#genuinely so so proud of this one I spent two days straight on it

[fancat-not-fangirl]

“If we can’t win, you should win”

[mediumgayitalian]

“Come here, you dweeb. Let me fix it.”

Will pouts, dragging his feet over and slumping half on top of him. Nico allows it with a smile and a roll of his eyes, pinching Will’s shoulder. He doesn’t react except for a wounded noise, muffled in Nico’s lap, so the situation is evidently quite dire.

“It’s just hair, Will.”

“But I worked on it!” He shifts around until he’s got his head in Nico’s lap, face turned towards him, body curled up on the grass around him. Nico brushes his tangled bangs off his forehead, meeting his big sad eyes. “I spent forty minutes with a stupid brush! And yet!”

“And yet,” Nico agrees, unable to appropriately school is face into one of somber understanding. Will scowls at him for his lack of proper sympathy, a little bit of genuine hurt in his eyes, so Nico leans down and kisses right between his brows in apology. He seems mollified, if only slightly, or at least he leans into Nico’s touch and stops mumbling quite so much.

“‘S’not fair.”

“Mhm.“

“Your hair listens to your instructions.”

“Yep.”

“Even Cecil’s hair listens to him, and no one listens to Cecil.”

Nico purses his lips thoughtfully. “I think Austin listens to Cecil.”

“Yes, I know. It’s an ongoing issue. I’m trying to train him out of it.”

“And how’s that going?” Nico murmurs, curling a strand of golden blond hair around his finger.

“Oh, well, I’m doing my best, so of course it’s going horribly.”

Nico snorts. He resists the urge to hold his palms to Will’s cheeks and kiss every single freckle at light speed, because he will screech something about how Nico is one-upping him in the romance department or something stupid like that. Instead he settles for looking at his dumb dramatic boyfriend’s face and marvelling over the fact that the cutest boy in the entire world, and Nico is being totally objective, hunts around camp until he finds whatever tree Nico is hiding under and curls up into a ball around him and trusts Nico to hold him while he complains about stupid things that genuinely hurt his feelings a little. It’s nice. So many people at camp are still so rigid around him, like he’s collecting information for their judgement day or something. Will prefers to exercise his lesser-known Apollonian talent of being a bigger drama queen than the god himself.

“Stay still,” Nico says softly, moving Will around so he’s laying perpendicular to Nico, now, head centered in his lap and staring up at the sky. Will sighs and squirms a little and turns his head to press a kiss to Nico’s knee, scrunching up his face and releasing it, and then settles in the position.

Humming something soft that exists on the fringes of his foggy memories, he sinks his hands into Will’s hair.

“It’s not that bad,” he promises, moving slowly and pausing whenever he comes across a knot.

Will harrumphs.

“I mean it, Marilyn Monroe. You can tone down the histrionics.”

“I used gel.”

Nico flicks a dried clump of it onto Will’s forehead, amused. “I can see that.”

“I followed every single one of Mitchell’s instructions!”

“I bet.”

“And yet!”

“And, yet.”

Nico has a sneaking suspicion that someone made a comment about Will’s hair, in the last few weeks. He can never confirm it and Will has been shifty about it every time he asks, but Nico has noticed the uptick in hoods and hats the past month and his little flinches every time Nico reaches up and tugs on it. Despite being oddly confident about the oddest things — why he is so proud of being able to fit his fist in his mouth, Nico will never know — Will is very sensitive to how people think of him. He needs to know he’s liked, and when people don’t like him, he gets…desperate, pleasing. The opposite of Nico, who becomes worse in an attempt to push them away on his own terms.

Nico leans down and presses a long, lingering kiss to his forehead.

“I like your hair, you know.”

“It’s a stupid mess.”

He smooths down a handful of it, pressing it over Will’s eye. He manages to keep a straight face for one, two, three seconds before he huffs a laugh, batting Nico’s hands away. Nico grins.

“I like the stupid mess.”

“Yeah, well, you like a lot of weird things.”

“Like you?” Nico suggests, pressing another kiss to the tip of his rounded nose.

“Shut up.”

Another strange thing about him, that Nico has to duck his head to hide his automatic smile: he gets embarrassed easily.

Nico never expected it of him, with all the dorky, medical-themed pickup lines and general shamelessness in his affection towards everybody on Earth, but especially Nico. When the poking, prodding attraction is turned on him, however, he shuts down like an overloaded Playstation. Nico can sometimes see the error messages playing behind its eyes. It’s hilarious.

“Will.” He pokes him in the cheek. “Hey.”

“What,” Will grumbles.

“I think you’re beautiful.”

Watching the slow spread of red from below the collar of his shirt to the roots of his hair is a delight. Nico watches in glee, wrestling Will’s hands away when he tries to slap them over his face.

“Shut up! Leave me alone! Go — flirt with somebody else!”

“You’d curse them to speak in rhymes for ten years,” Nico teases.

Will makes an agonised noise. “Who! Asked you! Shut up!”

“You’d sic Kayla on anyone who so much as winks at me, you jealous bitch.”

“I would not!”

“You would so. You rolled your eyes at everything Percy said for three weeks when you found out I used to crush on him —”

“I did not!”

“— and you didn’t even have the balls to ask me out, back then.”

“You are a — peddler of falsehoods! A prevaricator, a perjurer, and a fabulist!”

“And you sound like you swallowed a thesaurus,” Nico snickers. He catches the hand Will flails at him, pressing a kiss to the wrist, which only serves to fluster him more. He decides to take mercy when the kisses he trails down his arms result in one loud, long, tortured screech, pulling back and giving him some space.

Notably, he doesn’t move from Nico’s lap.

“I like it,” Nico admits, once Will has calmed down some. “I like that you’ve liked me for so long.”

Will peeks through the fingers he has covering his eyes. “It’s embarrassing.”

“Yes.” Nico squeezes his shoulders. “And endearing, which seems to be your sweet spot.” He presses a much softer kiss to the underside of Will’s ear, lingering there until he sighs, slumping under all the tension finally leaving his body. “I love you, Will. I love your clumsiness and your rambles and your nose and your freckles and your awkwardness and your jealousy and your hair and I love you, Will, all of you. Even the embarrassing weird parts.” He kisses him again. “Especially the weird parts.”

Will breathes slowly, carefully, evenly, face pressed to the inside of Nico’s thigh. His long eyelashes tickle his skin. Nico can feel the press of his Adam’s apple when he swallows, pulsing against his calf.

“I never thought you were a freak.”

Nico brushes his knuckles over his cheek. “I know.”

“I used to — talk about you. All the time. And your oxytocin levels.”

He smiles.

“I know.”

“Lee had a — chart.” Some of the flush rises back up in his cheeks. “A ‘Days Since We’ve Heard About Di Angelo’ chart.”

Nico bites his lip. Hard.

“The number never got higher than six.”

“…I am trying really, really hard, Will.”

Will sighs.

“You can laugh.”

Nico cracks up, trying desperately to muffle his giggles in his bitten fist. It doesn’t work very well, but the glare Will sends him is somewhat softened by the smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.

“Gods, you are — a mess.”

“Mhm.”

Nico cups the side of his face. Will turns, slightly, enough to press a kiss to the centre of his palm and then stay there, eyes closed, breathing against his sword-callused skin.

“I love you too, by the way. Obviously.”

“I know.”

“Don’t Han Solo me, you bastard.”

“Go ahead and try to stop me,” Nico challenges, grinning into the passionately indignant kiss Will presses to his lips, finally, letting Nico curl his hands in his hair.

[bubbles-for-all-of-us]

I hope you had a great time seeing them in Germany! What do you think about reader seeing the boys live for the first time? ❤️

I really ran with this…

Vessel

He was shitting his pants. There were always some nerves before the show. That was inevitable when you genuinely cared about what you did. But suddenly he felt that he was more than fine to go in front of thousands of people. Even messes a line in his song. But knowing that you were there. That his team had secured you the best spot in the pit. That suddenly made him overthink every little thing.

Not to mention that you were there. In a sea of people. What if someone knocked you out while moshing? What if you fell? Did someone rob you? Punched you? No, he was flying off the hook. He had security there. There were a couple of people from the team who were there alongside you. You weren’t alone. He had nothing to worry about. No one knew you two were together. No one had a reason to target you. Yet he cared too much to not feel panic over it.

It all shifted when Vessel had finally made his way to the catwalk. For a moment he had forgotten that you were there. Too lost in the music. Too used to your schedule clashing with concert dates. But when his eyes met yours. The smile on your face could have sent him straight to his knees. You told him every day how proud you were of him. But there was something else about seeing it yourself. The glisten in your eyes. The way you shook your head almost in disbelief. That smile. Fuck him the smile that he had fallen for months ago. Without really thinking about it Vessel pointed at you. Making the crowd fall into fits of screams. Just they didn’t know that was for you and you only. You laughed softly shaking your head. He spent as much time as he could there at the end of the catwalk. Looking at you the whole time, thankful that his mask didn’t let others see that.

Pumped up with adrenaline after the show he could barely stand in one place as he waited for his team to bring you backstage once more. Crew passing by kept on congratulating, tapping his shoulder but he didn’t hear much of it. All his attention was on the little metal door that stood between you and him now. “Sir, could I get an autograph?”, a tap on his back made him do a 180 so quickly Vessel nearly lost his balance. And here you were. The same glistening eyes looked up at him. He simply smiled, hands reaching for your hips as he pulled you closer to him. Making you step on your tippy toes to kiss his lips softly.

“And?”, Vessel muttered after pulling away. “You were unbelievable!”, your hands clasped his biceps as you attempted and the key word here was attempted to shake all 6’3 of him. “I mean my god…”, you grunted throwing your head back, “I knew you were amazing but that”, you gestured back towards the stage. Vessel could feel his cheeks heating up. He knew that he always cared about what everyone thought but there was something special about knowing that people you loved, shared the love for something so special to you as well.

“Vess you were fucking amazing”, you beamed, cupping his still paint-covered cheeks. “You are too kind”, he muttered leaning closer. Brushing his nose against yours, before giving it a little kiss. “No i see you and that was life-changing”, your tone turned a lot more serious now, “that’s why people love you so much, baby”, you mused softly.

“I only had my eyes on you”, Vessel pointed out making you chuckle. “You better, I saw them girls with their titts out”, you narrowed your eyes at him playfully. Vessel let out a soft chuckle, “saw no titts only your eyes”, he muttered, pushing a strand of your hair away from your face. “Thank you for inviting me”, you whispered, stepping closer, and pressing your palms against his chest. “Thank you for being here”, Vessel smiled, leaning in once more, brushing his soft lips over yours. “Sorry you have paint…”, he grunted, reaching out to brush his thumb over the smudge on your cheek. “No, don’t brush it off - want to have my fangirl moment”, you pull back, grinning like a devil, making Vessel chuckle once more.

iii

Everyone knew a month prior that you would join them for one of the home shows they were doing. There wasn’t a soul left in the crew who hadn’t heard the whole “my girlfriend this”, and “my girlfriend that”, story. He was a proud boyfriend okay. Besides this band, you were the best thing that had happened to him and he wasn’t about to be quiet about it. So the whole morning he has a grin on his face because he’s in his car, going to the venue and you’re right beside him. His hand on your thigh as he grins.

Everyone else is being the sweetest, greeting you as if you are one of the team. Your hand is in his as iii slowly walks you through the whole setup. Showing you where all of his guitars are. “Hold on”, he muses, reaching for his black and red bass before putting it over your shoulders. “Jesus, you look tiny”, he chuckled at how huge it looked in your arms. “Wait, pose”, he’s laughing, taking shit tonnes of pictures of you with his bass. And you best bet that’s his new lock-screen.

When it comes to the show it’s, you also choose to watch it from the pit. Craving that rush of energy from the crowd plus it’s the best spot to see him from in all his glory. You’re grinning up at him the whole show. Singing the lyrics that by now are a part of your soul as well. Not being able to keep your tears at bay at some parts. “You cried”, is the first thing he says as you two reunite, “That bad?”. “That good”, you mutter back, wrapping your arms around his neck. iii stand up fully, making your legs dangle in the air as he sways you from side to side. “Next time stay backstage”, he muses against your neck, “want to come back between songs and give you a kiss”. You chuckle softly, “You wanted to do that on stage tonight didn’t you?”, because you could swear that man was teetering the line of falling off stage more than once. “What gave me away?”, iii chuckles. “I love you, you little crazy dude”, you shake your head, brushing your fingers through his messy hair.

ii

Yeah, you are in the pit. His side of the stage end of the story. He had told you once that there were shows where he felt forgotten. That people were there for everyone but not him. He was more than aware that he couldn’t go zooming through the stage with his drums but that didn’t mean that he didn’t feel left out at times. So the moment you knew that you were going, you had taken it upon yourself to make a sign. A sign that said: I’m only here for the drummer. All covered in pink glitter and bows because you knew that that would make him roll his eyes.

And you knew that you made the right choice once the girl barricading next to you muttered, “Cool sign”, you chuckled softly, “Thanks, got to show the love”. She simply nodded, asking if she could take a picture of you with it. “I love ii as well, he deserves to know that we see him too”, she smiled, making you smile alongside her. “Let me take a pic of you as well”, you motioned for her to hand her phone over. Falling into a soft conversation after.

You could tell the exact moment ii saw it too. He had halted. Only making you scream louder. Then did his infamous disappointed head tilt before shaking his head no doubt in laughter. ii had stopped and took a moment to get down, throwing some of his drumsticks for the crowd. Shaking a warning finger your way before throwing you one as well. You caught it with ease and almost instantly turned to the girl standing next to you.

“Here, have it”, you pointed the drumstick at her. Her eyes grew big, “No you caught it…”, she shook her head, yet you could see the suppressed excitement there. “Nah”, you waved her off, “trust me. Take this, I already have one at home”, you threw her a wink. Give her a quick hug before turning to find the crew waiting to bring you backstage.

ii was leaning against some of the gearboxes, arms crossed. His serious face morphed into a grin when he saw you skipping towards him as you waved your sign around. “Only, here for the drummer”, he muttered, right as you jumped into his arms. Giggling as you wrapped your arms around his neck.

“Yeah, sorry”, you shook your head, pulling back from him slightly, “everyone else is not up to my taste”. ii chuckled softly, arms moving to cup your ass as he moved your legs to wrap around his torso. “So how was the drummer?”, he asked raising one eyebrow at you. You tapped your chin a couple of times as if pretending to think. “Extremely sexy”, you wiggled your eyebrows making ii let out a laugh, “Played not bad too”, you shrugged, grinning, only to be met by ii fingers tickling your side as you squirmed in his arms. “Not bad, huh”, he muttered against your neck, making you giggle even more. “might have to come a couple more times to make sure he’s good”, you chuckled, leaning your forehead against his. “Well, that could be arranged”, ii nodded, leaning in to kiss you.

Ivy

Ivy had never taken anyone backstage. There has never been anyone in the crowd for him. Just fully for him. So when he’s telling the team that he’s bringing someone with him for the next show he can’t escape the wiggling eyebrows and woops that follow him. So he’s a nervous wreck stopping you right before you enter the green rooms.

“They are insane please don’t run away until the very end”, he whines, eyes pleading as he looks down at you. “Ivy, I’m here for you”, you cup his face, brushing his thumbs over his face. “I know just…”, iv shakes his head. It’s so weird for him to have someone he trusts so unconditionally. Someone he wants to make a part of every single thing in his life. “There could be a giraffe there and still all I care about is seeing you up there tonight”, you shrug trying to lighten his anxiety. “Sorry to disappoint we do not have a giraffe, that’s the venue next to this”, he sighed, yet there it was his infamous grin you had fallen victim to. “Bummer”, you scrunch up your nose before leaning in to chase a couple of fleeting kisses.

You watch him from the pit as well. I mean, that would be an opportunity wasted. He’s grooving the whole show. Pulling all sorts of stunts. Even Vessel joins in pointing towards you before yanking Ivy’s head back for a kiss. Fans scream around but all you can do is laugh at the death glare Ivy shoots at Vessel, who’s laughing to himself as he runs to the other side of the stage.

You’re lounging in one of his jackets when he finally comes backstage. Paint still smudged all over his face. “You look like a raccoon”, you chuckled, standing up to greet him. His arms are around you in an instant, bending you back slightly as he kisses you. “Okay, rockstar, knocking me out of my boots”, you blow a breath out, making him laugh.

“How was it? Tell me I looked hot?”, he wiggled his eyebrows at you. “How you submitted to Vessel? Yeah, that was sexy”, you smirked back at him, “You recon he would give me tips on how…”, but you don’t get to finish before Ivy’s lips are back on yours, kissing you senseless.

[eyeofnewtblog]

Things that happen at home:

So, my youngest sibling got their first tattoo today, a week after their 18th birthday and a month after getting their GED.

First and foremost, I’m so freaking proud of this kid, they deal with a lot of anxiety/panic attacks, but they still managed to get through it into adulthood.

So, basically the story with the tattoo is that 4 years ago, when I married my now husband, I asked both of my younger sisters (now sister and sibling) to be bridesmaids, and offered a “matching” tattoo as their present from me for saying yes. M was 14 at the time and I knew for a fact that Mom was not about to sign a waiver, but I had the money specifically set aside to get me and Middle Sister done before the wedding. The idea was that we would both be there for M when they were old enough. It didn’t exactly work out that way, (middle couldn’t be there and honestly this last year has been a financial nightmare for me plus I wasn’t expecting youngest to go on a two week trip out of state) BUT! We got it done today!

The artist was fantastic, super chill dude who was calm and informative and was wearing a “tattoos are stupid” T-shirt, hilarious in a dry humor way. He took us in and did great work with only a day’s notice.

The shop had a stuffed unicorn plushy that they called The Tough Guy Cuddle Buddy and my sibling said, immediately upon being offered it, “YES, I want that!” And made grabby hands.

So, youngest is pretty touch adverse? Like they allow me specifically to sit in closer proximity to them than others, but it’s kind of a mutual thing where they understand that my physical boundaries with family are practically non existent and I acknowledge that their bubble is about double a normal person’s, so we compromise with sitting on the couch several feet apart BUT I’m allowed to be touching them in some way. Usually I just tuck my toes under their thigh while we both scroll. There has to be a layer of fabric between us, because I have “scratchy feet” but otherwise that’s the norm.

Today was definitely different though.

My youngest sibling hasn’t let me full on comfort cuddle them since this kid was like, 8 years old. (To be fair, I moved out of state around that time, and by the time we were back in the same city I chose to do “sister dates” where I’d pick them up from from school on half days and we’d just go to our favorite restaurant that was right up the street from our favorite ice cream shop, so all public spaces and zero cuddles)

I FINALLY GOT TO COMFORT CUDDLE! The kid I used to wake up for in the middle of the night when they were having a nightmare and wanting to be cuddled, the kid I told to scream at anything or anyone that made them think of monsters (kiddo oddly spent like a solid month going up to random bushes, sticking their face as deep in as they could go, and full on Viking Battle Screaming into The Void) LET ME HOLD THEM IN A FULL ON CUDDLE FOR THE ENTIRETY OF THEIR FIRST TATTOO.

This is one of those moments where I’m genuinely in awe of the fact that we still have such a strong relationship (nothing bad has happened, but time either heals all wounds or leaves a lot of nerve damage) But I seriously thought, over the last 18 months or so, my sibling is growing up and won’t need me as much, if at all, anymore. I have never been more happy to be proven wrong.

Kiddo straight up said that this is probably the only tattoo they will ever get, but also, I really fucking hope not because they are an absolute cuddle bug when they’re in pain and need affection, and as selfish as it is to say, I hope they get a million more and that I’m just as worthy of being invited to the latest as I was to the first.

[apoemformythoughts]

Happy last day of pride month! I just wanted to sum up what this month means to me as it comes to a close.

To understand what June means to me, I should probably first state my relationship with the LGBTQ community. I am someone who spent years struggling to find an identity that “fit”. Eventually, I realized I am happiest unlabeled. I like being able to explain the aspects of myself that I have analyzed to oblivion and feel too complex to be just one term. I do not care if people call me a straight man, an asexual woman, a nonbinary lesbian, or any combination of terms in the world. If you hear my description of my identity and pick a label for me, even if I do not agree with it I am still happy you heard me out and tried to understand me to the best of your ability.

You might think that I don’t belong in the LGBTQ community if I don’t identify with any queer labels but I present you with this: if I also don’t identify with any cisgender or heterosexual labels, where do I belong in this world? Nowhere? If gender and sexuality are both on spectrums, where do the people who acknowledge the existence of the spectrum within themselves belong? To me, the LGBTQ community is for people whose identities do not conform with being cisgender and/or heterosexual, and I can assure you that my identity is not that of a cishet woman in denial.

With all of that background out of the way, I feel slightly more comfortable speaking on what pride month means to me. Pride month, in the simplest terms possible, is a time to celebrate what makes your identity “unconventional”, specifically in relation to gender and sexuality. It’s a period where the LGBTQ community can unite under the idea of being proud of their queerness, whether it be being trans or gay or aromantic or bisexual or genderfluid or anything in between. I love pride month. I love seeing flags everywhere and videos of parades and just the joy and love radiating off of everyone’s faces. Pride month is a time to be unashamed of who you love. It really doesn’t matter whether the person you love is a romantic partner you’ve known for decades or a friend you met five minutes ago. Pride month is about sharing who you are with those who are important to you on a personal level, and with the world on a group level. It’s about being honest with the people you love, but also showing those who may be struggling with their identity or in places that may not be as accepting that they are not alone and that it’s okay to be “different”. It sounds reporterish and stereotypical to say that it’s powerful, but it is genuinely moving to see so many people unite under those two words- pride month- to celebrate what makes them different rather than what they have in common.

In conclusion, all I really wanted to say is pride month is a beautiful way to unite with people, whether it be parents, lovers, friends, neighbors, or even strangers on the internet. I hope that someday every LGBTQ person in the world will have at least one person to celebrate their identity with during pride month.

P.S. congratulations to Thailand for being the first Southeast Asian country to pass a bill to legalize same-sex marriage. I am sure this June will be a pride month the people of Thailand will never forget. Hopefully many more countries in Southeast Asia and around the world will follow suit soon.

[puppiesandnightlock]

Link: A Robin's Song (Chapter 3)

Summary and age information found here

Two years ago, July.

“DAMIAN!!” Jon pounced on him the moment he opened the door, shoving a little plastic card in his face. 

“Jon-” He shoved the taller boy off of him, snatching the card and reading it over. “Holy shit, you actually did it!” 

“SWEAR JAR!” a little voice came from inside the house.

Both ignored it in favor of the growing excitement between the boys, Damian feeding off of Jon’s hyper attitude. 

“WE'RE GOING TO MALIBU!” Jon shrieked. “I told your dad yesterday and my parents said yes a while ago cause they thought i wouldnt get it but guess what i did and SUCK IT MOM AND�� DAD CAUSE I HAVE A DRIVER’S LICENSE !”

“To be fair, you did crash a few cars. And failed your learner’s permit test, like five times.”

“Shut up, you promised not to bring that up.”

“I didn’t promise .”

“Whatever, D, nothing is bringing my mood down, so get your butt in gear and pack your stuff cause we’re heading for Cal-i-fornia tomorrow!!”

“We’re literally going to be there for like five hours, Jon.”

“Literally nothing you say is making me less excited!” He beamed at him, making Damian's stomach flip pleasantly. 

That had been happening much too often lately for his liking. 

“Alright, alright.” Damian huffed, but not before turning a genuine smile, soft and sweet towards Jon.

“Seriously, though. Congratulations, I’m proud of you. I know you worked hard.” 

Jon flushed, Damian assuming it was from the praise.

“T-Thanks, D. See you tomorrow?”

“See ya, J.”

Damian shoved his backpack into the Kent’s car, Jon grinning like a maniac as both of their families surrounded them.

“Riding the waves up in Malibu!” Kon sang, bouncing around with Cass and Steph.

“They really get, get to you!” Tim joined in, the four of them singing loudly and off key.

“So let's give it up for those L.A. boys!” They finished off, laughing with each other. Damian turned to Jon, whispering.

“How long is this phase going to last?”

“Excuse me, Damian, the Victorious soundtrack is iconic.” Jon gasped, the perfect portrayal of offense.

“Iconically stupid.” 

Insulted gasps sounded from all around him.

Dammit, he forgot he was surrounded by preteens.

After much bedraggling and hugs and kisses for their parents, (“We are merely driving two hours away, we will return alive, I promise.”) the two set out on the drive, turning up the radio and singing even louder.

They spent the whole day on the beach, wandering the shops beachside, sharing a better version of the strawberry ice cream they’d get at school. Both had even gotten hit on, and offered a few numbers to each other's amusement. 

As they drove into their small town and pulled up into Damian’s driveway, unlocking the car.

“Had a lot of fun today.” Damian smiled, letting his hand rest on top of the other’s. “Thanks, J.”

“N-Not a problem, D. Thanks for coming.” Jon stumbled over his words, the tips of Damian’s fingers brushing over his.

Damian ran inside, blushing red. He didn't dare look back, although, if he had, he would have seen the blue eyes he’d loved so much staring back at him, lovesick grin and flushed red face to complete the deal.

                                                     Present day

The raven-haired teen watched his friend worriedly. “Are you okay? You look sick.”

“I’m…I’m so happy for you!” He croaked, throat dry. His face had drained of blood, a woozy feeling coming over him. Putting up a brave face, he bumped his shoulder with Jon’s, forcing the smile so wide it hurt physically.

“You can tell me all the details later, I don't want to be late for class.” He moved his backpack so that it hung on one shoulder, quickly speed walking towards the hallways. Jon trailed after him, chattering excitedly per usual. 

“It was so romantic, Dami, just like I planned! We’re going out for almost three weekends straight!”

Damian felt his heart drop, and as it hit the bottom it cracked in half, pouring out all the memories and weekend plans they’d had together.

“You’ll be free for the new movie coming out in a few months, right?”

This franchise was the most important thing to them, something they bonded over as children and even now knew every bit of lore it offered, and as preteens even collaborated on a fanfic, although their current persons have burned it from their minds. To miss even the latest picture between the two of them was a travesty.

“Course! I would never dare miss it, D, I'm sure Haisley will understand when I tell her!” Jon chirped. 

The bell rang, and Jon’s joy filled eyes were all he saw as he turned and ran towards his classroom, the knowledge that that emotion would never be because of him burning in the back of his mind.

 A few weeks after that, Damian had been finding new ways to avoid not just Haisley, but the couple as well. He could only be with Jon for a bit every day before the conversation turned to Haisley, which both pained and irritated the pining boy to no end.

For the first time, Damian had felt a surge of unpleasant emotions towards the girl, sometimes so strong he nearly classified it as hate. 

The thing that kept him from doing that was coincidentally the same thing that brought him back towards Jon.

He was sneaking out of the library, unceremoniously shoving his sketching pad inside his backpack when a flash of deep brown caught him and he was met with Haisley’s dashing blue eyes.

“Hello, Damian.”

“H-hi?” He stuttered, surprise and confusion clouding him.

“Can we talk?” She asked innocently, although to anyone else it would have sounded dangerous.

“Make it quick, Parker, I have things to do.” He muttered, having regained his senses. The challenging air surrounded them, and Damian deflected, presenting his confident, nearly arrogant air, his head filled with snappy comments and snarky responses, ready to fire on command. 

She had her own way of doing this, seeing as she seemed to be the challenger. Poised and ready like a snake, with all the grace and intimidation of a lioness. 

“It’s about Jon.” She said after a moment, surrendering first. 

He dropped his quickly after, turning defensive. “What about him? I won’t have you hurting him, and if you do I most certainly will not have a hand in it.”

Her eyes widened, and she was quick to steer him away from the negative. “No, no, it’s not what you think!”

She looked down rather bashfully, Damian contemplating whether or not this was genuine or a manipulative tactic.  

“You’re his best friend and he trusts you and your judgment over anyone’s, more than mine or even his parents. You’re super important to him, and that means your words carry a lot of weight. You are said to be a good judge of character, and I just wanted to ask…if you approved? I know it's not like the olden days where you ask for things like that but-”

He let her ramble on as he mulled over her words. What she had asked was kind, considerate and only would have been thought of by someone completely genuine.

Goddammit.

“Haisley!” He cut her off. “Yes. yes, i’m okay with it, you’ll be...a very good match for him.” 

The last few words were spit out like gravel in his mouth, somehow gone unnoticed by the girl as she smiled brightly and leaped up to hug him, before letting go quickly and scurrying off, but not before calling “Thank you so much!” 

That would be that, he assumed, after screwing his whole love life over. There was no possible way he could hate Haisley, no matter how much he wished to despise her, due to one simple little question asked with all the innocence of a puppy. 

It would have all been easier if he only had to talk to her every now and then, only for formalities and necessity, but she persisted, and he was weak to the joyful looks Jon would give when he saw the two getting along.

Haisley would start conversations and he would mostly tune them out, adding a ‘mhm’ and ‘yeah wow’ every few minutes. He only started paying attention after she said something that caught him off guard.

“Repeat that, sorry?” It was about the latest date she and Jon had gone on, and under normal circumstances, he would never listen to this.

“Oh, we went for ice cream, and shared a strawberry one! Watching the sunset and everything, it was so romantic.” the girl gushed. 

His throat felt like sandpaper as he swallowed, painful sparks of some emotion starting to sprout.

“Ah...sounds amazing..” 

That was HIS thing to do with Jon, something they did less of now but used to when they were younger. 

He began paying more attention to her talks, spotting more and more similarities.

“He took me to a beach in Malibu!”

“We just stayed inside that day, watched Glee!”

“I forgot my jacket and we couldn't go out that first date. He gave me his, and I knew he was a keeper!”

These, all of these things, were Jon-and-Damian things, not Haisley-and-Jon things. These were their things to do, their pastimes, their comfort late at night, their history…all of it was being taken and twisted into stupid, STUPID , dates.

(And maybe, throughout this bout of anger, the thoughts that it could have been him in Haisley’s place, could have been him laughing at the stupid jokes and the ice cream on the tip of his nose and the jacket that was too big for him.)

The entirety of this time, after such talks like these with her, he would take out a writing pad and scribble on it, the hurt overwhelming the anger. 

Towards the last talk, he’d formulated them into lyrics, his brothers reading it over with worry on their faces.

“This…seems a little vindictive, Dami.” Tim said, holding the piece of paper between his forefingers. 

“It’s not even based on them this time!” He defended himself with lies. “Could be about anyone, really.”

“ Car rides to malibu?” Duke read out loud, incredulous tones to his voice. “That alone is a giveaway.”

“Shut up, no, it’s not!” He sputtered. “Besides, even if it was, which it's NOT, get that smirk off your face this instant Timothy, this sounds more like they actually dated and the person singing is angry over the reuse of the things they used to do. And ‘Damian’ does not sound like ‘Haisley’. I could defend this for hours.”

“Whatever makes you feel better, Dames.” Tim handed back the paper, shaking his head.

Duke hung back a bit longer, going through the rhythm and lyrics with him again.

When they’d finished, he turned to his older brother and asked again. “Are you positive you wanna do this one, Dami? This one…seems kinda vengeful. And when it comes to Jon, I know you're anything but. Plus, don't deny it, I know you've been getting along well with Haisley too, so...”

“My coping method, my life, not yours, Duke.” Damian reminded him a bit sarcastically. He softened a bit after saying it, replacing it with “Thank you for this though.”

“I know you are worried but I'm fine, this is fine, honestly. And besides, only the beginning would ever align with me anyways.”

Duke sighed, a tiny smile appearing. “Okay, Dami. Just let us know when you want to record, i guess.”

Damian sat back on the couch, posting an update on the song that would be uploaded tomorrow. 

In a way, his brothers were right. This one was different from the first two, not much pining and more anger. He’d written when emotions were high, and when he sang it, it was less fire and more of an ‘I miss you’. 

This whole mess couldn’t be put on anyone but him, after all, it was his dumbass who encouraged Jon to ask her out, and himself who didn’t tell him earlier. 

His phone lit up with a text notification from Jon, attached was a screenshot of the post he’d just made and an all caps key smash.

