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prdx-invdr · 8 months ago

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୨୧⸝⸝﹕if you call me a fool, then i’ll be a fool.

SUMMARY! you’ve been in love with park wonbin since the day the two of you met and never found the courage to tell him. why is it that you find yourself yearning to confess the moment someone else comes into the picture?

PAIRING! park wonbin x fem!reader

GENRE! college!au, slice of life, fluff, angst (an attempt was made), friends to lovers, IDIOTS to lovers omg WC 8.1k

WARNING! swearing, jealousy, y/n likes wonbin an insane amount girl get up, insecurity, anton instigates like it’s his job and he’s up for a promotion, random female idol is mentioned many times (nothing against her!!), not proofread

NOTE! do u guys know what song the title is from lol.. LOL also i had another wonbin fic i wanted to post and deleted it bc it sucked so actually im posting this one as a coping mechanism

you don’t realize the way you’re staring at the back of wonbin’s head until a voice snaps you out of your trance. “do you know what you want?” shotaro asks you, waving a hand in front of your face.

currently, the two of you, along with wonbin, seunghan, and anton, are standing in line at a beverage kiosk. the latter, having already received his drink, stands to your right while shotaro stands to your left. seunghan recites his order to the employee while wonbin stands idly behind him.

“don’t even bother asking,” anton chortles, lips still wrapped around his straw. “she’s probably gonna have wonbin order for her, like always.” you lightly slap him in the arm after the words leave his mouth, eyes darting to the aforementioned boy standing merely 2 inches in front of you, hoping he hadn’t heard anton’s teasing.

“i didn’t even say anything wrong! he orders for you all the time!” the boy whines, jokingly rubbing his arm where you had hit him.

shotaro lets out a curt laugh at the interaction, knowing that anton’s words held truth to them, whether you liked to admit it or not. “it’s because she’s shy. right, y/n?” he turns to you, attempting to diffuse your embarrassment. one look at the smile on his face and anyone would be able to tell that his words were complete bullshit. the two of you knew that the real reason you liked having wonbin order for you was because you liked him.

however, for your own sake, you sigh and choose to agree with shotaro’s statement, only offering a small nod. “whatever,” anton mutters under his breath, walking over to seunghan who has his own beverage in hand.

now that you, shotaro and wonbin were the only people in line, shotaro grabs your sleeve and gently pulls you backwards, putting more distance between the two of you and the boy who was now placing his order. before shotaro says anything, you know what the topic of conversation is going to be.

“do you ever plan on telling him?” is all he inquires, his voice lowering to a whisper. you avoid his piercing gaze, instead turning to look at anton and seunghan, laughing in between sips of their respective drinks. anton is already nearly finished with his, you note.

when you’re done observing them, you shift your attention to wonbin, who has his arms crossed as he points at one of the cup sizes the kiosk has on display, indicating that it’s the one he wants.

you’re unable to see his face but you’re able to picture it better than anything. the way his lip quirks upwards in an attempt to be polite to the employee. the furrow of his brow as he asks a question.

shotaro sighs at your silence and finds it astonishing how you’re able to ogle wonbin without even looking at his face. that very sigh brings you back into reality, finally meeting the gaze of the boy currently interrogating you.

“he… doesn’t think of me that way,” you slowly tell him, as if the words would physically pain you if you uttered them too quickly. shotaro lets out a noise you can only assume was meant to be a scoff, but being passive aggressive simply doesn’t run in his blood.

“are you kiddi-“ shotaro is interrupted by wonbin holding a drink in front of your face, thus putting a barrier between the two of you. “here, y/n,” the long haired boy hums, not moving from his spot until you take the beverage filled plastic cup. if you didn’t have park wonbin tunnel vision, as shotaro likes to call it, you’d see the way anton is shaking his head and letting out a short laugh in disbelief upon witnessing the interaction. “called it,” he tells seunghan, who only blinks in confusion.

“i wasn’t sure which one you wanted, but i remembered that time we went to that other drink place and you said you really liked the strawberry one, so i got you that,” wonbin explains, holding his own straw up to his mouth. he says it nonchalantly, as if you could either finish the drink in about 5 seconds before proclaiming how much you enjoyed it, or you could throw it to the ground and curse at him for assuming the flavor you wanted, and he wouldn’t flinch either way.

“um— yes— yeah, i..” you stutter, and shotaro swears it takes everything in him not to slap his own forehead at your sudden jumpiness. “i like it, thank you. you didn’t have to, wonbin,” you exhale, holding your drink with both hands.

“yeah, well, force of habit, you know?” the boy laughs. “since i’m always ordering for you anyway.” his words cause you to tense and you can just picture anton’s shit-eating grin after he heard what wonbin said. “right, yeah,” you nod, wanting the conversation to be over with. the 5 of you continue walking throughout the mall, seunghan complaining about what a ridiculous amount of time you had all just spent at that beverage kiosk.

“force of habit is crazy,” anton decides to tease you again, earning another slap on the arm. “stop hitting me!”

besides ordering drinks for you when you hadn’t requested for him to do so, anton has noticed that wonbin also tends to subconsciously let you get away with… a lot.

he doesn’t even attempt to hide the way he rolls his eyes when he walks into the living room and sees none other than you and wonbin, the latter seated on the carpeted floor while you’re situated on the couch behind him, playing with his hair.

“i shouldn’t have come in here,” he mutters, barely audible. he’s unsure if he wanted you and wonbin to hear him, but your head snaps in his direction nonetheless. “hey, anton,” you greet him despite knowing that he’d have a lot to say about your current position. he nods his head in acknowledgement before pursing his lips. you brace yourself for whatever comment he’ll inevitably make next, morphing your lips into a straight line.

“you know,” anton starts, and you’re already holding back the urge to groan. “wonbin never lets any of us touch his hair like that.”

“right, because you guys are always so eager to play with my hair, huh?” wonbin quips sarcastically. anton shrugs, although wonbin isn’t looking at him. “so you’re saying if we wanted to, we could?” anton questions, moving across the living room to grab his phone charger, finally remembering why he had walked into the room in the first place.

“nah,” wonbin replies, “not sure why you’d want to, anyway.”

“i don’t see you questioning why y/n wants to do it,” anton insists, already making his way out of the room, pausing momentarily to hear wonbin’s response.

“she doesn’t need a reason,” his older friend says, “she’s y/n.” anton shakes his head and continues on his way. you resume treading your hand through wonbin’s hair as if nothing had happened, but unbeknownst to the boy sitting in front of you, your heart rate had increased at his words.

“he’s just jealous,” wonbin jokes. you only let out a short laugh in response. you wonder how he would react if you informed him that anton had actually sprung up that conversation because he knows about your tremendous crush on the raven haired boy.

“do you think you’d ever go blonde?” you inquire, changing the subject. he lets out a snort and tilts his head to look back at you. you’re grinning, trying to ignore the way your heart does somersaults in your chest.

“i don’t think the world is ready for that,” he laughs.

“what are we laughing about in here?” a voice sings from the door way, ripping your attention away from wonbin. you turn to the perpetrator and lock eyes with sungchan, who sends you a smile. you wave at him and he takes it as an invitation to sit himself down on the couch beside you.

“nothing much,” wonbin answers. your hands finally retreat from his hair and you miss the way his shoulders slump in response.

“right,” sungchan nods, turning his attention to whatever you and wonbin are watching on tv. in actuality, neither you nor him have been paying the television any mind for at least an hour, and only now do you realize that some sort of ocean documentary has been playing this whole time.

a few minutes of silence proceed before sungchan clasps his hands together and stands up from the couch abruptly, startling you.

“man, this has been boring,” he announces, eyes darting between the two of you, seated in the same positions as when he first entered the room. “do you guys even talk?”

“we were, actually, before you walked in,” wonbin mutters, not meaning for his words to come out as sourly as they do. sungchan raises his hands in the air in defense. “hey, my bad. i didn’t realize the two of you were having an ocean documentary date,” he retorts.

“we’re not having-“ you’re about to correct him, only for him to cut you off.

“but, you know, bin,” he says, “i’m not sure how sangah would feel about you having a movie date with another girl.”

you feel like your entire world freezes over the moment you hear those words leave sungchan’s mouth. you quickly rid your face of your crestfallen expression, not wanting to give yourself away.

“who?” you can’t stop yourself from asking, and sungchan just stares at you. wonbin waves his hand dismissively, shaking his head in annoyance. “shut up, dude.”

“wait, y/n doesn’t know about sangah?” sungchan asks, a genuinely confused look crossing over his features. “i thought you guys told each other everything.”

wonbin groans in irritation. “i haven’t told anyone, actually, because it doesn’t matter. you only know because you’re nosy as fuck.”

sungchan chuckles, and you would attempt to let out a halfhearted laugh if you didn’t feel like your chest was aching. you lick your lips and stare questioningly at the side of wonbin’s head.

“look, bro,” sungchan gestures towards you, causing wonbin to turn around and meet your disheartened eyes. his face drops slightly, and you’re not in the correct headspace to try and pinpoint why. “she’s upset because you didn’t tell her!” his friend chimes.

wonbin shakes his head, still looking at you. “she’s just some girl,” he huffs. “i don’t even know her that well.”

you scoff before plastering a wobbly smile onto your face. “i’m not upset,” your voice quivers and you hope that wonbin doesn’t notice it. you’re not sure why he decides to reassure you about sangah— whoever that is— but you pray that it’s not because he’s known about your pathetic crush on him all this time and is now feeling bad for you because he’s currently seeing someone.

of course, only your cruel mind could formulate such a sickening thought.

“i’m just.. surprised,” you conclude with an unconvincing nod. wonbin closes his eyes in annoyance, and you know it’s because of his intrusive friend standing in the doorway. “sungchan, just stop spreading shit around, alright?” he gives him a tired look, finally getting up from the floor. as wonbin makes his way past sungchan in the doorway, the taller boy gives him a playful slap on the shoulder. with wonbin having left the room, you find yourself looking to sungchan with urgency.

“who is sangah?” you plead, trying to keep your emotions at bay. the boy furrows his eyebrows, confusion settling into his features once more. “why do you care, y/n?” he asks. you know that his question doesn’t come from a place of mockery, but rather genuine interest. it hits you in that moment that sungchan, as smart as he is, happens to be absolutely terrible at taking a hint.

somehow, when it came to the long lasting feelings you harbored for one of his closest friends, sungchan was none the wiser. you surmise that he wouldn’t have teased wonbin so openly about another girl had he known about your feelings for the long haired boy.

that, you suppose, you can’t really blame him for.

“um,” you start, “he’s one of my closest friends.” your words are spoken through gritted teeth and clenched fists. “i’m just curious, you know?” the lie comes out easier than you think it should’ve.

sungchan hums, crossing his arms and giving you a curt nod. “just some girl,” sungchan tells you, repeating wonbin’s words from a few minutes ago. “yoon sangah. she’s in our music fundamentals class. like, 2 days ago, i think, she wrote her instagram handle on a slip of paper and gave it to wonbin right in front of me.” your face falls for what seems like the millionth time in the past 10 minutes. you can only offer the tall boy a nearly inaudible hum in response.

“do you think it’ll lead to anything? you know, between her and wonbin?” again, you can’t stop yourself from asking. you feel sick at the thought of playing into the role of ‘jealous, overthinking girlfriend’, and even sicker at the fact that you and wonbin aren’t even dating. what right do you have to be inquisitive about his love life?

still, you can’t help it. when sungchan takes a bit longer to respond to your question you fear you’re treading on dangerous territory, afraid that even the dense boy you’re conversing with may have cracked the code. the grin that he aims at you a few seconds later serves as reassurance that, no, he still doesn’t know anything.

“that’s a good question, y/n dearest,” he pats your shoulder lightly. “i guess only time will tell.”

you hate yourself for what you’re doing right now.

looking back on the conversation you had with sungchan hours prior to this moment, you recalled him mentioning that sangah had given wonbin her instagram. thus, like any normal person would do in your situation, you took it upon yourself to go through wonbin’s following list in an attempt to find her.

you scroll past your own account, past the accounts of your mutual friends, and a few people who you presume are some of wonbin’s classmates.

when you finally stumble across sangah’s account, your body fills with dread before you even see a proper photo of her.

judging by her profile picture alone, you can tell that she’s pretty. you’re fully looking at her profile now, and your frown only deepens. she’s beautiful.

you shake your head as if it would help ease your racing mind. she’s beautiful, yes, you think, but looks aren’t everything. you find yourself childishly crossing your fingers that sangah had the personality of an evil witch, so that even if wonbin fell victim to her physical charm, he’d be pushed away by her true nature.

you let out a quiet scoff. you can’t believe you’re sitting here thinking badly about another girl just because she might have a crush on the same man you’ve been in love with since the day you met him. in the same sense, you can’t believe that when you say that sentence out loud, it actually sounds a bit reasonable. you blame sungchan, for a moment, drawing the inference that you wouldn’t feel so insecure right now if it hadn’t been for his previous teasing.

you can’t stop yourself when you click on one of sangah’s posts. she doesn’t have many, but the few that she has have seemed to gather thousands of likes. despite this, you take note of the fact that wonbin doesn’t have any of them liked— thank god, you think to yourself. you start to analyze her photos, the faces she makes at the camera, the outfits she wears, the way her hair is styled. when studying her facial expressions, you wonder if she’s made those same faces while looking at wonbin. when taking her outfits into consideration, you wonder if wonbin has seen her wearing any of them and thought she looked particularly nice. whilst examining her hair, you resist the urge to rip out your own. it’s perfect. she’s perfect.

she’s perfect, and from what you can tell, you aren’t anything like her. so what does that make you?

you move to close the app, feeling filled to the brim with self doubt when you suddenly freeze as your phone vibrates. you hesitantly open your dms and your eyes widen as they fall upon the newest message.

[3:02 AM] 1bin_02: why are u awake

your heart races and you momentarily contemplate if wonbin had somehow set up a security camera in your bedroom without your knowledge because how on earth did he know?

you don’t ponder on the matter for long, the aforementioned boy sending another message merely a few seconds later.

[3:02 AM] 1bin_02: u have ur activity status turned on btw

exhaling a breath of relief, you type a response to him.

[3:03 AM] you: why are U awake park wonbin

[3:03 AM] 1bin_02: i just woke up like 5 minutes ago. my y/n senses were tingling and my unconscious body felt a disturbance

[3:04 AM] 1bin_02: kiddinggg

[3:04 AM] 1bin_02: but fr why are u awake

you hold your breath as you type out your next response, choosing to be daring. you decide that, even if it’s only for a few seconds, you’re no longer going to be a coward.

[3:06 AM] you: i was thinking about u

[3:06 AM] 1bin_02: ditto

[3:07 AM] 1bin_02: i know im amazing and everything but don’t let me stop u from getting ur beauty rest 🙄 jk

[3:07 AM] 1bin_02: gn dummy

you decide against saying anything else, shutting off your phone with a sigh. you are a dummy, you think, and the boy who had just given you that title has no idea that it’s all because of him.

you’re exhausted the next day, concluding that being awake at 3 in the morning despite knowing that you had a class at 8AM was not the best idea.

wonbin is quick to take note of this, poking you on your side as the two of you follow your usual route to your next lecture of the day. “i bet someone regrets staying up until 3AM, hm?” he doesn’t bother to hide his smirk as you swat his hand away. “like you weren’t up at 3AM, too,” you mutter. he clicks his tongue in response. “that was only for a few minutes,” he says, “who knows how long you were awake for, though.”

before you’re forced to dignify wonbin with a response, anton and seunghan walk up to the two of you, the latter offering a wave while the former only smiles.

“where are we headed, guys?” seunghan asks, throwing an arm around wonbin. the boy attempts to shrug him off to no avail. “anton and i wanted to go get drinks and we were wondering if you guys wanted to come with,” he grins before quietly adding, “and maybe also pay for them.”

you laugh and wonbin turns to you upon hearing it, letting out a playful scoff of his own. “can’t, y/n has class in 10 minutes or so,” he turns to the two boys who now have their eyebrows raised in apprehension. “that’s where we were headed,” he finishes.

“and you’re walking her there,” anton nods, his words posing as more of a statement than a question. you can only dramatically roll your eyes. wonbin doesn’t seem to pick up any undertones, only nodding in response. “i might be able to tag along afterwards, though. no promises.”

“well, anton,” seunghan sighs, turning to his friend, “we’ll just have to take shotaro inste-“

the boy is cut off by the sound of a girlish voice calling out wonbin’s name. all 4 of you turn around in unison, and you feel like your heart has physically sunken into the floor. sangah.

wonbin’s at a loss for words for a moment and you want to run away more than anything. you’re not prepared to see the two of them interact, especially after looking at her instagram page last night. “hey, sangah,” is all he says, a smile plastered on his face that pains you to look at.

the girl is practically beaming. “what are you up to?” she grins, her eyes not daring to look anywhere but him. his eyes flicker to you momentarily, who is struggling to breathe.

“i’m walking her—” he gestures to you and sangah finally looks away from him, eyes now trained on yours, “to class. well, i was, before these two showed up.” wonbin waves a hand in anton and seunghan’s direction, the two boys adorning matching confused expressions on their faces. nobody moves a muscle for a few seconds and you’re afraid that your rapid heartbeat can be heard atop of the pin-drop silence.

“oh! my bad,” wonbin clears his throat, “guys, this is sangah,” he gestures towards the girl, “sangah, this is… guys.” he gestures towards his friends. “and y/n,” he gestures towards you for the second time, giving you a tap on the shoulder for good measure. sangah’s mouth forms an ‘o’ and she reaches out to shake your hand. you’re positive that if it weren’t for the freezing hallways of your university, your hands would be sweating, so you silently thank whoever’s in charge of the ac for seemingly always having it cranked up to the max. you and the girl shake hands, her smile noticably brighter than yours.

“nice to meet you, y/n,” she says. “you, too,” is all you’re able to respond with, smile tight.

“nice to meet you guys, too,” she waves at anton and seunghan with both hands and they wave back, offering their own respective greetings in return. awkward.

you cough, attempting to break the silence. “this has been fun,” you press your lips together for a second, “but i’ve gotta get to class. hope you guys have fun at that drink place later, or whatever,” you trail off, the last part of your sentence aimed towards anton and seunghan. “and it was nice meeting you, again,” you add, making eye contact with sangah. she smiles. you don’t say anything to wonbin as you attempt to squeeze past him, but he grabs your arm. “i’m walking with you, remember?” he says. you resist the urge to look at sangah or anyone else in your vicinity for that matter, surprised at his words. this random girl who’s obviously into him is standing only a few inches away and wonbin still insists on walking you to class.

“it’s okay,” you shake your head, unsure. wonbin can tell that you’re beginning to feel upset and he desperately wishes that sangah and even seunghan and anton were anywhere but here. “y/n-“ he starts, you cut him off. “it’s fine, wonbin,” you reaffirm. it isn’t, though.

you begin to walk in the direction of your class and release a breath that you hadn’t known you were holding. deep down, you wanted wonbin to disregard your words and resume walking with you, leaving sangah and his friends standing in the hallway. but wonbin was too polite for that, and you couldn’t even turn around to see if he had continued to engage in conversation with the 3 of them because you felt tears forming in your eyes. stupid, stupid, stupid, you think to yourself.

unbeknownst to you, sangah was able to sense the tension in the atmosphere before anyone had even said anything to her. she kisses her teeth, scratching the side of her head. “i should probably go, too,” she tells wonbin. the boy can tell that she would’ve liked to talk more, but he wasn’t looking to become friends or even acquaintances with her. doing that would only give her the wrong idea, and he didn’t want to have any bad blood with someone he’d be forced to see nearly everyday in class. the boy nods in understanding, giving her a wave. “nice.. talking to you,” he bids her farewell, unsure of what to say, because whatever had just transpired definitely did not qualify as a conversation. the girl waves back with an unwavering smile, walking in the opposite direction you had gone.

“oh, man,” seunghan lets out a laugh he had been holding in, “that was the worst. please don’t ever put me through anything like that again.” anton silently agrees, cringing.

“is it just me,” wonbin starts, ignoring his friend’s remark, “or did y/n seem kind of upset before she left?”

anton stretches his arms slightly, eyes looking anywhere but at his dark haired friend. “wonder why that might be,” he muses under his breath, but wonbin catches it. “what do you mean?” he pushes, looking his younger friend in the eye. anton puts his hands in the air in mock surrender.

