#do i regret undergrad? no

[dear-ao3]

hey saph, i'm looking into college and was curious about how many minor programs you did (because i remember you mentioning you did a few) and how many you would recommend if you don't want your brain to explode

okay i cannot stress this enough do not do what i did in undergrad. i had one minor and three majors. just take some classes and chances are you'll just end up with a minor if you take enough in one subject.

also take some time to experience college and make friends and all that

[wooahaes]

out of curiosity are any of u interested in what im reading (published novel-wise)? ive been trying to read more this year and its been fun!! ive missed reading a lot tbh… english major life rly sucked the joy out of it and im re-learning how to read again :3

[helianskies]

treating myself to a student theatre production of and then there were none by agatha christie

am i taking anyone with me? no

am i sitting in the front row? yes

am i going to treat myself to ice cream from the tuck shop during the interval? yes

[theduchessofnaxos]

Doing a historiography on indigenous women and marriage/committed relationships in the North American West.

I keep finding new books I need to grab and work into this every goddamn time I read another article. This paper is due in less than a week at this point.

At least the maximum number of works to analyze is 7, so I can limit what I actually use. But I've read 14 things at this point (mostly articles, I have to do the books still) and there is no sign of an end. (I mean, I'm going to straight up refuse to get anything else. I will read the bibliography for this next book while standing in the library, track anything else down, and then sequester myself in my apartment reading and writing this damn paper until my class on Tuesday.)

Also, can I just say, when I signed up for grad school I was expecting to do, like... Actual research papers for class. Not just historiography. I know why we're doing it (it'd be stupid to do research without a really solid grasp of the state of the field), but I hate historiography papers.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[oflgtfol]

like on one hand a job at michaels has nothing to do with astronomy.. but im hoping that like hehe i led the sunday craft classes and stuff.. that gives me experience with like instruction especially geared towards kids... haha.. museum person you wanna hire me so bad.... #Crying

[transmechanicus]

this is. probably a very personal question.

Is it worth it? Transitioning? In spite of it all?

Completely, utterly, and absolutely. I’m one of those ppl who knew i was trans since i was like 8. I found out when i was probably 13/14 what transgender meant, but recoiled from it because i could not imagine a world that would accept me or where i would be happy with the result. At 15 i met my first other trans person, and they became my friend and partner and the first person to ever know i was trans. Being around them, known by them, was such a colossal psychological relief and source of joy unlike anything i had known before. It made separating from them after graduation all the more excruciating to lose that one person i had trusted with that truth.

Sometime over the next two years i came out to my Mom, but nothing really changed, and i had more or less resolved to rot and die under the identity i had been born into. I let my undergrad studies chew me up, neglected all but the most necessary body maintenance, and spent every moment outside work or class buried in video games or books. At some point something snapped out of place, or perhaps back into place. I knew i didn’t want to die like this. I wanted something more for my life and my flesh than being a half dead servitor stocking yogurt. I wanted to transition, and however slowly, however long it took, that’s what i resolved to do.

It took a while. I had no real finances, no privacy, and little independence. I was coming from a white low-self-expression, high-control household. I “messed up” while base coating warhammer models one time and gave myself black nails. My dad berated me about it for days before trying to pin my hands down and sand the paint off (didn’t work, thank you automotive primer). When i was ~22 i got my ears pierced, basically the first permanent part of my transition, and i had never known as much joy as i did driving home knowing the pain was a step of permanent progress. Around this time 2019/2020 i started being out online, more vocal about being transgender as opposed to just having a relatively inexpressive fandom blog with no info beyond my name.

When i was 24, two years ago i came out to my dad, and a week later i left for grad school halfway across the country. I had an apartment all to myself, and my own source of income. I spent my spare change building up a wardrobe of new clothes that i actually liked. I got my first year of grad school done mostly without anything remarkable. Went to some queer events at my school. Found a partner. Got loved to bits for a while. Re-came out to my parents over the summer, and this time it stuck. Started HRT that fall, 2023. Came out to my classmates and coworkers and was rewarded with support and acceptance. Lost the partner. Devastated. Resolve to get even hotter and cooler. Smash out 3 piercings and a tattoo inside a week. Develop personal fashion sense. Attend research conference. Get better at makeup. Go to some concerts. Increase HRT. Tiddy Arc. Buy bra with a supportive bestie. Start weekly therapy. Increase HRT. Cosplay at a major convention. Schedule another tattoo. More HRT. Bra no longer optional. Present day. Tattoo on Wednesday. 90% of progress packed into the last year or so. Undeniably hotter, happier, and more self-expressive than anything in the last 24 years prior.

Transitioning is more than worth it, it brings me so much relief and joy every day no matter how shitty my day is otherwise, and while i have known doubt, i have never for an instant known regret.

There is still time🖤🏳️‍⚧️💕

[inkykeiji]

you be my revolver, i got you in my hands

character: choso kamo x fem!reader

genre: curseless!au, smut

notes: eeee first choso piece ever!!! i had such a blast writing this and i wish i could’ve gotten it finished in time for christmas but alas! anyway, please enjoy this and as always please heed the warnings below and stay safe! | title credit: girl like me by dove cameron

warnings: 18+ minors do not interact, pseudocest (reader + choso are family friends), age gap, bratty reader, rough sex, minimal prep, teasing, hints of manipulation, hints of dubcon, size kink, pet names

words: 6k

synopsis:

“Maybe you should stop calling me that.” “What? Why?” you pout, blinking up at him, sugared innocence coating your tone. “I thought you wanted me to call you big brother…I thought I was allowed to…”  “Bi-Big brothers don’t do stuff like this with their little sisters—” “Well, it’s a good thing we’re not actually related then, isn’t it, onii-chan.” 

Choso can’t remember the last time he saw you.

You’ve known each other for a long time—so long Choso’s lost count of the years, now, having met you when Yuuji was just a toddler (and you were, too) at the bus stop on Yuuji’s first day of Pre-K, only to discover you lived a mere few houses from each other—but you haven’t seen each other in a long time, too. 

It’s not through fault of either of you; life had gotten in the way, as it has a tendency to do so, had grown busy with intricacies and obligations that demanded time and attention, tangling around you and keeping you apart. 

You had both embarked on university endeavours; him pursuing his PhD, you continuing your undergrad, had both stuffed more and more into your lives—art shows and book readings and music festivals and tropical trips—and lost space for each other in the process.

Choso can’t remember the last time he saw you, but it feels as though no time has passed at all, as it normally does with family—you’re still just as bratty as you’ve always been (some things never change, he guesses; some things you’ll never grow out of, he supposes). 

Family.

Family is not a word he uses lightly, but you and yours had quickly become his and theirs, had quickly become ours, morphing from neighbours to friends to practically kin, members mixing to form something special, a hybrid of some sort, stuck somewhere between long-standing family friends and blood relatives. 

Which is why how you’re acting—how you’ve been acting, this entire winter break—is so undeniably inappropriate. 

And although he’s lost track of the years, everything beginning to blur together, to melt and flow and shift and breathe, he still remembers the day he told you to call him onii-chan. 

That he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget.

Yuuji’s so lucky, you had pouted, kicking at the sandy ground with the toe of your shoe and swaying a little on the swing. He has a big brother. I don’t. I’ve always wished I had one. Sighing, you looked away, fingers tangling in the chain. But I’ll never get one; it’s impossible. 

It’s not impossible, Choso had responded gently, nudging his swing against your own. I’ll be your big brother, if you want. 

And you—well, you had been so incredibly happy, all bright smiles and sunshine eyes and breathless giggles, to have a big brother to call your own.

Never in his life did he think he’d come to regret such a decision.

But you seem to be on a mission to make him, this Christmas.

Because you’re really testing his fucking patience, this Christmas.

The term of endearment oozes from your lips as if it’s melted in the wet heat of your mouth every single time, always paired with your worst behaviour: bending over in those short, sweet, slutty skirts and flashing cute Christmas panties at him; placing a hand much too high to be appropriate on his thigh as you watch a film together, leaning close to his ear to murmur out a silky question you already know the answer to; twining your ankles with his beneath the dinner table and gazing at him with eyes full of sin, leaning so far forward on the table that your tits swell, nearly spilling from the too-low neckline of your dress, then giggling when you catch him ogling. 

As a result, he’s been meticulous about avoiding being alone in a room with you—he doesn’t trust himself, doesn’t trust what he might do, especially if you start playing your little games—but he should’ve known it would only be a matter of time until you get want you want. 

Because it always is. 

And on Christmas Eve, you finally succeed. 

Somehow, you’ve managed to get him alone in his childhood bedroom—something about wanting to flip through his old sketchbooks, to search for some doodles he had drawn for you many years ago, to rip the pages from the spiral-bound spine and stuff them in your back pocket, for safekeeping, you had claimed. 

Tugging at his heartstrings, that’s how you succeeded. 

Sitting on the edge of his small twin bed, thighs slotted up against one another and both of your arms looped around one of his, he flips through the curling pages of his drawings, smudged with graphite and pastels. 

“Oh, I remember this one!” 

A dainty finger points to a cute kitten sketched out in astonishing detail, with a pink nose and a satin ribbon tied in a bow around its neck. 

“It’s you,” he smirks. “You asked me what animal you’d be, and then demanded I draw you as a kitten when I responded with a cat.” 

“You drew a lot of me,” you lean forward, swelling breasts pressed flush to his bicep, a palm sitting high on his thigh as avid eyes scan over the spread, gaze stuttering as it sweeps from doodle to doodle. 

“I drew a lot for you,” he says, the observation entirely unthinking. “You wanted a specific page, but I might as well give you this whole sketchbook. More than half the pieces in here are for you.” 

It’s a fact that shocks him in its authenticity, a realization that sends a painful, sick thrill searing through his body, saliva beginning to collect in the dips beneath his tongue.

“I’m such a lucky girl,” you hum out in a sigh, nuzzling your cheek into his arm and looking up at him with shimmering eyes. “I have such a good big brother.” 

“You’re spoiled,” he says, but his voice holds no malice, eyes softening as he stares down at you, a small smile on his lips. 

“I dunno about that,” you frown, but mischief glints in your eye. “You haven’t really given me what I’ve wanted all holiday…” 

Blood turns to shards of ice in his veins, whole body going rigid as his breath stalls in his throat, pounding heartbeat reverberating in his ears. 

“Wh-What’s that?”

He doesn’t want to ask it, doesn’t mean to ask it, but the question claws at his tongue, pries past his teeth and tumbles from his lips in a ragged, tangled heap.

And the smile that spreads across your face is nothing short of sinister, that glint flaring to a sharp shine as your pupils breathe, pulse, swallow him whole. 

“A Christmas kiss,” you say, stare unblinking and intense as your hand slips between his legs, rubbing little circles into his inner thigh, a mere centimetre or two away from his cock. 

The motion makes him jolt, hips involuntarily twitching toward your touch, brushing his half-hard cock against your knuckles.

“That’s all I want,” you sigh almost dreamily, tits pressed harder into his bicep as you lean closer, so tight they’re practically being squeezed from your sweetheart neckline. “A kiss from my onii-chan. Though…” 

Trailing off, your hand slides up a little further, pinky and ring finger tiptoeing along the rapidly hardening lump in his jeans, squealing out a short giggle as it jumps beneath your touch.

“I’m not sure that’s all onii-chan wants.”

“Onii-chan doesn’t want anything from you,” he breathes out, but his voice is rough, unconvincing, his hands curled into firm fists on his bedspread, trembling slightly, skin stretched taut across pointed knuckles.

“Another lie,” your lips tug down, voice saturated with disappointment. “You know, good big brothers don’t lie to their siblings,” you fix him with a look, glaring through feathery lashes, expression teetering dangerously on the edges of a pout.

A shiver skitters through his bones, whole body stiffening. His jaw flexes as he grinds his molars, a slow, controlled breath exhaled out his nose, his eyes flicking down. You’re still touching him, two fingertips rubbing gentle circles into his clothed cock.

“Maybe you should stop calling me that.”

“What? Why?” you pout, blinking up at him, sugared innocence coating your tone. “I thought you wanted me to call you big brother…I thought I was allowed to…” 

“Bi-Big brothers don’t do stuff like this with their little sisters—”

“Well, it’s a good thing we’re not actually related then, isn’t it, onii-chan.” 

“That—That—” he swallows hard, dense saliva pooling at the back of his tongue. “That doesn’t matter—We shouldn’t—”

“But—” your lip juts out further, forehead crinkling. “But I want to.” 

You can’t always get what you want. 

That’s what he wants to tell you. That’s what he wishes he could tell you. But it just isn’t fucking true, when it comes to you. 

“Stop,” he says instead, and although it’s supposed to be an order, it comes out as a plead, his voice hoarse, strained, thin, the proclamation high and false and tinny. 

“You’re a terrible liar,” the tip of your index finger traces the head, looking up at him through your lashes. “Did you know that?” 

He does, he does know that. He’s a terrible liar, eyes too honest, voice too sincere, expressions too candid, always giving away his true intentions and forthright thoughts.

He’s a terrible discipliner, too, incapable of saying no, of refusing his siblings anything. You know this, too. 

“St—” he tries to force the word from his tongue again, protest sticking in his throat. Stop, stop, he wants you to stop, he needs you to stop, please. 

But that’s a lie, too, the rejection refusing to take shape, to mold into something audible, something tangible, something worthwhile. 

No matter how much he wishes it were true, he can’t will it to become true—not when he wants this just as badly as you do, his straining cock exposing his real desires to you.

You’ve already taken full notice of it, yearning for you through rough denim, hot and hard and throbbing. The pad of your finger rubs over the slit in rhythmic motions, smooth and gliding, aided by the copious amount of pre-cum oozing through the material, and it jerks beneath your touch, eager for more attention. 

“It’s so hard, onii-chan,” your hand cups the impressive bulge, rolling it in your palm, a girlish giggle tickling your tongue. “It—It’s throbbing, onii-chan.” 

“Yeah? And who’s fault is that?” he breathes, attempting to keep his tone stern and his eyes stony. 

“It’s making me want to ride it,” you whimper loudly, squeezing your thighs together, completely ignoring his question. “Oh, please, onii-chan, can I ride your cock?” 

