#he finally comes home and he’s a bit older and taller

[palewyrmnerd]

You know, if Atreus was able to shift genders like in myth do you think he would look like an exact copy of Faye? 🤔

[solelifauna]

Yandere Batfam & Neglected Reader Prt. 3

Finally getting a tiny bit of Bruce's monologue!! And uh oh, looks like you've gotta clock in!

As the car began to move, you couldn't help but feel a growing sense of panic. The tension in the air was palpable, and you could feel the weight of everyone's gaze on you. You tried your best to focus on anything but the Waynes, your mind desperately attempting to process what just happened in the parking lot. You shifted uncomfortably in your seat, staring out the window as the city lights blurred past. It was then that Damian decided to break the awkward silence.

“Father, what is the meaning of bringing her along with us?” Damian spoke curtly, disdain marring his voice when mentioning you.

As much as you disliked him as well, he had a point. Why the hell are you sitting here with them?

Bruce glanced at Damian. Truth be told, he didn't quite know why. While you were his child, one out of the only two biological children he had, he had never really had the time or care to acknowledge you. You coming into his life abruptly disturbed everything, so he paid you no mind. He’ll admit, it wasn't fair of him to do so, but he had bigger things to worry about. He was tired, and a child that wasn't involved with his night business, who did not understand what his life of vigilantism took out of him, would never understand the sacrifices that he's had to make. It wasn't until seeing you on the football field, happy, talking to your friends and acting in a way he'd never seen you do, he'd begun to realize what he missed. 

When did you get so tall? He could have sworn you were no taller than his waist. And when did you join the cheerleading team? And who was that girl throwing her arm around you? Who was that boy? Gods, just how much has he missed? 

But he couldn't say all of that. So instead he just replied, “She's a part of this family, Damian and she needed a ride back home.”

He could feel Cassandra’s knowing stare, she could read him better than anybody and she knew the inner turmoil brewing in his heart. That's coupled with Stephanie’s smirk and Dick’s predatory grin. Jason grunted in response, clearly not pleased with the arrangement. Lastly, he could see the disbelief on your face, as if you couldn't believe you'd even be considered part of this family. And he’s mostly to blame. 

He internally sighed. He'd have to work on that. You were his daughter. His. It was his job to keep you safe and happy. It was his job to make sure you felt loved. And right now? He was no better than Jannet and Jack Drake leaving poor Tim to fend for himself. But that would all soon change, starting with himself and his children.

You on the other hand were still reeling from Bruce’s words. “Family”? Is he fucking kidding or what?

Dick, always the one to break the tension with his charm, spoke up next. "Hey, (Y/n), when did you become a cheerleader? I didn't know you were into that sort of stuff." Dick said with that condescending tone.

Your eyes twitched. You did not like his tone.

“That's none of your business Dick.” You shot back before you could even think.

Everyone looked your way. Whoops, that was your bad. 

It was Jasons turn to get upset, “Watch your fucking mouth.” He growled, ever possessive over his older brother.

You immediately froze up, offering a quick and quiet apology before retreating into your own head. Jason–Jason scared you more than any of the others. You knew about his pit rage, you knew about the bloody and beaten bodies he's left in the wake of his rage. You knew he’d never dream of hurting his family, the pit often aiding in his possessive tendencies over the rest of the bats but– you weren't family. And you'd hate to be on the receiving end of Jason’s wrath.

If anyone had continued talking to you, you wouldn’t know. The sound around you was muffled like your head was filled with cotton and you could feel yourself shaking. You wanted out. Now. Thankfully, the rest of the ride was mostly quiet. Sure, everyone would occasionally turn their eyes towards you, making you shrink further in on yourself, but you were almost at the manor. The vehicle barely came to a stop before you were throwing yourself out the door and into the manor. You bid Alfred a quick “goodbye” and “thank you” before bolting up the stairs and into your room. 

You locked the door, not that anyone would bother coming up to your room, but still it gave you security nonetheless. You stripped and hopped into the shower, the soreness in your body now making itself known. God it was gonna suck tomorrow. Why? Because it was Friday today, that meant tomorrow would be Saturday, and that meant that you'd have to go to work at the ass crack of dawn, 5 am. Plus, you didn't even have your bike, so you’d have to rely on Alfred to take you and bring you back. Great.

So with a heavy heart and heavy limbs, you tucked yourself into bed ready for the worst sleep of your life. 

You wake up to the grating sound of your iphone alarm, as you groggily get up to brush your teeth, shower and get ready for the long day ahead. Making your way down for a cup of coffee, sleep still in your eyes, you fail to notice the looming figure of Tim Drake already sipping his own coffee. It was dark downstairs and you were still fighting off exhaustion from the day before, so who could blame you for not seeing the corner of the cabinet. Before you knew it, you were hunched over on the floor grabbing your pinkie toe in pain. 

“Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, that hurt! Holy shit, kill yourself, kill yourself! Who the fuck puts a cabinet there, oh my god.” You wailed in pain, cursing at the damn cabinet. You’d blame it on delirium and exhaustion. Honestly, it was an expected crashout.

You laid pathetically on the floor for a couple of more seconds before you heard a monotone, disinterested voice make itself known.

“Are you done now?” Tim says from behind you.

You yelp in surprise, before clumsily scrambling up and turning around. And there he was, sitting at the counter, coffee in hand and an almost (dare you say) amused look on his face. You blanche. Shit, how long has he been sitting there? Oh god, please don't say he’s witnessed the entirety of your embarrassing crashout? 

And as if reading your mind, he cryptically answers, “Yes, I've been here this entire time.” All while sipping his coffee as his calculating eyes scarily bore into your figure.

You don't know what to say, embarrassed out of your mind, so you just apologize. 

“Right–um, sorry about that. I’m just tryna get some coffee. I'll be out your way.” You hastily say before turning, tail tucked back towards the coffee pot. 

You could still feel the weight of Tim’s stare on you but you're too tired and embarrassed to care. You pour yourself a big cup of straight up black coffee and proceed to chug it while walking towards the sink. After finishing it, you proceeded to gag for a few seconds, the bitter taste still permeating your mouth. God you hated the taste of black coffee, but you’d do whatever it takes to not fall asleep on the job. You discard your cup into the sink before you decide to find Alfred, it was 4:37 am and you needed to clock in by 5:00 am or else your ass was grass. You conveniently ignore Tim who has watched all of your misfortune happen this morning. He doesn't say anything when you leave the dining/kitchen area, just eerily watches. 

God, he made you nervous.

Anyways, your quest to find Alfred was short lived as he seemingly appeared out of nowhere, Damian in tow (you could feel the scar on your face burning). Great, was everyone up at this ungodly hour or was it just them two? You avoided the heat of Damian’s glare as you relayed to Alfred your predicament, apologizing profusely since you did ask him last minute. He simply smiled at you, letting you know that “it is never a hindrance when you need something Master (Y/n).” You smiled back in relief, thanking him once more as Alfred got ready to drop you off.

But of course, Damian just had to break the silence. 

“What could you possibly need to do at this hour? Alfred has better things to do other than encouraging your galavanting.” Damian spoke sharply.

You just sighed, “Not that it's any of your business, but I have work.”You don't offer any more information as your hand unknowingly caresses the scarred tissue on your face. 

Damian’s eyes draw to your face at the movement, seemingly fixated on the scar he left on you. He doesn’t think much of it, but sometimes, something green and dangerous purrs inside of him. Yes, his mark. It was his mark on your face. As much as he hated you, you were his only other blood-sibling no matter how weak and useless you were. He had bested you, and usually would pay you no mind, you knew your place and would typically remain docile. But recently you’ve been showing a new abrasive side, one he is not particularly fond of.

He’d have to talk to father about it.

Silence permeates the air as he doesnt bother to dignify your disrespect with a response. You’re saved when Alfred comes back with keys, both you and him rushing to whatever vehicle he's pulled out from the large, large selection of coveted cars Bruce owns. Looks like it's a BMW today. You practically throw yourself in, as Alfred speeds away to the cafe you work at. You arrive at work in record speed, bidding Alfred a “goodbye” before rushing to throw your apron on and clock in. 

You’re greeted by the one other person working your shift, Matheo. He’s a sweet boy, very soft-spoken and mostly sticks in the back near the kitchen to bake the pastries while you work the register. Of course he comes and helps with drink orders when it's particularly busy, he’s too kind to leave you to fend for yourself. Regardless, you have a pretty straight forward agreement, which is what spells your doom. It was a regular Saturday shift, with the pilate moms coming in, middle schoolers loitering, and the occasional customer with an attitude. Everything was fine and dandy till three familiar faces walk in.

You were ever the busy body, finishing one last drink before yelling out a quick “I’ll help y’all shortly!”, to whoever just walked in. You quickly rush over to the register, not even bothering to look up from the register.

“Sorry ‘bout the wait! Now what can I get you?” You said in your regular customer service voice.

“Well, well, well, turns out you were right Dami, she does work here.” A chillingly familiar voice jests.

You freeze, slowly looking up only to be met with Dick smiling at you. It was not a kind smile, no, there was something dangerous about it. Behind him, you could see the familiar figures of Cassandra and Damian. What the hell are they doing here? God, you should have never mentioned anything to Damian, now you had to deal with this.

“R–right, what can I get you?” You shakily say, putting back on your customer service persona. 

Dick’s smile grows, his teeth now visible, almost as if he was baring his teeth. Danger. Something inside you screamed.

“I’ll just have a vanilla cold brew, extra cold foam. Dami, Cass, what do you want?” Dick grinns.

“Tch, I don't want anything from this place.” Damian says, uninterested.

“Cass?” Dick asks, looking at her.

She comes up to the register, giving Dick a one-off-glance. Worryingly, her eyes seem to be fixated on you. She doesn't say anything for a few seconds, holding immensely uncomfortable eye contact with you before relaying her order.

“Just a caramel latte.” Cass says, still looking down at you.

You frantically fill in their orders on the register.

“Will that be all?” You ask. You hoped that was all, you didn't want them spending another minute talking to you.

Dick says a quick cheerful “no” before you ring them up and get started with the two drinks. It doesn't take too much time before you’re calling out their names to come get their drinks. You hope they leave right after. But of course, nothing goes according to your wishes as they grab their drinks and seat themselves at a table. Great.

The minutes after result in further disaster. After a couple of more customers, a lady comes up to you, face already molded into a scowl with a half empty drink in her hand. Oh great, a “karen”.

“Hello ma’am, how can I help you?” You kindly say.

“You! I need a refund. Right. Now!” The lady booms, wagging her finger in your face.

“A refund, right, is there a reason you’re requesting a refund?” 

“A reason!? You made my drink wrong and I want my money back!”

“Please correct me if i'm wrong, but I believe you ordered a double mocha cappuccino, correct?” You ask slowly.

“Yes, that's what I ordered! Why are you asking me all these questions?!”

“Sorry ma’am, but that is the drink I gave you. Is there something specifically wrong with the drink?”

“The drink that you gave me is wrong, you made it wrong! It doesn't taste anything like regular coffee!”

“Oh, well sometimes different cafes use different recipes for the same drink, i think maybe that's why–”

“–Well I don't care! I want a refund!”

You could feel eyes on you as the other patrons start to notice the commotion brewing.

“Ma’am, i'm so sorry but i can't give you a refund, you’ve already drank half the drink. If you would have let me know sooner, I could've remade it for you, but–I'm sorry ma’am I can't give you that refund.”

“Are you serious! Why I never!? It's always bitches like you who try scamming people out of their money!”

“Ma'am, I'm really sorry, it's the company policy. I just work here–” You gently say, trying to calm her down.

“–Go to hell you bitch!” Is all you hear before you’re doused in the face with warm coffee. 

You just stand there is shock, blinking through the coffee. There's no way that just happened. Theo, comes out having heard the commotion (albeit a little too late), only to be met with the sight of you covered in coffee.

“Oh my gosh (Y/n)! I should have come sooner, are you okay?”

“Peachy.” You say, voice audibly watery and cracking.

“I'll take care of everything up here, you go take some time in the back. Clean up or honestly if you don't feel like it, just rest in the back–”

“–It's okay Theo, I–I just need a couple of minutes. I'm fine.”

He gives you a quizzical stare.

“I'm fine. I promise.” You smile, although you could feel your eyes starting to water. 

You hastily walk off to the break room and proceed to cry for a good 2 minutes before deciding to start cleaning yourself up. You do your best to get the coffee that's dried into hair out while wiping down your now sicky arms and face. Changing your apron gets rid of most of the mess, but your shirt underneath still has a couple of large patches of coffee. Sighing, you tidy yourself up as much as possible before heading back to the counter, Theo worriedly waiting for you. You just shoot him a thumbs up and let him know that it’s okay for him to retreat back to the kitchen; he lingers for a moment, hesitant to leave you alone, but drudges back regardless.

There are eyes on you. You look up perturbed, only to find Dick, Cass, and Damian still sitting at their table, sharp stares pinned on your figure. They saw all that happen, didn't they? You mentally cringed. 

Checking your watch, you realize that there are still four more hours left on your shift. Great, that's great–just another four more hours, which is technically thirty minutes eight times, which is technically fifteen minutes sixteen times–and you’ve lost it. Jesus you were losing your mind, which was understandable (honestly you're surprised it hasn't happened sooner) during one of the worst shifts of your life.

It’s fine. You got this. Just four more hours, and you can have your “Mental Breakdown Part Ⅱ™”.

Tag-list!!:

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[bigification]

Step Daddy

"You really need to get over your stepdad man." My friend tells me, concerned.

"Look, I'll try this one last thing and if it doesn't work then I'll give it up." I respond. "Did you bring the sunglasses?"

"Yes, but just remember he's like 25 years older than you. He's probably not going to be into you, even after this." He says as he hands me a pair of old pilot shades.

I told him I could let it go, but I can't. I'm just putting all my eggs into this basket, the sunglasses. Apparently they're supposed to transform someone who wears them mentally and physically to match my type. He already is my type, but I guess I wouldn't mind him bulking up a bit and growing some hair. It would be sexy if he got more charming, but he's already charming as it is. I guess there's only one way to find out.

