whine, twining your fingers into heeseung’s soft hair and tugging gently.

he pulls himself away from your chest and when you look at him, you almost moan. his lips are swollen, slick with spit, and his gaze has gone misty. he looks at you expectantly, blinking slow and lips pouted as he waits. you’re not even sure what you want from him right now, at least nothing specific because you want everything from him. you’re about to tell him to go back to doing what he was originally because it did feel good, but then he lands a particularly well-timed grind against you and you’re gasping.

“fuck,” you whimper, tossing your head back a little. your fingers tighten in his hair and from somewhere south of you, he laughs a little, light and easy and airy.

“that what you want from me?” he questions, pulling himself up over you, catching your chin between his thumb and pointer finger. in any other situation, it might come off as intimidating and teasing, but heeseung is all doe-eyed and halfway to heaven right now, so it comes off more desperate to please than anything. either way, you nod. “all you had to do was ask. you know that.”

you nod and pull him down to kiss you by the fingers you have twisted in his hair. he groans against you, moving his hand from your chin to your jaw, angling you just so. somewhere in the kiss, you murmur a soft, “seung, i want you,” and he groans a little, nodding against you. he pulls away and you chase after him, but he’s sitting up, moving lightning quick to get his boxers off, abandoned somewhere on the linoleum floor with everything else.

and then it hits you that you’re both completely bare. you lean back on your elbows, looking him over once more, though your focus lingers mostly on the skin newly revealed to you. his thighs are toned and sturdy, the skin plush, and while you’d love to stare at them a little bit more, your attention is quickly drawn to his dick. it’s big, the head an agitated red and leaking precum, and your mouth is watering at the thought of getting him in your position and giving him the best head of his life.

you actually start to move to do so, but heeseung anticipates it and moves quick, pressing you back into your mattress. his dark doe eyes are drowning in desire and you shudder under his gaze. he’s on you again instead, hips melded to yours in your nth kiss tonight. he’s got his weight rested on one elbow beside your head while his other arm is free to move around, his hand tracing from your shoulder, your chest, smoothing across your stomach. 

his fingers eventually land on your thigh, curling into the soft inner flesh, and he hikes it up around his waist before dropping his hand to his cock. his lips trail from your lips to your neck and shoulders, nipping at the skin as he jerks himself off. you toss your head back against your pillows, whimpering at every little graze of his teeth against your skin. 

but what’s really driving you crazy is the heat of him against you. the head of his cock bumps against your clit, this time with no fabric barrier separating them, and you’re not sure if heeseung is even meaning for the touch, but it has you feeling hot all over again, slick leaking out of you again. you’re getting impatient, heel pressing hard into his lower back and your fingernails biting into the flesh of his biceps.

“heeseung,” you whine out, canting your hips up against his; you hear him suck in a breath through clenched teeth, a hiss of air. “need you.”

he shivers against you, a teary whimper of “need you too” granted in return as he pulls his face from your neck so that he can watch you as he finally gets to what you’ve wanted since this whole thing started. on a short teasing streak, he taps the head of his cock against your clit and you whine, turning your head into your pillow and curling your fingers into his arms, which earns a laugh.

“stop playing,” you tell him, rolling your hips upwards and into him.

he hisses again and bites at his bottom lip, nodding. he slips from your clit to your entrance and even just the little shred of pressure you get has you wanting to moan out for him. but then he starts pressing in all the way, slipping into your cunt with ease and you are not prepared for just how full you feel. your back arches and he lets off a tempered moan, stifled through a lip bite. when he bottoms out, his hips flush with your own, you release a breath as you adjust to the size of him, which doesn’t take long.

“seung,” you drawl, grabbing his attention. “move please.”

and he does as you bid, pulling out before he thrusts back in. it takes a few moments for him to find a pace that works, but when he does, it’s perfect. his hips roll against yours delectably, the sounds of skin meeting skin and your shared moans filling the small dorm room. he’s shored up over you, one elbow pressed deep into the thin mattress holding him up, and when your eyes aren’t squeezed tight in ecstasy, you watch the way he bites his lip, furrows his eyebrows, shudders as you clench around him.

“god, you’re s’tight. feels so good,” he whimpers at one point, his head hanging over your own as he tries to keep a steady pace. his words are shattered, breaking off in the middle or slurred together, a verbal manifestation of how you physically feel.

one thrust hits that just right spot inside you and you can’t hold but moan loudly, back arching off the mattress and your head pressing into your pillows. heeseung inhales sharply above you as you clench tight around him and then, with you still keening, you feel him sit up, taking his warmth with him. his hands are on your hips seconds later and he’s angling you, doing everything in his power to replicate it again and again.

“fuck, i’ve wanted this for so long,” he says, one hand on your thigh and the other working deft fingers on your clit. he’s a quick learner it seems because all of it is coming together to whisk your orgasm closer, a wave of white heat washing over you. “saw you at my frat’s halloween party ‘nd thought you were so pretty. woulda come up t’you that night if i knew you felt this good.”

your breath hitches more than it has all night and you cant your hips upwards in an attempt to meet his thrusts. somewhere in the midst of your pleasure, you tell him you’re going to come and he nods fast, fingers going into overtime to get you there. that knot inside you winds up tight and then snaps like a rubber band stretched too thin, hot and fast. your pussy locks around his cock and then he’s there above you, bracing himself with his hand, to swallow the particularly sharp whine of his name you let out and any stray too-loud moans that might slip away and wake the neighbors (as if you haven’t already).

when your vision finally clears and your thighs stop trembling, his hips are still snapping into yours to seek his own release, pushing you into the territory of overstimulation, but any pain you have bleeds into pleasure until you can’t tell which is which; the only thoughts you can manage are that heeseung feels heavenly inside you that it’s almost blinding and you don’t know if you even really want him to stop. 

but his hips begin to stutter, his cock twitching against your fluttering walls, and you faintly register that he’s about to pull out of you. blindly, your hand searches for any part of him to pull him back over you, legs locking around his waist. he protests, some flurry of words about how he doesn’t want to make you uncomfortable (not a single one intelligible), while you whine and pull him towards you by his shoulder.

“wanna feel you, seung,” you say, a limp arm winding around him and inching him closer until your noses are brushing and you can feel his breath fanning across you, still smelling faintly of his alcohol from earlier. “don’t worry about it, ‘kay? y’said you’d do anything, so please. i wanna feel you s’bad.”

that seems to be enough to egg him on because he nods and you catch him in a messy kiss before he groans against your lips as he finally comes. he lands a few more sharp thrusts that have you whining, fucking his cum into you, before he finally falls still. his breath is hot on your shoulder as he recovers.

usually, once you’re done, your select partner of the night pulls out, maybe cleans you up, and then leaves. it’s been a while since you’ve had someone who wants to stay (at least, you hope heeseung wants to stay) and you’re not quite sure where to go from here. there hadn’t really been much discussion about where your relationship was going to lead after this, even with all of the lingering glances on campus and your impromptu study sessions at the library, so you’re worrying a little about what comes after.

stuck in your own head, you don’t even notice that heeseung has pulled his head from your shoulder and is looking at you until his thumb works your bottom lip out from beneath your teeth and then wipes away some of the sweat at your hairline. the furrow of his eyebrows carve deep lines into the space between them as he studies you, looking like an angel with the way the fairy lights strung up above him give him a faint golden halo.

“what’re you thinking about?” he asks softly, brushing his fingers across your cheek. it’s a wholly different energy than just a few minutes ago, but the change isn’t unwelcome.

you shrug, blinking up at him and reaching to push some of his hair out of his eyes, the strands matted to his forehead with sweat. “just wondering what we do now, i guess.”

heeseung’s eyes crinkle at the corners as he smiles a little, his shoulders shaking with a breathy little laugh. you almost punch at his shoulder for laughing at you when he cranes his head down to kiss you gently, the first that isn’t rushed in some way. he nudges your nose with his when he pulls back just a little bit.

“can we worry about all the big stuff later?” he questions; you feel the words as much as you hear them, his lips barely brushing your own as he says them. “for now, how about we clean up first and then… i’m hungry. are you?”

it’s your turn to laugh, but you nod. you’re still a little drunk, your however many cups of jungle juice compared to his measly one whiskey.

“so we clean up and then go get taco bell? it’s, like, the only fast food place still open at this hour.”

“you do know that the line is gonna be insane, right? like, half of campus goes there after getting drunk.”

heeseung lets another quiet laugh loose and sits up, pulling you up with him and then into his lap, his dick still snug inside you. the feel of it doesn’t wind you up again like you thought it might, but it’s a nice reminder that he’s here, that this all actually happened. he rests a hand on your thigh and lets his thumb trace lines into the skin there absently.

“then i guess we’ll have time to talk about what you wanna do now,” he says sincerely, the smile on his face soft.

you have so many words you want to say, a million sentences tornadoing in your head right now, all jumbled up and lacking any sense of coherency. so instead, you cup his cheeks in your hands and return the kiss from just a few moments ago. he meets you halfway, all soft and pliant and giving, everything you could have dreamed up.

“wanna shower?” you ask when you pull away, giggling when he chases after you for another kiss. “feel like it might be a little more effective than a rag.”

the boy raises an eyebrow and eyes you suspiciously. “you tryin’ to go for a round two? because that’s what it sounds like right now.”

you push at his shoulders and laugh when he catches your wrists in his hands, pulling you into a third kiss. “wasn’t my intention, but i won’t turn down the idea.”

“i’ll think about it,” he responds as he taps at your hips and lifts you off of him. his seed starts to leak out with his cock no longer there to hold it in and you feel incomplete without him, but when he stands and offers you a hand to help you out of bed, suddenly the feeling of emptiness isn’t as oppressive.

you teeter across your room, opening the wardrobe to pull out the two towels you have and your shower caddy. heeseung accepts the towel you extend to him graciously, wrapping it around his waist. when you’re done securing your own towel, he’s already waiting for you by the door, one hand on the knob and the other reaching out towards you once you get close enough to him. and then you’re two people walking down the hall hand in hand, wrapped in matching pink towels towards the unisex bathroom. it’s a little unconventional, maybe, but you don’t think you’d have it any other way.

liv probably would though, but what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. heeseung’s your little secret after all.

© hoshologies 2023. do not translate, copy, or repost my work on any site.

[whoelsehasthathair]

The Most Comfortable Place - George Weasley x Reader

George comforts you as you deal with a harsh breakup. Reader is a Ravenclaw. Also slight reference to my previous fic Come On George Weasley (which I never posted a part 2?) This has been sitting in my drafts for literally 4 years so it's probably shitty but i thought why not post it so here we are

As rain poured down the transparent walls of the Greenhouse 4, 5th year Ravenclaws and Gryffindors were getting ready for their Herbology class with Professor Sprout. Y/N got her usual place between George and Lyanne and put down her books on the table.

“Good evening class!” started Professor Sprout with her usual tone full of joy.

“Good evening Professor Sprout” said the class in chorus.

“Today we’re going to learn about Aconites.”

Y/N’s eyes shot wide open and a grin formed on her face. “I know about this” she whispered to George. “It’s used in Wolfsbane potion but it’s poisonous, so be careful.”

“Then I might slip some into Eddie’s pumpkin juice at dinner y’know” he whispered leaning over Y/N’s ear. It has been only a few weeks since Y/N had broken up with Eddie and George was still angry at him that he broke Y/N’s heart so badly. He realised that she wasn’t eating well nor sleeping well. He saw the joy in her eyes fading away, replaced by thoughtful, cold and blank stares. But that was when her mind wasn’t busy with classes. He had always loved the way her face lighted up and her eyes grew wider when something she knew was mentioned, the curious and hungry for information nature of her showing itself while extracting new information, how she put her whole focus on something she loved. In every class with Ravenclaws, he loved seeing her different than the times he saw her probably overthinking.