It was selfish, but for a moment he pretended that it was really him that Jon was excited about, not Robin.

He wondered for a bit, if Jon would react the same way if he really knew it was him.

This was how a double life worked, he supposed.

His condolences to the vigilantes in the fictional world.

[carlottawllms]

AAAAAAA I'M SO EXCITED 🤭🩷

You weren't a morning person, far from it in fact, as you normally needed at least an hour and a coffee to function properly, but after yesterday you felt like all the happiness of the earth had gathered in your heart. OHHHH🤭

“I really don’t think I want to say goodbye yet.”, you pouted, feeling genuinely sad you’d reached your front door. The date that was just about to end had been the best you’d been on in a while, and you hated how these past few hours had basically flown by. “Neither do I, but it’s late and I don’t want you to be grumpy tomorrow morning and annoy your colleagues.” Mason flicked your nose lovingly and the way you scrunched it had his heart squeezing in his chest. You were too adorable for your own good. OMG WE ARE STARING WITH A DATE???🤭 THAT'S A LOVELY WAY TO START A FIC

“No need to thank me. I enjoyed it just as much.”, he smiled. “And I’d love to see you again.” GIGGLING

It was insane how quickly this man had you falling for him. IM SCREAMING

You’d laughed if off, saying they wouldn’t take you anyway so there would be no use to put time and effort in an application, but your dad being your dad had insisted they would. So in an attempt to prove your point, you’d applied anyway and to your biggest surprise, they’d invited you for a first interview.WE LOVE THE DAD

“You look awfully happy, y/n. Something you want to tell me?” Anna took a sip from her coffee and leaned back in her chair; her watchful eyes following your every move in hopes to figure out what had happened.NONONO SHE IS JUST IN LOVE BUT SHHH🤭

“It was pretty much perfect.”, you admitted, feeling the heat rising to your cheeks. “He was an absolute sweetheart and gentlemen. We actually went for a walk with his dog first – he’s super cute by the way – and then grabbed some take away on our way back and spent the evening at his and-” THE PERFECT DATE

“You went to a stranger’s house for a first date? y/n, are you crazy? That’s bloody dangerous and-”WHO SAID IT'S A STRANGER?🤭

“Yes, sorry, I was just thinking about yesterday.”, you chuckled, dropping your head to avoid her seeing your red cheeks. “His name is definitely Cameron.”YES CAMERON 😌😂

“Morning girls, it’s short notice, my apologies, but there’s going to be a meeting in conference room no. 2 in ten minutes. Make sure you’re on time please.”OH, I DON'T LIKE THIS

“No idea, but for some reason I have a really bad feeling about this, to be honest.”, you confessed. Your heart was racing and you felt sick to your stomach; both signs that had you worried as your gut feeling very rarely ever fooled you.I HAVE A HORRIBLE FEELING TOO

After an exhausting day on the training pitch as well as an extra shift in the gym straight after, Mason would normally flop down on the sofa and take a nap before a game or two with Ben and an early night, but after the date with you yesterday, he was still pretty much on cloud nine.HE IS A LITTLE BABY

It had taken him an embarrassingly long time to grow a pair and ask you out – about three years of friendship in fact – and he wasn’t proud of how long he’d been simping for you in silence and opting to stick to staying friends, but he’d been terrified of being rejected. OMG CUTIE PIEEE

So one evening on your way back home – you’d been out for dinner with friends – he’d held you back by your hand, bit the bullet and shyly asked if you wanted to go out with him. On a date. And the bright smile on your face as you’d nodded, had made his tummy flip like never before.OMG THEY ARE SOOOOO CUTE I CAN'T

The only problem: He missed you already.OHHHHHHH🥹🥹🥹

He considered calling you, but he didn’t want to annoy you, so he eventually opted for a message. But much to his surprise, it was left unanswered. OH NO😭

“Morning.”, you mumbled quietly as you entered your office. Your voice lacked the usual excitement and happiness, but Anna’s greeting wasn’t more cheerful either and as much as it sucked, you were glad you weren’t the only one who struggled to process everything that had happened and throughout the day you noticed that it seemed as if the news had hit everyone quite surprisingly, meaning the atmosphere was tense – to say the least.WHAT DID THEY TELL TO MY GIRLS TO MAKE THEM THIS SAD😭

You knew it would confuse and probably hurt him and that alone made you feel like the worst person on earth. Mason was the most genuine and kind man you’d ever met. He had a heart made of gold and deserved nothing but the best and here you were ignoring his every single attempt.  WHAT DID THEY ASK HER TO DO, OMG😭

“y/n, you’re crying. That doesn’t look like everything being okay to me.” She gently turned your chair and grabbed your hands. “What’s wrong? You can talk to me, you know that.”OMG MY GIRL😭

The sad and disappointed look in his big brown eyes had haunted you throughout the whole day and now that you were sitting in your quiet kitchen, staring at the wall and trying to enjoy your dinner, it got even worse.OH NO SAD PART IS COMINGGG

He didn’t deserve any of this. But there was nothing you could do. He had to forget about you and the feelings he held for you as quickly as possible and shutting him out felt like the only way. Even if it was the most painful one. OH WHY DOES HE HAVE TO FORGET ABOUT HER 😭

Mason had messaged you again a little while ago, asking how your meeting had gone, but you’d ignored it. Just like the two calls that had come in a little later. You could feel your heart breaking every single time his name popped up and your resistance crumbled ever so slightly.OMG SHE IS BREAKING HIS HEARTTT

OMG HIS MESSAGES BROKE MY HEART

A deep sigh left Mason’s left when once again there was no reply from you. Ever since yesterday evening, he’d been wondering what he could’ve done that would make you ghost him, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t find anything. OH BABY BOY I DON'T THINK IT'S YOUR FAULT AT ALL

Looking back at it now, even you telling him you had a meeting to attend, felt like you brushing him off and not wanting to talk to him, especially as he’d seen you talking animatedly to a colleague not long after, and his heart squeezed uncomfortably at the thought of you not wanting anything to do with him anymore. OH NO🥺 THAT'S NOT WHAT IS HAPPENING

It didn’t get easier at all. The next day still felt like you were ripping your own heart out and you had a hard time focussing and not bursting into tears.OMG THEY ARE HURTING SO MUCH

You had a feeling that Anna knew something was genuinely wrong with you, but she respected your decision and didn’t ask you again. Instead, she brought you tea and a couple of snacks back whenever she had to leave the office and whenever she’d pass you, she squeezed your shoulder in an attempt to be there for you.ANNA IS THE CUTEST

It was what was best for you. Even though it didn’t feel like it at all. And if you were being honest with yourself, you began to genuinely doubt whether you were really doing the right thing.TRUST ME IT'S NOT THE RIGHT THING

“Hi.”, he said quietly. The small smile on his face didn’t reach his eyes like it usually would, and it pained you, knowing you were the one who’d caused it. “Can we talk?”OPS THERE HE IS

“Yeah, obviously everything’s fine.”, he scoffed, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “That’s why you’ve been off with me right? And ignored my messages and calls. And dismissed me yesterday, saying you have a meeting when you actually just didn’t want to talk to me.”OH BABY BOY

“I thought the date was great and you said you’d enjoyed it too. What happened ever since? Or did you lie back then and never planned on seeing me again?” His voice was laced with disappointment and sadness and the expression in his voice mirrored both in a way that had your heart hurting like never before. OMG I WANT TO HUG HIM

You wanted to tell him you didn’t lie and that you’d meant everything you’d said. You wanted to wrap him up in your arms and confess how much you liked him, but instead, you got up from your desk and shook your head.NO Y/N, HUG HIM PLEASE

“I don’t want this, Mason.”WHAT? SHE IS JOKING,RIGHT??

“y/n, what’s wrong with you? What happened for you to turn on me like this? What did I do?” It was painful to hear him questioning himself, wondering what he had done wrong, when it hadn’t been him at all, but you couldn’t tell him that. “I don’t get this at all. y/n, we got along so well, what happened? If I did something to piss you off, just tell me, please…like…just please.” THE FACT THAT HE IS CONVINCED ITS HIS FAULT HURTS

“Look at me and tell me you don’t want this. That you don’t want me.”, Mason all but demanded. He was agitated, desperately grabbing the last straw he could find, but his heart only broke further, when you didn’t say anything at all. HE IS BEGGING YOUUU TELL HIM😭

“And I thought this could be it.”, he sighed. Shaking his head he let go off your elbow and slowly trudged out of your office.AND AFTER THIS I'M CRYING, LET'S THANK MY PERIOD AND YOUR WRITING ☺️😭

This was the worst you’d ever felt. No other heartbreak came close to how much it hurt to know you’d sent away the best thing you’d ever had.THE FACT THAT SHE ALREADY CONSIDERS HIM THE BEST THING SHE EVER HAD 😭😭😭

“I erm…I’m not feeling very well, to be honest.”, you admitted, knowing it was no use lying to her when you probably looked like you’d been crying for the past hour. “I think I’ll actually head home.”OPEN UP TO HER GIRL, YOU NEED TO TALK WITH SOME ONE

Coming into training the next day, Mason still felt awful. Obviously, he was still hurt by you pushing him away like you had, but he also felt horrible for not respecting the choice you’d made. AND NOW HE FEELS MORE GUILTY, YAY 😭

You’d obviously been distraught and instead of just accepting it for the time being, he’d made it worse and demanded something you’d not been ready to give to him yet. He had too much respect for you to disrespect your decisions like he had and whilst it might only hurt him further, he’d made the decision to apologise for his behaviour and tell you that he’d be okay with being friends.OH HE IS MY BIG MATURE MAN😌🥹

He quickly took a shower before jogging up to your office, thinking that after today, you and him could be back to being friends, but he was more than surprised to find it empty. Your desk looked untouched, there was no bag by the side of it and no trace of your coffee mug.OH SHE TOOK THE DAY OFF,I WANT TO HUG HER🫂😭

The blonde girl nodded. “I take it you’re looking for y/n?”, she asked, receiving a quick confirmation from the midfielder. “She’s not in today. Rang in sick this morning to let us know she won’t be in the whole week.”OMG THE WHOLE WEEK, THAT'S BAD...

Mason’s heart dropped to his tummy. You were rarely ever sick and it wasn’t like you to sign off sick entirely instead of working from home, so the worry that overcame him was barely bearable.HE IS FREAKING OUT, RUN AT HERS IN 3 2 1....

Anna just nodded and watched him leave. She’d been suspicious before as you and Mason had always got along really well and you’d kept mentioning him, but whenever she’d hinted at there being more between the two of you, you’d denied it and explained that he’s just a really good friend.Now however, she felt as if everything was adding up: You struggling to remember the guy’s name you’d gone on a date with, the way you’d not taken the news on Tuesday well and now you ringing in sick for the whole week after you’d obviously been crying yesterday. SHE KNOWS OMG IM GIGGLING ANNA IS MY GIRL, GO ANNA😌😌

Mason didn’t have to think twice about where to go as he got into his car and started the engine. He’d been determined to make things right before and now that he had the confirmation that something was genuinely wrong, he wanted to make sure you were okay even more.I JUST HOPE SHE WILL LET HIM IN AND TELL HIM EVERYTHING

“I’m okay.”, you nodded, trying to shut the door subtly, but Mason caught on to it almost immediately.GO MASEEE 🤭

“I actually came to apologise too.”, Mason admitted. He scratched the back of his head. “Do you think I could come in? Please?”OH BABY

You thought about it for a second, utterly confused why he was the one wanting to apologise when you’d ghosted him for days, but you eventually sighed and let him in. Having known him for years it was pretty easy to tell that he wouldn’t leave unless he got to apologise for whatever it was and especially because of the current circumstances, it would be better if he wasn't seen at your front door.CAYSE HE TGINKS IT WAS HIS FAULT, THE POOKR BOY

He had so much to say, so many things to reassure you that he was okay with whatever you wanted him to be, but one accidental look at your opened notebook was all it took to shut him up. The page you’d opened on Google made it unmistakably clear that none of what he’d planned to say was necessary. You had made your decision. A painful decision made by someone he’d never thought would hurt him like this.OMG? WHAT WAS SHE LOOKING AT ??

“Never mind.”, he said. “It was a ridiculous idea to think you’d want anything to do with me after your behaviour those last days…and to think I came here to apologise. Fuck me.” The hollow laugh he let out had chills running down your spine. You didn’t think you’d ever seen him this hurt and you were desperate to explain, but Mason wasn’t having any of it.WHAT JUST HAPPENED???

“Look, y/n, you don’t have to pretend anymore. Why didn’t you just tell me you didn’t want to date me anymore? Obviously, it would’ve hurt, but we’ve been friends for so long, I would’ve never let you go entirely. I would’ve been okay with being friends if that’s what you wanted, but very clearly, were not on the same page with that either.”WHAT HURT HIM THAT MUCH??? CARLOTTA YOURE TOO GOOD WITH THOSE SUSPENSE MOMENTS BUT I NEED TO KNOW

“y/n you’re literally looking for a new job.”, he huffed. “You obvs can’t wait to get away from me and whatever it was between us. Just tell me, seriously, because this is getting ridiculous. I just…this is so fucked up, I can’t believe it…I just…”OHHHH SILLY, SHE WANTS TO LEAVE SO SHE CAN BE WITH YOUUUUU

“Yeah? Then fucking tell me how what you’re doing translates into you wanting to be friends or more with me. Because I obviously don’t get it at all.”, he bellowed. “It hurt y/n, can you imagine? We went out on that date and it went so well and I really thought you were the one I’d been looking and waiting for for years. I genuinely thought we had something but instead you went all cold on me and fucking ghosted me. You didn’t even explain anything. Do you have any idea how much that hurt?”OH BOY, LET HER EXPLAIN, SHE IS HURTING PROBABLY MORE THAN YOU

“And on top of that, here I am wanting to apologise for making you feel bad and disrespecting your decision…god this is so fucking humiliating you have no idea. I-”, Mason stopped and took a deep breath, trying to compose himself as he didn’t have the strength to keep going like this anymore. He just wanted it to be over. “Look, y/n, you don’t have to leave. I know how much you love your job and the club. I’ll just stay away and leave you be. It’s like we’ve never been friends or something, I don’t know.”OH STOP IT NOW AND LET HER TALK

And with that, he turned around, obviously leaving the choice with you once again, and you contemplated letting him leave, but you knew that this time it would be for good. And whilst it was everything, you’d tried to achieve those last days, right now you realised it was the worst thing that could happen.GO GIRLLLL

“I’m doing this for us.”I KNEW ITTT

You took a deep breath, ready to lay it all out in front of him, no matter the consequences, but you were terrified it was too late. “I…with the new management, we’re not allowed to have any kind of friendship, let alone relationship with any of the first team players.”STUPID MANAGEMENT RUINING MY LITTLE COUPLE

“The day after our date? We got called into a meeting where they explained that the team’s success is the most important thing and that nothing and no one can be a distraction. Apparently, someone had filled them in on the friendships that had formed and they didn’t like that administrative staff and players aren’t strictly separated, so they gave us updated terms for our contract that states that from now on, any kind of relationship and us is strictly forbidden and that whoever would break the rules would be immediately suspended. Apparently, we don’t even have to sign it for it to be effective.”THAT'S SO BLEAH🤮🤮🤮 IGNORANT PEOPLE

“y/n.”, he sighed softly as he took a couple of careful steps into your direction and when you didn’t back off, he eventually brought you into a tight hug. SHE FINALLY RECIVED THE HUG SHE'D BEEN NEEDING IN TGE PAST 2 DAYS

“It’s okay, love.”, he whispered as he leaned his cheek on top of your head. “I got you, I’m not going anywhere.”OHHHHH I'LL MELT🥹🥹🥹

“I’m sorry.”, you whispered once you’d regained enough composure. “I know I hurt you a lot and I never meant to be as shitty as I’ve been. It’s just…when they handed us the updated terms, I didn’t know what to do. They said there would be consequences and I was so terrified something could happen to you and…I thought you’d just forget about me and our date if I pushed you away enough and…I’m so sorry I hurt you like this.”THE FACT THAT SHE WAS SCARED ABOUT WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED TO HIM😭😭😭

“I know.” He gently cupped your jaw with his warm hand, thumb caressing the soft skin on your cheekbone causing you to smile softly. “But still…Yesterday, I gave you the chance to explain, but everything was still so fresh and then today when I came here, I cut you off all the time and jumped to conclusions. I know I was mad and hurt, but I should’ve given you a moment to explain. I’m sorry, I didn’t.” HE IS THE BIGGEST WALKING GREEN FLAG IVE EVER SEEN

You gently kissed the palm of his hand before leaning back against his chest. His evenly beating heart doing the trick in settling you even more and when Mason ran one hand up and down your spine, you snuggled into him even further. THE PALM KISS KILLS ME EVERYTIME, ITS SO INTIMATE

Mason was the best thing that had ever happened to you and it didn’t matter whether it was as your boyfriend or a normal friend, there was no way you’d ever let him go. SCREAMING

“I don’t want you to quit, y/n.”, Mason suddenly said. “Let’s keep it under the wraps and see where it’ll go. We obviously like each other a lot, but we don’t know if it’ll work out in the long run. Let’s just figure it our just us two and when we’re both certain that this is what we want, you can still quit.”THE PERFECT MAN IF YOU ASK ME

“More than sure.”, Mason smiled. He leaned down and pressed his lips to your forehead. “I know how much you love working for United and there’s absolutely no need to worry about me. If anything, I’ll be even more focused and determined to do well and impress you, to be honest.”OHHHHHH CUTIE🤭🤭🤭🤭

“We are.”, he confirmed and the smile lighting up his face made you feel weak in the knees. He really was the most beautiful man you’d ever laid your eyes on. “And I couldn’t be happier, love.”THEY ARE HAPPY, I AM HAPPY😌🥹

“I really want to kiss you.”, he admitted quietly, nose nudging yours in an attempt to test the waters and when you didn’t pull away, but instead tilted your head a little to the side, he dipped down and kissed you softly.GO MASON GO MASON GO🤭🤭🤭

“I like you so much, y/n.”, he whispered; both of you knowing that liking each other didn’t come close to how you actually felt, but you knew it was too early to say it yet.“I like you loads, too.”, you smiled and with that, Mason leaned back in to kiss you again. WE HAVE TWO CUTIE PIES IN LOVE

I WOAH I COULD GO BACK AND READ THIS FOR THE FIRST TIME🥹

THAT WAS WOW LITERALLY, THIS GOES IMMEDIATELY ON MY TOP 3 OF MY FAVOURITE FICS WRITTEN BY YOU (TWO GHOSTS CANT LEAVE ITS FIRST PLACE SORRY)

I LOVE HOW YOU PUT SUSPENSE IN EVERY FIC, EVEN IF I WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING IMMEDIATELY IT MAKES EVERY EMOTION 1016591 TIMES BIGGER AND MORE IMPORTANT 😭

I JUST LOVE THE WAY YOU WRITE AND MAKE ME FEEL THEIR EMOTIONS

LIKE I LITERALLY CRIED AT SOME POINT

WOW, JUST WOW BESTIE

YOURE AMAZING I CANT BELIEVE THAT YOU GET SELF-CONSCIOUS ABOUT YOUR FICS, CAUSE THEY ARE LITERALLY AMAZING

IM AMAZED BY YOUR TALENT

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS I'M PROUD OF YOU🩷🩷🩷

Bestie thank you so so much 🥺🩷 I’m so glad you enjoyed it so much and I’m really glad you liked me not telling everything straight from the beginning.

I debated putting the meeting or a conversation between Anna and y/n in but in the end I felt like this was the better option and I’m glad you agree 🙌🏼🤭

Thank you very much. I appreciate this more than I could ever tell 🩷🩷🩷

[despairparfait]

📂ㅤSPOILING YOU.ㅤ. . .ㅤtartaglia & ayato x child!sibling!reader ★

「 ✦ TARTAGLIA ✦ 」

As expected, the situation applies to you just as much as it applies to every other of his younger siblings. Whatever material possession comes out of your mouth, he will go to extreme lengths in order to present it to you on a silver platter by the time night falls that day. This man thrives solely off your genuine happiness, absolutely adoring the way your face will light up when he gets you that one thing you wanted. He wants nothing but for you to stay smiling.

So when he got home from his lengthy trip to Inazuma with a cute little handcrafted doll as a gift for you, to hear you speak of how you pointed out a pretty lady to Pulcinella and he referred to her as a "cicin mage", he knew precisely what his next move was. He headed straight to the closest place that sews attire for the Fatui, and dumped a large and weighty bag on their front desk. They don't make clothes small enough for dolls? Well, they do now. They have other orders to fulfill and cannot do it right away? Another bag on the counter. Now they do.

Whilst making his way home, Ajax kept the doll on his person the entire time. Protecting it from the Snezhnayan winter cold, occasionally smoothing it with his thumb as a tender smile comes onto his face upon imagining your reaction to it. When he got held up by work, he wanted nothing but to blank everybody and head straight home. But when he finally did get home, however, your reaction was nothing short of how he was imagining it.

"She's... so pretty..." You had peered down at the doll dressed in purple with such affection that you almost looked as if you were about to start sobbing. Holding her so gently, so lovingly, as if she could break or get taken away from you at any second now. Ajax felt his heart swell as he watched you interact with her like so. So proud that you loved her to such an extent, that the mora he spent to clothe her like that meant nothing anymore.

When you looked up at him, your eyes held so much sincerity that it was almost as if he had placed a star into your palms. He observed as you, ever so carefully, laid her down, making sure to cover her with a blanket so that she doesn't get cold. Then you turned to him, sprinting in his direction to hug his legs.

"Thank you so much, brother! I love you so much! So, so much!"

「 ✦ KAMISATO AYATO ✦ 」

The fact you were spoiled by your older brother was a surprise to absolutely no one. No, it wasn't because of the way that you acted, your sister was an amazing influence growing up. It was because of the prestigious clan that you were born into, the fact your brother was raised the same way, and because you're rarely able to see him due to being the commissioner. These three things combined greatly contributed to that lack of shock.

He'll be completely honest, the fact his work prevents him from spending as much time with you as possible in your youth lowers his spirits a little. Your severe lack of parental figures due to the previous commissioner's untimely demise left him not only to inherit the clan, but to inherit the position as your guardian too. Though unfortunately, shuffling the two responsibilities was proven a difficult task. He can thank Thoma for allowing you to satisfy your boredom by accompanying him in cleaning the estate as much as he needs, but it still makes him feel terrible. Which is precisely why, when he can spare the time to take you out himself, he wants it to be as memorable as possible, to make up for the time that he was unable to.

"What do you think of this color?" The woman asked happily as she finished assisting you into your fourth kimono in the last twenty minutes, her hands so gentle as she so delicately folded the fabrics around your small frame. You looked down at yourself, observing the beautiful colors and patterns of the kimono which fitted you so gorgeously. You smoothed it gently with your fingers, before turning to the lady.

"I think it's very pretty," You whispered, as if she was the only person allowed to hear your words.

"You do?" Ogura Mio whispered back, crouching down to you. "Would you like to go and see what your brother thinks?"

You nodded your head, and before she could respond, you were gone. Circling around the screen which had made you invisible and moving so that you could be seen by Ayato, who had been standing there waiting as you were getting ready. He looked surprised for a moment about your sudden unannounced reappearance, but a smile graced his features soon after.

You lifted your arms up in the air, showing this one off the best that you could with a bright grin. Ayato scanned your small frame, liking this particular kimono much more than the previous few. "What do you think, Nii-chan?!"

He nodded his head. "I think it's just as stunning as the previous one. What do you think?"

"I-I like this one..."

"Very well. We'll take them all."

[jungk0oksthighs]

Over The Odds | Ruthless

Pairing - jungkook x reader

Genre - smut, angst, fluff, S2L, ceo!jungkook, sugardaddy!jungkook

Word count - 1.8k

Drabble 14 - Jungkook finally meets your sister - jk pov

warnings: swearing

FULL SERIES COLLECTION

“The new employees are here,” Hoseok, Jungkook's assistant, opens the glass door to Jungkook’s office – it’s Monday morning and the first day of Jeon Industries plan to expand and broaden their horizons.

“I’ll be there soon, what room are you guys in?” Jungkook’s in the midst of sending emails, he peels his gaze away from the screen just enough to see his assistant of three years standing in the doorway wearing brown slacks and a cream shirt, the sleeves rolled up just enough to expose his slender veiny arms.

“Conference room two.” He nods, “You coming?”

“Give me five minutes.” He holds up his tattooed hand, and Hoseok leaves.

If there’s one thing Jungkook is particularly dreading today it’s meeting your sister Ruth, so far he’s heard nothing but bad things about her character. Her resume is absolutely spectacular though, much to his disappointment. She’s well educated, has tonnes of relevant work experience, fantastic references from well-respected people – truth be told she’s an employer’s wet dream. If it weren’t for the fact that you’ve extensively complained to him about how much of a bitch she is he'd probably be looking forward to meeting her, he has to remind himself to remain professional and keep an open mind regardless.

The door to conference room two displays his reflection, thankfully he’s looking refreshed and ready for the week ahead – which he is, he spent his entire weekend cosying up with you beneath the twinkling tipi and he feels great for it. He’s wearing a three piece grey suit, his hair is styled back exposing his thick brows and forehead, his tan skin is almost glowing and for the first time in weeks there’s not one trace of a single eye bag.

“Morning everyone,” He nods, glancing round at the sixteen new faces sitting around the long black table as he enters the room, “I’m Jungkook, the CEO and founder of Jeon Industries. It’s nice to meet you all.”

He asks that everybody go round the table and introduce themselves with their name and their proudest achievement, it’s the only exercise he actually makes an effort to sit in for whenever a group of new employees start. Mainly because he can tell a lot about a person’s character based on their response. There’s the people who want to impress him and start reeling off their academic credentials as though he hasn’t already read them on their resume. There’s the people that say ‘oh I don’t know I’m proud of all my achievements’ and can’t give him a straight answer. And then there’s his favourite type of people, the honest ones, who give genuine answers that aren’t relevant to the business like ‘passing my driving test first time’ or, ‘giving birth to my daughter’. Those are the employees that tend to do well within the company, escalating to larger, better-paid roles a lot quicker than the others. Jungkook appreciates honesty, and first impressions mean a hell of a lot to him.

The new faces do as he asks, as they were hired to do, and one by one give their answers to his question. He’s listening so intently that he almost forgets all about your sister, until she’s the next person to open her mouth.

“Hello everyone I’m Ruth,” She smiles brightly, and for a second Jungkook has to blink twice to make sure he’s seeing this properly. For lack of better words, she looks pretty much exactly fucking like you. He can tell she’s older around the eyes, her skin doesn’t glow quite the same way yours does but aside from small, insignificant differences here and there she’s your double. Her hair is shorter, her shoulders are little broader, he’s decided that despite what you’ve told him she’s not prettier but she is an attractive woman, and her presence is overbearing as he can already tell she loves attention, pausing until everybody in the room is looking at her.

“And my biggest achievement is being able to maintain such a close relationship with my family. It’s hard work sometimes,” She laughs, somewhat cockily, “But I’m very proud of the fact we’re all so close, after all family is the most important thing in the world. Achievements are worthless if you have nobody to share them with.”

Wow. He’s kind of impressed. And also confused, from what you’ve said to him she rarely checks in with the rest of your family – and he knows for a fact that the two of you aren’t exactly close. Remaining professional he listens to the other answers given, he’s made a mental note of the four people who gave genuine, memorable achievements but unfortunately for you your sister is one of them.

If only you’d let him fire her upon arrival like he offered to do when he initially found out she’d be working for him, but of course you being the kind-hearted soul you are said that would be unfair, and now she’s sitting in front of him hanging onto his every word.

“Thank you everyone, once you’ve completed training my assistant Hoseok and I will appoint you with your new roles depending on experience and credentials and how well you do over the next six weeks. Your contracts are in front of you if you wanna give them a read and hand them to Hoseok once you’ve signed them, he’ll be your go to man for throughout training. Welcome to Jeon Industries.”

“Thanks Jungkook.” Hoseok bares his white teeth in a glorious grin and Jungkook stands, exiting the room without another word.

It’s when he’s back in his office, sending some important documents to the printer that a loud knock on his door startles him, he’s not expecting anyone for the rest of the day. “Come in?” He shouts, unsure of who's there.

“Hello,” He glances in the direction of the soft voice, his stomach dropping at the sight of your sister already sitting down opposite him without permission, “I figured I should introduce myself to you properly while I’ve got a minute, you are my sister’s boyfriend after all.”

“It’s nice to meet you Ruth,” Jungkook locks his computer screen, giving her his undivided attention in an attempt not to come off as rude. “Officially.”

“I’m just going to get straight to the point…” Her smile immediately drops, the nice girl façade shattering right in front of his eyes, “I want to work in your finance department, I have all the qualifications and I think I would be an asset to your accounts team.”

“Oh?” He bites back a laugh, he didn’t know what he expected from the infamous Ruth but it certainly wasn’t this. “Well we can definitely look into that once you’ve completed training with Hoseok—”

“Is training really necessary? I know what I’m doing.” She flicks her hair over her shoulder, frowning at him. You were right, your sister is fucking unbelievable.

“It is, company policy.” He rids himself of any trace of emotion, staring at her with a serious expression while leaning back in his leather office chair.

“Right, but you’re dating my sister—”

“You won’t be treated any differently to my other staff.” He warns her, shaking his head. It’s not very often he has to show his power, usually he treats the employees as his equals because he respects them and the work they do for him. But some people every now and then, need reminding of who he is. “My relationship with Y/N is irrelevant.”

Ruth doesn’t appear to like this, she chuckles darkly to herself before bending forward, “You really want to explain to my father, to Y/N’s sick father, that you wouldn’t put me on the department I applied for? That I moved back into their house for nothing? I wonder how that conversation would go…”

“Are you threatening me?” He’s half-frowning, half-smiling, amused by the whole situation. Who in all fuckery does this girl think she is, does she even know who she’s speaking to?

“I know what I’m doing Jungkook, I’m smart, I’m ambitious, and I want to be on your accounts team.”

“Like I said, we’ll review it once you’re done training.” He sympathises with you completely, he can only imagine what she’s like behind closed doors if she behaves this day at work, on her first day none the less. To this she doesn’t respond, and so he unlocks his computer screen to finish what he was doing when she first arrived.

“And what if I refuse to do the training?”

“There’s the door,” Jungkook points an inked finger to the glass entrance not bothering to look at Ruth, locking his computer once again before finally settling his eyes on her shocked face.

“If you’re not willing to learn here there’s really no point you staying, Hoseok prepares the best training material to ensure all employees are capable of doing other roles within the company to cover things like sick days, maternity leave and so on. You might be my girlfriend’s sister but this is my business, I’ve worked hard to be sat at this side of the desk and if you don’t want to follow the policies that I’ve put in place, feel free to leave.”

“…I was kidding, obviously.” She rolls her eyes but deep down she's panicking, he can tell, resorting to batting her eyelashes at him as though it’ll change his perception of her, “Of course I’ll do the training, but I would really like it if my interest in the finance department can be taken note of.”

“Of course,” He feigns a smile, the only reason he hasn’t fired her where she sits is because he knows deep down she would be an asset to his company, and she’s also right – he doesn’t want to have an awkward conversation with your dad if he can avoid it, giving he's yet to meet the man, “Was there anything else?”

“Just one other thing,” She stands, resting her small palms on his desk to lean over him, “If you ever, and I mean ever hurt Y/N… More than you already have,” She scoffs, inching down further until Jungkook’s uncomfortably sitting back to avoid being so close to her face, “I’ll tear you and this entire fucking company down, until I’m the one sitting at that side of the desk.”

x

[ateezmakemeweep]

playing with fire (part 1)

word count: 23k

fluff, smut (warning: age gap, infidelity, roommate’s father)

(series masterlist)

“is there any other way you could pay?” the woman behind the desk asked, stout and soft spoken with sympathy in her eyes.

she probably has to have this conversation with students a lot, tell them that their tuition payment didn’t go through or that they’re not eligible for government support.

or that the athletics department needed more scholarship money, successfully rendering you, one of the many photography majors on campus, unable to pay for your last semester of college.