I wait on the living room couch watching tv. He always gets home from work at the same time, so I know he'll be here any minute. I sit and stare at my reflection in the glasses. Am I really ready to change this man's life so drastically. My friend said no one else would take notice of the change, so it'll be like nothing happened. As I'm thinking over it, I hear the roar of his engine from the driveway. I try to calm down, but I can feel my body vibrate from the nerves. The door flies open.

"Hey buddy, hows it goin?" He asks me with his hot southern accent.

"Not bad. By the way, I found these sunglasses lying around, and assumed they were yours." I try to play it cool as I lie to his face.

"Oh, thanks. But these aren't mine." He responds.

"Well you might as well keep em, they don't fit me anyway." I try to convince him to take them without seeming too pushy.

"Well alright, thanks kid." He swipes the glasses and throws them on.

That was easier than I thought. As soon as he put them on, he stopped moving. His jaw slacked as if there was not a thought running through his mind. It started slow, his button up started to look a little bit tighter. His once flat chest started to push against his shirt and the shape of a belly started to show. Then it started to speed up. His chest started to pulse, growing in size with each one. They grew until the button on his collar popped off, then another button popped, then another and another. His juicy pecs flopped down after being released from his shirt. His stomach was next. His midsection widened and his stomach grew into a respectable beer belly, straining against his shirt. It wasn't long before more buttons began to pop, until his shirt was completely open. His arms also looked like they doubled in size, filling out his sleeves with thick muscles.

Next his legs start to look like they're gonna burst out of his dress pants. I can hear the rips ripple through his pants as his thighs grow inside of them. His ass fills out all the space in his pants and proceeds to rip open his fly and snap his belt in half. I can tell his underwear is barely staying in one piece as a large bulge formed in between his legs.

Finally his face begins to change. His once skinny face fills out with fat, giving him a rounder look. I can see that hair is falling out of his hat until he is left completely bald under there. Though in return his clean shaven face grows a bushy beard. But the hair doesn't stop there. It continues down his chest and to his belly, and presumably the rest of his body. He finally regains control of his body. He sighs as he stretched out his arms and cracks his knuckles before looking right at me.

"Come here, son." He says in a deep buttery voice.

A shock travels through my spine as I think he might know what I've done to him.

"What'd I say boy!" He raises his voice.

I jump a bit before I walk closer to him. I realize how imposing he is up close. He must have gotten taller because he seems well over six feet tall now, and at least 250 pounds.

"Daddy had a stressful day, why don't you help him release some tension." He says as he pushes me to my knees.

I blush, this is everything I wanted from this, it just happened so much faster than I thought.

"Don't be shy, boy. This will be our little secret." He says as he pulls his underwear down.

[dracomalfoy7]

New Heights

Fred Weasley x Slytherin!Reader 

Summary: Y/N is a year older than Fred and after not seeing him all summer Fred’s growth spurt becomes…a surprise.

Word Count: 2.2k+

Warnings: Fluff, Swearingish?

A/N: Been back on Harry Potter TikTok and there are some good POV’s so I'm writing them for you guys ;) gif isn't mine. PS. My Request are open!.

You have always been close with the Weasley family. Your mom was best friends with Molly, so your summers were practically spent at the Burrow. You loved the chaos of it all—Percy with his nose in a book, Fred and George constantly trying to out-prank each other, Ginny tagging along with the boys, and Ron being the easy target of his older brothers' tricks. But it was Percy you were closest to. Only a year younger than him, you and Percy shared a unique bond. While everyone else was wild and adventurous, the two of you spent countless hours with him reading and you flying on your broom. Of course, you both loved to scheme against Fred and George whenever the opportunity arose.

When you finally got your letter to Hogwarts, you were ecstatic. Percy was already there, and you couldn’t wait to be sorted into Gryffindor and spend your school days together just like you had spent your summers. That didn’t happen, though. The Sorting Hat placed you in Slytherin. You were devastated at first, but it didn’t take long to realize that being in different houses didn’t change anything. You still spent every free moment with Percy, and more often than not, that meant time with his family as well.

That was how it had always been—until this past summer. When you were offered a spot in the exclusive quidditch camp. Though the decision wasn’t easy, Percy, being the ever-logical best friend he was, insisted you take the opportunity. "We'll always be here," he'd said. "But this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance."

And so, you went. The summer flew by in a whirlwind of practices, matches, and drills. You barely had time to write home, and when you returned to Hogwarts, it felt like you'd been gone for ages.

Percy greeted you at the train station with a tight hug, rambling on about his summer adventures. "Penelope Clearwater and I spent a lot of time together," he said with a small blush. You smiled, happy that Percy had found someone to share his time with. Then he continued, telling you all about the pranks Fred and George had pulled on Ron, and how Ginny had grown more into her own.

As the two of you walked into the Great Hall, you couldn't help but notice how different it felt coming back. Percy steered you towards the Gryffindor table where the rest of the Weasleys were sitting. Your heart lifted when you saw them—Ginny, Ron, George, Fred. They stood up to greet you, and you smiled warmly at them.

But then your gaze landed on Fred.

He turned to face you, and you froze for a moment, not believing your eyes. The Fred Weasley you had last seen before summer had changed—dramatically.

He had grown. A lot.

Fred Weasley turned toward you and stood up. The last time you'd seen him, he had been your typical gangly teenage boy, all limbs and grins. But now... well, now he was towering over your 5’3" frame. His shoulders had broadened over the summer, his face had lost its boyish roundness, and there was a new confidence about him that made your stomach flip unexpectedly.

"Y/N!" Fred grinned down at you, his voice a bit deeper than you remembered too. He enveloped you in a tight, friendly hug, the warmth of him surrounding you in a way that was strangely comforting and yet disorienting all at once.

"You’re taller," was the first thing you said when he pulled away, still looking up at him in disbelief.

Fred’s grin widened, mischief flickering in his eyes. "Noticed, did you?"

George piped up from behind him, laughing. "Fred n' I had a bit of a growth spurt, haven’t we? Over the summer, we especially him shot up like a bloody tree."

"Yeah, had a bit of a growth spurt," Fred said casually, though the amusement in his eyes suggested he was reveling in your reaction. "Quidditch does that to you."

"Quidditch?" you echoed, still staring up at him in disbelief.

"Yeah, been practicing loads this summer," Fred explained, crossing his arms over his chest. "George and I are aiming for professional teams once we’re done here."

You nodded, but your thoughts were still swirling. How had Fred changed so much in just one summer? It wasn’t just the height or the broader shoulders; there was something different about him. He seemed more... grown up.

"Y/N, you’re staring," Percy’s voice broke through your thoughts, and you turned to see him smirking at you, a knowing glint in his eyes.

Heat flooded your face. "I am not!" you protested, but Percy raised an eyebrow, clearly not buying it.

Fred laughed, the sound deep and warm, and your stomach did another unexpected flip. "It’s alright, Y/N. You can stare all you want. I don't mind."

You felt a flutter of surprise, one you hadn’t expected. This wasn’t the Fred Weasley you remembered—this was someone else entirely.

Your brain tried to catch up with the change, but it was hard to shake the image of the Fred you’d known before. The one you’d spent years pranking, teasing, and playfully bickering with. You glanced back at Percy, who just gave you a knowing smirk. "It’s been quite the adjustment," Percy said, a hint of amusement in his voice.

You turned back to Fred, and he winked at you. "Still shorter than you in spirit, though."

You found yourself laughing, but there was a nervous edge to it. What was this? Why did you suddenly feel…different around him? You’d known Fred since you were kids. You’d never felt this way before, not even a little. But now, standing in front of him, it was like someone had flipped a switch inside you.

"I suppose I’ll have to get used to looking up at you now," you said, trying to shake off the odd feeling.

Fred raised an eyebrow, his grin never faltering. "You’ll manage. If not, I’m happy to carry you around." He winked again, and this time, you felt your cheeks heat up.

Merlin, this was going to be a long year.

The rest of the day passed in a blur, but Fred's new height and presence stayed in the back of your mind. You tried to act normal—laughing with the others, catching up on everything you’d missed. But every time Fred spoke or laughed, you found yourself glancing his way, your heart giving a little lurch each time.

Later that evening, as you sat in the common room with Percy, you couldn’t help but bring it up.

"Did Fred always…well, has he always been…?"

"Tall?" Percy asked, raising an eyebrow. "Not until this summer. Why?"

You shifted uncomfortably, not sure how to explain it. "It’s just…different. He seems different."

Percy smiled knowingly. "You’re not the only one who's noticed. Ginny mentioned it too. The twins have always been a bit of prats, but now they got the looks to match."

You sighed, sinking deeper into the chair. "It’s just weird, I guess. I mean, I’ve known him forever, and now suddenly—"

"You fancy him," Percy finished, a teasing grin on his face.

Your eyes widened, and you quickly shook your head. "No, I don’t! I just…it’s weird, that’s all."

Percy chuckled. "Sure, whatever you say."

But as the days passed, you couldn’t shake the feeling. Fred’s growth spurt wasn’t the only thing that had changed. Something between you had shifted too. He was still the same mischievous, fun-loving prankster, but now, there was something else—a tension that hadn’t been there before.

You found yourself seeking him out more than usual, joining in on his and George’s pranks, laughing at his jokes just a little too hard. And Fred? Well, he didn’t seem to mind the extra attention. If anything, he seemed to enjoy it.

One evening, as you sat by the fireplace in the common room, Fred flopped down next to you, his long legs stretching out in front of him. He nudged your shoulder playfully. "You’ve been quiet today. Everything alright?"

You glanced at him, your heart doing that stupid lurching thing again. "Yeah, just…tired, I guess."

Fred raised an eyebrow. "You? Tired? Never thought I’d see the day."

You rolled your eyes, but you couldn’t help but smile. "Even I get tired sometimes."

He leaned back, resting his arm on the back of the couch behind you. "You know, if you ever need a break from Percy’s study marathons, George and I could use some help with a new prank we’re working on."

You tilted your head, curious. "What kind of prank?"

Fred’s grin turned devilish. "Oh, you’ll see. But it involves a lot of stink pellets and a certain Slytherin prefect."

You laughed, shaking your head. "You two are going to get expelled one of these days."

"Maybe," Fred said with a shrug. "But it’d be worth it."

There was a pause, and then Fred turned to you, his expression softening just a bit. "It’s good to have you back, Y/N. Summer wasn’t the same without you."

Your heart skipped a beat, and you looked down at your hands. "Yeah, it’s good to be back."

Fred nudged you again, this time more gently. "Don’t go running off to another Quidditch camp next summer, alright? We missed you."

You looked up at him, your breath catching slightly at the sincerity in his voice. "I missed you too, Fred."

And there it was—that stupid fluttery feeling again.

This was going to be a long, complicated year.

The first few weeks back at school were a blur of classes, quidditch practice, and catching up with friends. You were eager to get back into the rhythm of things, but you couldn’t shake the odd feeling that had settled in your chest since you’d seen Fred again. He was still the same Fred, still cracking jokes and pulling pranks with George, but now you found yourself noticing little things about him that you hadn’t before. The way his smile seemed to linger on you just a little longer than necessary, the way he always found a reason to sit next to you in the common room, the way your heart skipped a beat whenever his arm brushed against yours.

It was driving you crazy.

One evening, after quidditch practice, you found yourself heading back to the common room, only to be intercepted by Fred in the corridor. He grinned, blocking your path with an outstretched arm.

"Y/N, there you are," he said, his eyes sparkling with mischief. "I was beginning to think you were avoiding me."

You crossed your arms, raising an eyebrow. "Avoiding you? Why would I do that?"

Fred shrugged, leaning casually against the wall. "Dunno. Just seems like you’ve been... distracted lately. Didn’t think my growth spurt would have that much of an effect on you."

Your cheeks flamed. "I—what? That’s ridiculous, Fred. I’m not—"

He cut you off with a laugh, stepping closer. "Relax, Y/N. I’m just messing with you."

You huffed, trying to ignore the way your heart was racing in your chest. "You’re always messing with me, Weasley."

Fred’s grin softened into something that looked almost... fond. "Yeah, well, that’s what I do best, isn’t it?"

You couldn’t argue with that. Fred had always been a tease, always finding ways to get under your skin. But now, it felt different. Now, his teasing sent butterflies fluttering in your stomach, and you weren’t sure how to handle it.

"You’re acting weird," you muttered, trying to avoid his gaze.

"Weird?" Fred repeated, feigning offense. "Me? Never."

You rolled your eyes, but before you could say anything else, Fred reached out and gently tugged on a strand of your hair. "Come on, Y/N," he said, his voice lower now, more serious. "You know I’ve always liked you, right?"

Your breath caught in your throat, and you stared up at him, wide-eyed. "Liked me?" you echoed, your voice barely above a whisper.

Fred nodded, his eyes searching yours. "Yeah. I mean, you’ve always been like... one of us. Part of the family. But this summer, I don’t know... I guess I realized I like you more than just... as part of the family."

Your heart was pounding in your ears, and you felt a warmth spread through your chest. "Fred, I—"

He held up a hand, cutting you off. "You don’t have to say anything now. I just wanted you to know. But, if you want to go flying sometime... just the two of us, you know where to find me."

With that, Fred shot you one last grin, his eyes twinkling, before turning on his heel and sauntering down the corridor, leaving you standing there, stunned.

Your head was spinning, and you felt like you couldn’t breathe. Fred Weasley—Fred Weasley—had just told you he liked you. And not in the way you’d always thought, like a brother or a friend. No, this was something different, something that made your heart race and your palms sweat.

As you stood there in the empty corridor, you realized that maybe—just maybe—Fred wasn’t the only one whose feelings had changed over the summer.

Fred’s growth spurt had certainly been a surprise, but what surprised you even more was how much your own feelings had grown right alongside him. And now, as you made your way back to the common room, one thought echoed in your mind:

Maybe it was time to take Fred up on that flying offer.

[josiesullysblog]

Not so Small Now?

~AGED UP Neteyam x Na’vi reader

~Fluff, breast play?, touching

~Proofread?-yes

~Summary-You are older then Neteyam by a year, Neteyam is a love sick fool and you tell him the only way you mate is if he grows taller then you.

You were 365 and one whole days older than Neteyam. So, your whole life you felt like you had an advantage. In your tiny four-year-old mind you could tell him what to do because you are the oldest. And he blindly listened, “Neteyam go fetch me some beads for my hair!” He’d send you a toothy smile, “okay!” “Neteyam can you find me the biggest fish, please!” “okay, Nova!”