“Not gonna lie, I wouldn’t really mind it Georgie” Y/N giggled.

“Who here can tell me about the Aconite plant?” asked Professor Sprout. George looked at Y/N, she didn’t seem like she was gonna raise her hand so he decided to make a move. He grabbed her hand and under Y/N’s confused looks, raised it. Waving he shouted with a wide grin “Y/N would like to answer Professor!” Y/N was trying to lower her hand in shock but of course the best beater the Gryffindor quidditch team ever had was too strong for her and his grip tightened more as she tried.

“Oh, Miss Y/L/N! Yes please.”

“Uhmmmm... It—It’s used in brewing Wolfsbane potion but it should be carefully concocted since aconite is a poisonous plant. It’s also known as Wolfsbane because of its use in this potion.” she spoke so quickly that she caused Professor Sprout to furrow her brows trying to catch her.

“Excellent Miss Y/L/N! 5 points to Ravenclaw.” Her fellow Ravenclaws grinned with amusement.

“Look” George whispered once again to her ear “Professor Sprout doesn’t bite.”

“I know she doesn’t bite you git” she nudged George’s arm

“I’m just trying to boost your confidence. Come on, be confident! You’re excellent and I’m sure you’re gonna nail your OWLs too.”

Y/N’s cheeks went red without her realising it and she gave George her classic “thank you” smile.

It was dinner time and the Great Hall was full of students chatting and eating. But Y/N wasn’t doing either of them. She was just staring at her plate as her fork aimlessly played with the roasted chicken and tart, sighing every 5 seconds trying to fight with her thoughts and trying to hold back the tears slowly starting to forming in her eyes. “Ain’t you eating Y/N?” asked one of her friends. “You love chicken and tart.” “Just not hungry” she murmured. She sighed once again and finally decided to leave the Great Hall. She quickly made her way to the library and sat down near a window. She let the tears fall from her cheeks. She pulled her knees to her stomach and buried her face as she let out a quite sob.

George left the Great Hall right after Y/N and followed her to the library. He watched her sit, curl up and start to sob quietly. That moment he promised himself he would make a deadly prank plan to play on Eddie with Fred and that time he wouldn’t be holding Fred back from his crazy ideas. He slowly approached to Y/N and sat at the table near her. “Would you mind if I sit here for a while?”

Y/N nodded. George pretended to study as he watched Y/N in complete silence. He didn’t want to do anything that would make Y/N uncomfortable. He knew she needed a little bit of loneliness at times like this, so he watched for the right time. When Y/N finally brought her head up and sniffled, he moved his chair next to hers. “Y/N, I-- I want you to know that even if that git doesn’t love you, there are still people who love you so much. Like your mom, your grandparents, Eleanora, Lyanne, April, Fred, I, professors, your little sister and cousins... We all love you more than you can imagine. I don’t want you to think you don’t deserve to be loved, cause you really do. That git is the one who doesn’t deserve your love.” he slowly caressed her hand. Y/N smiled sniffling once again and nodded. “Thank you” she put her head on George’s shoulder and wiped her tears with her sleeve. George smiled back at her and pressed a soft kiss on the crown of her hair. “You know what, you look cute with a red nose”

Y/N giggled and looked up at George. She hadn’t felt this comfortable for a long time, not since she was comforted by George before Christmas. “I wish you could just obliviate me about him sometimes”

“I’m afraid we would need someone like Lockhart on this subject since I don’t wanna delete wrong things.” They both giggled.

“Better?” asked George.

“Better.”

“Great. Mom always said that here is the most comfortable place.” He said patting on his shoulder, a proud grin on his face.

Y/N smiled back and stood up “I think I need to go now. Thank you again for everything.”

“Great to be in service” He hugged her one more time before letting her go.

“I knew it wasn’t the books that brought you to the library.” said Fred with a wide grin as he came out amongst the shelves.

“Freddie, we have someone to prank. And this time, every idea is accepted.”

“Hmmmmm I like this.”

[astridsinthesky]

MEET MAIKO

; a lovable jellyfish inkling who can do anything and everything just as long as it has a written instruction manual

man! i had a hard time designing her since i had to come up with how a jellyfish-inkling hybrid would look like ;-; it was so funny explaining her backstory by saying “when a short daddy jellyfish falls in love with a fall mommy inkling they make a Maiko lololol”

ORION & MAIKO

; i made it clear in the last post that Orion & Maiko are technically cousins. the jellyfish family that adopted Orion is related to Maiko’s family

Maiko is the reason why Orion found he’s an Octoling and as well as turf wars due to her insightful rambles

Maiko wasn’t surprised that Orion was an Octoling since she grew and live in the Splatlands until she moved to Inkopolis to be closer to Orion

As adults , the two are next door neighbors

BACK TO SCHOOL

; Maiko is the only one on her team that goes to school, specifically art school. Of course, living on your own and being a full time student is expensive which is why she works part time at Grizzco Industries earning employee of the month 5 times in a row every since she started (this is why you should read the Grizzco manual)

Of course she does have her moments where she gets a little curious about the machinery of the Salmonid

WHEN A SHORT DADDY JELLYFISH AND A TALL MOMMY INKLING FALL IN LOVE…

; haha i love saying that out loud. in the splatoon universe, the jellyfishes are just kind of there and are made to imitate and copy off of what they see in their surroundings. i did make a little note for their parents that her mom taught her dad the language and hence at least a sense of individualism. Her dad is made to look like a Compass Jellyfish, other wise known as a Chrysaora hysoscella

look how cute baby Maiko is~

BANG DREAM: IT’S MAIKO!!!!!

; a little funny reference to BanG Dream’s MyGO!!!!! ofc this is for me to Segway to her hero mode icon and splashtag

Maiko’s whole thing is that she wants to have a purpose in order to fulfill that role she plans her life, such as going to art school and working part time to pay for said art school, but she comes to learn is that her ideal life isn’t always planned out or, for her, written in an instructional manual, but rather it’s the richness and experience that makes it fulfilling. In bandori terms, she’s lost

now why did I explain that, well Maiko’s splashtag could be read two different ways mai-ko (舞子), her name, OR mai-go (迷子), which means “lost child.” The character for -ko & -go are the same, so I wanted to play it off. Ofc, mai in both words have different characters which is why I left it untouched. This also circles back to why i chose her being part compass jellyfish because you know… compasses???

you could also see her hair more clearly in her icon, it’s two tentacles cut in haft and tied into pigtails

~ END OF INTRODUCTION ~

; this is the first time I ever made these long informational post for one oc lolol thanks for reading if you made this far o7

[fairytail-whathesays]

Hello! I don't know if xreaders are still open but, I'm so curious what your take on a Sting x ftm!reader would be! Mainly sfw but nsfw is fine, too.

I love your headcanons so much, you really manage to portrait everyone's character so well! So thank you <3

So guess what finally reached 100 notes?

You probably thought I forgot about this ask, or didn't receive it, right? Wrong! Time to keep my promise!

Sting is like the anti-dysphoria fairy. I think out of every possible boyfriend option in the series, he'd be the best at this sort of thing. You think he wears that fur-lined crop top and those elbow-length gloves because he likes gender conformity? Lmao. Sting not only is a hype man by nature, he loves your masculinity, your male-ness, and encourages it and your expression of it however you choose. You want tips on serving pure "dude" or just affirmation? He's the one you go to.

See, if Rogue were your boyfriend, he'd be the type to respond to you being addressed with the wrong pronoun by just talking about you casually and using the correct pronoun without drawing attention to it. Not Sting--he loudly and pointedly corrects people the second they make that mistake, just because he knows people don't be paying no fuccin attention half the time. It's embarrassing at first because of how gung-ho he is about it but it's something you end up liking about him.

Sting is the type of bisexual dude to call himself gay at literally every opportunity and endorse anything that allows him to feel more gay. At first you think he's constantly referring to you as his boyfriend in public to make you feel good--then you realize he just really really likes letting people know he got himself a man.

If you don't know your best angles, Sting will find them for you. He's very much an Instagram bf, always taking pictures, even when you're just doing nothing sitting there drinking coffee. His phone is chock full of you and yes, you're his lock screen.

Do you have a name you like yet? Don't get it twisted, if you've already got all your manly gameplans in order, it's all good, but if you start dating him while transitioning, he will have endless recommendations as to your new name. You're dating a guy named Sting Eucliffe, after all.

Sting does not dim his light to keep pace with anyone, he emphasizes his partner's qualities as best he can. Even if you're the shy type by nature, like Rogue, you'll find that Sting never overpowers your presence in a room. Remember what I said about automatically being the hot person x hot person couple? Even if you start out known to peers as "Sting Eucliffe's boyfriend", it doesn't stay that way for long.

He does, perhaps, simp a bit. He's not wound around your finger, but you can get him to bend to your will a little more easily than other people around him.

NS/FW:

Regardless of what you're packing downstairs (or upstairs) you're good to go. If, however, you got some parts switched up, be prepared to spend a lot more time with Sting in Slut Mode--he loves to bottom. Even if you choose the strap-on route, he's happy either way.

Sting is so freaking good at oral, like, who the hell gave him permission??? It's ego, it's pride. You don't ask to have your eyes roll back in your head, he does it because he wants to.

Wear his clothes. Trust, you'll look good in them. And Sting looks good naked, win-win.

[wonhuihonwuiii]

jun + jeonghan pairing (junhan)

As mentioned in my JunCheol analysis, I have STILL been seeing people criticize Jun's relationship with the members. I cannot stress enough how adorable and unique each ship is so I have decided to do an analysis.

Here is JunHan!

I feel like this pairing isn’t a rare sight to see because they actually often stay close to one another (whether intentional or not) so interactions are kinda inevitable.

BUT even so, I feel like this isn’t a popular ship because most of their interactions (similar to nearly all jun pairings) are quite lowkey.

Ok so now to start, I feel the need to point out that while Jeonghan is one of the members close to EVERYONE, there’s still something so refreshing about this duo. It isn’t as chaotic as the typical seventeen pairing you’d probably expect but instead, they’re both very soft for each other!

For example, Jeonghan is SO supportive of Jun, hyping him up every chance he gets. (Insert clips of jh saying “baksu” everytime jun says or does literally ANYTHING HUHU cuties) 

Jeonghan is also naturally clingy but I still find it so adorable when he clings onto Jun. (It’s usually jh grabbing jun’s arm or leaning on his shoulders) Mostly because I feel like Jun tends to get awkward with physical touch NOT initiated by him so the fact that he lets Jeonghan be that clingy is so cute. It also seems like he doesn’t mind, showing how it’s a natural and regular occurrence.

Observing their other interactions, I also noticed how Jun would often go to Jeonghan when he’s curious about something. You would always catch them whispering whether in the background of some GoSe episodes or even in random concert clips. The fact that this is a recurring thing means that he trusts Jeonghan enough to respond well to whatever he has to say.

Jun also seems like the type to hesitate to ask for favors so when he asked Jeonghan to buy him a blanket in one of their content (In the Soop 2) I WENT SOFT ON MY KNEES! It was just so nice seeing Jun ask Jeonghan with a soft voice and the latter responding the same way!

NOTE: I think it’s undeniable that Jeonghan is naturally reliable but I find it so wholesome when more quiet members like Jun express their gratitude because of how caring Jeonghan is (reference to that video of Jun thanking the older for being very considerate such as consistently asking if he's eaten his meals, etc). I find it so touching how Jun takes note of the little things and Jeonghan gets appreciated for being the members’ emotional support system.