“a loan of some sort or another scholarship, maybe?” she tried to help, “i could send over an e-mail of ones you might be eligible for.”

you swallow the lump forming in your throat, attempting to calm all the anxiety and stress violently making its way through your body.

“y-yes, that would be great, thank you,” you barely manage to get out, hoping and praying to some unknown force above that you don’t burst into tears.

you were nearing the end of the fall semester, the last fall semester you ever anticipated of having, when you found out just last week that you were no longer eligible for your scholarship.

in a short, curt e-mail explaining that, while you kept up your gpa and never strayed from the requirements, they’ve maxed out their amount of funding and are looking to use that money elsewhere.

“can they do that!?” your best friend and roommate of four years yelps, gucci sunglasses atop her head as she stomps around your shared, off-campus apartment.

“they can’t seriously do that! you’ve been a straight a student since you started and now they wanna take it away?! before your last semester of senior year?!”

“eunbi, it’s not ideal but i’ve already come to terms with it,” you explain gently, leaving out the part where you did, in fact, have a break down right outside the bursar office only an hour ago. “i’ll just save up money and come back in the fall to finish.”

“that’s so not right or fair though!” she whines, something about the concept of not getting what she wants unfamiliar to your roommate.

you first met park eunbi during freshmen move in day, your two raggedy luggages and beat up backpacks an embarrassing contrast to the multiple louis vuitton travel bags she lunged in.

you were intimidated for all of three seconds, before she looked at you with a smile and threw her arms around you like a long lost best friend.

it was obvious she came from money, the way she spoke and carried herself so confidently before her parents came in and introduced themselves.

they were both gorgeous and tall and looked far too young to have an 18-year-old daughter, covered in fancy jewelry and expensive looking clothing.

her dad, who introduced himself as mr. park seonghwa, didn’t seem to bat an eye at your more humble appearance. he reminded you a lot of eunbi, honest and genuine in the way he was kind and nonjudgemental.

mrs. park seemed nice enough, too, though you could see the judgement behind her pretty eyes.

the way she sneered at your bags and looked down at your hands, so different from her and her daughter’s not covered in diamond bracelets or acrylic nails.

“did we just miss your parents?” she asked, her voice just as pretty and rich sounding as she appeared; you bet if she laughed, she’d had have that melodic, care-free laugh all rich women seem to have.

“oh, uh, yeah, i’m sorry,” you apologized, lying through your teeth with a shy smile and averting gaze - you had to move in by yourself, the same way you traveled here all alone with no one to send you off.

“it’s okay, we just thought it’d be nice to meet them,” eunbi’s father interjects, the smile on his handsome face causing your stomach to swoop - how is he a dad?

“we were gonna take eunbi to an early dinner before we left. do you wanna join us?”

“oh no, it’s okay, i’d hate to intru-”

“no, you’re coming, c’mon!” your new roommate whined, grabbing your hand and pulling you toward the door. “we’ll be able to get a lot of dessert out of them. probably the whole menu if we wanted.”

and you saw that over the years, eunbi knew she could, in fact, get whatever she wanted from her parents. they had the money and the means and the fondness in their hearts for their only daughter.

but it never seemed to get to your friend.

she was always kind and thoughtful of others and never said or did anything to suggest she was just a brainless, spoiled rich kid.

even in your guy’s second year when she found out you were going to school on an academic scholarship, she didn’t care. she didn’t turn her nose up or think you were lesser than her for not having the funds; if anything, it only made her praise you more.

that you were smart and ambitious enough to work under the strict guidelines of a prestigious scholarship.

“i know it’s not fair,” you mumble, not wanting to cry or have another anxiety attack over this matter. “but it is what it is. i’ll figure it out.”

she lets out a dejected, defeated sigh so uncharacteristic of the girl, plopping down on her pink, fluffy bed and bringing you down with her.

“we’ll sell feet pics over winter break,” she concludes after a few minutes of silence, wrapping her arm around yours and curling her body into yours. “you know how much money we can get from that? and we have pretty feet,” she says, sticking her leg up and wiggling her red, painted toes.

there’s a little less tightness in your chest and a little heaviness lifted in your stomach as you let out a giggle, looking over at your best friend who truly got you through the last four years of school.

you really don’t know how you’d still be functioning if it weren’t for her.

“you’re sick.”

“i’m serious,” she giggles out, flipping on her side and causing the bed to bounce under you. “you’re still good with coming tomorrow, right? i told my parents you were.”

she had invited you to her house for the winter break this year, the girl not wanting you to spend a month alone in the apartment.

you’ve shared with her how strained your relationship with your parents has been, really, since birth. never seeing eye to eye to them and feeling as if they never had your best interests at heart.

when most kids get full ride scholarships, their parents are immensely proud. bragging about how smart they are and telling them how proud they were.

but your parents were the opposite.

they didn’t want you to up and leave them to pursue an education. they thought you were gonna stay with them forever, not go to college like them and help run the family business back home in your tiny little hometown.

it was your dream to go to college and get a degree, though, so that’s exactly what you did for yourself; but they saw it as a giant fuck you.

saw it as you thinking you were better than them and basically told you to never come back if you thought you were so much smarter and better off without them.

so you’d spent every winter or summer vacation in the dorms, this year finally being the time you accepted eunbi’s invitation to stay over - reluctantly.

“i packed all my stuff, yeah,” you mumble, hands twisted into one another nervously. “but... are you sure they’re okay with it? i don’t wanna intrude or be there if i’m not wanted.”

“y/n, please,” she whines, “my mom may be a raging bitch but you know i make the rules in that house.”

“that’s not what i meant,” you mutter immediately, looking to the girl with a small frown on your lips.

although it was no secret eunbi’s mom didn’t ever seem too fond of you, always sneering at your off-brand items or questioning the logistics of why exactly you needed a scholarship to afford college, you always tried to remain polite.

smile at her and greet her happily even though there was always a thick, palpable tension between you two.

“oh but it is,” she chuckles out, the girl far too aware of what a materialistic snob her mother is. “it’s fine, i know she’s a bitch. my dad’s just coming tomorrow anyway. i told him to bring one of the bigger cars so we can lay out in the back.”

you have to bite back a snarky comment about the fact there are multiple cars in question, though the look in your eye certainly gives it away. she can only giggle and shrug her shoulders, flopping onto her back as she tells you about how excited she is to be reunited with her boyfriend.

eunbi and jiwoon have been dating since their second year of high school, going to colleges only an hour away from each other; he was just as handsome as he was kind and good to her, leaving you with no other option but to love and support the both of them.

and you try to listen to her rambling that ensues, you really do, but your mind is swirling with some slight anxiety about staying with her family for a month.

you don’t wanna make her mom even more irritated, deal with the side eyes and passive aggressive comments and overall feeling of just not being wanted.

you don’t want eunbi to feel obligated to be with you 24/7, act as a cock block to her and her boyfriend who haven’t seen each other in almost six weeks.

and maybe, you don’t want your tiny, small, miniscule crush on mr. park to make you feel any more awkward than it does, wondering how a married man who has a daughter in college is still so handsome and alluring.

it also doesn’t help that he’s just so incredibly kind, always making everyone feel so comfortable and welcomed, it’d be hard not to just develop a little, secret crush on him.

“eunbi, who is that sexy ass man who just dropped you off?” one of your suite mates asks your roommate, everyone gathering back in front of the dorm building after winter break.

it was sophomore year and you spent a month in the quiet, almost eerie college dorms alone (apart from the ra down the hall). you were grateful for everyone to return, no matter how loud or catty things were about to become.

“yeah, for real. is that your new boyfriend? he’s hotter than the last one and i didn’t even think that was possible.”

“uhhh.. no,” eunbi says, shooting the crowd of girls with lustful eyes and curious glances a look of distaste. “that’s my dad.”

and that’s when a chorus of disbelief and inappropriate comments erupted from the group of college girls.

asking how a dad could look like that while hoping and praying he’s single.

inquiring about just how much her dad’s on campus and when’s the next time he’s gonna pick her up.

about how he’s definitely hotter than her boyfriend, with a more mature and sophisticated look than these college boys.

“are they fucking serious! like how disgusting? he’s my literal father!” eunbi rages once in the dorm room, sharing a few curse words and vulgar phrases at the girl’s before stomping away from them.

“and for them to say that shit in front of me? did they think i want to hear that?”

“i know, that was so sick,” you agree, because even though you, too, think he’s attractive, it’s not something you would ever verbalize to your friend.

“like... i know he’s younger than most dads, my parents had me when they were teenagers, but shit! how sick,” she rants, throwing down her heavy designer bags and flopping on her bed.

you can tell by the look on her face how much it truly bothers her, everyone always noticing her dad and making comments like that. she handles it well, she’s always able to handle herself well, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s something that worries her.

people getting close to her to get to her dad, even if it was teachers or other moms in elementary school or her friends when she got to college.

it’s one of the many reasons you would never give away your little crush on him - because it’s not only inappropriate and uncomfortable for her to know but there’s also no need to tell her.

because it’s not like it would go anywhere.

he’s a married man and your roommate’s father, a twisted, dark, forbidden fantasy that will stay in the walls of your head and never see the light of day - no matter how thrilling and fulfilling being with him would be.

“eunbi, your dad’s gonna be here soon,” you yell into your roommate’s doorway, met with the sound of her groaned “five more minutes!” that you’ve been hearing for the past twenty.

she was on facetime with jiwoon when you went to bed around one, briefly waking to the sound of her girlish screams or high-pitched giggles three hours later; you wouldn’t be surprised if she only went to bed a few hours ago.

“you said five more minutes thirty minutes ago,” you say, stomping your way over before smacking her over the head with a pillow. she lets out a loud sigh before swatting you away, your surprisingly fast reflexes grabbing her wrist.

she peeks one eye open as a smirk covers her morning face, looking from you all dressed up and ready in your pink pleated skirt and white thigh high stockings, down to her wrist in your hold.

“that was kinda hot. and you look good. i don’t know how to act right now.”

“shut up and get your ass out of bed,” you demand, biting back a smile as you storm out of her room.

you’d been pacing around the apartment ever since you woke up at seven a.m., more and more unsettled about staying over her house as the time drew closer.

you checked to make sure you had enough clothes and chargers and skincare products for nearly an hour, finally settling the same purple suitcase you moved in with freshmen year near the door.

you hope mrs. park doesn’t notice, remembering the way she sneered at the wonky zipper and slightly stained bottom.

you also hope you can keep yourself in check, not get too nervous or flustered by eunbi’s exorbitant wealth or a new setting you don’t feel welcomed in or her hot ass father whose bones you wanna jump.

the knock at the door completely sobers you, jumping in your spot just in time to see eunbi fly across the living room to get to the door. there’s a big, happy smile on her face, ripping open the door and greeting her father in typical eunbi fashion.

“are those for me?” she asks, snatching the red box from his hands.

excitement bubbles inside the girl as she unveils twelve chocolate covered strawberries, a speciality at one of the local dessert shops just a few miles from her home.

“you shouldn’t have, dad, really. i’m much too tired to appreciate this.”

the man can only look at his daughter with a look of disdain and affection, waking up to an extremely passive aggressive text that she’d really appreciate an early morning treat from her favorite place ever and that it’d really inspire her to be ready.

but as he can currently see, given the state of her hair and pajamas pants, it didn’t at all act as a motivator.

“then maybe i should just-” but upon her father’s hand reaching out to grab the box of strawberries, the girl brings it to her body and runs away, yelling that her bags are packed and she’s just gonna wash her face.

he looks to you with a mock annoyed expression, your heart jumping in your chest as you send him a small, polite smile.

“how do you deal with her, y/n?” he asks, a smirk on his face rising as you let out a soft, slightly forced giggle - this man looks too good for his own good at ten o’clock in the morning.

“don’t talk shit about me!” she yelps before you can even think to say something, a smile lighting up his face again before he nods his head down the hall.

“i’ll bring down your girl’s bags,” he says, his tall, large frame coming toward you making your knees feel slightly wobbly.

you swear you see his eyes roam over you for the shortest of seconds, down to your shirt and exposed legs before back to your face, until he’s looking into your eyes questioningly.

totally not like someone who just checked out their daughter’s roommate - this is what you feared, your own delusionals and attraction making your crazy little brain see something that’s not there.

“her bedroom’s down that hall?”

you resist the urge to swallow nervously, begging yourself to snap out of it and remind yourself you have to deal with the man for a month. a month of his dark, piercing eyes and bright, white smile and skin so smooth and clear, it’s far too easy to forget he’s almost forty years old.

“yeah,” you barely manage to get out. “i-i can help and bring down mine.”

“no, it’s okay,” he insists, “help in getting eunbi ready. you know she’ll delay us thirty more minutes.”

you let out another strained chuckle as you nod your head, finally letting out the breath you’ve been holding when you hear his footsteps disappear down the hall and into her room.

as long as you distance yourself from him, not look him in the eye or let any sort of idea get in your head that an older, married man could want you back, this will be fine.

it’ll be a nice, calm, relaxed break actually full of interaction and socialization opposed to your usual lonely bubble of solitude.

eunbi’s not making that very easy though, when twenty minutes later, she’s opening the back door of her father’s black g-wagen and sprawling out on the black leather seats.

“where’s y/n supposed to go, eunbi?” seonghwa asked, the fatherly tone is his voice causing eunbi to let out a huff; the only time you see eunbi’s spoiled tendencies come out is around her father, the girl knowing he’ll do anything and everything for her.

and apparently, so will you.

sitting in the front seat of her car, next to her extremely hot father you’re trying to stay calm around, while she sleeps soundly in the backseat - if she didn’t invite to stay at her home, meals and bed and transportation free, you’d say she has to owe you.

“was she up all night talking to jiwoon?” mr. park asked, the past few moments of silence just as comforting as they were terrifying. it felt awkward to you, extremely tense and full of suspense, but you knew it was completely normal.

you bite down on your lip, looking back at eunbi sleeping soundly on the seat, even prepared with a fuzzy white blanket. you let out a soft giggle when you see her mouth open, the slightest bit of drool hanging from her mouth and threatening to spill on the dark leather.

“she might’ve been,” you mutter, a breathy laugh leaving her father that causes you to sneak a glance at him.

there’s not a hint of a wrinkle or imperfection on his glowing skin, black hair hanging in his face and red lips quirked into a content smile. that’s something you always noticed about him, despite his dark appearance and looming figure, he always appears to be happy.

smiles and laughs and never gives anyone without his same wealth a dirty glance - he treats everyone the same and that’s another reason you’ve taking a liking to him, not just because he’s the hottest man you’ve ever seen in your life.

“y/n?” he asks, your intrusive thoughts being ripped away at the sound of his voice calling your name.

your eyes move to his and he’s watching you in slight amusement, a rampant blush creeping up on your cheeks at the way you’ve been caught. you’re quick to look away, shake your head and let out an awkward chuckle and apology.

you miss the way his eyes roam your side profile, a delightful smirk and feeling in his chest blooming before he speaks again.

“how was your semester?”

“it was good,” you say, hands placed nervously in your lap. “a lot of work on top of an internship but it was good.”

“and you girls are almost done,” he hums lowly, one hand atop the steering wheel while his eyes focus on the highway in front of him. “eunbi’s been talking about a combined graduation party since the moment you guys met.”

you let out a small laugh as you remember eunbi’s plan since your second semester of freshmen year, ignoring the twinge of sadness in your stomach.

you could’ve never anticipated delaying your college career when you first received your scholarship, happy and proud and eternally grateful for the opportunity.

but you suppose you’re lucky enough to have gotten this far, and delaying one last semester is nothing compared to people who never get to go to college - but it still makes you feel upset.

you think you have the right to feel disappointed and sad, the lingering sick feeling in your stomach making you feel nauseous.

“is it okay if i open the window for a second?” you mumble to mr. park, the man looking over your face.

he presses down on the passenger window button immediately, your face met with cold air as relief floods through your body.

“are you okay? do you get car sick?” he asks, remembering how much eunbi used to get car sick (on the rare occasion she wasn’t passed out during a road trip).

“not usually,” you mumble, resting your head on the side of the door.

then again, i’m not usually freaking out about making tuition money or repressing my violent attraction to my roommate’s father.

seonghwa watches as you close your eyes for a few moment, allowing the cold, windy air to hit your face. he couldn’t help but notice the pinkish tint to your cheeks, suppressing the urge for his eyes and thoughts to wander.

you’re a college girl in the prime of her life and his daughter’s best friend, he’d be a fool to think you were blushing and nervous because of him - but he also doesn’t remember you looking like.... this.

so pretty and dressed up and pink in the face as you check him out with a soft and curious look in your eye.

“maybe try to take a nap,” he suggests, his gaze lingering back onto the road so he doesn’t look at your exposed legs. “i’ll pull off at a rest stop to get you ginger ale.”

“that’s not necessary, mr. park,” your sweet voice says, something about it causing his insides to jump - he definitely doesn’t remember you sounding like that. “i’ll be okay. just need the window open for a little longer.”

you spend the next few minutes with the cold, december wind blowing through the car, your back pressed against the comfortable seat behind you. a chill runs through your body, goosebumps rising on your exposed thighs, but it feels better than the alternative.

potentially panicking or vomiting due to current stress of your life.

your gaze shifts to the man beside you, whether it be to check him out or ask if he’s cold unknown to you.

“are you okay with the-”

the words are stuck in your throat when you see his eyes aren’t on the road but your exposed, goose-bumpy thighs, the white lace of your thigh high stockings and pink skirt leaving little to the imagination.

you wish you could see the look in his eye, if it’s judgemental and shameful or full of lust and curiosity. if he’s wondering what you have on just a few inches under your skirt and if that’s something he even thinks about.

or maybe he’s just looking because it’s there - your skirt blowing in the wind and him caught off guard by the sight right there in his passenger seat.

“um, i think i’m good now,” you mumble, watching from your peripheral as he shifts in his seat and tightens his hold on the steering wheel.

“alright, let me know if you wanna stop.”

you bite down on your lip as you nod your head, keeping your eyes on the view in front of you.

the faint sounds of eunbi snoring behind you act as a way to ground you, remind you that these thoughts and feelings you’re having can’t stay.

maybe you have to get it our of your system now, take all the looks you can and feel all the hopefulness your delusional brain needs until you act as if eunbi’s father is a mean, disgusting, grotesque man.

not someone who gets your heart and body pounding.

you’re not sure how many songs play on the radio until you both are talking again, seonghwa looking in the rearview mirror to see his daughter still passed out on the seats.

“do you think she’ll sleep the whole time?”

he hope for his sake, she doesn’t.

you look back at eunbi sleeping soundly, the drool previously trickling down her mouth successfully making a pool on the black leather.

“probably,” you chuckle out lightly. “i have a feeling she went to bed around six.”

“shit,” he laughs out, remembering the days he used to be able to pull all nighters in college or dreaded the idea of waking up in the morning. “i can’t remember the last time i was able to stay up past one.”

“you’re not even that old, mr. park,” you tease, not sure where you got the balls to say that and feeling, at least for a few seconds, that you overstepped; but then he lets out a deep, amused chuckle and it causes butterflies to erupt in your stomach.

“not that old, huh?” he quips, your tooth sinking into your lip at the tone of his voice. “you know i’m turning 40 in a few months, right?”

you crane your neck to look at the man in the driver’s seat, swallowing thickly when you see his eyes are already on you. there’s a certain type of lightness and teasing in them that you’ve never seen before, the man always happy and jovial but never like this.

never looking so... teasing and playful.

“yeah,” you say with a growing smirk, not being able to help your own nervous excitement. “that doesn’t seem too bad.”

the deep, low chuckle that leaves him causes your stomach to swoop, eyes wide and the small smile on your face causing him to look over you once more.

it’s shameless and bold but neither of you seem to care in that moment.

“i’ll keep that in mind,” he says, deep brown eyes piercing through yours before his face turns teasing and.. appropriate.. “the next time eunbi tries to call me an old man or something.”

“right,” you chuckle out, cheeks burning and heart pounding as you allow yourself to break eye contact.

the ride to eunbi’s house is just over two hours, hoping and praying that it goes by quickly - because you’re not sure how much longer you’ll be able to be alone, or mostly alone, with him.

you’re thinking too much into his words and his gaze and the way he makes you feel, making you silly enough to believe that, maybe, a part of him wants you too.

the second you arrived at eunbi’s, you had already felt unwelcomed.

not only because of mrs. park, who just about sneered at your presence in her exquisite home, but because of the dozens of other socialites in the immaculately white living room.

it looked and felt almost like a hospital. a white color scheme with black accents, extremely cold and spotless - the only bit of color was in eunbi’s room where it felt like you could actually breathe.

“i’m sorry, i told her not to throw her fucking gathering today,” eunbi complained, grumpy from her nap but still happy to finally be home.

“a bunch of stuck up snobs, i swear to god. they either have to get the stick lodged so far up their asshole removed or get dicked down by their lousy excuses of-”

“eunbi,” you hear her father’s deep voice reprimand, the girl not even feeling the slightest bit of shame or embarrassment for talking that way in front of her father.

“oh, c’mon, dad, you know it’s true!” she whines in a whispered tone. “they’re the worst! and she knew me and y/n were coming today, do you really think that wasn’t a coincidence?”

because, as far as eunbi thinks, she has sinking suspicions that her mom did this solely to make you uncomfortable.

she had already been hesitant to let you stay in the first place, had eunbi not gone full on bitch mode and stubbornly proclaimed she’d spend the break with you at the apartment.

but you didn’t have to know that.

“i don’t care, it’ll just be my first christmas without my family, mom, who cares about that,” she had said, all types of manipulative and toxic behavior that she learned from the best.

she’s sure her mother was sweet and good at one point in her life, she wouldn’t have ended up with her father in the first place if she wasn’t, but money changes people.

wealth and greed and having the power to get anything you want because you flash a stack of money around or write out a check.

“i told her to have them out by dinner,” he said, his eyes moving from eunbi to you, standing there with tense shoulders and a shy, uncomfortable look on your face.

“you’re more than welcomed here, y/n,” he said, his voice low and full of kindness as he stands in eunbi’s doorway. “don’t worry about it, okay?”

you resist the urge to pout at the touched feeling in your chest, looking from the man to eunbi who’s nodding at her dad’s words.

“thank you, mr. park,” you say, a phrase he swears has never effected him this deeply.

and because of that, he’s quick to haul ass out of there. tells you guys that dinner will be ready around seven and to come down whenever.

you and eunbi spend that time in her room to unpack both of your things and watch movies, her king sized bed nearly lulling you to sleep until her loud squeal and bounce of the bed causes you to jump in shock.

“y/n, don’t be mad at me please,” she whines directly in your face, all wide-eyed and cutesy as she looks at you with mock innocence.

“what did you do?” you mumble tiredly, pushing her away with the smallest of sneers.

“i’ll be back for dinner, i promise, but... is it okay if i go to jiwoon’s for a little?” she asks, cocking her head to the side before shimming closer to you. “i have to get railed so bad.”

“jesus christ, eunbi,” you snort, pushing her away again and burying your face in the pillow - you’ve never met someone who overshares as much as she does.

she plops down on her back with an unabashed giggle, popping right back up like an annoying little dog and looking at you with a smile.

“of course you can go, i’m not gonna hold you hostage here,” you say when she pulls your face away, looking at you so expectantly and sweetly, you couldn’t say no if you wanted.

“okay, but i don’t want you thinking that i’m gonna ditch you this whole time. i’m really not, y/n,” she pouts, knowing that was one of the reasons you were apprehensive about coming - that and her bitch of a mother. “i just miss him.”

a pout falls on your face as you look at eunbi and the genuine look on her face.

“bi, i’m serious, go. i want you to,” you insist, moving a piece of her tangled hair away from her face. “we were just gonna be up here anyway. i’ll probably take a nap, i was about to fall asleep before your loud ass-”

“thank you, thank you, thank you,” she says, pulling you into a tight hug before jumping off her bed and rushing toward her door. “i’ll be back a lot more calm and happy. oh, why, you ask? because i’m about to get my back blown the fuck ou-”

you thank god for your impeccable aim, promptly whacking eunbi in the face with one of her pillows.

“get out of here,” you groan, eunbi throwing the pillow back with a smile on her face.

“sweet dreams, y/n!”

you let out a sigh when she closes her door, falling back onto her bed with a soft plop.

you were definitely tired from your anxious pacing this morning but aren’t sure how much sleep you’re gonna get right now, tonight or for the rest of the month.

knowing that you’re unwelcomed by one person, extremely attracted to another and silently betraying the person you should be most loyal too - but as long as it just stays in your head, and you remind yourself that there’s no way mr. park could feel anything back to you, it’ll be fine.

you’ll just get by quietly and smoothly at dinners or in passing through the hallways, enjoy eunbi’s comfortable king-sized bed and the fact that you don’t have to spend yet another holiday alone.

reruns of drake and josh play in the background, keeping your giggles quiet as drake soaks his feet in lizard pee. you feel your eyes grow heavy the more episodes you watch, the shitty laugh track and loud, bickering brothers eventually lulling you to sleep.

it takes about five knocks on the door to eventually stir you, your eyes fluttering open to see mr park’s figure in the doorway. you can only stare at the man as you adjust to him, taking in his tall, slim figure just a few feet away from you.

taking in the way his white shirt clings to his body, broad shoulders and slim torso on display in a way that makes you wish you could see, just for a second, what he looks like underneath that a-

“sorry if i woke you,” his deep voice hums, the slightest bit of amusement in his voice that causes your cheeks to warm. “i didn’t think you’d be sleeping at seven p.m.”

“no, it’s okay,” you stammer out, sitting up in eunbi’s bed. “i... i don’t even know when i fell asleep, to be honest.”

he looks at the screen to see drake and josh playing, a smirk pulling at his lips as his gaze shifts back to you.

“it’s funny,” you defend with a mumble, a deep chuckle leaving his mouth that causes butterflies to erupt in your stomach - he’s far too handsome, everything about him is just far too attractive, even in his laugh.

“that’s what eunbi claims,” he says, remembering all the years of his daughter forcing him to watch ridiculous shows.

despite his daughter’s outgoing nature, she never had a lot of friends growing up.

there was once a small group of girls she hung out but they quickly drifted apart throughout high school, leaving eunbi really only with him and her boyfriend.

the boyfriend who seonghwa really didn’t wanna like out of principal but seeing that the kid really does love his daughter quickly coming around.

“speaking of, where is she? jiwoon’s?”

“yeah,” you tell him, settling back into the pillows and stretching your arms out in front of you. “she said she’d be back for dinner.”

“well she’s wrong, as usual, because dinner’s ready,” he quips playfully, the smirk pulling at his lips causing you to smile back at him. you swallow nervously when his eyes roam over your face, your own gaze trained on him before you see his mouth start to move again.

“do you want me to bring some up for you? or you’ll come down?”

he can see the apprehension on your face immediately, fear crossing your eyes and your arms folding into each other uncomfortably. he tries to ignores the way your soft white sweater dips by your chest, a hint of perky cleavage just barely showing that causes his dick to twitch in his pants.

he doesn’t know when this happened.

he didn’t know when he became a pervy old man who checked out college girls with his wife just downstairs and the knowledge that you’re his daughter’s friend.

“i’ll come down,” you say, surprising him just as he was about to insist he brings some up for you. “she’ll probably be back soon anyway.”

but five minutes pass by, then ten, then twenty and eunbi’s still not home - it’s just you, seonghwa and mrs. park at the long, glass dining room table.

white chairs with high backs and comfortable cushions to match the immaculate, hospital-like color scheme and environment; truthfully, you’ve never been more terrified to eat a plate of chicken parmesan in your life.

the sound of utensils scraping on the china and the crackling of the fireplace a room over are the only noises heard throughout the home, mrs. park taking a swig of wine and gently placing it on the table with a light clack.

“so, y/n,” she finally says, breaking the tension with her rich-sounding, nasally voice. “how has school been, dear? you’re an... art major, am i remembering that correctly?”

“uh, photography, yeah,” you smile tensely, trying to ignore the judgment in her voice.

“ah, so you never switched over to business then,” she hums, her wine glass back in hand as her dark, gorgeous eyes look you over.

you bite the inside of your cheek as you feel a pink flush cover your face, faintly remembering your roommate saving you a few semesters ago when her mom was grilling you about picking a more practical and useful major.

“she can do whatever she wants, mom,” eunbi eventually snapped, “whether she does business or photography or even liberal arts is none of your business.”

“no,” you mutter out, dropping your gaze to look over the intricate pattern on the table. “i thought about it but it wasn’t something i wanted.”

“so you didn’t want something practical? or useful?” she asks, using those two words yet again while cocking her head to the side with a perfectly plucked eyebrow.

“a business degree would’ve been great, y/n. everyone always has connections to somewhere, you could’ve found a job right out of college.”

you bite back the urge to tell her no. that not everyone has connections to multi billion dollar companies or numbers of ceos in their phones or the ceo of a tech company as their next door neighbors.

but instead, the same way eunbi defended you against her mother, seonghwa does against his wife. gives you a soft, sympathetic side eye before placing his larger hand on his wife’s.

“there are tons of jobs in photography too, honey,” seonghwa says, his voice so warm and soft and welcoming compared to hers even despite the slight edge in it.

“and she can travel to build her portfolio. it’s a fantastic opportunity to explore the world and make money. is there a particular type of photography you’d wanna do?”

you feel yourself relax slightly, a small smile on your face as you nod your head toward the striking couple.

“i would love to be a wedding photographer actually,” you mumble, a romantic at heart who’s read and watched far too many novels and romcoms.

“taking pictures of all those moments would be really fun, i think. like when the groom sees the bride for the first time or just everyone dancing and having fun. weddings are usually happy and i like to photography happy things.”

“that sounds perfect for you then,” seonghwa smiles, his brown eyes lighting up and making you feel even more at ease.

“i think you’ll do great, y/n. and you only have a semester left, right? maybe you and eunbi you could travel for the summer before you start your jobs.”

you ignore the swish of dread and anxiety in your stomach at the mention of next semester, instead choosing to smile softly and nod your head at the man.

“i think she’d love that,” you giggle out, knowing damn well your roommate already has an extensive list of cities she wants to visit before ‘real life begins.’

“and how do your parents feel about everything?” mrs. park asks, making your stomach twist with even more dread and discomfort. “are they proud?”

you wish you could fold in on yourself right now, swallowing the growing, nervous lump in your throat.

because not only is she making you incredibly uncomfortable right now, with her harsh looks and topic of conversation and snide little tone, she just mentioned the people you haven’t spoken to since you left home at eighteen.

you don’t know what to say, you have the slightest bit of concern you might throw up on her, when the loud, chipper voice of your roommate floats through the cold, silent house.

“i’m back!” her chipper voice yelps, sock-clad feet running through the house and sliding on the marble floor. “what’d you guys make?”

“you’re late, eunbi,” seonghwa mumbles warningly, an innocent smile on her face as she picks up her plate of food and plops down next to you.

“am i? or are you girls just early?”

“i’m not a girl.”

“it’s a figure of speech, father,” eunbi says, smiling playfully at her father before turning to you.

she’s able to tell the second she sees your face that you’re uncomfortable, the pink flush still lingering on your face and the tenseness of your shoulders making her frown.

“i’m sorry you were alone with them,” she whispers, genuine sorrow in her wide, mock-innocent eyes. “i got held up. or... down, rather, but i tried to leave on time. i promise.”

“uh huh, i bet,” you mumble back, fighting back a smile despite your discomfort.

because eunbi has always had something about her that made it impossible to stay mad at her, her carefree, unfiltered way of communicating that made being her friend so easy.

even if, sometimes, you wanted to kill her.

“so mom,” eunbi quips, turning her soft gaze to you before looking over her mother.

“what was with your little group of bitchy housewives today? you couldn’t have had them over any other day? what kind of christmas disgrace is that?”

“eunbi...” seonghwa chastises lowly, the girl with her brow already quirked and eyes narrowed.

“i can do whatever i want in my home, eunbi. are you forgetting how things work around here?”