“Fu-fuck,” the curse breaks on his tongue, eyes shut tightly, breaking away from your invasive stare. “Fuck, fuck, f-fuck.” 

No. 

“I’d really like to ride it, onii-chan.”

No. 

“Can I? Pretty please?”

No-no-no-no-no! 

He wants to say no. He should say no. It’s the right thing to do. 

He’s the older brother, the eldest brother, it’s his duty to say no, to mentor, to lead by example. 

But he can’t. 

He can’t form the word in his throat, can’t mold it into a sound and push it from his mouth. 

He’s never truly been able to, when it comes to you—and he was so fucking stupid to think he would.

Because, as always, you are making it exceptionally difficult to deny, gazing up at him with shimmering eyes like that, mouth licked raw in anticipation, bottom lip bitten puffy from the front teeth constantly sinking into it.

“I—It isn’t right—” he attempts, swallowing thickly, cords in his neck straining, desperately attempting to quell the tremor in his voice.

He knows you don’t care. If he’s being entirely honest with himself, he doesn’t, either, his morality eroded to nothing more than a farce, a thin façade, not nearly strong enough to force him into doing the right thing, not nearly strong enough to fortify his rapidly waning self-discipline.

“I—I won’t tell,” you whimper, and he can see the fine film of tears lacquering your eyes, shielding lust-blown pupils. “Pinky promise! I just—I just want you so badly,” your nose twitches cutely with a sniffle, your bottom lip beginning to waver with infinitesimal quivers, soft palm caressing his cock like you love it. “Please, onii-chan?”

And Christ, you’re so pretty, so pouty, with your glistening puppy-dog eyes and pleads dripping from your lips like thick syrup. 

How could he possibly say no to something so precious? How could anyone?

“Alright,” he whispers, defeated, eyes squeezing shut as he nods. “If it’ll make you happy.”

“Really?”

And just like that, the tears are incinerated from your eyes, gaze bright and blazing with excitement, lips molded into a brilliant smile. 

You look so sickeningly beautiful when you get what you want. 

“Yes,” he nearly whimpers, and it’s pathetic, his hips twitching up into your touch, craving, desperate. “Yes, yes, ride my cock.” 

The affirmative is all you need, squealing a little with happiness as you climb into his lap, fingers up your own skirt to push your soaked panties to the side, other hand pawing clumsily at his waistband.

“Thank you,” you breathe, the words soaking into his neck, sealed with a sloppy kiss. “Oh, thank you, onii-chan.” 

He can’t help but chuckle a little as his hands find your waist, instinctive, steadying you. 

“Eager little thing, aren’t you.”

“This is all I want,” you tell him, pulling back a little to search his face. “S’all I’ve wanted for a long time.” 

He wants to ask you to elaborate on that, confusion warping his brow, but then you’re yanking at his belt loops and pulling at his zipper and wrapping a soft palm around the base of his cock, a heavy groan vibrating in his throat. 

“Wait, wait!” he chokes on a gasp as you hover over his cock, head bumping against your hole. “Let me—”

“I don’t wanna wait,” you whine out, petulant and stringy, whole face scrunched in frustration. “I’ve been waiting! I want your cock in me now!”

Fuck, you’re such a fucking brat, he’s growling as he forces you down on his cock in one swift motion, the sudden intrusion pushing a yelp from your lips. Your forehead knocks against his, sugar-stained breath wafting across his face, his tongue darting out to mop up remnants from his mouth. 

It’s really cute, the way your little cunt spasms around his shaft as he bottoms out, pressed snug and tight against your cervix, desperate in its attempt to adjust to his girth. It’s really sweet, the way your body splits itself open for him, cracking at the core and struggling to swallow him down.

“Oh, it’s so big, onii-chan!” 

“God,” he nearly sobs. “You’re gonna be the fuckin’ death of me, y’know that?” 

Giggling, you wind your arms around his neck tighter, nuzzling your cheek into his skin, then stringing a garland of wet kisses along the line of his jaw. 

“S’really thick, Choso-nii,” you tell him honestly, nodding in lethargic little motions. “I feel so full, onii-chan.” 

A laugh falls from his lips, breathy and exalted. 

“I don’t know if it’s that I’m big, or if it’s just that your cunt is so fucking small,” his voice tapers off into a whine, raspy and gruff. 

“H-Hurts a little, onii-chan,” you admit in a whimper, hips shifting in experimental little movements, conjuring a groan from deep within his chest. 

“Yeah? And who’s fault is that, huh?” he asks for the second time in fifteen minutes. “Who was too impatient to let onii-chan prep her?”

“Don’t care,” you mumble. “Wanted you s’bad.” 

He laughs again, warm and gentle and full of love, his hands squeezing your hips just enough to make you gasp, fingertips pressing his name into your flesh in blotchy little ovals of purple. 

“You have me,” he says, his words ringing clear and true with a painful sincerity. 

The vibrations of your responding hum seep from your chest into his, and he sighs, body deflating against yours, pleasant little tingles snuggling between his ribs. 

You stay like that for a moment to two, wound up in one another, chests pressed flush, breathing as one. Your auras ebb and flow, presences bleeding, tangling together and creating something that is neither one nor the other but both, a single shared entity. 

And it’s nice, it’s real, it’s natural.

But then you become impatient, as you normally do, as he knew you would, wiggling a little in his lap, fingers twining in the strands at the base of his neck. 

“Go on, sweetheart,” he urges gently. “Ride onii-chan’s cock.” 

And so you do, hips beginning to roll in slow, languid circles, fingers still laced at the back of his skull, half-buried in messy ink.

He allows you to set the pace, allows you to take your time, allows you to enjoy and savour every rock and grind and bounce, staring at you through heavily lidded eyes, hands on your waist merely guiding you—keeping you stable, just like a big brother should. 

He’s absolutely breathtaking; gaze glittering in the dim light overflowing with awe, spit-slicked lips licked raw and shimmering as his tongue glides over them again, swollen and bitten cherry red.

You can’t help but reach out to trace his features; the strong line of his brow, the delicate curve of his cheek, the enticing bow of his lips, hips slowing to uneven little ruts as you hone your focus, his eyes observing you with a sick sort of fascination.

“Did you—Have you—Have you thought about this before?” 

The question stings his tongue, revulsion flushing through his blood as guilt pricks his flesh, his cock throbbing eagerly.

“Course I have,” you breathe out with a little laugh, as if he’s so silly for thinking you might not have. “Actually, I—I—”

A sudden shyness overtakes you, an unsure giggle on your lips fading into a soft squeal as you hide in his shoulder, shaking your head a little. 

“What? Huh?” he shrugs, nudging your face up gently, curiosity clawing at his irises as they search your face, voracious. “What?” 

“Well, sometimes I…” 

The words tangle in your throat and you choke on them, gaze fleeing his own, and you shake your head again, chest beginning to stammer.

“It’s okay,” he says softly, rubbing reassuring circles into your flesh. “You can tell onii-chan, go on.” 

There are tears in your eyes now, mouth wobbling a little with the verging confession, and God, that’s so hot, why is that so fucking hot? 

“Where’s my brave little sister gone now? Hmm?”

“M’right here, onii-chan,” you whisper, face teetering on a wince, as if you’re bracing for a blow, terrified to admit to him, fearing reprimand. “It’s just that—Sometimes I do, um, really bad things with my stuffies while—while thinking about you…” 

Dewdrops of shame glitter in your lashes as your lids flutter, nose scrunching with a soft sniffle, tears breaking free of their wispy confines to roll down your cheeks in fat, glimmering streams—so fucking beautiful in the dim light of his bedroom—but you don’t dare break his stare, gazing at him through a thick shield of water. 

“Oh, Christ,” he coughs on the curse, hands flexing on your waist, blunt nails digging into your skin. “And what—what do you think about?” 

“Um,” your gaze flits from his own, to his wrinkled bedspread, then back to his face, wide and honest. “Riding you, like this. And—And riding your thighs, makin’ a real mess all over them, and your thick fingers too, filling me up…” 

Bolts of dizziness sear his brain as his lungs deflate, oxygen eaten up by pure lust and leaving his chest buzzing, burning, some sort of response mangling itself in his throat, escaping his lips as nothing more than a cracked moan.

“Do you think about me, onii-chan?” 

Your question pulls him from the depths of his hedonism and he blinks, your face swimming into view, a peculiar mix of hope and cognizance infusing your expression, eyebrows raised with false curiosity, a smirk twitching on your lips.

Ah, there she is, that brat he knows so well, that brat he’s come to crave, every ounce of uncertainty eradicated from your face, replaced with assured confidence, contradicting the tears still staining your cheeks.

You fucking know he does. 

And, oh, how he wishes he was stronger, how he wishes he could lie, how he wishes he could devour the smugness in your eyes and complacency in your smile, to humble you, to knock you from your high throne.

He settles for a kiss instead, mouth crushed to yours as a large hand cups your head, thumb pressing into your ear, fingertips dragging across your scalp as he yanks you closer. 

It hurts, his front teeth scraping against your lip as he practically gnaws his way to your tongue, his own big and thick and so fucking strong as it overwhelms yours, shoving it further into the cavern of your mouth and forcing it to stay put as he explores. 

He’s making a real mess as he slathers over your molars, over the inside of your cheeks and the backs of your teeth, drenching your mouth in him. Drool oozes steadily from the corners, collecting along the underside of his bottom lip and leaving his chin sticky and slick. 

“Yes,” he whispers, eyes shut so tightly his whole forehead crinkles, mouth wet and sliding against your own. “Yes, yes, I think about you—much too often.”

Nose nudging yours, he nuzzles into your face a little, planting a chaste kiss to your lips, then peppering a few more, quick and sloppy, around your mouth.

“But right now, I don’t want to think about anything. I just want to feel you creaming all over my cock—you think you can do that for me, princess?” His palms cushion your cheeks, thumbs swiping across your cheekbones, then brushing strands of damp hair from your temples. “You think you can do that for your onii-chan?” 

Yes you can, of course you can, you’re nodding, blinking the last remnants of tears from your eyes, rapid movement eliminating the final stubborn drops, clinging delicately to your outer lashes. 

“S’it, baby,” he encourages as your hips start moving again, working up a steady rhythm. “Just like that, good girl.”

A mewl slips from your lips, burrowing your scalding face in his sticky neck again, his undivided attention almost too much to bear. 

“Like it when you call me a good girl,” you murmur, lips dragging across his skin with the confession, streaking him with thick glimmers of spit. 

“Is that so?” he laughs a little, pressing a few kisses to the crown of your head. “That’s because you don’t hear it often.” 

Lifting your head, you scowl at him, though there’s no heat to your glare, fury dimmed by fondness, unable to smother the smile playing with your lips.

A dazzling smile spreads across his own face in response, and he laughs again, his eyes so bright, so brilliant they almost hurt, blazing like two small suns, scorching your skin as his gaze glides over it.

He watches you like a man possessed, a man obsessed, entirely entranced by the way pleasure passes over your face, twisting your features into the cutest little winces as you grind the head of his cock against your cervix, then smoothing them out with bliss as his shaft drags along your favourite spot, bouncing in shallow little motions to rub over that fleshy patch hard and fast, a stream of mewls spilling from your lips, stitched together with his honorific. 

“You’re so pretty when you ride my cock,” he groans, words tapering off into a hoarse whimper, as if it pains him to admit it. 

His palms run up your sides, fingers counting over each rib, hands committing every dip and curve and bulge to memory, marvelled by the way you fill his grip, as if he can’t believe you’re real, you’re here, you’re his—even if just for tonight.

“Yeah, yeah, keep going, use onii-chan like a toy, sweetheart.” 

And he tries to be patient, he swears he does—tries not to rush you, tries to relish in the moment, in each swirl of your hips and every puff of his name—except your pace never accelerates, never moves past anything but teasing as you use his now aching cock to continually edge yourself; moans building higher and higher, louder and louder, on the cusp of the crest before they disintegrate into nothing and you start the process all over again, the delicate fluttering of your cunt enough to drive him fucking insane with desire.

It has his entire form trembling with such vigour it’s quivering the mattress, muscles locked stiff and tight as he tries to keep from moving, from bucking up wildly, from forcing you to speed the hell up. Rough fingers sink into your flesh so deep it dimples, a pathetic attempt to ground himself, rapidly blooming bruises staining your flesh.

But he’s powerless to stifle the whines leaking through the gaps of his gritted teeth, hands flexing on your hips, whole body pulled taut with restraint. 

He’s sure you can feel his cock twitching inside of you, eager and impatient, begging you to move faster, to fuck him harder. 

But you aren’t going to do any of that—not unless he asks for it, he realizes dimly, after you bring yourself to near orgasm for the third time in a row, giggling a little at his crestfallen expression, his hair having fallen almost completely from its trademark spiky buns, braided fishermen sweater soaked with sweat and sticking to his now heaving chest.

He really thought it was real this time. He really thought you were finally going to cream all over him, so he could finally flip you over and fuck you properly, pound you into the mattress and stuff that pretty, cute little cunt to the goddamn brim with his seed.

He’d been trying so hard to be nice, to be the loving, doting, good big brother he is—but he’s also only human, and there’s only so much misbehaviour he can bear before, finally, he snaps. 

Because, sure, big brothers are meant to care for, to lead and to nurture, but they’re also meant to teach, to punish, to put bratty little sisters back in their fucking place. 

“You think I don’t know what you’re doing? Huh?” his grip on your hips tightens, halting you from moving. “You think I’m fucking stupid?” 

“Never, Choso-nii,” you gasp, astonished. “I would never—” 

Sincerity rings in your voice, but he can see it, the mischief tugging at the corners of your mouth, barely suppressed by your façade of innocence.

Anyone else would’ve been fooled—enchanted by your doe eyes and your dainty voice. 

But not him.

No, he knows better now. 

“Bullshit,” he cuts you off, eyes narrowed sharply. “You wanted to ride my cock, but you’re clearly incapable of it—”

“No I’m not!”

“—So it looks like I’ll have to take matters into my own hands.”

“No! I—I can do it!” you cry, face crumpled in fury, nails scrabbling at his shoulders.