“anton, what the hell do you mean?” wonbin asks again, voice tinged with annoyance. anton shakes his head, “figure it out.”

seunghan watches his friends go back and forth, a bit confused himself. much like sungchan, he seems to be completely oblivious when it comes to the way you feel about wonbin.

you’re currently sitting in class wondering why you even bothered to show up.

you knew before you even sat down that you wouldn’t be able to process a single word of the lecture, your mind thinking over your first official encounter with sangah.

ever since last night, you’ve started to dread moments like these— none of your friends being around to distract you, leaving you alone with your own miserable thoughts. it feels as though each minuscule moment of silence is filled with your insecurities being pushed to the forefront of your mind.

what did they talk about after you had left? did seunghan and anton decide to leave shortly after, leaving wonbin and sangah alone? did they grow closer in the small amount of time they were left together? even worse, what if the amount of time they spent together wasn’t small at all? oh god, what if they’re still together right now?

had anton, seunghan or, worst of all, wonbin decided to invite sangah to their aforementioned drink hangout? your mind drifts to the image of wonbin ordering a drink for sangah, the same way he always does for you, and you feel like bursting into tears similarly to the way you had almost done so on your way to class.

and sangah— god, you wanted to hate her so bad. your prayers that she had the personality of a wicked witch were thrown out the window the second she opened her mouth. she was so nice to you. the guy that she likes had openly expressed that he wanted to walk you to class and she still smiled at you. she’s got the most perfect appearance and most perfect attitude and you feel like you can’t compete with any of it.

you check your phone for the first time in approximately 30 minutes, eager for a distraction. you’re dismayed to see only 3 notifications, one from the boy who seems the root of every current problem in your life, and two from sungchan.

[10:04 AM] bin 🫶: everything ok??

[10:16 AM] sungchani: hey

[10:16 AM] sungchani: we’re all gonna hang out on friday night (as decided by me just now) and u will be coming! (also decided by me just now)

you open your phone, typing a quick response to wonbin about how everything is fine (lie) and sending another short message in hopes of steering the conversation in a different direction. you open the two messages from sungchan, shaking your head as if he’d be able to sense your attitude through the screen.

[10:48 AM] you: who’s “we” exactly…. and what will “we” be doing

[10:50 AM] sungchani: don’t act dumb girl… me, you, taro, seunghan, anton and wonbin obviously. was gonna see if eunseok and sohee could make it but i doubt eunseok would wanna and i think sohee’s doing some group assignment lolol

[10:51 AM] sungchani: as for your other question i was thinking about going to the movies yay or nay? (say yay)

[10:51 AM] you: pass

[10:52 AM] sungchani: perfect see u there!

you don’t bother responding to sungchan’s final message, knowing that no amount of opposition from you would deter him. he’d probably drag you all the way to the theater himself if he had to. but you really don’t want to go, feeling drained from the thoughts that have been plaguing your mind ever since sungchan mentioned sangah for the first time. you’d much rather spent your friday night in bed, trying to give your brain a much needed break. maybe if you really felt like torturing yourself, you’d pull up sangah’s instagram once more.

when class ends, you’re shocked to find anton waiting for you outside of the lecture hall. he’s holding a plastic cup filled with chai tea, leaning against the wall leisurely as he sips through an orange straw. he doesn’t look in your direction, which confuses you, because you’re undoubtedly the reason he’s currently standing outside of your classroom.

“lee anto-“ the boy in question cuts you off by lifting his index finger in front of your face, still not looking at you. you scoff in irritation, not wanting to deal with his antics in your current state.

“you’re coming on friday, yes?” he questions, his voice slightly above a whisper. “not if i don’t have to,” you say, your voice at a normal volume. anton, finally looking you in the eyes, presses his index finger to his lips as if to indicate that you need to be quieter. “you do have to,” he nods.

you pinch the bridge of your nose. “why the hell are you whispering?” you scowl, and he keeps his index finger on his lips. you groan before reluctantly lowering your voice to match his, despite the fact that you still don’t know why he wants you to do so. “what’s going on?” you inquire.

“you have to come on friday,” he repeats quietly, “and you’re gonna tell dark star that you’re in love with him.”

you blink. “who?” anton leans his head back in annoyance before mouthing, “PARK WONBIN.” you recoil for a myriad of reasons. “first of all, i’m not coming on friday,” your voice slightly increases in volume, “and even if i was, i most definitely would not use it as an opportunity to confess to wonbin. and why in the world did you just call him that?” you finish, exasperated.

anton only sips his drink, his aura calm and collected. “you’re going,” he answers pointedly, “because if you don’t, dark star is gonna find out either way.”

your eyes widen and you feel like all of the air has left your lungs. “what do you mean by that? you wouldn’t actually-“

“i would, though. if telling dark star about your crush on him would get you to stop pining after him like a fool, why wouldn’t i? and, in addition,” anton fully turns to you, his voice raising to a light mumble, “i saw the way you reacted when sarah started talking to him earlier.”

“it’s sangah,” you deadpan. anton waves his hand dismissively. “not the point. with the way you acted earlier, you would’ve thought they were getting married right in the middle of that hallway,” he sounds concerned as he speaks the words, not looking anywhere but at you.

“i’m not saying that wonbin— dark star, i mean, has a thing for sandra right now. frankly, i don’t think he cares about her at all,” anton continues, “but if you’re that worried about some random girl taking him away from you when they’ve known each other for like, a week, i think that’s a sign that it might be a good idea to tell him how you’re feeling.”

you look down, letting his words settle into your mind. “i’ll come on friday,” you nod, and the boy in front of you smiles at your words, “but i have to give the whole confessing to wonbin thing a bit more thought. i mean, it’s kind of sudden.” anton’s advice actually made sense, you think, but you’re not sure if you’re ready to tell the boy you’ve been harboring feelings for all this time that you’re in love with him on a random friday night.

“sudden?” anton asks, breaking you out of your thoughts. “i think it’s long overdue. fire tornado hector thinks so, too,” he tells you.

you turn to him, dumbfounded. “where the hell are you getting these names from?!”

friday night comes in the blink of an eye and you’re standing in the lobby of the theater with shotaro, anton, seunghan, and sungchan. wonbin is nowhere to be seen.

“i told him 7PM sharp,” sungchan murmurs impatiently, checking his watch. shotaro turns to anton, jokingly hitting the younger boy on the arm with a laugh. “imagine he just decided to stay home,” he chuckles, “i bet y/n would be relieved.”

“why would she be relieved?” seunghan intrudes curiously. anton shrugs. “i told her she had to confess to wonbin tonight,” he says casually, as if he hadn’t just revealed your not-so-secret secret to an unsuspecting seunghan. the older boy’s eyebrows raise at anton’s words, his lips parting.

“you like wonbin?” he questions you eagerly. “dude, i can’t believe you didn’t know by now,” anton answers in your place as you press your lips together. “and we won’t be using the name wonbin when he arrives. he’s dark star. the codename helps when you’re trying to be discreet,” he finishes.

“yeah, because you know all about being discreet, right?” you reply, voice laced with sarcasm. anton knows that you’re referring to the way he had exposed your feelings for wonbin merely 30 seconds ago, avoiding your gaze as he whistles idly.

“sorry i’m late, guys,” the man of the hour exhales as he walks up to the 5 of you. sungchan studies wonbin, unimpressed. the latter can sense his older friend’s agitation, clicking his tongue. “you’ll forgive me once you find out why i’m late,” he assures, “look who i brought with me.”

you can’t prevent the way your heartbeat escalates, both at the mere presence of wonbin and the words that have just left his mouth. you’re unsure if you even want to find out who he’s brought with him, fearing the worst.

“sohee! eunseok!” you hear sungchan exclaim, excitedly making his way over to the two figures that have just entered the theater. he wraps his lengthy arms around both of them simultaneously.

“guess our invitations got lost in the mail, huh?” eunseok muses, returning his friend’s embrace. the three of them return to where you and the others are standing and sungchan scratches the back of his neck. “my bad, man,” he utters bashfully, “the movie we’re watching is pretty lame. didn’t think you’d be into it.”

“still, it’s an excuse to see you guys,” eunseok shrugs, turning to greet everyone else. sohee does the same, wrapping his arms around you before anyone else.

“y/n! it’s been forever,” he grins, you return it. “it’s been… 2 weeks,” you tell him, hugging him back nonetheless. “i still missed you, though,” you hum. “stop hogging him, y/n!” seunghan teases, “we haven’t seen him in weeks either!”

the two of you release each other, and when you turn, wonbin is at your side. he taps your arm. “why don’t you greet me like that?” he feigns jealousy, pursing his lips. you smile at him, hoping to mask your nervousness, “i see you everyday.”

he rolls his eyes. “that doesn’t mean you can’t miss me.”

“i always do,” you say absentmindedly. by the time your words register, wonbin is already grinning. “ditto,” he mutters, his words meant for only you to hear.

he turns away before you can comment, and eunseok takes his place beside you. he wraps an arm around your shoulders, greeting you. you think nothing of his actions before he leans down, angling his head so that it’s directly next to your ear. “i heard about healing michael’s plan,” he whispers, “the one about getting you to confess to dark star.”

“please don’t start this,” you plead, “i cannot deal with these nicknames right now. and how do you know about that?”

“um,” he starts, moving his head away from yours, “obviously healing michael filled me in on everything. just because we don’t physically see each other everyday doesn’t mean we don’t have a group chat.” he moves back to the previous topic, “he threatened to tell dark star about how you’re madly in love with him, right? he’s bluffing,” eunseok explains, “if you confess to dark star tonight, it should be because you really love him. not because anton frightened you into doing it.”

you nod at eunseok’s words, unsure. “and,” he continues, “it shouldn’t be about some other girl that might like him, either.” he takes note of the way your eyes widen a fraction. “yeah, anton told me about that, too,” he nods as you make a mental reminder to yell at anton later for airing out your business.

“what i’m saying, y/n, is make sure that you’re telling him how you feel, not for anyone else, but for you. well, and for him. and for you and him, together,” eunseok concludes, “don’t let healing michael or sandy get in the way of it.”

“it’s sangah,” you sigh, in awe of the fact that you’ve had to correct both him and anton. sungchan appears to have heard your final words, perking up at the mention of wonbin’s classmate.

“sangah? we’re talking about sangah?” he blurts out, turning to wonbin with a smile. “bro, we totally should’ve invited her,” he jokes, slapping his friend on the arm, “seeing her and wonbin interact in the theater would’ve been hilarious.” everyone grows tense at sungchan’s teasing— he was somehow still the only one unaware of your feelings for wonbin.

wonbin only shakes his head in response, his first instinct being to look over at you. you’re wearing that same disheartened look on your face as the first time you found out about sangah, and he can hardly breathe. his eyes narrow at the sight of eunseok’s arm still hanging off your shoulders.

“sungchan, when does the movie start? we’ve been standing here for a while,” shotaro states, attempting to alleviate the situation. “oh, we still have about,” sungchan checks the time on his watch, “ten minutes before the trailers even start playing,” he responds.

shotaro ushers the group over to the concession counter, quickly making some excuse about everyone needing to choose their snacks for the movie. “amateurs,” sungchan mutters, “who doesn’t bring their own snacks to the movies?”

wonbin finds his place beside you again, briefly studying your features. he notices the way you stand stiffly in your spot and the slight wrinkle between your brows. “hey,” he tries to get your attention. your eyes soften as they meet his that are flooded with worry. “i’m sorry,” he frowns, “about what happened back there. i don’t know why he keeps mentioning her.”

you’re puzzled and, yet again, asking yourself if he’s apologizing because he knows that you have feelings for him or if it’s because he still thinks you’re upset that he didn’t tell you about sangah sooner.

you prayed that he wasn’t apologizing due to the former, but why would he even need to apologize if it was the latter? if nothing was going on between wonbin and sangah, he had no reason to tell you about her. you press your lips into a tight line. maybe that was it— something was going on between them. that’s why he’s saying sorry to you right now, because he regrets not telling you before when you’re supposed to be one of his closest friends.

and that’s all you’ll ever be to him, because you were too much of a coward to confess to him when you had the chance. you think about how disappointed your friends are going to be once you break the news to them that you wouldn’t be confessing to wonbin tonight, or ever.

“don’t apologize, wonbin,” you quietly tell him, and he wonders why it seems as though you’re about to cry. he shakes his head, getting the sense that you misunderstood his words. he looks back at your mutual friend group, seeing that they’re all preoccupied. wonbin seizes the opportunity, grabbing your hand and taking you to a secluded area of the theater.

“please don’t tell me not to apologize,” he breathes, “because i have so much to apologize to you for.”

you’re confused and concerned, your lips parting slightly. you don’t have the chance to savor the feeling of wonbin’s hand still holding yours because you’re mentally preparing yourself for whatever words he’s about to say. this is it, you tell yourself. you stare at the ground, anticipating the feeling of disappointment and rejection.

“i like you so much.”

you stop breathing as the words leave wonbin’s mouth. you’re terrified to look up, unsure if you’d even heard him correctly. he responds to your unvoiced worries by repeating the statement.

“i like you so much, and i’m sorry for holding it in this long,” he says breathlessly, “i’m sorry for letting sungchan talk about sangah all the time, because i didn’t want you to think that i could ever like anyone else.”

he continues despite your silence. “and i’m sorry for telling you all of this in a movie theater, of all places. i’ve been psyching myself up for weeks, but i couldn’t stand the thought of you not knowing any longer. i’m tired of misunderstandings.”

he finally takes a deep breath, and you look up at him for the first time. “are you serious?” is all you’re able to say. you want to be 100% sure that your mind isn’t being as cruel as it normally is when it comes to park wonbin.

he nods, appearing to be just as nervous as you are, and you think that’s good enough of an indicator that he’s not joking.

“you fool,” you breath out in utter disbelief, not knowing if your words are directed at wonbin or yourself. the boy looks troubled for a moment before he hears a noise similar to a sob leave your mouth.

you hide your face with your hands. “i was supposed to be the one to confess to you.”

it’s wonbin’s turn to be silent now, listening to you rant. “it was this whole thing— healing michael, dark star.. eunseok knew about it, and shotaro..” you trail off. your words don’t even make sense to yourself, and you doubt they make any sense to the boy in front of you. “my god, wonbin— i’ve liked you since the day i met you!” you cry, hands still obstructing your vision.

wonbin hesitantly takes it upon himself to grab your wrists, removing your hands from your face. “do you mean that?” he asks, trying to meet your gaze.

you don’t look him in the eye as you continue rambling. “i was so scared,” you tell him, “sungchan mentioned her out of nowhere that day and i was so scared. i thought she was your secret girlfriend, or something.” you feel stupid for telling him all of this, finally admitting to your jealousy.

“when i saw her for the first time, i thought it was over,” you shake your head, “someone so pretty having a crush on you? i felt like nothing next to her. sungchan even told me that she wrote down her instagram and casually handed it to you— i’d kill to be that confident in myself,” you’re not even paying attention to the words leaving your mouth anymore, wanting to get everything you’ve been holding in out of your system.

when you finally look at wonbin’s face, he looks sad, which startles you. you’re afraid that you’ve just killed his mood with your venting. “i’m sorry— i didn’t me-“ you’re interrupted by wonbin pulling you to his chest, shaking his head at your words. “you fool,” he repeats your words from minutes ago. “i can’t believe you’ve been feeling that way about yourself.”

he keeps you in his embrace as if you’d run away if he were to let go. “i can’t think of anyone prettier than you,” he mutters, “or nicer, or funnier. or anything, really, because i think of you more than anyone else. i guess it’s my fault, kind of. i could’ve expressed it in ways other than walking you to class and ordering dumb overpriced drinks for you.” you let out a quiet laugh at his last sentence and he smiles, pulling away slightly so he’s able to see your face.

“i guess we’re both kind of stupid,” you conclude, earning a nod from the dark haired boy. “only when it comes to you,” he says, “i happen to think i’m very intelligent on every other occasion.”

when you finally regroup with everyone, they’re all wearing looks of disappointment on their faces. upon asking what happened, eunseok shoves a thumb in sungchan’s direction, the brown haired boy adorning a sheepish expression. “this fucker got the time wrong. the movie was at 6:15, not 7:15,” eunseok grimaces, “i better get a refund for my ticket.”

“you didn’t even pay for it,” wonbin says, “i did. sohee’s, too.”

anton, having been the first one to notice both yours and wonbin’s disappearance from the group, narrows his eyes at the boy. “and where were you?” he raises a brow, attempting to look intimidating. wonbin dismisses him with the wave of a hand.

before you and wonbin decided to rejoin your friends, you had to tell him not to hold your hand, much to his dismay. only after discovering the reason why, did he reluctantly agree.

you stand as far away from wonbin as possible, putting on a melancholy act. shotaro is the first to take notice of this, putting a hand on your shoulder. “did you tell him?” he questions, your silence serving as an answer in itself. eunseok overhears, looking at you with pity in his eyes.

when anton finally sees the distance put between you and wonbin, he concludes that you weren’t able to tell him about your feelings. he sighs, shaking his head.

as if on cue, you look at wonbin with determination burning in your eyes, beginning to advance towards him. the group is silent as they watch the two of you curiously.

“dark star,” you begin straightforwardly, “i’m in love with you.” wonbin tries concealing his laughter as he swiftly takes in the reactions of his friends. eunseok smiles knowingly while anton and shotaro are wide-eyed. seunghan wears an amused expression, sohee’s eyebrows are raised, and on top of it all, sungchan looks incredibly confused.

wonbin, keeping up the act, covers his mouth in mock astonishment. “did you guys hear that?” he turns to his friends, who are now all aware that they’re being pranked. “my girlfriend is in love with me!” wonbin beams, “metal blaze, i accept your confession.”

eunseok clicks his tongue, nodding. “metal blaze, that’s a good one,” he notes under his breath.

“alright, we get it,” anton groans, “it took you guys long enough.” he turns to you, unable to stop a smile from forming. “i hope you know i was never actually going to tell him myself. i only said that in hopes of scaring you into telling him.”

you nod, “eunseok told me that already. and it wasn’t me that confessed to wonbin— he confessed to me.” everyone is shocked at your comment, seunghan walking behind wonbin and giving him a congratulatory slap on the shoulder. you purposefully skip over the fact that you all but cried to wonbin immediately after said confession about how much you liked him in return, and he pinches your side.

“you know, when you guys disappeared, i made a bet with shotaro that you guys were probably making out somewhere,” eunseok adds, “he said you guys were probably just in the middle of the whole confessing thing. i owe him seven bucks now.” shotaro pats him on the back with false sympathy.

as the topic of conversation shifts to something else, sungchan’s jaw is still practically on the floor. he looks at the way wonbin has his arm around your shoulders, head practically buried in your neck. he can’t stop himself from blurting out his next words.

“has y/n had a crush on wonbin this entire time?!”

AUTHOR’S NOTE! congrats to u if u survived reading all that ohhh lord i promise i’ll make y/n less unbearable next time but for now u guys are just gonna have to find it in ur hearts to forgive me… also it’s 5am rn and idk if i hate this fic umm we’ll see if i regret posting this when i wake up tmr

#riize #riize x reader #riize au #park wonbin #wonbin imagines #wonbin x reader #riize wonbin #riize scenarios #riize imagines #riize fluff #riize angst #park wonbin x reader

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luvyeni · 3 months ago

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THEY GO TOO FAR 𖹭 엔하이픈 ( reaction ) !

genre yandere 𖹭 warning dark fic, mentions of hitting , blood , starvation , psychological torture — parings OT7! enhypen x fem reader | back to library .

request: what about yandere!enha when they've gone too far ? like punished you/messed with you enough to the point the person is non-verbal/fainted/really mad at them etc.

— what happens enhypen goes too far with a punishment?

「 authors note 𖹭 」

﹙ 𐙚 : heeseung﹚ .ᐟ

he doesn't think he went too far , in fact he got you exactly where he wanted — all to himself , that's why he did this , this why he isolated you from your friends, your family; anyone who loved you — cause only he could love you, you were his. all you did now was follow him around the house , not wanting to leave his side, you even sat on the toilet while he showered. he couldn't even leave the house without you screaming for him to stay , and that made him smile wickedly , he went too far and he loved it. "pl-please don't leave me." you sobbed , grabbing his arms , he wasn't even going anywhere, he just wanted to see what you were gonna do , smiling , he closed the door , pulling your shaking body into his arms as you begged him not to leave.

"see how easily i can leave , remember that."

﹙ 𐙚 : jay﹚ .ᐟ

when you did something he didn't like, he withheld everything from you; shower , food water for as long as he saw fit , he even ordered the maids and everyone else to ignore you. this went on as long as he saw fit , mostly a week , but he wanted to try and prolong it to prove a point to you. — until one day he heard a thud and scream of a maid , you had fainted. "shit." he pulled the tie of his suit. "don't just stand there pick her up take her to the room , call the doctor." he sighed. "how long did she go without eating?" He asked ,everyone was silent. "how long!" he shouted. "about a week and a half." he cursed , he went too far.