“how could i, when i’m met with thirty middle-aged women with botox out the ass in my home the second i get back from school?” she asks, “you didn’t think me and y/n would wanna spend the break, like, resting?”

“you ran off to your boyfriend’s the second you got here,” mrs. park bites back, her glass of wine empty as she pinches the bridge of her nose. “left your friend all alone in your room. what did i tell you about leaving... guests unattended in the house?”

the accusation and direction of conversation is quickly making you feel uncomfortable, your head turned down in your lap and leaving your cheeks aflame.

she’s making it sound like you would steal something in her home for christ’s sake, like you’re not a guest who’s dreaded coming here due to this very reason.

you block out the back and forth between eunbi and her mom, a few more seconds of yappy feminine voices before a deeply spoken “enough,” echoes through the dining room.

you even look up at the sound, watching as mr. park’s eyes rest on you. his eyes narrow as he takes in the sight of your red cheeks, his gaze shifting from you to his daughter to his wife beside him.

“y/n’s here for a month and we’re gonna make her feel welcomed the entire time. if you two are gonna fight, don’t do it at the dinner table.”

“but dad, she totally-”

“maybe you should’ve taught your daughter-”

“no more,” seonghwa growls, a sense of finality in his tone that causes the room to go silent.

you can tell your friend is unbothered by the reprimanding, shoveling food into her mouth and sipping from her wine glass completely unbothered.

sometimes you wish you could be more like her, so unfazed by conflict or loud voices or the strained relationship with a parent.

eunbi was always open with you about the rocky relationship with her mother, saying more than once to you that if it weren’t for her father, she would’ve long cut off any contact with her.

she had never really been there for eunbi growing up, having nannies and chefs take care of her for most of her life - it was her nanny of fifteen years who taught her how to walk and talk, was there with her for all the milestones she met through infancy, childhood and even adolescence.

but even then, eunbi was nonchalant and carefree about it.

saying that she’s not gonna waste her time being upset over it when she knows her mom doesn’t think about her at all. it makes your heart hurt for eunbi, grateful that the girl at least has a good relationship with her father and boyfriend.

and you, of course. you consider her your best friend and you know she does the same - even if sometimes, you wanna pull her hair out.

“i’m gonna go the food store tomorrow, eunbi, so if you and y/n want anything, just text it to me.”

“oooh can we come!” she squeals, knocking her arm into yours like an excited kid in a candy store. “we wanna try making our cookies again.”

“you’re gonna bake?” the girl’s father asks, a look of doubt on his face that causes you to bite back a smile.

“no, we’re gonna bake,” she corrects with snark, “y/n measures the ingredients and stirs, i put it in the oven and watch.”

“right, silly me,” the man hums, a smirk pulling at his lips the more he sees his daughter get irritated. “but of course you girls can come,” he says, his eyes flicking to you for just a few seconds too long.

you can only look back with a small smile, a quiet “thank you,” leaving your mouth that you’re positive he doesn’t catch.

(he did).

you help clean your plate off before you and eunbi go up to her room later that night, once her door’s closed and she’s sitting down shooting her a look of disdain.

“i know you’re mad, okay, i’m sorry, i really am!” she whines, holding her arms out for you to come over. “i tried to leave but he wouldn’t let me. he just kept wanting to-”

“i don’t need the details you sick freak!” you yelp, going over and plopping down on her bed. “ugh, it was just... so awkward. your mom hates me. she was utterly perturbed that i didn’t switch my major to business.”

“ugh, she’s a crotchety bitch i swear,” eunbi says, falling onto her back and looking at you with sorrow in her eyes. “i’m sorry, i really am. i won’t leave you alone with her again, i promise.”

you quirk an unconvinced eyebrow her way, eyes full of doubt and distrust before she throws herself on you and squeals that, at least, now you can have a scary movie marathon without any interruptions.

it seems you also probably should’ve made her promise last night that you’d never be alone with her father either; it didn’t even occur to you at the time, not thinking that she’d really ditch you two days in a row.

but alas, jiwoon’s car pulled up when all three of you were walking out of the house to the g-wagon for the trip to the food store, her shooting you an apologetic look and whispered condolences in your ear.

“i’m technically not breaking my promise because my dad’s nice,” she mumbled, the feeling in your body more nervous and aroused than it is angry and upset.

but she could’t know that.

“and when i break your head? then what, eunbi?”

“i love you,” she giggles in your ear, the playful tone of your voice letting her know she got off the hook again. “it’ll be fine. my dad’s a good man. he wouldn’t ever talk shit to you the way my mom does.”

little does she know how much you want her dad to talk shit to you.

talk to you in a way that’s casual and playful and teasing, like the hints of it you’ve seen in the car or in eunbi’s room when you were alone last night. you just want him to look at you with the slightest bit of something, even though it’s wrong.

not only because of his wife, no matter how big a bitch she is, but because of-

“do you still wanna come with me?”

seonghwa’s voice pulls you away from your thoughts, looking to the man dressed in a long, black jacket and expensive loafers. he looks far too fancy and delectable for a trip to the grocery store.

eunbi is long gone by now, her giggles and carefree run down the driveway and into her boyfriend’s car leaving you and mr. park alone, with only the blue sky and crisp air as your witness.

him looking you over hopefully, with a twinge of teasing and longing in his gaze.

you looking at him full of nerves and excitement, biting down on your lip as you nod your head timidly.

“s-sure, if that’s okay,” you say, looking from him to his car just a few feet away. “it’d be better than sitting in eunbi’s room again.”

a handsome smile crosses his face as he nods his head, heart pounding and throat constricting as you watch him walk toward the car.

he walks around the front of a smaller, sleek suv, your own eyes watching in confusion until he opens the passenger side door.

you can only stare blankly, head cocked to the side as you really start to wonder if this man is about to make you drive his car costing more than your life.

“are you getting in, y/n?” he asks, an amused smile pulling at his lips - almost like he’s making fun of your nervous, intimidated disposition.

you shake your head of the confusion, cheeks flushing in the cold december air as you do an awkward jog toward the car. you dip in beside him as your body hits the cool leather, craning your neck to shoot him a small, grateful smile.

your faces are closer than you anticipated, breath catching in your throat as his gaze watches you closely.

he doesn’t say a word or move a muscle, taking a few moments for his eyes to roam your face and body before mumbling to buckle up.

you wish you knew how long the drive to the store would be, as it would slightly settle you and the thick, awkward tension in the air. it appears to be enough time for the heat to go on, warm air blowing from the vents before he asks if you want your seat heater on.

“oh, sure, thank you,” you mumble, a smile quirking on his lips as he presses down on the small circular button.

more silence lingers in the air as the trees outside you pass by, the bright winter sun and blue sky not making it feel like christmas is only a few days away.

you can’t remember the last time the holidays have actually felt like it, though,  all the lonely days blending into one and feeling as if they were the same.

maybe this year, because you’re surrounded by eunbi and her family, it’ll feel less lonely. maybe you’ll actually enjoy yourself and find that you’ve missed out when you denied her invitation each and every-

“i’m sorry about my wife last night.”

those are words you don’t expect so they shock you even more, looking at the older man beside you with a wide-eyed, confused gaze. his dark eyes are expressionless and casual on the road, one hand on the wheel while the other rests beside him.

“i... what do you mean?” you ask, knowing damn well you understand his apology - and given the unamused look he throws you, he knows you’re full of shit too.

“i don’t think she means to judge you so harshly,” he begins, his deep, smooth voice full of sympathy and softness. “it’s not her place to question your education or major, so i just want to apologize for her.”

“that’s not necessary, mr. park,” you insist, shaking your head as a small, breathy chuckle leaves you. “and it’s not like i haven’t heard it before.”

because no one is ever too confident in any of the arts being your main source of income or profession; even your own parents, although it really wouldn’t matter what you would have chosen, haven’t been supportive.

and you especially haven’t missed the looks of pity or distaste when you tell people on campus or at parties in the frat house, future business leaders or stem majors looking at you like just said the sky is hot pink.  

“well that’s just ridiculous,” seonghwa says, ripping you from your thoughts so you can roam over his strong, handsome face. “it’s a great field to work in and something you’re passionate about. that’s what matters most.”

he can tell by the way your cheeks flush that you’re slightly embarrassed and he can’t help but find it endearing, licking over his lips as his mind begins to wander.

wonder about what other parts of you could flush so easily or what else he could say to really make the pinkness deepen.

“i guess,” you mutter, shrugging your shoulders as you look at the passing oak trees and mansions.

“and... what you said last night about traveling to build my portfolio,” you begin, shocked by the words continuing to leave your mouth. “that’s something i’ve thought about doing. i think it’d be really fun, regardless if i did wedding photographer or not.”

“yeah?” he asks, the smile on his face causing your head to jump. “i think that’d be good, too. where would you wanna go first?”

your lips purse to the side as you think it over, a love for traveling anywhere you could but having an especially strong pull toward the tropics.

“cancun or the maldives,” you answer, the financial aspect of the trip leaving it most likely impossible for you. “it’ll probably never happen, because i’d have to sell my first born, but i’ve always wanted to go somewhere like that. somewhere tropical and fun.”

seonghwa bites his tongue about his multiple trips there, instead letting out a chuckle that causes butterflies to erupt. his eyes are too drawn to your body in the front seat, legs crossed and arms over your lap politely.

“you never know,” he hums, ripping his gaze away before you catch his gawking. “you might get there one day, after being the best wedding photographer the city has to offer.”

“oh, please,” you glggle out, cheeks flushing despite the absurdity of the comment.

you catch the smile that creeps on his face, the same handsome, carefree smile you saw in the car last time.

you try not to let it get to you, let your brain convince you that maybe he likes hanging out with you alone as much as you like it too.

“i’m serious,” he says, the earnest tone of his voice slipping into dad mode in a way he doesn’t even realize. “your parents must be proud.”

you bite down on your lip as you let out a soft, almost scornful, chuckle, a quietly mumbled “yeah,” leaving your mouth that causes his eyebrows to pull together.

he always thought it was a little suspicious that in the four years eunbi has known you, she’s never told him about your parents; as far as he knows, she’s never even seen them.

“she has her scholarship and stuff so she doesn’t really need them,” his daughter said one day, the two of them discussing why you were spending yet another break alone in the apartment.

“but they don’t want her home for the holidays? you told her she was welcomed, right?”

“ugh, about a thousand times,” his daughter groans in the seat, throwing herself against the window dramatically. “i basically begged her, dad, but she said she didn’t wanna intrude. i’m telling you it’s because mom is the biggest fucking-”

“eunbi...”

“you know it’s true!” she squeals, seonghwa biting his tongue in an effort to be the bigger and better parent. “i don’t even know why you guys got married.”

but that’s what happens with teen pregnancies and rich families. how they were destined to marry anyway, due to their parents companies and stupid business politics.

it was one drunken night at his dad’s company party and a broken condom that sealed his fate with finality - made him go from a single, carefree high school student to a married businessman with a child just two short years later.

his wife was good at one point he likes to think, remembering she was gorgeous and sassy and not like the other girls who would drop to their knees for him.

but marriage and a child and just life quickly caught up with them, already trapped in a loveless, pointless marriage by the time he hit 25.

he’d be lying if he said he didn’t stay for eunbi, that they both didn’t stay for eunbi throughout her childhood and now just grew too used to being an unhappy married couple who live separate lives.  

there was never any reason for them to divorce though, no one serious in his or his wife’s lives and the hassle of money and disputing houses and cars and assets far too draining.

“i don’t believe i’ve ever met them,” seonghwa says, pulling into the store parking lot to see it’s less crowded than he suspected it’d be. “what do they do?”

you couldn’t imagine anything more unbearable than disclosing to your friend’s hot dad who you may or may not have feelings for about the messed up relationship with your parents.

it just screams daddy issues, which might say a lot about your very attraction to him in the first place.

“they run a little restaurant back in my home town. it’s about three hours from campus, which is why i don’t really go home for breaks.”

seonghwa hums lowly, nodding his head as he looks at you at a stop sign.

you’re unnerved by the way his eyes roam you, like he can see signs of you being uncomfortable about your parents and wants to know why - but why would he care? you’re only his daughter’s roommate.

“do you miss seeing them?”

you lick over your lips nervously, watching as his eyes darken every so slightly.

he watches each and every of your movements carefully, so in tune with your reactions and breaths you can just feel yourself getting more and more worked up.

not in the slightest, you wanna say. i’ll probably never see them again and have no qualms about it, mr. park.

“i suppose,” you mutter, shrugging your shoulders as you apprehensively meet his gaze.

“you suppose?” he asks, concern etched on his face. “when was the time you’ve seen them? since your freshmen year?”

you avert your gaze as your teeth sink into your bottom lip, in no way wanting to have this discussion at ten a.m. when, much to your pleasure, an impatient car behind beeps at seonghwa’s mercedes.

his dark eyes move to the rearview mirror, narrowed and irritated in a way you can’t help but think is sexy, before he puts his foot off the break and turns into the parking lot.

“i think this person’s leaving,” you mutter when you notice another car go in reverse, seonghwa snatching the spot before the impatient, crotchety lady behind him could steal it.

you can’t help but smirk as seonghwa eyes her when you get out of the car, giving him a look that’s half judgmental and half amused.

“what? she beeped at me.”

“aren’t you supposed to be, like, an adult?”

he rolls his eyes as he takes a cart from the pile, nodding his head for you to go in front and “stop talking back to an elder.”

you can’t help but smirk at his playfulness, taking your spot in the front and pretending as if you always move your hips this much when you walk casually; you would’ve felt embarrassed, had you not turned around a few moments later to see his eyes already on you.

“where to first, mr. park?”

he has to bite back the groan threatening to leave his mouth, reminding himself to keep himself in check this month - starting tomorrow.

“depends, y/n,” he hums, voice far too deep and sultry to be surrounded by innocent bystanders in the grocery store. “what do you want?”

words are caught in your throat and you can only stare dumbly, your plan quickly back firing as he appears to do the same - but it’s gotta be in your head, right?

regardless, it quickly humbles you in the form of a small, unsure shrug.

it’s how you two start walking up and down the aisles, seonghwa putting in what he remembers and items on his mental list while also insisting you put in anything you want.

your arms bump ever so often, softly apologizing and acknowledging it the first few times before you both realize it may be happening on purpose.

you stick close to him when the aisles get tight and crowded, his deep voice telling you to “go ahead,” causing you to swallow shakily. you feel the presence of his hand just a few inches from your hips, lingering and hovering but never fully touching.

it’s finally when you’re in the bread aisle, seonghwa a few feet away talking to the man at the bakery counter, that you decide to put something in the cart.

you would usually never accept someone’s offer to buy you something, already feeling bad about staying with them rent free and eating their meals without compensating.

but the brioche loaf brand is one of your favorites, only sold on occasion at the corner store near campus.

you press up on your tippy toes to grab the bag of bread, stretching your arm up with all your might. the plastic slips through your fingers just as you’re about to snatch it down, letting out an annoyed huff as you pulled down your sweater dress.

you mumble your annoyances before trying again, back on the tips of your toes with your arm raising when you feel a hand on the small of your back.

it’s large and warm and seeping through the thin material of your burgundy dress, a snappy protest about to leave your mouth when you catch mr. park’s face in your peripheral.

there’s a content look on his face as he takes the bag with ease, holding it above your head as his hand moves from your back to your waist with a gentle touch.

you look at him with wide eyes and a pounding heart, his hand on your waist so foreign and strange but... good. something you didn’t even realize you’d been craving until it happened.

the strength and warmth of his hand, though if you think about it just enough, you can feel the weight of his wedding band through the fabric.

“is this what you wanted?”

his voice is deep and low as he speaks to you and you alone, your eyes raising to see him staring down at you. you can’t make out the expression in them, just the darkness in his eyes and the frantic beating of your heart.

you can’t even being to understand the context of his words right now because, yes, this is exactly what you’ve wanted - but he doesn’t know that, right?

“w-what?”

he can’t help the smirk that crosses his face, all sorts of pride and satisfaction and arousal coursing through his veins at your current disposition.

“the bread,” he says, stepping back and holding it out to you. “is this the one you wanted?”

your eyes narrow as you look at him, the smirk on his face, the amusement in his gaze, the playfulness that’s radiating off him - is he fucking with you?

“oh... i... yes,” you finally say, coming to your senses and not allowing yourself to think this way anymore. “that’s the one. i hope it’s okay.”

“of course,” he hums, placing the bread in the cart before going back to the front handles. “you can get anything you want, i already told you that.”

you nod dumbly as you follow beside him, seonghwa picking more things off the shelves and muttering the list to himself as you try to get your shit together.

because yes, you’re attracted to him and yes, you’ve found yourself alone with him for more than two days in a row and yes, there’s been some lingering looks and touches but that doesn’t mean anything.

you can’t let your own deluded thoughts and desires get in the way of reality.

the reality that he’s your friend and roommate’s married father and you’re a college student. he doesn’t want you just as much as you shouldn’t want him so what’s the problem here?

maybe it’s that you’re a 22-year-old woman who’s only been on a handful of dates.

that the last time you made out with someone was when you were drunk and dared to kiss the first guy that walked through the bar (luckily, somewhat attractive and surprisingly polite).

that, maybe, you’re so horribly touch-starved and aching for affection, you’re trying to find it in a hot father figure who’s just as kind as he sexy - and that, you think, is the second most tragic thing here.

because the first would absolutely be thinking that any of this, any of these stares or touches or coincidences of eunbi leaving you two alone, means something.

means that maybe this break is for you two is create an attraction and build some sort of bond and-

“y/n.”

you’re barely able to register seonghwa’s voice before his arm is wrapped around your waist, pulling your body into his taller one and having you pressed up right against him.

you were so lost in thought of him that you didn’t see the older women skirting her cart around the aisle quickly, phone pressed to her ear as she yells to her husband about the christmas ham.

you’re not even sure if she shoots you a look of sorrow or utters any apology, too consumed and distracted by the feeling and proximity of mr. park.

his arm wrapped around you, your body pressed flush up against him, his neck craned down to look at you with a building... something in his eyes. playfulness and teasing but also something darker, something that makes your stomach swoop and renders you unable to move.

“are you always so clumsy and distracted?” he mumbles lowly, his deep voice quiet for only you two to hear - like he knows even in a sea of strangers, he has to keep these interactions quiet.

“what would you do if i wasn’t here to help you, y/n?”

i wouldn’t have been distracted in the first place, you’re tempted to say - but you certainly don’t wanna open that can of worms, especially not in the middle of this grocery store with the way your heart is pounding.

“i... i’m sorry, i was distracted,” you mutter, playing up the damsel in distress just a little bit. “my mistake, mr. park.”

he licks over his lips, swearing his name just being spoken has never effected him like this. he doesn’t even know where this attraction came from, seeing you leave the dorm building yesterday morning and something in his body jumping at the sight of you.

maybe it’s just showing how unhappy he really is with his life, living day to day to just work. hang out with his friends and go to sleep alone - he doesn’t remember the last time his wife touched him, looked at him like she wanted him or made any move to be with him.

he just knows that you showed up, looking so pretty and wide-eyed and coy, and is now about to lose his mind.

“it’s alright,” he says, hoping you don’t hear the thick tension he hears in his own voice, like he’s some idiotic, hormonal young boy. “i think we only have a few more aisles left, anyway.”

he plucks the remaining items off the shelves before you both make your way to the self check-out, him scanning and you bagging because “eunbi says if my career as a photographer fails, i could be the best grocery bagger ever.”

“that’s just because she puts the bread on the bottom,” seonghwa mutters, a smile on your face as you nod your head - she squished one too many of your brioche loafs before you realized bagging just wasn’t for her.

your fingers graze ever so often, the coldness of his tips a stark contrast to your warmer ones.

a particularly big, bulk bag of vegetables proves to be a challenge for you, working through the packed bag with some difficulty. you let out an annoyed groan as you play a dangerous game of tetris, trying not to rip open the brown paper bag.

you finally get the box inside, a little bit prouder than you care to admit, when your precious brioche loaf is dropped right atop. you look up at seonghwa to see him already apologizing, your brow raised as you look at the older man in confusion.

did he think your hand was out? why would he just throw the food at you?

but it’s only when you feel a little more air than normal on your chest that you see what could’ve possibly caused the distraction, the white lace from your bra sticking out.

your cleavage in this dress was hidden for the most part, only becoming a little more obvious when you moved around or packed a shitload of groceries. it makes you bite back a smirk as you put two and two together, looking up to see his eyes still lingering over you.

two can play at this game mr. park.

“mr. park,” you begin, feigning a certain kind of innocence as you place your bread atop the other groceries and finally look up at him. “are you always so clumsy?”

it takes a few seconds for a smile to pull at his lips, the tick in his jaw not going unnoticed to you - so maybe this wasn’t all in your head. maybe he wants you too... possibly.

“you’re funny, y/n,” he mumbles, a smile pulling at your lips as he takes out his black card. “i guess i was distracted, too.”

you swallow the lump in your throat as you feel the slightest hint of arousal run through you, shaking it off and letting out a forced, girlish chuckle.

you pack the car a few minutes later without any lingering eyes or touches, seonghwa telling you about the meals they plan on cooking for christmas.

they usually don’t make their own food for holidays but decided to have a more traditional set up for you and eunbi’s arrival - he also hasn’t cooked a meal for his family in god knows how long.

“that’ll be great, thank you,” you tell him, clicking your seatbelt in as he backs out the spot. “i’m kind of a picky eater but i’ll eat anything you guys provide me.”

“and you have the whole brioche loaf,” seonghwa says, a giggle leaving your mouth as you nod your head.

“true. it’s really good.”

“i’ve never tried, perhaps you’d be willing to-”

his wife’s name popping up on his car dashboard acts as a way to bring you back to reality, brings a certain kind of silence over the both of you for a few seconds.

like he wasn’t just rubbing his body against yours and you weren’t just flirting with him in the form of smirking lips and snarky comments.

you watch a twinge of annoyance behind seonghwa’s eyes, gaze roaming over the screen as if he’s in contemplation before muttering “one second.”

“hello?”

“where are you?” her voice snaps in annoyance, “i told you we had that board meeting at one.”

“and it’s only noon,” his deep voice mumbles, not matching her level of irritation but sounding a whole lot different than a few seconds ago. “me and y/n are coming back now.”

“y/n?” she spats, like it’s a disgusting piece of food she wouldn’t dare put in her mouth. “what about eunbi?”

“she went off with jiwoon before i could get her in the car.”

“so it was only you two?” she asks, the snide judgment and underlying tone in her voice causing your stomach to churn. “did she ask you to buy a bunch of-”

“i’ll be home in twenty and then be on my way over,” he says, cutting her off and hanging up before she can even get another word you.

your stomach churns and a sick feeling comes over you, her utter dislike and disdain for you causing you to bite your lip.

because not only does she not like you to be with her daughter, she doesn’t want you with her husband (although, you suppose, you can’t really blame her for that one).

“i’m sorry about that,” seonghwa winces, the silence lingering between you two heavy. “you could’ve gotten anything you wanted, y/n. this is your christmas too. don’t feel bad about anything, okay?”

you swallow the lump in your throat, your gaze moving to his as he stops at the red light.

your eyes lingering over his and his doing the very same, hand twitching to reach out and move the piece of hair from your slightly flushed face.

and there was something about the way you were both looking at each other, eyes so focused and unwavering and honest, that had you thinking maybe all of this wasn’t in your heads.

but it didn’t mean either of you could act on it - they were just... feelings of lust and wonder and all things forbidden, not seriously believing that a relationship like this could unfold right under the nose of his wife, his daughter and your roommate.

unless the pull was so desperate.

so overwhelming and all-consuming and present between the both of you, little moments couldn’t help but happen.

strike one:

with none other than eunbi as a distraction, the girl promising she wasn’t gonna leave you alone anymore, you were able to take your mind off everything.

the tension-filled, heart pounding moments with mr. park that felt just as wrong as they did right.

you spent a few nights going out with her, jiwoon and all of their high school friends, a surprisingly nice group of young adults who you got along well with.

they were loud and crazy and did far too many shots but they also seemed to be genuinely kind. even the boy who was flirting with you all night, handsome and tall with pretty dark eyes, acted as a good distraction.

grinding up against him as the music pounded throughout the bar, alcohol coursing through your veins allowing you to forget about the older man who’s been living in your head for almost a week now.

“how have i never met you before, y/n?” the boy mumbled lowly in your ear, your head against his shoulder carelessly.

but it was right there in that moment, him saying your name, that the moment was over.

because it just didn’t sound like seonghwa, as delusional as that was.

it didn’t get your heart racing or lips quirking the same way it did when you heard the older man say it. the smile attached to his handsome, mature face and the deep, lowly spoken tone that always held a hint of teasing and sincerity.

“but danny really is so freakin’ nice!” eunbi squeals to you on christmas eve, the two of you in her immaculately white and modern kitchen prepping the chocolate chip cookie cough for tomorrow.

“and you two seemed to be getting along, i saw your ass all up on him.”

“eunbi, that wasn’t me. that was the vodka. i don’t know who that girl was.”

she throws her head back as a loud chuckle leaves her, telling you again that she warned you her snobby, rich little friends have been able to handle their liquor since middle school.

it’s how they cope, she had said, unloved kids with more money than god learning to deal with the world of limitless funds and minimal parental supervision.

“well he hasn’t stopped asking me about you, you know,” she hums, her eyebrows quirked suggestively as she mixes the bowl of ingredients lazily.

“and not just because of your newfound grinding skills, which by the way, are usually learned by the tenth grade.”

your eyes narrow at her comment, throwing a small ball of dough at her that she, impressively, catches in her mouth.

“he really is just, like, so taken by you, y/n. seriously. i told him that you’re graduating this year with a degree in photography and he nearly came in his pants. he loves the artsy girls.”

“you are so vile,” you snort out, shaking your head at the girl sitting criss-crossed on the counter. “and stop saying that. we both know i’m not graduating this year,” you mumble, her face falling pathetically.

“i told you we’re gonna find a way,” she whines lowly, looking at you with all kinds of sympathy and sadness in her eyes - she would offer to pay for you, if she didn’t think you would smack her upside the head.

“oh and what? is my new boyfriend danny gonna do that for me?”

“in exchange for more grinding and a photoshoot, i think. do you want me to try?”

she lets out another giggle despite the way you pinch her leg, peeking inside the bowl with a surprising amount of pride.

"this looks good,” you mumble, swiping your finger to collect some of the chocolate dough.

“hey!” she whines brattily, thrusting a spoon toward your hand just a second too late.  

“why are you whining in here like a child, eunbi?” seonghwa asks, walking through the entryway and the large, white island in the center. “what are you making? please don’t burn the house down.”

“haha dad, you’re so funny,” she mocks sarcastically, jumping down from the counter with her hands on her hips. “where are the baking sheets?”

a simple shrug from her father causes her to roll her eyes, grumbling about how she was really trying to avoid her bitch of a mother today. he holds back his smirk, about to reprimand her before she’s out the kitchen and shouting for her mother upstairs.

it’s only you and seonghwa in the kitchen now, a heavy silence in the air as you stand there dumbly - bowl beside you, cookie dough adorning the top of your finger.

“what are you girls making?” he finally asks, his body moving closer and closer causing you to swallow.

“i... uh, cookie dough. for tomorrow,” you say, lifting your finger and wiggling the tip full of batter. “chocolate chip.”

his eyes move to your finger before grazing over your mouth, his tongue peeking out ever so slightly as he reminds himself to act right.

he hasn’t been alone with you since that day at the food store, just seeing you in passing in the hallways or outside the house as you and eunbi went to and fro.

he hears your giggles at night and tired groans in the morning, quietly yelling at his daughter to wake up and get her ass out of bed.

and he knows it’s probably for the better, that you two don’t find yourselves alone with each other, but he can’t help but feel a rush of excitement right now.

you watch as he moves closer, with the same wide-eyed look you’ve been giving him since he first saw you in your apartment weeks ago.

“ahh, you’re making it from scratch? that’s ambitious.”

“yeah, we googled a recipe,” you tell him, finger still beside you in the air.

you don’t know what causes you to be so bold, maybe him attempting to carry out a normal conversation even though he’s looking at you with so much lust and desire, but you can’t stop once you start.

“how’s it taste?” he asks, his voice deep and slightly strained as he nods his head toward your finger.

you don’t even bat an eye as you slip the tip of your finger in your mouth slowly, swirling your tongue around as you take up all the dough on your skin.

it’s sweeter than you originally thought it’d be but it tastes good nonetheless, keeping your eyes on him as you reamin as innocent and unassuming as possible.

“it’s good,” you say, dropping your finger like you didn’t just make a show of licking and sucking it. “i like it better raw.”

you don’t even realize your words until you see the fleeting look on his face, tongue swiping across his lip and eyes hardening. they roam you so slowly and darkly, you can’t control the growing butterflies and swooping in your lower stomach.

“mm, me too,” he hums lowly, the hardening of his cock in his pants something he hasn’t felt in forever. it’s taking everything in him to control himself, from his eyes popping out of his head to letting out the deepest of growls in the back of his throat.

“do you want some?” you ask, cocking your head to the side questioningly.

he has to desperately hold on to his composure, not think about how easy it’d be to pin you against the cabinet right behind you. take just a few steps closer, have your back against the cold granite and let you feel just how much he wants some.

but he has to play it cool, push down these building desires and ignore your teasing because he’s almost fucking positive that’s what’s happening here.

“want some what?” he asks, his voice lowering just a tad.

he hasn’t played a game like this since college, watching as your eyes widen and brow quirks up.

but he sees that’s exactly what it is when you turn around and face the bowl of cookie dough to him, a smile just as sweet as the cookies on your face.

“cookie dough. before we put them in the oven and possibly burn them.”

the breathy chuckle he lets out leaves your stomach in shambles, his tongue peeking out and poking the inside of his cheek causing a swooping sensation to flood through you.

but before he can even think to say anything, before your eyes can look over his body and make you feel even more warm and bothered, eunbi floats back in and fiddles in the cabinets for the baking sheets.

“that woman is too much, i swear,” she grunts, whipping out the materials quickly before her head snaps to her father. “why are you still here?”

“i wanted some cookies. and to ensure y/n won’t allow you do burn down the kitchen.”

“it was one time, dad, and an accident. how many times do i have to defend myself in this house?”

you let out a giggle as you look from eunbi to seonghwa, your roommate turning her back to set up the practice baking session.

“let’s go bitch! i hope we didn’t fuck this up.”

seonghwa’s eyes roam over you for a few more moments, his tongue swiping across his lips before, finally, leaving the kitchen with his dick hard as a rock.

strike two:

christmas consisted of successful cookies per your and eunbi’s homemade batch, passive aggressive comments from mrs. park about your degree and a whole fuck ton of sexual energy between you and seonghwa.

you could almost always feel when his gaze was boring into you, when you got up to take more mashed potatoes or kept your attention on eunbi as she told her parents about what job she wants to start at next semester.  

it’s also when eunbi almost let it slip about your scholarships, had you not viciously pinched her arm and caused a pained cry to leave her mouth - if you ever thought jiwoon was gonna verbally assault you, it was certainly in that moment.

“why did you pinch me so hard?” she whined later that night, jiwoon passed out on the couch after five too many homemade cookies. “look at my bruise.”

a genuine frown crosses your lips as you look at her arm, rubbing her skin gently as you mumble your soft spoken apologies.

“i’m sorry but i just... i didn’t want your mom to know that,” you say back just as whiney and pathetic. “she already thinks i’m an incompetent idiot. knowing i have to wait a whole year because i’m broke is just too embarrassing.”

it’s an admission that, while eunbi already suspected that, still makes her feel bad - it nearly makes her wanna cry, that you don’t feel welcomed and loved in her home because her mom has to be a judgmental bitch.

“y/n...”

“bi, it’s fine, oh, my god do not cry right now,” you grumble, flicking her in the head lightly.

“i just feel bad,” she cries lowly, moving hrself closer to you and away from her boyfried. “it’s not fair, y/n. you worked so hard and now you have to wait. how could they do this to you?”

a small, touched smile crosses your face at eunbi as you shake your head, dabbing at her watery eyes.

if jiwoon wakes up, he’s literally gonna beat my ass,” you say, smiling when a wet giggle leaves eunbi; you don’t want this time to be sad or upsetting. “i thought he was gonna hit me at dinner.”