“You lost your chance to prove it to me,” he growls. 

The world flips suddenly, momentarily a blur of inks and ivories, a breath of surprise punched from your ribs as your back slams against the mattress, trapped between the bedspread and your big brother’s heaving chest.

“You have been testing me all fucking holiday,” he snarls, specks of spit splattering across your cheeks. “Onii-chan shouldn’t give you his cum—onii-chan shouldn’t have given you his cock at all!” 

A certain type of haughtiness corrodes your shock, lips spreading into a pompous smirk.

“Oh, but you just couldn’t help yourself, could you, onii-chan.” 

“You little bitch!” 

His hips shove forward, forcing you further into the plush of the mattress, cockhead ramming against your cervix. A little noise of pain vibrates on the back of your tongue, shattering your arrogance, and a grin smears across his face, glinting in the moonlight. 

“I think it’s time your big brother teach you a lesson in respect.”

“Y-Yeah? And how are you gonna do that?”

“You’re going to take what onii-chan gives you, and you’re going to fucking like it. And then, at the end, when you’ve gone stupid from the cock you don’t deserve, you’re going to thank me for giving it to you at all. Do you understand me?” 

Defiance shines in your eyes, lacquered by a thin coating of tears, nose scrunching up in a glower. 

A rough thumb and forefinger, hardened by charcoals, clamps around your jaw, squeezing your cheeks with such force that your mouth puckers, a sticky little whine squealing in your throat.

“Do you understand me?” he asks again, each word said slow with purpose, each word annunciated with intent, his eyes boring into yours, sharp and painful. 

Finally, those tears push past your bloated lashes, shoved from your eyes by rapid blinking and rolling down your cheeks in glistening pairs, a half-stifled hiccup stuttering your chest. 

“Y-Yes,” you whisper, nose twitching. 

“What was that? Onii-chan couldn’t hear you.” 

“Yes, onii-chan.” 

“Good girl.”

And then his hips are snapping, hard and fast and immediate, fucking into you with such ruthlessness that it jostles your body up the bed, sheets collecting in little wrinkled bunches beneath you. Your nails sink into his shoulders, piercing flesh through the knit of his sweater, the muscles in your thighs tensing as your ankles hook around his waist, his shirt riding up, your heels digging into the those cute little dimples that cushion the base of his spine. 

It hurts, every pound of his cock producing a dull, throbbing ache low and deep in your gut, another torrent of tears rushing to flood your vision.

“Ch-Choso-nii, Ch-Choso-nii,” you whimper, face screwed up in pain, his name stuttered by his rapid thrusts.

“What’s the matter?” he pouts, and it’s so condescending, dripping from his lips in an over-exaggerated coo. “Can’t take onii-chan’s cock?”

The question wafts across your face in a panted breath and you lick at your lips, sopping it up with your tongue.

“N-No,” you say, and that telltale brattiness is back, watered down by his viciousness. “I can do it—I-I can do it for you, onii-chan.” 

A throaty curse escapes his lips, thrusts stammering out of rhythm for a moment as his cock twitches, and a helpless giggle bubbles up in your throat.

Even angry, he’s still so fucking easy. 

He regains his composure quickly, though, face hardened to stone but beginning to splinter with pleasure. 

“Brat,” he breathes out, though there’s mirth shining in his eyes, pure and fond and full of love. “You better.”

And even angry, he still sounds so fucking pretty; cracked moans and dense groans and choked gasps, all flowing from his mouth in a single stream, fractured by the piston of his hips.

The pain doesn’t fade, of course—it barely diminishes at all, the sheer massiveness of his cock making it near impossible to be dispelled, keeping the cramping pang in the pit of your belly steady and constant—but it does amplify the pleasure, nerves gnawed raw by the agony, left hypersensitive to the sparks of ecstasy that blaze through your veins with every quick, rough pump of his hips, every deep, hard slam against your bruised cervix, every rapid drag over that engorged spot.

It leaves you feeling high, leaves you feeling stupid, brain melting in a hot haze of lust and rendering you incapable of forming a single coherent thought beyond how incredible his cock is, his name and his title the only two things your sloppy, numb tongue can fully scrape together.

It’s all so much, too much, but it all feels so fucking good—s’good, Choso-nii, y’r so-so good—sentiment vibrating indistinctly in your chest.

“Yeah, sweetheart?” he asks, words gone wispy, fading into a whine. “Does your onii-chan’s cock make you feel good?”

Yes, yes, yes, onii-chan, it’s so good, you’re so good! 

Your head nods frantically, fingers curling in the collar of his sweater, a mess of affirmatives fucked from your mouth. 

“Y’know, you’re kinda cute when you’re too cockdrunk to misbehave,” he chuckles a little, biting back a moan as your cunt clenches at the compliment. “May-Maybe onii-chan should fuck you stupid more often, huh?” 

Oh, God, yes, onii-chan; oh, please, onii-chan! 

“Yeah, you’d like that a bit too much, though, wouldn’t you, you little sl—ah—slut.”

Drool dribbles from the sides of your mouth as you continue nodding, eyes wide and unblinking, encrusted with stars. 

“Y’so pretty, onii-chan,” you manage to mumble out, sentiment tangled in threads of spit, fingers flexing in the fabric of his sweater, as if they yearn to touch but can’t find the strength to carry out the action.

And he is, so beautiful it’s borderline sickening, strands of onyx plastered to his cheeks, his jaw, his neck, strung together in clumps and saturated in sweat; damp skin glittering in the waning moonlight spilling through the slits of his window, dewdrops catching delicately in the beams as he pounds into you, every drive of his cock accelerating his pace.

“W-Wan’your cum now,” you slur the demand through a lax pout, lids beginning to weight with exhaustion, heavy as they frame dopey eyes.

“Yeah?” he laughs a little, gaze shining with adoration, and it’s breathless, it’s beautiful, his affection wafting over your scalding face. “Onii-chan needs you to cream all over his cock first. Can you—” a grunt cuts him off, and he whimpers, pushing through his sentence, his voice strained. “Can y’do that for me, angel?” 

“Uh-huh, uh—uh-huh,” your head begins nodding more fervently again, pushing your lids open with some effort to stare up at him, pupils swelling with devotion and determination.

“Then show me—Show me how gorgeous my good girl looks when she’s making a mess all over her big brother’s cock.” 

Three more thrusts and your cunt is obeying, convulsing on his thick shaft as heat gushes around him, so much that you can hear it—a sick, slick squelching as he jackhammers into you, your essence coating his thighs in a shiny layer of arousal. 

“Oh, fuck,” his eyes shut tightly before springing open again, suddenly rabid, ravenous. 

The bed creaks as his hips speed up, skin sticky with arousal as it slaps against your own, the sharp sound mingling with his ragged pants and your hitched mewls.

“Onii—Nii-chan,” you nearly wail, fingers tangling weakly in the hair at the nape of his neck, nails scraping against his flesh. “Please, please, cum, gimme—gimme y’r cum!” 

“Greedy little thing,” he rasps out, voice cracking into a whine. 

But you don’t care, you can’t care, pleads spilling from your lips as your thighs tense around his waist, hips twitching in erratic little motions, crudely trying to fuck yourself on him.  

“Need it, need it, onii-chan, fill my belly with it, onii-chan, please!” 

“Christ,” he chokes on the curse, pace faltering as he finally gives his baby sister what she wants, cock throbbing almost violently while it fills you with hot, thick cum, so much you swear you really can feel it, stuffing your belly as full as it can be, tummy bulging cutely with his seed.

You must tell him that, sentiment slipping from your lips without your permission, because he moans again, his cock giving another weak spurt, hips stuttering as he tries to fuck further into you, grinding the head into your sore cervix. 

“Yeah, yeah,” you’re murmuring, hips rolling up to meet his own. “Push it into me, onii-chan, push it into my cunt nice n deep, do-don’t waste a single drop!” 

“You really are gonna be the death of me,” he whines, face buried in your hair as he collapses on top of you, hips still moving in lazy little circles, shudders of overstimulation rippling through his form. 

“Mm,” you hum, on the cusp of unconsciousness, nuzzling your face into his neck like a kitten, then lapping at a few droplets of sweat streaming down the column. “What are lil sisters for?” 

[cryinginmyroomsposts]

Mr Gorgeous

pairing: Lee Minho x reader

genre: fluff, slight angst, crack, tutor Lee know, non-idol!au, college au, best friend Hyunjin, computer nerd Lee know

summary: As a chemical engineer with the biggest aversion to computer science it was nothing short of hell to try and pass the one elective you were forced to take. Things do change for the better when your friend suggests you get tutored by smart and hot Lee Minho. Maybe you'd do a lot more than just pass the subject... 

wordcount: 6.3k

a/n: This one is based on the unhinged but cute ideas my friend gives, hopefully, I did justice to that, and to Minho.

masterlist

I have extended this universe (but can be read as oneshot ) with the Hyunjin fic Dancing with our Hands Tied

Regret.

That’s the primary emotion you feel right now. Sitting with your hands tugging at your hair in the corner of the computer science lab as you stare at the big blank screen… yet again.

Another ping and you look up to see yet another failure message popping on the screen of your laptop. It wasn’t brand new, or of high value, but this laptop was your lifeline. Not only did it hold all three years' worth of your undergrad life but it also holds the precious drafts of your latest hyper fixation- fanfics based on the forced marriage trope.

The downfall of the laptop itself wasn’t your primary concern now, it was the choices you made that led here. Well, it wasn’t exactly a choice. The course selection system of your uni might say “flexible” but it was anything but. Your mind replays a flashback from two months ago when you were seated in your dorm bed, hands tugging your hair like now, as you stare at the monstrosity that was the computer science elective you were forced to choose for the sake of credits.

Leading you right back to regret.

Just as you're about to break your laptop in a fit of pure frustration you feel a hand on your shoulder. Whipping your head back, with five retorts at the tip of your tongue (but ones that’ll never be said), you find yourself facing one of your closest friends. His feline eyes shone with kindness and his long blonde hair with fringes framing his spectacular face and the crisp white shirt that looks very out of place amongst his rarely-showered peers.

Hyunjin. The infamous dance team captain and the most wanted dude on campus, who somehow ended up as your roommate's dance partner back in freshman year and is now a big part of your gang. He was the reason for whatever little popularity you had on campus.

“Are you alright?”

“Hi yeah, I-I’m fine… I guess…” you sigh, giving up on your hair and point to the screen. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing and my laptop just gave up on me.”

He gives you a sad smile, not one of pity and you’re grateful for it. “Ahh, the computers have defeated our great y/n I see...” His tone is slightly lighter this time when he speaks. You nod furiously as he settles down on an empty chair next to you. His hand has moved from your shoulder to fidgeting with the armrests.

“Yeah I absolutely hate- no loathe computers. I mean, I fought with my parents to do a chemical engineering degree just because I hate computers for god's sake. All that only to end up here in this damn course and I’ve managed to kill my laptop in the process of installing virtual machines. Actually why the hell do we even need those virtual machines? Isn’t everything that these machines produce essentially virtual… if you do need another device, just get one. Why do you computer science idiots go through all this hassle? I don’t-“, you pause mid-rant to see that he’s got an amused expression and the corners of his lips are lifted up.

“Ugh, please. Don’t laugh at my distress, you cruel man.” You whine and dramatically put your head on the desk in defeat.

"Aye y/n it's okay... I mean it will be..." Hyunjin tries to comfort but you just grunt in response and dig your head deeper into your arms on the desk.

You hear him sigh and shift closer to you.

"Alright, I'll tell you what... class is over now so we will give up for now and go have something to eat and replenish your brain. Then maybe I can tutor you, I am also in the class and I do understand this. Is that ok?"

You look up to see Hyunjin sitting beside you, lips pressed into a thin smile, eyes kind and empathetic. This version of him rarely comes out except with his few friends and you were usually grateful for that. But today you had no brain cells left to feel grateful.

"Yeah, sure! Do you plan on doing that before or during your morning dance practices or evening practice?" Your tone comes out sharp and sarcastic, which catches Hyunjin off guard.

You were almost always sarcastic but it was never more than a harmful joke and you never really lost your temple. In fact, you were very particular about staying silent unless you have something positive or funny to contribute to the conversation.

Hyunjin recovers fast from the shock, "Hey I was just offering... I was being nice. Don't bite my head off!"

You feel apologetic immediately and sigh. "Yeah sorry dude, I guess I need to eat. Are you still up to get lunch together?" You ask with a small smile.

"Yup!" He immediately agrees with a big grin and you begin packing your things.

"Hey, you sure one of your little fangirls and fanboys won't die of jealousy if they see just the two of us having lunch together?" You joke as you both head to the cafeteria.

He just rolls his eyes and both of you laugh it off.

Even though you knew about Hyunjin's popularity, it still feels weird for you to sit and watch almost the entire cafeteria stare in your direction. Rather in his direction. Trying your best to ignore it you continue eating your sales as Hyunjin talks about the latest gossip from the dance team.

Just as he was about to reach the juicy part, Hyunjin sees someone on the other end of the cafe and asks them to join. You whip your head around to see the source of your latest annoyance, ready to hate them in your head, only to find the most gorgeous man you had ever seen walk towards your table.

You've had one too many celebrity crushes in your day but you weren't usually the type to simp for a dude in real life- especially one from your university. Yet you find yourself unable to take your eyes off this guy. He's wearing a simple black T-shirt and a pair of joggers. His headphones are around his neck, and a black backpack hanging on his left shoulder. You watch his shirt cling to his shoulders and the way he keeps his eyes down as he walks. You keep watching as he runs a hand through his hair, messing it up just enough for it to look fluffy and good.

Taylor Swift definitely wrote Gorgeous for this man.

As he nears the table you finally gather all your self-control and turn back to your lunch. You chew on the food slowly and keep playing with the contents in your bowl, painfully aware of every step he takes toward the table.

"Hey Lino!" You hear Hyunjin exclaim as he gets up to hug the other guy.

"Hi Hyunjin." says the other guy- who apparently has a deep, yet soft voice that reminds you of honey melting.

You internally cringe at the weird tingly feeling this guy is making you feel.

You try to block out the conversation the two guys make, desperately hoping you wouldn't have to interact with Mr Gorgeous.