"stupid girl i told you to listen to me , call the fucking doctor."

﹙ 𐙚 : jake﹚ .ᐟ

jake knew he'd gone too far, you didn't care anymore. you didn't cry when he cut himself anymore , you didn't stay up for days making sure he didn't hurt himself , you were desensitized to his actions and he didn't know what to do , you were gonna leave him for sure now , he no longer had control. "I'll really kill myself this time , I promise." you stood there watching him bleed from his arms , every emotion flowing through your brain — you snapped , picking up the knife. "fine." he watched you put the blade to your arm , slicing it. "y-yn." you screamed as he began to cry. "shut up , shut up." you shouted at him. "you wanna die? you can't live without me? let's die then." you said , he was watching you go crazy.

he didn't know what to do , he'd gone way too far.

﹙ 𐙚 : sunghoon﹚ .ᐟ

sunghoon was short tempered at times , and you both knew it was only a matter of time before he went too far with his punishments , and he did. "su-sunghoon please." you could see he face turning red. "i'm sorry." he didn't hear you , all he saw was you hitting him and running towards the door , it was locked and he had the key , but he was pissed. "sunghoon please im sorry." all he wanted to do was push you to the floor , but he pushed too hard , you fell to the ground not before hitting your head on the table , knocking you out cold. "shit." he ran his fingers through his hair , checking your pulse— you were still breathing. he picked your body up off the floor taking you back to his room.

he actually felt bad this time

﹙ 𐙚 : sunoo﹚ .ᐟ

it happened too fast , you were leaving out the door, you were gonna leave him all alone , you were falling for his manipulation tactics anymore , you didn't pack anything ready to leave , he blacked out , like everything was in flashes; one minute your hand was on the door knob , another flash and the lamp was in his hand and he was behind you , then another flash and you were on the floor , he'd hit you. "oh no." he dropped the lamp , tears welling in his eyes , you were breathing but you were out cold . "im so sorry." he sobbed , holding you in his arms. "yo-you were gonna leave me , i couldn't let you go." he cried. "I'm so sorry." he moved you to the bed.

"i-im sorry i went too far."

﹙ 𐙚 : jungwon﹚ .ᐟ

so maybe he left you in the isolated room too long; normally it was only a week, he knew you could take it— so then what about 2 weeks? 2 and a half weeks? 3 weeks? no you couldn't take it , and jungwon soon found that once he stopped hearing you scream , when he went to give you food , you barely ate it , then you stopped eating all together. he started to fear you were dead , he didn't want that , so he opened the door , where you were balled up in a corner , hair messy , you whimpered from the light shining into the room. "hey come on." he said, you didn't move , he tried to come near you , but you tried to bury yourself into your knees , muttering im sorry over and over again , until he picked you up from the floor taking you to his room.

when you crawled into a ball silently sobbing to yourself , he realized he went too far.

﹙ 𐙚 : ni-ki﹚ .ᐟ

ni-ki doesn't think he went too far , he didn't even twist your arm that hard , why are you crying like a baby? "it's not broken , get up." you don't get up , so he grabs you by that arm which makes you scream in pain , he drops you on the couch. "shit." he realizes it might actually be broken. "i told you not to leave again and you did , this is your fault." he said , how the hell was he gonna explain this to a doctor? he won't , cause he's not taking you to the doctor, well not at first. "go take a pain killer and stop screaming before someone hears you." he only takes you to a doctor because he's sick and tired of hearing you scream.

"fine i'll take you , just shut up."

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propertyofwicked · 6 months ago

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LOOK AFTER YOU - LN

based on this request! ✧ my inbox is open! ✧

warnings - mentions of sick, poorly reader, mostly fluff <3 not proof read

masterlist the playlist

y/n hadn’t been sure why her body had woken her abruptly, until she felt a familiar dull ache in her stomach, panicking slightly at the thought of being or even feeling sick. she hadn’t felt well the night before, but she tried pushing the thought aside as she shifted out of lando’s tight embrace to lay on her back, hoping to manifest her inevitable illness away. but her blood soon ran cold, a sweat forming on her skin, and the need to run to the bathroom became unavoidable.

the first wave of nausea came early, some hitting the floor before she held the rest down and fell to crouch over the toilet. tears came streaming down her face as her sickness paused momentarily - she hated being sick, she hated that she’d made a mess, and she hated that she could hear the faint sounds of lando stirring, and the bed creaking as he made his way to her.

“y/n? bab-?” he began to call out, but found himself interrupted.

“the floor!” she shouted back, half stuttering through her panic, “watch the floor.”

lando had thought he’d heard retching, her tearful tone confirmed that for him as his gaze tried to avoid the sick and step around it. he stood in the bathroom door, assessing the situation momentarily before meeting her at her side, crouching down as his hand rubbed her back as his hand reached for a discarded hair tie to pull her hair out of her face as the second wave of sickness came over her.

“you’re ok, just breathe. just breathe,” he told her, his voice still gruff from his sleepiness. he reached out for some toilet paper, pulling the girl back into him to clean up her face slightly. her body slumped back against the wall as lando rose to his feet, moving quickly to fill a glass with water.

“need to drink something, angel,” he told her, pressing the cup to her lips and tilting it slightly as they parted. finally, she assumed this wave of sickness was over, but her breathing still hastened and her hands shook in her lap, the tears still rolled down her face.

“i-im sorry,” she uttered out, trying to avoid lando’s gaze despite him crouching directly in front of her.

“for what?” he asked her softly, moving to rest a hand on her jaw and stroke his thumb along the skin of her cheek, “being sick is normal, y/n - you don’t have to apologise for that.”

“for the mess. i didn’t mean to, ill clean it up i promise,” she told him, hands still shaking with the memory of her past boyfriend being so angry at her when the same thing had happened. y/n winced in anticipation of lando’s shouting to start as he remembered the floor, but it never came. instead, the glass of water was place to her side and his other hand settle on her other cheek.

“you will do no such thing,” he firmly told her, looking into her eyes. they were bloodshot, either from the strain of being sick or the crying - he didn’t know - but what he did know was that she was really unwell, potentially worse than he’d ever known her to be. he pressed the back of his hand to her forehead, feeling the way she was burning up under his touch, and yet her whole body shivered as though it was cold.

“you hot or cold?” he asked her, trying to check his theory.

“freezing,” she replied, noticing the way his eyes widened at her response, “why? what’s wrong?”

“you’ve got a a bad fever baby, meaning this is probably not a one time thing,” he told her, warning her slightly before he stood, pulling her up with him and letting her topple into his embrace, “gonna get you in the bath quickly, yeah?”

lando’s brain recited everything he had learnt or done before when someone had been poorly, knowing that ringing his mum at 3am was not an option. he started running the bath, checking the water was cool enough before he lowered her body into it.

“ill be back in a second,” he told her, kissing her forehead. he watched as her eyes shut, and leaving the room to clean up the floor whilst she attempted to bring her fever down.

the next morning was no better, y/n had spent the rest of the night either crouched over the toilet or shivering beneath a thin sheet as a hot sweat covered her entire body. lando stayed awake with her, scared to close his eyes in case she needed him, knowing that she wouldn’t wake him.

he had resorted to texting his mum anyways, explaining the situation as he asked for guidance. lando had sighed in relief when she replied, knowing she’d know what to do.

mum → she probably just needs to sweat it out. keep her cool, hydrated and comfortable.

mum → try and get her to eat some plain toast, little and often till she can manage more

mum → keep me updated please, and send her my love x

he smiled at the message, replying with a quick thank you before he moved back to the bedroom holding a bottle of water and a slice of plain toast. his heart filled at the sight of his girlfriend, curled up on the bed, her eyes staring at the film playing quietly on the tv.

lando sat on the bed, pulling her body to rest between his legs, her back laying on his chest. he could feel the way her heat radiated onto him as he helped her eat the toast, one mouthful at a time.

but y/n still couldn’t keep anything down, and hours later she was still lying in bed, trying to nap away her sickness with little success. lando had been gone a while, so she stood slowly, shuffling her way around the flat until she found him in the kitchen, doing something on his phone.

“hey what’re you doing out of bed?” he asked her, head rising to look at her when he heard her walk in.

“too hot,” she replied, moving closer towards where he stood, “needed to get a drink.”

“you should’ve just shouted for me, i would’ve got it for you.”

“im perfectly capable of getting myself a drink,” she told him bluntly, though immediately she disproved her own statement, having to grip the counter as her vision blurred and her balance faltered. lando’s arms reached out quickly, hands gripping at her waist from behind to stabilise her.

“im sure you are baby, but right now id love it if you rested and let me take care of you,” he told her, careful not to patronise her. lando began to move the two of them back to the bedroom, holding her tightly as he did, and lowering her softly back onto the bed. he jogged out the room quickly, grabbing some water from the fridge before coming back to she her laying with the sheet covering only her legs.

“how are you feeling?” lando asked her softly, lying next to her and tucking fallen strands of hair behind her ear.

“shit,” she replied, trying to hold back tears but lando noticed immediately.

“what’s up? what are the tears for?” he asked her, pulling her in closer with his arms wrapping around her body.

“i jus- i hate being poorly. i feel so useless and im just a burden to you. you have your own life to live you shouldn’t have to spend your time looking after me,” she told him, her body shaking slightly as she cried.

“it’s my job to look after you angel, the same way you look after me. and im happy to do it because i love you,” he replied, his hand rubbing up and down her back supportively.

“thank you,” she replied.

“mum sent her love by the way,” he informed her, happy to hear her laugh lightly after a rough day.

“i wondered how you knew how to get a fever to break,” she told him, leaning her head back to smile up at him.

“hey!” he defended, “i know things! i just thought asking my mum would be safer.”

“tell her thank you, from me. and thank you, really.”

“no need to thank me, baby. ‘just doing my job - you wanna try eating again? im thinking plain pasta this time.”

#lando norris #lando norris x reader #lando norris smut #lando x reader #lando smut #lando norris imagine #lando norris fanfic #formula 1 #mclaren f1 #mclaren #lando norris fluff #propertyofwicked

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ravensmadreads · 1 year ago

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Sorcerer!!!

How is this so soft and sweet and wonderful and loving and beautiful and cathartic (i knew chloe was lying) and amazing and healing and and and and *chucks a thesaurus at you*

Chapter 10 of Recovery Road

chapter rating: E (18+)

pairing: dieter bravo x f!reader

word count: 31K (part 1: 14K + part 2: 17K)

chapter summary: how they find each other again . . . and everything else

chapter warnings/tags: discussions of mental health, medication discussions, therapy (so much therapy), everything about theater and theatre production is nothing but fake lies, and yes lots of smut

a/n: there's a longer, sappy-er reblog coming but i just wanted to say thank you to everyone who came along with me on this journey. this wouldn't have been possible without you and i hope to see you again soon!

▲ Series Masterlist | Previous | Part 2 + Epilogue

▲ AO3 Link (posted there as a single chapter if you like to read it all at once)

▲ Taglist Form

“Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever.” - Jane Austen, Persuasion

SEPTEMBER

“And so we can see that with the abstract paintings, color theory, as well as a fundamental understanding of color under light, is more important than ever. We can have a more immediate reaction to abstract art precisely because it digs at our unconscious thought. We see what we want to see and that can give us perspective on our own lives as well as that of the artist.”

One hand jumps up from the back of the crowd.

“Yes?”

“Is it true that Van Gogh ate yellow paint because he thought it would make him happier?”

You nod. “He did. But Van Gogh was a deeply disturbed man and while many of his best works come from his Yellow period, art historians have debated for decades about whether or not the madness was worth the beauty.”

The same boy in the back, blonde, lanky, frowns out of frustration, not boredom.

“So he ate yellow paint and then painted yellow things?”

“It could be said that he wanted to literally take what he was feeling inside and put it on the canvas.”

Another boy, bigger than the first and clearly used to all eyes on him, snickers. He points to a frame at the end of the salon wall.

“So, what, the artist who did that one wanted to get their blood all over everything?”

You cross your arms, unphased by yet another teenage smartass. “What does color theory tell us about the color red?”

“It’s associated with anger,” a young girl at the front says with confidence. “Or more often, love. Intense emotions.”

The same jokester in the back chuckles, louder this time. “Wow, so that guy must have really been in luuuurve to paint that.” He pinches the waist of a girl next to him and she wriggles away, giggling.

“Actually,” you say, straightening up, “I had just come out of a horrific break up and was trying to process grief, trauma, and heartbreak unlike anything I’d experienced before.”

That successfully manages to silence them all. It usually does.

“You painted that, miss?” The girl at the front asks again, her eyes wide in awe.

You smile at her. You remember being her age, fourteen, and thinking the world of art, theater was all so exciting.

“I did. Am I a vain bitch for putting my own paintings in my gallery? Probably, but for some reason, people like to buy them and I’m not going to turn down an opportunity to fund another kitchen renovation in my home.”

There’s a surprised chuckle amongst the students. Nothing endeared you faster to teenagers by some light cursing.

“What other paintings are yours, miss?” The blonde boy asks, eyes suddenly leaping from wall to wall, trying to spot similar brush strokes. You don’t miss when the girl looks at him, her cheeks red.

“Miss Lorraine only has a handful of her paintings in this gallery.” Marie steps forward from around one of the salon walls, her trusty iPad clutched against her chest. “If you are really interested in her work, I highly recommend going to see her charcoal sketches upfront. But this is the end of the tour. Your teacher has given you fifteen more minutes to view any last pieces or purchase a souvenir, but then it’s back on the bus. ”

The gaggle of high school students disperses, an excitement buzzing as a few surge towards the charcoal exhibit.

You roll your eyes, as bodies flow around you, and flick your best friend of the past ten years on her earlobe.

“That was supposed to be a secret.”

“Oh, whatever.” Marie bats your hand away. “It’s honestly some of your best work. You should be proud.”

“This is meant to be a business, not a housing facility for my ego.”

“Well, the second your ego starts to suck money out of this place, I’ll let you know.” She taps her iPad with her stylus. “Speaking of which, Andrew should be by in about ten minutes to discuss that piece he wants for his new show.”

You groan, falling behind Marie as she leads you to the front desk, where some of the students are purchasing posters of the art they liked. You watch as the sales girl rings up a few posters and some postcards, as Marie continues to scroll through her tablet, always thinking of the next thing, the next move.

“This had better be the last one,” you sigh, particularly pleased when you see someone buy a postcard of your red painting. “Why am I starting to think this damn show is going to be the death of me?”

Marie scoffs as she leans forward onto the corner of the sales counter, your bark always worse than your bite. “If you’re so concerned, think about what the notoriety of designing a set for an off-broadway production will do for this gallery.”

“Does it always have to come back to this dump?” You smile at her, knowing you are the only one who is allowed to tease her precious child.

“Duh.” Marie sticks out her tongue at you.

Despite the absolute horror you felt about starting your own gallery three years ago, you can’t say it hasn’t been a success. A reasonably-priced gallery in Brooklyn, you worked to showcase small local artists who needed a leg-up in the industry. Not that breaking into the art world yourself had come easy, but with your old connections in Hollywood and Marie’s in the music scene, you recognized the sheer number of doors open and available to the both of you. The community received the opening of the gallery better than expected, given that it was occasionally used as a center and study hall. It was small, quiet, and unassuming, but it was yours. Yours and Marie’s. You wouldn’t be here without her. Quite literally.

“Once you’re done sulking, we have a meeting with a local council member about expanding the property at two, then that new artist from the Bronx is coming by to measure his space.” She scrolls through your day, with the sharp eye of someone who never missed a beat. You told her she didn’t have to wear that crisp white shirt and pleated black pants, but she rolled her eyes at that: “I’m going to be thirty-three in two weeks. I cannot wear plaid shirts to work every day.”

Same old Marie. Using any small excuse to dress up. Unlike her, you had zero compunctions against wearing old concert shirts and paint-splattered jeans to “the office”. Except, you conceded, on days like this where it was tour after tour, client after client. You attempted something “professional” for her sake, but these heels pinched your feet and the emerald green top seemed to draw the eye of every teenage boy who walked by you.

“Ah, shoot,” Marie says suddenly, standing up right from her iPad. She glances at her watch. “Andrew asked to see a print of King Square and I totally forgot to grab it.”

“Want me to get it?”

She waves you away. “Nah, mingle. I’ll be out in a second.”

You smile as she struts away. Again you wonder what you possibly did to earn a friend like her, what you did to earn her devotion for a decade of friendship. It was as if the universe had been steering you away from all other friendships, keeping you a friend-virgin, until you met Marie. The One. The girl, now woman, who had saved your life more times than you could count, even before she became the manager of the gallery. You hoped to spend the rest of your life proving to her that she had chosen well.

The class of teenagers has thinned. Only a few remain to chat with friends, or check out one last piece they might have missed, a plastic bag with a rolled-up poster in their hands. The noise in the gallery dulls, as the patter of feet against the wood grain and the sound of eager voices falls away. You hear the front door swing close and the room goes silent. You inhale, the saw-dust smell of the space always soothing to you, even before you turned it into a gallery.

This place felt like a destination, a culmination, a breakthrough after so many dark nights. You poured your heart and soul and nearly every dime you had into building this space and its community. You could wander through the salon walls, easily identifying the artwork done from different points in your life, what each of them meant to you, by the colors or mediums used. You experimented a lot after rehab, trying every creative outlet you could find until something stuck. Hell, you even attempted cross-stitching – Marie still laughed herself silly every time it was brought up.

Early on, you processed a lot through clay, through sculpture. It wasn’t very good, but it gave you somewhere to put your rage, your frustration, those hot emotions that made you want to squish warm goo. You could never make bowls or vases – instead just absurd creations with teeth and wide eyes.

Next came the paintings that covered entire walls. You’d come home after spending hours in a rented workspace, covered in paint, hot and tired and teary, but relieved. The scratchy ball in your chest loosened after those hours of working yourself into exhaustion. That was also around the time when you had started to process decade old feelings and memories regarding your parents with your therapist. It all went hand in hand.

It was only recently that you’d turned to charcoal and your canvases shrunk. There was something hypnotic about charcoal as a medium, the stark contrast of black and white, of the delicate shading required to give depth and offer light, the way it stuck to your palms, your forearms as if the subject you sketched lingered on you.

You turn a corner and are welcomed by the sketchings of dozens of artists who also worked in charcoal. The exhibit is called The After Effects of Flame and the artists had completely risen to the challenge. The soft paper, the light etching, it makes the space beautiful, quiet, warm.

But your eyes fall to a single piece across the room, your heart thrumming in your chest.

He had shown up in your work in prior years, of course, as much as you tried to swallow him and the memories down. A flash of the curve of his chin, the sharp angle of his nose, the endless brown of his eyes – they were there as you sorted through the cracked pieces of your life in rehab and continued on in therapy. As you moved on from that night in the hospital.��

As you moved away from him.

But you still found slivers of him, splinters that dug into your skin against the wood grain. Marie said it wasn’t noticeable, that only you saw those flashes because of what you had been through, what he had meant to you. But he was there, inside you somewhere, after ten years, and he became a different sort of ache. What he had been to you was never clear, never given structure or form, and perhaps that was why closure had been so hard to find: there was no road map to moving past whatever Dieter Bravo had meant to you. What he had become. What he still, in the fitful state between dreaming and awake, was to you.

He wasn’t haunting you; you had never known a silent ghost. But he lingered, like the remnants of last night’s perfume or the body warmth of a loved one after they’ve left the bed. You saw him in everyone and in everything and, simply put, Dieter wasn’t going away.

Much like with grief, you learn to hold this part of you that held him and let the memories, the good and the bad, pass over you without judgment.

The world is hard enough on you as it is, your therapist told you, don’t add to it by beating yourself up.

So you let him stop by, hang around if he wanted to. He kept you company as you sketched and drew and created in a way you had never experienced as an actress. This is what you were meant to do. It just took you twenty-two years and a decade of heartbreak to get here.

You stepped closer to the centerpiece of the exhibit.

A simple sketch, nothing outwardly advanced or difficult, but it is detailed. Thoughtful, introspective. It comes from an image that appears to you in the morning light of your empty bed, or as you fade into the welcoming arms of sleep. It feels like it should be a memory, but if it is, you don’t know when or where it sits in your history. Sometimes, it doesn’t even feel real. Other times, it’s too real, the added weight in your bed almost palpable – you can smell him in the air, you could reach out and touch the curve of his shoulder – and you blink, the image is gone and you’re alone. Your outstretched hand floats through empty air, the tears stinging so sharply in your throat you can’t breathe for a moment.