In relation to this, the last point I’d like to make is when Jeonghan acts like a younger brother to Jun! This is particularly important to me because as we all know, Jun was like Seventeen’s “mother” before Jeonghan came so it’s nice to see Jun take care of the former for a change! Here are specific moments:

Do you remember that vlive where Jeonghan shared a story about jokingly (?) asking Jun to buy him a lego set? Jh wasn’t really expecting anything since it was a bit expensive, but Jun still bought it for him the next day because his hyung wanted it.

There’s also a part in the dingo drinking video where Jun reminded Jeonghan to slow down/calm down a bit because his arm injury wasn’t fully healed at the time.

Jeonghan also shared that Jun would NOT move an inch if you lay on his lap no matter how uncomfortable he may feel (reference to the 2nd picture!)

Idk about you but these give such big brother energy AND I LIVE FOR IT!

Overall, I love how even though they’re both known as the pranksters of svt, their relationship is actually very soft and they get along well!

[la-merlaison]

Louis XIII and his cooking adventures 🍴🥞

When it comes to our Louis XIII cult, I often refer to the king's iconic omelettes, but what about his other stuff? For example, he really loved sweets (like beignets or jams), but could he also cook them? The answer is YES, and that's not even all yet!

Louis was a curious child who's head was already filled with various interests and cooking became one of them when he was only ten years old at the time (which is quite unusual for a king). First ever case of the king cooking was recorded on february 11th of 1611, when he was preparing milk soups for the Duchess of Guise / Catherine of Cleves. So milk soup, most likely, could be Louis' very first dish made by himself!

Of course many kids have a sweet tooth and our precious omelette king was not an exception which I guess is why he started to learn how to cook mostly from recipes of sweets. Also, take a shot every time I say "sweets" or "cooking" (don't..) 🕊️

So, among 17th century royal sw- *ahem* DESSERTS we had in our menu – a jam, quince jelly, beignets (basically french donuts) and marzipans. In a well-known, among many of y'all Louis stalkers, journal of his doctor Jean Héroard I found some clear evidence of Louis XIII cooking some of these himself, so here it is feat. me periodically panicking over my own translation because my half-french friend is too busy atm and I don’t wanna bother them:

June 6th, 1611 — «He walks through the corridor from the study to the paneled gallery where he had an oven for making jams, he is amused to see how it's done.» I know it's not exactly him cooking, but I just wanted to leave it here :")

October 15th, 1612 — «Madame comes to see him; he has fun making jam with Mademoiselle de Vendôme»

January 29th, 1613 — «He often has fun making almond milk and marzipans at Madame's house.»

March 6th, 1615 — «It was very cold; he goes to the kitchen, makes omelettes, beignets, fried eggs; it was he who made them and ate a little of that he tasted.» Pretty sure the last few words could be translated better because it's always rather my terrible french or a little confusing way of Héroard's writing, so feel free to correct me.

February 3rd, 1616 — «He is preparing a small snack of dry jam for the queen, who must come to him at two o'clock. After going back to bed, he happily forms various battalions of his little silver men.»

February 5th, 1622 — «He leaves Saint-Germain, goes to Pontoise, where he enjoys making and eating beignets; while dining at Cormeille, he suddenly goes to the goblet in which he makes little cream puffs.» The original text says «petits choux au lait» and I have no idea what could that exactly be, but it seems like some sort of little éclair-like buns made of milk? Little cream puffs?? Maybe by «choux au lait» Jean meant «choux à la crème» which were invented back in 1540 in France.

I know you've been waiting for the quince jelly too, but unfortunately I couldn't find anything about the jelly :c Though, judging by what we've got here It's still quite possible Louis could cook quince jelly as well, hmm... Anyways, if you know something I don't know of the jelly mystery, hit me up!

In the future, this great love for desserts will be inherited by his son Philippe I, Duke of Orléans (brother of Louis XIV), who is also a very interesting character in history!!

In conclusion I must say that Louis not only had a sweet tooth, but also a big love for trying out different things, all this curiosity and pure excitement, even when it comes to something so simple and familiar like food, will never ever stop to fascinate me :"D

Btw speaking about Louis 'trying out different things', I of course still have a lot to share on this as well! Stay tuned and have a good day/night 💘💘💘

[kimmiessimmies]

What Went Before: The Gang

This story of mine has been going on for years, mostly over on my WordPress blog. Since I have gained quite a few new followers recently, I understand not everyone is up to date with everything that went before, and sometimes it can be worth knowing a few things. So, every so often, I shall do summary posts on what went before. In this case, on the history and relationships of my deeply loved friend group, sometimes referred to as "The Gang": James, Seth, Daniel, Jill and Sarah. Beware, though, I may say "summary", but this one will probably be quite long. Are you sitting down? Do you have a spare half hour? Here we go!

"The Gang" started with James, Sarah and Dan(iel). They have known each other their whole lives, with James and Sarah being twin siblings and Dan being their cousin.

Seth and Jill joined them when they started school. As is frequently the case with young kids; it was often the boys together and the girls together at first.

But as they grew older, more and more often, the five of them played and hung out together.

The boys formed a band, which they called The Hot Wings as a joke, and making music together only strengthened their bond.

Sarah and Jill were their biggest fans and Dan's parents turned their garage into a rehearsal space for the band.

Jill's crush on James kicked in the moment the hormones did. At that point he was oblivious to it, but as puberty progressed, James started to notice the way Jill was looking at him. While he didn't hold the same feelings for her as she did for him, he did like her and was curious, so when Jill finally mustered up the courage to ask James if maybe they could hang out together sometime, he accepted.

They shared their first kiss and went from there. When they started sleeping together it was huge for Jill. It was huge for James too, but for different reasons which will be divulged by himself later in the story. Jill couldn't wait to tell bestie Sarah all about it. The only problem is... as stated above, Sarah is James' sister. And while she didn't directly say anything to James about it, she couldn't help but give him telling looks or sometimes make suggestive remarks.

So, James got fed up and ended up confronting Jill during a prom night.

This was actually one of the first "story" posts I ever made. It's... well, let's say, if you go back to this one, you can clearly see my growth...

Breaking up at prom is not a very decent thing to do, to say the least. But teenage boys are not usually known for their decency, and James was no exception.

So, that was that, James and Jill were broken up.

After the first heated emotions of the prom night had died down, Jill and James agreed to stay friends. They were both too attached to "The Gang" and felt they could make it work. And honestly, they seemed to be doing okay.

When Jill and Dan threw a party at the teen club because they both turned 18, The Hot Wings played their music, and from the way Jill was looking at James on stage that night, it was clear she was, in fact, not over him at all...

Time went on and the dynamics within The Gang were always shifting. Seth and Sarah fell in love...

...And Seth made their relationship official when he asked her to be his girlfriend on New Year's Eve of 03.

Seth and Sarah were solid from the get-go.

Things were a little more complicated where James and Jill were concerned... After a school Christmas party, they had a so-called "bonus night"...

Even though James was honest about his intentions upfront, this night had reignited a spark of hope in Jill's heart.

Six months later they sat for their final exams and were the first group of teens to initiate the fire walking ritual which Rachel, Finn and Sadie adopted 2 years later upon their high school graduation.

Jill held on to her little bit of hope until The Gang was about to start university and Sarah and Seth got word of this bonus night, which had remained their little secret up until then. It became evident right there, and then that Jill was hoping something could still be, while James had clearly moved on.

They had a good talk after which it appeared the message was clear, even to Jill: they would never be a couple ever again.

And then it was uni time. I truly had a bit of a proud parent moment when I saw the five of them with all their stuff on the lawn of their student residence.

We had come a long way and the friendship was still strong as ever. Little did we know then how much the strength of this friendship would be tested during the uni years.

Because of course life didn't stop there. Jill truly appeared to be over James when she got together with housemate Narai.

And there was a slightly awkward corridor run-in with James when she left Narai's room one morning, thinking she could cross over to her own room quickly.

All in all, things seemed to be going well for the gang. Jill appeared to be over James and order was restored.

Maybe now is a good time to bring Dan in, because not much has been said about him yet. That's mainly because Dan is maybe the most steady friend within the group. He likes to keep the peace and is usually the mediator when things get a bit more heated. Dan was the only one to find romance outside of the friend group (Sadie!)

Dan and Jill have a special friendship within The Gang. Being born only a few days apart, they started school at the same time and always celebrated their birthday parties together.

In May of 06, Eva, James and Sarah's older sister, married Jasper, Jill's cousin, in Monte Vista. All these family connections meant the entire gang got to go on a trip together!

Both Jill and Dan weren't in the happiest of moods though. Dan was upset because he and Sadie had just broken up and Jill was doubting her relationship with Narai.

Together they decided that getting drunk at the wedding was the best solution.

Which led to Jill drunkenly telling James she was definitely over him...

...and a drunken kiss with Dan...

They both immediately realised this was definitely a big mistake, had a good talk about their friendship and knew they'd never go there again. Jill also realised that her relationship with Narai wasn't going anywhere either though and broke up with him when they got back home.

And that brings us close to the present. In which Sadie started university and stirred up a lot of emotions throughout The Gang, as we have seen. And which showed Jill is actually NOT over James yet... Time will tell how this all unfolds...

If you are curious how Miss Sadie connects into all this, I actually did a "What Went Before" on her a few months back. You can read it here. I should add though that I wrote this right before she started university, so also before she locked eyes with James again and f-ed up my entire storyline. xD

[warmtoastedbread]

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Cyno x reader

Fluff, slight angst? Reference to Sumeru archon Quest.

A/N: Ahhh Cyno my beloved main, my first five star, I adore this stupid little nerd <33 I'm cooking up more stories so I'll link a master list at some point. Not sure if I'll do a pt 2

Like and follow for more. I'll gladly answer asks in my inbox, I need more Genshin friends ( •́⁠ ⁠ ⁠‿⁠ ⁠,⁠•̀ )

╰──────────∘⋞ 〈༒〉 ⋟∘──────────╯

By all accounts Cyno was an intense man.

He worked diligently at his job, day in and day out. He upheld justice and punished scholars who committed any of the six sins. It was widely known that he would go through extreme lengths to inflict fair judgement on the offending perpetrators. Even to those who'd done nothing wrong, felt immense pressure in his presence.

Genius Invocation was no mere hobby to Cyno. He consumed each new magazine or article about Genius Invocation in his spare time. Whether it was tid bits about the cards, creators or what was considered meta Cyno read it. He'd enter tournaments for the game, tournaments with the prize being a TCG card he knew about it.

He had taken you seriously from the very start. You had come to the table a few minutes late, not that Cyno minded he got there immensely early since he had some other matches to play. It gave him time to set up. He had chosen his personally curated hyperbloom team with a very fancy card back.

You sat down a little nervous as the General Mahtra gave you an indifferent look. You quickly set up your thome, taking out your cards and dice.

Cyno had won his other two matches with ease his winning streak remaining unbroken. He knew he would win from the moment you pulled out your deck.

It was a troll deck. A Dendro, an anemo and a Cryo player card with the rest of the deck being the default deck. You had forgotten to switch to your proper deck and it would take too long to go back home and fetch your proper deck. You sighed feeling guilty, as though the General Mahtra in front of you would codemn you for some reason.

His gaze was intense as he waited for you to set up both of you remained in silence.

You did well during the match much to Cyno's surprise. Two of your character cards were fallen while Cyno's cards still had hp. Only your Sucrose remained.

You played a food card at 0 cost gaining an extra health point. You doubted it would do much but it was worth a shot. Cyno was confident in his cards and simply waited for your turn to end. Even though this match was meant to be friendly, Cyno's intensity caused you to reciprocate his seriousness.

You sacrificed some cards to convert your dice and then made a normal attack using your Sucrose card. That normal attack swirled the Cryo and knocked the last two hp points off two of Cyno's cards.

You were bound to loose from the beginning, and you did, but Cyno enjoyed the competition as he had in his previous matches. You sigh, the adrenaline in your body starting to come down from it's high now that the match was over. His stare was something you wanted to avoid.