"Oh, I forgot to introduce you both. This is my friend y/n."

You look up at the mention of your name to find Hyunjin and him looking right at you. You smile, hoping the weird thoughts don't translate on your face.

"And y/n, this is Lee Minho. My classmate and dance teammate." Hyunjin says with a fond smile.

"Hey, y/n. Nice to finally meet you," says Mr Gorgeous in his honey-dripping voice as he reaches his hand out to you. You are frozen for a second but recover quickly to take his hands and shake them as you nod. You watch as he immediately takes his hand after a second of contact and clears his throat.

"Nice to meet you too Minho." you finally manage after the handshake that only made the butterflies worse. You pray silently that you don't ever have to speak to Minho again, a crush was not good for your health. Especially not a crush on your friend's very hot dance teammate.

Thankfully Minho almost immediately leaves, stating he has a class to attend and Hyunjin and you bid your byes and return to your lunches.

After a moment's silence, Hyunjin speaks again, "So what do you think about Minho?"

You cough as a lettuce piece gets stuck in your throat at his question and chug half a glass of water.

"Wha- what about him?" You ask in your most normal voice possible.

"I don't know... you tell me." Hyunjin says eyeing you cautiously.

"He's fine I guess." He scoffs. "He's way more than fine and we both know it." He says with a smirk.

"You're just a simp for the mysterious hot dudes who will never go for you."

"Ouch. But yeah. Plus all I can do is simp... he's not really into guys." Hyunjin says with a dramatic frown making you shake your head at his antics.

You were almost relieved when Hyunjin admitted to simping for Minho because then you would shut down the crush because you are a good friend. Every plan to squish this growing crush is backfiring on you now.

As you both finish your lunch and decide to go separate ways, Hyunjin stops in his tracks outside the cafeteria with a bright smile on his face. The face that usually means trouble for anyone involved- which is you currently.

"Oh my god! Y/n I just had the best idea." He practically squeals and you roll your eyes at him.

"I don't believe it will be good but you're gonna say it anyway so spill."

"Well you need a tutor to pass the computer course... and Minho is a top-of-the-class student who passed that subject a semester ago. What if he tutored you?"

Hyunjin looks like he hit the jackpot and your jaw hangs on the floor. Gulping you begin to explain why his idea won't work just as the door opens and out comes the man of the hour himself- Minho.

Hyunjin looks at Minho and his smile grows even wider.

"Lino I was just going to call you. I need a small favour from you."

Minho looks suspiciously between an excited Hyunjin and a horrified you. "Yeah, tell me..."

Hyunjin proceeds to explain the ordeal in great painful detail. He paints a sad picture of you from fighting with your parents about your major to your whining in the lab earlier. All while you plan the detailed and gruesome murder of Hwang Hyunjin in your head.

Even though you are too embarrassed to see Minho's face, curiosity gets the better of you. He seems to be trying his best to follow Hyunjin's rant. His eyebrows perked up and eyes shifted between the two of you. His nose scrunched as he nods continuously.

"So what do you think of my genius idea huh?" Hyunjin asks Minho as he smiles widely at you both.

"Ermm... ", Minho looks between you and Hyunjin looking positively confused. "I think I can do it yeah." He says in his honey-melting crush-heightening voice and nods at you.

All you can do is force a hopefully normal smile on your face as Hyunjin celebrates his 'victory'. You shoot Minho an apologetic look as Hyunjin forces you both to exchange numbers and discuss the tutoring schedule- every Monday evening at the library.

"See you on Monday y/n." He says with a soft smile as he hoists his bag up higher on his shoulder and walks away after saying his byes to Hyunjin.

There is no death for the crush now.

————————————

The Monday could not have come slower. Although it was only three days from meeting Minho it felt like the longest days of your life. To make matters worst, Hyunjin and Yeji, your roommate, could not stop talking about Minho.

Turns out he didn’t spurt out of nowhere since Thursday, he was fondly called Lino by the dance team. You’d previously heard Hyunjin and Yeji talk for hours together about the “brilliant” dancer that “Lino” was. But you’d also heard Yeji mock Hyunjin for constantly getting bullied by him. The stories that you had always laughed your heart out to because mostly Hyunjin did deserve it. But now those stories do nothing but increase your anxiety as you walk slowly towards the campus library to meet your gorgeous dancer-nerd tutor.

What if he bullies you too? Or worse what if you embarrass yourself in front of Mr Gorgeous!

You groan as you step into the library, searching along rows of students absorbed in their own world before spotting him. He was wearing another plain black shirt, hair messed up in sweeps framing the side of his face, and a thin framed glass perched on his face. His little nose scrunched up as he was concentrating on his laptop, the headphones on his head.

Why does this man make you weak over the bare minimum!

“Hey Minho”, you greet as you reach the table he’s sat at, settling down across the table from him.

He looks up removing his headphones and smiles at you, nodding in acknowledgment.

Both of you walk around on eggshells for the first few minutes, him understanding how much knowledge you have in the subject- he almost looks disappointed on hearing the answer be ‘nothing’. Eventually, you both developed a plan and he began explaining from the basics. Although you had a very hard time concentrating initially, especially when his eyes got all dark and focused, as he bit his lip whenever you messed up and explained in that calm soothing voice of his. But eventually, you started finding it easier to learn when he taught you in parts, giving examples and helping you take notes.

The hour passed by much too quickly for your liking but a part of you was relieved to be out of his strong gaze. He had given you some pointers and tasks to do over the week to help speed the process to pass the finals approaching in two months.

The following weeks go smoothly, Mondays becoming your favourite and most exciting day of the week- adulting really was sad. You saw Minho relaxing with every session, the third session he even started teasing you about your mistakes. He would let out a little “hehe”, smile brightly as his eyes lit up and shake his head as he says, “No that’s not how you run this. It’s a different coding language so the rules change.”

He never raised his voice or lost his cool. While you were constantly groaning or huffing in irritation at the irrational rules of computer science. You constantly explained to him that you weren’t an entire novice to coding but the concepts of operating systems and databases simply did not make sense. He would constantly assure you that this was hard for computer science majors and that you had not much to worry about. Eventually, the one-hour sessions became longer as you both sit back and talk about random topics during "breaks". He even suggested an additional session to "help speed the process", which made your stomach drop in an odd way (not because your crush kept exponentially growing in the last six weeks).

That’s how you find yourself in the library on a Thursday afternoon, coming to the library hours prior to your session with Minho. Trying your best to understand the concept you both were supposed to go over so that you didn’t look too dumb and also because your finals is approaching in two weeks. You used to be the topper in school, and you even managed to stay in the top 10 in your department but none of that worked here. It definitely didn’t help to learn that Minho was an extremely talented all-rounder.

In the last six weeks, you might’ve slipped into a couple or almost all of the dance team’s practice sessions pretending to care about Hyunjin and Yeji (both of whom were surprised to find you there for the first time in three years).

Minho danced as gracefully as a swan while emitting the most powerful aura on stage. You had seen the dance team’s performances before to support your friends but you hadn’t really noticed anyone except those two till now. But now you could not take your eyes off Minho even when you heard the team and other audiences praise how amazing Hyunjin and Yeji were.

You shake your head to prevent yourself from getting distracted by Minho’s tantalising steps from the previous day’s rehearsal. All of this did nothing but feed the monster of a crush you were fostering inside. She was so strong now that calling it a crush felt wrong. You were down bad. But that is a problem for another time, you needed to learn this concept before Minho gets there in half an hour.

You’re not sure how long it has been since you started hyper focusing on the topic but you are brought out of your reverie by Minho’s rich voice.

“Hey y/n.” He sounds cheerful and there’s a cute smile on his face which makes the monster butterflies immediately rise up in your stomach.

“Hello.” You smile back as he settles in the seat next to you. This was another suggestion from Minho since the third week to "help correct your mistakes better", little did he know it only made you more prone to mistakes with him so close to you. You noticed that he was wearing his white hoodie and grey joggers- which you know now is his dance practice attire, and his hair is all tousled and messy. His cheeks are flushed from the practice and he is slightly out of breath as he takes his laptop out and settles down.

“You’ve already started this topic huh. Good to see you working so hard. ” He says with a genuine smile nodding towards your laptop. You smile coyly, stomach doing a little flip at the compliment (it never gets old).

“Ah, nothing like that. Just had time to kill. Thought I’d try to catch up so that I’m not entirely clueless for today.” He nods and looks at you for a second longer than usual. Just as you think he’s going to turn to his laptop and start the session he leans towards you and brushes a strand of your hair behind your ears. Time comes to a standstill as you process what just happened. When you recover from the tingle his touch had left on your cheek and behind your ear, you realise that he has gone to his work.

“Let’s start?” He enquired looking innocent and all you can do is nod. Your heart is still beating fast as you try your best to follow everything Minho is saying. Every time you got your heart to calm down he would turn to look at you from behind his glasses, a serious expression on his face which was way too close to yours for your brain to work.

When you start working on the code he leans between you and your laptop to point at the code on the farthest end of the screen from him. His face is extremely close to yours as you do everything to remain normal- on the outside.

Eventually, the session comes to an end and you slump back in your chair sighing as you catch your breath and look at Minho. He is on his phone smiling every now and then and your hearts drops as anxiety clouds your head. Not that you had any intentions of taking any action about your crush… but still the heart wants what it wants. He turns to you as he puts his phone down and removes his glasses.

“How come you had free time today, before our session? I thought you had a full schedule on Thursdays?” He enquires and pushes his smooth fluffy hair out of his face.

You have two thoughts in your brain at this point- a) why did he have to be that gorgeous, and b) did he remember when you told him about your schedule the first time you both met.

You straighten up as you answer. “Erm… yeah no my lab got cancelled. Prof has been sick for a week now so I was free.”

“Is that why you seem to be having a lot of free time lately?” His question comes out more as a comment as he gives you a smirk.

“Uh what do you mean?”

He runs his hand through his hair again.

“Nothing just been seeing you around during practice a lot recently… that’s why.” He almost looks shy as he says it, but the smirk stays put on his face.

You feels your cheeks and neck heat up and do your best to not look like a deer caught in headlights.

You let out a small fake laugh. “Ah, that… I was just supporting Hyunjin. And Yeji too, she’s my roommate you know?” You ask hoping he’d shift the topic to them instead.

He leans back on the side of his chair eyeing you with the smirk still in its place. “Yeah I know. I’ve known for three years.” Your eyes widen naturally at this new information. “Which is why I was surprised to see you there now after all these years. You don’t usually come to practice sessions.” He says calmly.

There are too many questions in your head but you choose to ignore anything that gives you even a sliver of hope. You straighten more hoping the stature makes you look at least slightly intimidating. Which, judging by the even bigger smirk on Minho’s face didn’t work.

“I- I came because Yeji and Hyunjin were nervous about their solos.”

His expression is straight-up cocky. “Oh is that why you were staring at me the whole time?”

His words might’ve affected you so much that you were embarrassed but you weren’t going to feed into his ego.

“Seems like you need a new prescription for your eyes.” You pick up your things, start to walk away from the table and pause to give him a sarcastic smile.

"Also seems like you were the one who was seeing me instead of focusing on your practice."

You walk away hoping to save some face before you feel his hold on your wrist. His hands are rough and he holds you just tight enough to stop you but not hurt you.

“Y/n I was just teasing… sorry if I crossed a line.” He sounds so soft and timid that you whip your head around to see him standing behind you with big eyes and a small pout. You sigh and smile at him.

“I know… I was too. Don’t worry abt it, Mr Tutor.” You try to lighten the mood by lightly tapping his shoulder and see him shudder slightly.

“I do like seeing you in practices.” He admits in a low voice, a shy smile on his face.

You are just a melted goo of a human on the inside. The smile on your face comes naturally but for once, you don’t feel the need to hide it. Minho made you lose your guard way too much but even then today was way out of either of your usual zones. For the rest of the night, you are a mess of nerves and excitement. Yeji doesn’t question it anymore.

Two days later, you arrive at the auditorium of your uni with the two other friends of your gang- Jeongin and Yuna. As you three settle down in one of the middle rows, for which you almost fought off a junior, you are giddy with excitement to see Minho perform. And Hyunjin and Yeji of course.

You had tried to go to the dress rehearsal the previous day, catching the last few minutes of the performance and it was safe to say that the performance was going to be a hit. This time you didn’t try to sneak around, instead you waited after rehearsal and walked back with Minho, Hyunjin and Yeji. The vibe between Minho and you had shifted since that evening, he had texted you memes twice the next day and the previous evening, you both had walked close enough for your shoulders to brush while laughing about baseless things. If Hyunjin and Yeji noticed, they didn’t say anything and even gave the two of you some space by racing each other. For all the grace they both had on stage, they were complete idiots.

Your heart starts beating faster as the performance begins and you watch in a daze the whole time. All of them killed it from start to end. You were almost emotional watching Yeji and Hyunjin shine bright during their solos. Minho was on fire throughout the whole performance and you thought you dreamt of him looking at you during his solo- which was practically too hot for you to physically handle.

Once the performance is over, Jeongin, Yuna and you walk over to the green room to meet your amazing friends. You run over to congratulate your friends and even manage a small "nice performance" for the other members. The entire green room is filled with members of the dance team and their friends, all shouting and laughing. Amongst the chaos and happiness in your friend group, you can't help but look around for Minho. Catching your eye Hyunjin tugs at your shoulder signalling you to lean in as he says, "Go to the backside of the auditorium."

You look at him confused for a second before he gives a pointed side-eye that says "Don't act like you don't understand". You give a shy smile thanking him and inform Yeji that you'll be back and quietly slip out through the back door of the auditorium as Hyunjin told you to. Once you close the door behind you, a cool gush of wind makes you rub your shoulders for warmth as the green room's ruckus dies into the evening's silence. You look around for him and see a silhouette standing at the right edge leaning on the railing and looking out at the campus gardens.

Taking a deep breath you slowly approach him. As if sensing your presence, he whips his head around.