To anyone else, the sketch is that of a man, naked, sleeping partially on his stomach, partially on his side, turned away from the viewer. His arm curls beneath his head, under the pillow, and the sheet slips low on his hips, the turn of the light dictating whether or not the exposure is playful or sensual. The waves of his hair fan out across the pillow, tuck around the back of his neck in a way that begs to be teased, tugged on. To everyone else, it’s a loving image of relaxation, of peace, of quiet, joy.

To you, it’s the image of Dieter that visits you most frequently.

You stand before it now and try to find that solace, that imaginary morning where domesticity dripped into your bed with him, the tension it takes from your bones. But you can’t find it. The day is coming up again, the first blush of fall breathing down the New York streets, and like a thready hangnail you forget to cut, you find pain with every movement.

He sits, melancholic, in your heart. I know, darling, I know.

Unconsciously, you rub a hand up your shoulder, unease mounting. You rub again, and something catches in the corner of your eye.

Someone is still here.

Tan coat nearly the same color as the floorboards, the man somehow blended in amongst the cream paper of the charcoal sketches. His knee-length coat looks expensive, the white Converse do not. His head is tilted back, looking up, inspecting one of the pieces.

Okay, yes, you saw him in passing on the streets – a flash there, a blur here – but this is getting ridiculous.

You stare, immobile and silent, at the dark curls that catch against his collar. At the broad shoulders that curl inwards. This is not a ghost, a specter. This is not a haunting. He even stands, holds his weight, just like – no, no, this is just desperation, you’re overworked and tired and –

Oh, fuck, the black rings –

“Darling!”

Your head snaps to the front of the gallery, seconds before you are nearly tackled to the ground by your friend and long-time benefactor Andrew Young. He had started to go gray at twenty-five, and never to be outdone by the ravages of time, he dyed his entire head silver. It’s been this color for years, blinding and shining, the only thing he changed was how it was styled. Nearly forty, he’s shaved the sides and let the top grow long. It flops in his face as he pulls back, grinning from ear to ear.

“This looks fantastic!” He beams around your latest exhibit. “Baby girl, I am so proud of you!”

You drag out a smile, your lips catching on your teeth, the buzzing in the back of your mind at a low hum.

“T-thank you, Andrew. I– uh,” you blink up at him, “sorry, it’s been a day and I haven’t eaten. I’m just a little dizzy.”

Andrew frowns and throws an arm over you. “You work too hard – has anyone told you that? And that, quite frankly, I simply cannot have. You see, I can’t do the set without you, and then I can’t do blocking and stage production, and then the damn thing itself is off the rails. Do you see my problem?” The designs you had been planning are back in your office, some initial sketches drawn up and laid out based on Andrew’s requests over the phone. You smile, settle, that gnawing sense of panic easing. Andrew watches you visibly relax in his arms and he taps your nose with a bright blue nail. “Besides, it’s up to you, you New York native, to help me show my star a good time around town.”

He steps back, arm thrown out wide, and your heart plummets.

You know who he is before he turns that thick head of hair, before you see that aquiline nose in his profile, before you are swallowed up by those endless, warm brown eyes that flicker in the corners of your heart.

“My dear, I’d like you to meet –,”

“Natalie?”

The noise is barely human, a punched out groan from a hit that maybe broke a rib, popped an organ loose.

The gallery has gone silent, or maybe it’s just you’re so suddenly stuffed full of memories, of rage and joy, grief and giddiness, that there’s no room for any sound.

He’s not a ghost, not a haunting, but he is pale, the whites of his eyes bright and round and staring.

He is not the Dieter that curls up against your neck at three in the morning when you can’t sleep, no, this one’s different. The lines marking his eyes are deeper, more pronounced – laugh lines, you remember, he’s clearly laughed a lot in the time that he’s been gone. His beard is speckled with gray, here and there, drawing your gaze to that lovely bare spot where the hair refuses to grow. His hair is longer, unkempt, and wild, and in his ear sits a small silver ring. This is not the Dieter you remember.

He’s older and so are you.

The coffee cup drops from his loose fingers and splatters against the ground, light brown liquid splashing everywhere. It rolls towards his shoes, but he doesn’t move. Neither do you. You couldn’t, really, even if you wanted to.

To cope, in the beginning, in the cold, sick days in the hospital, you told yourself that he had died. That’s why he left you, why he abandoned you to get the drugs out of your system alone. To get him out of your system. It was childish and petty and completely irrational, but it soothed you in a way that made living manageable. You could walk around those long white hallways, talk, eat, exist without a giant gaping bloody hole in your chest.

Consciously, you knew he was out there, somewhere, but in all the chunks inside of you that made up his lingering presence, the old idea, the old comfort, embedded itself.

Seeing him now, seeing him ten years older, it’s like he had come back from the dead. You could not have made up a more surreal dream.

“Oh, hey, Andrew, I got your print and I –,”

Marie stiffens the instant she sees who’s in your line of sight. Her mouth drops open and the poster joins the spilled coffee on the ground.

“Holy fucking shit.”

Andrew’s perfectly manicured eyebrows eject into his hair. “What? You’ve met before?”

“W-we . . .” the rest of the sentence dies in your mouth, catches fire and turns to ash. “We – I . . .”

“We used to . . .” his voice is raspy, deep, as though scraping through a wet crevice. “We used to work together.”

It doesn’t sting, the casual distance in his words, because he’s right. All of you met a decade ago for work.

Marie swallows as her eyes slide to you.

His have traced every line of your body, once, twice, and three times over. They stay on the bridge of your nose, the crook of your neck, the arch of your cheek. He’s not looked at Marie once. Given the circumstances of your last meeting, perhaps it should have been you to appear as a ghost from beyond the grave.

“Uh, Andrew, do you mind if we give Dieter and Natalie some time alone to –,”

“No!” You both bark, a sufficient reason to tear your gaze away from the other.

He sounds genuinely frightened. Your stomach twists. Your gaze flickers to the spill at Dieter’s feet.

“Marie, would you get some towels for that?” She nods, completely forgetting the print and nearly sprinting for the bathroom. You swallow, set your shoulders, and turn to Andrew. “I’ve got the designs in my office. If you’d – if you’d both – like to–,”

“Natalie.” He tries again and you flinch as though his voice is a physical force that has pressed roughly against an internal bruise. At his side his hands clench over and over, mouth opening and closing, brow furrowed as if he’s scrambling through every word he knows and can’t find the right one.

Your chest suddenly squeezes so tightly you have to put a hand over your sternum to keep your ribs from collapsing into your spine. You can feel the blush breakout across your cheeks, down your chest, and you’re so confused as to why, a hot bloom of anger overwhelms everything else.

Andrew’s eyebrows are in danger of falling off his forehead. Dieter still hasn’t looked away.

“Okay, what am I missing here?”

“We dated.” You say. You keep your gaze on Andrew, knowing your knees would buckle if you look anywhere else. “While we worked together. We dated about ten years ago on the set of one of our movies. But,” you swallow, your knees shaking in these stupid fucking slacks, “that was a long time a-ago.” Your voice cracks and you hate it. You want to hear him say your name again, just to make sure he got it right.

“Are you sure you don’t want a second?” You nod. “Then, uh, let’s see this design.”

Dieter doesn’t follow you and Andrew. Small miracles, you suppose. As you walk Andrew through the designs, you can see out the clear office door that Dieter had taken off that rich tan coat and is using it to soak up the spill. You can’t tell by the twist in his mouth if he’s regretting that particular decision, or regretting something else, but Marie appears a moment later with a rag. His expression changes as she hands it to him, softens, that wind-swept, knocked-back-on-his-ass surprise creeping into the opening of his mouth. She says something to him – her back is to you – and his mouth flatlines. He nods and Marie turns on her heel towards the office.

You avert your eyes from her and look back at Andrew.

“So what do you think?”

He grins, completely obvious to the exchange outside, as he shuffles through a few papers. “As always, darling, you’ve managed to somehow crawl into my brain and recreate exactly what I’ve been looking for.”

You won’t be designing the actual set pieces, but more of the backdrop, what the audience will see through the open windows and around stairs. Most productions use lights to fill in their backdrop, but Andrew described wanting to make the stage feel as claustrophobic as possible. “Nothing breathes in here,” he had said over the phone. “We need something sturdier than lights.”

You have never felt claustrophobic in your office, but staring at Dieter, an older Dieter, a different Dieter, absurdly scrubbing your gallery floor spotless, the walls nestle tighter, the air stagnant and stale. You feel like you’re seeing the entire place with new eyes and you realize how dingy it is. You can’t look Marie in the eye as she opens the office door.

“How goes it in here?” She says, surprisingly breathless.

“Fantastic!” Andrew claps his hands together. “The theater has given us access to the space starting Monday, so I’d like to get to building this as soon as possible. The back lot is huge so I’m hoping to do all painting onsite.”

You nod, the request somewhat expected – Andrew was a bit of a micromanager.

Behind you, Marie is humming with unfocused energy, but only in a way you can pick up on after ten years of knowing her. To Andrew, she calmly asks,

“Would you like us to bring out those other pieces you won at the fundraiser? We can have them loaded up, if you’d like.”

Andrew’s eyes widen. “Oh god, yes, please. I’m so sorry – I told you I’d pick those up weeks ago! I’ll go get the car.”

Marie’s gaze latches onto you as he jogs past her.

“What do you want me to do with . . .”

You can’t find him through the window, but the floor is spotless.

You shake your head, that slightly dizzy feeling returning. “Go help Andrew. I’ll . . .” you shrug. “Actually, I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do.”

“Are you sure? You don’t have to be alone with him if you don’t want to.”

You feel your back muscles tighten. “No, no – I want – I mean, it’s fine. If I’m going to help Andrew with the designs, then we’ll have to see each other, right?”

Her look is apprehensive but she gives in. “Alright. I’ll be just a minute.”

The second the door closes, you push your palms into your eyes and groan. What the fuck is happening?

You spot him again in the charcoal exhibit, as if this is the area he is confined to. He holds his coat over his arm, the bottom half of it damp and a different color, as he slowly roves from piece to piece. He’s on the opposite side of the room from your contribution, but a part of you wants to yank it down and shove it under the floorboards. A very large part of you.

“Dieter,” you say, hands up, but your voice startles him anyway. His stark white t-shirt matches his converse, and you vaguely think, he’s going to be cold without a jacket.

He physically steps back the closer you come. You don’t know if that hurts or if you feel relieved.

“Andrew went to get the car,” you say, your focus going in and out as you stare at his earring. “He has some paintings he won at an auction here and he hasn’t picked them up so Marie is bringing them out to the curb to load up.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Yeah.” You lose track of the earring as you meet his gaze. Terror, in his eyes. Concern, worry.

Sadness. Yeah, you definitely know that one.

Without a single coherent thought in your head, you head for the front doors, feeling him fall in step behind you.

You can almost hear the storm brewing in his head.

“Natalie, wait.”

Just in front of the glass doors, you stop. On the other side, Marie and another backend worker load wrapped canvases into a Black Escalade. Even without the faint howl of wind, it looks cold outside.

He stands in front of you, older after ten years, but no less beautiful. He’s thickened over the years, more solid, an oak instead of a stretchy willow. The thought of what it would be like to wrap yourself around his chest, feel the warmth of his stomach against yours, comes crashing down on you. The inclination is to yank it back, submerge it, but you don’t do that anymore.

You look into his eyes and the old ache hums. You thought it was gone, despite the many times you think about him, the many versions of him that live in your memory. But it’s there. You’ve missed him.

“Look, I’m sorry – for, um, the surprise visit.” Voice low and quiet, like trying to pass on a secret, his thumb spins through his rings distractedly. “Andrew said he had some errands to run around the city a-and the names didn’t register with me . . . a-after all this time.” He swallows, glancing at your shoulder for a second before finding your eyes again. “Had I known it was yours, I would have . . . I’d . . .”

“You’d what?” You want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. Shake him until he speaks, until he explains himself for showing up and cracking your world in half.

His mouth crumbles, stricken with regret, and he shakes his head. “I – I –,”

Someone taps on the glass beside you and it’s your turn to jump ten feet in the air. Marie waves to you and Dieter, her arms wrapped around her chest to stave off the cold. On the street, Andrew gets into the Escalade as the worker heads for the warehouse around back.

“For what it’s worth, it was really, really good to see you.”

Your head snaps back to him. No stutter, no unease. Confidence. This is what he feels. This is what he means to say.

And then Dieter Bravo smiles at you. Genuinely, gently, full of wonder. He is . . . relieved.

You nod, dumbstruck, as he pushes through the glass doors and you’re following him before you know what you’re doing. The air has a bite to it, the threat of winter swirling in the gray clouds above the city streets. A particularly rough gust of wind barrels down and Marie staggers into you. Wrapping her up in your arms, you watch as he climbs into the Escalade and the passenger window rolls down.

Of course Andrew hired a driver. He leans out, his silver flop fluttering in the wind.

“We’re having a party tomorrow, my place. A little kick-off party before production and rehearsals begin. You two should come.”

You can’t see Dieter behind the tinted glass but you know for a fact he just tensed up. Beside you, Marie is shivering, the little thing.

“Maybe, you know? We’ve got a lot to do around the gallery before the weekend,” you say as you rub her shoulders. “It’s kind of a bad time.”

“Well, the art director is going to be there, so it might be nice to get to know him before we get started.” Andrew shrugs, seriously, unaware of the consequences of his simple request.

Nothing about this feels like a good idea. You nod. “Lemme get Marie here back inside before her lips go blue. I’ll text you tonight about it.”

You both step back from the curb as the Escalade eases its way into New York traffic. Your eyes stay pinned to the window until you can no longer see it in the distance. Holding her close, you kiss Marie’s cold forehead.

“C’mon, Frosty, I think we both deserve the biggest cup of coffee our Kerig can make.”

The hum of the potter’s wheel is loud in your concrete basement. Cold air curls in from the small open window at ground level, chilling the floor and the walls. It stings your bare toes just a bit to keep you awake and focused, your arms and hands already chilled by wet clay. You pump the wheel a bit faster as you try to thin the edge of this bowl – or what may be a bowl. This rarely ever works out, but at least the concentration forces out everything else in your brain. And, as an added bonus, the sound of the wheel also blocks the incessant buzzing of your phone.

Andrew and Marie had not stopped trying to call or text you since the gallery closed. Marie was not above simply barging into your brownstone if you had been quiet for too long, but this was a special case and she knew it.

Hands wet, back aching from your hunched position, fingers as steady as they’ll ever be, you smooth the rippling clay as it spins. You pump the pedal steadily – too fast and the clay will spin off, but too slow and you’re basically playing with playdough.

To your enormous surprise, the clay curves, molds between your finger tips. With every rotation, there comes a clear, distinct solid edge to this unfinished ceramic.

Yes! Okay, just a little bit to round things out and –

Your phone alarm goes off, you jump, and the maybe-bowl deflates into a pile of squishy goo.

“Damn it,” you mutter, even though you have only yourself to blame. You set this alarm because you needed two extra minutes to clean off before accepting the incoming Facetime.

You just finish rinsing clay out of your nails when you hear the familiar chimes from your phone. Switching between your phone and a dry rag, you accept the call and smile into the face of a sixty-five year old woman. Blue tips on the edges of her gray hair, oversized cat-wing glasses, Dr. Carla Holstein always reminded you of Ms. Frizzle’s evil twin sister, in appearance only.

“Natalie, how the fuck are you doing?”

Her non-existent brain-to-mouth filter was one of the things that initially endeared you to her. Talking to a shrink about your childhood trauma felt less embarrassing when the woman taking notes had electric blue nails.

“I’d say I’m good, doc,” you smirk at her as you head up the wooden stairs of your basement, “but then I probably wouldn’t be calling you.”

“It’s like you only wanna talk about the bad things with your therapist,” she shakes her head mockingly. “As if I wouldn’t appreciate you calling with good news.”

You chuckle as you drop onto the floor of the living room, mindful of any furniture that might get smeared with errant clay from you overalls. “I’ll save those for our weekly meetings, alright?”

“Which brings me to my next question – what the fuck is going on? You haven’t made an emergency appointment in years. What gives?”

You set your phone up against a stack of books on the wooden table you lugged here all the way from 42nd street. Frowning, you lean against the redbrick fireplace, in a home you decorated with ugly little trinkets and overused furniture. Tidy and messy, this place holds everything that over-spilled from your brain, a place that feels like what the inside of your heart might look like, if you could see it.

“Seriously, Natalie, what is it? You’re kinda freakin’ me out.”

“It’s Dieter.”

Those perfectly drawn on eyebrows arch into that silvery hairline. “What? He called you?”

“He showed up at the gallery this morning.” A motormouth when left unchecked, Carla is a fantastic therapist, first and foremost. She knows exactly when to shut up and let everything pour out of you. And you hated when she did that. You scrubbed your face with your hands, groaning. “Not like that, but he’s the lead role in Andrew’s new production. I don’t know how the fuck he even found out about the part in the first place, but he swears he didn’t know that Andrew and I know each other. I know it wasn’t an intentional ambush but . . .”

“But it still feels like one?” You nod, your bottom lip snagged between your teeth.

“It’s just . . . it doesn’t feel real, you know? Like, what are the fucking chances that everything has to line up perfectly in the universe for him to come stumbling into my gallery after ten years?”

I really thought I’d never see him again.

“Was he actually stumbling? Is he sober?”

“No to the stumbling part, but I have no idea. I mean, I don’t think Andrew would hire someone so coked out they couldn’t remember their lines . . . but he was always so good at hiding it.”

The desperate anger in your voice makes you cringe. Even after all these years, you hate when you confess something you didn’t mean to. Dieter’s ability to mask how high or drunk he was used to scare you. Like you were never quite sure which version of him you were going to get. But then again, you were also so high and drunk you never really cared. Which was entirely the point.

“Well, that’s his shit to work out,” Carla scoffs. “I wanna talk about you. What did you feel at the time?”

“Nervous. Shocked. Surprised. Angry.”

“Talk to me about the anger.”

“I’m angry that I couldn’t think of a single fucking thing to say to him. Not even a good ol’ ‘fuck you’ or a ‘hello’. I’m angry that he’s back in my life in a way where I’ll have to see him again and again. And I’m fucking pissed that after all these years, after all this work, I see my ex for thirty minutes and I’m running scared to my therapist.”

Carla’s face softens. If you were in person with her, this would be the part where she lowers her clipboard and looks at you with warmth you are barely accustomed to.

“But did you run for a drink?”

“No.”

“Did you run to the nearest street corner and pick up a bag of coke?”

“No.”

“Then the process is working. The tools we built to manage your anxiety, to find healthy outlets for your emotions, they held up under scrutiny. You can be pissed all you want but you should also be fucking proud as hell.”

Something hot and sharp threatens to choke you, your cheeks flushing. The word “pride” and you in the same sentence always fucking did that to you. You cough, clearing your throat.

“Okay, then what do I do?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, how do I act around him? Do I treat him like a stranger? A friend? Can I be his friend? Should I?”

“Is that what you want? Don’t forget you always get to set the boundaries of any relationship you have. He doesn’t get to decide that for you.”

Your toes squeeze into the plush forest green carpet beneath you, thumb pressed into your palm.

“I . . . don’t know.” The truth of what you want sears the back of your throat, a vomit-burn on your tongue, but you keep it to yourself. “But I shouldn’t be around him, at the very least, right? Isn’t rule number one for ex-addicts to keep away from contacts in their past lives?”

“Sure,” Carla nods sagely. “Old friends can bring back old patterns. But are you saying that because you are genuinely concerned about what would happen if you reconnect or because you feel like it’s what’s expected of you as a recovering addict?”

You bite your lip harder. “I don’t know, Carla. It just seems stupid to willingly let someone like Dieter back into my life.”

“And I’m saying you don’t have to. This is a hard case because not only is he an ex, but he was also your dealer and fellow addict.” Carla leans into the camera – this is the part where she put away her clipboard entirely. “But whether or not you let Dieter back in is irrelevant. I want you to go through life with the security in yourself that your past doesn’t have to own you. You have come so far and done so well. You’re on medication and in therapy. You’ve built a great life for yourself, in spite of everything. There will always be temptations, cravings to go back, and I’m not saying you should be overconfident and assume nothing can go wrong, because it absolutely can. But you are not the old Natalie anymore, have faith in yourself. You get to decide your life.”

Once again, you are reminded of all the people who let you forget that. The anger, the hurt, decades in the making, it’s still there. But its bite is no longer cruel.

You nod. “Thank you, Carla. I needed to hear that.”

“I know that,” she smirks. “I’m a damn good therapist.”

“As if you’d let me forget.”

You thank her and end the call. With a sigh you lean back, staring into your living room. Back then, you grew spikes to keep back a world intent on consuming you. Dieter had been the only one to not mind the spikes, even mold around them.