"Is that your usual deck?" He finally asks as the two of your shake hands and pack up your things.

He was immensely curious about your skill at the game because you had gotten so far with such a poor deck.

"Ah, no it's a deck I use to help get my friends used to the game. I just forgot to switch it back, sorry." You reply feeling awkward, the sweat on your hands still accumulating even after you wiped it away.

"This was a very good game though, your deck was really strong." You compliment trying not to get on his bad side.

Cyno wordlessly nodded as a thank you. He knew his deck was strong, he had worked for months getting the right cards and balancing it. Cyno wanted to play against you again, next time with a proper deck in hand so he can have a better game.

Cyno couldn't shut up about you every time Genius Invocation came up. Poor Tighnari had to hear over and over how good a player you were, how each choice you made was strategic and an accumulation of jokes related.

He invited you again to play the next time he was free, which was a few weeks later. The air was still immensely awkward when you arrived at Lambads tavern. You apologised for being late again but this time your excuse was that you made sure to bring the right deck this time.

He didn't mind. One match kept escalating and then Cyno made sure to invite you to play Genius Invocation each week. Even though you were still nervous the conversation flowed easier. You eventually learned that Cyno was significantly less scary than people made him out to be. He was still scarily intense.

Eventually you met his friends, they were nice but you felt out of place. They were fun even though you struggled to add to conversation.

Cyno was intense when he eventually asked you out. It was a romantic dinner by candle light, orchestrated by Collei after Tighnari told the stubborn General Mahtra he was in love.

He was nervous, intensely so, but the manner in which you caught his attention left him at peace. It felt calm, like a morning sunrise in the desert where nothing made a sound.

Soon that intensity showed through in his love for you. The years you two had dated was easy, unbelievably easy because he adored you more than anything. Even in the nights where he'd gotten home late from a mission you were there, snuggled up in bed waiting for him to return safely.

Your relationship had gotten particularly rocky when he resigned as General Mahamatra. He kissed you sweetly that night, told you he'd be gone for a few days on a mission and he left. Like usual.

It hurt more than anything because he left you in the dark. He hugged you goodbye, as he would when he left for any other reason but he left a letter on his desk at home. A letter addressed to you when you eventually got worried for him.

The sages were corrupted and he couldn't risk you getting involved it was just too dangerous. Cyno's absence was noticeable. Dinners that were once filled with idle chatter and bad jokes were quiet. The empty house you had once shared was suffocatingly lonely.

You had cried some nights, worried sick and hoping your lover was okay. You continued on, pushed through. That letter he left you was something you read frequently, scanning over the neat handwriting over and over.

You missed him dearly and only hoped he'd return home safely, like he did after every mission.

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My dearest,

I hope you're taking good care of yourself in my absence. I know you're worried for me but this mission is a task only I can inflict judgement on. Something immoral is happening and I left because investigating in Sumeru City will put you at risk.

Please don't misunderstand my intentions love, I will miss you dearly. You are at the center of my world and everything I do, I do with you in mind.

I regret that this situation has come to this but I can not let such abuse continue on. I will answer your every concern once I return, I promise.

If anything does happen please go to Tighnari in Ghandarva ville. He'll be able to help you with anything in the mean time.

With all my love, forever yours,

Cyno

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[laurelsofhighever]

Hey, just saw your fic with Maric x Serving Girl Alistair's Mother. I read your author's notes on Ao3, and were you hinting at conflicting information on Alistair's mother's identity? Or is my tired brain misinterpreting? I'm all for writing whatever you want, go nuts, no problem with the fic. But this peaked my interest, because I've never heard of anything disputing Fiona, given 'The Calling' novel. Does it have to do with there being no acknowledgement in DAI if you have Alistair and Fiona at Skyhold at the same time? Any information or clarification you provide would be appreciated. I always loved Maric.

Hi Nonny! This has consumed my entire evening and I hope you’re prepared for the splurge about to be unleashed. Thank you for the ask! The disclaimer at the top of the fic is there because historically the subject of Alistair’s mother has been a… charged subject, for reasons that I won’t get into now because it’s not really relevant to your ask and I don’t have a horse in that specific race.

However, if you look into canon, there is indeed a bunch of conflicting information about the identity of Alistair’s mother – or rather, there’s a bunch of information that conflicts with the Word of God confirmation from David Gaider that Fiona is Alistair’s mother. Which… is also not exactly true. In an interview from 2014 when asked specifically about it, he said (after a long, weary sigh), “I never actually meant for it to be a thing … I thought the book was fairly obvious and then people were asking and I just never confirmed it … it comes up in the game and I will leave it at that” (timestamp starting 35:28 if you want to check it out yourself). Thing is, it doesn’t come up in the game, either in DA:O or in DA:I – which may be the game he’s referring to, since the interview is mostly to hype its release. It isn’t clear.

We do come close to getting in-game evidence for Fiona: in DA:I, the Inquisitor can ask her about her past, and if you read between the lines there is wistfulness there, and she’s sorry he dies, but her comments about it being “too late” to know him could just as easily be taken as being about her time as a Grey Warden if you haven’t read The Calling (TC) – she never comes out and directly says it, and we never witness a conversation between them, even if he’s a Warden presumably curious about how she became immune to the Calling (I have thoughts about this, but we’ll get to that later). In the DA:O end slides, it says someone orders an investigation into Alistair’s parentage that comes back “inconclusive” – but even without the dubious canon of the end slides (given that some, like Cullen’s, got heavily retconned in later games) this is a shaky piece of evidence at best that Alistair’s mother was anyone other than a servant. An inquest is politically motivated, after all, and would have been more concerned with his connection to Maric than the identity of his mother.

So where does this leave us? Well, we could go in circles debating what should count as canon or not, which isn’t entirely useful because people can draw lines in the sand wherever they like to make the points they want. We could argue that BioWare is really good at retconning and muddling its own lore and that the simplest explanation – that the devs made a mistake in some of the details and no one caught it – is the most likely, and that caring about it more than Gaider obviously does (with his well-known dislike of Alistair as a character) is kind of a waste of time.

Unfortunately, you’ve asked me about it, so what we’re actually going to do is go through every relevant piece of Dragon Age media, assume it is all canon, and weigh the evidence in the text to try and offer some clarification. Where things contradict, I will give more weight to the version that targets the broadest possible audience, i.e. the games > the books and novels. Where things contradict within the games, I’ll be considering which source of information is more authentic and direct within the game’s context, i.e. Alistair should know more about his history than a tavernkeep who’s listening to rumours.

Having said this, let’s start with TC, where all of our problems begin. In the last scene of this book, Fiona introduces Maric to a baby she says is theirs, and asks him to find it a home where it can be free of the stigmas of being the child of an elven mage. Fair enough. However, as conspiracy-brained as this is going to sound, there is no direct evidence to confirm that this baby is Alistair, and one or two things that suggest it isn’t. I’m not so shallow in my literary analysis that I count the fact that the baby is never named as one of those pieces of evidence. That would just be petty. Far more compelling is:

Timing: TC is set after Queen Rowan’s death. There’s some quibble about dates in World of Thedas and whether it was supposed to be set in 9:10 or 9:14 bur really that’s a numbers game and it’s beside the point, because it’s built into the plot that Maric decides to go with the Grey Wardens specifically because he’s feeling depressed and reckless through grief for Rowan. This is important because, as gets mentioned quite a few times in DA:O, Alistair was hidden in Redcliffe because Rowan was still alive. This is a conflict of information, and as already stated, games > novels.

There’s no amulet: Giving Alistair his mother’s amulet is a pretty significant moment in DA:O. It’s all he has of hers, and it’s something that ties them together narratively. If this was all meant to wrap up neatly, then the least Gaider could have done would have been to mention Fiona taking off her Andrastian amulet and gifting it to Alistair to be something of hers he can keep even when she’s not with him anymore. The fact that this doesn’t happen makes this scene emotionally empty when we know he got an amulet from a person whom he considered to be his mother. If not Fiona, then where did it come from?

'“He’s human,” [Maric] exclaimed out loud': if there’s one thing a lot of DA fans can agree on, it’s that “human/elf hybrids are totally human” is bullshit. It’s not how genetics works, it has some yikes implications considering how heavily the devs took inspiration from oppressed minorities to create the elves, and it’s not a plot point that’s ever used in an interesting way (we will get to Michel de Chevin in a moment). It’s also not true. In DA2 there is an entire series of quests about a character named Feynriel, who was born to a Dalish mother and a human father, and who is visibly part-elven. He has points on his ears! He has facial proportions halfway between the humans and elves in the game! He’s rejected by both sides of his family because of it! Now, there is also Michel de Chevin, who in The Masked Empire (TME) is revealed to have an elven mother, but this is never mentioned when he appears in DA:I, and is kind of a non-issue in the novel as well. This is the most nebulous piece of evidence by far, as it relies by default on picking which bits of material are canon, which I've already said we’re not doing here, and to be honest the physical differences between elves and humans are only really noticeable in DA2 where there was an effort made to make them look deliberately nonhuman.

Except for the timeline of the book, the evidence in TC is circumstantial. We get to more definite evidence in Until We Sleep (UWS), the third volume in The Silent Grove comics storyline, where Alistair gets to meet and talk with a dream version of his father, Maric. When Alistair asks his father to come home, Maric says, “I had a life. The people I love are all here – Cailan, your mother, Loghain… none of them are in the real world any longer, are they?” (A+ parenting there btw). Since this series takes place before DA:I, Fiona is definitely still alive, so Maric can’t be talking about her. Also, it’s interesting to note that this too is written by David Gaider, so it’s not a case of writers being at cross-purposes or not getting any intra-office memos. There are continuity mistakes in these comics, but these are mostly confined to the fact that neither Alistair nor Isabella match their in-game appearances – and remember, the games have more weight than the comics. Having said that, it does conflict with the "official" story.

With all this said, let’s come to the other beginning of all our problems, most people’s proper introduction to Alistair’s character, DA:O. In this game, it is a significant plot point that Alistair is the son of a servant from Redcliffe: it is explicitly stated in Alistair’s codex entry, and furthermore, it is something that multiple characters assert is true, including Loghain and Alistair himself.

First, Loghain. If you spare him at the Landsmeet, he joins your party and has dialogue options that talk about Alistair and why he was kept at Redcliffe. According to him, Maric nearly acknowledged Alistair, but “had more than his honour to think of”, namely the effect it would have had on Rowan and Cailan (implied: how that would have affected political stability in a Ferelden still recovering from the Orlesian Occupation). He points out that Alistair "would have been a continual reminder to Rowan of Maric’s infidelity”, which as mentioned above, means that she would have still been alive when Alistair was born.

As for Alistair, yes he was a baby at the time so doesn’t really have an objective viewpoint, and it’s not confirmed whether the person he considers his mother died in childbirth or just in his early years – the codex entry says “when he was young”, he says “when I was born”. Nevertheless, it’s clear he’s asked questions about her because he knows roughly who she was and what she did, and also at some point learnt the name and rough location of the person his entire companion quest (and Fade dream) revolves around.

Let’s talk about Goldana.

Really, she is the biggest wrench in the certainty that Fiona is Alistair’s mother, because there’s no way to square away that fact with her existence, and by extension the existence of the servant in Redcliffe who was her (and Alistair’s) mother. But what if she’s just an exceptional liar, thinking she could make a quick sovereign out of the king’s bastard by playing along? It’s possible. However:

When you take Alistair to meet her, she’s the one who brings up Maric (“I said the babe was the king’s, and they told me he was dead, and gave me a coin to shut my mouth”) – Alistair until that point has only mentioned his mother and that she worked in Redcliffe Castle. If she was hedging her bets, wouldn’t it make more sense for her to accuse him of being Eamon’s bastard?