Now, Neteyam was in love with you the minute he met you. Always followed behind you, you were the only person he let walk all over him. You found it fun having the boy wrapped around your fingers, but you never asked too much of the boy.

When you were nine and he was eight, he brought you a handful of flowers, “my Nova!” You had been playing with some older kids when he came running. The older kids started snickering as they noticed his eyes were glued on you, “are these flowers for me?” You smiled and took them in your hand, “can you be my mate?”

Hope was laced in his eyes as the kids behind laughed harder, “she can't mate with you!” You shot them a glare, “I can do whatever I want,” you walked off with the flowers in hand and Neteyam on your trail. “So, does this mean we can mate?” you shook your head, “thanks for the flowers, but we can't mate! We are far too young!” Neteyam frowned, “when we get older will you mate with me?”

You pretended to think a bit, “I’ll mate with you when you become taller than me!” He smiled big, “I've found a mate! I’m going to tell Lo’ak!” he ran off quickly while you sighed, in your little mind he was never gonna become taller than you because you were older.

Neteyam ran all the way home with the biggest smile, “I’ve found a mate!” Neytiri turned quickly looking at the boy crazy, “son, you are far too young to think of such things,” Neteyam shook his head, “I and Nova are promised in the stars! I just have to become taller than her!” Neytiri snickered a bit laughing at the boy. “Well, I can't wait for that day,” Neteyam nodded before finding Lo’ak and telling him the same thing.

Long story short, you were wrong. Very wrong. You had completely forgotten about the bet. You had picked up many new hobbies, one being drawing, so your mind was moving too quickly to even stop and look at the boy. To notice the now twenty-year-old is no longer a child, but a man. Neteyam didn’t forget, he was waiting till after his ceremony to trap you. Not in a weird way, just when you two can be alone. So he can finally confess how he truly feels. How for the last year, since your ceremony, that no man attempt to court you. Your beauty to him was something he only should cherish.

As the months came by quickly, Neteyam’s ceremony was coming quickly. You didn't think much of it, but for some reason, a pain hit your heart when you thought of Neteyam with another. But that's crazy because he was just the boy who followed you around. Right?

You sat in complete silence as you drew the scenery around you. Besides the movement of the wind and the slight rustle of the trees, you were in such a peaceful state you didn't notice Neteyam lurking. You got up leaving your work on the floor to go get some water by the river. You hummed a song as the boy matched your pace, unbeknownst to you.

You bent down carefully feeling the water, you sighed with contentment, “feels good?” Neteyam said coming out from the bushes. You quickly turned as you heard the familiar voice, “teyem I told you to stop scaring me!” the boy simply smirked as he joined you, “well, that wouldn't be much fun.”

Your eyes stuck on the boy as he took his place next to you. Was this the same boy you grew up with? Because the boy in front of you made a slight blush cover your face, and your heartbeat go up a little. “What are you doing this deep in the forest anyway? Don’t you need to be preparing for your ceremony?” you gave the boy a playful smile. “I wanted to see you,” you stood up causing the boy to. He gently grabbed your arm pushing you onto a tree. It was then that you noticed how much the boy had grown. How he was much stronger than you, how held be able to do anything to you.

He chuckled as a noticeable blush covered your face, “not so small now, huh?” you looked away from the boy who was quick to grab your chin. “Aw, the baby can’t keep eye contact?” you crumbled under his gaze, “shut up, Neteyam,” his gaze only intensified, “I've been quiet about how I've felt for the last year, baby.” his hands trailed down your body as he spoke, causing small gasps to fall out. “For the last year, ever since your ceremony, I’ve prayed to Ewya that you may never find another. Or I don’t know what I'd do,” his words caused a feeling in between your legs. His hands stopped on top of your breast, softly touching the nipples, he squeezed the nipple hard, a loud moan coming out as a result. “Dear Ewya, even now I'm so tempted to bend you over and fuck you.”

He dragged your hand over his hard cock, “feel this? This is what you do to me, pretty girl,” your eyes were locked with the boy’s as he continued his assault on your breasts, you gently placed a hand on his face bringing it closer to you. “If you don’t stop now, we’ll get in trouble,” your words of reason were true, but you wanted him to continue going.

“Listen to me, the minute we are finished with that ceremony, I'm going to fuck you.” he let go of you, helping you off the tree. The whole walk home, your mind was going crazy. You could not wait till after that ceremony.

***

Lazy ending ik:( I’ll definitely try and update this, but thankfully I was able to write! I have an important test coming up so I won't be able to write till this weekend but hope you enjoy it!!

[peaches-creek]

“What if they don’t like me.” You say.

“They have begged me for months for a day like this, do not worry my love.”

“So, what if they finally meet me and they-“

“They will love you, just as I do.” He interrupts.

As you walk up the stone walkway leading into Konig’s childhood home, you can’t help but feel insecure. You have been dating for a little over a year, and have a small apartment off base together. You haven’t met them yet due to busy work schedules. Though you did feel as though you were putting it off, you couldn’t help but felt as time passed that they must resent you, keeping their son away from them for so long. You walk up to the door and Konig gives three loud knocks to the white-painted wooden door.

Now you weren’t sure what you were expecting, but with the way Konig explained his mother, you would’ve thought she was a tiny old lady. He had said his parents were a bit older, having him in their late thirties, making them around 65-70 years old. He mentioned two siblings, a brother who lives in the states, and a younger sister who lives at home. His father and mother owned a bakery in town, right near a church. He worked there when he was a teenager.

Anyways, as the door opens, you have to look up to greet her. She had to be about 6’2, with grayish blonde hair, and just the right amount of wrinkles that tell you she has lived a happy life.

“Hallo! You must be the girl I hear so much about. Come in, come in, we have so much to show you.” She greets, guiding you inside, she seems like one of the nicest women you have ever met, she looks young for her age.

The house is beautiful, everything looks handcrafted. Then you see his father and realize Konig gets his height from his mother, his father couldn’t be only taller than 5’8

“How do you like your tea?” He asks.

“Milk and sugar please.”

For the next hour, you will see countless albums of baby Konig, kid Konig, and even awkward phase Konig. All so adorable and dorky. His mother is nothing but kind, asking you questions about yourself and seeming genuinely interested. His father is more quiet, but he has this kind smile that just rests on his face, you can see it as he catches up with his son. It was a wonderful afternoon.

“So you two live together?” His mother asks. Konig and his father were outside, talking about their garden.

“Just a small apartment off base, not too far from here actually.” You say.

“That’s nice, it seems very serious between you two.”

“Well it is to me, your son means the world to me.”

“That’s a very refreshing thing to say to a mother you know,” she starts, “I was always so worried about him, He is very hard on himself, I was even more worried when he joined the military.”

“He is very good at his job I hope you know, I worry as well but he is very diligent and precise.” You soothe

The front door jingles as if a key were being used. In walks in a woman, about the same size as your boyfriend. About 6’9, same red hair, and same sweet smile.

“Hello.” You greet.

“Ah, it’s very nice to meet you.” She says giving your hand a firm shake. She sits down at the table right across from you.

“Yes, I agree.” You say.

“So how did you to meet?”

“We met through work, I’m a medic.”

“Yes, I met her when she had to give me a few stitches,” Konig interrupts, walking back inside, “She was very gentle compared to the rest of the medics that work there.”

“Well, I don’t know about that.” You say.

“I disagree, anyways she didn’t actually talk to me until we were on a job, She had to reset my knee, again very gentle.”

“As gentle as a person can be while pushing a bone back into its place.”

“You seem very accident prone, my son.” His father adds.

“Yes, he is, I think he does it on purpose.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Konig says.

“When did you get the courage to ask her out.” His sister asks.

“She had to ask, I was very nervous and backed down many times. She asked if I liked tea, to which I said yes, and then she asked if we could go get some the following morning, I said yes.”

“Very romantic.” His mother gushes.

The afternoon turns to evening and it’s time to go back to your apartment.

“It was very nice to meet you all, I don’t know why I was so nervous, you guys are so lovely.”

“Come back anytime, I can teach you how to bake strudel.” His mother offers.

“I would really like that.”

You exchange goodbyes and get into Konig’s truck.

“Wasn’t so bad, now was it?” He points out.

“No, it was awesome Your family is so kind, I see where you get it from.”

He grins, and continues driving.

What you didn’t know, was that his mother slipped his grandmothers ring in his hand before you guys left.

[dottores]

HELIOTROPES

pairing: dottore x fem!reader & segments

summary: the gods were sick and twisted. for five hundred years, he believed he was fated to be alone. he had long accepted it—embraced it, even. that is, until a midwinter night when that elusive red thread finally appeared on his finger. but as much as he wants to ignore it, the pull of a soulmate simply cannot be ignored.

genre: soulmate au, canon compliant for the most part.

warnings: fem!reader, worldbuilding for snezhnaya & fatui & fontaine, dottore.

notes: this wasn't as long as i wanted for it to be but im just happy i got it out on time aufhdasuidfh i didn't think i'd be able to. i’m v sorry i haven’t answered asks yet! i promise i’ll get to it this weekend, i just got home

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

“Hand the boy over.”

You recognized the men standing at the end of the hall now that they had come a bit closer—two nobles who had been down in the ballroom for the event. You didn’t know their first names but Artem had pointed them out as being part of the Skliar Family of western Snezhnaya, a family that was particularly anti-Fatui and loud about it… when the Fatui weren’t around, of course. They were the two younger sons of the family, a few years older than you.

Artem had been surprised that the family even showed up and you figured that they probably had ulterior motives…

… but this?

Your arms tightened a bit around the sleepy boy resting in them and he shifted a bit, stirring at the movement. He was observant, unfortunately, and seemed to realize very quickly from the tenseness in your shoulders that something was wrong. You wanted to tell him to go back to sleep but you couldn’t push out the words from your lips before he was shifting around.

When he glanced behind him to see what was happening, his whole body started trembling, red eyes widening at the sight of the two men. He didn’t cry or let out any fearful noises, it was a sort of petrified fear that made you wish you could hide him away until you figured out what to do and how to handle this.

You looked down briefly, past his face to where his legs were hanging on either side of your body, remembering how they were all cut up and bleeding to the point it was clearly painful for him to walk on them. You figured that maybe he was just clumsy and tripped running up or down a set of stairs but then you remembered how he had been hiding when you saw him, pressed into the shadows of an alcove. 

They’d been chasing him. 

“Oi, girl, did you hear me? Hand the boy over,” the shorter of the two demanded harshly, taking another step forward. 

You could see now from the shorter distance the anxiety that riddled his body. His fingers were trembling and his eyes were darting around as if monsters were going to sprout from the shadows and tear him to pieces.

They were bold for attacking the Fatui while in their most protected stronghold, if not a bit foolish—a part of you questioned whether or not they might be drunk, you had noticed some of the younger aristocrats guzzling down alcohol to try to make the night bearable enough to get through. You wondered if they knew that the Ninth Harbinger was naught but a few feet away from them behind the wall on their left. You might’ve commended them for their bravery were they not targeting a child. 

You smiled thinly. “No.”

“No?” The taller man asked, voice low.

He moved toward you—you wondered if he meant to be threatening but you didn’t see a vision on him, and even if there was one hidden somewhere, it was hard to feel threatened when you knew that the Regrator was lurking behind a door right to your side. He had to know what was happening, you could see a shadow right beneath the crack at the bottom of the door, signaling he was standing there listening to the confrontation and ready to step in, but you figured he wasn’t making himself known because he wanted to see how you handled this. 

A test. You hated tests. 

You figured you’d be able to handle it if it came down to a fight. Your father and grandfather had been quick to teach you how to immobilize grown men considering you’d be taking over your family’s position in a few years and would have to be able to drag them to the cells without them overpowering you. You would rather it not come to a fight though, your family’s hydro art was dangerous and very easy to butcher with.

“That is what I said,” you replied after a moment and then added: “If you are hard of hearing I can suggest you to a doctor, I’m sure he would be willing to take a look for you. Although, I do warn you, I’ve heard his methods are rather… unsavory.”

His methods—another subject that you had yet to broach with yourself even though you knew very well that you had to think about it. You had to force yourself to keep your chin raised as you stared at the two of them for their reactions; you had heard terrible, terrible things about the Doctor while you had traveled northward through Snezhnaya. Brutal experiments, missing children, twisted creatures and monsters that he lets free from his labs when he decides them to be a failure or drained of use. 

How was a man like that your soulmate?

You used to wonder, as a kid, what having a soulmate like your stepfather said about your mother. Now, you know that their bond wasn’t even real but yours was, and you were tied to one of the most dangerous and wicked and cold-hearted men in all of Teyvat. 

What did that say about you?

Were you a bad person? Maybe not yet, you didn’t think so at least, but maybe you had the potential of being one, if the gods thought you fit to be with him.

The taller man was livid at your implied threat of Dottore, livid and scared, reaching for something at his side—a dagger?—and you remembered then how Artem had made a comment about how many of the antagonistic families had lost people to the Fatui, particularly to the Doctor, the Friar and the Marionette. You tensed, ready to use your vision at a moment’s notice, feeling the energy seep through you as you summoned it to your defense but the man never came toward you. 

Instead, he was stopped by the shorter one.

“Hold on,” he said quietly. “That girl, she was with the Melnyks at the ball. Their heir introduced her as his fiancée.”

The taller man scoffed. “The Melnyks are so in bed with the Fatui that they’re willing to share their women now,” he spat, shooting you a look that was nothing short of derisive.

You inhaled sharply at the blatant insult. You had never been so directly disrespected like that before—in the courts of Fontaine, the nobles liked to keep their insults as passive and well-mannered as possible so that they could not be called out for making disparaging remarks about another noble family, which could cause severe financial or political trouble depending on what family had been slighted. 

You were a frequent victim to those veiled insults, dealing with underhanded comments about who the Black Cells would be passed to should your grandfather pass, implying that you were unfit to be the Warden. And then, even worse, the ones where people would make offhand observations about how maybe you would be the perfect fit for Warden considering you don’t have a soulmate, because in Fontaine, it is known that only the cursed and the heartless are not given their fated partner by Celestia. You thought that if they knew who your soulmate was, they would double down on their beliefs.