“okay if he’s hitting anything, it’s gonna be my-”

“no. no, no, no.”

the snort that leaves her mouth doesn’t help the sinking feeling in her stomach, looking at you with a frown still adorning her face.

“i’m sorry if my mom’s making you feel uncomfortable. she does it to every single person ever and i don’t-”

“it’s fine, please stop apologizing for her,” you say, the sinking reminder in the back of your mind that seonghwa had been doing the very same thing - apologizing for that woman.

“i know she’s stressing you out, too. we’re in it together.”

“that’s true,” she sighs, letting out a long, dramatic groan before resting her head on your shoulder. “i’m so bloated, i don’t think i’m ever gonna be able to eat again.”

and it was funny that, days after the holiday, eunbi was still convinced that she was bloated from christmas dinner.

“babe, i don’t even think that’s possible,” jiwoon consoled her, you and him sitting in her room as she gets ready to go down to the pool.

because, naturally, like everyone in this godforsaken rich town, they get ready to go to the pool that’s inside of their homes; when eunbi told you to pack a bathing suit back at your apartment, you looked at her like she was insane.

until she clarified that her pool is heated and, conveniently, indoors.

“just through the backyard,” she had said - and she truly meant it.

just a few yards away from the main deck area, with floor to ceiling glass windows that showcase the extravagant landscaping and, of course, the outdoor pool and jacuzzi just a few feet away.

“eunbi, this is insane,” you say, marveling at the sight before you.

“don’t you wish you came sooner?” she asks with a wink, your eyes rolling as you place down your towel.

you had the option to bring two bathing suits - a skimpy black one you don’t remember being so scandalous or a red one you remember eunbi insisting you buy last summer.

and you just knew it was because danny was coming, currently showcasing his impressive eight pack that, truly, just doesn’t do it for you - maybe if he was twenty years older, apparently, and somebody’s father and husband.

you shake the thoughts out of your head, walking a few steps toward the pool before eunbi tackles you from behind. you both land with a loud splash, followed by the excited shouts and loud splashes of her other friends.

you’d be lying if you said you could remember the last time you had this much fun, splashing and giggling and acting so carefree despite the many challenges you’ll have to face soon.

but that’s not any of your concern right now, currently sitting atop danny’s shoulders and trying to knock down eunbi in a game of chicken.

“you little bitch! get your nails out of me!”

“coming from the girl who literally just tried to choke me two seconds ago!”

“like it’s your first time being choked!”

and you don’t know whether jiwoon was shocked by you saying that statement or the fact that his girlfriend exposes all of her sexual kinks to you but alas, it did the trick in sealing you a victory.

a smug smile on your face as danny jumps up and down in excitement, your body bouncing and nearly falling over him had you not gripped onto his shoulders.

it’s at that time eunbi pops up from the water, hair a soaking mess and mascara running down her face. she’s about to open her mouth, probably to yell at you, before a volleyball is thrown through the air and just misses her face.

instead, it hits danny square in the head. the boy letting out a yelp before you promptly fall backwards in the water, hearing eunbi’s shrill squeal and giggle on your way down.

you pop up and throw her a dirty look, danny rubbing at the back of his side before apologizing profusely.

“it’s okay,” you giggle out, about to say you shouldn’t have been up there for so long before eunbi’s squealing in the air.

“dad, what the hell kind of aim was that!”

you feel your body stiffen before you quickly shoot around, none another than mr. park standing there looking as handsome as ever.

he puts the young men around you to shame, good-looking, muscular college boys who anyone in their right mind would find attractive - but they just don’t beat him.

his striking eyes or tall, lean stature or the fact that he’s just so fucking-

“got worse with age, bi, what can i say?” he chuckles, extra white fluffy towels in his hold that he places on the chair. “sorry, danny.”

seonghwa’s known danny for a few years now, one of jiwoon’s friends who seems... alright. not a bad guy but also not a good guy - just kind of there; but it didn’t occur to the man just how much he was bothered by him until he saw you on his shoulders.

because he could’ve put you in danger, of course. put you in danger at his house where if things got bad, he’d be responsible; as for the ball, it merely slipped from his finger tips.

“no problem mr. park,” the kid smiles, the other friends gathering around and looking at him expectantly. “we’re gonna play a round of volleyball. you in?”

“no. no dads allowed,” eunbi whines, seonghwa rolling his eyes at his bratty adult daughter.

“why not? because i’m better than all of you, eunbi?”

“oh please,” she grumbles lowly, rolling her eyes and grabbing you to lead you toward the stairs. “you know what, we’re going in the hot tub anyway. since she decided to rock my shit in chicken. enjoy my father traitors,” eunbi grumbles to jiwoon and his friends.

“i did not,” you protest weakly, feeling two pairs of eyes on you as you make your way out of the pool with your friend.

the first thing that strikes seonghwa, apart from the major twitch in his pants, is how skimpy your bikini is.

red bottoms with thin straps holding it up, a matching red top showcasing cleavage and beauty marks on your chest and all the things that are proving to drive him fucking crazy upon seeing you every day.

it’s taking everything in him to control the growing ache in his shorts, your eyes looking at him so coyly and attentively that you’re ignoring the college boy gawking at you right in front of him.

there’s a certain sort of twisted pride in his chest, you giving him attention and seemingly reciprocating his interest, when there’s someone younger right there for you.

younger and unmarried and more suitable for you. someone you can actually be with where it wouldn’t be considered dirty or wrong or secretive; but maybe that’s why you’re both drawn to it in the first place.

that, and because you’re both really hot.

“he’s literally hot, y/n! why don’t you like him?” eunbi whines to you, the two of you sitting across from one another in the hot tub outside.

the december air is crisp but feels nice comapred to the steaming water you’re gratefully submerged in. anything to take you away from mr. park shirtless and wet in the pool right now.

“i do like him, bi,” you mutter, trying your best to convince her and now seem suspicious.

“okay, yeah, as a person but who cares about that!” she whines, flopping her hands dramatically in the water. “you don’t want him to rail you.”

“eunbi!” you squeak, splashing in her direction as a warm, embarrassed blush rises to your cheeks.

“i’m serious y/n. you’ve never been railed before and danny’s such a good option. he’s hot and he’s sweet and he’s so pathetically into you, it’s a little sick.”

you don’t know what to say so you don’t say anything, shooting her a look that screams can we please not talk about this because you don’t know how much i actually wanna be railed by your father so let’s stop this discussion.

but she only rolls her eyes, moving herself closer to you so she can tug at your arm annoyingly.

“is he just not your type?” she questions, her eyebrows pulling together in confusion for a few moments before utter shock crosses her face.

“wait, what is your type? it’s... men, right? have i been hooking you up with the wrong gender this whole time?” she asks in disbelief, “could we have been hooking up this whole time?”

you press your lips together so you don’t burst out laughing, dryly replying “yes, eunbi, i’m into men.”

but the more you think about it, the more you think maybe you don’t have a type.

“and i’ve... never really thought about it before, to be honest. i just know i’m not into like... frat guys or whatever.”

because any party you’d been to, any douchey college guy wearing a backwards hat or cut off shirt, you had never been more disinterested. you couldn’t ever picture yourself falling for someone like that, romantically or sexually.

the one time you remember thinking someone was hot was when you took film and lit with your 31-year-old professor.

“so older guys?” eunbi concludes after hearing that, a smirk on her face as she raises her eyebrows playfully. “we gotta scope out some golf courses or retirement homes?”

“please,” you scoff, a giggle leaving her mouth as she throws her head back gleefully.

“okay, really though, i’ll tell danny you’re not interested and to stop trying so hard if you’re really not interested.”

but maybe danny as a distraction will be good.

will make you see that, perhaps, someone single and your own age and not your best friend’s father will be good thing for you to explore.

so you shrug lightheartedly, the smirk on your face causing eunbi to let out a low “oooh shit.”

you look over at her and your smile only widens when she knocks your shoulder, saying that you’re looking to be a play girl and drain a rich, lovesick man of some christmas presents.

“yeah, right! why drain a rich man when i can drain my best friend,” you tease, looking around her yard and still in astonishment that this is really her life. “i mean, two pools? is that really necessary?”

“three actually. there’s one behind the guest house on the other side. a small one. very humble.”

“oh, a small one, okay. great.”

she lets out another giggle, the two of you talking over plans for new years eve.

you might go up to jiwoon’s parents house in the mountains for the weekend, spend the time drinking with the small group of friends you’ve come to genuinely like over these past few weeks.

“it’s only two hours away so it won’t be that bad either,” she says, getting up to shake the hot water off her arms. “i’ll be right back, i have to pee.”

you nod your head, grateful she didn’t piss in the pool and allowing yourself to sit there, eyes closed, body relaxed, in the silence.

you can hear the faint screams of the boys from the indoor pool area and the swish of the hot tub filter, peeking open your eyes when, suddenly, you think you hear a boom of thunder in the distance.

you watch the sky darkening and clouds coming in, signaling a storm is coming in soon and quick. a sigh leaves your mouth, enjoying your last few moments of peace before finally standing in the hot tub.

the crisp winter air blows and sends goosebumps up your arms, a shiver running through your body as you attempt to splash some hot water on your upper body.

you don’t know how you know someone’s watching you but you do, some sort of strange intuition within you looking up to see none other than mr. park standing a few feet away from the hot tub.

his dark hair is wet and hanging in his face, swimming trunks soaked and his exposed chest still dripping chlorine water.

you press your lips together as your eyes roam his chest, a hint of abs on his lean stomach that causes a small, strangled groan to leave your mouth - you will never understand how this man is pushing 40.

but the same way you’re looking at him, he’s looking at you.

water covering your body, currently hunched over trying to warm the rest of your body; but it’s when you stand he really starts to gawk, your figure standing full and tall and giving him a perfect view of your hardening nipples from the cold crisp air.

you can see the lust in his eyes the same way you know he can and you’re about to do something to just make him crack. mistakingly untie your bottoms, catching them at the last second so he thinks he’s about to get a peak.

or undo the back of your top and pout at him, ask him to please tie it back for you because it’s way too hard to reach behind and do it yourself.

or maybe you’ll just drop to your knees right there, try to see if there’s any hint of a bulge in his swimming trunk bottoms and-

his body is gone just as fast as he arrived, confusion covering your face before you shake your head of your perverted thoughts - dropping to your knees when his daughter and wife are right here, what the fuck is wrong with you today?

you blame eunbi, all her talk about getting railed when you’ve been wanting to jump her father’s bones.

you carefully make your way out of the hot tub, not wanting to eat shit and scarp your leg on the concrete.

it feels like you’re about to freeze in the cold, another shiver wracking your body before you turn to stick your cold, goosebump-ridden arms back in the hot tub. it warms you for just a few seconds, a low, satisfied hum leaving your mouth before you hear footsteps coming up from behind you.

something in you tells you it’s him again.

whether it be the way your body heats up and feels prickly, the obvious feeling of eyes burning into your exposed back causing you to remain still and oblivious.

but you can longer remain oblivious a few seconds later, when a tall body is just a few inches away from completely pressing against you.

“you forgot a towel,” is all he says, placing it on the wet rim of the hot tub.

when he leans forward to place the white towel down, he’s careful and meticulous with his movements. brushing up against you every so slightly and carefully that you can feel his hard bulge on your ass for a few seconds too long.

at first you think you’re crazy, feeling what you were trying to envision in your head, but then you absolutely know it there’s.

you can feel the wetness from his bathing suit on your legs, his cock right there resting on the thin, red fabric of your bikini bottoms and if you were as weak as you felt inside, if he stayed there just a little bit longer, a moan would’ve absolutely left your mouth.

if you pushed back just a little to feel more of his cock on you, grind your ass his hardness just enough to hear him let out a low groan or maybe curse a little.

but he moves away, almost like he knew the perfect amount of time before that happened and almost like he did it by accident - but when you turn around and see the look in his eyes, you know it wasn’t.

the same way he can see a palpable desire and surprise and tension in your gaze, causing him to suppress a growing smirk. it makes you wanna tease him back in whatever way you can but you know that eunbi’s due back from the bathroom at any moment.

so you only cock your head to the side, lick over your lower lip carefully as you grasp the towel in your hands gently.

“thank you, mr. park,” you say, your voice as airy and sweet as you can possibly make it without sounding like an idiot.

“you’re welcome, y/n,” he says, taking a few steps back as his eyes lock on you. he stays there for a few moments until he hears the door to the pool house open.

you watch his lustful, dark expression change right then and there, a towel wrapping around his lower body and his face stretching into a happy, father-approved look.

“so you’re good with anything for dinner, y/n?” he asks, his voice loud and clear enough for his approaching daughter to hear. “i know you mentioned you were picky.”

“let’s get pizza!” eunbi screeches through the air, telling seonghwa that everyone’s staying over and they’ll need at least four boxes.

but you can’t even think about pizza right now, not when this moment right here is solidifying the crazy thought in your head that your best friend’s dad wants you just as much as you want him.

you called him out later that night around one a.m., after eunbi and jiwoon were the last to pass out to your scary movie marathon.

the others were sprawled out on the basement floor, an intricate array of blankets and pillows on the floor that you attempted to weave through, both, skillfully and quietly.

there was a dryness in your throat that could only be settled by a cold glass of water, making your way through the house quietly and praying you don’t run into mrs. park.

she’s been just as passive aggressive as she usually is in front of people so you could never imagine being alone with her. wondering what the hell she’d say to you without seonghwa and eunbi as buffers.

you were relieved when the lights were off in the kitchen, padding your way to the fridge to take out a bottle of water. you twist and turn the cap off to gulp down the cold liquid in the refrigerator light, a quiet gasp leaving you as your thirst is quenched.

you briefly consider going up to eunbi’s room to sleep tonight, not sure how you feel about being squished in with eunbi and jiwoon cuddling on the couch, when the light suddenly flicks off.

it causes you to freeze and halt all thoughts, fear running through you for all three seconds before you see seonghwa’s tall, familiar figure pass you. you watch him carefully in the dim light of the fridge, his shirtless chest yet again right in front of your face.

leaned back against the counter across from you, giving you a perfect view of his toned chest and gray sweatpants.

“midnight snack?” he asks, the smirk on his face almost causing you to roll your eyes.

instead, your lips quirk into a small smile. raising your water bottle by your head and shaking it, the water swishing in your pounding ears.

“just water,” you respond quietly, matching his low tone. “i hope that’s okay.”

“that you took water? of course, y/n,” he says, amusement in his gaze as he looks you over.

you’re freshly showered and in a pair of pajamas, matching pink sets that eunbi got you for christmas one year - he remembers because he was with her when she bought it.

a soft smile crosses your face, your back getting cold from the open fridge but not daring to move a muscle. not with him looking at you the way he is and with his body just a few feet away from you.

a silence lingers in the kitchen, you not sure why he’s looking at you and him waiting to see if you say something, before he bites the inside of his cheek.

“i wanted to say sorry about before.”

your eyebrow quirks up, interest so clearly peaked as you cock your head to the side.

“what do you mean?”

a smirk crosses his face as he watches you play dumb, head cocked and eyes wide and everything about you with such mock innocence, he thinks that’s what’s driving him the most crazy.

that you do this shit and say certain things with almost complete unawareness and innocence, if it weren’t for the hidden look of desire and teasing in your eyes.

“you know,” is all he says, his voice dipping and eyes twinging darker, it makes your lower stomach swoop.

a part of is positive, even if you ask, he’s not gonna say it aloud.

he’s not gonna say or acknowledge any of this aloud and make you guys play this game until you leave in a few weeks.

and then when you leave, unsure about your next prospects of college or education or even living arrangements, who knows if you’re ever gonna see him again.

so you only hum lowly, closing the fridge behind you and leaving you both in darkness. the only source of light is from the moon outside, lighting up half the kitchen from the large bay window.

it leaves you both incredibly exposed, anyone from the outside able to see the two seemingly innocent bodies standing toe to toe with each other; but they don’t see the lustful looks and eyes full of desire, both of you so entrapped by the other, it’s obvious with the tension in the air.

“oh, well, then... it’s okay, mr. park,” you say with a smile, taking a step back as your eyes roam his chest one last time. “i didn’t mind.”

you’re about to say goodnight when you see his arm reach out, shocked but oh, so ready ready to give into your desire and feel your body crash against his or your lips connect finally.

moan into his mouth and feel more of his hardness against you - but he only takes the water from your hand, presses his mouth against the plastic rim and swigs down a big gulp.

you watch with wide eyes as his adam’s apple bobs in the moonlight, head tipped back and body perched calmly on the counter as he takes a swig of your water bottle, spit exchanged and his mouth right where yours was.

he pulls back with an unreadable expression, licking the excess water from his lips before simply closing the cap, holding out the bottle and smiling at you with the most wise-ass smirk you’ve ever seen, you’re not sure how you’re ever gonna one up this man.

"sweet dreams, y/n.”

strike 3:

your new years weekend get away turned into an extended stay that consisted of sleeping on a lumpy air mattress, five extra guests and so much alcohol, you’re positive you’re still hungover three days later.

“it wasn’t that... we only did a... i mean it wasn’t like we were....” eunbi says, the two of you laying on her bed nursing headaches and body aches to the severest degree.

“okay, it was pretty bad. we were kind of rowdy and out of control.”

“you don’t say?” you grumble, never one to black out and get that shit faced and then doing it nearly every night - maybe to deal with danny’s pathetic soft looks or whispered sweet nothings to you.

“nothing is working either. not advil or water or greasy food. we might’ve fucked ourselves for life, bi.”

but if there’s one thing that always helped for eunbi, it was a nice, long bath. steaming hot water that burned her skin and the prettiest bath bombs to make the entire bathroom smell of strawberries and cream.

so even though you didn’t want to, nothing more comfortable than eunbi’s king size bed and warm, fluffy comforter, you allowed the girl to drag you to the bathroom down the hall to set up ‘your last resort, hangover paradise.’

it consisted of every type of bath bomb and lotion and bubble bath the luxurious could dream of, sending her out immediately when you saw her sneaking in with a glass of champagne.

“are you crazy?” you ask, dipping your toe in the water to test the temperature. “that’s what started this disaster.”

“fine, more for me!” she squeals happily, turning down the lights and pressing the bluetooth button for your phone’s music. “enjoy. i’ll see you in an hour, completely hangover free.”

“we’ll see about that,” you grumble, your words falling on deaf ears as she locks and closes the door to makes her way back to her ensuite.

and as much as you wanna give eunbi shit for her pompous tactics and techniques for everything in life, you have to say that this is certainly helping.

soaking in the steaming hot water, with cucumbers on your eyes and quiet music playing through the ceiling speakers. the jets in the tub also added another layer of relaxation to it, healing your sore muscles from days of waking up on a hard, wooden floor.

the mirrors were steamed and the room was boiling by the time you got out, stepping on the fuzzy bath mat and drying yourself off with a towel. you had tried not to get your hair wet but it proved useless, your relaxed body sinking further and further down until nearly your whole head was wet.

you stretch your arms above your head as you let out a content groan, feeling the best you’ve felt in three days and ready to take a nap.

but it’s at that moment, looking around the large steaming bathroom, that you realized you didn’t bring a change of clothes in. meaning you’ll know have to walk done the hall and into eunbi’s room in just a towel.

it’s fairly late, almost 11:30, so you’re hoping that her parents are in their rooms and fast asleep by now.

you peak your head out, feeling like a spy in a cheesy action movie as you look up and down the hall. you turn off the light once the coast is clear, walking quietly but quickly down to eunbi’s room - or wing, as it could be considered

you’re almost out of the gate, just a few more steps until you round the corner down eunbi’s hallway, when seonghwa’s tall figure is coming right up the stairs.

his head is down as he looks at his phone, still in his dress shirt and tie from his long day at work. you noticed that after the holidays, he’s been around the house less - working from home when he can but also needing to go into the office more often than not.

he’s at the top of the stairs when he finally notices your figure watching him, wrapped in a towel with a flush on your cheeks and your wet hair dripping on the floor.

it seems to be the thing to break him right now, not able to tear his eyes away or think of any fun, flirty comments to keep you from suppressing the need to roll your eyes.

because his days have been long and stressful and the only thing he needs right now is to just get off - and then there you are like something his prayers have answered, standing there quiet and awestruck at the sight of his loose tie and messy black hair he’s been running his hands through all day.

“h-hi, mr. park,” your quiet voice says, sweet and soft-spoken and utterly apologetic, like you’re embarrassed to be caught in just your towel - and he supposes that would make sense, to feel embarrassed about getting caught like this your friend’s father.

but he can’t find it in himself to care right now, two seconds away from dragging you down to his office so he can finally fuck you over his desk - but he knows that would be the worst decision in the world, for countless reasons.

“hi, y/n,” he grumbles back just as low, leant against the railing with a voice that sounds defeated and gruff.

“are you okay?” you ask, something about his voice and demeanor off.

he has to hold back a strangled laugh, his lips quirking up before he bites down on his lip.

“i’m... i’m fine, thanks. work’s just busy,” he says, a certain part of his chest warming at the fact you even asked - he knows his wife won’t when he walks in their bedroom in a few minutes.

“oh, okay,” you respond, twirling with the end of your towel nervously. “well... i’m sorry to hear that.”

he allows himself to let out a chuckle this time, shaking his head as he looks over your bare, wet face; you’re too pretty for your own good, he’s not even sure you realize just how pretty you are.

just how much he really wants you and just how much he’s coming to like seeing you in his house everyday.

“it’s alright, that’s why you gotta do something you love, right?” he quips, his long fingers up to recreate a camera, pressing down as if to snap a photo.

it cause you to let out a soft, genuine giggle, nodding your head and easing the slight embarrassment of him catching you in a towel.

“right,” you say with a smile, shy smiles and gazes shared until you finally look away in fear of your cheeks warming again.

but it doesn’t stop him from admiring the view of you, your bare face and exposed chest before the towel covers up all the parts he wants to so desperately explore.

he pictures dropping your towel and hearing it fall to the floor with a plop, take in the sight of your perky boobs and hard nipples in the air.

drop his mouth just a little bit to your neck, pressing small kisses against your skin as his fingers knead your nipples, all the quiet moans and breaths to make sure you two don’t get caught shooting right to his cock.

he probably wouldn’t be able to control himself, sliding a finger into you right then and there in the middle of the hallway, pressing your back against the wall to have you trapped against his larger body.

he’d pump his finger in and out of you slowly and tauntingly, hearing how wet you are and feeling how tight you are. it’d be similiar to how this past month has just been both of you taunting and teasing and beating around the bush, occasionally letting his fingers curl to his your g-spot or graze your sensitive clit.

and then he’d drop to his knees to taste you. make sure he sucks and licks and takes your clit in his warm mouth that you’re-

“i should get back to eunbi,” you finally say, breaking the silence and ripping him from his dirty, hidden fantasies. you can’t take the lust and desire in his eyes that you see when he looks at you, an painful ache building between your legs more and more.

“goodnight, mr. park.”

you nearly run into eunbi’s room and slam the door had you not seen her sleeping form, passed out right there in the middle of her bed wearing a baby pink robe.

you look beside her to see an extra one laid out, a silky lilac one that causes a small smile to cross your face.

you’ve never felt material like this on your skin, basking in the feeling of the smooth, silky material as you clean up her room quietly - both to tidy up and distract you from the ache in your legs and last encounter with her father.

for eunbi growing up with housekeepers and nannies her whole life, it always surprised you how clean and tidy your roommate was; the sink was never full of dishes and you alternated vacuuming the living room carpet.

but it’s obvious all of that is a facade because since the moment she got home, her messy ways have shown through - you find it endearing, though, and it’s all very eunbi: a homey, lived in mess of luxurious items and articles of clothing worth more than your childhood home.

the girl in question had moved to the right side in her sleep as you cleaned, a quiet chuckle leaving your mouth. you look to see both your water bottles are empty, deciding on the brave decision to go downstairs to grab two new ones.

the last time you’d done that, you thought for sure mr. park was gonna jump your bones - and you know you were gonna let him.

your mind is littered with memories of that night as you make your way through the dark house of twists and turns, carefully going down the stairs as you walk toward the kitchen.

there’s a room with beautiful double doors on your left, a room you’ve walked past hundreds of times throughout your stay here. eunbi told you it was her dad’s first floor office, where he usually worked and had his meetings from home.

the first thing you notice from down the hall is that the door is slightly cracked open, a peak in from the dimly lit kitchen showcasing some fancy decor of a globe.

as you make your way closer and closer, your ears are met with a quiet, strangled groan that causes you to stop in your tracks; your mind begins to race with a million different scenarios of what you could be walking past right now.

your first thought is that you’re about to see mr. and mrs. park in a very compromising position over his desk - and, as sick as it sounds, as delusional and crazy and absurd as it sounds, that prospect makes your stomach sink and twist painfully.

but that would be normal, you suppose; they’re a fucking married couple after all and seonghwa had seemed stressed from work. obviously he was gonna ask his wife to help calm him down and relax him.

get all of his stress out in the form of-

you shake your head before you can even think about it, forcing your feet to move past the office doors.

and it’s like you can’t even stop yourself from peeking in, confirming to see if your thoughts are correct and you’re about to be gutted, when you take in the sight before you.

seonghwa still in his loose tie and white dress shirt, pants around his ankles and his head thrown back in his office chair as his own hand jerks his cock off.

everything about it is dirty and wrong and you know you shouldn’t be looking in but you can’t stop.

you can’t stop watching the way his hand works around his cock expertly, long and thick and so fucking nice it nearly makes you drool. the thought of you on your knees before him, taking him in your mouth and licking and sucking around the tip, making you bite back a moan.

you can’t stop your eyes from looking at his face, his head thrown back and eyes squeezed shut with his neck on display - perfect for you to bite and give hickies, if you were on top straddling him.

you can’t stop the painful ache and wetness seeping in your thong as you watch him get off, his groans and grunts and heavy breaths making you wanna whine out in arousal.

and it’s that suppression right there, getting so worked up and horny over the sight of your peeping tina activities, that cause you to pull yourself away.

because as much as you don’t want to and as much as you wanna help him, you can’t.

you can only scramble into the kitchen and get water as fast and quiet as humanly possible, scurrying past the office and up the stairs with the stealthiness of a lion.

you can only lay in bed with the thoughts of your roommate’s father and the noises he makes, the sight of his cock and the hand movements replaying over and over in your mind.

and you realize that night, with only a few more days until you both have to leave for the spring semester, you can only hope to never see mr. park again.

let this flirtation and fascination and utterly screwed up infatuation with your roommate’s dad be nothing but a dirty memory you’ll keep to yourself for the rest of your life.

because if it’s not, if you have to see him again and have him in your daily life again, you won’t be able to hold yourself back.

your lust will turn deeper and you’ll find yourself in a much bigger issue than damp underwear and secret, forbidden moments with mr. park seonghwa.

you should’ve known with only two days left of your stay that eunbi was gonna let the news slip.

you were at least grateful for the fact that mrs. park had a charity ball with her clan of “botox getting, bitchy sounding gold diggers who need to desperately get laid,” successfully riding her of your last friday night dinner.

“so you girls don’t want a new apartment then?” seonghwa asked, glass of wine in his hand as he looks at the two of you questioningly. “that building’s looking for a new owner, eunbi, i think it’d be perfect for you both.”

“dad don’t be ridiculous, we can’t own the building!” eunbi says, swatting her dad playfully as she shovels a piece of food in her mouth. she’s casual and comfortable without her mom’s prying eyes and biting tone, her foot resting on the white fabric beneath her.

“and besides, i might be alone in there soon. we still don’t know if y/n is gonna be starting her-”

you kick the girl under the table roughly, her face pulling into a wince as a cry leaves her mouth.

“ow, y/n! what the he-”

but it’s upon seeing your white face and annoyed expression that she realizes what she said, her mouth falling open and silent as she looks at you apologetically.

“oh shit...”

you can only shoot her a pained, sarcastic smile, daringly looking at seonghwa who’s watching the two of you with a curious expression.

“what do you mean?”

silence hangs in the air, you and eunbi sharing side eyes and dejected looks with her dad before he cocks an eyebrow at the both of you.

“girls... what do you mean?” he asks, his voice deeper and more serious, taking on a dad-like tone eunbi isn’t used to hearing from her relaxed, playful father.

and that’s when, before eunbi can open her big mouth any further, you calmly and regretfully explain the situation with your scholarship.

how you got an e-mail a few months ago about alternate funding for the art department and that you were one of the many students who, while keeping up your end of requirements, could not be awarded money.

“it’s awful that they can do that,” seonghwa says, his eyes full of the same sympathy and outrage eunbi’s held - except he knows that this happens all the time. that it’s unfair and sick and a big ploy in the education system that needs incredible reform.

especially when it hurts students like you.

“yeah but it is what it is,” you say, trying your hardest to steer the conversation to literally anything but this (in fear that you’ll scream or start crying or have yet another anxiety attack).

“i can just finish up in the fall, it’s no big deal,” you lie through our teeth, a sad smile on your face as you look at eunbi. “i’m just sorry it messes up our combined graduation party.”

a frown crosses eunbi’s face as she smacks you in the arm, pulling you closer to her just so she could cuddle herself into your arm.

“i will wait for you,” she proclaims dramatically, a pout on her lips and starry-eyed look in her gaze. “i will wait as long as i have to. if they delay it any further, father, you will simply have to sue the school.”

“father, huh?” seonghwa hums lowly, his lips quirking into a smirk.

father is the term eunbi uses when she wants to use him and his money, whether it be blackmailing unfair teachers or shitty students or calling for him when her and her mom are fighting.

“yes, father,” she says, looking to you with a sweet, apologetic smile on her face.

“i’m serious, y/n. we got your back,” she quips with a wink, a pained smile on your face that she knows means you can’t wait to let her have it when you two are alone.

“you had one job, eunbi, and you were doing so good,” you say in her room later that night, pacing back and forth as she sits on her bed like a scolded child. “literally two nights left and you let it slip out!”

“i’m sorry, okay!” she whines for the ninth time, a pout on her face as she plays with fingers; you wanna roll your eyes seeing it, knowing for a fact that’s something she does when she’s in trouble with jiwoon.

“i didn’t mean to, it just slipped out!” she begins to defend, “and it was only my dad! he wouldn’t dare say a bad word about you, y/n, he loves you.”

you ignore the twinge in your chest when you hear her say those words, feeling a tad guilty at the bodily reaction you have about her own father. how much you’re hiding from her and that you have these suppressed feelings and secret moments in the first place.

“loves me or not, bad word or not, it’s still embarrassing, eunbi,” you say, a frown on your lips as you start to hear the situation aloud. 

“i still can’t pay for my tuition and have to wait almost a whole year to take a degree in fucking photography. like how embarrassing is that, all of this just for me never find a job and live in a box.”

you’ve only seen a flash of anger on eunbi’s face a few times in your life, the incident with the dorm girls and her dad and when a sorority girl tried to kiss jiwoon at the bar.

and you see it right now, her small but mighty frame jumping off the bed and lunging toward you quickly.

“are you kidding me!” she squeals, smacking you in the arm and pushing you down on the bed.

“what the hell do you mean a degree in fucking photography? or living in a box? you’re gonna be the best photographer in the world and shoot every event in my life and charge me quadruple the amount!”

a smile pulls at your lips as you hear her go on and on, hype you up and build up your confidence and tell you to never talk that way about yourself again. how there’s nothing embarrassing about not being able to afford thousands of dollars when you were alerted about the expense on such short notice.

“okay, okay, i know that,” you eventually give in, letting out a sigh as you flop down on her bed. “it’s just.... stressful. i can’t move back home but i also need to get like, a real job. a job that’s gonna pay well so i can save up as much as possible.”