If she were talking nonsense, why would “they” bribe her with hush money? It would be very easy for someone as powerful as Arl Eamon to dismiss or debunk such claims, and he shouldn’t care what a random servant’s kid has to say – unless there’s a kernel of truth in it that he doesn’t want anyone looking at more closely

On that same note, why would “they” tell her the baby was dead if it wasn’t, if it was just some random’s kid? Either there’s an entirely separate baby that Goldana believes for some mysterious reason was fathered by the king, which Alistair – actually fathered by the king – replaced at just the right age that nobody noticed, or they’re the same baby. One of these options is far more plausible than the other

If she’s that good at lying, why is she still just a washerwoman living in a hovel and asking three copper per load? She should be running Denerim!

Facetiousness aside, Goldana’s story confirms that at the very least there was a serving girl in Redcliffe Castle who had a baby at roughly the same time that Alistair was born, and that for whatever reason, she was connected enough to Maric that multiple people in the castle suspected he was the father (and resented Alistair because of it). If this was an entirely separate baby, then it makes Maric an absolute shit of a person to have taken one son and used him to replace one that had just died in childbirth. Either that or a complete idiot for sending his actual son to a place where he’s rumoured to have a son and deciding that’s a secure hiding place – because you can’t tell me Eamon wasn’t aware of what was going on under his own roof. Even the fact that Alistair himself knows and was aware of it from a young age suggests that it wasn’t a very well-kept secret.

So where does all this leave us? From here, things get a little more suppositional, a little more Doylist, and a lot more subjective. To start with, taking into account all of the above evidence, if Fiona is Alistair’s mother, then his arrival at Redcliffe relies on a – I would say – plot-breaking  set of contrivances.

1: Fiona, somehow cured of the darkspawn taint enough to have a child, arrives in Denerim with Alistair, who isn’t old enough to be weaned yet, asking for somewhere to put him that won’t draw attention. She does this after walking pretty much all the way across Thedas even though, as mentioned in TC, the Wardens already have procedures in place for fostering children born to their ranks, presumably ones that don’t involve so much steady exercise.

2: Instead of using his kingly resources to track down a woman in Denerim who has recently given birth and telling her to take on an extra kid, Maric decides to send the baby to the other end of the country, to the house of an unmarried nobleman who will definitely not stir any gossip if he shows up on his own doorstep with an infant he wants someone to care for. Where did the baby come from? Don’t ask. Are you happy that everyone will think this kid is your bastard? I’m sure it’s a decision that won’t have any negative consequences for me in the future. But you are going to tell everyone he’s your bastard to keep up the ruse, right? No, now stop asking questions.

2: Luckily, there’s a woman in Eamon’s household who has recently given birth, or is at least close to it, and they can substitute? add? this baby to that baby without having to pay her off, because she’s an employee. The bait ‘n’ switch is timed so perfectly that no one notices that there are in fact two babies, or that the baby is suddenly several months older than it was before (truly, a medical miracle). Unless they’re exactly the same age, in which case what are the odds.

3: Somehow, despite all the secrecy, this woman’s other child knows that the baby is the king’s and won’t shut up about it, to the point where someone has to pay her off and send her packing. But that’s all unnecessary, because the woman – and her original baby I guess? – both die and leave no witnesses.

4: Rowan still manages to be mad about this and everyone is worried for her reputation despite having been dead for two years.

It’s a level of convolution that does not exist with the alternative, which has been pretty common since forever in the real world: powerful man sees pretty woman, decides he’ll have that, doesn’t want to face the consequences, makes everyone miserable in the process. Alistair’s mother being an ordinary person caught up in the orbit of someone she can’t resist is so much more narratively coherent, if significantly less romantic.

And this is where we get into the biggest problem that I have with Fiona-as-Alistair’s-mother: it has no payoff. These are fictional people, structure is important for narrative, and while I’m not saying that every little thing has to have purpose or direction, a pretty significant amount of Alistair’s character arc in DA:O is wiped away if his mother isn’t who he thinks it is. His story is about social class and identity and whether legacy is even worth it: Fiona’s identity means nothing to him, and that’s not something that ever changes. In DA:I she looks a bit sad when she mentions him, but there’s no work ever done to explore that, or to explore how Alistair might feel if his mother is actually alive but abandoned him, and how awkward that makes things for him if he’s king. OR to have him hear that she’s now immune to the taint and be just a little bit curious about how that came about. There’s no conversation, no status quo shift. Instead, the devs rely on the fans who know this metatextual fact to do the emotional heavy lifting for them and extrapolate the consequences they don’t want to deal with themselves.

It is lazy writing.

In some cases I also think it becomes a prop that invalidates the point of his character arc – and even breaks the worldbuilding a little, turning what was originally a struggle to forge an identity separate from people’s expectations, into a straight case of nepotism. The two most egregious examples?

Is he able to use templar abilities without lyrium because anyone with enough training and discipline can do it, and the lyrium is just the Chantry’s way of keeping its army leashed and loyal? Nope, it’s because he’s special because his mummy was a mage and it gave him special latent mage powers. That’s far more interesting than examining the ramifications of a religious order using addiction and brainwashing to make sure its soldiers will commit atrocities without question.

Is he a Warden because of his strength of will and determination to survive, chosen from the ranks of the other potential recruits because he had a spark of something that Duncan knew would be valuable in the fight against the darkspawn? Nope, it’s because his mummy was a Grey Warden and gave him special taint immunity powers, and also she was best friends with the current Warden-Commander so he was picked even though there were better fighters among the potentials competing that day. Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean that all Wardens secretly have Warden blood already because that would be ridiculous, it’s just Alistair who needed that extra leg-up because otherwise he’d be useless at everything.

I promised myself I would rein in the sarcasm but from a storytelling perspective it really annoys me that this shift turns him from an ordinary person into the specialest boy in the world, because it denies him his agency and takes the teeth out of his achievements. I’m not even going to get into how it lets BioWare off the hook for representation, insisting he is half-elven and taking a gold star when he’s never identifiable in-world as a member of an oppressed minority, and it never has any bearing on how he views the world or how it views him. It feels like it’s giving the devs far more credit than they deserve, especially when the effort they put into this (minimal as it was) could have gone into giving Zevran more to say on this. exact. subject. He’s right there, and he is perfect for exploring this aspect of the worldbuilding when he isn't being overlooked.

This is getting a little ranty now so I’ll wrap it up with thanks for your patience, Nonny, if you’ve made it this far. What’s the conclusion? At the end of the day, people can make up their own minds with their own reasoning, all I’ve attempted to do here is lay out the various threads untangled from the snarl that is BioWare’s incomparable ability to fuck up their own lore. Personally, I think Alistair’s mother being an ordinary servant makes his journey and the themes of his character arc more compelling wherever he ends up, and I like that this means his parentage is a facet of his identity rather than the only interesting thing about him. I also think the weight of evidence in DA:O, the game where he’s first introduced, is greater than in a tacked-on scene at the end of a tie-in novel written by a guy who seemed to just think it was a good idea at the time. But hey, I’m not the authority.

However, if there’s one solid takeaway from this then here it is: don’t give BioWare more credit than they deserve, don’t do their work for them, and especially don’t assume they’re leading us down a merry path with super-secret truths for enlightened minds only when the simpler explanation is that no one stopped (in this instance) David Gaider getting carried away.

[whereianonymouslypostfics]

The Flip Side Part 3

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x reader

Word count: ~8.4k

Summary: Your motivation to continue working as a mobster in Chicago is dwindling after the birth of your daughter.

A/N: For the anon who asked, there should be 14 or 15 parts to this series if all goes according to plan! There will likely be an interruption to the update schedule soon, but I’ll get into that more when we’re closer to the date. Ignore any typos, I’ve had a headache for days and can’t be bothered to proof read. Enjoy! 

Warnings: Death, blood, angst, reference to alcoholism, teasing, suggestive content

You look to your friend, your big sister with a sigh before admitting how you’ve felt recently. She knows about how things are changing for you at work, but you’ve kept your cards close to your chest recently as you tried to work everything out. You realize how unhealthy this is, and clearly your friends have picked up on it as well. You need to share what’s bothering you, so hopefully you can get some advice, or just share the stress so it’s not all on you.

“I’m going to need a drink before I talk about this.”

Nat frowns at you and shakes her head without missing a beat. She doesn’t like where this is going, but she is at least glad that you’re not brushing her off.

“That’s not funny, yet. You need to be at least ten years out to say that shit.”

You groan under your breath but just nod in agreement. You suppose it is a little too soon, especially considering how many times you’ve imagined drinking this month, and it’s only the first week. You kick the dirt at your feet with a scowl as it gets on your shoes before getting to the point.

“I’ve just been stressed trying to decrease my work load.”

Nat watches you fidget as you consider saying more. She hopes you do because she’s a little confused by this. She assumed that you’d be less stressed by getting all of this off your plate. It’s not until you mention what’s stressing you out that she realized she should have known better.

“Putting all of this out of my hands is making me feel out of control. Like I don’t have a handle on anything anymore.”

You feel Nat shift so she’s standing hip to hip with you and then an arm is wrapping around your shoulders. Nat takes a deep breath beside you and you wait for her to gather her thoughts as you try to relax against her.

Nat’s known that you’ve always been a bit of a control freak and that’s what made you so good at your job. You were on top of every little deal and anything that was scheduled was always on your radar. It was exhausting sure, but it had allowed you to be successful and bring in billions of dollars in revenue over the years. Your attempt to take a step back was proving to be more detrimental than expected.

“I didn’t realize how difficult it would be for you. Maybe we can work something out with Saunders.”

You frown at the mention of the brunette’s name. She was someone that you’d hired to oversee operations, and with her team of maybe a dozen people, she kept record of everything that happened within your territory. It was all in code so if anyone found it, they wouldn’t be able to make heads or tails of it, but you honestly didn’t work much with her. She was there to keep things organized, but maybe Nat was on to something. Maybe talking to her about keeping you more in the loop would help. That said, you didn’t want to tip anyone off that you might be trying to leave.

You’re not sure how to say this to Nat without tipping her off, but for the second time today, you underestimate her. She’d put two and two together rather easily and she pulls away slightly so she can shoot you a curious look. She’s a little surprised that you’ve already started preparations to break free from the mob. It’s not something you’d ever mentioned doing, but given that you had a daughter to worry about now, it made sense. She just wasn’t sure how practical it was at this point.

“That could help short term, but you’re more interested in finding someone to take over, aren’t you?”

Sometimes you hate being surrounded by people who are smarter than you. It can be embarrassing when you’re the last one to figure out what the answer is, but in this case you just feel depressed. You know what you want to do, but you’re not sure you’re smart enough to figure it out. Who would want to take over this shit show for you? Better yet, how likely are you to be able to break away from it without consequence. It’s hard to have the answers to these questions, and even with your friend’s help it’s not something you expect to find out until you’ve already done it.

“I do, but that’s a ways off, isn’t it? I think the first thing I need to focus on is dealing with this extra stress.”

You feel your eye twitch at the mere thought of the immense amount of stress you’ve put yourself under. You need to make sure that everything you’ve worked on over the years is enough to keep you on the right track with this new and inconvenient change. You pause at the thought of this, and when you scowl Nat sees it and frowns herself.

The change in your life was your daughter’s birth. That’s not something you want to resent because it’s only made your life better in numerous ways. You feel closer with your wife, your brother-in-law that you’re sure doesn’t like you, and you feel like you’ve accomplished something for the first time since marrying Wanda. You were very successful with your work, every day you made money and progress, but it was starting to feel like empty victories. You didn’t want to feel like this anymore and you needed out. You wanted out for your family, and you wanted out for yourself.

You just needed to figure out how to do this.