“I am not something to be shared,” you said, the thin smile on your lips now void of emotion, “and I am a lot more than just a girl who is someone’s fiancée. You will find that out soon enough if you continue to test me.”

Finally, the shorter man seemed to notice the vision laying against your chest, fashioned as a pendant on a necklace and he hesitated, glancing between you and the taller man once as if debating on warning him against acting rashly. 

Well, that at least confirmed that they did not have visions. 

You felt significantly more confident at the realization, letting your tense shoulders relax and your arms loosen around the little boy—feeling your change in demeanor, he also seemed to relax, his tight grip on your hair releasing as he laid his head back down against your shoulder. 

Did he really have that much trust in you?

But then, before the taller man could explode on you or the shorter man could warn him not to, their expressions shifted from anger and concern to downright fear—except they were not looking at you, they were looking directly behind you.

Before you could even turn to look, long and thin fingers wrapped around your shoulders, nails digging harshly into your skin—distantly, you thought for sure it would be bruised tomorrow but you were more anxious at the sudden new arrival and whether or not they were an ally or enemy. 

They leaned over your shoulder a bit and as you glanced to the side with wide eyes, you caught sight of another head of silvery-blue hair, cropped short like the boy in your arms. Red eyes gleamed cruelly from within the two holes of the black and white mask he wore, a hint of something unstable simmering right beneath the surface. 

“What a treat,” the man behind you said, voice lifting into a giggle that made your hair stand on end. “I had just run out of bodies to run my tests on.”

The storm was nigh. 

Dottore grimaced as the winds whipped around him wildly. Above him, the tall trees of the forest creaked and groaned, threatening to topple over beneath the harsh gusts. The sun had long set but his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, sweeping across the forest floor as he followed the path from Zapolyanry Palace to the estate he owned in the area, making his way to the ruins that were just off the path.

They had yet to find the Iota segment. Dottore knew that he was still in the area of the ruins he was exploring, he could sense that much from the inherent tracking system he had for each of the segments but they hadn’t reached the ruins yet. He wondered how Epsilon hadn’t been able to find him if he was in the ruins, unless he had wandered off and then made his way back when he realized that the sun had set and a storm was coming but something didn’t sit right with him about that. 

Either way, it was making Dottore antsy. He didn’t like it. The last time he had lost a segment, it had been a situation just like this a little over four hundred years ago. He felt unsettled.

“You found her.”

Epsilon’s voice didn’t even edge on accusing as he watched Dottore carefully. 

He had his answer, he just wanted a confirmation. 

Dottore did not intend on giving him one. 

“I did not.”

Epsilon let out a small puff of amusement, nothing short of a gibe, eyeing Dottore from the corner of his eye—he was the only one of the older segments that didn’t wear a mask, the few times he did was when he was posing as Dottore in Harbinger meetings or on missions that he didn’t want to handle. He could tell from his expression that he didn’t believe a word Dottore said, if anything he thought entertaining that Dottore was trying to deny it and that only made him even more irritated.

“We all felt it,” Epsilon murmured. “The others might not have figured out exactly what it was but I did. I’m sure Lambda did too. I advise you to choose wisely as to whether or not you would prefer him or I at your side when dealing with her. We both know his desired course of action and he will do whatever’s necessary to ensure that our research is not impeded.”

“As he was created for,” Dottore said coolly, “and thus is expected of him.”

“Even at the cost of the life of your soulmate?” Epsilon questioned, studying him intensely for a reaction.

Your. That was an intentional choice of words. All of the other segments referred to you as their soulmate as well. It was never Dottore’s soulmate, it was our soulmate. Even Epsilon had appealed to him in the past by stressing that it was not just his decision as your existence affected all of them.

This was an attempt at manipulation—a carefully picked choice of word that would ignite all of the possessive and selfish tendencies that had been ingrained in Dottore ever since he was living on his own after his village case him out, hoarding anything and everything he could get his hands on, and then again, after he had enrolled in the Akademiya, dealing with people leeching onto his research to try to get credit.

What’s his was his and you, unfortunately, fell under that category as much as he might loathe to admit it. 

“I can handle Lambda.” Was all Dottore said in response to Epsilon’s comment, dismissing his warning.

Epsilon made a noise as if he didn’t quite believe Dottore. Dottore didn’t acknowledge it. They continued on in silence for a few moments, the wind howling around them as they crossed the path into the old ruins of a temple of the previous Cryo Archon—crumbling towers reached high into the sky, disappearing into the clouds, and a massive derelict statue that was teetering dangerously in the wind. The snow had started to fall, they were running out of time to find the Iota segment but Epsilon didn’t look the slightest bit worried and Dottore frowned a bit, suspicion itching at the back of his mind.

“You should at least allow the younger segments to meet her,” Epsilon finally continued, completely unperturbed by the threat the storm posed to one of the younger segments. “They will be dysfunctional when they realize they never got the chance to meet her and then you will have three useless segments to figure out what to do with.”

“None of the segments will know that she is here, much less meet her,” Dottore said sharply. “I have information that needs to be obtained from her and then she is going back to Fontaine where she will stay, are we clear?” 

“So you admit that she is here,” Epsilon smiled thinly, as if that was exactly what he wanted to hear, and Dottore gave him a cold look.

“Enough of your games, Epsilon. What is it that you are trying to achieve with this conversation?” 

Epsilon didn’t respond. Instead, his red gaze trailed from him to somewhere behind Dottore. A sinking feeling in his stomach, Dottore turned around to see what he was looking at. Instantly, his eyes fell upon a familiar young boy standing right behind a pillar, watching them with wide eyes and a hopeful expression. 

Iota. 

“She’s here?” he whispered as if Dottore had just proclaimed the coming of the Celestial gods unto Teyvat, and then, more excited, he lit up: “She’s here?!”

Dottore realized, very quickly, that he might’ve just been played for a fool by his own segments. Without responding to the Iota segment, Dottore looked to the right where Epsilon was still standing. Epsilon barely acknowledged Dottore as he stepped forward with a small smile and upturned eyes. 

“There you are,” he said. “We’ve been looking for you.”

He did not sound particularly relieved or frustrated—if anything, he sounded pleased. Dottore watched as he patted Iota on the head once and then turned to look at Dottore, with an expression that edged at nothing short of triumphant. 

He remembered how Gamma had looked so nervous, unable to meet his eyes—he had thought it was because he was anxious over losing two of the younger segments but he realized, quickly, that it might’ve been because he was anxious about having to lie to Dottore. 

Iota had been waiting for them at the ruins and Dottore knew the young segment well enough to know that unless given direct orders (sometimes even when given direct orders), the boy would panic and wander trying to find his way back until he got himself so lost that Dottore would have to shut him down until they could figure out where he was and bring him back. Someone must have told him not to move from the ruins until they arrived, and that someone…

Dottore stared at Epsilon, catching the sly look in his eyes as he turned his gaze back to Dottore. Had he planned this? Had he schemed out a situation to get Dottore alone long enough to force him to admit that you were in the palace in front of the Iota segment? Would he really go so far as to put one of the younger segments at risk to do so? 

Yes, Dottore realized, watching the unmoved expression on Epsilon’s face as he watched Dottore realize what had just happened—he absolutely would because he knew that it was the only thing that Dottore would take seriously enough to handle himself, otherwise he would have just sent Epsilon alone to handle whatever it was. 

More than that, Epsilon knew that with the incoming storm and a missing young segment that the situation would remind him of the one that happened all of those years ago with the Beta Segment and Dottore would be in an uncomfortable and agitated state of mind, more susceptible to snapping and admitting what Epsilon wanted him to say. 

Conniving little-

Dottore’s tongue scraped against his teeth as he bit back a slew of curses, rage sweeping over him like the white water torrents of a rushing river.

Gods be damned about the war and needing as many spare hands as possible for his research, Dottore had half a mind to deactivate all of the segments and start anew once you were gone so he didn’t have to deal with any more insubordination and disrespect from himself. 

Though he found that the thought of you being gone in any way sat poorly in his chest. Livid, he realized that you might’ve already managed to strengthen the bond just through the two conversations he had with you. 

Teeth grinding together, he forced himself to turn on his heel and make his way back to the palace before anything else could go wrong with your unexpected arrival in Snezhnaya. He would get his segments out of Zapolyarny Palace and drag them back to the estate, leaving you at the mercy of the Regrator until he could finish his briefings with the segments and send them all far, far from Snezhnaya. 

You distinctly felt like a mouse cornered by a cat, except instead of being the one hunted by the predator, you were watching another mouse about to get devoured, knowing that you would be next. It was with a sickening type of engrossment that had you unable to draw your eyes from the scene in front of you, fear crawled up your spine, seeping into your blood, but your feet were rooted to the ground below you.

The man—who you noticed also looked particularly like Dottore, except he was closer to your age—had slunk past you to approach the two men at the opposite end of the hall. A part of you wanted to put the boy down and run back to your room, locking the door to hide from the shitshow about to go down but he was clutching at you like some sort of lifeline, little fingers gripping the cloth on the back of your dress as he hid his face from view. And even if he wasn’t, you had a feeling that your feet wouldn’t cooperate if you tried.

“Kappa,” an unfamiliar voice whispered from somewhere behind you, urgent and worried.

Your gaze snapped to the side, eyes falling upon another kid with silver blue curls and red eyes, a terrible burn scar covering the whole left side of his face. He was young, no older than fifteen or sixteen, and there was an anxious expression on his face, brows furrowed and lips pressed together as his eyes darted around.

Another child of Dottore’s? It didn’t make any sense, did he have three children? Or was the older one his brother? Or were they experiments? Your head hurt and you were suddenly very, very tired—you needed to lay down. The night’s events were finally catching up to you and your body was beginning to lag, crying in protest as you continued to stand rooted in the middle of the hall. Your room was so close but it was not close enough, you would have to get past the masked man to reach the door and you had a feeling he would not take kindly to your attempted escape.

And what had the other boy called the little one? Kappa? Why was that so familiar? 

You let out a shaky breath, trying to think.

Kappa, that was so familiar… one of the words from the old tongue? The ones that Dottore used to accidentally pass over to you? 

But was that even possible? You would have to check your notebook but you were pretty sure that the first time you received the word Kappa was right around the time you had received your first word from him and that was what? Eight years ago? 

There was no way this child was older than five.

What was going on?

“You-” the taller man choked out as the new arrival drew closer. “You’re-”

“You’re bold for attacking little Kappa right under our noses,” he mused, a lilt to his tone that had you on edge. He reached forward, snatching the man’s chin between two fingers as he forcibly craned his head to the left—examining him like some sort of test subject. “I’ve been trying to get Hearsays up and running again but I just don’t have enough contenders after the last incident… I suppose you’ll do well. Hehe, you’ll at least make for good entertainment, one way or another.”

You watched as he dragged his nails down his cheeks, leaning a line of blood in his wake before he turned his attention to the shorter man with a look in his eyes that was nothing short of gleeful.

“You simply won't do.” He clicked his tongue a few times in disappointment, shaking his head in a sharp and jerky motion that looked borderline painful. “I’ll just pass you off to one of the others for them to run some tests on. I think Rho is starting a new batch of experiments soon, yeah? Isn’t he, Gamma? Gamma?”

He was suddenly agitated as he glanced backward, waiting for a response. The other new arrival—the younger one with anxious eyes and twitching fingers—looked caught off guard at being pulled into the conversation.

Finally, he nodded, throat spasming as he swallowed. “With the residue, yes. The last batch failed.”

“Perfect,” he smiled sharply, and though you could only see half of his smile, even beneath the dim lighting you could see the rows of sharp teeth lining his mouth. “He can get the scraps.”

“Kappa, are you okay?” Gamma returned his attention to the boy in your arms, trying to grab his arm to look at him but every time he tried, Kappa shifted away, burying his face in the crook of your neck. “Kappa, c’mon, he’s going to be so mad, just talk to me.”

“He’s okay, for the most part,” you said quietly.

At the sound of your voice, Gamma drew back, red eyes guarded and nervous. He looked at you as if you were a possible enemy, shoulders tense and body language closed off. He looked to be reaching for something at his side—you wondered if he was armed but his fingers were trembling. Even so, you decided to try to calm him down, not wanting another agitated person to deal with.

“What does that mean?” he asked, glancing between you and Kappa as if you had been the one to hurt the boy.

“His knees are cut up and bleeding, I was going to bring him to my room to clean them up. He was having trouble walking on them,” you explained, keeping your voice steady as you watched him carefully, trying to figure out how you would defend yourself while holding a kid in your arm.

But it was for no need, Gamma looked a bit at ease at your words but he frowned as he reached to hold Kappa’s leg to check out the wound but Kappa whimpered and snapped his leg away, accidentally jamming his knee into your side. You bit back a grunt, wincing at the small bony knee digging into your side but only rubbed his back, trying to soothe him.

Maybe his legs were worse than you thought. Concerned, you glanced down and briefly wondered why he wasn’t voicing his pain if that was the case. 

“One to ten?” Gamma suddenly asked, holding up his hands to show Kappa. The boy pressed his cheek against your shoulder, watching Gamma as he lifted two fingers, then three, then four, then five. At eight, Kappa pointed and Gamma looked severely distressed. 

“He’s going to be so mad.” Gamma looked like he was on the verge of tears. “Kappa, how many times have we told you that you have to say something when you’re hurt?”

He turned his face away again, pressing it into the crook of your neck and Gamma looked around nervously. “Well… he seems to like you. Kappa doesn’t really like anyone so I mean…”

Gamma suddenly floundered for words as you raised your hand to pat Kappa’s back again, red eyes focusing righting on your pinky finger. 

For a moment, he just stood there, gaping and wide eyed but then his expression shifted as he glanced over to where the masked man was still mocking and terrorizing the two aristocrats from the Skliar family. 

In an instant, Gamma looked like he was going to throw up, face pale and ghastly and you could only stare at him, trying to figure out what had caused the abrupt change in demeanor. 

You had a distinct feeling that it had to do with the presence of the masked man and that made your stomach churn with nerves, eyes darting over to him.

“Oh gods, you’re-” he began, voice catching over his words as he stared at you, taking a step back as if he was on the verge of fleeing. Then, his gaze darted up to the masked man he had arrived with, who you could feel staring at you from halfway down the hall, and then back to you with an expression nothing short of horrified. “Oh gods, oh no, Theta is-I have to-I have to get the Doctor. I have to-I’ll be back.”