"Y/N." He says softly and you walk closer to see his left hand stretched out. You freeze in your spot, five steps away from him, gaping at the hand. He sees your confusion, smiles, walks toward you, and grabs your right hand. You stand there watching him and feel your feet move on their own as he helps you stand beside him facing the gardens, hands still interlaced. Your brain seems to short-circuit as you just stand there, still as a statue, hyperaware of his touch and the tingles it left in your body.

After what feels like a minute or an eternity, you are no longer aware of worldly concepts like time, he clears his throat and you see him angle his body toward you from the corner of your eyes. This brings you back to reality and you turn your face toward him and see how gorgeous he looks under the moonlight, hair all messed up, his shirt still clinging from the sweat due to the performance and lips spread into a soft smile.

"Hi." He says with an expectant smile on his face.

"Hey," you hear your own voice sound distant and breathless. It would be embarrassing how weak you were from this boy if you didn't know that he deserved all the love and attention in the world.

"So... you really didn't want to see me perform I guess." His tone is playful and there's a smirk on his face.

"Wha- What no... I did want to see you perform."

"Then you just didn't like it I guess. Tsk tsk." He mockingly shakes his side to side as the girn grows wider on his face. Your face heats up in embarrassment and you thank god that the only light around the place is hitting on his face and not yours.

"I never said that." You say in a low shy voice (again, borderline embarrassing).

"You didn't say anything good about the performance either. At least to me." He pauses and looks at you before turning to the garden again, "I heard you throwing compliments around like confetti inside,, to your friends."

You immediately feel your stomach drop in guilt and very little excitement (The Minho wanted your validation!!).

"Oh. Oh no, I- I didn't mean to... It's just," you take a small breath as he turns to face you again with an eager expression, "I can't really think right now with you holding my hand and looking all gorgeous and hot, and I keep thinking back to your moves on stage which were straight up sinful Minho." The words come out before you can process it and your eyes widen as you realise what you said and see that Minho's smirk has grown exponentially smug before he breaks into soft laughter.

You silently groan putting your head down on the railing. Minho stops laughing and tugs at your hand which makes you slightly face him. "Hey, don't be embarrassed." He says with that soft, kind voice of his.

"Easy for you to say." You mumble as you look at your hands, one still intertwined in his. He uses his other hand to lift your chin up to face him, you swear you can hear your heartbeat as loudly as a gunshot fired into the dead of the night. His eyes are soft, a twinkle in them, and he has the prettiest smile on his face as he takes in your face.

"I still want a proper compliment Gorgeous." He says and you choke on empty air at the term of endearment (the irony rather). He lets out a chuckle at that and raises his eyebrows for you to go on as he holds your other hand in his. "Can you even breathe right now?" He jokes and you snap out of the daze.

"Jerk," you say pulling your hands from his, turning away with a huff.

"Y/N... come oonnn..." He whines and you involuntarily laugh and turn to see him pouting (lost track of all the embarrassing things you do for him at this point). "Pleaasseeeee", he says with the cutest pout and puppy-dog eyes.

You sigh. "Well, you did amazing." The pout is intact on his face, indicating he wants to hear more. "I- I couldn't take my eyes off you the whole time. I saw Hyunjin and Yeji only during their solos." You admit sheepishly. You are still not sure where all this sudden courage is coming from. You are not the most vulnerable or soft person, in fact, your friends constantly teased you for being nonchalant and tactful during most situations. Lee Minho was going to be the death of you.

He straightens at the admission from you, eyes widening and jaw opening in surprise. A smirk plays up on your face at the opportunity to see him lose his cool.

"Have you forgotten your manners or are you too flustered to say thanks?" You tease not letting the opportunity go to waste. His demeanour changes and the shyness on his face is replaced by something darker, like trouble. He slowly walks towards you, like a cat prancing towards its meal, and you take a step back till you are flush against the railing as he keeps walking closer. You think your heart will fail if he keeps doing it. He stops an inch from your face, placing both his palms on either side of you on the railing.

"Let's see who is too flustered now..." His voice is deep and gravelly. You gulp and stare at his face, not having the courage to do anything else. He starts leaning towards your face, his eyes momentarily drift to your lips and god help your poor soul.

"Min-Minho.. wha-what are y-you doing?"

Your voice breaks and his lip tilts slightly before he speaks, "Can I kiss you?" His voice has gone an octave deeper and your heart skips several beats. All you can manage is a small nod in approval and he shakes his head. "Say it, Gorgeous."

Jesus this man is out to kill you.

"Ye-yes." The word leaves your mouth more like a question but the smirk on his face tells you he is satisfied. He leans in more, your lips almost connecting and you close your eyes waiting for his lips to touch yours. One beat, two beats, three beats and the effect never comes. You open your eyes in confusion to see Minho has moved a little back, with the proudest smile on his face.

Before you can begin to voice out your confusion he speaks. "I will kiss you...", you're still confused, "Only if you pass your finals."

"Huh?" That's all you can think and say.

"I said what I said."

"What does that even mean? Why did you ask to kiss me and then not do it... are you crazy! I swear to god if this is some sick joke to you, I will murder you Lee Minho." You are fuming, your face is burning up and you're embarrassed.

"I- no no you've got it wrong. I'm sorry I didn't mean to... I was teasing. Its... I have wanted to do this for a while now... but I thought maybe you don't really like me or... God!" He groans and runs a hand through his hair.

"What do you mean?"

He turns around to look at you, eyes wide and his hand fidgets in nervousness.

"Y/n I- I like you... I have for a while. I saw you during a freshman-year party as you came to help a very drunk Hyunjin. I thought you were his girlfriend for an entire year because you both were very close so I kept my distance. Last year I got to know that you both were just friends and really wanted to get to know you."

He stops and sighs, he positively looks scared and tired. You feel bad but your own confusion and insecurity clouds your mind.

"Then why didn't you?"

He looks straight into your eye and lets out a scoff.

"Did you even know me until two months back?"

All you can do is stare back because you are guilty. Even you had been asking yourself how you had never noticed Minho in all the times you've hung out with the dance team after performances. You had even known Chan, the team leader back when you were freshmen. But somehow missed the one person you seem to care about right now.

"That's what I thought." He looks dejected. You really want to hug him, which is surprising considering you don't even like hugs usually.

So you walk up to him, closing the gap between the two of you in three steps and wrap your arms around his waist and feel him freeze. Your head reaches near his shoulder, and you lean into it because there is some unbridled courage in you that you are not about to waste. After a beat or two you feel his arms wrap around your waist and you wait for the butterflies and nerves but instead, you feel your heartbeat slow down. It feels... comfortable.

"I'm sorry. I am not exactly the most observant person. Especially around the dance team because I am way too in awe and kinda scared. I don't think I would've been friends with Yeji and Hyunjin if I had not met them outside of the team. But after the last two months, I don't even understand how I missed you. Especially with how you dance and not to forget that smart brain of yours. But yeah... I'm sorry" The words fall out of your mouth on their own but it feels right.

"Not your fault. I did keep myself very much out of the limelight because I was... I don't know, maybe scared of rejection. But yeah, wish I'd spoken to you earlier." You can feel his words. You also feel his heartbeat slow down.

"I don't regret anything that happened though." His voice sounds a lot lighter this time.

"Neither do I."

You slightly pull back to see his face and try to get out of the embrace but he holds onto you tight. An involuntary smile creeps up your face.

"So... what happens now?"

He thinks for a second and a glint forms in his eyes.

"What do you want to happen?"

You like this.

"Three things. I want you to continue tutoring me. I also want to be your girlfriend and... I need you to kiss me now." You see him start to speak and continue before he can. "If you say you won't do that until I pass, I swear to god Lee Minho, I will never let you talk to me or touch me ever again." His whole face goes into a pout and it makes you regret your own condition because it seems impossible to stay away from this guy- in any capacity.

"Then I guess I'll just have to kiss you until you pass and then reward you with more kisses after that."

He is grinning ear to ear, looking all cute and radiant. You're sure your also grinning equally widely. You nod your head fiercly and he chuckles with his head thrown back (Gorgeous, as always). He slowly leans in and your eyes close shut.

This time you feel his lips on you, soft and firm. You had thought about this moment far too much but nothing came close to the real thing. The kiss felt perfect, delicate but assured and blissful. It felt like all of the universe had frozen in place and only the two of you existed in this endless bliss.

That is until you heard hoots from somewhere and reluctantly break the kiss to see all of the dance team and your friends cheering on for both of you.

"Neither of us was subtle huh?" You joke.

"Oh please, I was so subtle I practically melted into the background for a year." You playfully hit his chest as he laughs and waves off the hooligans cheering on.

"Ugh, it's gonna be so much harder to keep my hands off you during tutoring sessions now." He groans and you can't help but blush and let out a content laugh.

Maybe the computer science elective was a good decision after all.

[peachy-panic]

Happy Birthday, Sebastian.

WARNINGS: BBU/BBU-Adjacent, mentions of alcoholic behavior, homophobia, bad parental relationships, talk of parental death

“You didn’t mention it’s your birthday,” is the first thing Jaime says when they get back in the car. 

He’s getting better about that, Sebastian thinks. Initiating casual conversation on his own terms. On one hand, Sebastian is elated at the show of progress. On the other… 

Sebastian winces. The well-meaning bank teller had checked his ID and wished him a happy birthday while Jaime stood in earshot, keeping his expression neutral until they were alone.

“I didn’t,” Sebastian agrees, retrieving the two lollipops he had swiped from the bank from his pocket. “Red or blue?” he asks, holding them out to Jaime. 

He studies them for a few seconds—maybe trying to predict which one Sebastian prefers, maybe thinking about the strict rules around food inside the facility—before plucking the blue one from his hand. 

“Thank you,” Jaime murmurs. Then, after a pause, “Sorry. Did you not want me to know?”

Sebastian pulls the wrapper off and pops the cherry sucker in his mouth, then shifts the car into gear to avoid Jaime’s eyes. 

“It’s not a secret,” he assures him. “I just don’t like to make a big deal about it.” Or any deal at all. “I haven’t in a long time.”

For a moment, the only sound is the soft crinkle of Jaime’s wrapper as he unpeels and pockets it. “How long?” he asks.

Sebastian shrugs. “Few years,” he says, which might be understating things. He hasn’t had a real, proper, friends-gathered-round, cake-eating, too-many-shots-of-tequila birthday since his final year of undergrad. 

Well. Except for the tequila. That part doesn’t require friends.

For a moment, he braces himself for the inevitable why, but Jaime doesn’t push. Of course he doesn’t. Instead, he says something much more true to character:

“I’m sorry.”

Sebastian flashes him a quick smile. “Nothing to be sorry for,” he says. “I’m hardly a social butterfly.”

“What about your friends? Do they know that you don’t like to celebrate it?”

“Kind of makes it easier that I don’t have any,” he says lightly. Or, at least he intends for it to sound light. 

Jaime glances at him with what appears to be genuine confusion. “What about Aria and Sam? Ezra?”

And that makes Sebastian blink, because…

“Oh,” he says lamely, a small kernel of guilt and surprise forming. “Well, I guess… I mean, I didn’t know them until more recently. This was my first birthday since becoming… their friend, I guess.”

“What about your family?” It’s like Jaime hears his own question as it comes out, and surely he must feel the sudden tension that grips the silence between them, because he immediately backtracks. “Sorry,” he says quickly. “I shouldn’t have… That’s none of my business.”

The regret in his voice borders on fear, and Sebastian has to keep himself from reaching out to reassure him. 

“It’s alright. You’re allowed to ask me questions, Jaime. My parents…” He has to stop and swallow around a rising lump. “They’re not really in the picture.”

“Oh.”

Jaime doesn’t ask for more, but the silence—and maybe it’s not just the silence, he thinks—makes more words rush to the surface, breaching the floodgates to a subject he rarely speaks about.

“I mean, they raised me,” he rambles. “They’re alive. But I haven’t spoken to them in a long time. Since I was eighteen, to be exact.” He stops, really thinking about the expanse of time that now bridges between now and then. It feels like a mile and an inch all at once. “Almost a decade, now,” he adds quietly.

Sebastian is fairly familiar with the careful way Jaime chooses his words, so he’s not surprised when he takes a while to chew his next ones over, patient and only a little bit nervous.

“I’m sure you have a good reason.”

“Ha,” the bitter noise startles out of Sebastian. “Yeah, no, it wasn’t quite my decision.”

“Oh,” Jaime whispers. “They…?”

Sebastian nods, keeping his eyes straight ahead and his grip steady on the wheel. “They are religious,” he said, keeping his voice detached. “Traditional. Whatever you want to call it. And they didn’t take kindly to their only son coming out.” Sebastian flashes him a wry grin. “In case you weren’t aware, I’m extremely gay.”

Jaime doesn’t return the smile. “They kicked you out?”

“Technically, I was already leaving. I told them right before I moved away to college, but… Yeah. They cut me off completely after that. Anyway,” he finishes ineloquently. “My birthday isn’t much of a problem for them, either.”

“I’m sorry,” Jaime repeats. 

“Thanks, Jaime. It's okay, really. I’m fine now.” I’m fine now, he repeats internally, for good measure. I turned out fine.

For a moment, it almost seems like Jaime is going to argue, but he settles back into the seat instead, turning his head toward the window. 

They’re a few minutes from home when Jaime speaks again.

“My parents were out of the picture, too,” he says softly.

Sebastian has to grip the wheel so as not to crash the car out of utter shock. Because he can count on approximately one finger the number of things he knows about Jaime’s past, and this piece of information carries weight he didn’t expect to be handed right now. He wants to cradle this secret between his palms with all the delicacy of balancing a bubble on skin. 

“Yeah?” Sebastian nudges him carefully, stealing a glance in his periphery.

A single nod. “They died when I was young. Both of them. I... I grew up in foster care.”

It’s strange, what happens when you begin to build a relationship with someone from the ground up; how a piece of the puzzle can come in and snap others into place. How one sliver of context can start to paint a picture. How it can break your heart for the person sitting next to you, and also give you some insight on how they got there to begin with. 

An ugly chain of events begins to take root in his mind: passed from one government system to another, another vulnerable statistic slipping through the cracks. 

“I…,” Sebastian begins and immediately falters. “Jaime, I don’t...”

“I’m not supposed to talk about them,” Jaime says. "Or any of it."