“and we’ll find you that when we get back,” she says, assuring with a confident look in her eye and her hands in yours. “i can promise you, with or without my father’s connections, we’re getting you a job.”

her words prove to reassure you for the remainder of the night, when, after she kisses your ass a little more, asks if she can go to jiwoon’s for a little.

you spent that time in her room looking at nearby job offerings and building up your resume and cover letters, working well into the night hours with a text from jiwoon that she fell asleep and will be back in the morning.

you stretch your arms above your head with a quiet groan, noting it’s almost one o’clock and you’re fucking parched yet again.

it’s no surprise to you when the lights in the kitchen are on, dimly light and no noise around as you pad your way to the fridge.

you almost expect the footsteps that come in a few moments later, when you take a sip from your water and close the fridge without hesitation.

“have you told your parents about tuition?”

you’re confused by the statement that leaves seonghwa’s mouth, brows pulled together and a sinking feeling in your stomach at this conversation again - because as if tuition wasn’t enough, he just had to bring up your parents.

but you don’t wanna beat around the bush any longer; you two seem to do that enough.

“me and my parents don’t talk,” you say, straight forward and quiet as you look right at him.

it’s the first time he sees you look a little broken and defeated, a certain kind of sadness shining behind your eyes that makes him wanna pull him into you. it feels like a protective instinct he’s used to, caring for the people in his life and not wanting to see them struggle.

“they wouldn’t help me anyway.”

this protective instinct feels a little different in this moment, something else tugging in his chest that he hasn’t felt in a very long time - not until he started seeing you more.

“but it’d be a shame if you didn’t finish, y/n. you got so far and you’ve done so well for yourself.”

you smile a little at the praise, tongue rolling over your lips in a way he certainly doesn’t miss - but this moment isn’t about that. it’s not something he cares even a little bit about right now.

“thank you, mr. park, but i am gonna finish,” you say with finality, the confident and sure tone making a strange sort of pride swell inside of him.

“i just have to save up money and i’ll start in the fall. it’s really not that big of a deal,” you tell him with a smile, taking a few steps back so you don’t feel too crowded by him.

“eunbi’s gonna help me look for jobs when i get back,” you say, a teasing smile pulling at your lips as you look at him. “a big girl job. something real and hard, that’s gonna make me super stressed and agitated.”

so much so that i have to get off at the thought of you.

a deep chuckle bubbles out of him that you match with ease, the two of you sharing small smiles and quiet giggles in the middle of this spotless, white kitchen.

“can’t do what you love quite yet, i guess,” seonghwa says, his eyes roaming your face so slowly and carefully, it makes you a tad bit nervous.

you hadn’t realized how natural and easy this conversation was between you two, like you were talking to someone you’d known your whole life opposed to someone you’ve barely known for four years.

his hand itches to reach up and touch your hair, tuck the soft, silky looking strand behind your ear and watch your cheeks heat up when your skin touches; but instead, he smiles down at you, inching closer until he’s just looming over you and staring down at you with a soft, undetectable look in his eye.

“but it’ll be worth it in the end, i think. it’s just gonna... take some time.”

you lick over our lips, throat and mouth suddenly so incredibly dry, as you nod your head.

“yeah, i think so, too,” you say, your lips smushing together nervously before you open your mouth to speak again - this could be one of the last times you’re alone with him.

“thank you for letting me stay with you guys, mr. park. it’s been... really nice spending time with people for the holidays.”

he feels his heart twinge in his chest again, his eyes falling down to your lips and swearing he’s never wanted to kiss someone so bad in his life.  

“of course, y/n, it’s been a pleasure,” he says, a smile quirking at his lips with a hint of something you just can’t quite make out. “maybe we’ll see each other again soon.”

it was five days before classes started that you got the confirmation e-mail - a message confirming your tuition for the spring semester was paid in full and your current balance was $0.

you had to look over the message for three whole hours making sure you had read the e-mail correctly, even going as far to call the bursar office to make sure they had the correct address.

but they had confirmed with surety that your balance was paid off, urging you to quickly sign up for the classes you need before the day was over.

“okay, you will never believe what interview i was able to score for you,” eunbi says the moment she walks in the apartment, shopping bags up her arm and gucci sunglasses perched atop her head.

“i’ll admit, the vibe was a little off with the coworkers but i think it’d be a great opportunity to-” her eyes catch your laptop screen on the school website, a list of classes and times on your screen that causes her eyes to widen.

“oh?” she squeals, running over and throwing herself down on the couch beside you. “what the heck are you doing? are you... did you...?”

the lie came way too quick and easy to you, excitedly blabbering out that there was a change in the system and your scholarship was approved - “i think they felt bad that i was a graduating senior,” you said, eunbi’s face pulled into the happiest smile you’ve ever seen.

she clapped and danced and bounced around in excitement, proclaiming you guys just had to go out and get drinks to celebrate the fact that your surprise party was back on.

but you could only sit there with your thoughts and suspicions and this overwhelming feeling deep within your stomach that, while eunbi definitely doesn’t know, her father might’ve just paid your college tuition in full.

(part 2)

tag list: @mochibabycakes @atinyarmyx1 @middle-of-a-wonshua-sandwich @baekhvuns @marksflvr @bunbaebae @markleeyeosang @inkigayeo @nlost21 @hyunjeansuniverse @cherryeonii @songsoomin @reeateez @biaswreckingfics @yunhoiseyecandy @sophrosyneeeee @uglychildd @happycandynoelle @seolarjk @liqhtiny @maedesculpaeusoubi @revehosh @svt-mangos @hcwurld @ateezappreciation @sanisms​ @khjssss​ @yixing-jaehyun​ @yeosangs-left-ass-cheek​

couldn’t tag: @ateez-after-dark @arkive78 

[lubdubsworld]

A Tale Untold. ( Jungkook x Oc)

Historical Au! General Jungkook! x Princess Oc!

Warnings : Non con/ Dub con, Manipulation, violence.

Rated 18+

Summary : The King of Elvyra is proud of his empire and of his perfect family. But the truth behind his ascension, is a tale that remains untold.

“The palace is so beautifully maintained your Majesty. Truly, such opulent splendor …..” The envoy from the neighboring Kingdom stood slack jawed in the Grand Hall, staring around at the gleaming trophies, mounted shields and gold embossed portraits that decorated the walls.

The brocade curtains had been left open, tied together with silk braided ropes with jeweled hangings, the light from the late afternoon sun setting the whole place aglow. On ornate tables scattered across the large room, stood little treasures and trinkets that had been taken as bounty from successful military campaigns against smaller, weaker Kingdoms.

All of it a testament to the unchallenged power wielded by General Jeon Jungkook, the King of Elvyra. He was not like the other monarchs. He still commanded his army personally despite wearing the title of King.

Jeon Jungkook, who stood to my left, with his arm wrapped around my waist in a possessive grip that was just shy of painful.

“ You must thank my beautiful queen for that, I’m afraid, Sir Cha. She has been much occupied with setting the Hall and the Palace to rights after my ascension, and her efforts have paid off. Have they not, princess?” Jungkook whispered, turning around to brush soft lips against my ear and I felt physically sick.

The last endearment was a sneer. And insult. A reminder of what I was : a captive.

“Yes, my King.” I said softly, keeping my tone level. I wouldn’t dare act up in front of guests, because Jungkook’s punishments would be cruel and merciless. He would keep my sister away from me, or worse, he would forbid me from spending time with our oldest son.

Jihwan was only seven, but already he was being trained as the heir, spending hours on the training fields with his father and it took endless hours of begging and servicing Jungkook in his bed and out of it, for me to be allowed a scant few hours with the boy.

Jungkook drilled into his head the importance of power, the need to instill fear in his subordinates, raising him to be just as ruthless and cruel as he himself was and I had only those few stolen hours to speak to my son about the values that I had grown up with. My heart ached when I remembered the kind of monarch my own father had been : a kind, gentle man who loved his Kingdom. And my elder brother had been raised with morals , compassion and justice in his veins, only for Jeon Jungkook and his barbaric army to invade our home and destroy it all.

“Your beauty outshines all of this, my Queen.” A man simpered next to me and Jungkook’s eyes narrowed at him. I swallowed. Jungkook didn’t like others looking at what was his.

“The story of your ascension to the throne here, we would love to hear of it.” One of the women said and my breath caught in my lungs, Memories flooded my head, traumatizing and painful. My skin went hot and then icy cold and my husband laughed next to me.

“It was quite simple. I was offered the throne and the lovely daughter of the Kingdom, in return for saving them from ruin, was it not, my dear?”

Liar.

“I.. Yes.”

“Ruin? Was your kingdom is trouble, my Queen?” the woman asked.

~~~~~~

No. We were rich and thriving. Everyone was treated equal here. My parents ruled with a heart of gold and everyone was well fed and joyful. We held festivals every month, celebrated life and never deemed ill will to anyone else. We loved each other. The commonfolk dined with the royals in the courtyards and the King himself drank at the cavern down in the village. The oldest prince, my brother, he played with the boys in the village, taught them how to wield the sword and the bow and arrow and my sister and I… we spent our days in the meadows…. Making daisy chains and stealing kisses from the stable boys.

~~~~~

“ They were in desperate need of firm leadership. My father in law, may he rest in peace….he had a weak heart that gave out soon after our alliance. Her brother followed soon after leaving me no choice but to take over.” Jungkook’s voice held a note of genuine sympathy and I felt sick to my stomach.

~~~~~~~~

The sight of my father, kneeling in front of his throne, shackled and in chains. My mother on her knees, begging for mercy and Jungkook’s men held a dagger to her throat. My brother standing in front of me and my sister, arms spread wide as he stared right at General Jeon, refusing to kneel.

“What you’re doing goes against every law on earth, Jeon. The moment you attack a foe when he has his back turned you reveal yourself to be a coward.”

And Jungkook had laughed, loud and uncaring.

“And if I stab him through the heart when he’s right in front of me? What does that reveal?”

It had happened in a flash, the quick movement of his wrist, the flash of silver as he drew his weapon and then the sickening squelch of the blade as it sunk through skin and flesh. The hot wetness of my brother’s blood as it splattered all over my face, the dawning horror as I realized that he had run the sword right through my brother’s heart and the endless screams from my mother and sister as my brother died right in front of our eyes.

I had stood there, too stunned to scream watching the boy who had taught me how to walk bleeding to death in front of me and when I had looked up, Jungkook’s eyes had been trained on mine.

“Bring her here” He had said firmly, pointing right at me and my entire world had exploded in agony. I screamed in protest as his men grabbed me by the arm, yanking me forward with such force that my legs gave out, dragging over the rough stone floors as they pulled me to stand in front of the man who had invaded our home without remorse.

“General Jeon….” My father’s voice came from behind me , soft and yet firm. I could hear the grief and pain in the syllables, and I wondered how much my father must be aching at this moment. He had loved my brother with his whole heart “ We’ve offered to surrender, offered you the throne. Please. Spare my daughters and my wife. There is a summer palace at the edge of the kingdom . We will retire there and live our lives out in exile. Please… don’t hurt them. They are too young to understand what you’re doing.”

One of the men standing next to Jungkook stepped forward and I glanced at him, my eyes widening when I saw his face. He looked like an angel, pristine and flawless. And his gaze was trained on my sister . I felt my heart began to pound as he began making his way over to her.

“No!! No… Aline!!” I screamed and Jungkook’s hand shot out gripping my jaw and forcing my mouth closed.

“Hold your tongue, woman.” He whispered. “ My patience wears thin.” He glanced at my father and the smirk on his face grew bigger. “ I think that would be such a pity, your highness. A face like your daughter’s … it doesn’t belong in exile. It belongs on the throne…. does it not, princess?”

“Your daughters are beautiful , majesty. They deserve to have handsome, brave husbands, do they not?” the man who had gone to my sister called out, his fingers curled around her arm as he dragged her to the front and I felt my heart crack in two as Aline burst into loud, miserable tears.

“Lulu…. Lulu make him stop… tell him to let me go…” She whimpered , punching fruitless against the soldier’s armored chest and the man seemed amused as he stared at her.

“Please…she’s too young…” I begged, staring at Jungkook beseechingly. “ She’s only sixteen summers old… Please don’t hurt her…”

“Sixteen isn’t a child. She is old enough to bear one herself.” The man holding her snapped angrily and I stiffened.

“A fair enough point, Taehyung- ah…” Jungkook laughed “ but we’re not barbarians. Let her go for now.”

“What?” Taehyung growled. “ No. I want her. Jungkook I’ve never taken anything from any of the countless kingdoms we’ve ravaged but I want her.” He shook my sister like she was ragged doll and Aline looked catatonic with terror.

“Please , let her go, she’s shaking…” I begged , trying to yank my arms away from the men holding me and Jungkook growled.

“Shut your mouth or your father dies.” He snarled and I was too stricken, too distracted to register what he had said, too focused on my baby sister to listen.

“please Jungkook, don’t do this… She’s young and she’s scared….”

Jungkook’s snarl of rage made me go white as a sheet and I watched in horror as he pointed straight at my father with the sword that still dripped with my brother’s life blood.

“ Get rid of the old fool.” He roared and my heart ripped straight in two.

“NO!!!!!!!”

My loud cry did nothing to deter the men holding my father who showed not a moment of hesitation, raising their sword.

“Remember who you are, Iseul!!” My father said loudly and I turned my face away, closing my eyes as the sickening sound of the blade coming down rang through the place, my mother’s howl of agony following shortly after. I stared at the floor, going limp in the arms of the men holding me up, my body numb and throbbing in disbelief.

“Now look what you made me do.” Jungkook snapped. “ I was going to let the poor fool live, somewhere in the dungeons with your mother but your complete and utter disregard for my authority….it fills me with rage, Iseul.” He snapped.

I couldn’t breathe, my lungs constricting. They were dead. My father and brother, the only two men who had protected me and my sister all our lives, they were both dead. This man. No, not a man. A monster.

This cruel, heartless monster had butchered them in front of my eyes.

“Look at me.” He said suddenly, stepping in front of me.

I didn’t respond, keeping my gaze trained on the floor and his hand shot out, gripping my chin and forcing me to look up at him.

“Look at me.” He said firmly. “ Come morning we will be wed. I will be your husband. You will belong to me. You will give me strong heirs and all of your wants and needs will be mine to fulfill. Do you understand what that means, Iseul?” He demanded.

I choked on a sob.

“Jungkook we need to get rid of the bodies. Give them a proper funeral at least.” Another man stepped out of the shadows and Jungkook sighed.

“Yes, hyung. Taehyung-ah… Why don’t we take our new brides to our chambers?” He smirked, “ I could do with some stress relief now that the hard part of this whole thing is done.”

“Took you long enough. Come here my pretty doll…” Taehyung grinned, dragging Aline away and I whimpered, stumbling to try and follow but Jungkook’s arm came around my waist squeezing tight.

“That’s her husband now. Think of it that way and it will hurt less. Your sister is married to a man who will love her , protect her and cherish her. He will give her nice strong children. What more do you want for her?”

I exhaled shakily, turning to him.

“ What do you know of love, you monster?” I whispered.

Jungkook hummed.

“Then how about this, my princess. Let me teach you what I know of pleasure, and you can teach me all about love.”

It was a lesson that I never forgot. A painful, humiliating excruciating lesson in his bed where he stripped of my clothes, my dignity and the last shreds of my honour.

I stared at the ceiling as he lay over me, the large expanse of his chest pinning me to the mattress, the slick drag of his member inside me making me ache and throb, his lips, pressing kisses against my throat.

“you smell like a flower garden, my angel. So pure and precious. Made for me, I see….” He whispered, hips pushing up against mine as he ducked into me with long, rough strokes.

I stayed still staring into nothing and he pinched my nipple, twisting the buds till I whimpered.

“Please…”

“please what?” He whispered, resting his forehead against mine, forcing me to stare into doe eyes that seemed to glitter like the clear sky on a spring night. What a beautiful monster.

“Please stop…” I whispered.

“Stop…” He laughed cruelly. He pulled out fully before slamming back in with more force. Pain lanced up my body. “ Now why would I do that?”

“Hurts…” I whispered, exhausted. My hands lay limp and tired next to my head, throbbing from trying to punch him countless times to no avail.

“Poor little love. It hurts because you aren’t used to it. I will do this often and well and soon, your body will know that I belong inside you. And then you will beg me to make it last longer… not stop.”

I closed my eyes, staring into my mind. Remember who you are? I didn’t even know who I was anymore.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Of course, it was a pity that the royal blood came to an end that way. But some things can’t be helped.” Jungkook said firmly, arm still wrapped around me in a vice like grip. I glanced at the sun as it dipped lower in the sky. Was Jihwan done with the training? I wanted to see him. To hold him and remind myself that there was still some goodness in the world.

“But under your rule, the kingdom has thrived, your Majesty. So it was all for the best.” The man said brightly and Jungkook chuckled.

“That is true. Would you like to view the training grounds now?”

“If, I maybe excused?” I asked softly and Jungkook frowned.

“Is something the matter?”

“I feel a little unwell…” I said softly and the look on his face darkened.

But he didn’t protest, merely dipping his head lightly.

“Jihwan is in the west wing. He’s working on his scribing skills. You may visit him for a while and after our guests retire, I will fetch you from him.”

I bowed respectfully.

“Thank you, my King.”

~~~~~~~~

“Mother!!!” Jihwan’s loud cry rang through the hallway as he came barreling into my arms. I caught him too my chest, eyes stinging because soon he would be too old for me to hug and kiss and caress.

“My darling child, I’ve missed you..” I whispered.

“You saw me last night at dinner…” He laughed.

“And that is entirely too long ago.” I brushed the hair of his face. “ did you eat your meals? Have you been keeping yourself safe?”

He nodded eagerly.

“Auntie Aline and Uncle Tae bought me a new dagger.”

I felt my heart drop. A dagger?

“Darling, please be safe…Is it too sharp?”

“A little. But Uncle Tae told me I’m old enough to learn how to use it to fight.”

I closed my eyes, willing my self not to scream in frustration.

“Alright. But now unless your father is there to watch you, alright?” I whispered.

He nodded.

“Yes, mother. Mother…. “ He hesitated. “ Do Auntie Aline and Uncle Tae love each other?”

I blinked.

“What?”

“She looks so sad, sometimes.”

I bit my lips, willing myself to smile. Unlike me , my sister didn’t know how to put on an act. She had always been a delicate child and the trauma of our parents death and Taehyung’s cruelty had taken a toll on her. She was deeply depressed but her husband didn’t care. All Taehyung cared for was her body and the two sturdy sons she had borne him, a third child on the way.

“Of course darling. You do know, Han and Jiwoo are going to have a younger sibling soon? She must be tired from growing the baby inside her.”

“Will I have a sibling too?” He asked innocently and I opened my mouth to refute the idea when a shadow fell over us.

“Would you like one, my brave little tiger?” Jungkook’s voice rang over us and I stiffened.

“No.” I said swiftly, “ He enjoys having all of mama’s attention, don’t you darling?”

Jihwan wrinkled his nose.

“I don’t know. A little sister would feel nice.”

Jungkook hummed.

“I like the idea of that. If you give me a daughter then we can have her betrothed to Han at birth.” He said casually and I felt sick.

“Jihwan, you must go back to your lessons, now. Your mother and I will see you at dinner.” Jungkook said softly and I flinched when Jungkook gripped my shoulders tugging me away from my boy. Everyday Jihwan looked less and less upset at leaving me and I wondered if one day he would begin welcoming my departure.

Jungkook didn’t say a word, turning me around and leading me gently to the opposite wing, where our bedchamber lay. It was a path I traipsed a million times in the seven years we’d been married and yet, it felt just as unbearable as it had back then.

The sight of the King made the maids and footmen scramble away in a panic and I swallowed as he opened the large engraved doors , prompting me to go in. I stepped in only to have him press against my back at once. I stayed still, letting him untie the strings of my train, before moving to undo the button of my gown. He stopped halfway through.

“This is tedious. Strip for me and get on the bed.”

I didn’t move. What did he want? Surely he wouldn’t be thinking of humoring my son? The idea of bearing more children for him was abhorrent to me. I wanted to cry. But I did as he said, carefully stripping out of all my clothes ,m placing them in a neat pile, on the table nearby before moving to climb into the bed for him. Jungkook moved into sit against the headboard, before grabbing my wrists and pulling me to his lap.

“Look at me.” Jungkook said, once I sat straddling his thick thighs, the curve of my bottom resting against the hardness of his arousal. “ I was right, wasn’t I?”

I stared at him as his hands came up to pinch both of my nipples at the same time, playing with the hardened numbs till I began squirming on his hard length.

“ You were made for this weren’t you? To be my queen and my wife? Such a perfect mother too. I was right to choose you, wasn’t I?”

I stared at him, the handsome face that I wanted to hate., But it was hard. He had given me Jihwan. He had let me keep my sister at arm’s length. He had let my mother live out her years in the palace, although the grief had killed her two years ago. It could be worse, I told myself, lifting and moving to line the tip of his member against my body and sinking down on him. It could be so much worse.

“Fuck…yes. Just like that angel….” He gripped my waist, bucking up into me and my body caved, now used to the intrusion.

“Yes…” I choked out, when his thumb moved to press against my center, rubbing circles.

“I was right….I’m always right . Your body knows I belong inside you.”

He pulled me close, arms a vice around my body and I choked as he fucked into me .

“Say it… “ He demanded and I closed my eyes, sorrow and helplessness welling into tears and brimming over my eyes onto his shoulders and down his back. But Just as I was used to him inside me, Jungkook was used to the tears soaking him whenever we did this.

“Don’t stop.” I breathed.

The King after all was always right.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author's Note : Would you guys like another part? But please tell me what you thought !!

[sevendeadlymorons]

Hello! How are you? Can you do head-canons for the bros (and in-undateables if you want) with a teen MC (like 13-16) pls? Like how they act when they meet them, how they act now, specific head-canons like that y’know? ONLY PLATONIC OR FAMILY-LIKE RELATIONSHIPS no romantic or sexual ones because that’s ✨gross✨ Anyway, thank you for your time and if you don’t want to do this I completely understand! Have a nice day lovely!😘

This ones so sweet so I honestly can’t wait to get started. Hope yer having a great day, love x

FYI: let’s say Belphie wasn’t trapped in the attic for this HC just to make it so that he didn’t murder a child-

Brothers + Dateables Reaction to Teen MC

————————————

Lucifer

When he first chose you for the exchange program, he kind of expected someone... older?

But instead here you were, another chihuahua

To his surprise, you had your calm moments but you also had your energetic moments where you and Mammon would cause problems upon problems around the house

To say you got annoying quickly would be an understatement, but weirdly, he saw you as his own kid and he did anything to protect you

If you were upset, he was straight at your side with a cup of hot chocolate and asking who made you upset, just like a worried parent would

He felt so relieved when after a couple months passed you began to calm down and sit with him and just talk about life and how you’re handling RAD

The first time you gave him a hug he was genuinely surprised and wasn’t sure what to do but he honestly could’ve cried

Mammon

As soon as he saw you he just went straight to the chihuahua jokes. He loved your size cause it meant he could use you as his arm rest whenever he wanted

Immediately took you under his wing and became an older brother figure to you, keeping you safe and rarely letting anyone touch you

He’s like the cool older brother you’ve always wanted who buys you little gifts every now and again as a surprise and makes you laugh all the time

He loves how energetic you are and how much fun you two have together tormenting his brothers

Seeing you sad is something he never wants to see, and I can promise you that sadness will not last long with Mammon by your side

Any type of affection you give him makes him so so happy, like hearing a child say their first word

Honestly though, he likes the chill side of you too where you two can just sit back, watch a movie and say “it’s you” at every unattractive character the both of you come across

Leviathan

Children really wasn’t his thing and he was not expecting to have to look after the exchange student

But after a while, you turned out to be pretty cool since you two shared a lot of hobbies together and you even cosplay with him on certain occasions

He’s a literal older brother figure to you and it makes him elated to have you as his Henry

You two shop for endless useless crap on Akuzon together and get yelled at by Lucifer for blocking the entrance with all the boxes

He’s comfortable around you, especially as you eventually began to calm down and the only thing you wanted to do was stay up all night and laze around in his bedroom all day

If you were ever sad, he’ll quickly turn on your favourite anime or movie and wrap you up in a huge blanket. He never wants to see you upset

You may have given him a heart attack the first time you hugged him though but he was so close to crying, it may’ve been the best day of his life

Satan

Energetic short stack as the new exchange student? No thanks

Sort of just attempted to avoid you the first couple days but you kept on following him, asking him so many questions

But after a while, he began to gradually warm up to you and even shared some of his books with you and read them to you when you had trouble sleeping

The bond he has with you isn’t exactly brotherly, it’s more like the chill uncle that gives you extremely old shit that you never knew you needed

He lowkey protects you with his life though. If someone says something mean to you, he’s the first person who’s at your aid

If you’re upset, he’ll sort that problem out super fast. You won’t be sad on his watch

Didn’t know how to respond the first time you gave him a hug so he pat your head and then it kinda stuck so now whenever you hug him, he gives your head a gentle pat

Asmodeus

Nobody really thought having you around Asmo was a good idea, but actually, you two weren’t a bad match

He definitely without a doubt had that favourite gay brother vibe where he’d dress you up pretty and talk to you about relationships and emotions

He always made you feel good about yourself and made it his mission to never see you sad or lonely

If you ever were, he’ll be like your personal servant until you weren’t. Gifts, words of affirmation, quality time, he’d do anything to see you stay happy

Brought you gifts home occasionally and asked you to try them on if the gift was clothes or accessories and let you try his perfume and lip gloss from time to time

Seeing you gradually grow as you became more comfortable with his brothers and him was such a proud moment for him

He gave you the biggest hug back when you first gave him a hug, he was so excited

Beelzebub

Same with Asmo, nobody thought it was a good idea being around him, especially with his tendencies to eat just about anything

But he was alright with you, he walmed up to you pretty quick and soon took you under his wing like he had another little sibling to look after

Brought you snacks whenever you asked him to and made sure you had a smile on your face constantly

He got so worried if you were upset and even got a little upset himself, so he’d spent more time with you and tell you how great you are until you were happy

If you asked him to, he’d lift you up onto his shoulders and walk around with you just to hear you laugh and feel so tall compared to all the others

Watching you settle down from being this once energetic kid to a calmer one was heartwarming to him and he now enjoys nothing more than sitting back, sharing snacks and throwing popcorn into your mouth when you two watch a movie

He actually cried when you hugged him, no joke, this man was close to sobbing

Belphegor

Another annoying chihuahua around? He’ll pass...

It’s not like he ever actually sees any of his brothers anyway since he sleeps so much, but you just wouldn’t leave him alone for some reason

Sometimes he’d unknowingly wake up to you on the opposite side of the bed after joining him in a nap or on the floor playing on your phone waiting for him to wake up so you could talk to him

After a while, he sort of just got used to you being around him and even enjoyed waking up to find you laying on the ground on your phone

Sometimes you were a bit too energetic for his liking but spending the nights awake with you were always his favourite parts of the day

Once he found you sat in a ball on his floor crying and he’d never gotten up from a nap faster as he sat next to you with a blanket, continuously telling you jokes until you finally smiled

Wasn’t too bothered about you hugging him for the first time, he just smiled, pat your head and went back to sleep

Diavolo

Never expected such a young person to be the new exchange student but he welcomed you with open arms either way

He found it interesting how you didn’t fear any of them at first glance so visited you often to check up on you

Eventually Diavolo visited every day, asking you about RAD and life in the Devildom and even brought you cakes that Barbatos made sometimes

He became a dad figure to you, protecting you and giving you special Prince privileges like allowing you to come over any time you liked

Couldn’t stand the days you came over with a frown on your face from having a bad day at RAD and made sure you were totally comfortable and happy by his side for the rest of the day

It was always a pleasure to see you come over with Barbatos by your side and smile so widely when you see him, it made his heart ache

He may’ve gotten too excited when you first hugged him and squeezed you a bit too hard. The man hasn’t hugged anyone in a while though so can you blame him?

Barbatos

Never expected a human this young to pop out of the portal

But like everybody else, he accepted you as part of the Devildom now and was the very first person to send you a welcome text

He slowly began to become interested in you and visited from time to time; bringing round treats that he’d made at the castle

Schedules little cooking days with you and Luke and loves how you both help him in the kitchen and adores how much you smile when you apply icing to your cakes

Becomes the person you go to when you have something on your mind and he normally drops everything when you come to visit just so he can talk to you

Seeing you sad makes him sad too, so he helps you as best as he can, no matter what he was previously doing. You’re what’s most important right now

Hugs aren’t particularly his thing but a hug from you always makes his day so much better

Simeon

Another child? He’s sorta glad it’s not him who has to look after you since he already has Luke

Well in the end, he sorta does mainly look after you after the amount of times you visit him unannounced

He’s without a doubt the sweet and accepting dad figure to you as he always listens and he understands and he always knows how to cheer you up

You won’t be sad for long with him by your side, he’s just got that vibe about him. It’s imposible to stay upset

Takes you to little cafés when you’re sad and likes to join you and Luke when you’re cooking with Barbatos

Gets emotional when he sees you grow to become apart of every ones life and become so at home and attached to everyone around you

He’ll never forget that first hug you gave him, it reminds him of when Luke gives him one when he gets lonely so he loved every second of it

Solomon

Started to tease you straight away. It can’t be helped when you’re almost the same size as Luke

Never expected to get so close to you and now he’s willingly to protect you with his life. Crazy

You can’t stay sad when he’s around, it’s not possible. He knows exactly how to cheer you up and doesn’t stop until he sees that frown of yours disappear

Comes to visit you once in a while when he has time just to cause trouble around the house and piss off the brothers and chat with you and Asmo

Now Solomon is the definition of cool uncle. He’ll show you shit that’ll make your day, bring you gifts and stupid unnecessary items and just make you laugh so hard that your stomach will hurt

Still teases you from time to time and you become his arm rest for the rest of the year, but on the plus side, he teleports you to the human world to get icecream

Never thought he’d see the day where he’d get a hug, especially from you, so he made it last as long as he could. It felt nice to be appreciated

Luke

Unsurprisingly, you two got along straight away, I mean, two short people in the Devildom gotta stick together, right?

Pretty much began to live at eachothers house with the amount of times you two would visit

Protects you from the demons at least twice a day and tries his best to swat away Solomon and Mammon from leaning on your head

Becomes your new younger brother and he’ll do anything to keep you safe as well as happy and laughing

His heart hurt when he sees his new friend sad, so he asks Simeon if he could take the two of you to get your favourite treats and he’s relieved when he sees you smile again

His favourite days are when you two bake cakes with Barbatos, he likes hanging around with you because you make everything more fun

Couldn’t believe it when you hugged him for the first time and couldn’t help hugging you tighter so it was like watching two little kids see eachother for the first time in months

[snelbz]

Life As We Know It {Chapter 30}

Summary: After the sudden deaths of Nesta’s sister and Cassian’s best friend, they gain guardianship of their nephew, Nyx.

Based on Life As We Know It (2010) and a prompt sent in by anonymous for our Nessian fanfic contest. This is a modern au.

Written with @tacmc.

Life As We Know It Masterlist

Shelby’s Masterlist

Tara’s Masterlist

A/N: Wow. The final chapter. Tara and I are so glad you've come along on this journey with us. We've absolutely loved writing this story for you all and we hope you've enjoyed it as well.

Nesta looked around their home.

It was decorated to perfection - at least, that had been Nesta’s goal. The theme for Nyx’s second birthday was space cowboy, which had happened when Cassian wanted a cowboy theme while Nesta wanted an outer space theme.

It had been a challenge to perfect the space cowboy theme - especially when it came to a two-year-old’s birthday party.

There were aliens with cowboy hats and paper cows on UFO balloons. In the corner of the living room, there was a horse wearing an astronaut costume - a decoration that Cassian had created, and one he was quite proud of.

Nesta herself wore a “space-like” outfit that reminded her fondly of Zenon: Girl of the 21th Century. When Cassian came down the stairs, however, it looked like he had just walked out of the Wild West.

He wore chaps over his jeans, and Nesta found her mind wandering on those chaps alone.

She hoped he kept them.

They would be useful in the future.

He also wore a plaid button down and a cowboy hat.

She thought he should keep the cowboy hat, too.

Nyx, however, looked like the cutest little mess Nesta had ever seen. His onesie looked like a spacesuit, but on his head, instead of an astronaut helmet, he wore a teeny little cowboy hat. On his feet were genuine cowboy boots.