She pulls you in for a hug and you sigh in relief as she squeezes you tightly. You take a moment to breathe in Nat’s scent and bask in her presence. You’re not alone in this. There are people who are willing to help you figure this out. You’d realized this years ago when you were at your worst, but sometimes you forgot that it wasn’t a bad thing to ask for help. You know they’d be there for you.

“I’m here for whatever you need, Y/n. Okay? Just let me know how I can help.”

You nod in answer before you turn so you’re hugging the redhead properly. You just spend a few seconds in her arms before you sigh in defeat. You’ll figure this out, but for now you just needed to remember that Nat had your back.

“Thank you, Nat.”

She merely hums before she pulls away to smile at you. You laugh when she grabs you by the shoulders and pretends to give you a stern look.

“You’re welcome. As a thank you, I expect to be invited over soon. I need to see my goddaughter.”

You’re on your way to see Yelena when you get a text from Bucky telling you that Logan will be free to meet you in an hour. You respond at a red light and you breathe a sigh of relief that this is settled. You aren’t looking forward to talking to him about what happened last night, but you want to see if you can get a little more information from him.

As you pull into the parking lot behind the warehouse that Yelena and Kate had completely redone to serve as their home base and literal home, you wonder where Bucky is. He’s always around, but you rarely see him unless you need him by your side. You’d reduced your security detail to just him and one other guy who truly tailed you everywhere in the last year and so far it hasn’t bitten you in the ass. You let Bucky track your phone and Carter tracks your car to keep an eye on you. Knowing this is mostly just a friendly visit, you figure they’ll keep their distance until you go see Logan.

You walk up to the side of the building and immediately hear menacing barking. You swear that if anyone was faced with this and didn’t know these dogs personally, they’d high tail it out of here. You smiled at the cameras that Yelena had set up all around the area before waiting patiently for the door to open.

“Yo.”

You’re greeted by your friend and her three rottweilers. You smile at them widely before you step inside and drop to your knees to greet them all individually.

“Hey there girls, how are you doing today.”

You scratch all three of the adorable block heads in front of you before you wipe their fur off of you and greet your friend. She’s shooting you an annoyed look even though you know she’s really amused by your ability to always have a smile ready for any animal you meet. Except snakes. Those freaked you out.

“And you, how are you?”

Yelena rolls her eyes before leading your further into the building with a sigh. She’d been busy figuring out the numbers for the loans she was collecting later today, so she’s happy to have the reprieve. She hates dealing with money, but honestly getting to be the one to collect it all gave her a thrill like nothing else. She sees that her cat is trying to chew on some of the papers crowding the table and she reaches out to grab her.

“Cyka, get off.”

“Don’t be mean to Blanche!”

Yelena rolls her eyes again before she heads to the kitchen to clean up a little. She’d just finished lunch and she knew if she didn’t clean it up now her dogs would come find it and break some dishes again.

“I wasn’t and I’m fine. Getting you money as usual.”

You smile at this and briefly forget about greeting your friend’s cat as you sit down at her table. You groan as you stretch out your back while glancing at the confusing diagrams and numbers Yelena’s written down. You ignore her as she tidies up as you try to make sense of what you’re looking at. You don’t succeed and you’re too tired to bother, so you just turn your attention back to the trio that have followed you with a smile.

“Hi girls. You’re just so sweet, huh? Have you been good doggos?”

You continue to pet Yelena’s dogs as she sneaks a bottle of vodka into the cabinet before coming over to see what you’re up to. She brings you a bottle of your favorite soda and watches as you continue to fawn over her truly useless dogs. They are all named after the Golden Girls, and they are all rescues from various animal shelters that you and Kate work with. Despite looking scary and having intimidating barks, they don’t serve any purpose other than as companions for the couple. They’d been rescued from abusive owners and they were more timid than any dogs you’d met, but they were so loveable that you couldn’t help but want to steal them.

“Thanks.”

Yelena nods as she sits across from you and moves a good deal of her work to one side of the table. You don’t remember what you wanted to ask her initially as you take a sip of your drink. You hadn’t realized how thirsty you were, and you have to force yourself not to down it all immediately.

“Nat said you’d be stopping by. Is this dog-related? Should I get Kate?”

You shake your head as you briefly glance to the stairs where Kate might be working. She usually listens to music, but you don’t hear any drift down making you think she’s not here. Yelena reads your mind as she tells you that the brunette is sleeping. She’d also had a late night, but she was lucky enough to get to work with dogs. A few years after getting established with the mob, you’d figured out how to do something you really enjoyed. It was all anonymous as far as the government was concerned, but you and Kate had contacted animal shelters and figured out a way to keep dogs alive long enough for them to get adopted. You provided funds to the shelter for their care, and you’ve actually fostered close to 2 dozen dogs yourself. Milo and Rudy, your jack russells were foster fails that you’ve had for a couple of years now.

Kate had a golden for a while, but after he died, she and Yelena rescued the rotties who were more than enough for the time being. Being so young, they had a lot of energy and they went with Kate almost wherever she went just so they got exercise and better socialization.

“It’s okay. This is actually about your next collection. I have a feeling I know what you’re going to say, but I needed to give it a shot.”

You tell Yelena that last night had put you in a difficult position. You needed to get rid of the senator, but you didn’t have the funds to reorganize a hit right now. Even if you just asked another one of your employees, you didn’t have enough to pay them at the moment. Your money was in so many different places, and unfortunately not very accessible at the moment.

“I’m just wondering if it would be beneficial to move it up any.”

Yelena frowns as she considers this. Her sister had warned her that you’d probably ask this, and despite the fact that she wanted to help she’s not sure she could this time. She’s had a set schedule for so long that she wasn’t quite ready to go out and collect debts. Not only that, but the business owners that paid them likely wouldn’t have everything they owed you so it would be a waste of time and an unexpected stressor if she tried to go early. You understood this and despite not liking it, you accepted it because you knew Yelena was the expert. She was the one who dealt with this every day, and you were just going to have to let this go.

“If it makes you feel any better, we’re expecting a little more than usual this cycle.”

She shows you’re her calculations and you have to admit that an extra 1.2 million makes waiting seem worth it. That was basically Nat’s fee for doing the job for you. You sigh as you lean back in your chair and think about your options. Yelena is basically telling you no, and you don’t feel the need to override her on this. She knows better than you anyway, so you suppose this hit will have to wait a little longer.

“What happened with the hit last night anyway?”

Of course, Nat had told her a little about it, but she mostly wanted to hear your opinion on it. It’s no secret that you’ve been on edge recently, and you were really looking forward to checking Jacobs off your list. She watches silently as you finish your drink before rolling the bottle between your hands. You’d had more time to think about it on the drive here, and you’d concluded that you were missing something very important; namely who tipped off the senator. You’ve been stuck on the reporter that he’d supposedly been talking to, and after scouring the web you hadn’t been able to find any recent publications about him that didn’t involve his horrible new policies. You didn’t know what to think, and you were eager to figure out as much as possible.

“Unsure at this time but someone tipped him off, and I want to find out who.”

You reminded her of who you’d asked to carry out the hit and you watch as she frowns at the mention of his name. Yelena, along with Steve, were the ones who did the most recruiting for your mob, and despite hiring him quickly Yelena had her reservations about the blonde. She knew he was smart and he did what he was supposed to, but he’d always been a little squirrely which to her translated to easily manipulated.

“I don’t trust him to tell you the truth, but hopefully he proves me wrong.”

You hadn’t expected your friend to say this and you place the bottle down on the table before shaking your head. You weren’t the only one who was paranoid in your friend group, and you had a feeling you knew what this was about. She’d questioned your decision to give this job to the blonde, but he’d been an employee for years, and he’d yet to disappoint. This was his opportunity to impress you, and although it didn’t work out you hoped that it was for reasons beyond his control.

“I know how you feel about him, but he doesn’t strike me as the mastermind type, Yelena.”

Yelena frowns at the subtle hint at the last person who tried to steal from you. That had been a mess and you’d had to kill him rather publicly to make sure that no one else followed in his footsteps. You scowl at the thought of the dead blonde before you shake your head again and cross your arms over your chest.

“He’s not going to turn into another Vision, and with any luck I’ll figure out what happened soon.”

It’s only an hour or so later that you end up cursing yourself for saying these words. You left Yelena’s after confirming that she’ll come over when Nat does for dinner at the end of the week. You’d let Bucky know where you were going and he told you he was right behind you. You take the almost 20-minute drive to recall your conversation with Yelena. Although you were leaving without a promise of money sooner rather than later, you were more relaxed than you thought you’d be. You credited this to the time you got to spend with Yelena’s dogs. You always felt comforted by a dog’s presence, and you almost think getting another younger one you can travel with would improve your mood.

As you arrive at Logan’s apartment building, you consider what Yelena said about him earlier. You don’t think that he would betray you. He didn’t seem brave enough. Then again, you had thought the same thing about Vision only to find out that he had been plotting against you for nearly a year.

He’d been brought in to help you manage money. That had been your first mistake. You still stand by your belief that your second mistake was not firing him the first time he hit on your wife. He’d been an awkward, yet overconfident man who had visited you one day at Wanda’s restaurant. He’d spent most of your conversation staring at her, and you’d immediately started trying to figure out how to fire him. Wanda had convinced you to let it go and she promised to just be scarce whenever he was around. Except Vision made a point of showing up at her work at random times, or rather when she was there, but you were busy with something else. He flirted relentlessly despite Wanda telling him off, and she’d only told you this after you had him killed for trying to steal from you.

You forget all about Vision as you step out of your car and head for the main entrance. It’s just starting to get dark, so you’re still cautious as you follow Logan’s instructions and head for the side stairwell immediately. You count the number of flights and wonder if you’d be in better shape if you actually had time to work out. Your legs are sore by the time you get to the sixth floor. You remind yourself to work out later tonight as you open the door to the hallway and look the nearest apartment to see the number.

“635”

You’re looking for 602, so you probably should have gone to the other stairwell. You arrive to his apartment and you knock three times before stepping back a little as you wait for him to answer. You’re tapping your foot impatiently as you look around the hallway. You can hear music coming from a nearby apartment but you can’t tell where. You knock again, and when he doesn’t answer a second time you frown before raising your hand a third time.

“Logan, are you there? Hello?”

You wait for a few seconds before deciding to try calling him. You wait as the call connects and you hear his phone ringing on the other side of the door. You frown and can’t help but become suspicious as you reach for the door. You remember last minute to wrap your shirt around the doorknob so you don’t leave prints as you slowly turn it only to find it’s open. You slowly push the door open and the ringing phone becomes louder as you enter the apartment.

“Logan? I know you’re here. No millennial leaves their phone at home.”

You leave the door cracked behind you as you venture into the dark and dingy apartment. You follow the sound of his phone through the living room and it leads you to a room down the hall. You have a hand on your gun by the time you push the door to the last room open slowly. When you see Logan lying in bed half dressed with his throat slit, you’re pulling it from your hip.

“Fuck.”

You don’t bother to see if he’s alive. There’s so much blood that you’re certain he’s not, and you hang up before dialing Bucky’s number. You glance around the room and then check the others to make sure that there’s no one else here. You nearly jump out of your skin as you walk back into the living room and see a cat sitting on the coffee table. It’s a fat black cat and you just stare at them angrily as you try to calm your breathing.

“Y/n, what’s up?”

Bucky’s voice reminds you that you’d called him and you check the kitchen and the dining room before you answer him. Your chest is tight and your voice hoarse as you speak up.

“Bucky, there’s been a development.”

Wanda is pleasantly surprised when you’re home by 7. She’d finished dinner and Natalya was fed and off to bed, but you were still home earlier than she thought you’d be. When she hears the elevator, she smiles as it’s quickly followed by pattering of dog feet as they run to greet you. Milo leads the way followed by Sully and Boone. When they disappear down the hall, she doesn’t think anything of it, but when she hears Milo bark she frowns in confusion.