“I know.”

“It’s hard to remember them clearly. It’s been so long.”

“You can talk about them with me,” Sebastian offers, knowing he is tiptoeing on precarious grounds. “If it helps to remember them.” Jaime nods, and Sebastian wishes he could reach over and take his hand. “How old were you? Only if you're comfortable saying.”

Sebastian watches the jerk of his throat as he swallows. “Eleven.”

“God, Jaime, you were just a baby.” You’re still so young. 

They come to a stop in the driveway, and Sebastian kills the engine, plunging them into a heavy quiet. From beside him, Jaime’s hands are a constant twitch of nervous energy.

“I want to say something,” Jaime says. “I… I don’t want to overstep. I’m sorry if I…” He stops to clear his throat, then looks up, piercing Sebastian through the middle with a rare moment of held eye contact. “I think your parents are wrong. For wanting you out of their lives.”

The contempt dripping from the word "wrong"—a brand new edge to Jaime’s normally soft spoken tone—suggests there is something far worse he’d like to say. But the fact that Jaime has voiced this much negative emotion at all speaks volumes. And despite the sore spot of the subject matter, something like fondness glows bright in his chest. 

He holds Jaime’s eyes for a few more seconds. “That’s nice of you to say.”

Jaime lets out a slow breath. He nods. 

As they retrieve the paper grocery bags from the trunk, Jaime’s shoulder brushes warmly against his own for just a fleeting second. “Happy birthday, Sebastian,” he says. 

When he smiles, the inner edge of his lips are tinted blue from the candy.

Sebastian, carefully, lets his shoulder nudge him back. “Thank you,” he says. “For that, and for telling me about your parents.”

He doesn’t say: your trust is the best gift I could have asked for. But he means it all the same.

****

When Sebastian comes out of his room, just after sunset, he stops short at the warm-sugared aroma of the house. His nose leads him to the kitchen, where he finds a small, circular cake sitting on the table. A singular candle flame flickers in the low light, and behind it, Jaime. The shadows dance over his mask of trepidation, his fidgeting hands held at waist height. 

“I hope this doesn’t count as a big deal,” Jaime says quickly, as if he’s been rehearsing the words in his head. “I found a pack of candles in the back of the cabinet, and you already had all the ingredients to make it from scratch, so I figured…” He stops short, eyes widening. “Are you okay?”

It is only then that Sebastian feels the moisture beading down his cheek. He wipes it away, a breathy, startled laugh escaping him.

“I kind of want to hug you right now.” The words sort of stumble out without much thought, and he stiffens as he hears them, ready to snatch them back.

But Jaime says, “You can, if you want.” He must hear the passive choice of words as he says it, read the apprehension on Sebastian’s face, because he shakes his head and rephrases. “I want you to. I’d like to give you a hug.”

And then he’s stepping around the table, and Jaime is in front of him. He holds his eyes for a moment, checking and double checking that this is alright. When Sebastian raises his arms in invitation, just a few cautious inches, Jaime steps into them.

It’s slow and soft, and it doesn’t linger. Just a few precious seconds of Jaime’s hands pressed flat against Sebastian’s back, of Sebastian’s arms featherlight above Jaime’s shoulders, and the warm pulse of heartbeats where their chests touch between them.

The cake is still warm, the frosting slightly melty, when Sebastian takes his first bite. He nearly cries all over again at the taste. Sebastian makes sure to cut Jaime the slightly larger slice, and relishes in watching him finish the whole thing.

They spend the rest of their Saturday night curled under blankets on opposite ends of the sofa, with Bella stretched out between them. Jaime’s eyes start to drift during the opening credits of their third movie, and by the end he is fast asleep. Sebastian allows himself a few selfish moments to watch him at peace. His mouth hangs slightly agape. Bella, who has crawled onto Jaime’s chest at some point in the night, vibrates with soft purrs against his neck. 

Sebastian blinks hard and remembers the wish he made as he blew out the candle—the first he had made since he was a child. 

Please, let him be happy. Please, let him be free.

*

@whumpervescence 

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[d100system]

if all else fails i will do the [redacted coworker name] method and work at like trader joes . alternatively theres like... a recruiting agency ive seen that has a lot of postings in the tc metro area n frankly id rather not go to them but like. IF ALLLLL ELSE FAILS

the verdict is in im moving back to minnesota no matter what by may at the latest

[sequinsmile-x]

Etch

She gets her first tattoo when she’s 15. 

An exploration of Emily's tattoos and the meaning behind them.

-x-

Hi friends!

This was inspired by an ask from @sometimesitswho, who asked my opinion on what I think Emily's tattoos are and what I think Aaron would make of them.

As we all know by now, I get carried away and now a day later we have a 4k fic haha

I hope you all enjoy this, and please let me know what you think <3

-x-

Words: 4.1k

Warnings: Mentions of tattoos/needles, pregnancy

Read over on Ao3, or below the cut

She gets her first tattoo when she’s 15. 

She walks into a parlour the first day she’s back in the USA, her trusty fake ID in hand, and a fist full of cash. When she looks back on it as an adult, she thinks that the tattoo artist must have known her ID wasn’t real, the look he gave her and her private school uniform before he took her money was one of suspicion, but he tattooed her anyway. She’d wondered since how many teenagers he’d tattooed, if he simply thought that private school kids with too much money deserved to live with a life of regret whenever they looked at the fading ink etched into their skin. 

If Emily ever looked at pictures of herself from that age she was always struck by how young she looked, her finger tracing over her own face staring up at her, her youth faded by ink and time as she touched places she now had fine lines. She looked young even for 15 and she doubts anyone would have truly believed she was 19 like her ID claimed. At the time, she hadn’t felt like a child. She hadn’t acknowledged that she was a kid making decisions that most adults would struggle with, scared and alone other than the help of a teenage boy who never truly recovered from what he had watched her go through. 

She remembers walking around the parlour and checking the designs on the walls, idly looking through everything, trying to find something that represented how she felt. Something that would be a full stop for what she’d gone through, an end to something that even then she knew was a turning in her life. A physical reminder of what she’d survived. She walks around for what feels like hours, the artists looking at her curiously, an edge of impatience in the air until she finally makes her decision. 

In the end, she settles on a butterfly.

It’s small but intricate. It looks like it’s in flight. Like it’s taking off, ready to start somewhere new now it has escaped its chrysalis, excited to explore its new form now it’s no longer a caterpillar. She decides to have it on her hip. She holds her skirt down to expose her hipbone, and shivers in disgust when the tattoo artist places his gloved hand on her skin as he starts to tattoo her. 

There’s an edge of excitement at the thought of what her mother would do if she found out, if she somehow managed to see the small tattoo that was mostly hidden by her underwear, just the top of the wings peeking out, let alone her clothing. It’s a secret rebellion she relishes in for years, a physical mark of anarchy carved into her skin. More than once she almost yells it at her mother mid-argument, almost tells her something she knows she’d hate just to disarm her, to stop the tirade about how she’d let her down again, but she never does. 

She keeps it to herself, the tattoo itself becoming just as much of a closely guarded secret as the reason she got it in the first place. Any time a partner sees it, their fingers pressed into her skin as they ask her about it, surprised she has a tattoo in the first place, she doesn’t tell the truth. She claims it was something she chose without thinking, a silly compulsive decision she’d made when she was young and stupid. 

She never tells anyone, until she tells Aaron.

___

She gets her second tattoo when she’s 21. 

She’s just graduated from her undergrad, any pride she felt for her achievement dampened by the fact her mother hadn’t made it to her graduation, stuck somewhere in Europe on an assignment she wasn’t willing to fly home from even for a weekend. 

She’s bored and has nothing to do, all of her friends out with their families for dinner. She’s invited by more than one of them, but she refuses, not in the mood to sit with a normal family, to witness what she’d always wanted to be a part of. She insists she’s fine, even though she isn’t, and she takes her diploma back to her apartment and then heads out, unable to deal with the quiet, the silence and loneliness overwhelming. 

She finds herself walking down the street and she stops outside a parlour, her eyes fixed on a ‘walk-in’s available’ sign before she makes a snap decision and does just that. It’s everything she’s always told people the butterfly was - compulsive. Very little thought involved, her decision almost immediate when they ask her what she wants, her very real ID in her hands this time. 

She chooses Arabic script, the word ‘home’ emblazoned on her lower back. She writes it out for the artist, a physical representation of something she’d never had, something her mother’s work had taken from her. It’s something she’d always have with her wherever she was, something she would later need when she was living under a different name, Lauren’s reasoning for the tattoo not the same as Emily’s. 

The artist asks her to check the letters and the spelling several times, her expression unsure as Emily confirms that it was correct, that she spoke Arabic fluently. The artist didn’t ask any other questions, seemingly aware that Emily wasn’t in the mood to talk. She lays there, concentrating on the sting of the needle, the sharp scratching almost cathartic, a well needed distraction from the ache in her chest, the understanding that once again she hadn’t been enough for her mother to put her first. 

When she gets home, she takes off her shirt and looks at both her tattoos in the mirror, turning again and again as she studies them both. The slightly faded ink of the butterfly on her hip, the lines that had blurred ever so slightly in the 6 years since she’d had it done, a stark contrast to the sharp bright black lines of the script on her back. It fascinates her, two moments of her life permanently printed on her skin, their meanings only known to her, secrets she was sure she’d hide forever, convinced that she’d never find anyone she’d trust enough to share them with.

Her mother never sees her second tattoo either, and she is forever grateful for that, not sure she’d ever have the words to explain it to her even if she asked.

___

Emily sighs contentedly as she settles into her bed, her limbs a delicious mix of heavy and light as she stretches, the cool sheet soft against her bare skin. 

“You ok, sweetheart?” 

She smiles as she looks at Aaron, walking out of her ensuite, naked apart from a smug smile on his face. They’d come back to hers after their date, something he’d insisted on before they had sex, his gentlemanly nature both something she loved and hated about him in that moment, and they’d barely got inside her apartment before they were all over each other. Their clothes were strewn throughout her apartment, starting from just inside the door. 

Their transition from friendship into more, into this which felt a lot like the last first date she’d ever go on, was easy. After years of both of them pretending they didn’t have feelings for each other, years of circumstance getting in the way, they’d taken the leap together, something that she thinks with anyone else would have terrified her. 

“I’m perfect,” she says, laying on her front, her pillow gathering in her arms as she lays her head on it, “Come over here.” 

He doesn’t need asking twice. He’s across the room and under the covers in a moment, his warmth immediately seeping into her skin, removing the slight chill that stepping out of their shared shower had created. 

He’s immediately touching her, tracing hills and valleys he’d imagined for years, ones he now wanted to commit to memory, the time they’d taken to take each other apart again and again before their shower not enough. He’d been reverent earlier, paying close attention to her scars. She hadn’t been with anyone since Ian had left her for dead, her skin torn open just like her life had been. With anyone else she thinks she would have been worried, self-conscious about the scars she’d been left with, but Aaron had made her feel nothing short of beautiful. 

She’d felt the same way about his scars, raised bits of skin made up of him where he’d had to pull himself back together. A tapestry of the things he’d survived to make it here to her. 

He runs his hand up and down her bare back, chasing the goosebumps he creates. He smiles at her, something relaxed and soft to it she would have once seen thought he wasn’t capable of. His hand pauses where her tattoo is, tracing the letters as his smile turns into a smirk. 

“I never took you to be a lower back tattoo kind of person,” he says, his smile only getting wider when she narrows her eyes at him. 

“Shut up,” she says, unable to fight her smile when he leans in to kiss her, her words slightly muffled against his lips, “It was the 90s.” 

“I like it,” he says, kissing her again before he pulls back, his hand laying on her lower back, covering the tattoo in its entirety, “What does it mean?” 

She hesitates for a moment, the usual, well-practised lies about her tattoos and their meaning on the tip of her tongue ready to go.  

She’d lied to Ian about them. In the grand scheme of things she’d lied to him about it didn’t even scratch the surface, something that flowed easily from her tongue when she considered he didn’t even know her real name. It was something she was grateful for later when he taunted her about them in Boston, a sense of satisfaction found in the fact that she’d never shared with him the part of herself that had only ever been for her. She’d taken those parts of her to her grave, buried alongside any fleeting remaining hope she’d one day find someone she could share those pieces with. That she’d have a partner who’d help her dust them off and treat them with the reverence she’d long since convinced herself she didn’t deserve. 

She looks at Aaron, her cheek resting on her hands as their eyes meet, and he’s looking at her with such reverence, such love she realises that she wants to tell him the truth. She knows that whilst it’s their first night together it’s the start of something important, the feeling of forever in the air around them, what she feels for him as permanent as the black ink his palm was currently covering. 

“It means home,” she says. She turns onto her side, his hand following her lower back as if magnetized to it, his arm coming to rest over her waist. She puts her elbow on the mattress and rests her head in her palm, her smile sad, “I got it the day of my college graduation. Mother was…” She blows out a breath and shakes her head, her teeth briefly digging into her lower lip, “Somewhere. I don’t even remember where now, but she wasn’t here and she didn’t come,” she reaches out and presses her thumb into the dent between his eyebrows when he frowns, his indignation for a young her clear, “And instead of going to dinner with my friends and their families I wandered around, found myself in a tattoo parlour,” she shrugs, an edge of embarrassment sneaking in as she scrunches her face up, “I’d never really had a home, and at the time it made sense to make sure I always had one with me.” 

He leans in to kiss her, his hand skating up her back to tangle in her still damp hair as he holds her in place, “That makes sense,” he replies, kissing her once more before he pulls back, his curiosity getting the better of him as his gaze drifts to her hip. She was covered by the thin sheet over them, but he could picture the small butterfly, the intricate wings having caught his attention where it sat on her hipbone, “What about the butterfly?” 

She tenses, the question she knew was coming still somehow taking her by surprise. He knew about Rome. She’d told him months ago when it was just the two of them one evening, talking about anything and everything over a bottle of wine when Jack was in bed and the two of them were still insisting they were just friends. She was talking about all the places she’d lived, all the places she’d love to go back to, and Rome came up. A city she had complicated feelings for, the beauty of it somewhat diminished by what had happened to her when she was young, the famous landmarks everyone always wanted to see tainted by memories of a positive pregnancy test in the bottom of her school bag. She’d told him that night, a secret she’d guarded so closely coming out without her even realising it would. 