If he’s still a fuckhead, I’m gonna kick his ass.

Your stomach makes a displeased noise, irritated at being empty for so long, so you stand, taking your phone with you as you head for the kitchen.

You bring up his contact and type out your message:

Hey Andrew! Would love to come to your party. What time?

Marie did not want to go to the party for a variety of reasons.

Too busy at the gallery. Invoicing. Nothing to wear. Straight up tired.

All valid reasons. Except they weren’t and it was bullshit and you made her go anyway.

Groaning all the way on the subway, she won’t even look at you as the elevator doors open to Andrew’s hallway. She’s gone uncharacteristically silent as you near the party. This is not her usual “I’d rather be in my Snuggie” scowl, but something else. Her eyes are sharp, hard.

“What?” You bump her with your elbow. “You look like you’re plotting murder.”

“Maybe I am.”

You still and she does too. It’s like you can see inside her brain. “This is about Dieter?”

“Andrew’s a good guy,” she huffs, waving at the shut door. “He doesn’t deserve Dieter’s drama and bullshit . . . and neither do you.”

About a foot shorter than you, Marie carries enough spitfire to fill someone twice her size. You’ve never actually seen her in a fight, but you really don’t want to. Her cold pink nose from the wind outside does nothing to deter her rage.

“If it makes you feel any better, I was cleared by my therapist to be around him.”

She harumphs.

“Look, if I can make this much progress, this much change, shouldn’t we give him the benefit of the doubt? Maybe he can too?”

Her scowl deepens, but the murderous glint in her eyes fade as she knocks on Andrew’s door. “You are too nice for your own good.”

You mock-gasp. “You take that back!”

Just like every other party you’ve ever been to hosted by Andrew, the vibe is intimate, warm, and friendly. You run into and greet a few of the costume designers and lighting techs he’s used in the past, ones you’ve met before by way of just hanging around Andrew during rehearsals. Andrew is very fond of adopting creatives like pets and if he likes your work, chances are he’ll use you again – something uncommon in the industry, but very welcome to those whose paychecks are never steady. However, you notice how small the gathering is. You’ve seen this open-floor plan apartment full of people, partygoers nearly stacked on top of each other during Halloween parties or on New Years Eve. But this production team is a fraction of that size.

Private. That was the other word Andrew mentioned over the phone for the backdrop design. He wanted the space to feel private, as though you were staring into something that was none of your business.

That feeling doesn’t persist here. Here, everyone is welcome.

Everyone, including –

“So, are you going to tell me what the fuck is up with you and him, or am I going to have to think up a very elaborate con to get you to confess?” Andrew snakes an arm over your shoulder, a glass of sparkling water in his hand. His green eyes are full of mischief, the faint lines around his eyes crinkled with glee, as he watches for any change in your expression. Dieter sits on a chair across the room from you, leaning in to listen to a story a man on the center couch cushion is animatedly telling with his hands. To his right, and nearly touching Dieter, is a blonde, beautiful, twenty-year old actress who everyone is telling you will be on Broadway any day now. You know someone told her your name, but you can’t remember it. You swat away your annoyance.

“C’mon, I’ve never seen you look at someone like that. I’m dying to know –,”

“Is he sober?” Your frown falls on Andrew who takes a step back, his own thick eyebrows scrunched together.

“Who, Dieter?”

“No, the man on the moon.”

Andrew shrugs, the lilac pullover he wears looking soft enough to eat. “As far as I know, yeah. We met when Toby and I went to that yoga retreat in Oregon last year. It was a substance-free commune so unless he was getting drunk off the atmosphere –,”

“You’ve known him for a year?” You gape at him. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Why would I tell you about some actor guy I met out on a co-op in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere? I didn’t know you knew him! We didn’t reconnect until I asked him to come read for the part.”

“And why did you ask him?”

“I . . . dunno,” Andrew says, clearly ruffled. “I liked his vibe. Matched what I had in my head for the role of Sam. And he’s got the best puppy dog eyes of anyone I’ve ever seen.”

It’s not like you can disagree so you turn away from him, scowl on the verge of pouting.

“Oh, no, the conversation does not end here, not after you’ve given me the third degree. Who the fuck was this guy to you?”

Across the room, the blonde’s knee knocks against Dieter’s and something acidic like bile claws the back of your stomach. You take the cup of water from Andrew, other hand digging into your purse.

“We dated. It didn’t end well. In fact, just watch Recovery Road – kinda says the whole thing.” You know Andrew doesn’t deserve your ire and you’ll apologize with coffee and a biscuit from his favorite bakery, but right now, if you don’t leave right now, you’re liable to pop something. “I heard it even won an Oscar.”

It’s stupid and childish and wrong to get jealous every time he talks to a woman.

Okay, notice the thought. Observe it. And let it go.

You inhale, the orange ring immolating the paper around the tobacco, and exhale smoke over the railing of Andrew’s balcony. It’s a nice balcony, as far as metal balconies go in New York. It’s private, sturdy, and a perfect place to contemplate the insanity of your own life. The sunset bleeds rapturous colors, bright and loud, across the city, light reflecting like stars in the glass windows of the buildings. The sight and the smoke is enough to ease the burden in your chest, just for a moment.

It’s not like you are even really jealous. You know that feeling and this isn’t it. The pain is farther away than the immediate nip of jealousy. You follow the feeling, careful not to nick yourself too hard on old memories as you use your toolbox to sort through the undulating waves of feeling.

But therein lies the problem. You remember.

You remember when that girl curled up next to Dieter, eyes full of adoration, used to be you.

You tap the ash against the metal railing, feeling terribly sorry for yourself, when the door to the balcony slides back. A few people had come and gone, shared a smoke, then went back inside. You know you are probably being a party pooper, gazing alone and wistful at the sunset, and you promise yourself this is the last one. It’s officially getting cold the lower the sun falls. But then you turn to the person who just came outside.

“Ah, shit.” He blinks at you as the noise from the party inside is muffled behind the closing door. “I mean, uh. Hi. Um. I didn’t know . . . look, I’ll just come back later –,”

“Andrew says you’re sober. Have been for at least a year. Is that true?”

Maybe you should have just brought a police hat and badge if you were going to grill everyone like this. You lean your hips back against the rail, the burn of the smoke forcing you to breathe slowly.

The autumn wind tugs at his hair, threatens to pull that black sweater out of his pants, as he stares, a lighter and a packet of cigarettes in his clenched fists.

“Um, yeah. He’s right. I’m . . . I’m sober. Have been, for a while.”

You nod, reeling in that invisible electric fence you kept him at the edge of. He senses it and hesitantly, cautiously, he takes a few steps forward and joins you at the railing, but at least two arms lengths away. Eying you, he taps out a cigarette and lights it. He smokes, a full inhale and exhale, before continuing.

“Going on about ten years now.”

The way he says it knots your stomach. His tone of voice. You know exactly what he means. How could you not?

You sip slowly, unable to look at him.

“You haven’t had a drop of alcohol or smoked a single joint in ten years?”

He shrugs. “Doc says weed’s actually good for unfucking my brain.” He swallows and props himself up against the railing. “But, uh, I did go to therapy in rehab again and for the first time, I continued going after I got out. Turns out risk taking behaviors and mood swings are not things normal people experience. Looked lot at my anxiety around self-acceptance too. Triggers included feelings of inadequacy. I even got a new syndrome named after me in the DSM. Baffled my therapist for months.”

“Really?” You stand up right, mouth parted.

“No.” And there’s that Dieter grin. After a decade, it blooms across his face without any hesitation. Your heartbeat pounds rough against your throat for a second. But then his expression grows heavy. “But, uh, I was serious about the therapy part. It’s helped with the depression and anxiety attacks.”

You roll your cigarette between your forefinger and thumb as another wind blows by. You nip at your lower lip.

“Personally, I found Buspar was really good at keeping me from wanting to claw my skin off. Anxiety’s never been better.”

His eyebrows jump and he shuffles a bit closer.

“Oh, yeah? Used to give me the worst headaches, but we fucked around with the dosage and it helped.”

You nod, remembering those weeks of trial and error. You don’t know what to say, what else to admit. His gaze flutters up your shoulder to the side of your jaw and he leans forward with you.

“Did they, uh, put you on Campral too? Wish they had that the first time I went to rehab.”

You shift your weight as you glance over your shoulder. “Yeah. Makes coming to shit like this easier. I, um, don’t feel so overwhelmed to fight the urges, you know?”

“Yeah. I fuckin’ do.”

You blame the catch in your breath on a particular rough gust of smoke. He taps out that cigarette and eagerly lights another one. Yours is barely holding on. He must think of something, remember a joke, because he smirks again.

“They also tried to put me on Metoprolol, but I told them to fuck off.”

You frown at him. “What’s that for?”

Dieter shakes his head, barely containing the smile on his face. “Fucking blood pressure medication. You turn forty-five and they wanna put you on Centrum fucking Silver.”

“Centrum? Isn’t that for –?”

His look dares you to tease him for it, all low eyes and curling lips, but you can’t swallow the fit of giggles. You snort, which makes him laugh, and then you do too.

You laugh with him, until you remember you shouldn’t. You swallow your giggles, sipping more fervently on your cigarette, hoping your abrupt end wasn’t too obvious.

But if Dieter notices, he doesn’t say. He watches the city skyline, contemplative.

“But of all that, therapy seems to be the thing that sticks the best.”

You groan, smacking your palm against the railing, hunching your shoulders. “God, doesn’t that fucking suck? The one thing that actually helps is talking about your stupid fucking feelings?”

“Yeah,” he chuckles, “yeah, it really does.”

Grinning, you flick your cigarette into the concrete pot Andrew has specifically out here for that sort of thing and go to light another one, but your packet is empty. You both stare at the empty box and then each other.

Dieter pulls on his cigarette, with a big inhale. “Well, I guess you, um, gotta go back –,”

Your past does not own you. You decide what you want.

“Do you wanna get lunch sometime?” That is not how you should have asked that question. His eyes go wide and he’s consumed by a coughing fit. You realize your mistake only seconds too late. “That’s not a line, I swear–,”

He bats your concern away, eyes watering, shaking his head.

“No, I know–,” he croaks. “Yes, I’d like — to catch up. No – I didn’t think it was – a line.”

He barely gets his breathing right, your own hands knotted together, as the balcony door opens for a second time.

“There you are!” Marie tsks. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere and –,”

She frowns at the hunched-over coughing man in the shadows. He tries to smile at her, cheeks red, eyes wet.

“Hi, Marie, how are–,”

“Andrew wants to make a speech.” She talks like she didn’t hear him. “Come on.”

She all but takes you by the scruff of your neck and hauls you back inside. You wave over your shoulder to Dieter and realize you don’t have his number anymore. Haven’t had it for years. You no longer have any way of contacting him, even if you wanted to.

As speeches go, Andrew was always very good at them. Short, sweet, and to the point. He thanks everyone for coming as he stands on his dining room table, thanks the caterers and the staff. You stand in the corner with Marie, chatting with the art director you finally met until Andrew started his speech. You focus entirely on Andrew, resolutely not searching the crowd or the balcony, as he continues to welcome everyone to New York, cracking a few jokes here and there. But then the perfunctory part of his speech is over, when something thoughtful comes over his face.

“I know you’ve all got better things to do than listen to me rant and rave, but I know each of you personally, and I’d like to say I’m so happy you’re in my life. I’d like to think everyone touches each other’s lives for a purpose. Not to sound utilitarian, because those purposes can be healing an emotional wound, or filling a hole you didn’t know was there. Or, in Jack’s case, the best damn audio technician I’ve ever seen. Thanks, Jack.” He holds up his glass as the crowd laughs. Andrew smiles and shifts his weight. He had never done any sort of acting himself, always more content to be the conductor of the chaos, but you always think he would have done well. He has a presence and it’s comforting. “Every day we interact with each other in ways that we can’t foresee and leave lasting consequences we can’t explain. That’s what’s at the heart of this story, this play we’re about to create. The effects we have on each other, how those chance meetings can have lasting consequences.” He grins across the crowd, to where you know his husband, Toby, stands. “How love is the only thing that matters in this fucking world. I really hope you remember that as we start production. If nothing we do matters, then love is the most important thing we’ll ever do.” He holds his glass high and everyone follows. “To love.”

“To love,” the chorus chants.

You’ve never been good at sitting still but this is getting ridiculous. Beneath the table, your toes curl and uncurl in your boots, rubbing blisters with your thick socks. Your teeth nibble the thinnest piece of skin behind your lip, chomping constantly like an uneasy horse chewing at its bit. You stare at the menu and read absolutely nothing. It could be written in French for all that you retain.

This is such a dumb fucking idea.

The restaurant is nice. Too nice for something like this. They have glass cups and plates that clink together when stacked on top of each other. The lighting feels low, even for the middle of the day. The paneled wooden walls are too stuffy, too old money. When you asked Andrew for a brunch suggestion, you never should have trusted the recommendation of someone whose idea of loungewear is a pair of hot pink Puma track pants. You loosen your grip on the leather-bound menu out of fear of breaking it in half.

“This is so weird.”

Your eyes snap across the table to your lunch companion. Sunglasses pushed up and nestled inside his long hair, Dieter distractedly tugs at his earring, frowning at the cream-colored menu. Everything about this is wrong. The location. The vibe. The white fucking table cloth. The fact that he’s here, sitting with you, like this is some chat with a business acquaintance –

“This is so fucking weird,” he says again, slowly. “Not a single thing on this menu looks good.”

He pauses for a moment, letting it settle, before he grins up at you. With a sigh, all the air rushes out of your chest. You smile back.

“There’s this really good hot dog cart down the road.”

He snaps his menu shut with glee. “Lead the fucking way.”

Ten minutes later, Dieter groans into a steaming chili cheese dog. You’ve found a concrete bench overlooking a small nearby park. It’s Saturday so the park is full of children and their parents, dogs and their owners. It’s . . . normal.

“Holy shit, this is good.” He licks melted cheese off the space between his thumb and forefinger and goes back in for seconds.

You suck a drop of chili off your thumb and grin. “Found this place when Marie and I first moved here. We lived just down the road and Tony with his cart became our guardian angel. And even now, even though I live across town, I’ll still come by just for his hot dogs.”

The man, round as he was tall, waves over his shoulder, heat rising from his chunky yellow cart, and you both wave back.

“Can Tony adopt me? Please? I clean the dishes every time, I swear.”

You chuckle as Dieter continues to slurp every errant stream of meat juice careening down his wrist.

“I think his other kids would object, but you can try.”

He chews slowly, suddenly thoughtful, glancing over the cold autumn air at the vendor. “You told me once you felt like it was hard to make friends. Guess that’s not the case anymore.”

He glances at you and you finish off your hot dog in two bites, your mouth dry. You shrug. “I do a lot of things now that I didn’t back then.”

He nods – rather, moves his head up and down rigidly – and finishes his lunch as well. You hand him a napkin and he takes it gratefully.

“But, uh, speaking of friends, how’s Heidi? Do you still keep in touch?”

Dieter’s eyes light up. He tosses away the napkin as he takes out his phone. “They just adopted another little kid.” He scrolls through his pictures before handing it off to you.

And once again you’re struck with the weight of memories that had been at the bottom of the box for years. Heidi’s older too, her hair now completely sheared off, cut shorter even than Dieter’s, but she’s smiling. She and another woman hold up a boy who looks to be about six, while two others, another boy and a girl, sit in front of the couch. All of them smile up happily for the camera. It tugs at a soft place inside of you.

The thing that’s been circling your mind for days lifts its head out of the churning mixture of your thoughts, sniffing the air, knowing it’s almost time.

“Oh wow! He’s adorable!” You grin genuinely.

Dieter smirks as he closes his phone. “Carlos. Heidi asked me to help him practice his Spanish, but I’m pretty sure he knows more English than I do.”

“So they’re happy?”

His brown eyes fall on you like autumn leaves and your toes curl again. “Yeah, they’re happy.”

“And Mark? Do you still keep up with him?”

Dieter glances away, biting his lip. “Um, no, actually. It’s kind of hard to hang out with someone after you’ve punched them in the face and called them a liar while being so coked out you’re hallucinating.” He picks at a callus on his palm. “Wouldn’t be the first time I lost a friend because I did dumb shit while I was high.”

You nod, the shame and embarrassment all too familiar. Plus, every memory you have of that hotel you handle with radiation tongs and chemical-resistant gloves.

“But, uh, what about you?” He leans back against the bench, hands in his lap. Behind him, children run and scream in the cool sunlight. “Were you and Marie always friends, even back then?”

“That’s a complicated question.” You sigh and tuck your hands up into your jacket pocket, matching his position on the bench. His legs sprawl out far longer than yours. “I wanted to be her friend back then, and I tried, but then things got . . . intense, with you, and the drugs, and I stopped responding to her calls and texts. For weeks at a time.” His gaze flickers to you as you talk, between your face and your pockets. “But she was also there for me . . . afterwards. She says Heidi called her and told her what happened and she immediately came to the hospital. She just fucking forgave me. Forgave all the shitty things I had done to her, just like that. To this day, she doesn’t hold it over me and I don’t know why but I’m so grateful for her . . .” Your voice cracks and you squeeze your eyes shut for a second. You can feel the wind on your cheeks, your unspilled tears sitting in your eyes.

You have to get this thing off your chest.

“Dieter, I’m so sorry.” With a gasp to stifle your tears, you turn to him to look him in the eyes. “For the first two years of my rehab, I thought about writing to you, or calling you. Just to say how sorry I was. I had no idea what it was like on the other side of sobriety, how every day is a such a fucking struggle, and I rubbed that in your face, over and over again until you snapped. I’m so sorry.”

He studies you for a moment, arms crossed, dark eyes almost black in the thin light. You can hear children yelling and shrieking with glee. Faint, distant. He taps his teeth together twice before finding his answer, his jaw tight.

“That’s not why I snapped and you know it.”

His voice holds like iron in the wispy wind. Everything blurs around you but not that. Not him. He shakes his head gently, eyes falling to the scarf around your neck.

“And please don’t apologize to me. I don’t think I’ll be able to stand it.”

He meets your eyes and you swear they’re damp. A shade brighter than they were before. You stare at each other, on that park bench in Brooklyn, on a cold autumn day, for a long, long time.

You have to ask it now. You can’t avoid it any longer.

“You wanna get coffee?” You pass the tremble in your hands off as a shiver. He nods, still chewing on his mouth, and you gather your trash.

It slips out of you as casually as you slip your napkins into the trash bin.

“How’s Chloe?”

You barely have turned around when his hand seizes your upper arm. His grip is almost too tight, his eyes wide and manic.

“Oh, shit.” He blinks as though he’d been slapped. “Natalie, I never told you – I didn’t even think – fuck –,”

“What, Dieter?” You want to pull away, but the touch around your arm is warm, thick. You peer up at him from furrowed eyebrows. “What didn’t you tell me?”

He swallows.

“The baby – it’s not – it wasn’t mine.”

Your entire body goes slack as your mouth drops open. The hold he has on you is welcomed; the entire park is in danger of spinning sideways.

Somehow he has the good sense to pull you both back onto the bench. Your knees buckle the second you move and you all but collapse into the concrete. Dieter releases you and rubs his hands together, leaning forward on his elbows, eyes still wide and blank.

“How do I say this?” He murmurs and that old hurt turns to panic, to anger.

“How to say what, Dieter?” You snap, hotly. “Just start at the beginning. Please.”

He shakes his head, tongue up against his molars, finally turning to look at you. “Chloe and I got divorced. Years ago.” He takes a steadying breath, thumbnail absent-mindedly against the black ring on his third finger on his left hand, as if to remind himself what was there. This is why no one over the age of twenty-five needs to wear this many rings, Dieter!

“Look, Chloe and I – our marriage was shit from the get-go. I didn’t want to admit it back then, but it’s true,” he says, still soothing himself with gentle strokes. “I used Chloe, like all the people in my life, like a crutch and she felt it. I was smothering her and she couldn’t get far enough away from me, even halfway around the world. She started seeing someone in Portugal and I think she was happy there. I hope so. But, uh, she didn’t want it to get to the papers that she’d cheated on her movie-star husband and got knocked up as a result, so she passed the baby off as mine. We were about seven months in when she finally told me. I don’t know if she could tell I was coming apart at the seams or she was finally ready to be happy, but she confessed. And I confessed to her – the drugs, the affair with you – all of it. I think I just wanted it to be over, done. We weren’t going to come back from something like that and I think we were both okay with it.” He stops spinning the ring and, against all expectations, grins. “This is probably kind of fucked up of me but we kept in touch for a while. She married the baby’s dad about a month after we divorced. He’s actually a really nice guy. I was even invited to the wedding, if you can imagine.”