And then he was gone, turning on his heel and sprinting down the hall, leaving you alone with the little boy called Kappa and the masked man who you could hear drawing closer to you from behind.

You felt like a frozen deer, body tense and cold as you felt the front of his body brush against the back of yours. He reached over your shoulder, long fingers wrapping around your wrist as he lifted your hand up.

You glanced back, eyes catching his for just a moment, and your throat dried at the look in his eyes—wild and unpredictable with a sort of untamable glee that reminded you of the Hydro Archon when she finally took interest in one of the court’s trials. 

And when she took interest in a trial, only one sentence would be exacted onto the defendant: execution. 

His face twisted into an unsettling and chilling smile, teeth glittering like knives beneath the candles that lit up the hall.

“You’re her.”

“Is he mad at me?”

The Iota segment had been on the verge of a meltdown the entire walk back to the palace. They had finally made it out of the forest and were crossing the snowy span of land to the bridge that led to the wide gates of Zapolyanry Palace. The weather was even worse now that there were no trees to buffer—the wind whipped around him violently, howling and shrieking, snow pelting his face like little icicles yet it was not enough to drown out the sniffles and cries of Iota as he wrapped his fingers around the back of Dottore’s shirt, clinging to him desperately as he tried to keep up with the man’s long strides. 

“Of course not,” Epsilon soothed, ever the conciliator as he tried to calm Iota down so the boy didn’t delay them anymore than he already had. 

“He won’t even look at me,” Iota cried. At once, Dottore turned to look over his shoulder, eyes landing sharply on Iota from beneath his mask, lips twisted down into a deep frown. Iota let out a cry akin to a wounded animal. “That’s even worse, I mess everything up, I’m sorry.”

Dottore’s head hurt. He grimaced as the wind nearly dragged his hood right down, tightening the drawstrings of his cloak. Distantly, he noticed that Epsilon was picking up Iota and letting the boy latch onto him as he cried but he tried to ignore it. Iota would get over it in a few hours, he always did—he was sensitive and broke down easily but bounced back before the day was up, burying his attention in some book or paper until he totally forgot about whatever set him off. 

As soon as they got back to the palace, he’d have Epsilon bring the boy down to the basement so he could nestle away in the library down there and then he’d be good as new, bustling to Dottore’s lab to bother him trying to tell him about all that he had learned in his readings. 

Besides the destructive tendencies, Iota was easy to handle for the most part. He was quickly upset but that was a product of the mentality he was created in and the reason for his creation, which he wasn’t supposed to know but the Zeta segment decided to open his mouth about it in an attempt to drive Iota into a meltdown to disrupt Delta’s research so he could pull ahead on it.

The Iota segment was created so that Dottore could do research into the Aranara of Sumeru—unfortunately, Dottore did not realize that the events of the night he was cast out of the village made him unable to see the Aranara anymore, thus making the Iota segment a useless creation. Dottore had debated on just destroying the segment and using the spare parts to create a new one but Delta had convinced him against it, claiming that he would use the failed segment as a means to help with his research instead. Ever since Iota found out about that a few decades ago, he’d been even more unstable than he already was from the mindset he was created in. 

“Enough, Iota,” Dottore said icily. “Have your meltdown on your own time.” 

Epsilon clicked his tongue as Iota caught himself over a sob, pressing his face into the man’s skin as if to hide his tears from Dottore. Epsilon gave Dottore an accusing look, Dottore raised his chin—this is on you.

Epsilon smiled to himself and then looked away, proud.

Again, he reconsidered deactivation, this time far more intensely, and again, Dottore cursed you because all of the misfortune he had faced the past two decades was solely because of your existence.

You, with your irritating attitude and despicable personality, playing the soft-spoken angel to everybody but him. 

You, with your exhausting persistence, meeting him toe-to-toe and word-for-word in every confrontation and conversation he had with you. 

You, with that infuriatingly striking purple dress—low-cut and thin strapped—that he hadn’t been able to draw his eyes off of the whole night no matter how hard he tried. He couldn’t help but wonder just how shameless Fontaine fashion was if that was what you wore to a formal event.

Purple. Nearly ten years and you were still obsessed with the same color. How were you so predictable and unpredictable at the same time? He couldn’t stand the thought of you, he hated unexpected, extraneous variables—the only course of action for dealing with them was removal or isolation and he was beginning to realize that neither of those solutions might be an option for him.

But it was just another hurdle for him to get over. If neither removal nor isolation were viable options, he would need to find a different solution. 

Holding it constant… 

No. That was not an option either—though the more he thought about it, the more tempting the option became. He had enjoyed that irritating attitude of yours and those biting comments that made his brain search for retaliation. He even more so enjoyed that taste of instability, which went against all of his ideals. Dottore was a man of careful calculations and obtaining expected results and yet somehow, when he found himself unable to predict your next words and actions, it left him excited. 

How could one hate the unexpected and yet enjoy it in the same hand? Unless it was not the unexpected, it was you bringing it to him. Dottore’s head throbbed, he felt like a pendulum, swinging back and forth and back and forth and back and forth as he tried to figure out how he felt in relation to you so he could decide upon the best course of action for dealing with you. 

How bothersome. Already, he could feel things shifting—something he had sworn he wouldn’t let happen.

Not for the first time, he felt absurdly jealous of his own segment; Epsilon, who could understand emotions far better than the rest of them ever would be able to and used it against them very often. He wondered if the man already knew what Dottore was feeling—if the smirk on his lips had anything to say about it, Dottore thought he probably did. 

What do you have planned? Dottore wanted to ask Epsilon because he knew that there was some underlying game going on that Dottore couldn’t place yet but he didn’t want to dive into that conversation while Iota was still on the brink of self-destruction, crying and sniffling and choking over his own sobs. 

Dottore thought he might trust Epsilon the least out of all of the segments. Unlike Lambda, whose goals and ambitions were as clear as crystal, Epsilon was an enigma, driven by emotions that the rest of them couldn’t understand. He liked to play games with them, push buttons that they didn’t even know that they had, and your presence in Zapolyanry Palace was a large, bright red one that Dottore just couldn’t seem to destroy.

So long as you were around, Dottore would be at the mercy of Epsilon’s unwelcome schemes and he had a distinct feeling that Epsilon would be playing at trying to make the bond between the two of you stronger. He would have to work to counter it without even knowing the game.

Bothersome. This was all bothersome. Dottore hated games. He hated dealing with his segments. He hated being vulnerable. He hated all of this. 

All of it? Dottore pushed away the treacherous thought furiously. 

“Is that-” Epsilon began but abruptly cut himself off as he moved forward to walk at Dottore’s side, peering ahead carefully through the wicked storm.

Following his gaze, Dottore looked out across the bridge leading to the palace to see a small figure sprinting in their direction—no cloak or covering, only wearing a thin outfit to shield against the sheer cold of the bitter winter storm.

“Gamma,” Dottore murmured in agreement. 

He could feel the anxiety rippling from the boy in waves—anxiety and fear. It didn’t take much to push Gamma into a panic attack but this was different. Dottore could feel it. It wasn’t like the usual ones he experienced. Brows furrowing, he watched as Gamma approached them, eyes wild and cheeks bright red. 

Instantly, Dottore felt uncomfortable, realizing something was very, very wrong. 

“Theta is with her,” Gamma wheezed, doubling over as he tried to catch his breath. He seemed as if he had been crying—a cold feeling, unrelated to the wind and snow around them, settled over him, sinking into his stomach. “You have to get him, he’ll hurt her, he’s in one of his moods. You know what he’s like when he’s in one of them. He’s dangerous and violent. You have to do something.”

“Who is he with?” Dottore asked slowly.

He stared down at Gamma as he waited for a response but deep down, he very much already knew who Theta was with and an old and unwelcome emotion spread throughout him, freezing his bones and blood, weighing on his chest like stones. An emotion that he had long learned to suppress, one that he hadn’t experienced since his days at the Akademiya when they had him placed on trial—he could barely recognize it, it was hard for him to put a name to it until Gamma opened his mouth again. 

“Her,” Gamma gasped. “Our soulmate.”

Fear. The emotion was fear. 

rbs appreciated!!

[prdx-invdr]

୨୧⸝⸝ : and i promise, this time i won’t be late.

PAIRING! idol!wonbin x fem!reader GENRE! fluff, angst (quite a bit this time i think) WARNING! just wonbin tryna be a good bf alsooo not proofread WC 2.5k

NOTE! smth shorter to make up for the fact that i haven't written anything in ages, sorry for disappearing off the face of the earth it will happen again

wonbin finds himself praying that you're still awake right now. he looks down at his phone for the thousandth time, wincing every time the minute changes.

it is currently 1:06 in the morning. running an anxious hand through his hair, he continues to glare at the time being displayed as though it would go back a few hours if he stared hard enough. he thinks about sending you a message to verify whether or not you're still up, but decides against it with a shake of his head. he already feels terrible, and he thinks that if you happen to be asleep right now and wake up to his sorry, pathetic message the next day, it'd only make him feel worse.

lost in thought, wonbin doesn’t even feel the arm that wraps around his stiff shoulders until the person touching him decides to speak. “you’re coming with us, right?” sungchan asks, causing wonbin to look up for the first time in what feels like hours.

all the boy can utter is a “what?”, meeting the eyes of his taller group mate. “the corner store down the road is still open,” sungchan explains, “we’ve been talking about stopping there since practice ended. were you not listening?”

wonbin takes a deep breath, running a hand through his hair once more. he hadn’t been listening, of course, because the moment practice ended the only thing on his mind was getting back home to you. it wasn’t a rare occurrence, but practice only seemed to drag longer than normal today, and while wonbin knows that you’ve always been understanding of the fact that he comes home late, he can’t help but feel apologetic. he tells himself that he owes it to you to come home on time just once, and he’s blown it again.

1:10 in the morning. “sorry,” wonbin breathes, “i can’t go.” he doesn’t say anything more than that, and he doesn’t have to. sungchan drops his arm from the younger boy’s shoulders, instead opting to pat him on the back reassuringly. in the same sense that this isn’t wonbin’s first time coming home late, it also isn’t the first time he’s had to bail on his friends in exchange for arriving at your shared apartment just a bit earlier, even if it doesn’t make much of a difference. despite everything, wonbin is still late, and there’s no changing that.

sungchan nods, “next time, then.” wonbin offers him a nod in return, and the older boy only gives him a smile and a wave before turning around to catch up with everyone else. wonbin is frozen for a moment, watching the silhouettes of his group mates get smaller and smaller before he finally begins the journey back to you.

1:45 in the morning. wonbin holds his breath as he opens the door to your apartment, making very minimal noise. he still prays that you’re awake, but can’t blame you if you aren’t.

he wants to call out to you, the same way he wanted to send you a text earlier, and the same way he wanted to arrive at a reasonable time for once. he keeps his teeth clenched.

it’s 1:50 by the time wonbin stops in front of your shared bedroom. you’re sleeping— he’s sure of it. despite this, he still can’t find it in him to regret making an attempt to come home sooner. he knows that you’d appreciate it if you knew.

he pushes open the door and there you are, a tense look adorning your face as you sleep. he takes note of how you likely weren’t even sure if he would be home on time or not, yet you still stayed to your side of the bed. whether it be due to routine or simply because you were hoping that he’d show up, his heart drops nonetheless.

he quietly walks over to you, pausing when he reaches your side. he had wished for you to be awake up until this moment, but finds it ironic that he currently doesn’t want to wake you. he doesn’t even realize that he’s subconsciously moving hair away from your face until it’s too late, and does nothing to stop himself once he notices.

letting his hand drift down slightly to stroke the side of your face, he releases a shaky sigh. “i’m sorry, my sweet girl,” he whispers, watching with somber eyes as your expression softens as if you’re able to sense his presence in your sleep.

he makes his way over to his side of the bed and he knows that you won’t be affected by the way the mattress dips slightly as he lies down, because he’s done it so many times and you’ve never once woken up from it.

2:01 in the morning. wonbin hates that he can only lie beside you for a few hours before having to leave again, before you even get the chance to open your eyes. it’ll be as if he was never there. it’s completely out of his control, and wonbin knows that, but he hates it. you’d tell him that it’s alright, the same way you’ve done several times, but he hates it. he hates every bit of it.

it’s 11:01 in the morning by the time you wake up, and you don’t need to turn around in order to know that you’re the only person in the room. wonbin had been here, this much you know, and you wish that you had stayed awake longer if it meant being able to see him, even for a moment. you wish that you had woken up abruptly at some point last night if it meant being able to see his sleeping face.

you don’t dwell on the thought for long— you never do, knowing that it’d only make your situation a lot harder to deal with. you feel around your bedside table in search of your phone, not having the strength to get out of bed just yet.

strike one, you think to yourself. on the rare occasion that you wake up and wonbin is by your side, he always lightheartedly scolds you for checking your phone first thing in the morning. he’d disapprove if he saw you right now, but he isn’t here to stop you, so you do it anyway. coincidentally, the only notifications on display are from the boy in question.

[6:23 AM] my bin <3: hiii babe

[6:25 AM] my bin <3: call me when u get the chance!!!!! i’ll be available (i will literally drop everything and pick up)

[6:26 AM] my bin <3: i love u pretty ….. 🤮

your mood lifts just by seeing his name on your screen, a surge of energy coursing through your body. you decide to go about your normal routine, the idea of calling your boyfriend never leaving your mind.

it’s 11:20 by the time you make it downstairs, everything looking the exact same way you left it. wonbin is nothing if not organized; if there’s any disarray in your apartment, it’s all from you. unfortunately, this means that there’s not many traces of your boyfriend left behind, and you often hope for him to forget to hang up his coat or line up his shoes by the door just to prove that he’s there.

you walk into the kitchen and the first thing you take note of is that you still haven’t taken out the trash. strike two, you think.

you made a mental note to take care of it a few days ago and you still have yet to do so. wonbin hasn’t been around enough lately to notice, but you know he’d jokingly give you a roll of his eyes if he saw the way it’s practically overflowing right now before proceeding to take it out himself. he’d do the same with the dishes piled up in the sink, chatting away with you while he took care of everything like it was no problem, and to him, it really wasn’t.

god, you miss him.

you pull out your phone, disregarding everything else as you click on his contact and hold the device up to your ear. it rings only 4 times before you hear wonbin on the other end.