“Y/n?”

Wanda leaves the kitchen and heads down the hall to find that you’re already halfway to the kitchen. You’re looking down at your dogs as you hold something in your arms. Wanda thinks it’s a jacket or your purse, but as you walk closer to her and under the living room lights, she realizes that it’s an animal.

“Is that—is that a cat?”

You offer a sheepish smile as you struggle to hold the squirmy cat that you’d decided to take on a whim. After calling Bucky upstairs and showing him what you’d stumbled upon the two of you made yourself scarce. You’d decided to send an anonymous tip to the police so they’d find Logan, but you did nothing else as you tried to figure out how this had happened between the time you talked to him this afternoon and stumbled upon him this evening.

You nod before walking toward your wife who looked more shocked than angry. There was plenty of time for this to change though, especially given what you were about to tell her. You frown slightly when you realize that Natalya must already be in bed, but you’ll worry about that after you catch Wanda up.

“Yes, I rescued her from an employee’s place. She was abandoned.”

Wanda had several follow up questions, but the most important ones were disregarded momentarily as she watched you put the rotund cat on the ground. She watches as she wobbles around and sniffs the ground before coming to sniff her.

“She?”

You look up with a shrug before mentioning that you’re just guessing. You hadn’t exactly looked and there was no collar on them so you just picked a sex and went with it. You didn’t think you’d be able to see anything through all her fat anyway.

“Yeah, I figured there’s enough testosterone in this house.”

Wanda would usually laugh but as she watches the cat hiss at Rudy and then run off to hide in the living room, she wonders how this is going to work out. You must see her worrying because you reach out for her and pull her into a hug. You hadn’t greeted her properly and you’d like to make up for this now. You kiss your distracted wife before offering an apology for the unannounced guest.

“I’m sorry for not calling, but it happened rather quickly. It will only be for a couple of days then I can take her to the shelter if you���d like.”

Wanda doesn’t respond immediately as she’s too preoccupied watching the fat cat try to jump on the couch. She doesn’t let any animal on furniture, and if she truly felt that the poor cat could make it up there, she’d run over to stop her. Instead, she just flops back on the ground with a quiet thud, and Wanda turns to you with a sigh.

“What’s her name?”

You’d spent too much time considering this on the way home, but you don’t want to give yourself away as you shrug again before heading toward the kitchen to see what your wife cooked.

“I was thinking Fat Louise, unless there’s something else you liked better.”

Wanda looks at you in astonishment before she turns to see that Fat Louise has curled up into a ball, and she honestly looks like a giant furry blob.

“That’s-that’s not very nice.”

You’re lifting the lid of the pot on the stove as Wanda says this and you offer her a smile before looking around for a spoon.

“You have to admit she’s fat, but like I said you can change her name. I’m not particularly attached to it.”

Wanda thinks about her options as you get dinner reheated for both of you. You take Wanda’s to the table while she gets your drinks. After the soda you had a Yelena’s and then the excitement earlier this evening, you feel a little hyper. Your leg is bouncing by the time that Wanda comes to sit across from you, and when you look up, she’s frowning slightly.

“Long day, detka?”

You’ve started to eat already and you’re chewing as you nod in response. The day wasn’t super long compared to others, but you did a lot of talking, and airing out your concerns always stressed you out. Finding Logan dead and realizing that someone was trying really hard to cover up what happened last night also exhausted you. You would worry about this tomorrow because maybe you’d have the official police report and if you’re lucky it will tell you something you don’t know.

“A lot of catching up with people, but not too bad. How was yours?”

Wanda smiles at the thought of her day, and she tells you how she cooked for a lot of it, but also spent time outside with the dogs.

“It was such a nice day out, and Natalya got to spend some time with her brothers.”

You smile at your wife’s word because although you were the first one to refer to the dogs as Nat’s siblings, Wanda had continued to do so. You’d initially meant it as a joke, but you were glad to see that she also wanted to see them all get along. It was easiest with the older boys for sure because they were more patient and tolerant. The last time you’d tried to have one of the terriers sit with Nat, they’d gotten a little too rowdy.

“That’s wonderful. I wish I could have been here for that, but I did get to spend a little time outside.”

As you say this you take a long sip of the water that Wanda had brought you. You hadn’t realized how dehydrated you were from sitting out in the sun and then running around trying to deal with Logan. You’re thinking about getting some more when Wanda speaks up. She’d been glancing between you and your pets periodically to make sure they were all getting along. Fat Louise was just lying on the rug while the dogs mostly ignored her. Wanda wondered if she was actually larger than their terriers.

“Did you sunbathe as well?”

Wanda’s mostly kidding but when she sees your smile, she realizes there is at least some truth in her words. She wonders if it was with Nat or Yelena that you’d done this, but she doesn’t have to wonder long as you nod in answer.

“A little. I laid out on my car while talking to Nat.”

Wanda chuckles under her breath at the image because she has no doubt that you did this. You could sleep almost anywhere if you put your mind to it, but your car was actually one of your least favorites. She stops short of asking a follow up question when she sees that you’re frowning slightly as you think back on your conversation with Nat.

“She and Yelena are coming over for dinner this weekend, if that’s okay? They wanted to spoil their goddaughter/niece.”

Wanda merely nods as she smiles at the idea of you inviting your friends over. You both wanted them to spend time with Natalya, and maybe if Kate tagged along, you’d get your way about interrogating her. This thought leaves Wanda’s mind as soon as you clear your throat and shoot your nearly empty plate a nervous look.

“We also talked about work in general and how it’s been stressing me out a lot.“

Wanda waits for you to elaborate, but your focus has shifted to your food in an attempt to distract yourself or avoid this conversation all together. Wanda takes comfort in the fact that you’d brought it up at all, so she’s careful not to push too much as she asks for a little more detail.

“In what way?”

Wanda knows that there are a lot of ways that you could answer this question. Your work has always been stressful and ironically the illegal aspect of it wasn’t the main factor. You always found having so many people in your employ stressful because you were responsible for all of their decisions, their actions and unfortunately, they didn’t always do what you asked. Not being able to have a hand in every important decision was definitely something that you were struggling to get used to. It’s only recently that you’ve decided that as long as you’re not caught and sent to jail, or murdered before you can find someone to take your place, it will be fine.

You just wanted to do this on your own terms, and that is where things became a little tricky.

You don’t want to tell Wanda all of this because she would just worry with you. You’d talked to Nat and then Yelena a bit so you were already feeling better now that you had a solid plan. That said, figuring out what happened to Logan and dealing with a possible sabotage was throwing a wrench in your not-so-best-laid plans.

“I’m trying to take a step back as you know, but it’s just a little harder than I thought.”

Wanda doesn’t respond immediately because she’s trying to figure out exactly what you mean. You’ve never told her much because she honestly didn’t want to know, but as long as she knew that you were being as safe as possible and not drawing too much attention to yourself, she wouldn’t complain. The rare visits from the police were always disturbing but luckily, they never turned into anything more than visits. She briefly wonders if you’ve chosen someone to take over for you, but she nearly shakes her head at the thought. That was too much to ask for, and since you’ve given her no indication that you were on your way out, she wouldn’t get her hopes up.

“I know letting go of control is difficult for you, Y/n.”

Your wife frowns when you only nod silently, and she wonders if she’s missed the mark. It’s hard for her to figure out what the real issue is, and short of you sharing it with her she’s not sure she’ll ever know. You know that what Wanda’s saying is right, but it’s only part of the issue. You’re considering opening up more to her when you both hear the soft cries coming through the baby monitor.

“I’ll go check on her.”

You feel a little guilty about how quickly you try to flee this conversation, but this fades as Wanda stands up as well. She’s obviously not done talking about this and you are reminded once again of why you love this strong, stubborn woman.

“I’ll come with you.”

You smile as you reach out for her hand to lead her down the hall toward the nursery. You cast a cursory glance over your shoulder to make sure that the trio in the living room are still behaving. You turn around again missing how Rogue gets up to join you two. Wanda merely smiles before waving him along with them encouragingly. It’s rare that he wants to interact with Natalya, but more often than not he likes to follow Wanda around.

“What story did you read tonight?”

You’re mostly asking out of interest, not because you believe that Wanda’s choice wasn’t a good one. A couple nights a week, Natalya will go to sleep easily, but then wake up later because she’s hungry or lonely. You’re not sure which it is tonight, but you won’t pass up on the opportunity to spend some time with your daughter.

Wanda shakes her head as you both enter the room and leave the door open so Rogue can follow behind you. She hadn’t read one of Nat’s books tonight. She’d decided to tell her a story about her childhood, but since she wanted to eventually teach Natalya her native language, she’d told it in Sokovian. You smile widely as you reach into the crib to pick up your fussy daughter. You kiss her on the cheek before turning toward Wanda.

“That sounds like fun, did you learn anything, Little Nat?”

As expected, she doesn’t do more than just coo for you as she reaches out for Wanda. You smile before squeezing Nat gently as you hand her over to her mother.

“Such a mama’s girl.”

You smirk as Natalya makes grabby hands at her brunette mom’s hair. You smile as she accepts her daughter with a smile of her own that quickly turns into an exasperated sigh as her hair is immediately tugged on. You take pity on her and quickly help untangle Nat’s fingers from her hair. You put it behind her shoulders for her, and watch the duo greet each other. In Wanda’s case, she leaves a kiss on her baby’s nose, but Nat just starts to whimper as she practically smacks Wanda in the face.

“Nat, honey, that’s not nice.”

Wanda leans away slightly but it doesn’t do much good as Nat continues to whimper threateningly. You see a tantrum coming on and you would like to prevent it as much as possible, so you’re already running toward the kitchen for a bottle.

Your wife is on the same page and she follows you out of the room just at a much slower pace. Rogue whines but follows Wanda out as she heads back to the kitchen with a smile.

“Are you hungry, milaya?”

Natalya’s only response is to grab at her shirt and tug furiously. She has frustrated tears in her eyes and Wanda hates to see her so upset. She’s glad that by the time she arrives you’re warming up a bottle for Natalya and waiting impatiently for it to finish.

“Just a few minutes, baby.”

Wanda’s bouncing her baby and luckily, she’s distracted enough to just hold Wanda’s shirt in her tiny fist instead of trying to rip it. You recognize the signs of Natalya being hungry, and you can’t help but smile as your lean against the counter.

“She’s insatiable, isn’t she?”

Wanda can’t fight the smirk that tugs at her lips as she walks over to you. She kisses your cheek before checking on the bottle. 3 minutes left. She leans against the counter with you briefly checking on the pets before falling into you slightly.

“She certainly is. I wonder who she learned that from.”

You grin widely as you reach down to pet Rouge who comes to stand at your feet. He’s sniffing around for second dinner, but everything is out of his reach and he just huffs before heading for the living room. You don’t miss how he stops at the dinner table, but you and Wanda had mostly finished at this point, and Rogue wasn’t a huge fan of Sokovian food. He had stolen a steak from your plate once and you’d been so shocked and angered you’d chased him around the living room trying to get it back. Needless to say, you were unsuccessful and you ended up just watching him eat your steak with a scowl and a wife who was laughing at you from the kitchen.

“I’ll take the blame for this one, Wands.”

Her response is just to laugh as you turn toward her and Little Nat to see the former sucking her thumb. She still has a few tears in her eyes and you frown as you reach out carefully to wipe them away. You just stare at your beautiful daughter until you hear the warmer beep behind you. Wanda turns to grab the bottle, but you shake your head before walking toward the oven to grab a towel.

“Let me.”

You take the bottle out and wrap it in the towel so it’s not too hot before holding it up to Natalya.