There must be something wrong with your hearing. He’s stopped speaking but there’s a high pitched whine nestled between your ears.

“So you don’t . . . you aren’t . . .”

“No, I don’t have some ten year old kid running around out there,” he huffs, shaking his head. “And no, I’m not a father. Or a husband. Not anymore.”

You say the first thing you think of.

“Dee, that’s fucking crazy.” His old nickname slips out while your brain is offline. “That’s, like, soap opera levels of insane. That’s . . . I can’t believe . . .”

With a massive inhale, where you can see the hot steam of breath enter into his mouth and nostrils, he sits back, hands limp in his lap.

“I don’t blame her, you know. After what I had done, to her, to you, I didn’t have the right to be angry that she cheated on me. In some fucked up way, it made sense and it wasn’t just my paranoid, druggy brain telling me something was off. I was never a good husband, was never going to be a good father. When I think about it, the kindest thing she ever did was agree to leave me, even when that seemed impossible.”

His massive palms smooth across his thighs, his soft hair tugged on by the wind. His fingertips stop just short of touching yours, inches from your own lap.

“Natalie, I’m sorry I never reached out after that night. Or even years later. I lost hours of sleep thinking about what I was going to say to you if you ever let me see you again. I had all these grand plans of finding you and showing you how sorry I was. But then,” he swallows, “I realized what damage that would do and I . . . I thought it would be better if we just never saw each other again.”

Your ribs expand out into your chest, just once, just enough for it to hurt, before everything settles.

“I didn’t try and find you for the same reasons. I wanted to, though.”

If that counts for anything.

Back then, Dieter always had a fascination with your hands. Holding them, inspecting them, drawing invisible artwork across your palms and over your veins. He even sketched them on notebook paper and post-it notes from time to time, when you sat still long enough to let him.

You can see it in his eyes that he wants to touch you, to hold your hand, but he doesn’t. Instead, he puts his own back into his pockets.

Anxiety churns in your stomach. There’s more he wants to say and so do you, but for now, you’re content to let the confessions of the day settle.

It’s funny, the little things that you pull together in your mind to create an image of someone. You didn’t think of it often, but when you did, you tried to imagine him happy, with his wife and child. And now you know that’s all they were, imaginings. You wonder if you thought about it more than he did.

The label of father for Dieter was gone, after ten long, insufferable years. You had no idea what would take its place.

“Can I ask you something?”

When you look at him, the intensity in his gaze is lifted. Something lighter has taken its place.

“Sure.”

“Why were they called The Sixers?”

The whiplash between conversation topics is colder and sharper than the air around you. You suddenly remember you’re in a park full of children with Dieter Bravo inches from you.

You grin at him.

“Because it sounds like the sex-ers. Like sex-havers but said fast.”

That press of skin, the dimple on his right cheek, deepens and he smiles. “Nick came up with that one, didn’t he?”

You giggle. “Yeah, but the rest of them signed off on it.”

He nods, eyebrows arching as he shrugs. “But I actually meant why are they called The Sixers when there’s only five of them?”

Not once, after a decade, after millions of memories you shifted through, pulled out and examined and held up to the light – after shifting weight and blame and shame, putting your entire life under scrutiny – after sobriety and founding the gallery and finding Marie as the best friend in your whole world –

Not once, had you ever stopped to consider that.

It starts low in your stomach, expanding rapidly, arching up your spine, pulling your lips open, your head back until it bursts out of your mouth so absurdly loud, you clap a hand over your lips to keep from drawing attention.

You laugh so hard, you cry.

Dieter is bent over, howling alongside you.

When he orders your coffee, he remembers how you take it.

“Cream, no sugar, right?” He smiles as he hands you the steaming cup.

What else of you still lives inside of him? You hesitate to wonder.

You nod, thanking him, and follow him down the street.

A brisk evening settles between the high rises and rows of brownstones. The air has a mean bite to it now, a chill that nips at the bone. But you don’t really notice it. Not with his warm shoulder pressed up against yours, the warm styrofoam keeping your fingers from numbing. You’d brought up Andrew and the discussion quickly turned to the play. Dieter gestures wildly, chatting about this role, something so different from Hollywood.

Not that he had done much in the way of the public eye after Recovery Road. Smaller stuff, indie films, a few local LA plays. Then when all that became insufferable, he wrote a few treatments for some films, scripts to movies that never saw the light of day, and sold off the rights of those scripts to keep himself busy. He even directed a short film or two, but still felt a restlessness you were all too familiar with.

“So when Andrew called, I got the next flight out. This is the first part I’ve been excited about in years.”

You smile at him as you sip your coffee. “I’m really glad to hear that. Andrew’s a great director, I think you’ll have fun with him.”

As you led him near and nearer to your street, the conversation wove between artistic inclinations, production management, set design, character work – things you thought you’d forgotten about for the most part, but came back all too easily. You laughed easily too.

You were laughing when you stopped in front of your brownstone, but then instantly sobered when you saw who was waiting for you on the steps. Which was intentional because she absolutely had a set of keys.

“Oh, uh, hey, Marie.”

“Dieter.” But she’s looking at you, her jaw set and eyes blazing. “I just came by to get those invoices. Did I interrupt something?”

The back of your neck warms and you put more space between your shoulder and his. “No, i-it’s fine. Dieter was just walking me home. The invoices are in my kitchen.”

The chill of the air settles around you, tapping against the bubble you’d found yourself in after the park. You have him at arm’s length and you don’t know whether to shake his hand or give him a hug. You go with neither.

“It was good catching up. I’ll see you Monday?”

He nods, grinning in that silly way that makes him look like a fourteen year old dumbass. “For sure. See you Monday.”

It’s not the way you wanted your afternoon with him to go, but in honesty, it was probably the best way it could have gone. Dieter waves at Marie as he heads back the way you came, towards the subway station.

He’s not entirely out of earshot when Marie turns on you.

“So, what the fuck was that?”

You don’t meet her eyes as you fumble for your keys, your fingers numb from the cold. The door to your brownstone creaks as you stumble inside, as if irritated with you that you’re letting all the warm air out.

“What are you talking about? We were just catching up.”

She’s hot on your heels as you slide off your jacket, almost running for the kitchen.

“You don’t just catch up with someone like Dieter Bravo. He knows all your weaknesses, Nat.”

You scowl as you toss your purse onto the kitchen island. You face off with her, your hands on your hips. “And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means he’s your blindspot,” she says, carefully watching your face. “Always has been. He’s not just some guy and you know it. He broke your fucking heart.”

It had been all smiles and laughing and remembering the good this afternoon. But she isn’t wrong. She rarely was.

She can see the understanding cross over your face.

“Where’s his wife anyway? Chloe?”

“They’re divorced, okay?”

Marie’s mouth falls open in disgust and you cringe. Probably shouldn’t have mentioned that.

“So he’s back in your life for five minutes, single, and you’re getting coffee with him?”

“I didn’t know he was single when I asked him — you know what, it’s fine. I asked if he wanted to get lunch and that turned into coffee and we spent a lot of time talking about the play. That’s it.”

She crosses her arms, reading every line in your body for secrets, as if he might have slipped you a bag of Oxy. You stare back. You have done nothing wrong and neither did he.

(You store away the fact that this was the first time you hung out with Dieter Bravo in a capacity that didn’t have you both hiding in shadows, ready to examine later alone in bed.)

“And you can honestly say you didn’t feel anything for him?” Marie arches an eyebrow, waiting for your stony face to crack. “No flicker? Nothing after ten years of radio silence?

“It’s not like it was before,” you answer as honestly as you can. “Even if it was, I can’t imagine he feels anything but guilt over me, which isn’t a great starting point for a relationship. You saw his face in the gallery – he looked petrified, not in love.”

When she nods, it stings, just a bit. She eyes the paperwork, knowing the income and good word coming from Andrew’s production would benefit the gallery for years to come. And of course she knew – she was the one who came up with it. Would she have said yes if she knew Dieter was attached to it? Would you have?

“Are you going to see him again?”

You wave a sweeping hand at the invoices, as if to show how the gallery and Andrew’s show are completely intertwined.

“I have to, right?”

Marie frowns at you, angry but not at you, and then her face softens, all fight gone, and she goes around the island to hug you. This is what saved you. This is what kept you going.

“I know my boundaries, Marie,” you say to the crook of her neck, unwilling to look her in the eyes while you say this. “And I know what happened in the past. I’m not going to make the same mistakes.”

She kisses your cheek. “Good because I really can’t run the gallery by myself.”

You laugh, pulling apart, and you shuffle the invoices together. “Yeah, who would you have to cart all this paperwork around?”

“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Bright and early.”

You wave her goodbye from your porch, locking the door after her.

You want to google his name and “divorce” to see if it’s true. If anything he told you today was real. You want to curl up in bed, with your head under the sheets and try and piece his life without you together. But you don’t.

That was the thing with Dieter. You want things, but you can’t have them. You have this indescribable urge, but it must be tempered. The obsession is lesser, a blindspot more than anything, now that you know your next hit and how you felt about him had been horrifically tied up into one, incessant, painful need. It would never be as bad, you assure yourself because now that you don’t have that overwhelming urge to get high; whatever you would be feeling is just good plain old human brain chemicals. And if you survived being coked out for nearly a year straight, you’d probably survive your own stupid emotions.

You would survive Dieter Bravo. All you have to do now is be his friend.

OCTOBER

A sharp chill had descended over the city, bringing with it an explosion of color. A consolation prize for the painful nip in the air. It was too early in the season for snow, or anything to prevent the wind from being so cruel, so everyone had to bustle from one structure to the next, careful to avoid the cold that hounded them like dogs. Teeth clenched, hands clutching scarves, the streets were filled with scowls and pink cheeks, raw knuckles and frozen ears. The crowds moved faster, eager to get where they’re going, out of this cold, out of this wind that pressed unsuspecting bodies together with the force of it. It made getting out of bed, leaving the cozy warmth of duvets and covers, planting your feet on the freezing wood, almost a monumentally impossible task. Especially for those who hated mornings anyway.

As much as you tried – really, truly, desperately tried as you sorted through the mosaic of your life, shining up as much as you could – you simply could not turn yourself into a morning person. Yawning widely, you stirred the cup of terrible coffee aimlessly, as if with enough glaring it would not only taste better, but startle you awake.

No such luck.

“Hey, miss, where would you like us to put these?”

You grimace as you choke down the black sludge, pointing the workman to a far wall at the back of the stage. Six in the morning and you already know it was going to be a long day. There are supplies to organize, materials to sort out, work to delegate, but you can’t seem to climb out of that sleepy haze. It had been a while since you’d been on the set of a production but if you don’t plant your feet now, you are liable to get swept up into the chaos.

You shake your head and blink. Focus.

Your designs had mapped out six separate moveable pieces of extra thick balsa wood. Attached to wheels, stage hands could rearrange the pieces as needed, depending on the scene. The “walls” are light enough for Andrew’s skeleton crew, but with some shadows and shading, you could give them depth and visual weight. You just had to build the damn things first, but Andrew assured you that all of his stagehands are basically master carpenters. By the confused but eager looks on their faces, you doubt that’s entirely true. Maybe by the end of this you’ll all be master carpenters.

Smiling to yourself, you go to help them unpack the planks of wood, but freeze when you hear Andrew’s voice unexpectedly. Assuming he’d come by when most of the work is nearly done, you poke your head around the thick black curtains.

Andrew stands facing the house, his arms wide and mobile. You smirk at the Lululemon sweats – his version of dressing down – as he addresses the small crowd in front of him. It’s the cast, you realize, only about seven of them and in the center is, of course, Dieter, with dark circles under his eyes. He’d never been a morning person either. He has his arms crossed over a thin black shirt and he’s focused entirely on Andrew, thick brows furrowed.

And focused entirely on him, is Emily (you finally remember her name), the cute blonde twenty-something.

Friends help friends get dates, right? Maybe this would be a good first step.

Getting Dieter Bravo laid.

Lunch arrives well past noon, leaving everyone tired, hungry, and a little irritable. Cast and crew go off into their separate corners, looking for peace and quiet and somewhere the pounding of hammers isn’t audible.

You’re deciding between a ham or turkey sandwich when he sidles up next to you. His plate is half a sandwich, three strawberries, and four cookies. Good to see his voracious sweet tooth hadn’t dulled even a little bit.

You glance over your shoulder. Emily sits on the edge of the stage, munching on a bag of chips and reading over her script. With your elbow, you nudge Dieter and he turns to look.

“She likes you,” you grin.

He frowns, glancing back between you and the girl on stage. “Who? Emily?”

“Duh. She has eyes, doesn’t she?”

Dieter’s mouth goes tight and he turns back to the craft’s table, suddenly interested in adding something healthy to his plate.

“She flirts with everyone. Besides, I’m kind of out of practice.”

“What do you mean?”

He picks at a melon, noses through the box of chips. “Rehab makes dating kinda hard. Unless . . .” he pauses and puts down his plate, “unless you’ve figured out the secret to dating in rehab.”

Your neck heats again. “Um, no, definitely not. It’s been a while, for me too.”

“How long is a while?” His eyes darken as he asks.

You are completely baffled at how quickly this conversation spiraled out of your control.

“Dieter – I – it’s been – you —,”

He spares you and bites the corner of his cheek. He glances over to Emily as she swings a long, bare leg over the edge of the stage.

“I’m not sleeping with her.” You nod, dumbstruck by this complete and total opposite reaction you thought he’d have. He works his jaw before looking back at you. “Her or anyone else. Okay?”

Andrew calls the cast to the stage to review blocking before the buzz saws start up again, so Dieter is pulled away before you can sputter incoherent consonants at him. He leaves his plate with you.

“Don’t let anyone steal my cookies,” he says very seriously before wiping his hands on his jeans and heading back to work.

What you said is true. You didn’t date anyone in rehab, the practice actually rather forbidden, and didn’t really have the inclination once you got out. It had been years before you actually tried to date anyone, but most of them ended after the first awkward hug goodbye or when he tried to put his hand up your skirt at dinner.

You hadn’t been a nun this whole time – you weren’t a fucking saint – but there hadn’t been anyone, anyone who really mattered in, years. For the first time, that struck you as odd. There wasn’t time, you reason with yourself as you watch him cross the stage on Andrew’s direction and jot notes in his script, his hair sticking up in all directions as if a cat’s tongue had licked him up the back of his neck. With moving to New York and starting the gallery and then running it, expanding it, there just simply wasn’t time to find something to fill that giant, gaping hole in your life. A hole you didn’t seem to mind or even notice, until Dieter came back.

Okay, maybe, friends didn’t need to help friends pick up dates. He didn’t seem interested anyway.

You pick up his plate, careful to not spill his precious sweets, only vaguely aware that his first inclination after loading up his lunch was to come find you.

🤍 Next: Part 2 + Epilogue

#dieter bravo x reader #recovery road #bites u bites u bites u #THIS IS SO EJDBHRHDHDDB GOOD #IM LEGIT SQUEALING #the entire TONE has shifted???#like every single interaction these two had was always fueled with this underlying darkenss and anxiety and terrible itch??? you know??#like something crawlimg under your skin #living in your blood clawing out from the insides #and NOW #the entire walk and the talk and the confessions and apologies #its feels??? light??? serene??? calm???#they're older yes but they're also calmer softer more balanced #they're whole people in and of themselves and not running around getting high or getting laid to fill some void they refuse to acknowledge #am i making sense ? probably not but there you go #AND IM SO PROUD OF MY BABIES #GOING TO THERAPY T_T #ASSERTING BOUNDARIES T_T #THE WAY SHE IMMEDIATELY CALLED HER THERAPIST (hey quick can i have her number btw) AND IMMEDIATELY ASKED IF DEE WAS SOBER OR NOT #BE STILL MY HEART IS THAT GROWTH T_T #AND MARIE WITH HER PERFECT CALL OUTS AND HER PERFECT MURDEROUS RAGE AND HE PERFECT NO BS ATTITUDE #I SAID IT FIRST CHAPTER ID DIE FOR HER AND LOOK AT THIS WE'RE HERE AT THE END AND SHE'S STILL FUCKING AWESOME #NATALIE HAD MARIE AND DIETER HAD HIEDI IM GONNA BAWL #the way they immediately gravitate towards one another the minute they meet but this time its born out of mutual respect and admiration #and not drug anxiety depression poor self esteem fueled destructive coping mechanisms #GIRL I HATE YOU FOR MAKING ME READ THIS THIS RUINED ME

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miupow · 4 months ago

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I beg u for some crave hyuka thoughts pls 😥😥😥

im gonna end up making one of these 4 every member aren't i... first this ask and then one for soobin… i can see where this is going (i love it)

CRAVEVERSE ; werewolf!hueningkai headcanons .ᐟ ♡

cw ⸝⸝ sfw + nsfw hcs .ᐟ werewolf!hk (and werewolf!rest of txt) , fem!reader , no dark content warning for these hcs but general dark content warning for crave as an au. unprotected sex, gangbang mention, knotting, size kink, creampies, group sex, anal mention, possessive and protective behavior, pervy kai hehe

SFW ;

-> crave!kai who is the sweetest of them all!! has been so sweet and kind since he first met you, a genuine friend to turn to when the others are being so obtuse and mean :(

-> crave!kai who has the least control over his wolfish instincts though, both from being the youngest and from being only a half blooded wolf. he can get so aggressive if you piss him off, to the point he’s genuinely dangerous to be around.. he can’t help it though, and he always feels like garbage afterwards once he’s calmed down :( he can just crack. despite being such a sweetheart, you can’t help but still be a little afraid of him…

-> crave!kai who is always looking out for you! you can always count on him to tell you the truth, defend you, stick by your side… unlike his brothers, he loves humans, and by extension he loves you! such a cute silly human girl <3 so small and soft and cuddly

-> crave!kai who loves cuddles, loves scenting you, makes him purr like a kitty when you pet his head and let him muzzle into you!! is very physically affectionate and always giving you tight bear hugs <3

-> crave!kai who sees you as a person and not as an object. who loves listening to your stories about your life before them, who loves talking with you, spending time with you, getting to know you. who he falls in love with because of who she is as a person, not because of some divine instincts.

-> crave!kai who is babied by his older brothers, and he hates it so much though he never puts it into words.. he’s tired of being treated like he’s a stupid pup, he’s a man!! and you make him feel so manly when he provides and takes care of you…

-> crave!kai whos personality takes a complete 180 if he’s ever set off, possessive or jealous or territorial. a violent angry beast you don’t even recognize…

-> crave!kai whos overall ur biggest simp and ur biggest fan !! probably the most down bad just behind yeonjun lol (i imagine reader as older than tyunning in crave so take that as you will… tyunning x their noona kink will always be famous)

NSFW ; (under the cut!)

-> crave!kai who is still a juvenile in werewolf terms even if he is an adult by human standards. he’s not fully matured into his instincts or his powers, and therefore they control him more than he controls them . he hasn’t even had his first run yet by the time you come into his life, but maybe the pretty human girl always around him sets off his first rut cycle …

-> crave!kai who doesn’t know how to deal with any of his wolfish feelings! can’t help but be so embarrassed about how obsessive he’s become about marking, mating, and breeding, protecting his territory, providing for what’s his. he used to never feel like that before!!

-> crave!kai who needs to be held back from ruining you completely during his rut <3 first time he ever goes into rut he loses himself and hurts you!! and baby just feels so bad about it!! needs a hyung to show him how to control himself while breeding you good <3

-> crave!kai who has a big fat dick he doesn’t know how to use !! so big it scares you a little w a knot that’s even fatter , cums so much it gets everywhere, spills out from where he’s plugged you up and drools down your thighs in a nasty creamy mess

-> crave!kai with the biggest size kink in the world, who gets hard as a rock from seeing just how tiny you r next to him and his big broad frame.. he feels so protective over u :( even when he’s splitting you open while you cry that his cock won’t fit and he’s shushing you that it will, trust him, just relax! still so protective…

-> crave!kai who while being protective doesn’t mind sharing you with the others, likes watching you get gangbanged ruined from every hole n turned into a breeding cumdump <3

-> crave!kai who loves anal, who gets teased for it because it goes against his instincts but he just loves it so much omg

#crave kai my baby…#lia’s hard hours 🔥#txt hard hours #txt hard thoughts #txt smut #hueningkai hard thoughts #hueningkai hard hours #hueningkai smut #[ 💌 ] — requests!#[ 💌 ] — anon!