He’d been nothing but kind and supportive as the final puzzle pieces about the case all those years ago fell into place. That night when she left to go home he hugged her tighter than usual, a safety in his embrace that she’d been seeking ever since. 

When she looks back on it, she knows that’s the night she realised that if she could trust him with the parts of her she’d always considered the worst, she could trust him with her heart. 

He sees the hesitance, feels how her shoulders get tighter as he asks, and a sense of panic unfurls in his chest. He never wanted to push her too far, to make her curl back in on herself like she so often did when she was uncomfortable. He tucks some of her hair behind her ear, hoping his smile is encouraging when her eyes meet his. 

“Em, it’s okay if you don’t want to-”

“I got it when I was 15,” she says, cutting him off before she lets his kindness talk her out of it  “I’d just got back from Rome.” 

She doesn’t have to say anymore, and she sees the realisation wash over his face. His hand skates down her side, his thumb coming to rest over the tattoo hidden beneath the sheet, his placement exact even though tonight was the first time he’d ever seen it. For a few seconds, he’s silent, contemplating the best thing to say, how to proceed now she’s told him her deepest secrets. 

“I really like them,” he says eventually, stroking her skin through the sheet, his smile soft when their eyes meet. She presses her lips together and shifts closer to him. 

“Really?” She asks, relief she hadn’t anticipated rolling through her, her cheeks warm with it as his hand once again drifts to her lower back. 

“Really,” he confirms, stamping his lips against hers, “They are beautiful,” he says, kissing her, “Just like the rest of you,” he kisses her again, her action lost to her wide smile, her cheek warm as his nose presses into it, “Thank you for telling me.” 

She rests her forehead against his and closes her eyes, taking a moment to breathe the moment in, to breathe him in, before she replies.

“Thank you for listening.”

___

She gets her third and final tattoo when she’s 41. 

It’s Aaron’s idea. It takes her by surprise when he suggests it, his smile soft as he says they should both get a tattoo. He’d been obsessed with hers since that first night, always pressing his thumb or palm against them at any given opportunity. He asked a lot of questions, fascinated by the process, and she agrees, the thought of doing this with someone this time, with the man she was sharing her life with, making her skin fizz. 

It’s different to the last couple of times. Aaron does research. Reading endless reviews for each of the artists and parlours in DC, his face serious as he goes over them, narrowing it down to a shortlist. She finds it endearing, love for him sparking in her chest when she pushes his laptop from his lap and sits there instead, wrapping her arms around his neck as she kisses him. They go back and forth on a design, deciding that they want similar ones but not necessarily matching. They settle on a blackbird, a symbol that means different things to both of them - a conversation with a friend for her when she was dead to almost everyone she knew, and a song that had got him through the worst parts of his life. 

They go to get them done a couple of weeks after they move into their house. They own a house together and she’s got a ring on her finger but when the artist shows them the stencils for the tattoos it somehow feels even more intimate, love for each other etched into their skin. She goes first, shows him how it’s done when he jokes that she’s the ‘expert’, something that heavily tattooed artist raises and eyebrow at when he sees her other tattoos. 

“Want me to hold your hand?” Aaron asks, his hand already offered out as she sits down, her shirt tucked in under the band of her bra as the small blackbird stencil is applied to her ribs. She raises her eyebrow at him but takes his hand anyway, linking their fingers together as she squeezes. 

“You’d better not wimp out on me,” she says, hiding a wince as the artist starts, the vibration of the needle against her bones worse than she remembers. 

“Never,” he replies, winking as he squeezes her hand again. He ignores when she tightens her hold on him every now and again, her grip at its fiercest when the artist does the shading. 

He watches with fascination when the artist wraps the tattoo, the ink bright and stark in comparison to her older ones, and he clears his throat when she catches him staring, a mischievous glint in her eyes when he looks away. He feels briefly anxious when it’s his turn, a familiar churn in his gut as he takes off his shirt, the scars on his chest on show for the artist. He relaxes when the other man doesn’t flinch, his focus merely on confirming that the scar closest to his heart would be fine to tattoo over. 

Emily laughs at him when he has to have a patch of his chest hair shaved off, her hand over her mouth in a half-hearted attempt to cover her amusement, his glare doing nothing as their eyes meet. She watches intently as the stencil is applied to his skin. It was a larger tattoo than hers but similar in design, a matching set that seemed to perfectly represent them. Their pasts different but similar, two paths that had crossed over and brought them together, everything they’d endured leading them to this. 

She smiles and offers her hand out to him, “Want me to hold your hand?”

He smiles at the repetition of his question back to him and he nods, reaching out and linking their fingers together, “Always.” 

She rolls her eyes at his response and shakes her head. He was never shy about his love for her. He always let her know, took every opportunity to let her know. It was something she’d spent so much of her life living without, but now it felt essential. Something as necessary as breathing. She couldn’t remember what it was like to live without it, without him, and she never wanted to again. 

He clenches his teeth as soon as the tattoo artist starts, his body tense and his grip on her hand tight. She squeezes back and smiles when their eyes meet, her expression soft as she gently makes fun of him. 

“Honey, you’ve been stabbed by a psychopath. I think you can handle a tattoo,” she says, and he raises an eyebrow at her, his amusement clear. 

“Some of us have never had a tattoo before,” he deadpans, squeezing her hand a little tighter as the discomfort briefly gets worse. 

When they get home, they look after each other's tattoos, gently rubbing the ointment the artist had given them into each other's skin. 

The team find out about Aaron’s tattoo a few months later when he’s hurt on a case, his shirt cut apart by the EMTs as they check him for internal injuries. It surprises them, any attempt to gently make fun of him for it stopped in its tracks by Emily’s glare, her worry for her husband overriding anything else. Instead, they ask a few questions, a hint of amusement tinging their shock, the blackbird on their boss's chest changing their deep seated perceptions of him.

Emily only surprises them even more when she tells them she has a matching one.

___

The butterfly stretches when she’s pregnant. 

At first, she thinks she’ll get away with it, that maybe she’ll carry her son in a way that will leave it untouched, the tattoo low enough that it might not be affected. It’s only when she slips from her second trimester into her third that it happens, the wings stretching up over the base of her bump whilst the rest of it disappears, hidden by her son as he grows. 

The blackbird on her ribs remains unaffected, almost sitting on top of her bump, as if keeping watch over the baby growing beneath her skin. 

She looks at herself in the mirror, turning to the side and smiling softly when she sees the blurring lines of the wings peeking out from under her bump. She’s standing there in a pair of Aaron’s boxers, the band pushed down to lay below her belly, and a sports bra. It was hot, too hot, and she would frequently complain to Aaron that if they had another baby, they’d have to time it so she wasn’t pregnant in the summer. 

“How are you two doing?” 

She smiles and catches his eye in the mirror, “He’s fine,” she says, placing her hand on top of her bump, “My back hurts.” 

Aaron walks over and stops just behind her, his chest against her back. He kisses the top of her head and skates his hands down her sides, lingering briefly on her bump when he feels their son kick. He hooks his hand under her bump and he lifts it, taking the weight of the baby in his hands. He smiles when she groans in satisfaction, resting her head on his shoulder as she looks up at him. 

“Does that feel better?” He asks and he kisses her forehead. 

“So much better,” she says, stamping her lips against his jaw, “Can you stand right there and do that for the next nine weeks?” 

He chuckles, “Whatever you need, sweetheart.” 

She smiles and looks at them in the mirror, her gaze drifting down to her tattoo, the slightly warped butterfly fully in view now Aaron was holding her bump up, “I don’t think the butterfly is going to look good when I’m done being pregnant,” she says, watching as he looks down too, “It’s going to look more like a moth.” 

He kisses her cheek, encouraging her to turn her head to look at him, his lips stamped against hers as she does so. 

“It’s beautiful,” he says, something he’d repeated countless times since that first night together, “It always will be, no matter what.” 

She hums and rests her forehead against his neck, her eyes closed as she breathes him in for a moment before she looks back at the tattoo. It was something she’d had done close to 30 years ago, a final page of that chapter of her life. It felt strangely fitting that it was being changed by the start of this next chapter. 

A transformation taking place right before her eyes, like a butterfly escaping a chrysalis, breaking free from the bounds made of its own skin. 

“Yeah,” she says, placing her hand over his, linking their fingers under her bump, “I think you’re right.” 

-x-

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[icarusbetide]

On the topic of people with whom hamilton had.. interesting relationships with, do you think him and bobby troup had something going on in college

hey anon! i'm going to be a spoilsport and say that i don't think there's enough for me to suspect anything between them. but the flip side to "we don't know enough :(" is "we don't know enough ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)". they could've been going through the girls-kissing-for-fun-at-sleepover experience as roommates and we'd have no idea, would we?

but what i do know is that they had a life-long, deep relationship that survived a war and all the interpersonal hurdles that comes along with their new york circle being 10 people in a trenchcoat. undergrad roommates at king's college, similar orphan-background. they formed a debating club together, and troup probably saw hamilton's political thoughts on the british-american conflict mature firsthand. later, he had thoughts on philip, on hamilton's financial situation, on how much hamilton charged his clients - he was very intimate and close with the hamilton family at large.

there is recent speculation on whether or not troup "losing" hamilton's youthful poetry that he had been gifted might suggest that the poetry had suggestive material, à la laurens letters. but i don't know why troup would have even brought it up if he had destroyed or tampered the poetry. it seems more likely that he genuinely lost track of the papers and regretted losing them.

i do find it superbly interesting that troup was close to burr as well as hamilton, although i've heard conflicting things on the period and overlap of the friendships, and how troup felt about burr after the duel. there is a very dramatic theory that troup might have been involved with both hamilton and burr.

two of my favorite anecdotes are about them fussing over each other.

troup giving ham updates to rufus king in his 1802 letter, where he goes "Hamilton is closely pursuing the law, and I have at length succeeded in making him somewhat mercenary. I have known him latterly to dun his clients for money, and in settling an account with me the other day, he reminded me that I had received a fee for him in settling a question referred to him and me jointly. These indications of regard to property give me hopes that we shall not be obliged to raise a subscription to pay for his funeral expenses."

i love it because it's so very clearly a close friend fond and amused, you know? "he reminded me that i owe him his fee! the progress!"

2. the fact that troup was the last visit ham made before the duel, and it was him being a mom friend again? troup himself was very sick, and he later recounted that ham showed up and basically gave health advice with such cheerfulness that troup had no idea what was about to happen the next day. it's so very tragic.

"But the whole tenor of the General’s deportment, during the visit, manifested such composure, and cheerfulness of mind, as to leave me without an suspicion of the rencontre that was descending."

tldr: at the very least, a decades long friendship between two people that seemed to have complimentary personalities - the calm to hamilton's storm, in some ways. one of ham's steadfast friends who contributed greatly to the subscription for hamilton's funeral and support for his family. was there more? youthful experimentation, perhaps? let's bring them back and ask.

[gendercrystal]

PhDay 48: now with 650 words of filler in my thesis template and a bunch of data analysis done

I regret taking the course that has three lectures a week and tutorials that aren't really relevant to me, I came here to do research not cosplay as an undergrad...

But in other news I am going to a conference next month and will be presenting a poster, should be a fun learning experience and totally not scary

[uzurimisery]

chapter 1: a bet. / gojo satoru

gojo in a suit wearing nice perfume yes please

wc: 2,194

Being a legal secretary was far from a straightforward job. You need to be smart, but not too much, otherwise the insecure old men might lose their minds. You needed to draft and proofread legal documents and thus understand legal ongoings, on top of ensuring important court filings were submitted on time. But being a great legal secretary meant doing so much more, and being a great legal secretary at one of the top firms in Los Angeles? God, did you deserve a medal for doing all the heavy lifting while wearing heels!

Suguru would be lost without you truly, and that’s something the whole firm knew. Your researching abilities gave him a step ahead of the opposing party, and the critical details you had uncovered had saved more than a few cases from being lost. Add to that your legal strategy you were more of an associate than the third years. Which is why for the past six years, you’ve been Suguru Getou’s secretary.

You were friends first, having met at a shitty dive bar near Harvard’s campus in your final years. (He in law school and your undergrad) You didn’t run in the same circles, but it was thanks to an internship you had landed at a third rate law firm near campus, which Suguru also had an internship at, you two bonded. Perhaps over one too many jager-bombs, but what university without those regrets?

Besides those regrets, you got your job now at Masamichi & Associates Los Angeles Branch, which you loved. Minus the 80 work weeks, ass kissing to rich clients, dealing with the first year associates, and the — well, there’s a lot you could say you disliked about the job, but truly you love it. Even if you had to miss out on your friend’s bachelorette party. It was her second marriage to be fair, so you didn’t feel as bad. But yes, you loved your job. Except for right now.

You stood in front of Suguru’s desk, seething with anger. “You used me as a bet?!”

“Y/n, listen,” Suguru said, holding up his hands in defence. “I was certain I was going to win!”

“Oh my god,” you said, shaking your head. “I should throttle you! I mean, what the hell, Suguru? You didn’t even ask me if I was fine with being bet on.”

“I knew you would say no,” Suguru admitted.

“No shit, I’d say no!” you exclaimed.

“Y/n,” Suguru said, standing up from his chair and motioning for you to sit down in his place. “I truly thought he wouldn’t win the case and that I’d actually have to pay up.”

You sat down, plopping down into the chair rather than sitting gracefully. Suguru stood behind you and rubbed your shoulders.

“I can’t believe you,” you said. “After all that we have been through, you threw me away to a half-rate lawyer.”

“Okay, harsh,” Suguru said. “He’s not a half-rate lawyer-“

“You’re the one who called him that,” you pointed out.

Suguru sighed. “Yes, I did,” he said. “But I was just being facetious. I know he’s a talented lawyer.”

“Then why did you bet me on him?” you asked.

“Because I was confident that I was going to win,” Suguru said again. “I thought it would be a funny bet, you know? A little friendly wager.”

“It wasn’t funny,” you said. “It is humiliating. I feel like a prize to be won, not a person.”