“Little one, are you hungry?”

You spend the next five minutes feeding and burping your daughter, you start to clean up dinner while Wanda heads back to the nursery. You hum under your breath as you wash dishes and put up the leftovers from dinner. You’re thinking about what to do with the rest of your time before going to bed when Wanda returns. She’s watching you with a smile as you move around the kitchen in that quick, practiced way of yours. You’re almost finished before you spot her spying on you, and you shoot her a smile.

“She asleep again?”

Wanda nods as she gestures to the baby monitor, she’d left on the counter and you both listen to how quiet it is on the other end.

“She is. Hopefully it’ll stick this time.”

You dry your hands off before coming around the counter and reaching out for your wife. You’re tired, but not sleepy, and you want to get your mind off of work. You consider watching a movie, but your mind wanders easily if you don’t have to focus on what you’re doing. As if reading your mind, Wanda asks you what you’d like to do now. You decide that tonight is a perfect opportunity to spend some time with your wife.

“I was thinking about working out a little.”

You don’t have to look at your wife to see her eyes darken as they look you up and down. She will admit that she isn’t really in the mood for that type of exercise, but if doing so allows her to watch you get all hot and sweaty, while half-dressed, well she’ll just suck it up. She looks up at you with her bottom lip between her teeth, and you have to stop yourself from kissing her right then and there.

“Mind if I join you?”

You would never complain about your wife’s company. After a long day away from her and the amount of stress you’ve been under recently, you would love nothing more than to unwind with her. You nod, not that your expression isn’t answer enough for Wanda before leading her to the bedroom to change.

“You don’t have to ask, Wands, and yes I would love if you joined me.”

Ten minutes later, you and Wanda have changed into workout clothes and you’re struggling to leave the bedroom. You’d been fine and hadn’t noticed Wanda’s appreciative glances, until Wanda started changing into leggings and a sports bra. You’d chosen to wear a t-shirt for comfort, but the sight of your wife’s exposed skin made you regret your decision to work out tonight. Still, you steal a few kisses and touches before Wanda practically drags you from the bedroom.

“If we don’t go now, we’ll never get started.”

You can’t argue with this and after making sure that your new cat is separated from the dogs, you and Wanda head to your in-home gym.

It hasn’t gotten as much use lately because you both have been short on time, but sometimes, depending on her tolerance level, Wanda will walk on the treadmill or even use one of the bikes with Natalya sleeping on her back. It’s been a while since Wanda was in here to do more than that, and she almost forgot how many options there were. You were already figuring out where you wanted to start when Wanda sits down on a rowing machine.

“Do you want to turn on the television, detka?”

You’d stopped to stare at her as she stretched a little before sitting properly on the seat. You don’t realize that you’d been caught looking until Wanda’s voice registers and you’re flushing in embarrassment as you walk over to the side of the room for the remote. There’s a large television on one of the walls that sometimes you’ll turn on just for background noise. You usually just listen to music, but since you need an ear open for the monitor, you decide that this is better.

“Sure thing, Wands. Any requests?”

After choosing something to watch, you and Wanda start working out mostly in silence. The only communication between the two of you is the occasional smile or glance in the other’s direction. You are already sweating as you continue to work on your upper body. Your arms are pleasantly sore as you continue to push yourself while you focus on your breathing. You found working out, as long as it wasn’t in public, relaxing most times. It was both productive and cathartic, and getting to watch your wife do the same nearby was just an added benefit.

You find yourself watching Wanda more than focusing on what rep you’re on. It’s not your fault she’s so distracting. She’s moved onto to a machine that lets her work on her legs and abs, and the way she’s grunts in effort with every other rep—it should be illegal. It’s obscene.

“Y/n, you’re not paying attention to what you’re doing.”

It’s not a question and it only takes you a second to realize that she’s right. You’d stopped in the middle of a rep to watch Wanda, and you quickly release the weights before standing up. You try to get the sight of your flushed and sweaty wife out of your mind as you switch over to a new machine.

“Right, right. Sorry. “

Wanda just smiles at you watching as you glance at the television and stop in your tracks to watch the show for a minute. She decides to focus on herself for now and she nearly groans at the thought. She knew it would be difficult getting back into exercising after taking so much time off. It’s been months since she’d done anything strenuous and at least a couple of weeks since she’d been able to work out without Natalya nearby. She realizes the further she gets into this how important it is to make sure she has time for herself throughout the day. She’s a paranoid, first-time mom, but maybe she can carve out a little time each day to do something solely for her benefit.

“Ah fuck.”

You’re doing pull ups a little bit later when you hear your phone beep from where you’d left it on the table near the television. You are about to use this as an excuse to drop down to the ground and take a break, but Wanda’s voice catches you off guard.

“I’ve got it, detka. Keep going, please. I’m enjoying the show.”

You roll your eyes and meet Wanda’s gaze through the wall of mirrors in front of you with a playful glare. She sends one back as she climbs to her feet and heads towards your phone. The fact that you don’t even seem to mind that she’s grabbing it for you makes her think it’s not work-related, or at least that you don’t expect it to be. It’s hard to know sometimes, but you don’t even turn to ask as you do another couple of pull ups.

“Is it anything important?”

Wanda hadn’t intended on checking for you, but she doesn’t hesitate to unlock it and check your most recent text. She frowns slightly before looking back up at you.

“It’s Bucky apologizing for ratting you out to Nat.”

You consider ignoring the message for now because you are a little ticked a Bucky, but you eventually just shake your head and drop to the ground with a huff. Wanda holds your phone out to you, and you smile wickedly as you take it and start to reply.

“I’ll tell him not to sweat it because I’m currently here sweating with you.”

Wanda shoots you an incredulous look as she reaches out to grab your phone back. You pull it out of reach and laugh as she just glares at you before crossing her arms petulantly.

“Y/n, don’t tell him that!”

“Why not? It’s true. “

You keep pretending to type as you wait for Wanda to protest again. She doesn’t let you down and it only takes a few seconds for her to huff in annoyance. You smile cheekily as you look up from your phone, and somehow Wanda manages to look even more ticked.

“You’re teasing me.”

You don’t even try to deny it and you nod before stepping away as Wanda reaches out to slap you. You thought so at least, but she just holds out her hand and you quickly realize what she wants. You hand her your phone with a smile until she sets it aside before pointing back to where you’d been doing pull ups.

“Just for that, you’re going to give me 10 more.”

You raise an eyebrow in question, but your wife just walks over so she’s standing beneath the bar before she beckons you towards her.

“I’m serious.”

You’re unfortunately not one to refuse a challenge, so you walk over to where she is to stand toe to toe with her. She doesn’t back down as you look up at the bar and then back to her with a sigh. You didn’t expect her to budge, and after a few seconds of contemplation you decide to just do it.

“Alright, Wands. Whatever you want.”

You reach up and grab the bar and pull yourself up with barely a groan of effort. You feel the strain on your arms by the fifth one, and you reach the 7th before Wanda is reaching out for you. You look down at the hand on your stomach and jump down when Wanda speaks up with a smile.

“Come down here, please.”

You are about to argue and say that you’re not at 10 yet, but Wanda’s tugging on your shirt so you give in quickly. You drop down to the ground and open your mouth to ask Wanda why she made you stop, but she doesn’t give you a chance. She pulls you forward by your shirt until you’re close enough to kiss her. You hadn’t expected this so you’re pleasantly surprised. You reach out to hold her too, but she breaks away before you get the chance.

“Since those were so easy, how about you try something different?”

You wonder what she could be thinking of as she pulls you into another hug before jumping up and wrapping her legs around your waist.

“Uh…”

“Only three more.”

Wanda’s clinging to you like a koala and despite her not being that heavy, you aren’t sure if you can lift both of you. You feel her legs hold you tighter and you just sigh in defeat before giving it a try. As you complete your first pull up you realize it’s a lot harder than you thought. You barely do it a second time before you drop back to the ground and breathe raggedly as you shake your head.

“I don’t think I can do another one, Wands.”

Wanda considers this for a second before shaking her head with a smile. She kisses you quickly before giving you the incentive you need to get this over with.

“One more and then we can shower and go to bed.”

You groan under your breath, but you nod a couple of times before grabbing the bar one last time.

“Alright, but I’m getting cuddles for this.”

Wanda rolls her eyes and holds back her remark about how you always get cuddles as you lift her up along with you one more time. You nearly stumble as you drop to the ground when you’re done, and Wanda’s quick to release you so you can balance. She smiles proudly as she grabs your numb hand and drags you out of the room.

“Good job, detka.”

Any snarky remark you’d had in mind leaves it as soon as Wanda kisses your cheek. You sigh in frustration at the fact that you can’t hide how your cheeks flush at her words. You can’t even pretend to be annoyed as you squeeze your wife’s hand with a smile. You know you’d do anything for her if she asks, and in the grand scheme of things, pull ups are likely the least difficult thing you’ll ever have to do.

Masterlist

[litrumi]

(ADLN - Understand Me AU) Ability Compendium (??? Powers: Overview)

A brief overview of Catnap's and Dogday's special abilities in "A Drop of Light in the Night" (Catnap X Dogday) [ADLN] - Otherwise known as the "Understand Me AU". It's my currently in-progress fanfic on Wattpad.

PLEASE refer to this Overview/Synopsis post if you have no idea what this even is, but are curious nonetheless. Don't start looking here until you've caught up.

So !!! SPOILERS AHEAD !!! - You've been warned.

Figured I'd make a compiled list with explanations of how these abilities work. All "???" stuff will be replaced/updated when I reach those points in the publications of the chapters. So refer BACK to this whenever the story progresses with such topics, and feel free to ask questions if you wanna know something more specific! But I'm gonna try my best not to spoil much either if it hasn't been revealed.

*All underlined / hyperlinks on the abilities themselves are just a reference to the type of music/soundtrack I "associate" with the power when I'm writing about it in the story.

**This part is just for me to reference every once in a while.

Draft Made: (6/3/24 - 5:03 PM) First Posting: (6/11/24 - 8:24 PM) Last Updated: (6/11/24 - 8:24 PM) **

Right, so here we go!

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(s.) Catnap's abilities:

Red Smoke: Something that's been with him for as long as he can remember. This smoke can induce a long, restful sleep. However, it comes at the cost of "having nightmares" and has the "potential to cause hallucinations." Yet, it may even have something to do with a certain "connection" he's well aware of. (Something he's able to "put two and two together" on, if you've ever heard that idiom before). Either way, Catnap actively hates this ability, preferring not to use it if he can help it.

???:

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(s.) Dogday's abilities:

Thought Process: When Dogday touches his forehead to someone else's forehead, his sun-shaped pendant gives off a gentle glow. With great focus, he can listen in on someone's private thoughts. Anything the person thinks is something Dogday can hear, like if they were speaking it in their voice. Dogday's thoughts are not transmitted to the other person unless he "willingly transfers a thought over," letting him have great control of the internal conversation.

What Dogday realized is that people typically say stuff after they've figured out how they want to say it, allowing them to be well-guarded and sly/secretive. But, because people's minds are usually a safe haven for private thoughts, they have no issue (or much less of a problem) with thinking what they really believe. Basically, a person's mind is unfiltered communication! It's a lot harder for people to hide what they really think. (But not impossible...)

However, one catch to this incredibly useful tactic is that as long as a person so much as "thinks" about wanting Dogday to stop reading their mind (no matter how they phrase it, as long as it means it with the intention), then Dogday gets a small, static-like shock to the brain that cuts off the connection, disconnects their foreheads, and does not allow Dogday to listen in on their thoughts for a sizeable amount of time. (It doesn't hurt much, but it's like any ol' feeling of static electricity). *"?" Addendum:

???:

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...Awakening... Transcendence...

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