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cal-flakes · 1 year ago

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╰┈➤ rafe picking up his drunk girlfriend

warnings: swearing. alcohol, underage drinking.

summary: much to rafe’s dismay, his girlfriend had always been close with the pogues, drinking with them, fishing with them and so on. one particular night, y/n gets a bit too drunk and rafe has to pick her up.

the fire crackled away infront of them as the group chattered amongst themselves, empty beer bottles scattered around behind them. jj and y/n drowned out the others in a drunken attempt to sing some sort of old song, neither knowing the correct words. taking notice of this, the others broke out in hysterics, however this only further egged them on.

y/n sang, or slurred as her friends might say, at the top of her lungs, beginning to twirl around the fire they had made out of rotten wood and pizza boxes. making her way around her friends, she reached out to pope, determined to make him get up and dance.

“you’re wasted y/n, you should sit down” kie called from her place on a tree stump. turning her head, y/n’s face contorted. “you’re wasted y/n, sit down” she mimicked her friend. nevertheless, it was a fact. the pogues knew y/n couldn’t really handle alcohol, it was only in the last few months that she had decided to come out of her shell a bit more. she’d spent the majority of her life sticking to rules, doing as she was told. that was until her close friends from school had convinced her to live out her teenage years in style.

“i-i am not drubk, ‘m having f-fun kie” y/n mumbled, yet the hiccups interrupting her words said otherwise. her friends chuckled at this, allowing her to go on for a little longer. that is until she let out a small scream.

their heads snapped quickly to where y/n was, they would’ve thought she’d disappeared into thin air if it wasn’t for her drunken cries coming from the other side of a large fallen tree. john b, pope and kie jumped out of their places around the fire, attending to their lightweight friend as quickly as possible. jj on the other hand, was also too shitfaced to even realise she’d taken a tumble.

“y/n are you okay?” pope asked, poking his head over the tree to take in the sight of his friend flat on her back, sprawled out on the floor. despite the flowing tears, she managed a thumbs up. “c’mon y/n, that’s two fights you’ve lost with a tree now, when are you gonna learn?” john b mocked while reaching down to help her up.

kie stepped over the tree, also helping y/n up off the floor as she lolled about like deadweight. pope and john b shared a knowing glance as they all pulled y/n back up. once she was up, kiara helped feed her some water, hopefully sobering her up a bit before she went home.

“you know what we’re gonna have to do right? john b?” pope whispered as they stepped away from the girls. to this, john b let out a deep sigh, knowing exactly what they were gonna have to do. “yeah i know” john b grumbled. “who’s gonna do it though? im not, i did it last time.” pope protested quickly.

both boys glanced over to kie, she quickly shook her head however, already knowing what they were going to ask. “no, no way. you can do it this time john b, he almost bit my head off last time i spoke to him.” before john b had anytime to argue, kiara had tossed y/n’s unlocked phone into his hands, looking at him expectantly.

pacing around the fire, john b reluctantly tapped the screen a few times before holding the phone up to his ear and letting it ring. after a few tries, the recipient finally answered the call. “hey baby, you okay?” a raspy voice called out through the phone, earning a small chuckle from pope as he overheard.

“hey rafe..um, it’s john b” he mumbled, knowing how this was going to go. “why the fuck do you have y/n’s phone?” rafe sneered, blood boiling at all the possible situations running through his head. “yeah, i- um, i think you need to come pick her up, she’s a bit wasted and she’s hurt herself.”

overhearing this, y/n’s face contorted, her mind clearing for a second as she realised what was going on. “are you telling my fucking boyfriend on me john b?” she slurred, her voice loud enough for rafe to hear. before john b could get another word in, rafe put the phone down on him. “asshole” he muttered, already dreading rafe’s arrival.

fifteen minutes go by and y/n had been in a huff every single second, she knew rafe would jump at the chance to argue with her friends, so john b calling him to come get her was not the most intelligent idea.

the pogue’s heads turn at the sound of a car engine pulling up not to far from them. sharing looks as they heard a car door slam. y/n jumped at the sound, the dreading feeling gone as excitement to see her baby took over. the leaves behind her rustled and she leaped from the camping chair, just about falling into rafe’s arms. “hiiii babyyy” y/n sang as he helped her back up, stabling her. sparing his angel a quick smile, he turned to narrow his eyes at her friends.

“what the fuck did you give her!” rafe bellowed, waking jj from his wasted slumber. the blonde boy stood up, stalking over to rafe, well..trying to atleast. “who the fuck do you think you are cameron? talking to us like that?” jj growled through gritted teeth, chest heaving. rafe chuckled to himself lowly, squaring up as he did. “you’re fucking lucky she’s here maybank, or i’d have already punched your face into the ground” he retorted.

pope and john b had situated themselves in the middle before jj could lunge at him. “heyyy! h-hey! stop it! you guys gotta accept that i love you bothhhh! your my b-boyfriend and these g-guys are my besties!” y/n sang from besides rafe, throwing an arm around both rafe and jj. attempting to de-escalate the situation.

rafe’s nostrils flared as he took a step back, throwing a glare in the pogue’s direction before leading his girlfriend away. “bye guys! see you so-ooon!” she yelled while following rafe to the car.

stepping into the drivers side, rafe gathered himself for a second, not wanting to lash out at her for something so small. releasing a harsh breath, he turned to her, intent on lecturing her about drinking so much when his eyes met her puppy dog gaze. his thought out words suddenly crumbled away. sighing, he intertwined his free hand with hers and placed a soft kiss on her knuckles. “seatbelt” rafe ordered, his tone teetering on harsh. “yes sir!” she giggled before doing what he asked.

as they drove, rafe felt the anger in his veins dissipating as she leaned her head on his shoulder. “rafe?” she mumbled. humming in response, he glanced at her before turning back to the road. “do you think you could make me a sandwich when we get back? pretty pleaseeee” y/n pleaded, half expecting him to say no.

“of course baby, anything for you”

#dom!rafe #rafe cameron x reader #soft!rafe cameron #rafe cameron #outerbanks rafe #rafe cameron x fem!reader #rafe x y/n #rafecameron #obx #outer banks

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bumblinv · 2 years ago

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--- human's period ☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ

platonic!various x gn!human!reader

!! in my hc, na'vi women doesn't menstruate !!

jake and your friends takes care of you during your time of the month. basically just period comfort with momma jake

part 1 part 2!

"they. peed. blood"

spider's terrified screech brings jake one thought;

periods.

and he was dammed right.

the moment he stepped into your marui, he found the kids circling around your bed. their faces contorted with worry yet suffers from cluelessness because they could only watch as you curl yourself into a ball. hand clutching your stomach as you cry into kiri’s lap.

his eyes darted to the blanket under your legs, wich were soaked with blood. jake clicks his tongue with sympathy, "poor baby"

your friends moved back, forming a circle behind jake as they watch him kneel on your bedside.

“this your first period?”

“yes. my... my second day, sir” you whimpered out a weak answer.

“they never left their marui until noon, and we found them like this”

“i never knew periods could get this worst”

“did they got shot?”

you were overwhelmed.

the staring, the murmurs, your marui being crowded. having to experience all of that stimulations mixed with your cramps, made you shake. jake could feel it once he puts his hand on your upper arm.

“will they die?”

“they wont, spider”

“bro, how do you know?”

“shh!”, finally neteyam hisses

even neteyam understand that their questions were all honest, yet stupid that jake doesn’t even spare them any care. his full attention is fixed on your vulnerable state.

“no, kiddo. don’t curl yourself up like that”

“it hurts", you groaned. another wave of pain shakes your entire body.

“baby, squeezing your stomach like that wouldn’t make it any better. lay normally”

“they would move if they can, dad”

kiri's words made his gaze soften. he could see your tiny body jerks slightly with every wave of pain that goes through you. you were sobbing, yet no sound comes out of your mouth

“im gonna help you, okay sweetie?”, jake gives your upper arm a comforting squeeze, “we’re gonna get through this together”

the warmth he offers makes you nod weakly. jake smiles, satisfied with your response. then he turned his head towards his daughter,

“do you have medicine for muscle cramps?” the girl looks at her father, clueless. but the confidence in jake’s voice sounds like he knows what he was doing. with that, kiri nods surely.

“i could come out with something”

“good”

kiri waves her hand at tsireya, signaling her to come closer. ever so gently, the beautiful metkayina moved your head to her lap so the sully could run off and complete her father’s demand

jake puts his other hand on tsireya's shoulder, “you stay to help them clean up, okay? and neteyam” his head turns towards his eldest, “get us warm water, son”

“yes, sir”

“what can we do?” lo’ak asks as his brother went running

“you boys could help, by giving them space”

your watery eyes met with jake's, whispering a weak thank you as your marui, at last, went quiet.

if jake had let them inside longer, you would’ve broke down because even with them being outside, their noises still fills your head

“what is this period? a disease?”

“you see spider, the female human body-”

tsireya could only sigh, “they are good friends, worrying over you like that. but they were being too loud"

"you're right kiddo. now its all quieted down, lets get you cleaned up, yeah?”

"yeah..."

not long after you could feel his warm hands coming down. lifting you up by behind your knees and back. you might think that your weight would have weighted him down, but to jake, it was like carrying a mere child

“tsireya, please get the blanket for me. oh good, the blood doesn't soak up your bed”

“i put the blanket there so when i leak, my bed doesn’t get soaked”, you grin

“great thinking”, tsireya chuckles. but her laugh quickly died out.

you were whimpering in pain.

jake was only settling you down on your bed, yet you look so hurt. “sorry sweetie”, jake whispers after you flinched some more. the man was just straightening your stiffen limbs

the girl approaches you, giving your hand a comforting squeeze.

“everything’s sore, hm?” jake tucks your bangs behind your ears as you nod helplessly.

“i guess i'll wash my blanket after i get better”

“no, you stay here” he ruffles your hair, standing up and grabs your bloody blanket from tsireya’s grasps.

“jake, you don’t have to”

he laughs, “kiddo. if you’ve raised 4 children, you’ve cleaned worst”

“but its gross”

jake looks at you with confusion. why do you have to bring yourself down like that, for something as natural as breathing? he bites his lip. he remembers someone who would insist that he doesn’t need to help wash her ‘dirty’ bloody blankets.

oh how you remind him of her.

he went back to his previous position, kneeling beside you. golden eyes fixed on yours.

“baby, what’s dirty could be cleaned. after all, what’s so dirty about blood?”

you went silent.

“period blood are as natural as snots, tears, and other body fluid you have. so, no biggie, yeah?”

“no... biggie” you repeated after him. a small smile on your lips

“atta girl” jake grins, his hand went up to wipe away your last tear. “i'm gonna wash this. and while i'm gone, tsireya will help you get cleaned up, okay?” and with your nod, he smiles and walk off.

he was about to step out to the beach, but tsireya’s worried call stopped him.

“will they be okay?”

“they will, kiddo" jake shoots her an assuring smile, "they are in good hands”

and he was right.

the second he walked back to your marui, he couldn’t help to stop on his tracks. your marui was filled with joyful chatter, meaning you were getting better. and he could hear laughing too. your laughs

“bro, i thought you were dying”

“oh please”

“no offence, but you do look like you were dying” jake recognize that voice. it was spider’s

then rotxo’s iconic snickers was heard,

“when ya called jake, what was the shit ya told him? somethin' bout them peein’ out blood?”

“spider!” you exclaimed, voice full of embarrassment

“oh, cmon boys. leave them alone”

jake’s chuckle startled all of you.

your marui went silent again. even rotxo shuts his mouth.

you never knew why, but the sudden awkwardness coming over every time jake steps in is unbearable. maybe it happens because none of you were used to the usually strict man being so loose.

“i... uh, i’ve washed your blanket. should dry by tomorrow”

“thank you” you smile at him. jake returned your smile.

your friends are around you, again. but this time, you didn’t seem to bother. you were enjoying they company, even. they were all sitting down near your bedside with empty bowls around their feet.

good, they had feed you

his eyes drift to your side where he found neteyam, pressing a small water sack on your stomach. presumably filled with warm water. but the ceramic mug you were holding catches his attention the most.

the mug was filled to the brim with liquid that smells almost sour. he recognize it. and its strong yellow color, brings him back home.

“kiri made them drink pee”

“i did not, ao’nung”, the girl rolls her eyes as rotxo’s ugly snort-laugh filled the room.

“hey, i know this”

their laughter died out.

jake kneeled beside you. he was looking into your mug with his gaze so soft and loving, you were afraid he was taking a liking to it.

“there’s tamarind and turmeric in it, right?”

kiri’s mouth went agape, “never knew you know herbs, dad”

“i’m not. but i’ve made this drink all my life”

“when?”

“you see, kid,” he looks at his son with a loving smile he rarely gives. his hand went up to squeeze neteyam’s shoulder.

“back on earth, your uncle tommy and i would make this drink for your gramma, when she was on her period” his golden eyes shows such softness as he gazes back into your drink.

it was just some mere drink, yet it was able to make the former toruk makto and olo’eyktan so soft.

“but of course,” he snickers, “we don’t need to boil real turmerics nor tamarinds. they sell it on instant packages”

no one laughs.

there was one question filling their heads, yet even rotxo’s loud mouth does not dare to ask.

where is she now?

lo’ak cleared his throat. “the period, was she in pain too?”

“yes, her whole body would turn so sore she couldn’t move. my dad was never really around, so tommy and i would be the ones running errands”

“oh, so the whole cramp thing is normal?”

“right, kiddo. that’s why you need all the support you can get during your period” he ruffles your hair, making you giggle.

“i need you all kids to take care of them, you got me? its already hard having periods on earth, its even harder when you are the only one having them, in this whole village”

“yes, sir”

“good. its turning dark. they needs rest" with jake’s words, the boys gives you an acknowledging looks before one by one steps out of your marui. not forgetting to bring their dirty dishes from their previous dinner. the girls however, are squeezing the life out of you with their hugs.

“come to me when your stomach’s all messed up. i would make you that drink again”

“yes, i will kiri”, you giggle.

“you know, if its hurting you too much”, tsireya starts, “maybe i could ask my mother to try to stop your periods”

you laugh, shaking your head at the thought of loosing your uterus, “no, reya. i will not, but thank you”

one last hug and the girls were off

“well, i guess my job here is done” neteyam smiles. he was the only one left beside you. his hand still pressing a water sack to your tummy,

“your trusty hot-water-sack-holder needs to go”

his smile turns brighter when you laugh.

“we should hang out tomorrow, teyam”

“yeah”, he whispers as he press his forehead on yours. a soft smile on his lips. your moment was quickly cut off by muffled laughs, your face went bright red as you realize the rest of them were all still standing near your marui

even his dad.

jake cleared his throat, “cmon, son, lets go”

their laughter broke as soon as neteyam approached them with burning cheeks, and was met with lo’ak’s playful swats on his shoulders that even the tips of his ears went flushed.

they weren’t so far away when you could hear spider’s voice,

“jake, when will i get my period?”

“men doesn’t get periods”

“ah shit... can i though, if i try hard enough?”

“just hold your shit in for a week, then you’ll get a period”

“that’ll be my ass bleeding”

their laughter broke once again. you too, couldn’t help but giggle. upon them, neteyam’s roaring laughter stand out the most. he was just glad they had stopped teasing him.

6K notes · View notes

bkgsdoll · 1 month ago

Text

OCT 1ST: all for you

🖤 bakugou + kirishima, scream!au

Summary: there's been a masked serial killer running around your sweet town, targeting and murdering your friends left and right. however, you soon find out.. there's two killers-- and they're after you. but not in the way you thought. Kinks: knife play, spit, dub-con, kinda maybe some manipulation?, choking, blood kink, coercion, voyeurism, dacryphilia Warnings: gore, character death

🐈‍⬛╰ 　 first ever kinktober!! im kinda not used to writing oneshots, so i apologize for how choppy this is lmaoo. still hope u enjoy tho! credits in the tags <3 🎀╰ 　 word counter: 5.3k 🐈‍⬛╰ 　 kinktober masterlist 🎀╰ 　 MDNI! this is an 18+ event

"okay your turn..!" your best friend mina giggles, sitting criss-crossed on your bed, a pink duvet draped over her lap. you lay on your stomach next to her wearing a girlish grin while flipping through magazines as you two play two truths and a lie. originally you were supposed to have a double date with your boyfriend katsuki, and mina's boyfriend ejirou tonight, but he canceled due to a family emergency. both of you were a bit bummed (mina threw a fit), but ejirou's not the type to bail for something small. so to bring up your best friend's spirits, you decided to have a sleepover at your house.

you hum softly, flipping a page in a beauty magazine. you rub your glittery lips together and tap your manicured nails against the glossy paper as you think of your lie and truths. suddenly you perk up and tilt your head towards mina. "kay, ready?" you wiggle your brows. she nods with a determined smile.

"i've never done anal--" you start, rolling your eyes with a curled-up lip when the pink-skinned girl points an accusatory finger with a cheeky snort. "lie! wow, that was quick," her dimples deepen as her intrepid smirk grows wider.

you hold your mouth shut to conceal a small laugh as she boasts. "let me finish!!" you let out a giggle, pinching her fleshy thigh. she yelps and rubs her nipped skin before quieting down. you lift your chin up with a goofy smile. "anddd i've never gotten drunk before... and! i'm gonna be a slutty witch for halloween this year." you finish with a confident grin. mina's cocky grin falters, a small pout forming while her face pinches in thought.

a finger taps her chin with a hum. "okay, i retract my previous statement. you're too goody two shoes to get drunk, and you are not basic sooo the lie is you're gonna be a slutty witch this year!-- am i right?!" she grabs your shoulder, shaking you lightly. you giggle, nodding your head. "no fair. you're too good at this." you flop on your back, folding your arms with a playful pout.

mina has thrown huge halloween bashes every year since freshman year in high school. fyi, it's not the large amount of people that makes the parties so huge. it was the drama. the loud arguments over who should've won the "costume awards". yes. this is a real thing that you, mina, and ochako came up with back in high school. anyhow, you're still unsure of what you're dressing up as this year. for the past two, you and katsuki matched (and won the "cunt couple" category both times too). you make a mental note to text him later.

"we should go out tonight! like ding dong ditch as a pre-halloween jest." mina chirps, tumbling off your bed and leaping to the full-body mirror against your wall. you turn to your side, leaning your cheek on your palm as you watch the bubbly girl fix her hair. "right, maybe if we were eleven," you tease, sticking out your tongue. she chuckles, fluffing her soft curls before letting out a gasp. "we should pick up toru and carve pumpkins!" she suggests, eyes brightening. the girl gasps and squeals, "call her!"

toru was more mina's friend than yours. since high school, you never really enjoyed hanging out with her that much. she's snooty and petty, traits you're not very fond of. almost everyone around you understands your miniature distaste-- including mina, but being the sweet girl she is, always tries to make others feel included. you pull your hello kitty cased phone off the nightstand and pull up toru's number before lifting it to your ear. mina plops down next to you, fixing the bows in your hair while the line rings. "she's not answering," you whisper with a frown. she giggles, pinching your side. "maybee she's with ojiro.."

you're brought to voicemail where you hear toru's bubbly voice. you huff, twirling a strand of your hair. when it beeps, you splurt out, "hey! me and mina are coming over with pumpkins and candles in a few so get ojiro out of there don't be mad okay see you in a bit!" you giggle and hang up before grabbing your purse and rushing out the door with mina.