Nesta laughed as they reached the first floor landing, and Cassian’s grin widened.

“Now introducing our two-year-old space cowboy,” Cassian said, unable to control his laughter.

Nyx’s grin was wide as he clapped. “MAMA!”

Nesta laughed, taking Nyx into her arms. Yeah, he looked ridiculous, but he also looked oh so cute. “Happy birthday, sweet boy.”

Nyx took Nesta’s face in his hands and gave her a big, sloppy kiss.

With a chuckle, Nesta said, “Thank you, that was very sweet. Now, let’s go make sure everything’s ready, yeah? Our guests will be here soon.”

“Dada,” Nyx said, pointing to Cassian. “Hi-hi.”

Cassian laughed. “Hi, bud.” He went straight for the corner and adjusted his astronaut-horse.

Nesta just shook her head and brought Nyx into the kitchen.

It smelled delicious.

Nesta had spent the entire morning cooking.

At first, she had no idea what to make for a space cowboy party, but she really felt like she nailed it. She had a taco bar, which worked for every type of party, and baked and decorated a cake that looked like Cassian’s horse in a spacesuit.

It was ridiculous.

And absolutely perfect.

Nesta looked at the clock. “We have twenty minutes, Nyx. We have to make the homemade tortillas and get out the salsas.”

“What about the alcohol?” Cassian asked, sweeping into the kitchen.

Nesta rolled her eyes. “It’s our two-year-old’s birthday.”

Cassian blinked. “So, no whiskey, just wine?”

Nesta clicked her tongue. “Check the wine cabinet.”

“Yes ma’am,” Cassian winked, tipping his hat before he left the room.

Nesta snorted, even though she found it deeply charming and handsome as hell.

Yeah, she definitely hoped he’d keep that outfit.

Nesta took the dough out of the fridge that she had rolled earlier that morning and a rolling pin. When she had countless flat, doughy circles she dropped them in the oil-filled skillet one by one. Fifteen minutes later, she had a giant stack of flour tortillas and was carrying them, alongside a tray filled with different types of homemade salsas, to the table she had set up in the living room.

There was a quick knock on the door and it cracked open before Nesta could even turn towards the door.

“Oh, my.”

She laughed at Azriel’s reaction to the house, turning to see him carrying in a stack of presents, Elain’s camera bag and Persephone’s diaper bag. “Go big or go home, right?” She chuckled.

“You decided to go big at home,” he replied, shaking his head.

Nesta wasn’t surprised to see that Azriel hadn’t dressed up, wearing his traditional all-black attire instead, but a little space princess in cowboy boots ran in right after him and she couldn’t stop the grin as she looked at Seph.

Elain was a just a few steps behind, and as she came in, she dropped a black cowboy hat atop Azriel’s head. He rolled his eyes, but said nothing as he adjusted the hat, and was off in search of Cassian.

“Okay, you’ve outdone yourself,” Elain announced, beaming as she looked around the house. “This is awesome.”

Nesta shrugged. “He only turns two once, right?”

“I’ve got the wine!” Cassian announced, pushing through the kitchen door with two bottles of wine and a glass of whiskey.

Nesta chuckled. “I thought we said wine only?”

“We did,” Cassian said, setting the bottles on the table. “For the guests.”

“Am I a guest?” Azriel muttered.

Cassian snorted and motioned to follow him into the kitchen.

In the middle of the room, Nyx and Persephone were dancing to the techno space playlist Nesta had put on.

Elain laughed, quietly. “I need to get out my camera. Anything I can help with?”

Nesta shook her head. “You’re good. Take pictures and send them all to me.”

Elain promised she would, and Cassian and Azriel came back out with their full glasses of whiskey. Nesta looked around.

Elain was right.

They had done well.

Nesta hoped the rest of the guests thought so, too.

Before they knew it, the house was full, people were laughing and eating and drinking and Nesta couldn’t help but smile from where she stood to the side watching it all.

What a difference 365 days could make. Nesta couldn’t believe it as she watched Nyx and Persephone play with Viviane, who had also come dressed up, much to Nyx’s delight. He kept stealing her hat, and she let him, donning his tiny one instead, though it didn’t fit on her head.

She couldn’t help but think of the two people who were missing though. The two people who should have been here. Her eyes drifted to the cross Cassian had made, where it sat on the mantle, it’s permanent home.

A set of strong arms wrapped around her waist and she leaned back into Cassian’s embrace.

His chin was resting on her shoulder, and he said, “Nyx is happy. We’re happy. But… It doesn’t feel right without them here.”

As always, he knew exactly what she was thinking. She gripped his arms over her abdomen and held him there, letting him know she understood.

“They’re here, though,” Cassian whispered into her ear. “They’re here and they’re watching us, watching him. They wouldn’t miss today.”

Nesta nodded and held onto him tighter. If she would have tried to say a word, the tears would have come.

Sad tears because she missed her sister and brother-in-law.

Happy tears, though, because she loved Nyx, and she loved Cassian, and she couldn’t believe how far they had come in the last year.

Clearing her throat, and wiping a tear that had snuck out, she announced, “Let’s open gifts and have some cake!”

Cassian kissed her cheek before he was on the floor, Nyx climbing on top of him, and helping the two year old open his gifts.

It only took one or two gifts before he was completely distracted by trying to play and wasn’t even paying attention as Cassian opened his gifts one by one. But they made it through the pile and Nesta carried in the astronaut horse cake, which had Nyx on his feet and chanting, “Cakecakecakecakecake!”

With Cassian’s help, Nyx blew out the big “2” candle and narrowly avoided a smash cake for the second year in a row.

“Not this year, bud,” Cassian chuckled, carrying a confused Nyx to his booster seat in the kitchen. “We’re all going to eat this one. Not just you.”

His irritation disappeared as soon as Nesta sat a piece down in front of him, but he made nearly just as big of a mess as he had the year before.

“Nesta!” Elain called, and she turned from where she was cutting more pieces in the kitchen. “Come here, I want to get a picture of you guys.”

Her eyes found Cassian’s and they softened, thinking back to the picture they’d been forced to take a year before.

“Still think you’ll burst into flames if you brush arms with me?” He asked, pressing a kiss to her temple.

“Maybe,” she said, and he chuckled as she wrapped an arm around him. “But I’m not as bothered by it as I used to be.”

Cassian grinned, and Elain took a picture of their little family.

*

It was the day after Nyx’s second birthday and all three of them anxiously waited in the living room. It wasn’t that they were scared about the visit, but after last time, there was a little bit of nervousness surrounding them all.

Well, everyone but Nyx.

He was giddy as he played with all of his birthday toys.

Nesta was pacing, while Cassian watched a hockey game around the path she was wearing into the carpet.

“Come sit down, Nes,” he said, reaching for her hand. “They told us it would be this afternoon, but that could be anytime.”

“I know, I know,” she said, biting her nail. It had been a horrible habit of hers when she was younger, but now it only appeared when she was nervous

He caught her other hand in his. “Sit,” he repeated, tugging her towards. “You know what the doctor said about stress. It’s not good for—.”

A knock on the front door had Nesta bolting for it, and Nyx asked, “Hello?”

Cassian couldn’t help but chuckle as he stood and walked to him, crouching down in front of him. He smoothed Nyx’s dark hair back from his face and said, “I need you to be good today, okay? Be a good boy and daddy will take you to get ice cream after dinner.”

He nodded and repeated, “Ice cream.” Or he tried, but he couldn’t quite pronounce it.

Cassian could only grin down at him.

“You’re taking too long,” Nesta chastised, hurrying toward the door.

Cassian rolled his eyes but said nothing more as Nesta reached the door, smoothed down her non-wrinkled dress, and opened it up.

Alis Birch stood on the threshold, a folder in her hand, and, surprisingly, almost wearing a smile. “Nesta, it’s a pleasure.”

Nesta nodded, hesitantly. “Yes, you too. Come in, please.”

Alis crossed the threshold and nodded at Cassian. “Good afternoon, Mr. Nazari.” She looked at Nyx. “And glad to see you wide awake for one of my visits.”

Nyx smiled as he waved, and said, “Hi-hi.”

“Ah, he’s talking,” Alis said, going into the living room and smiling at the toddler.

“Oh, he hardly ever stops,” Cassian snorted. “Picks a new word up every day, I swear.”

“Sit,” Nesta said, sitting in the chair. “Please.”

“Thank you,” Alis said, taking her place on the couch. “I hear someone just had a second birthday.”

“Yesterday,” Nesta said, nodding. “We had a party. He had fun.”

“Good, plenty of toys and excitement, I assume?” She asked, watching as he played with a chunky, wooden puzzle made of farm animals. As if it were a gift from the gods themselves, he slid the cow into the right hole, and grinned up at Cassian. “Mooooo!”

He chuckled as he sat on the arm of Nesta’s chair. “Good job, bubba. Cows do say moo.”

He kept on grinning but went back to his puzzle.

“So,” Nesta said, clearing her throat. “What sort of questions do you have this visit?”

Alis didn’t say much, just looked around at the living room and kitchen. Cassian’s astronaut horse was still set up in the corner, as he’d insisted it was a work of art and as such, deserved to be displayed for at least a few more days. “Honestly, I don’t have many today. You two have made it very clear that Nyx is your main focus, and I can tell that he’s very happy and is thriving under your care.”

Cassian doubted she knew it, but Nesta released a breath she’d been holding and nodded. “We love him, more than anything. We— We’ll always miss Feyre and Rhys, but it’s not just about doing right by them anymore. Nyx has…” She took Cassian’s hand and continued. “He’s become our son, and we’ve become a family. And we couldn’t imagine it any other way at this point.”

Alis nodded and jotted a few notes in her binder. Nesta could have sworn a hint of a smile was on her face. “And, as far as the relationship between the two of you goes, where do we stand? It’s been a few months since we last discussed it.”

Cassian was the one to answer. “We’re engaged. We have been since Christmas, and, since Nyx’s birthday just passed, the wedding planning will start soon. And actually, we’re also—.”

“We couldn’t be happier,” Nesta said, interrupting him, holding up her left hand and showing the sparkling diamond on her ring finger. She gently squeezed his hand, and he didn’t ask, but nodded. “We couldn’t be happier and neither could Nyx.”

Alis looked from Cassian to Nesta to Nyx, and nodded. “I’m glad to hear it. I’ll put in a good report, and you have nothing to worry about. Truly, I wish you all the best.”

Nesta smiled, and it was genuine. “Thank you, Mrs. Birch. Thank you.”

“I’ll leave you all be,” Alis said, standing. She closed her binder. “If you ever need anything, please reach out.”

“We will,” Cassian said. “Thank you.”

With one last smile, she said her goodbyes and was gone.

Nesta leaned against the closed doors and sighed a loud sigh of relief. “We did it. We’re done.”

Cassian pulled her into his arms and hugged her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “I never had any doubts.”

She pulled back and looked up at him. “I sure as hell did. Who knew an old woman could be so terrifying?”

He chuckled but shook his head. “What now?”

“We wait for Tarquin to reach out to us. There’s some official paperwork that will have to be signed after she submits her report and findings, but…” She looked over at Nyx who was still engrossed in his puzzles. “We’re officially a family.”

Smiling, Cassian leaned down to kiss her. “And we didn’t tell her about this one because…?”

His hand brushed over her abdomen, over the life that was growing inside.

“I’d say we’re entitled to a few secrets of our own,” she replied, smiling. “Besides, they’re more focused on ensuring Nyx is taken care of. We’ve proven that time and time again.”

They’d found out Nesta was pregnant just a few weeks before. Not even ten weeks, and for that reason, they hadn’t told anyone, not even Elain and Azriel.

“Fair enough,” he muttered and kissed her, again.

Nyx had walked up to them and was tugging on Cassian’s pant leg, begging to be picked up, which is exactly what he did.

They hugged him tight, and felt an overwhelming amount of peace.

A year of ups and downs and chaos had passed, but they had made it.

They were a family.

All four of them.

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

Season 16 (Part 1)

Summary: After being captured by Michael while Dean was under his control, the reader has spent a very long time locked away waiting for someone to come and find her. When the day finally comes that the door opens, it’s not a familiar face she’s greeted with. Somehow the impossible is standing right in front of her but there’s no time to think about that. Something is terribly wrong and the reader needs the help of this strange young man if she wants to stop what Michael’s put in motion and have a chance at seeing Dean alive again...

Masterlist

Pairing: Dean x reader

Square: Free Space

Word Count: 3,600ish

Warnings: language, SPN season 15 and series spoilers, injury, mention of main character deaths, mention of torture, angst, fluff

A/N: This series takes place post season 15 and follows canon (i.e. if it happened in the show, it happened in this story’s universe). This series is told between the reader and Dean’s POV. This was also written for @supernatural-jackles​ Tell Me A Story bingo!

________

Reader’s POV

You just about had a heart attack when the door opened. It’d been such a long time since it’d been opened. Years and years and years. You’d lost track of the days quickly but it was long enough for you to accept that it’d been a very long time. Long enough to accept that when Michael took over Dean and threw you down in the windowless little room, Dean didn’t win that fight.

The only thing keeping you going aside from the spell Michael had put up to keep you permanently trapped, body stuck in time, was the desire to save Dean. Or what was left of him. You’d been alone for years, body having taken a beating by Michael when he first captured you. You were still covered in bruises, broken ribs that wouldn’t heal, pain in every breath. You didn’t sleep, didn’t eat. Solitude, cut off from the world, that was your main form of torture. Dean though...who knew what hell he was going through trapped with a psychopath like that for all these years.

You readied yourself, a dark figure walking inside the room. The room was pitch black to a certain point before you were trapped under a bright light you’d yet to figure out how to turn off. The figure stopped as their feet hit the brightness, a pair of brown boots and slim dark jeans all you could make out. They mumbled something and you felt the air shift slightly. You dared to reach at hand out to where the invisible wall keeping you trapped had been.

Your hand waved right on through it and you suddenly felt cool, clean air hit you. The person jolted when you sprang up, running away as you bolted for the door. You followed them up a flight of stairs and straight out into the foyer of a very nice house. You could see it was a man now and tackled him, straddling his hips and grabbing your knife from your waistband of your loose shorts, holding it to his throat. He breathed hard as you stared at him, cocking your head.

He was the spitting image of Dean. Mostly. His eyes weren’t green and there was something about his nose that reminded you of your own. The biggest tell of all though was the genuine fear in his face, the confusion. 

“What’s your name,” you said. You held up the knife for a moment and tucked it away when you saw he was only focused on it. The young man, no more than twenty years old, took a deep breath. You yelped when he threw his legs up and wrapped them around your waist, yanking you off of him. He scrambled to his feet but you were on his tail, grabbing at his jacket. He spun around and popped you in the face, sending you to the floor.

You whined and cupped your cheek, the young man frozen in the doorway with a horrified look on his face.

“Who punches their own mom!” you shouted. He ran out the door and you went after, growling at your bare feet as he took off down the gravel driveway. “I’m gonna find you!”

You stomped your foot on the cool concrete front path, glancing to your right and spotting a sports car. You jogged back inside and found a pair of women’s sneakers, a little too big but you tied them tight and found some keys on a front table. 

About two minutes later you were pulling up beside the guy on the road and hopped out of the car, the man running into the nearby treeline. You pulled out your knife and threw it, catching his jacket and pinning the sleeve to the tree trunk. He stumbled and fell down as you walked over, staring up with wide eyes. You sighed and ran a hand over your face. 

“Can you at least tell me your first name?” you asked. He shook his head and you crossed your arms. “I bet your name is Lyle, isn’t it.”

“How’d you know that?” he asked, voice a bit higher than Dean’s but it made you smile, something warm and familiar to it.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think recently. Lyle is my top name for a boy if I ever had one,” you said. “So. Lyle Winchester.”

“That’s not my name,” he said. He stood up and pulled out the knife, carefully holding it out to you.

“You look just like Dean and me. You’re my son...somehow,” you said.

“Fine. My name is Lyle and that’s all I can say about myself,” he said. “I’m serious.”

You recognized the tone, that edge to it, the roughness but laced with an undercurrent of worry. Part of you wanted him to tell you everything about him but you knew he couldn’t, instead letting yourself give him a simple nod.

“I’ll make you a deal Lyle. I won’t ask questions about you that you can’t answer if you tell me how and why you got me out of there and answer anything else I want to know about this little situation.”

“Or else what?” he scoffed.

“Or else someday when you’re a teenager I won’t let you do anything. Lyle.” You took the knife from him and put it away, taking a deep breath. You stepped back out to the road, leaning against the car. You shut your eyes, something heavy draped over you. You peeled one eye open, Lyle leaning back against the car next to you in a blue flannel and dark gray t-shirt. His black hooded jacket was over your shoulders and you slipped your arms through the sleeves, wrapping them around yourself. You squeezed your eyes tight, shuddering before warm arms embraced you, Lyle almost as tall as Dean holding you close to him. “How did you know I was down there?”

“I can’t answer that,” he said.

“What year is it?” you asked.

“2089.” You froze, staring up at him. “Well, 2089 where we are right now is.”

“Lyle. It was 2018 when Michael took me. That’s not possible.”

“I can’t answer that either.” Tears welled up in your eyes and he hugged you again. “Sorry.”

“Dean was thirty nine the last time I saw him and it’s seventy one years later? He is dead. Sam is dead. They’re all dead so explain to me how the fucking hell I have a son with Dean!” you shouted. You pushed him away and ran your hands over your face. “Years. Fucking years I’ve sat down there waiting for him to come and get me. Him or Sam or someone. Fucking seventy one years!”

“Y/N,” he said, sounding a bit awkward but he cleared his throat. “I can’t answer everything because I don’t know everything. But I exist and that should tell you something.”

You wiped off your face with his sleeve and looked around, turning back and staring at him.

“I’m at the start of whatever this is and you’re way down the line,” you said. He nodded with a slight smile.

“I don’t understand it but this, where I’m from, this has already happened to you.”

“You’re from the future then,” you said.

“Not exactly,” he said. 

“A different universe?” He looked at you like you were nuts and the air shifted, Lyle freezing. You turned and saw Jack, a smile on his face. “Jack?”

“Hi Y/N,” he said. He stepped over and gave you a big hug, a little bit of ache inside you easing finally. “Don’t worry about him. He’s just on pause.”

“Jack I don’t understand fucking anything. What’s going on?” you asked. He pursed his lips and sighed.

“Well you already figured out Lyle is your and Dean’s son. I didn’t think I could slip that one past you. But it had to be him that came and saved you.”

“Why?”

“Dean’s in heaven. Has been for 69 years.” You broke away from him feeling like you’d had a punch to gut and making you breathless. “I probably shouldn’t have told you that with the whole decades worth of trauma thing happening right now.”

“Did Michael…” you trailed off.

“No. A piece of rebar on a vamp hunt,” he said.

“He what?” you said.

“Yeah got pushed back on it. Sam was okay though. Oh and Dean had a dog for a few months.”

“Dean fucking died from that? That’s what kept him down?” you said. Jack nodded and you looked down, blinking your eyes. “Disregarding what is going on in my head right now about that, why didn’t you heal him? Or Castiel?”

“Well Cas was in heaven helping me rebuild after he sort of died and I brought him back. I kinda am the new God,” he said with a smile.

“I’m proud of that but again, why didn’t you come down here and heal Dean?”

“I’m sort of hands off in that regard,” he said. You were about to go off on him for that when it hit you.

“Jack how long have you known I was alive,” you said. 

“2020 when I took over, I got these extra-”

“You knew I was alive and  left me in a hole in the ground for over seventy years?” you said. 

“Like I said, I’m hands off,” he said. 

“I was your fucking mom! I took care of you! I protected you! I almost died for you more than once and when you find out I’m still alive you say fuck that bitch, she can deal with it on her own? What the fuck is wrong with you!” you shouted. You slapped him in the face, Jack pouting as you sank down to your knees. “I want Dean.”

“Y/N.”

“I want Dean and Sam.”

“Y/N-”

“I want Dean!”

“I can’t-”

“Fuck you! You’re as every bit as evil as that devil father of yours after all,” you said. You forced yourself to your feet, tears prickling in his eyes. “Oh did I hurt your feelings? Tough fucking shit! Do you realize that I have not only been stuck waiting for years but my body got stuck too. I’ve been sitting with broken ribs for seventy years. Every single breath excruciating.”

You yanked up your shirt, deep purple and black skin radiating across most of your abdomen. Jack reached out a hand and you moved back, dropping your shirt.

“I thought you were hands off. I don’t want your-” you said before warmth trickled through you, the pain gone, body feeling so strange at being without it. 

“I don’t have to touch to heal you,” he said quietly. He swallowed and bowed his head. “I tried to let people live their lives without my interference and sometimes they’re messy but I’ve come to realize recently that’s wrong. A bit of help here and there is good. It gives people hope and maybe I should have done things different.”

“My family’s dead and I don’t want to wait around decades more to see them again in heaven. You’re going to-”

“No I won’t. Lyle’s life counts on you doing exactly what you’re supposed to as do your two other children’s. I can’t just put you in heaven. You can’t die right and you have to wait to see Dean until things work themselves out. Lyle’s going to be with you for a while and help get some things settled. It’s already set in motion so go with it,” he said.

“Jack I want Dean. Please,” you said. “Please Jack. Just five minutes.”

“Would you rather have your family back in the near future, alive, or would you rather have your and Dean’s souls torn apart and you never see him again, dead or alive? Rather he over there doesn’t exist? Rather no one exists?”

“I didn’t say that. Of course I would rather have them back alive-“

“Then be patient.”

“Jack. You gotta give me something. Something please.”

“I’ll talk to Lyle, tell him he can loosen up some. But I can’t tell you what to do. You have to follow your gut. Listen to Lyle and it’ll work out,” said Jack. You squeezed your eyes shut, Jack carefully resting a hand on your shoulder. “Do you hate me?”

“I hate that our family was ripped apart. I hate that you didn’t tell the boys I was alive once you knew. I hate that the last time I saw Dean alive we argued. I think what I hate most of all is that you treated us like everyone else. We’re not, Jack. We’re your family. All of us deserved a chance at normal and we didn’t get it.”

“Sam did.”

“How many years did Sam live without us? Without his brother?” you asked. Jack glanced down and you nodded. “You said you became God? Why didn’t you get rid of the monsters altogether Jack. Don’t tell me you don’t have that power.”

“I thought...I thought it was the natural order.”

“Yet you know there are other universes with no monsters at all. You could have taken the monsters away. Shit turn them human for all I care. The boys didn’t have to keep hunting after you took over. You could have been hands off and changed that one fact and saved so many lives, improved so many lives.”

“No. I couldn’t have changed it. Not back then.”

“Why the hell not?” you asked. He pulled his hand away and you found yourself in some clean clothes, Lyle’s jacket folded on top of the car.

“Because when I became God, I learned a lot. It sucks knowing that certain things have to happen and that I had to ignore when Sam prayed to me in that barn because things had to happen this way.”

“But why?”

“Because if I didn’t, if I’d intervened then and there, this universe, all of the ones I’ve been busy rebuilding, the way I’ve been rebuilding heaven...it’d be gone. Destroyed and I wouldn’t be able to put it back. It’s a temporary pain even if it doesn’t seem like it. So please, Y/N, please, listen to Lyle. Work with him. It’ll work out and things can be okay. You can have everything you ever wanted and more. You can have the freaking apple pie life and the no monsters and all of it but please understand you have more shit to go through first and whatever happens, do not let Lyle die.”

“He’s my son. I wouldn’t let that happen to him,” you said. Jack nodded and you grabbed his arm when he turned to leave. “You’ve grown up Jackie.”

“I’m still a baby by God standards,” he said.

“The guys take care of you after I was gone?” you asked. 

“Yeah. I missed you though,” he said. “I accidentally killed Mary and sort of lost my soul for a bit. Things got bad for a while.”

“Do you see Kelly in heaven sometimes? Mary?” you asked. He nodded and you smiled. “Kids can fuck up and your parents will forgive you.”

“I’m sorry it has to be this way, Y/N. If I could snap my fingers to fix it all, stop it from ever happening, I would.”

“I’m going to trust that it had to be this way,” you said. “But give me a ballpark figure here. When do I get the guys back?”

“That’s relative. You’re going to end up breaking the space time continuum so it’s hard to answer that correctly.” You stared at him and he shrugged. “Not too long. A few days at most. I promise.”

“Wait is that how we have a twenty year old son?” you asked.

“Yes. The next time you see Dean he’ll be younger than the last you saw him. Just trust your gut and Lyle. Next time I see you I hope things are much better,” he said. You opened your mouth but he disappeared. You shook your head and turned around, Lyle now wearing his jacket, standing closer to the passenger seat door. For a long while you both simply stared, Lyle looking as if he’d just had his own long conversation with Jack. 

“You can call me Y/N if that makes it easier,” you said. He nodded and you took a deep breath, going to the driver’s side. “So. What’s the next move?”

“Jack just said after I got you out we had to go to Lebanon. He didn’t tell me anything more than that,” he said.

“Any idea where we are?” you asked.

“San Antonio,” he said. “So we go North?”

“Yeah,” you said quietly. “Mind taking the first shift driving? I sort of haven’t slept in like seventy years.”

“No that’s fine,” he said. He walked around the front and you made your way to the passenger side, climbing in and sighing. He got behind the wheel and took a deep breath. “You and dad run a construction business.”

“That’s nice,” you said, smiling to yourself. “Dean’d be real good at that kind of thing. He’s really smart.”

“I know. Most guys can’t call up their dad for help on their architecture homework,” he said. 

“You go to college?” you asked, Lyle nodding. “Do you know about...this stuff?”

“I’m still not convinced I’m not insane. I just got home on a friday night. We had dinner and everyone went outside to have a bonfire in the backyard. I went in to use the bathroom and Uncle Jack stopped me before I could get back outside. He said a lot of crazy stuff I didn’t believe but the fact you were in that basement...you and dad are only like forty but you’re obviously too old right now to have had me when that would have made sense and Uncle Jack said space and time is gonna break and-”

“Lyle,” you said, holding up a hand. “Relax. I just want to know, do you know what hunting is?”

“Dad doesn’t go hunting,” he said, narrowing his eyes. You smiled and nodded to yourself. “We don’t even own a gun.”

“I doubt that. But that must mean that something happens to the monsters along the way too.”

“What do you mean monsters? And why were you kidnapped in a basement? And what the fuck is going on? You’re supposed to be my mom that runs the family business and you kick ass in your soccer league in the summer and you can’t cook to save your life and that’s okay cause you’re really good at baking and pies and shit and I just don’t understand who you really are.” His face was flush, eyes fighting back tears. You smiled, reaching over and cupping his cheek.

“You’re a good guy Lyle. We obviously did something right,” you said, wiping away a stray tear that fell. “It’s scary. It’s really scary. I’m not your mom yet but I will be someday. I promise I will tell you everything you don’t know when I catch up to your time. Dean and I will. But we need to go to Lebanon and the faster we can go there and figure out what we have to do, the faster we can get you back home where you belong.”

“But can’t you-”

“This world isn’t safe, Lyle. It is very unsafe for a Winchester especially. Please drive now,” you said. You put on your seatbelt and he closed his eyes. “Please.”

“I was supposed to be having a smore right now,” he said.

“I know. But saving the world is kinda cool,” you said. 

“I don’t want to save the world. I want to go home and not see my mom be beat to shit. I want my dad to go back to teasing me at dinner and not being dead,” he said. 

“If we do this right, you can go back to that really soon. It hasn’t happened for me yet. We can talk all about this when you come back. The night you come back we can talk through it all. But we have to get going. The sooner we go, the sooner it goes back to normal.”

“It’ll never be normal again.”

“Yes it will. I promise.”

“How do you-“

“Because I just had this really bad thing happen to me but someday I’m going to have you and everything I ever wanted with Dean. So it sucks right now but it’ll be better eventually. I know it will. You’re here so I know it’ll be normal.” He nodded and wiped off his face, starting the car up again.

“Y/N. Are you okay after...you know...being down there beat up all that time?”

“Not really,” you said. He took off his jacket and handed it to you. You stared before he rolled his eyes, laying it over your front.

“Sleep. I can drive.”

“Lyle.”

“Y/N. Rest. It’s safe. I got this.”

“You take after your dad.”

“Take after someone else too,” he said. You smiled and nodded, resting your head on your shoulder, closing your eyes. “I’ll wake you up for breakfast.”

“Egg and-”

“Cheese on a biscuit, two breakfast burritos, extra hot sauce and a small hot latte.”

“At least my road trip order didn’t change,” you said, quickly relaxing and falling asleep for the first time in ages.

_______

A/N: Read part 2 here!

[nopelleen]

Perish, Pretty Please (5/5)

ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: Rick Flag was known to be a pretty good leader, it was the reason why he had been chosen to lead a squad of infamously reckless and idiotic criminals, however it was a lot harder to maintain his authority when one member of the team despised his guts for seemingly no reason.

ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: Rick Flag x Reader

ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 5.7k

ɴᴏᴛᴇ: it took me so long, but it’s finally there -- the last part! I started this fanfiction knowing I had a tendency not to finish them and I’m honestly so proud right now, I hope you’ll enjoy this last part as much as I enjoyed writing all of this! (also please let’s all have a moment of silence to remember the moment my hopeful, foolish ass actually posted the first part with “1/2″ in the title)

“Nope, there’s something we gotta take care of first."

You watched with blatant bafflement as the three men nonchalantly walked away from the blazing truck that had been transporting them merely minutes ago. There was almost a bit of disappointment in your heart as you watched the plan you and Cleo had so meticulously orchestrated on your way here vanish into thin air. It was a shame – your rescue plan involved a lot more wow factor. Had you known the outcome of this small drawback, you wouldn’t have put so much effort into it; but how could you have guessed the three of them would find a way out of a van guarded by multiples soldiers all the while handcuffed and therefore supposedly incapacitated? That was absurd.

“Don’t look so surprised, it’s insulting.”

You shot Flag a tight lipped, mocking smile as a response to his friendly jab, clearly recognizing the words you had used against him in the afternoon. Your sardonic grimace poorly mirrored the playful smirk the colonel adorned as he walked towards the van, and you were surprised to feel your heart swell a bit when you noticed his smile spread into a genuine one as he walked past you, slightly shaking his head in amusement.

Without even questioning how they had gotten themselves out of that prickly situation, you whirled around and followed suit as Rick climbed back into the van, telling Milton the small change of plan. That one enthusiastically nodded before happily informing the squad that you’d reach the city by dawn, making you realize you had spent a good chunk of the night at that bar and yet did not feel that tired yet – which might just have been from the adrenaline released into your system at the sight of your three teammates walking out of a blazing vehicle.

“You sleep, I watch Thinker,” Nanaue suggested as he heavily lumbered towards the back of the van, where the hostage was surprisingly staying very still, wise enough not to attempt anything while sharing the same space as King Shark.

Your steps faltered as you entered the van, your gaze hesitatingly flickering towards the seats in the back which appeared way too crowded for your liking. You usually would’ve simply gone back to your seat at the front, but Rick was now occupying the one near the window, probably as a way to stay close to the driver.

With a reluctant sigh, you were about to follow King Shark towards the back when Rick casted a pointed look towards you before patting the seat beside him in case you did not understand.

Relief washed over you and you didn’t even need to give it a second thought before flopping onto the space beside him, glad not to have to settle for a spot anywhere near Peacemaker. Your muscles were stiff as you quite literally bounced onto the cushion, and as soon as your back did as much as graze the backrest, the entire day of walk, hours of dancing and minutes of worrying about Flag’s well-being caught up with you with a dizzying speed.

If earlier that day you had been able to fight off sleep vigorously, you now found yourself melting into the cushion of your seat as soon as you flopped onto it. At first, you remained steadfast, refusing to yield to your basic human needs as you forced yourself to sit up straight, but then there was a strong gravitational pull making you sway a bit on your seat as your head started lolling forward, and then another pull – Rick’s hand, this time – gently steering you back into your seat. Incapable of fending off the drowsiness any longer, you surrendered and finally allowed yourself to loosen up, feeling your head snugly land upon Rick’s shoulder as you drifted off into a soundless sleep.