“i was hoping you’d call,” he says, and you faintly hear the voices of his group mates in the background. you almost let out a laugh at his words, just to fill the silence, but it only comes out as a quick exhale. “why wouldn’t i? you told me to. and i would’ve, even if you didn’t tell me to,” you murmur, your words leaving you faster than you wanted them to.

“i just don’t feel like i deserve it, i guess,” he replies. you’re about to ask him to elaborate before he continues. “i stopped by last night. i’m sorry i couldn’t come sooner, i really tried.” you pause at his choice of words, wondering if he even noticed that he said “stopped by” rather than something along the lines of “came home”, as if the two of you don’t live together.

you shake your head, deciding that you’re looking too much into it solely because not being able to see your boyfriend is taking a toll on you. “don’t apologize, bin,” you exhale, “i’ve told you a million times i understand. there’s not really anything you can do about it.”

you know he’s probably shaking his head on the other side of the phone, or running a nervous hand through his hair the way he always does. “i know, just- i’m sorry. i want to see you.” you nod, and he doesn’t see it. “i want to see you, too,” you reply. “should i wait up until 3am today?” your words are meant to be taken as a joke, but wonbin immediately retaliates. “you better not! your beauty sleep comes before anything else.”

you talk with him about anything that comes to mind and it’s as easy as it always is. when he tells you that he has to leave and get back to practicing, the two of you exchange prolonged “goodbye’s” and “i love you’s” before you finally pull the phone away from your ear with a sigh. you think that hearing his voice only made you miss him more.

when you look up from the phone you’re once again greeted with the trash can, as filled to the brim as ever, and you think taking it out would make for a good distraction. not far from it, the dishes are still piled up, and you consider washing them. you don’t, though. strike three.

you spend the rest of the day going through the motions, body moving on autopilot as it does quite often lately, and at the end of it all you look back on everything and think that it had all been normal— aside from the fact that wonbin doesn’t come home.

despite his initial protests, you’re awake until 3:26 in the morning. you’re not sure what time he arrived home last night, but you think that it couldn’t have been later than this.

you had made sure to take a nap at some point during the day just so you could be awake at this moment, to see your lover, talk to him, even if it had only been for a few minutes.

you shoot him a text, praying that the urgency you feel can be expressed through the little amount of words you send. you fall asleep waiting for his response, only to wake up to an empty phone, and an even emptier bed.

if there was barely any traces of wonbin in your shared apartment before, there definitely isn’t now; his lack of presence was evident the day before despite the fact that he had been there for merely a few hours, but after last night?

for a moment, it almost feels as though you live by yourself.

12:03 in the afternoon. swallowing the sudden lump in your throat, you make an attempt to go about your routine as normal. you can already picture the sight you’ll be greeted with downstairs— an overflowing trash can, the accumulating dishes in the sink, only this time, there’s no messages from wonbin asking for you to give him a call or telling you that he loves you.

to your surprise, by the time you manage to trudge downstairs, you aren’t greeted by any of those things.

the trash can that had been previously close to spilling over has been emptied, an empty bag now taking its place. there’s no dishes in the sink, all of them instead sitting in the dish rack waiting to dry. before you’re able to turn around and demand an explanation, you feel arms wrapping around your waist, and you swear that your eyes almost fill up with tears.

“my sweet girl, i missed you,” wonbin utters from behind you, and in an instant, you’re spinning your body around and returning his embrace. he can sense that you’re about to ask him a myriad of questions, and opts to continue talking before you can get a word in. “i’ve only been here for about an hour or so. i’m sorry i couldn’t come home last night, baby.”

you shake your head, about to offer him the same reassurance you always do, when he begins to speak again. “i practiced until super late last night. i wanted to finish learning the choreography as fast as possible—“ you open your mouth to scold him, pulling away from his chest momentarily when he cuts you off for what feels like the thousandth time. “—and before you yell at me, it was for a good reason,” he pouts, waiting for you to press your lips into a tight line before starting to speak again.

“i overexerted myself a bit, i think, but it was all worth it. i’m all yours for the next few days,” he finishes, a hand stroking the back of your head. the two of you stand there for a while. “i love you’s” and “i missed you’s” are exchanged rather than goodbyes, and neither of you are willing to move from your positions, blissfully unaware of the passage of time for once. it’s alright, though— you both have time. a lot of it.

for a moment, wonbin gets the urge to apologize again, whether it be for all the times he’s arrived home late, or for leaving you alone with an overflowing trash can or a sink full of dishes, but it’s almost as if you’re able to read his mind. “don’t feel sorry anymore, bin,” he hears you say, voice muffled against the fabric of his shirt. he only nods, the words dying on his tongue. he decides that he’ll accept your reassurance just this once.

wonbin isn’t sorry, because this time, he isn’t late.

AUTHOR’S NOTE! beabadoobee my wife

[dilatorywriting]

Hi hi! So this is a request for the 4k followers thing and if it sounds like word vomit I apologize cuz I have no idea how to word this. Could I ask for prompt 10 ("I think we should go to dinner first.") with mc x azul? The scenario here is like that one twitter post that was going around awhile ago about how a falls first but b falls harder, with a being azul and how once he realizes his feelings he resigns himself to forever pining from afar bc he's convinced himself that any relationship between them would be doomed to failure since mc is from another world and would have to go home someday. But while mc is a bit dense when it comes to their own romantic feelings they've always been an upfront person and as soon as they realize they like him they kinda just,,,, barge into his office and say so, and I feel like the sentence prompt would be said by azul after a pretty intense make out session (maybe nothing spicy spicy but yeah) where at the end oh yeah he remembers he's a gentleman

Also after a bit of searching I found the twitter post I was talking about

Gender Neutral Reader x Azul Ashengrotto Word Count: 1.5k

Prompt 10: "I-I think we should go for dinner first."

[EVENT MASTERLIST]

Azul had been avoiding you.

Which was so strange and wholly out of character that the first few days of it went by in a weird sort of fugue. You hadn’t even noticed an entire week had passed in blissful, mafioso-free silence until you were heading to your Friday night shift at the Lounge and realized you hadn’t seen your favorite octopus even once. Normally the House Warden was fluttering around you like a scam artist to an old folks’ home. Poking, and prodding, and ‘ah, Prefect, I know you weren’t a fan of the last contract, but perhaps this one would suffice, hmm?’

And when you arrived in the little, employee-only locker room—still fully unbothered and not offered even a single opportunity to sell your soul—you wondered if maybe he’d gotten sick.

You were in the middle of taking some Savanaclaw student’s order when you finally saw him at all. Just a quick glance out of the corner of your eye to catch his shining, silver head of hair popping into his office. You smiled brightly and offered a wave. But Azul only went stiff and closed the door with a bang.

Which was…

Huh.

“Is Azul feeling okay?” you asked Jade between running an armload of drinks to a table of Pomefiore students.

The eel hummed and gave you one of those smiles that never really looked like it was meant to be a smile. “Our fearless leader is clinically sound.”

You frowned. Because that felt like one of the Vice Warden’s non-answers that he’d throw your way sometimes like a taller, meaner older sibling holding your favorite toy just out of reach.

“So he’s alright?” you pressed, hesitant.

“Oh, I never said that,” he chirped pleasantly, before ducking off to go catch the stack of plates that Floyd was in the process of juggling through the kitchen.

The bubbling panic popping in your gut was the worst sort of tummy ache. The kind that spread its miserable pain until it’d left your chest hurting, and head spinning, and something deeply wrong throbbing at the heart of you. Because Azul, despite his inherent tendencies to treat you like a particularly stupid pack mule, was still your best friend. The person you cared about most in all the world! Sure, he enjoyed bamboozling you and your fellow students, but, like he hadn’t done anything genuinely malicious in ages now! Like a paid hitman retiring into selling seedy vacation timeshares.

The idea of him just—just not wanting you anymore struck something horrible in you. Of finally realizing that the silly little human from worlds unknown wasn’t worth the wobbly pair of legs you were standing on. And it left you feeling small, and afraid, and—and—

“Oh? Are you feeling unwell, Prefect?” Jade called from somewhere behind you.

“Does Azul hate me?” you blurted out before you could help yourself.

The eel blinked his bi-colored eyes at you—slow and unbothered. Perhaps a bit surprised, if you had to put a name to the expression. Jade’s face was like that sometimes. An enigma. Like someone had wired him up just slightly wrong when putting it all together. On any other living creature, that sap-slow nonchalance would have certainly bordered on outright boredom, but you knew him well enough to know there was at least something else going on there.

“Why would he hate you?” he asked, equally dripping and slug slow.

“Because—!” you squawked, and waved your hands around your head. “Because!”

“I see,” he nodded. And then latched a gloved hand onto your shoulder and steered you back towards his boss’s office. He didn’t even bother to knock before wrenching the door open and shoving you inside.

Azul looked up with a start, eyes gone wide behind his glasses and jaw slack.

“What’s going—”

“The Prefect is on the verge of psychotic break,” Jade chirped helpfully, with a closed-eyed smile. “Please be delicate with them, hmm?”

And then slammed the door shut all over again. Leaving you alone with the guy who might have only very recently started to hate your guts. Or—or maybe he always had! And maybe you’d just been really, really dumb about picking it up! You wanted to scream. Or hide away forever. Azul looked like the latter was an exceptionally tempting idea, and you could see his blue eyes flicker around the room like he was looking for an escape route.

But the idea of him running away from you, that you’d never see him again—that he didn’t want to ever see you again—had something horribly enlightening clicking into place in your brain.

“Are you okay!” you asked, so loud it nearly rattled the furniture. And Azul flinched in surprise. “Did I do something wrong!”

“What?” he blinked, startled. “Of… Of course not.” He cleared his throat and stood carefully, making his way towards you in the manner one may approach a rabid racoon hiding under their porch. “Perhaps you should take a seat—”

“I can’t!” you cried, frantic. “Not if you’re upset!”

Another of those owlish, outright consternated bouts of blinking. “You can’t sit?”

“No!” you wailed. That prickling, hot, tight feeling nearly overflowing out of you. “Not if it’s my fault!”

His expression twisted up into something mulish and embarrassed, and he reached up to push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose with a soft huff.

“…it’s hardly your fault,” he said, sounding so stupidly sad that you just wanted to—to—

“How can I fix it?” you tried, panicked. Because he didn’t want to be around you anymore, and you couldn’t lose him. You couldn’t!

Azul sighed, gaze shifting away yet again. He offered you a tight, little smile that felt like all sorts of lies. “It’s alright, Prefect. Truly. It’s just something…” he trailed off, that forced smirk twitching off his lips like he couldn’t help it. “Something I’m learning to live with, hmm? Nothing terrible, I promise.”

“You shouldn’t have to live with something that’s bothering you,” you argued, firm. “You’re the king of fixing other people’s problems. You’re more than allowed to use all those connections and stuff to fix your own!”

“I’m afraid it doesn’t really work like that,” he tried, awkward, and you steamrolled on.

“Why not?! You’re amazing! And fantastic! And I love you so much, and you should never have to be upset about anything. And if you’re not in my life for the rest of my life, I’d rather die!” you wailed, and gasped—clapping your hands together like the idea that had just blossomed in your skull was just beyond brilliant. “We should get married!” And then, to sweeten the deal, “Think of the tax benefits!”

“I—” Azul choked, going as red as a tomato. “Y-You—”

“—love you very much!” you finished helpfully.

He ducked his face into his hands, like he could scrub the blush right off his cheeks if he tried hard enough.

“Y-You can’t—” he spluttered into his gloves. “You can’t just say things like that.”

“Why not?” you demanded. “It’s true!”

Azul’s shoulders hunched up like he was trying make himself very, very small. And then after a long moment of near hyperventilating into his palms, he finally looked back over at you from behind the shield of his fingers.

“You…” he swallowed. “You love me?”

You nodded, certain. Becauese what else could that warm, bright, all-consuming thing be in your chest be but that?

“You,” he said again. “Love me?”

“Yes,” you agreed, never more sure of anything than that. “And we should get married.”

Azul choked again and went back to hiding behind his fingers.

“Unless…” you started, trailing off as something horrible and unsure squirmed through your chest. “Unless you don’t want to, of course. It should be your choice too. Just because I love you, doesn’t mean you have to love me, y’know?”

“That’s not what I said!” he squawked, head snapping back up so fast he nearly knocked the glasses off his face. And then he went red all over again, all the way to the tips of his ears, and he was reaching up to pull the rim of his hat down over his eyes with a curse. “I just…” he began, muffled behind the fabric of his overcoat. “Maybe… dinner first?” he choked. “Before the proposal.”

“Oh,” you blinked, startled. “Of course. That makes sense.”

“That makes sense,” Azul echoed, sounding like you’d come up from behind him and walloped him with a baseball bat rather than just suggested a completely rational and beneficial mutual engagement. “I… I don’t know why I’m surprised at all.”

You quirked a brow. “Were you… expecting me to say that?” you asked confused.

This time he did look back up at you fully. Hands lowered, and the shield of his collar gone and all. The smile he sent you was small but so, heartachingly warm that it had butterflies dancing in your stomach.

“No,” he hummed, sounding impossibly pleased. “I really, really wasn’t.”

.

.

[sheawritesstuff]

Meeting the Alpha

[Gabriel Shaw and David x Angel]

[Meet the parents Fluff - 1391 words]

[Little bit of a twist ending ;p enjoy]

“Alright, Angel. How are you feeling? You ready?” David asked, putting the car in park. Angel fidgeted nervously in their seat and stared out the window. Their attention darted rapidly between the big, rustic house in front of them and their own shaking hands. 

“What if he doesn’t like me?” Their voice was uncharacteristically quiet and almost shaky. “What if I fuck it up? Davey I- “ David cut them off with a gentle grip of their hand. They finally turned to look at him, mouth tugged down in a frown. He held their hand firmly and took a dramatically slow, deep breath. They followed suit, filling their lungs with air and breathing out their worry. 