"we should've gotten smaller ones.." mina whines, heaving a large orange pumpkin with both arms.

you huff, struggling to carry yours. "it's just a small walk, we'll be fine." you chuckle at the girl's sloppy walking. she sticks her tongue out with a little laugh. you two cross the street and stay to the right side of the sidewalk as you make your way to hagakure's. it's quiet and peaceful. the nightly autumn breeze brushes against your cable knit sweater as you walk.

mina exhales dreamily. "i've missed these. getting together and acting like little girls again. i only feel like that with you guys. eji's been hanging out with bakugou a lot more than me lately, it makes a girl feel kinda sucky."

you frown. boys will be asshole boys. "awe, honey. i love being with you. you can call me whenever you feel lonely!"

this brings a gentle smile back on her face. unlike your best friend, you're glad katsuki's with ejirou more often, actually, you urged him to hang out. you realized him spending almost every day with you during, in-between, and after classes couldn't have been healthy, so you suggested having bro-time with his "most favorable" friend.

you reach toru's house shortly, walking up the driveway sluggishly. the lights are on, she must be home. "i hate being outside at night." you hear mina whisper as you lug your pumpkin up the white porch steps. mina stays at the bottom, dropping her big pumpkin on the floor and massaging her arms. you gently rest yours on the porch before skipping to the front door. you're able to see through the transom in the middle of it, and your eyes widen in terror. there's broken glass scattered on the entryway floor and a fallen painting nearby. right before you smush your hand on the doorbell, you hear a bloodcurdling scream from behind you. you quickly whip around and stomp down the stairs to your shaking friend.

mina's eyes are gushing tears, her hands pressed tightly against her jaw-dropped mouth. she's looking away from you towards the lawn in the distance. "what's wrong!?! what happened??" your hand grazes her shoulder to soothe her whimpers, but she chokes on a sob, clearly not able to form any words. she just keeps staring ahead. you turn to face the direction her eyes are fixed on. and your heart drops to your stomach.

there, on the tree you used to sit under all together, hangs your friend toru with her insides on the outside. your entire body feels weak. you drop to your knees, mina shrieking when you do. "CALL THE COPS!!" you scream, sobbing loudly. with trembling hands, mina pulls her phone out of her pocket and dials 911.

you're hardly hearing anything around you, including mina, as she breathes in and out rapidly, explaining the situation to the police. "they're-- they're on the way." mina hiccups, dropping down next to you, latching onto your arm with both hands. "oh my god..." she squeezes her eyes shut and digs her face into your side, her tears pouring onto your sweater. you suddenly feel nauseous, but you can't stop gawking at the tree. your jaw is locked open and teardrops leak into your mouth. you see flashes of red and blue reflecting across the grass after a few minutes, but you can't move.

when the cops arrived, they had asked you and mina far too many questions for either of you to comprehend in the moment. you tried to be the strong one and blurt out as much as you knew. you didn't see anyone nearby when you'd arrived. you could tell that didn't help the officers much. as they investigated the property, you called katsuki, choking out what happened. he got to hagakure's house in under five minutes. "her poor parents." mina had croaked, her throat heavily sore from screaming and crying. she hadn't let go of you the entire time.

when katsuki and ejirou pulled up, you dragged mina over to them where she fell into eji's large arms and burst out crying again after just calming down. "what.. happened?" he muttered, looking at the scene while petting his girlfriend's hair consolingly. you clutched the front of katsuki's shirt and dug your face into his chest. "holy shit," he exhaled heavily, wrapping his arms around you tightly. "fuckin hell. were you hurt?" he curses, pulling you away and inspecting you, both hands on your cheeks. you were drained, it appeared so obviously on your face. you very lightly shook your head, mindlessly fingering the fabric of your boyfriend's long-sleeve. "jus wanna go home." you mumble. like mina, your throat is exhausted and raspy. katsuki nods immediately, slapping kiri on the back before tugging you to his car.

the next week was torture. mainly because mina, your cheerful bubbly girl, was in shambles. she only went to some of her classes, usually the ones in the late afternoon, and hardly talked to anyone. you didn't let this get in the way of your academics, however. of course you were upset-- though you never really liked her, she was still just a young girl figuring out her life. and no matter what it was that triggered her killer, she didn't deserve to have her guts spilled out. literally.

sometimes when you go to sleep in your once safe bed with your muscular boyfriend's arms wrapped around you, the image of toru hanging from her tree with a shocked face flashes in your mind.

another week passed, it was better than the last. mina was slowly but surely getting back to her usual self. halloween was inching closer, and you decided that having an even larger party this year might lift your best friend's spirits. and of course, she adored this idea. you two and kiri invited everyone you knew! you planned your costume, you were going to be a cute little vampire and katsuki.. well, you weren't sure until later in the day.

"oh gosh sukiii..!" you squealed, fisting your boyfriend's blond hair. his face was squished in between your thighs, slurping up your squelchy cunt like it was his last meal. "babyyyy.." you whined, tugging on his hair harder. that's when you felt sharp canines dig into your inner thigh. you gasped, throwing your head back, your hips unconsciously rutting against katsuki's face harder. "be patient baby," he muttered, pulling back slightly to stare at your pussy, pinching your little clit with two long fingers. "hey!" you let out a small cry, staring down at the amused man with a pout. he smirks, dragging a finger through your folds. "maybe i should be a werewolf this year, hah?" he jokes, rubbing his digit up and down.

the night of the party, katsuki sits at the end of the bed with a dopey grin on his face, listening to you ramble about how excited you are. he thought your outfit was adorable. you wore a frilly white miniskirt with a showy pink corset, lined with pretty white bows. you best believe he was taking professional-level pics for your instagram.

"we're gonna be late, sweets." katsuki reminds you, glancing at his phone for the time. you're quickly applying mascara with your tongue poked out when a large warm hand is placed on your soft thigh, gently massaging your flesh. he rolls his eyes as you unbutton the top of his flannel. "you look so good!!" you swoon, playfully throwing your hand on your heart. katsuki's costume was simple, really. he borrowed a green flannel from izuku, cut it up with some scissors to look like claw marks (he'll have to buy izu a new shirt..) and threw on a pair of ripped jeans. "how are people gonna know what you are??" you asked him earlier, both hands on your hips. he shrugged, "no one's gonna be paying attention to me, who cares?"

he subtly puffed his chest out at your compliment, mumbling out a small "thanks peach," before twirling your fingers into his own. he looked down at you seriously. "tonight'll be fun nd shit, but you needa be good, kay?" katsuki squishes your cheeks with a veiny hand. your squeezed grin makes him chuckle lightly, pulling away to tenderly kiss your glossy lips. you giggle, grabbing onto his large hand with both of yours. "sweets." he clicks his tongue to the roof of his mouth. you hum, nodding your head. "m always good," you tell him with a silly smile. he sticks his tongue out boyishly before standing and pulling you up with his hand.

the party's roaringly active, the thumping bass from the large speakers reverberating through your chest as you and katsuki walk hand-in-hand into mina's house. you spot a small group of your friends from high school standing in a corner, chatting with some people you recognize from campus. the cozy home was decorated head to toe in halloween decorations, hanging bats and ghosts adorn the ceiling, and cobwebs fill every little corner. "hey lovebirds!" a familiar voice calls out. you turn your head and beam at kaminari, dragging a grimacing katsuki along to join the cluster.

mina grabs your arm from your boyfriend, tugging you down to sit next to her on a small couch. kami sits perched on the arm, both leather-covered arms crossed as he tries to appear intimidating. "what the fuck 're you?" katsuki digs his hands into his denim pockets, slouching over kaminari with a glower.

he scoffs in surprise, dropping his arms in defeat. "i'm aku! from that manga you literally gave to me, dude!!" he whines. bakugou turns his head back to you, clearly not interested in whatever loser villain denki's cosplaying.

"where's eji?" you ask mina, fixing the red hood on her head. she held a little brown basket in her lap, picking at a chipped piece of rattan with manicured nails.

"he went to go grab beers with izuku and hanta." she waves her hand dismissively. "costume awards start in ten minutes!!" she squeals, clapping her hands pertly. you smile toothily, analyzing the turnout. some lesbians were making out with a huddled group around them yelling out cheers, red plastic cups filled everyone's hands, and there was far too much twerking going on. you gasp when a girl who was just shaking her ass onto a very uninterested spiderman lifted her hands off her knees and slipped face forward onto the ground.

kaminari caught this too, letting out an "oooh.." with a wince. he clicked his tongue before taking a sip out of his cup. "y'think she'll give me a lap dance if i go help her up?" he wiped his mouth with his sleeve before shoving the cup into your hand, not waiting for an answer and rushing off. you giggle, pouring some of his drink into your mouth.

mina laughs, swirling the liquid in her cup around. "atleast he's not a pussy anymore,"

bakugou leans against the arm of the sofa, folding his arms. "now he jus wants t'eat it."

you look up at him, letting out an airy chuckle as you lean into his muscly figure. he looks amazing like this. izuku's flannel being a little too figure-hugging, clings to his body, accentuating his brawny biceps and thick pecs. his jawline's sharp enough to stab a man, and his gorgeous, almost distracting face looks enough to eat. damn, he did his eyeliner really well. he smirks at your staring, brightening his eyes and wiggling his brows mockingly.

tsu speaks for the first time this night with a quiet warning. "euhh, look who's coming over,"

...who the hell invited camie?

the gorgeous girl saunters over in her stupid police officer costume that barely grasps her bouncy tits. her finger taps her bottom lip seductively as she reaches your corner. katsuki lightly hums at your sudden discomfort.

without any greeting, camie points to your outfit. "way weird. what are you supposed to be?"

you exhale, "a vampire. it's nice to see you too, camie."

the whole thing between you and her started with katsuki. you thought it ended once he barked in her face telling her to back off, but she still believes she has a chance with him.

she lets out a tiny "eh" and turns to katsuki, pressing a hand into her hip with a smile. "hey hottie! kinda lame costume, but you still look totes fresh. i'm gonna slide over to the kitchen and grab some punch or somethin fetch, don't miss me too much 'kay byeee!" she waved before swaying away.

mina snorts, leaning her head onto your shoulder. katsuki rolls his eyes, grunting something about "no fuckin boundaries".

"i think she and yuga would get along great," mina smirks, standing up.

you raise a brow. "where you goin?"

"awards are in a few, duh! go put your fangs in, i left them on my dresser!!" she giggles before running away. you smile widely, your favorite part of the night is coming up. katsuki clears his throat.

"i'll come wit'cha. jus gimme a sec-- y'want somethin to drink honey?" he pets the back of your head. you sweetly grin, nodding and getting up as well. he kisses your cheek, mutters "be right back" and heads to the other room.

you mingle near the couch, mildly dancing to the pulsing music. maybe a minute has passed since katsuki left, when you hear a wail, a muffled scream pierce the air. some others heard it too, their heads turned near the back door. you're about to go investigate when kirishima comes up behind you, sliding a red solo cup into your hand. "oh hey eiji--" you take the cup from him. you suck in a breath. "i just heard a scream... maybe we should go check it out.." you mutter, gaze fixed on the back door where some people started gathering.

the perky redhead hums, taking a look at the crowd before wrapping an arm around your shoulder. "i think they got it. pinky told me to get you your fangs real fast before the contest starts!" he exclaims, rambling about his costume while leading you up the stairs where you steal one last look at the backyard door before heading into mina's girly bedroom.

kirishima stalks silently behind you, slowly creeping in. the lights are off and the sun has already been set. you can hardly see shit. you squint at your best friend's dresser, hand fumbling around trying to find your plastic fangs. "can you turn on a light plea--"

you cut yourself off when a large warm body presses against your back. what the fuck is he doing?? just as you're about to speak again, the ceiling light suddenly flickers on, and you see ejirou standing by the door. your eyes widen.

a familiar deep, rough voice purrs in your ear. "hey."

you gasp, spinning around quickly. your boyfriend, your katsuki, stands tall in the bedroom, flannel shirt unbuttoned and blood splattered all over. and he looks. so fucking cocky. your horrified stare slowly drags towards the ground behind him, where camie lies with her eyes bulged out and her neck covered in slashes. katsuki can feel your quick heavy breath hot against his throat, and he grins.

"dumb bitch won't get in the way of us anymore, huh?"

you jaw slacks open, ready to scream, but nothing comes out. you hear a lock click on the door. your boyfriend is relaxed like nothing is wrong. he sighs, lifting a hand to twirl a strand of your hair.

"knew you wanted this. but you were too scared to do it yourself. my poor baby, lost in what society forces you to think." katsuki's gruff voice drones. "y'wanted to be so fuckin perfect, right? boring like those extras."

you watch kirishima pull a knife out of katsuki's hand, hastily wiping the blood off on his pants. your chest heaves up and down, struggling to ignore the excited expression etched on the sweet boy's face. bakugou grunts.

"maybe that's why ya tried to push me away. 'spend time with kiri, katsuki, it'll be good fa you'... do ya not love me anymore?" his hand darts to his pec, holding his heart teasingly. he knows he's right about you having.. unnatural urges. but how the fuck did he know that? and he's all proud of himself, arrogant bastard. but that's your katsuki. fuck, you weren't ever gonna actually kill someone!

while you were stuck inside your head, his hands reached to your hips, slowly guiding you to mina's cozy bed. your skirt gets flipped up and panties pulled down to your ankles. you suck in another breath, squeezing your eyes shut.

your boyfriend starts to rub your pussy with small circles. your eyes are all hazy and glossed over, you can't help but feel stirred up by all this, no matter how wrong it is. you yelp when you feel two thick fingers pinch your clit. you lift your head to see your boyfriend quirking an eyebrow, waiting for his answer. you let out a quiet moan, tilting your head back again, your hips gently rocking into his idle fingers. "o-of course i love you.. s'much suki.." you whimper, staring at your hunky katsuki with dumb eyes.

this swells his heart, a proud smirk curling onto his lips. "course ya do. such a perfect girl, huh?" he coos, gently stroking your pussy.

kirishima watches from a wooden chair with a small grin and slightly widened eyes. the sight of you bare, his best friend's girl. tears pooling in your pretty eyes as your cunt gushes arousal. katsuki's crimson eyes catch this, a thin scowl creasing his features. "oi," he grunts, removing his attention from you. ejirou lightly shakes his head and opens his eyes wider when meeting katsuki's, who lets out a huff. "you wanna fuck my girl or somethin'?" the blond spits, his voice deep and rough.

kiri's cheeks sting as he swallows hard and glances back at you. his expression alters into a semi-confident beam. "yeah, man. i do."

if you were paying more attention, you would've visibly cringed at his words. katsuki's never, not once, liked when another man viewed you in any special aspect. you were his, and he made that very clear. though he doesn't curse out his friend or even bark at him to leave. his eyes smooth over to yours, calm and nonchalant. you huff, an angry pout forming on your lips. your thighs squeeze shut, but katsuki simply pries them back open.

"don't be a brat." he pinches the chubby flesh of your ass, jaw clenching.

"you killed them!" you cry, a little sob falling out of your throat. what you said isn't really what you mean, and bakugou knows it. your mouth says one thing, but your pinched eyebrows and puffed out cheeks truthfully tell him, i wanted to do it.

"why don't you get it?" katsuki sighs, kneading your ass with his thumbs. "we did it all for you, princess."

your cunt throbs, and you can feel your mascara running down your face. fuck it, you can't pretend any longer. your breath shakes as you exhale with a sniffle. "thank you sukiii.." you whisper, shutting your eyes shyly. you feel a kiss on your stomach as the bed shifts and your boyfriend crawls on top of you. suddenly bloodcurdling screams reverberate through the house. katsuki groans. "fucking shitty hair, why didn't you hide it better." he states rather than asks, shaking his head in annoyance.

kirishima chuckles, playing with the used knife. "dude, i had like two minutes to do it!"

it. you know what they're talking about. the scream from outside. you knew that shit sounded familiar.

"w-was it mineta?" you manage to squeak out. bakugou clicks his tongue, starting to push his fingers into your slicked hole.

"yeah, that asshole."

you moan, letting your head fall back onto the mattress. lengthy fingers pump in and out of your pussy with calculation. katsuki smugly grins at your blissful face. "yknow what ei? i think m getting a little hungry."

he slides back down the bed, face right in front of your messy cunt. he hums lightly before licking a long stripe from inbetween your cheeks to your sensitive little clit. you sigh at the tingle. your boyfriend watches you through lidded eyes when he starts sucking on your bud and fingers continue to push into you quickly. his free hand grips your inner thigh while he tugs on your clit harshly.

every lick and suck is given with precision. he's proud he was able to get rid of those jackasses for you (who is he kidding, he didn't give a shit about any of them either) and wants to make you feel good, let you know it's okay. "such a good girl," he mutters against your slit.

his fingers pull out of your tight hole to rub fast circles on your clit and dig his face into your pussy, nose bumping under his fingers as he ravages your juices.

your hips stutter and a lengthy squeal falls out of your mouth as a wave of pleasure washes over you. you can't see it, but ejirou's eyes darken as you release on your boyfriend's face. he's panting, his rocky hard-on only becoming even more visible, yet he holds his hands at his sides, refusing to touch himself.

"idiot, gimme." katsuki demands, holding his hand out towards him, keeping his gaze on your blissed post-orgasm face.

kirishima stalks over, dropping the sharp knife into his best friend's hand. bakugou sighs, gripping the knife as he leans forward to cut open your pretty pink corset. you gasp, but he shushes you gently. "i'll just buy you another," he mumbles.

ejirou sits back down in the creaky chair, clearly not planning on leaving anytime soon.

"what would pinky say if she saw this.." katsuki jeers, not meeting kiri's startled glare. "you, about to watch her best friend get fucked into next week." he chuckles tauntingly. he pulls your corset off your body and unclips your bra with his free hand while the other rubs circles into your hip.

he sighs in relief when your tits bounce free. like they just saved his life. his hand immediately leaves your hip to fondle one while leaning in to mush his lips onto yours, the other hand latching onto your throat. you whimper into the kiss when he sticks his tongue inside, sucking on yours. while he's distracting you with his sloppy lips, he removes his hand from your tit to tug down the zipper of his jeans and pull them down along with his boxers before stepping out of them.

he grabs ahold of his knife again, slightly pulling away from your mouth and giving your neck a squeeze. you feel his erect cock brush against your thigh. you bat your lashes like a pretty fawn, cupping his cheek with your hand. he unconsciously leans into your touch before raising the knife to your shoulder. you feel the razor-sharp blade graze your skin ever so lightly, swallowing quietly.

he sighs, kissing the palm of your hand. "y'wanna be mine angel?"

you scoff, "i'm already yours doofus."

he smirks, kissing you one more time before digging the blade into your flesh. you yelp with his hand pressed against your mouth. "ow, fuck!" your whine comes out muffled.

"easy, man!" kirishima exclaims from the stands with a worrisome expression.

after a few seconds, the knife is lifted to your boyfriend's mouth, licking the blood off as he stares at his initials tattooed into your skin. he throws the blade across the room, adjusting himself right above you. he grabs his dick to rub his leaking tip through your sloshing folds. you whine needily. katsuki smirks before pushing in. the stretch hardly burns with your waterpark of cunt being prepped.

he's halfway in when he pulls out and slams back in. you mewl, gentle hands gripping his shoulder blades. he lifts one of your legs, his pace speeding up. his mean cock pumped into you roughly, just how you liked it. "fuckk! 'ts so good sukii..!"

you release a long string of moans and squeals, the passion of your murderous boyfriend's fat dick turning you dumb. he coos, bucking his hips up harder, "my girl's so slutty, huh?" he taunts. "takin me so well- fhuck,"

unlike katsuki, who was evidently composed, you were a babbling mess.

"ohhh.. you're fucking crazy!" you moan, throwing your head back. he chuckles, sucking a lovebite into your neck in response. your mind becomes foggy as you cling to him, drool dripping down your chin. he leans up, licking up the spit from your face before grabbing the back of your head and smashing his lips onto yours, pushing your saliva back in with his tongue. you were completely fucked out with a fuzzy brain, and all you can think of is katsuki, katsuki, katsuki.

he adored being able to make you act to whorish, have his sweet innocent girl screaming his name like a slut. his heavy balls slapped against the curve of your ass while he pounded his fat dick with an almost fatter smirk.

he groans your name, eyebrows furrowed in pleasure as he nibbles on your flushed cheeks, drawing blood. you cry out, your back arching.

"y'gonna cum, sweetheart? in front of that idiot?" bakugou teases, nudging his head towards ejirou.

your vision's blurry, pretty tears clouding your sight. you blink them away, let them flow down your face so you can see your beloved, the man who slaughtered the ones you despised. your nails scratch down his back as his large tip reaches your g-spot with ease. "oh fff-ffuck! please, pleaseee, need to-- oh god katsuki!" you scream as his fingers ferociously attack your clit. it was enough to have you squirt around him, your back arching so that your tits were pressed against his. "shit, m gonna cum. all for you baby.. FUCK!" katsuki cums with a groan, pumping his seed into you lazily.

kirishima awkwardly clears his throat, abruptly standing up from his chair and heading towards the window he skillfully climbed through every week. "i'm gonna, uh, go see what's happenin' with the cops." he cups his rock hard dick with his hand, blushing furiously. "and um maybe we should-- okay, yeah, i'm going." he sighs, realizing neither of you are listening. he pulls open the window and crawls out, climbing down a tree.

katsuki digs his head into your shoulder where his initials bleed leisurely. he kisses the mark before dropping his full weight onto you. you grunt, tangling your hands into his ashy blond hair.

he hums, "y'gonna help me with 'em next time?" he looks up at you with soft eyes despite the topic of discussion.

you heavily exhale, biting your lip. "katsuki, i dunno. i was never gonna kill--"

"aht aht aht. what're you talking about? you tellin me you bought that rope that's layin in the closet for no reason? did ya plan on going fishing or somethin? cuz i don't think you'd like it baby." he stares at you with a confused frown. you huff, wrapping your legs around his. "not fair," you pout. he smirks, pecking your chin.

"you wanna know someone else i killed?"

"who?"

"that damn deku before i took his shirt."

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