-----

“Outburst, hey!”

“She’s sleeping.”

From his seat at the very back of the van, Peacemaker frowned as he craned his neck in an attempt to peer at your figure still slumped over Rick’s shoulder. “Well, wake her up,” he groused, tinges of annoyance seeping from his usually polished tone. “She’s… spewing her emotions all over the place. It’s reeking of sadness in there.”

◦◦◦

“It’s reeking in there; crack a window open, will you?”

Your finger harshly jabbed the switch, your gaze remained firmly fixed on the buildings passing by in a blur as the window lowered just a bit in an abrupt, choppy motion. From the corner of your eye, you caught a glimpse of your mother shooting you a brief, curious look. You hadn’t uttered a word ever since you two had left the family reunion. You knew it hadn’t been a good idea to agree to come.

The car then lapsed into another uncomfortable silence. You were both acutely aware of the thick, sweltering acrimony flooding off of you and yet still refused to address it, instead letting you bask in it with your mouth clamped shut, letting it gnaw your insides until your lungs felt charred, incapable of drawing oxygen any longer.

Why had you agreed to this? You were an adult; you didn’t need to expose yourself to this anymore.

You bit the inside of your cheek and tried to breathe in deeply, only for your chest to constrict, becoming painfully hollow. Tears started brimming at the edges of your vision and you finally allowed your lips to part, letting a bated breath stumble out of them with urgency.

“I heard you earlier.”

◦◦◦

“I’m not waking her up,” Rick scowled in one curt sentence, already feeling a bit on edge and therefore not wanting to dwell on the matter.

Peacemaker’s eyebrows furrowed even deeper at Rick’s unwavering tone. He usually dealt easily with negotiation and compromises, he worked well under authority and was a suitable soldier because of it, but at the moment, he couldn’t find it in himself to be patient – maybe because of how thick with tension the atmosphere had become because of you.

“We can feel her,” he insisted again, spitting the words out in an irritated hiss.

◦◦◦

“Honey, I can feel you, tone it down,” your mother complained as she kept her eyes on the road. Either your words went completely over her head, or she refused to acknowledge them, knowing that with the amount of resentment she could feel rolling off of you in waves, there was no way a discussion could lead to a good outcome at the moment. She was already having a hard time not letting the irritation get to her in spite of the smoldering atmosphere.

“I heard you talking to aunt Matty,” you reiterated. “You said it was my fault.”

“What was?”

“Dad leaving.”

The uttered words dropped like thunder in the car, leaving the air charged with electricity.

“I didn’t say that,” she rebutted with a bit of an acerbic tone. The tension was starting to get to her, slowly but steadily eating away at her mind in spite of her resolve. She could feel the resentment seeping into her like a foreign body infiltrating her immune system, but paradoxically, the angrier she got, the less willing she was to fight it off. “Don’t twist my words, you know I hate when you do that.”

◦◦◦

“I didn’t say she wasn’t allowed to sleep,” Peacemaker clarified, starting to sound a bit agitated as the tensed atmosphere got more and more on his nerves. “I’m simply saying she shouldn’t until we are.”

“She’s not hurting anyone.”

◦◦◦

“You said I was hurting him.”

“I said he was often on the wrong end of your temper. Listen, it’s—”

“Back off!”

◦◦◦

“Back off,” Rick sternly admonished him as soon as Peacemaker made a step towards the front of the bus, protectively wrapping an arm around your sleeping form. “She needs to rest. She got shot acting as a distraction so your team could make a smooth entrance, remember?” he reminded the man scornfully.

Peacemaker’s face remained calm in spite of the irritation coloring his eyes. His gaze briefly flickered from you to Flag, hesitating.

“Don’t make me repeat myself.”

◦◦◦

“You know how you made him feel,” your mother uttered, efficiently putting an end to the exchange.

You remembered the times during which you were moody, when you came back home after having spent the entire day feeling everyone’s emotions around you, when your father did as much as try to talk to you about it, thus instantly setting you off. He was always the spark that ignited you. Whether he was inquiring about your day, or commenting on your behavior, or even just standing a bit too close to you… He’d end up angry, hurt, aggressive – whatever you were feeling at the moment, he’d always end up feeling it too.

Your mother was just wise enough to stay away.

But you also remembered the shouts in the kitchen, the jabs, the constant bickering between them. You remembered listening to it from the stairs and then being blamed for their bad tempers. You’d be blamed for the anger, the aggressiveness, the slaps that so often echoed through the house.

She was wise enough to stay away, and yet be close enough when she’d need an excuse.

“It wasn’t just me,” you whispered through gritted teeth.

“I never said it was.”

“It was you,” you spat out as you whipped your head towards her. “You made him miserable.”

Your eyes were completely focused on her face, her pursed lips and closed-off features, and never once did you notice the way her foot slowly started pressing further onto the accelerator.

◦◦◦

You woke up with a start and instantly casted a frantic gaze around you, expecting the usual blaring horns and shouts that followed this exchange. You were surprised to find yourself in a safe environment, all wrapped up in an unexpected warm, comforting atmosphere. Usually, the second you woke up, your instincts picked up on the foul aura of anguish you had unconsciously secreted into the air, and yet, here, you could feel nothing but utter peacefulness.

One of your eyebrows formed an elegant arch as you lowered your gaze to glimpse at the warm weight wrapped around you, only for your eyes to land on a familiar calloused hand hanging from your shoulder and almost grazing your cheek. You felt a faint smile tenderly pulling at the corners of your lips before even turning your head to confirm the identity of the owner of the arm wrapped around your shoulders, and when you turned your head to direct your gaze towards Flag’s sleeping face, you simply found yourself incapable to fight it off anymore.

Then, with a fond smile pulling at the corners of your lips, you snugly nestled you head back into his side and shut your eyes, this time knowing for a fact that you wouldn’t risk infuse the atmosphere with anything else than a blissful quietude.

◦◦◦

It was chaos. Utter chaos.

Your car was long abandoned a few feet away from you, fuming after having hit another vehicle in the middle of an intersection. The driver who had started fighting with you was now in a fully blown-out fist fight with another man who had merely tried to step in for you, and the more people got out of their cars to understand what was going on, the more people got trapped under your influence and started fighting, some going as far as purposefully ramming their vehicle into another’s.

Your voice was hoarse from shouting at the driver who had first attacked you and you were now trembling with anger as you watched an entire riot unfold before your very eyes, unconsciously fueling it with intense waves of rage that'd hit any innocent that'd happen to walk a bit to close to the scene.

Someone gripped your shoulder and you tried to jerk away from the touch, whirling your head towards the person with your teeth bared, ready to attack whoever was trying to get your attention.

“Honey, focus on me, alright? Focus on me.”

The voice was rough, the tone frenzied, and yet when the hands grasped your shoulders, it was with an unexpected gentleness. The fingers were quivering with restraint, barely managing not to dig into your skin in an attempt to snap you out of it.

This staggering tenderness startled you so much that it managed to take you out of your trance for a fleeting moment, allowing reason to take over as you fought back the instinctive urge to shove the hands away. With frantic, brimming eyes, you diverted your gaze towards your mother, desperate for a comforting point of focus to latch onto like a lifeline.

A sob threatened to crawl up your throat as soon as you met her eyes. There, in the midst of all the hardly concealed anger – a glint of affection, a vacillating spike of tenderness battling to emerge from under all that vibrating rage your mind was forcefully pushing into her. With a choked-up breath of relief, you instinctively stepped forward, latching onto that abiding twinkle of kindness in spite of all that surrounding violence like a lifeline.

Then, when there was an anticipated screeching of tires coming from your side, a glimpse of grey metal flashing out of the corner of your eye, and an oh-so-familiar harrowing feeling of dread seizing your insides, you kept your eyes unwaveringly locked into your mother’s, resolutely shutting out everything else around you. You bored your gaze into hers and let your mind soak in her warmth.

The car never came, the shouts quietened down, your surroundings slowed down until coming to a complete halt, time stalled and your dream mercifully stepped away from your memories to spare you.

You stood there for ages lost into your mother’s loving gaze, until – having strayed too far from reality – your subconscious lost all senses of what was and wasn’t at the time and let the scene morph into whatever your mind desired. Then, when the voice spoke up again, it wasn’t your mother standing before you anymore,  but a person you now trusted more than you ever thought you would.

“Don’t be scared of me.”

 -----

“We need to help these people.”

The words went completely over your head as you despairingly gaped at the glass in front of you, feeling cold to your bones.

You had gotten a bad feeling as soon as the elevator doors had cracked open.

There hadn’t even been time to make a step forward before you had gotten hit by the foul, repugnant thickness sullying the air with a strength that almost had you rearing your head back a bit. For a dizzying second, the vile and nauseating reek had left you standing there, blearily blinking as your senses had desperately struggled to accommodate to the repellent atmosphere. Yet, in spite of the tears brimming at the corners of your eyes just from the sheer despondency emanating from the place, you had been far from imagining the atrocity, the barbarism of the experiments that were taking place down here.

Despite your reluctance, you had been forced to follow the others as they had stalked out of the elevator, engaging into the dark and humid place with feeble, hesitant steps. As you had all crossed the small entrance leading to the laboratory, you had needed to fight your instincts that they had urgently pleaded you to simply whirl around and run back into the elevator.

Every breath you had taken weighed heavily on your tongue, the pungency sticking to the walls of your throat and poisoning your lungs. Every other second you had spent down there had simply felt like another year taken off your life, the wretched atmosphere slowly eating away at your brain like acid.

In spite of all of that, it had taken some time for the horror to truly dawn on you.

The despair had crept into your heart with every step you had made into the cellar, and then, when you had gotten to the center of it, you had felt for the very first time of your life an intense claustrophobia swarming your heart. Surrounded by a sea of decaying bodies all bound together by the same searing, devastating agony, the hostile basement had quickly gone from a gruesome laboratory to a deadly trap slowly closing in on you.

With nothing but wandering bodies all around you, you felt at the bottom of a pit of wretchedness, your head swelling with an intense, overwhelming pain. It was as though you were entrapped in the center of a microwave which was channeling thousands of screams directly towards your brain instead of radiations, however one of them was significantly stronger than the others and seemed to come from the wide glass wall right in front of you.

“Impossible, dear. They’re corpses below those stars.”

In spite of the searing agony flaring through your chest, your heartbeat seemed to slow down and settle onto a numbing, soporific pace as you unconsciously started stepping towards the wide glass, as though bewitched by the heart-wrenching wail you felt coming from whatever was hiding in that liquid.

With trembling, tentative fingers, you lifted your hand and slowly pressed your palm against the freezing glass, yearning to soothe the poor sufferer from their wrenching agony. The pain only seemed to intensify at the touch, the feeling of desolation gripping your insides as your ears started ringing, completely isolating you from the others. There was nothing else in that room but you and a desolated martyr screaming with thousand of voices right into your mind.

You watched with mournful, brimming eyes as the dark figure behind the glass started stirring until a single, colossal eye revealed itself in front of you, appearing emotionless to any common spectator and yet emitting an amount of woe that would’ve had you on your knees had you not gotten so used to sensing people’s emotions.

“Outburst?”

Rick’s voice rose up right behind you but still didn’t startle you, your eyes riveted onto the creature before you with rapt focus.

“It’s in pain,” you croaked out, the faint words scraping your dry throat like some sandpaper grating your vocal cords. “It’s in so much pain.” You shifted your fingers a bit, as if trying to press your hand closer to the glass, get closer to that strange creature, completely blind to the danger it represented. The tentacles, bumps and single eye did not matter – all you could see was the utter suffering it was in.

“Well,” the Thinker unabashedly butted in, “if I’m not mistaken regarding the purpose of your self-righteous egomaniacal mission – not for much longer.”

His words dawned on you with a dry clarity and had you shifting away from the glass in one brisk motion to whirl your head towards Rick. “We can’t kill it,” you asserted with an adamant, steadfast tone that did not match the slight waver in your voice.

“We have orders.”

Rick’s steadfast voice was way more convincing than yours, and what would’ve usually been a mere reminder of his status as colonel felt like a frustrating hindrance that only heightened the desperation swarming your heart and made you let go of the glass to tighten your fists as you turned around to fully face him.

“No, we can’t, we have to help it, it’s—”

“It’s dangerous,” Rick cut you off, his distrust-colored eyes briefly flickering towards the glass wall.

“It’s suffering!”

Your distressed screech echoed through the cellar, your plea painfully reverberating on the walls and splattering the frantic desperation dripping from your tone all around the basement.

For a fleeting moment, Flag remained speechless, as if hit with full force by the intensity of your despair. During that fleeting moment, you caught a glimpse of the hesitation flashing in his eyes, the way he seemed to ponder over the situation for even just a second, wondering what to do and which way to choose. Then, his gaze flickered to the side, briefly meeting Peacemaker’s, and you were able to pinpoint the exact moment he put his guards up again, welding back on his old mask of professionalism to tightly shut out any emotion you could try to induce in him.

There was a subtle shift in his expression, so subtle you might not even have noticed had you not been so desperately seeking any trace of support on his features. Instead of showing the understanding you were so badly hoping for, the traits of his face hardened, the glint in his eyes dimmed, and then you weren’t standing before Rick anymore, you were facing the colonel, towering over you with his back straight and his orders engraved in his mind.

You were acutely aware of the fact that the mission outweighed you; you had just hoped Rick would hold enough respect towards you to give your words the slightest bit of consideration. Apparently, this respect only allowed you one minute of his time before he completely shut you out.

With a sharp, regretful sigh, he took a step towards you and grabbed your arm with a gentle reluctance that contrasted with the harshness of his tone as he said that you needed to go with the other team.

You tried to protest but his strides were long and hasty, and before you even knew it, he was punching the first-floor button of the elevator as you stood inside of it, stunned.

Just as the doors started closing before you, you feebly parted your lips to utter one last plead; your pained, wavering voice coming out laced with betrayal. “You said I could trust you.”

When he had seemed ready to turn away as soon as the doors started closing between you, Rick’s attention seemed to be piqued by your words as he shifted his gaze back onto you, lingering in front of the elevator for just a second more.

The distress coloring your eyes melted into a sullen resignation as soon as your gaze bored into his, your chest constricting with dejection. There, under the thick coat of seriousness, in the midst of all the restrained belligerence this place inspired him, no glint of affection was to be found, no spike of tenderness desperately trying to emerge from the vibrating anger – nothing but cold, glaring callousness.

Not Rick.

Colonel.

-----

“Where’s Flag?”

Bloodsport turned his gaze towards you, and you instantly recognized the apologetic look in his eyes.

As he grimly shook his head, you finally experienced it firsthand – the agony of a thousand people.

-----

“Apparently Waller sent something to his hospital room. People are joking and saying she sent flowers, but if you want my opinion the old hag probably sent him a reminder that his contract doesn’t cover paid sick leaves.”

The voice, just like the steps accompanying it, echoed through the corridor and kept getting closer to your cell, undoubtedly coming from yet another guard who’d attempt to get a word or a reaction out of you – anything that’d stop them from having to book in an appointment with the jail therapist.

You had seen many of them pass by while you had spent days in a temporary cell during your recovery but hadn’t thought they’d keep on sending them after having transferred back in your old cell this morning.

The landscape change didn’t make any difference for you, as you simply kept on staring at the wall for hours on end with the most irksome gloomy look clouding your features.

You couldn’t think about anything else than Rick.

You didn’t think you had even truly processed it yet. It had happened too fast.

Within the span of a few days, the colonel had somehow gained your trust, slowly leading you to warm up to him by showing you an affection you hadn’t experienced in years. It felt like he had turned your world upside down, made everything brighter with the prospect of saving lives alongside a superior who truly valued you, and then you had made the mistake of letting him out of your sight, forced to walk away from that dreadful laboratory for just a few minutes, and he had died there, the one person on this earth who you could genuinely trust now buried under the rumbles in that bottomless pit of agony.

You had mulled over it what felt like a thousand times already and you just could not figure out how to simply go on with your life. Not when your one chance at a brighter future had been squandered so violently as soon as you had turned your back to it.

Somehow, it felt like your fault.

You had been careless, unfocused. You had forcefully dragged Rick’s attention away from the mission at hand only because you were too weak to handle the downsides of your ability, your eyes pathetically overflowing with tears of empathy as the rest of your team simply tried to achieve the mission. You had distracted Rick as that one had been forced to take you to the elevator like a child, had unconsciously helped Peacemaker steal a secret file and forced Cleo to try and stop him on her own before Flag could come to her aid.

The file had been retrieved, but only after Bloodsport had stopped Peacemaker from coldly eliminating Cleo. Only after Rick’s body had already been left laying soundly in the laboratory.

They had fought with all their might for that file, for those values you had accused Flag of lacking merely days ago, and you hadn’t even been there.

It had been crushing to find out that the trust you held towards him had been misplaced, but it was nothing in comparison to discovering he shouldn’t have trusted you either.

You forcefully swallowed back the lump in your throat when you heard the steps finally come to a halt right by your cell and had a hard time concealing the startled look on your face when a very familiar voice rose up.

“Well well well, from what I’ve heard little princess doesn’t want to eat anymore?”

The hair on the back of your neck stood on end at the falsely dulcet tone dripping with a syrupy looking but dangerously abrasive poison. You had to keep yourself from gritting your teeth as your gaze caught up on Griggs’ silhouette standing before your cell from the corner of your eye.

“You’re not even gonna make an effort for me?” he teased you as his lips spread into a sneering smile that made him look more moronic than sadistic due to the absolute lack of sagacity behind his eyes.

You kept your mouth tightly shut and your eyes riveted to the wall across from you, trying to muster the blankest expression you could not to let him affect you but feeling a peeved expression weighing down on your features nonetheless.

“Aww, guys it looks like we’re gonna have to use the feeding tubes,” Griggs ironically groaned, turning towards his colleagues with a facetious glint in his eyes. One of them instantly stepped up to open the door to your cell, not even needing to think twice about the threat just emitted. “You know how much I hate doing that,” he then kept on jeering, much to the amusement of the other guards.

You waited with anticipation as he stepped into the cell, feeling your entire body buzzing with an overpowering apprehension, not having a clue of what you could do but knowing for a fact that with all the adrenaline slowly being spread into your system, there was no way you’d let Griggs go back to his old mistreatment.

His filthy fingers barely grazed your skin, and, as though electrified, you jumped to your feet, putting some distance between you and him. You kept your eyes determinedly fixated in front of you but could see from the corner of your eye how stunned he was by your abrupt reaction. He had gotten to the unresponsive side of you that had emerged after only a few months here, the poor figure staying down on the ground and no longer batting an eyelash at his constant abuse. His face remained dazed for a fleeting moment before the ghost of a smirk reappeared on his features.

After all, he had broken you once, it’d be no bother to do it a second time.

“What, you go on one mission with Task Force X and then you don’t like me anymore?”

He reached out a hand again, much more aggressively this time, and you jolted away, instinctively bringing a hand up without even knowing if you were willing to take the risk of hitting him.

“Step away from her, Griggs.”

The stone cold words loudly rang through the cell and heavily fell between you both, instantly followed by a deafening silence as Griggs’ hand hovered in the air for a fleeting moment, just inches away from the skin of your arm.

Then, for a dizzying, fleeting moment, it felt as though all the air had been sucked out of the cell.

Chill shivers of relief racked your spine before your brain even had time to process the voice, and then, when the familiarity of it finally sank in, you felt as though some freezing water had been dumped over you, leaving you soaked and shivering in the middle of your cell – only this time Griggs wasn't the cause of it.

You whirled your head towards the entrance of your cell with a vertiginous speed and had to bite back a choked-up noise from stumbling out of your lips when your gaze landed upon the owner of the voice glowering at Griggs with a murderous look in his eyes.

“You’re not supposed to be back yet,” Griggs pointed out sheepishly, letting his arm limply drop to his side now that his focus had been completely taken off of you.

“I was feeling better,” Rick informed him with a tight-lipped smile which then briskly dropped from his features. “Now stand down,” he repeated himself, his voice steadfast and as neutral as he could muster it. “I wouldn’t push my luck if I were you. I’ve seen what you did to her, and I’d love to show you what it feels like to be on the wrong side of the blade.”

The threat made the cell go utterly silent and for just a second, the sweetest second ever, all traces of amusement vanished from Griggs’ suddenly pale face. He looked started, nervous, oh so pathetic, and then when he finally regained his composure enough to quickly muster up the most serious look he could to paint on his pallid features, he had already lost all respect from every occupant of the room.

“You’d risk your job for a bitch who told you to eat shit five minutes into your mission?”

There was an imperceptible twitch on Rick’s features at the reminder. He had to briskly fight off a smirk pulling at the corners of his lips, but you could still discern the faintest glint of amusement in his eyes and had to swallow back a choked-up laugh – your heart swarming with a bunch of overwhelming emotions you couldn’t even identify at the moment.

His eyes briefly flickered to you. “Apparently,” he conceded with the ghost of a smirk playing on his lips, before he cast his gaze back on Griggs and recovered a cold, severe expression. “And, trust me, given how liked you are around here, I don’t think I’d risk more than a paid leave even if I attempted to murder you.”

Yet another sullen silence fell over the cell like a heavy fog, and this time, Griggs made the wise decision of not shattering it, containing his anger within a single huff before stalking out of the cell with heavy steps that made him akin to a stomping child. His colleagues briefly glanced at Rick, not quite knowing what to do, before meeting his eyes and promptly deciding to follow Griggs’ decision.

“You’re alive,” you breathlessly uttered as soon as you were both left alone.

“A bit roughed up, but yes, alive,” he winced back, turning his gaze towards you.

You knew he couldn’t feel the blissful exultation swarming your heart now that your ability was smothered by the collar secured around your neck, but you hoped he could see it in your eyes and in the way you just couldn’t seem to blink those relieved tears away.

Rick took a few steps towards you and let out a bated breath, as if he was finally allowed to exhale, as if he hadn’t been able to feel comfortable until standing near you again – and you then knew for a fact that if he couldn’t see the exultation in your heart, he at least felt it as well.

Without another word, he then tentatively brought a hand up before letting it hover uncertainly in the air. He seemed hesitant as if he wasn’t sure how to act anymore now that his mask of professionalism was gone, and you couldn’t help but let out a short chuckle. This was enough for a single droplet to finally fall from your brimming eyes, and the way Rick’s gaze seemed to soften even more at the sight of it almost led you to shedding a few more.

With utter cautiousness, he brought his hand to your face to brush the stray tear away and then left it there, his warm palm cradling your cheek.

“Looks like I’ve won again,” he said in a breath, the words merely stumbling out of his lips as if he were afraid to break that frail, tender moment of vulnerability between the two of you. His thumb gently stroked your cheek again and you couldn’t help but lean into his touch, your gaze never once leaving his. “I really want to kiss you right now.”

You had once said that the only way for Rick to ever get close to you was for you to give out your last breath, and yet, ever since that very vow you had felt yourself ever-so-slowly opening up to him, as though there was something in the air and it was killing you softly.

Now that the sweet, sweet poison had filled up your lungs – all wrapped up in his arms and boring your gaze into his with a wide-eyed fascination – you chose to completely let go of that vow, braving the risk to perish and merely uttering back two candid, gentle words.

“Pretty please.”

Previous

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[football-writing]

Trent Alexander Arnold - you deserve the world and more

Warnings: some sexual innuendos, teasing, overall birthday fluffiness

a/n: so i got a request for Trent but i don't actually know him that well? anyway watched some videos, thought his accent was cute and i don't mind the request either way so... here we are :p sorry it took a bit longer, i was quite busy with school unfortunately :(

"HAP-"

"Don't even start Trent, I will break up with you." You sat up against the headboard of your bed, a pointed finger raised toward his figure as he entered your bedroom, although it did nothing to add any significance to the empty threat.

He pouted as you interrupted his attempt at singing happy birthday to you. Granted it was early in the morning and his terrible singing was probably not the best thing to wake up to, he still figured you'd deserve some love on your birthday. Besides, he loved when you'd get all embarrassed at his antics, especially if your cheeks flushed and that shy smile played on your lips. He simply thought you were adorable.

"Please? I made a crazy remix just for you." He pleaded with you, but your glare - albeit playful - told him not to push it.

"Alright well, you'll hear it next year then." He joked as he sat down on the edge of the bed, propping himself up on his elbows before nodding his head at you. "Get dressed, baby, we got a lot to do today."

"Do we, now?" Your tone was teasing, but really you were curious as to what he had planned. It was Trent after all - the boy always planned everything to perfection.

"Didn't think I didn't have anything planned for your birthday, did you?" He raised his eyebrows at you, a smirk playing on his lips.

You only hummed amusedly in response as you got out of bed. It wasn't entirely uncommon for him to sit and wait on your bed while you got ready; he'd been round yours countless of times and knew his way around, being perfectly capable of entertaining himself while you showered and did your hair and make up. It was no surprise that when you were done and walked back into your room, he was sprawled out on your bed, watching summaries of last night's football matches.

Still, his eyes were on you as soon as you walked in in only your underwear. "Dang girl, I thought it was your birthday but this sure is a present for me." He flirted as his eyes wandered over your body. The comment earned him a roll of your eyes as you continued your way to your wardrobe, but the blush that adorned your cheeks gave away the impact that it had on you. Surely, you'd have to be used to it by now, but all his flirty remarks and admiring gazes still made butterfly erupt in your stomach.

"It's nothing too fancy, just wear something you're comfortable in." He said as he noticed you weighing your clothing options.

"How comfortable are we talking here?" You pondered out loud as you ran your hand across some shirts, trying to pick one.

"Well, not sweatpants-comfortable."

You let out a laugh at that. He knew you all too well, and if you could, you'd spend the whole day in your sweats. Instead, you opted for a white turtleneck with a black slip-on dress. It was comfortable yet cute, and matched perfectly with your doc martens. It was coincidentally also one of Trent's favourite outfits of yours.

"Dang! You tryna impress me here?" Trent hollered as soon as he saw the outfit you'd put on, immediately shutting off the tv and walking up to you.

"Depends. Is it working?" You asked as you teasingly smiled up at him, wrapping your arms around his neck.

"Perhaps." He fiddled with the straps of your dress, twisting them beneath his fingers as he avoided making eye contact with you. The blush on his cheeks betrayed him though; you had as much of an effect on him as he did on you, even after dating for so long.

it was evident too, when you drove to wherever he was taking you, his hand firmly on your thigh the whole time.

"Alright, we're here. I know what you're thinking: 'Trent, we're at the park', but it's gonna be fun, I promise." He said as soon as he parked the car.

You only held your hands up in defense as both of you got out, Trent walking over to your side immediately. The piece of cloth in his hands made you look warily at him, which he took quick notice of.

"I just wanna keep this a surprise, okay? I need to get some things from the trunk and I don't want you to see just yet. Please can I put the blindfold on?"

And if it wasn't for his stupid puppy eyes and perfect smile you would've said no. But alas, here we are, as you reluctantly let him blindfold you. You could only peak down and see the toes of your shoes, but the rest was total darkness as you relied on your sense of hearing to know that Trent was rummaging in the back of his car. Then, your sense of touch took over as Trent's hand appeared in yours, guiding you for a small walk before telling you to wait on the spot as you once again heard him rummaging around.

"You know, in any other situation this blindfold might've been fun, but I'd really like to take it off now." You hummed. Patience was never one of your virtues. And although you couldn't see Trent, the sound of his choked out breath at your innuendo made you bite back a cheeky smile.

"It's done, you can take it off."

And you did. Your eyes needed some time to adjust to the bright sun, but once they did, a gasp fell from your mouth. He stood before you with a bouquet of your favourite flowers, a picnic blanket spread out on the grass with various items laid on it. A quick glance made you realise how much thought he put into this: there were chocolate covered strawberries, grapes, some of your favourite snacks and a bottle of wine to share. He even brought a speaker so you could listen to music. The scene in front of you looked like it came straight out of a movie.

"Trent, this- this is just- I mean, wow." You stuttered out.

"Let's just enjoy ourselves, yeah? You wanna start with the strawberries?" He asked with a proud smile on his face, before gently kissing your cheek as you were still completely awestruck.

And so the rest of the day was spent sitting at that little spot in the park. You'd fed each other strawberries, giggling as Trent got chocolate on his chin, eating all your favourite snacks and reminiscing on the past year. The whole time he's just sitting there, admiring you and everything you've achieved this year, telling you time and time again how proud he is of you. It's a day well spent, and as the cold evening breeze picks up, you're moving closer to him, resting your head on his shoulder. His hand comes down on your thigh, then, just beneath the hem of your dress. He'd momentarily slip his pinky finger an inch or so underneath it, rubbing gentle circles on the now exposed skin.

"This has been amazing, Trent. Really, I appreciate it so much. just goes to show I picked the right guy, don't it?" You're giggling as you look up at him, but the confession is as genuine as it gets.

"You deserve it, baby." He whispers as he looks down into your eyes. And it's true. The whole world knows how much you deserve it. All you can do is smile brightly.

"God, I love you so much." You confess in a rushed whisper.

He doesn't even have time to respond that he loves you more before your lips are already on his, kissing him passionately to emphasise the truth in your previous statement. He kisses back with just as much intensity, his hands holding your face as he smiles in the kiss. It doesn't take long before his tongue slips in your mouth, slowly and teasingly, and you can only press yourself further into him as a response to his actions.

As much as he wants to continue, give you exactly what you want, he's awfully aware that you're both still in public. He also has another surprise for you. So he reluctantly breaks the kiss, much to your dismay.

"I- uhh. I actually have something else for you." He admits as he starts going through the basket, taking out a small box.

"Trent, really, this is too much."

"Open it baby." He says as he hands you the box. Your hand reaches up to cover your mouth as you gasp loudly, looking up at him in disbelief as soon as you open it and see what's inside.

"No way. Is this-?" You can't even form a proper sentence.

"Your birthstone and mine, yeah. I heard you talk about how much you liked the idea of them, so I thought this would be really cool. And it would look really good on you."

His confession makes you well up slightly as you roam over the necklace. It's delicate and dainty, the two birthstones sitting right beside each other in a beautiful pendant. It's absolutely mesmerising to look at, and it's the perfect gift to top off a perfect day.

"Do you want me to put it on for you?" He's whispering as he kisses your forehead, and he can feel you nod against his lips.

You turn around so he's got access to your neck. It's convenient because he won't notice the tears that silently fall from your eyes. This would go down as your best birthday ever, and it's all because of him. You couldn't have wished for anything more in life than to be by his side, and you're hoping the rest of your future together will have you feeling this pure happiness, forever. You're having to look up at the sky to stop the tears from overflowing even more.

He's careful as he puts the necklace on, brushing your hair aside, fingertips grazing over the warm skin beneath your ear as he does, rubbing your arms once he's done, signalling for you to turn back around. He kisses your shoulder before resting his chin on it as he realises you're not ready to face him yet, quickly trying to wipe away any stray tears as you try and compose yourself.

"It's okay, you don't have to hide from me baby. You deserve the world and more, you know that." He's smiling gently as he whispers from his position behind you, his arms wrapping around you too as he gently sways you from side to side.

"I'm just- this is just so nice. Everything you've done for me." Your voice is strained, and it sounds like you're holding in a sob at his kind words.

"I love you." He's whipsering as his lips find their way to your shoulder, and your neck, and cheek, peppering them in tender kisses to bring your wonderful smile back on your lips. Your head leans to his, indicating that you're okay again, saying the three words back to him once more. He's letting you go then, just so you can turn around and look him in the eyes again. He's grinning, and the mischievous glint in his eyes makes you look at him skeptically.

"Actually, I have another surprise for you."

"Babe I don't think I can take another surprise."

"You're gonna like this one, though." He's full on smirking now, and you call out his name in warning.

"Yeah, it's gonna take all night long." Your mouth falls open in shock at his vulgar comment, groaning out a quiet 'oh my god' as you slap his chest, while he's full on giggling as he falls back on the blanket.

That one comment is all it takes for you to fall back into your usual joking, teasing routine. And it's all you could ever ask for.

He is all you could ever ask for, and so much more, too.