“He’s going to love you, Angel. I promise,” David said, soft and genuine. “It’s going to be ok, it’s just my dad.” Angel nodded, still breathing deeply. They squeezed their boyfriend’s hand and forced a smile. 

“I think I’m ready now.” They said it more to themself than to him. David kissed them once before the two of them hefted themselves up and out of the car. The wolf came to their side and looped their arms together, keeping them nice and close. They walked together to the front door, waited a moment for a few more deep breaths, and David knocked firmly on the thick wooden door. 

A moment later the door opened, revealing the man of the hour. If Angel thought David was big, Gabe was gigantic. He was at least three inches taller and almost as wide as his son, but not quite as muscular. Angel stared up at him, eyes wide and mouth hanging open slightly.

“Well hey! You must be the little Angel I’ve heard so much about,” Gabe declared. He spread his arms, a bright smile plastered across his face, then paused. “Wait, can I- do… do you do hugs?” He pulled his arms back toward his body awkwardly as he questioned the forwardness of his action. 

Angel giggled at him and opened their arms too. They nestled against his chest in a firm, familiar hug. They both sighed, relaxing in their shared embrace as the mutual nervousness faded. They pulled away and found David standing off to the side, arms folded across his chest. 

“Aw, Davey, are you feeling left out? C’mere baby,” Angel teased, approaching him arms first. David groaned, but hugged them back, running his hand over their back. Gabe took the opportunity to ruffle David’s hair, wasting the agonizing half-hour he put into perfecting it. The beta scrunched his eyebrows together and huffed at his father. 

“I did not come here to be ambushed,” he complained, pushing his mate away from him. He turned back toward the door, quickly trying to tidy up his hair. “Are you gonna let us in or not, old man?” David’s grin gave away the fact his dismay was all for show. Gabe rolled his eyes, still smiling wide. He motioned toward the door with both arms and bowed slightly. 

“After you, Davey,” Gabe remarked, stepping inside behind them and closing the door. David mirrored his elder and rolled his eyes. The trio entered the front room of the house together. Angel openly gawked at the gorgeous childhood home of their lover. 

“Dinner is on the table if you two are ready.” 

The dining table was huge, stretching about as far as one end of Angel’s apartment to the other. It was bare, though, save for three neatly arranged placemats on one end with a variety of dishes scattered around them. David led his mate to their seat and pulled the chair out for them. He sat across from them, leaving the head of the table empty for the alpha. 

“Wow.” Angel stared at the feast in front of them. “It looks amazing, Gabe.” 

“It’s crazy, huh. Some people cook and eat actual food,” David joked as he scooped a spoonful of potatoes onto his plate. Gabe half-heartedly swatted at the back of his son’s head. 

“Be nice. You weren’t always the healthiest eater either, y’know.” The older wolf turned to Angel with a smile. “You would not believe how hard it was to convince this boy to eat his vegetables. When he was still a tiny little thing he-”  David covered his face with his hands and groaned. The tips of his ears were bright red as he listened to the retelling of his childhood stubbornness. 

“-and he wouldn’t even look at anything green unless I bribed him with some sort of treat until he was damn near 15,” Gabe laughed and glanced toward the man sitting next to him. David still had his head bowed down in embarrassment, but he had uncovered in face in the interest of actually eating his dinner. “Your mama would be so proud of you,” Gabe said softly. 

David perked his head up and stared at his father, surprise clear on his face. Gabe smiled at him and patted his shoulder with a nod. He turned back to Angel with the same kind grin. “She would love you too, Angel. You’re sweet like she was. I think you two would’ve gotten along well.” His voice was quiet and filled with a fond nostalgia. “You picked well, David.

David stopped eating for a moment, just pushing the food around on his plate as he searched for the right words. He looked across the table and met his partner’s eyes for a moment. He smiled back at them and sighed. 

“Yeah, I did, didn’t I.” 

The rest of the evening was filled with good food, laughter, and a plethora of embarrassing childhood stories. As the couple finished their food, Gabe stood to take their plates to the kitchen. Angel peered across the table with a smile painted on their face. 

“I think he likes me,” they sighed. David laughed and pushed himself up from the table. He came around to the other side and draped himself over the top of their chair. A kiss to the top of the head accompanied a soft squeeze to their shoulders. 

“He loves you, Angel. Just like I said he would.” He tilted their head up and kissed their forehead. “But I’m afraid if we don’t leave soon he’ll end up liking you more than me. And we can’t have that, can we?” They giggled and shook their head. He pulled their chair out to give them room to stand as Gabe reentered the dining room. 

“You two heading out?” David nodded and replaced the chair.

“It was really great getting to meet you, Gabe,” Angel piped up. Gabe smiled down at them. His smile had been almost permanently painted on his face since they arrived, but it never seemed any less genuine. 

“It was lovely meeting you too, Angel. Don’t be a stranger, ok?” He leaned down to hug them again and they happily returned it. He patted them on the back as he pulled away. David hugged him too, but it lingered a little longer as he reveled in the moment. 

“I love you, Dad.”

“I love you too, David. Drive safe, alright?” David nodded as he turned to open the door. 

“Always.”

Gabe stood on the porch as he watched them get back into their car. Angel let out a long, low sigh as they sat down. David turned the key with a hum and turned to face his mate. They smiled at him before waving out the window as they pulled out of the driveway. They leaned across the seat to plant a quick kiss to David’s cheek-

The feeling of gentle kisses scattered across David’s face pulled him back to reality. His eyes opened just enough to peer up at his mate on top of him, waking him up “the romantic way”. He smiled softly as the warmth of sleep ebbed away. Angel kissed the tip of his nose and pulled away just enough to make proper eye contact. 

“Good morning, Davey,” they said, voice still hoarse from sleep. “Did you have a good dream?” David tucked their hair behind their ear and smiled as his core thrummed solid in his chest. He stared up at them, admiring the beauty before him for a long, silent moment. 

“Yes, I did.” He pressed a soft kiss to their lips. “I had a very good dream, Angel.” 

[phi8]

Recently rewatched Gravity Falls with its resurgence online, and I was itching to give my take on an older Mabel with an absolute unit of a Waddles (who is a regular farm pig after all). To go along with this, I also wrote some fanfic: a letter from Dipper to Mabel, about his return to Gravity Falls years after the show. Read it on AO3 or below!

Dear Mabel,

I hope everything is going well back home!  I miss you already, but it’s so good to be back in Gravity Falls too. A  lot has changed since our summer here.

The first week of my internship at McGucket Labs has been amazing. McGucket has really transformed Northwest Manor into a fantastic campus (though he still insists everyone call it “the Hootenanny Hut”)! There are so many  brilliant scientists and engineers here, and most of them have a refreshingly open mind about the nature and use of all the weirdness you can find in Gravity Falls. My experience with all that stuff is already paying off big time. Yesterday some PHD dude asked for my opinion on practical applications of necromancy (I told him it was a bad idea)!

Candy says hi by the way! It’s funny, for me this internship is all the way across the country, but for her it’s practically in her back yard, even though we both got that scholarship. Also, she tells me Grenda is more or less officially part of the Austrian aristocracy at this point? Apparently she and that Marius duke guy got engaged, did you hear about that?? Turns out I’m completely out of the loop with your friend group.

Candy and I have been hanging out with, of all people, Pacifica and Gideon. Can you believe it? Pacifica works at Corduroy Lumber these days. Probably in some misguided sense to get back to her roots, but I think it’s doing her some actual good. Working with her hands has been teaching her valuable life lessons I guess. It makes it a bit weird if Wendy also comes hang out, because she’s technically Pacifica’s boss – but you know Wendy’s cool about that.

Gideon is still running the Tent of Telepathy, so, not all winners. But he’s turned into a more lovable kind of swindler I think, like a younger Stan. He’s honestly kinda funny now (except that he’s taller than me). Wendy also told me he has a thing for Pacifica, and once she did, I couldn’t unsee it. He’s all over her! Pacifica hasn’t noticed, even though they spend a lot of time together. Or maybe she just hasn’t deigned it with a reaction... Either way, both of them are a ball to go for a drink with, whoda thunk.

You also have a lot of hugs from Soos, Melody and the baby (Stan Jr is sooo cute). (Yes, I asked. Melody promised to make you godmother of the hypothetical next child. You owe me.) The Shack is as charmingly ramshackle as it was back when we were here, but Soos finally got the old man stink out. I’m staying in Grunkle Ford’s old secret office because our room was converted to baby chamber. I still haven’t gotten the Bill murals completely off the walls and I have no natural light down here, but I spend most of my time at Northwest Manor the Hootenanny Hut anyway.

Or in the woods! Being back here really was a good move for my Youtube channel, there’s so much more supernatural stuff here than in California, and people are loving it. (I saw you liked my last video, thanks!) I’m currently tracking down what I think is the actual Gobblewonker. I analyzed some detritus samples from the lake, and there were feces from a large reptile present. From what we know, none of the dinosaurs in the mine were aquatic, so my current hypothesis is that it’s an unrelated creature. Especially since, according to my research, the Gobblewonker story dates back at least a century. I also gotta show Ford some of my findings. You know they’ve come across some aquatic monsters in the Bermuda Triangle. (Have you also been getting his mails with scans of the fourth journal? Truly fascinating stuff.) Either way, I’ll keep you posted, and you’ll be able to watch the result online.

Give my love to mom and dad, and Waddles a tummy rub! Awkward sibling sign off, Dipper

PS. Along with the photo’s in the envelope is that stuff you wanted. Be safe with it! There’s a reason it’s illegal in the parts of the forest controlled by the gnomes. But also have fun, I have it on very good authority it’s the good stuff.

[tinytennisskirt]

A Chaotic Reunion: Part One

Pt 1 Summary: You and Art were childhood best friends who grew apart. It's been about five years since you saw him in the flesh, but you run into each other at the club and make plans to catch up. It's good to rekindle, but maybe this time around things are starting to feel different.

Warnings: mentions of drinking

You and Art had been best friends as kids. Every moment from 4-12 was spent playing together. Sometimes girl things, sometimes boy things. Most times shared things, like pirates or thieves or creek monsters. You’d roll around the neighbourhood together every day, swinging from tire swings and buying corner store popsicles and a kiss on the cheek every now and then. At 4 you’d promised to get married. And it was pure and simple and so much fun.

You were at his house every day that he wasn't with you at yours. But after Art left for school, the correspondence was a lot harder. And as you both grew, you grew even further apart. Your best friend and next door neighbourhood was becoming someone new. And you were too, but differently. You had braces for a while that were the wrong colour, you cut your hair badly a few times.

Art came home sometimes for Christmas but all you’d get was a hi on the sidewalk if you managed to catch him. It was just different. And then he stopped coming back altogether around fifteen- and at eighteen you moved across the country for school. So you wouldn’t even get a glimpse on the driveway anyways.

You were content and doing what you love. Then came nineteen, then twenty, then twenty one. You’d settled in your looks, finally feeling a bit normal. You had an apartment with your best friends in a cool area, you had a good job, and you were finally of legal drinking age.

You and your roommates decided one night to get cute and hit the club downtown instead. So you went, cute outfit, cute hair, eye makeup perfect and on point. Talking about work ceased, conversations about possible tattoos and past flings ensued. You and your roommates had a great night drinking and dancing. You all hit the dance floor, pushing touchy men away from each other and enjoying the music, the lights. You and one of your roommates were spinning, dancing around each other and you took a misstep and spun right into someone.

His chest was hard, but his hands were surprisingly soft as his they gently gripped your upper arms to steady you. “I’m so sorry,” you said, backing up and recalibrating. It was loud, the bass of the music thumping through your feet and purple, pink, and blue lights. You brushed your hair out of your face and looked up to a face that you knew. An older version of a face you knew.

You recognized him, just barely. Cheekbones carved out, jawline sharp, nose perfect, blonde hair a mess, eyes still sleepy, but just about as wide as yours. His hands stayed on your upper arms. “Y/N?”

“Art, oh my god!” You laughed. He grinned and immediately it was like you two weren’t without talking for years. He wrapped his arms around you and the chest you bumped into, you were now pressed against. You backed up, staying close. “How are you?!” You asked over the music. He couldn’t hear you, he leaned closer to your mouth to hear. “How are you?” You asked again.

He smiled, face inches from yours so you could hear. “I’m good! I’m okay, how are you?”

Your focus shifted- He was much taller, his hair was much longer, and he was… gorgeous, quite frankly. You blinked hard, “I’m doing okay, I’m just here with my roommates what are you doing here?”

“I’m in town for tennis,” he replied. “You live here?”

“I do!” You answered.

“That’s amazing, what have you been up to?” You two were about to catch up in the middle of the dance floor. You wondered who he was here with. He followed your wandering eyes- “We should probably go off to the side-“

You chuckled, “For sure!” And walked a bit ahead of him to the not-much-quieter bar section. His hand grazed your waist once or twice as you both pushed through the crowd. You hated that you noticed it.

You sat yourself at one of the smaller booths. You didn’t need another drink. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

He shook his head, smiling at you without end, “Me neither, I-“ he shook his head. “It’s been years, you look… different.”

“Is it the boobs?” You tease, looking down. You look back up to see his eyes trained down, then immediately snapping back to meet your own. You smile knowingly.

“No, uh-“ he noticed, rubbed his neck sheepishly. “You’re older, your hair is less… light and you look- you look really pretty.”

“So do you,” you replied immediately. It wasn't like you didn't mean it- he was pretty. The image of him as your childhood best friend was no longer forefront. He was pretty- he was quite gorgeous. He smiled a crooked grin, something that was cute on a kid, but now it was just… hot. The way his cheek creased to one side of his smile. You leaned forward, elbows on the table. He looked surprised to hear you say it.

“I-uh-“ he looked down, long eyelashes of his fluttering a bit. The word 'pretty' bounced around your head looking at him. Maybe it was the lighting. Maybe it was the three drinks you’d had. “Thank you,“ His eyes met yours again. He looked like he was trying not to smile so big. “So what have you been up to?”

He was cute, changing the topic. You were allowed to think so, “I went to school for art history, gallery organization. I have a job in that now- I’m a gallerist. And that takes up a lot of my weekdays, but I have a lot of time to myself in the evenings and I own my gallery, so I don’t even have to go into work if I don’t want, it’s pretty flexible. I work with my roommates, which is also perfect. And we have similar hours so we spend a lot of time together but they’re my best friends.”