“You’re the best person and he’s actually a wonderful lawyer, the best at the branch in Japan, which is why he’s coming to the New York branch. Plus, Satoru is a friend of mine from my undergraduate and law school days, which I still don’t know how you never met him, or Shoko.”

“I was antisocial, Suguru. It’s a miracle I even knew you.” A huff escaped you. “What’s he like?”

“He’s annoying, a bit of a narcissist-”

“Just like you then.” Getou made a face at you, leaning over you so you could see his face.

“He’s good at his job. Smart. Like freakishly so. He likes answering questions too, used to be a TA when we were in high school, so he’ll put up with all yours. You’re gonna love it with him, I promise! And if you don’t, then give it three months and I’ll pay him the 300k instead.”

“Fine…” the dollar amount clicked in your brain. “YOU BET ME FOR 300 THOUSAND DOLLARS?!”

__________

Your heels clicked against the polished wood flooring as you made your way from the Northwest corner office to Suguru’s office on the Southeastern side of the floor. Luckily, you wouldn’t be stuck down on the 53rd floor, where they put transfers. Gojo was clearly one of the best lawyers at the firm if he was taking a corner office, too.

It took you a few hours to get everything set up at your new desk and for IT to move your computer over. Truthfully, you could have done it faster without them, but rules and procedures were rules and procedures. The nice thing was that your desk was bigger now, with an elevated spot for your monitor and phone. Getou would be hearing from you after all of this to upgrade your desk with him.

Gojo wasn’t due to be back from a meeting with Mr. Trent Chow, an investment banker at a hedge fund the firm had been trying to get on the books for a few weeks now, until after lunch, which gave you enough time to go hear all the gossip from the other secretaries about him.

Gojo had worked in the States before, as well as in the UK. He was known for closing deals and was a self-described “winner.” He drank fine scotch and dated even finer women. Apparently, there was an issue in the Japanese branch, with a few ex-clients being barred from the premises after Gojo may or may not have slept with their wives. He was an excellent lawyer, but an egotistical person.

Halfway through your second coffee of the day, expertly crafted by the barista at the Cafe at the ground floor of the building who was hopelessly into you, a body leaned up against the top of your desk.

A tailored pinstripe navy suit by Brioni, a name-brand Italian leather watch by Patek Philippe, and a class ring with the same graduation year as Getou—it wasn’t hard to tell that it was an attorney leaning on your desk.

“So you’re the unlucky secretary sacrificed to Gojo,” she said in a raspy, low-toned voice.

You raised an eyebrow. “Is he that bad?”

“Oh, he’s not bad,” Shoko said with a smile. “He’s just... a lot.”

“How so?”

“He’s arrogant, obnoxious, and he has a terrible habit of flirting with every woman he meets,” Shoko said. “But he’s also one of the best attorneys I know. He’s brilliant, and he’s always prepared. So if you can handle his ego, you’ll be fine.”

“I think I can handle it,” you said with a smirk.

Shoko laughed. “I knew I was going to like you,” she said. “Shoko Ieri, senior partner.” She extended her hand.

You shook her hand. “Y/N,” you said. “Secretary extraordinaire.”

Shoko held your gaze for a moment. “I think we’re going to be a great team,” she said.

“How long have you been at the firm?” You asked her.

“Same amount of time as Getou and Gojo. We all graduated together and got put in the bullpen together, too. Gojo and I ended up back in Japan to help the transition after Masamishi became named partner.”

“Oh, so you went to Harvard as well?”

“Guilty. Still don’t know if it was worth it. You?”

“Harvard too. I was two years under your class and in the undergrad program.”

The chatter between you and Shoko continued for a while, only stopping as Gojo rounded the corner.

6’3” with platinum blonde hair, more akin to white, swept back and styled, only disrupted by a pair of sunglasses perched on top of his head, that was perfectly coiffed, without a single strand out of place. His skin was pale and flawless, and his cheekbones were sharp and defined. His nose was straight and angular, and his lips were full and sensual.

He wore a tailored three-piece black suit with a maroon tie hanging undone, revealing a glimpse of his toned chest. The top two buttons of his white button-down shirt were undone, showcasing his strong jawline.

His gait was confident and unhurried. He walked like he owned the place, with his head held high and his shoulders back. His demeanour was polished and sophisticated, and he had a natural elegance that seemed effortless. There was an air of authority about him, a sense that he was accustomed to being in charge. He came from a long line of judges, attorneys, and government officials both in the USA and Japan, so it wouldn’t be surprising if he actually felt that way. He was born into it all.

When he reached your desk, he placed a few manilla folders on top of it. Given his reputation, it was easy to guess it was Trent Chow signing on to the firm. You could smell him now that he was closer, and he smelt good. Clary sage wrapped up with pear and bergamot, cushioned by amber and patchouli. He smelt as expensive as he dressed.

“You must be my new secretary.” He smiled, one side going up higher than the other revealing a sharp canine. “Gojo Satoru, best closer in the city and your new boss, though I guess it’s the other way around here. Anyway! Come into my office, let’s talk.”

To say his office was impressive was an understatement. It was a corner facing unit overlooking the expanse of the city. The interior was well decorated, but stilly minimal. A wall of records and books filled with a range of media and titles from the early 1900s to now. His desk was sleek, ornate but not overstated, with the latest generation MacBook idling on it. Two tub chairs sat facing the desk, both at an angle so that the person sitting in it would have to look at Gojo.

Towards the south-facing window was a more expensive version of an IKEA Kallax unit, lined with sport memorabilia and signed basketballs. A few feet away from it was a sitting area. A brown leather couch draped with throw facing a metal and glass coffee table flanked by two dark grey Herman Miller Chadwick modular chairs. On the table was a neatly organised stack of the times layered between sport magazines, and a lit candle filling the room with a rainy cedar smell like a mountain forest in spring.

The most impressive thing might have been that he had the entire office set up for his first day.

Gojo sat down in his office chair and gave a full 360 spin before facing you, propping his chin on his left hand and he leaned forward against the desk and the right removed the sunglasses from his head and placed them down neatly.

Being this close, you could see his eyes for all that they were. They were strangely unnerving, an endless expanse that felt like he wasn’t seeing you, but through you instead. As if under his gaze, lay all your little habits and transgressions bare for him to observe.

He stared at you for what felt like an hour before speaking.

“Sugu told me you were the best. Kept him organised. Helped him manage the litigation of 405 Holdings, created curated lists of clients with detailed information on their likes and dislikes for him to improve relationships with them, and said your view on legal proceedings was better than a fifth year associate,” He dropped his hand and leaned back in his chair “but he didn’t tell me you were gorgeous.”

There was the notorious flirting they had warned you of.

“Mr. Gojo-”

“Please, Satoru’s fine.”

“Satoru,” you corrected, leaning against the armrest of the chair “You’ve got a meeting with Orlando Smitt from Smitt & Sons Petroleum at 2:00 at Le Pavillion, expect for it to take two and half hours as he likes to chat. After that you’ve got a meeting on the Park Holdings case with Suguru, followed by a dinner with Laurence Hill, a potential client in the automotive manufacturing industry with an estimated company value of $1.7 billion, and I’m to remind you that Masamichi wants a copy of your brief on the Trust Development case on his desk by nine tomorrow or your on the next pro Bono case which, I’ve been told, is housing court.”

You rose, leaning over his desk with a hand spread across it “And yes, I am gorgeous, but you think a little sweet talk is all it’s going to take to get me to even have the slightest amount of interest in you?”

Spinning on your heel, you sauntered towards the door, opening it while looking over your shoulder at him

“Oh, and Mr. Smitt is allergic to shellfish.”

Series masterlist: here

[karmaisakhaleesi]

Astronomy chap. 1 Neteyam Sully x human!fem!reader

master list-

It's astronomy, we're two worlds apart

1.3k+ word count

warnings- anxiety/panic attacks, death, illness, lmk if i missed any!

comment if you'd like to be added to the taglist for this!

Neteyam x human!fem!reader

---

You feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up when you walk down the steps of the cargo ship. You feel the start of a migraine when the mask tightens around your head. The only barrier between life and death at the hands of asphyxia. You shudder at the thought and take in the base, concrete buildings along with bulldozers, and in the distance, the lush greenery of a forest makes you all the more homesick. But you grin and bear it, your Mother's words echoing through you, "Live your life, I'll be fine. It's not like there's much for me to do here anyway."

The memory was bittersweet, having been right after her diagnosis. You shook your head, shoving it away, you promised you wouldn't cry. Just yet.

A woman interrupted you briefly introducing herself and guided you inside. You quickly followed, the sound of air escaping as the doors closed behind you.

"So Miss, Augustine, how do you feel?"

The blonde woman, whose name you had briefly forgotten asked. You felt a flush creep up my cheeks, "Um, well, it's a lot different than back home. But I should be fine!" I fumbled over my words fiddling with the strap of my backpack.

"Good, well I'll leave you to it, remember, dinners at 1900 hours!" she said leaving briskly, the sound of her shoes echoing against the linoleum floors.

You glance at the small room that greeted you. Nothing but a small grey cot and matching desk cramped into the small room. Your bag hits the bed with a thud, "Whelp, time to regret my life choices for the next ten hours," you sigh.

___

"Are you insane?!? Have you lost it?!? She's nothing but a child!" a male voice shouted from behind the office door.

You flinched, and he sounded pissed. You sucked in a deep breath knocking on the door.

"We have had this discussion several times might I remind you, Doctor Moran. And we will not have it again. You know why she is here, are we clear?"

"You've gone mad!"

You flinched again as the door flew open and a man with a mess of gray hair regarded you with a look of pure disdain. He then stormed past you nearly knocking you down.

"Miss Augustine, it's nice to see you. Please, come in," the general greeted.

She shuffled some papers off her desk and into a drawer. Giving you a tight-lipped smile she gestured for you to take a seat. You tentatively sat down in the brown leather swivel chair, the only thing of color in the small gray room you noted.

Your hands clenched the arms of the chair, bracing yourself for the words about to leave her mouth.

"Now I see here that you have all of the required degrees and specifications for the job I've offered you," she paused to pull a paper off of her desk.

"Graduated Harvard summa cum laude, in undergrad. Top of your class in grad school, and completed your Ph.D. thesis on Pandoran ecology to earn your doctorate degree all at or before the age of fifteen. Quite an impressive resume, if I say so myself."

You frown, eyes finding the floor a much more interesting subject than your many degrees and accomplishments.

General Ardmore gives you another tight-lipped smile before she pulls a pen out and hands it out to you. She then pushes a paper towards you, "Now let's cut to the chase, shall we?"

You sigh and nod your head in affirmation, hand shaking, pen tip hovering on the stark white paper.

"You sign this and your Mother's cured. Well as long as you hold up your end of the deal, Miss Augustine," she gives yet another smile, but you can see that it doesn't quite reach her eyes.

You quickly sign, biting your lip to hold back the tears you can feel burning to be let go.

"Yes, understood ma'am."

"Good! Now that that's been taken care of, let's get you ready to ship out!"

She spins her chair around to stand, her shoes echoing through the hall as you stand to follow.

___

You glance wearily at the helicopter before someone tosses your bag into a seat, you glance over at a woman with sunglasses gives you a curt smile through her mask, and walks to the pilot seat. You carefully sit down next to your bag and strap the seatbelt as tight as you can, also seatbelting your bag. Just so that it won't fall out, you think to yourself as you hear the chopper blades start whirring defeating you.

You feel a tap on your shoulder as the General gives you a thumbs up, a bit of warning in her eyes. You nod soundlessly as you take off, gasping at the feeling.

---

Your feet touch solid ground after what feels like forever and you carefully undo your and your bag's seatbelts. You clutch your bag tightly to your chest, scared you'll lose it. A man greets you and shakes your hand, "Dr. Spellman! It's a pleasure to meet you!"

You return the handshake and nod, too nervous to speak.

You follow him into the facility and the familiar whoosh of air signals the doors closing behind you. You quickly take off your mask and take a deep breath.

"So, how was your, um, trip?" Dr. Spellman asks, wringing his hands as he guides you to your room.

"It was, uneventful," you reply setting your bag down in a similarly grey room, desk, bed, and all.

"Well, that's good," he replies.

You glance up at him, he seems, nervous. Or scared, maybe a mix of both. You knew things had changed since your Aunt Grace left for Pandora, mostly for the worst. You were surprised they had even let you come, well not to the base, but to the old facility. You had figured they would refuse, but with the omission of your role with the military, they reluctantly agreed.

"You seem, nervous," Dr. Spellman sputtered in the middle of his explanation, denying your accusation, but his face flushed a deep red.

"Well, yes, just a bit," he paused eyes widening as he quickly shut a door, whisper shouting at something you couldn't see.

A flurry of hushed voices in a language you somewhat recognized followed. You frowned turning to Spellman opening your mouth before the opened interrupting you mid-sentence.

You gasped as a group of, Na'vi and one human pushed open the door. The human looked to be around your age, long messy blonde hair obscured his face and blue markings covered his body. You flinched as their confused looks turned to hisses of defense, which caused you to stumble back and trip over a small box.

Closing your eyes, you braced yourself for impact, only to feel a warm hand enclosed around your arm. You blinked slowly and looked on to see a deep blue hand enclosed around yours keeping you from falling face-first onto the floor. Heat crept up your face as the hand dropped your arm as if it were on fire.

"Okay, everybody," Dr. Spellman interrupted, "Please calm down, I will explain in two seconds!"

He sighed exasperatedly, pointing to you, "This is Dr. Augustine, Dr. Grace Augustine's niece."

"And they are Neteyam, Lo'ak, Kiri, Tuktirey, and Miles," he paused looking towards them warily.

They returned the wariness.

"Your my mother's niece?" the older girl interrupted.

You give her a nervous smile, feeling an anxiety attack coming on, "Yes, I'm y/n Augustine. My mom is your mother's sister, Selene Augustine."

You can feel your throat tightening and vision blurring as the girl, Kiri you believe? Questions you excitedly. You feel a warm hand on your shoulder, and that's when the world goes black.

___

i hope you like chapter 1! chapter 2 should be out soon!

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@phantomalex14