“Wow, that’s- amazing. I had no idea you were so successful, that’s crazy.” He looked almost shy for a 21 year old. Like there was anything to be shy about. “Is the gallery local?"

You smiled and nodded, "Not far from here at all."

"I'd love to visit, could I come by? Is that a stretch?”

“Not at all, we’re open until 9pm tomorrow so you can come in at anytime. I’ll be there.” You offered. You were flattered. “I’d love that. What have you been up to?”

“Just tennis, mostly. I'm here with a friend actually, he plays too. It's all just Stanford and tournaments. I wish I had a success story that fulfilling I’m still-“

“Are you kidding?” You interrupted. “Sorry I’m interrupting but I’ve followed your tennis career and you’re amazing. You’re really good.”

You wondered if he looked away because of a flush to his face. You swore you could make one out. “Thank you. I meant more like a settle-down type of success but tennis means travel and it’s a bit hard to settle when you’re constantly moving.”

“Oh, I see. That makes sense. I’m still amazed, though. I watched your most recent match on YouTube, you were going crazy. I’m not surprised you’re getting all these deals and sponsorships, you are amazing at what you do. Not many people can say that.”

“I’m no gallerist,” he grinned that crooked grin again, his face lit pink by the club lights.

You rolled your eyes with a grin, “Okay…”

"I'm just saying..." he teased. "Tennis is great but selling art to pretentious rich people who probably don't understand the real value of an art piece takes a lot more skill."

"Oh, you wouldn't imagine the assholes we deal with sometimes," You chimed. "You're very right, it takes a lot of patience."

He nodded with that gorgeous grin that stayed on his face. "You remember the art my parents used to have?"

"Oh the weird twisty 3D tree art?" You laughed. He chuckled too and rubbed his eyes. "I remember scraping my arm on it running past."

"The worst," He grimaced at the thought. "They were pretentious art-buyers who didn't care what they were purchasing. Nothing matched, they just liked having it. I'm pretty sure they told fake stories about it too."

You grimaced at that point, "I think I remember hearing one of those at your mom's barbeques. Not sure how I remember, but I think I do. It was about the lemon lady in the bathroom and how-"

"It was haunted," He finished your sentence. You both laughed. "She would tell it in front of me like it didn't scare me to go near that painting for the next ten years. I would always go to the upstairs bathroom no matter what." You both kept laughing, it was silly to remember such simple things. Easy. "Naming me Art wasn't enough?"

He was still sweet. "I guess not." And there was a moment of silence, even in the loudness of the club. His eyes stayed trained on yours, you wondered if he was taking in all the changes, discarding the mental image of who you'd used to be the way you had been discarding the mental image of how you used to see him. Tennis videos of him reminded you, but the image never stuck until now. He was here, sitting opposite of you, eyes still locked. God, he was so gorgeous it almost hurt to look at him.

You both noticed the staring and the 'silence' simultaneously, it seemed. He snapped out of it, and so did you.

“It’s good to know you’re doing well.” He said. “Wrong to say I've missed you?"

“You could have called,” you replied, poking the back of his hand as it rested on the table.

“So could you,”

“I didn’t know you missed me.” You said, shrugging. He nodded like it was fair with a small smile pulling at his lips. You fought the same smile. “But I’ve been proud of you from afar.”

He covered his face, peeking through his fingers before speaking, “I wish I could say the same, but from now on, I promise I am.” You grinned. “I'd love to catch up more while I'm here- Could I come by your gallery? Maybe around 10? When do you open?”

“Eleven,” you smiled. “Rich people who buy art are people who sleep in. But ten is perfect. You’re going to think I’m crazy, but yes I keep these on me when I’m at the club.” You reached into your bag and pulled out a business card with the address. He took it no hesitation and put it in his pocket immediately.

Your arm was tapped by one of your girlfriends, Shailene. “Hey, Y/N, Julie had one too many shots and I'm taking her home, are you coming?" She asked.

“Oh no- yes.” You closed your bag and sat up a little straighter. This booth had become your own little corner of the world.

“I’m sorry for interrupting- ooh, he’s cute.” Art could hear her. She was a great deal louder than you were willing to be and a few more drinks in than you.

“I- yeah,” you nodded. You turned to Art, “I’m so sorry, I have to go, but I’ll see you tomorrow! It was so good seeing you! I can’t believe you’re here.”

“No, you’re good,” he chuckled. “It was good to see you too, really. I’ll see you tomorrow. 10am,” he grinned his crooked grin. You squeezed his hand as you got up and followed your roommate out.

“Who was that?” She asked as you waved a cab.

“An old friend of mine,” you replied. “My old next door neighbour.”

“He’s gorgeous, girl. Looked familiar though... I hope you’re seeing him again, I didn't mean to drag you away."

You chuckled, “I am, I am. And don't worry about it." And as the taxi pulled up and you three piled into the taxi together, you were thinking about him. His grin, how he'd grown into his features, his hair, his eyes, his grin. He had a gorgeous grin. You yourself found yourself smiling at the thought. And you'd see him tomorrow.

(Part Two Here)

[gabessquishytum]

Hob always thought dream, his friend destruction’s older brother, was so gorgeous but he doubted dream ever noticed him. He was just destruction’s friend, and dream was so much older and more elegant. But he always had a smile and a kind word for hob, and sometimes he would talk to him about art and books and movies. Then dream goes off to college and disappears for a while.

Fast forward about ten years and destruction decides he is tired of his parents’ shit. He cuts himself off and moves in…with his big brother dream, who estranged himself years ago.

Suddenly hob finds himself going over to the brothers’ shared apartment all the time and there is dream, grown up and the loveliest man hob has ever seen. He’s so smart and even taller now, and he has such a sense of confidence and power now that he’s living on his own. And he is such a good big brother, encouraging destruction to be an art major and pursue his dreams.

Soon, dream and hob are close as well, and destruction encourages it, with a funny little smirk whenever he catches dream offering hob a ride, or whenever hob makes dinner for three.

When hob gets kicked out of his place, dream doesn’t hesitate to invite him to come live with them too.

Hob’s crush is back full force. And he feels so stupid—he’s a virgin and he knows dream dates beautiful, interesting and experienced people. He’d never go for someone like hob…

Until one day, hob forgets to lock the door when he’s showering and dream comes in and gets an eye full of hob, ass, thighs, dick and tits—everything. and his eyes go molten with want. He quickly recovers and apologizes and leaves but hob is suddenly full of hope.

Not two weeks later, destruction goes out of town for the weekend, leaving them alone. It’s so nice. Dream cooks. They watch a movie and split a bottle of wine, and Dream puts his arm around hob.

Then they’re kissing.

Dream asks him if he’s had sex before and hob admits he hasn’t. But he desperately wants to.

Dream just smiles at him, lays him down and fingers him until he’s crying into the couch cushions.

This is such a wonderful idea!!! I fully and completely adore the idea of Destruction matchmaking Hob and Dream. He thinks they'll be so cute together! They both deserve nice things, you know?

Hob is so nervous as his relationship with Dream finally begins. He's had a crush - well, maybe he's even been a little bit in love - on Dream for so long now. What if he fucks it all up now that he finally has what he wanted? What if he can't please Dream properly? He's a virgin, after all... but before he can spiral into a proper anxiety attack, Dream soothes him with sweet kisses and basically scrambles his brain. He's determined to make Hob’s first time good, and more than that he's determined to love him as he deserves to be loved.

When Destruction comes home from his little trip, he meets Hob in the kitchen. Hob is like... starry eyed. Standing by the fridge wearing what has to be one of Dream’s silky black pj shirts. There are definitely hickies all over his chest, and one of his nipples is red and has obviously been enthusiastically sucked. Hob is just like "dude. bro. i know you don't want to know. but holy shit."

And Destruction really doesn't want to know the details, but he's happy to slap Hob on the back. He's honestly thrilled to see two of his favourite people getting together. Just... don't tell him that Hob lost his virginity on the couch where they all hang out and watch movies, okay? 🤣 In his own bedroom later, Destruction also finds a gift from his big brother - a very fancy pair of noise cancelling headphones. It's a very nice "thank you for introducing me to Hob" gift. And when he's best man at their wedding in five or so years time, Destruction will fondly remember how he really fucking needed those headphones when Hob went from virgin to slut for Dream’s dick, but he couldn't even be mad about it <3

[yoongihan]

We're Friends - Jeongin/I.N

for the blossoming love event by @skzwritingcafe

pairing: jeongin x femreader

genre: angst, fluff, light smut, friends to lovers

rating: M

word count: ~11k (don't ask)

warnings: light smut (heavy making out, mention of erection, wanting to have sex, etc.), language (f word mostly), underage drinking, reader is a year and a month older than jeongin (so 'noona' is used, she calls him 'agi'), he is taller than reader, actual romantic things happen between them when he's 17 and she's 18, as well as when she's just turned 20 and he's days away from 19 (if you have any issue with that, please ignore my story and move on), school is a weird mix of American and Korean education, mentions of Seungmin & Changbin, Jisung and Hyunjin make one major appearance, this is hella self-indulgent so you've been warned.

a/n: to my jeongin anon, this is so long in coming...I'm sorry. It took ages and it's ridiculously long. i hope you like it! to @jl-micasea-fics who told me it wasn't terrible, thank you. to any reader out there, it's a bunch of vignettes chronicling when they met to when feelings are finally realized, so about five years. this occurs in the same universe as I Adore You (though timeline-wise, this is earlier than Jisung's story) and A Big Neon Sign. you do not have to have read either of those though.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In truth, the only thing you and Jeongin had in common was an older, athletic brother.

His brother was on the high school baseball team and so was yours. 

While your brother, Changbin was a senior, mentoring all the younger teammates, Jeongin’s brother Seungmin was your age, a sophomore; making Jeongin a freshman when you met him.

It sucks to be the younger sibling, stuck in the same high school as your older, much more appreciated sibling. 

You had your driver’s permit, but your brother was loathed to let you ever use the car, even when you promised that you’d just run home and come to pick him back up when practice was over. It was a clear and vehement ‘no.’ 

Illegal too, but still. 

You had Seungmin in a few classes. Not only was he good at hitting a ball with a stick, but he also kicked ass at Chemistry. Which was only good for you as he had gotten stuck as your lab partner for the year. You two worked well enough together (he did the hard stuff and you just listened to his instructions because none of Chemistry made sense to you; it was your parents’ stubborn insistence that had you in Honors), but you wouldn’t say you and Seungmin were close, or even friends. 

Just amiable classmates. 

Baseball pre-season started once basketball was in playoffs, and you were relegated to attempting to study while planted on a set of bleachers in the still-chilly weather. 

Unlike last year though, this time you have company.

In the late winter sun, his dark hair has an auburn tinge as he rests his chin on his hand, making his lips purse in pout. When your footsteps are audible above the last cars leaving the school parking lot, his head turns toward you so fast, you worry about his neck. 

You give a twist of your hand to say hi.

He sits up, eyes big behind his black-rimmed glasses and you can see him swallow as he waves back.

“Hi.” 

He has braces. 

You point toward the baseball field. “You have a brother out there, too?”

He relaxes slightly in the shoulders but tenses up again when you plop down on the same bleacher. 

“Yeah. Seungmin.”

“Oh.” You vaguely remember Seungmin saying he had a brother. “I have a couple classes with him.”

The younger boy blinks at you. “Yeah?”

You introduce yourself and gesture toward the field again, naming your brother. 

“Jeongin. I mean, I’m Jeongin.”

He seems jumpy, his hands gripping his knees. It’s surprising because you don’t think you look the least bit intimidating

You stare at the outfield, the hazy silhouettes in white and red before turning to Jeongin.

“I keep telling myself I can’t wait until I can drive myself, but then I remember I have to share a car with my brother which really isn’t  the freedom I was hoping for.”

He blinks a few times as though he needs a moment or two to process your words then he smiles. 

Okay, for a little freshman with braces, he’s cute. 

“I just got my permit, but Min-hyung barely lets me practice.”

You roll your eyes in solidarity. “Older brothers are the worst.”

He nods then shakes his head. “I mean, he’s not all bad.”

You laugh. “You can’t go back now, Jeongin. Older brothers, even when they are nice, are the worst. Especially athletes.”

The smile appears again. “A little.” 

“So, you don’t play?” You gesture back to the field.

He shakes his head adamantly. “Not my thing.”

“What is your thing?”

He shrugs again.

“Still figuring it out?”

He meets your eyes and you don’t know why you’ve spoken this much to a freshman boy, but you have and you think he seems nice. But when your eyes meet, you realize that it’s more than that.

You want to be friends. It’s a weird, deep-in-your-gut feeling that honestly terrifies you a little bit. 

“Yeah,” he says softly, “still figuring it out.”

—

It continues like that. Four days a week after school. You and Jeongin stuck together while waiting for your more impressive siblings to finish their impressive voluntary physical exertion. Sometimes you wave to him at the games, when he’s stuck between his parents, looking miserable. You stopped doing that when he told you his parents wanted to know if you were his girlfriend.

“I didn’t know how to explain that we were just friends.” He’s pouting at his science textbook.

“Just saying ‘we’re friends’ seems to be plenty explanatory.”

He snorts. “You’d think.”

You smile at him before looking over at his textbook. “Need help?”

By the time you can drive without supervision and baseball season is over you (his parents and your parents’ approval given eventually) give him rides home as Seungmin transitions into travel ball and private lessons. Jeongin doesn’t seem to mind having you as a chauffeur. You still have to get the car back to Changbin as he now does Track & Field (discus throwing, of course), so sometimes you just study with Jeongin; at his house, or the closest coffeehouse or diner. 

Your classmates (kinda friends if you think that just hanging out at lunch and sharing notes in class makes a friendship) ask you the same thing his parents do.

You iterate that you and Jeongin are friends. 

No one believes you, but you can’t be bothered with the suppositions. It’s nice to have a guy friend who is unrelated to any other part of your school life. 

Changbin’s graduation is around the corner, and you wonder if perhaps that’s the end of your brief, but nice thing with Jeongin. 

So, you ask him.

“I won’t be forced to stay after school next year,” you begin.

Jeongin looks up from his history textbook, his eyes glazed over behind his glasses. 

“No older brother.”

“Exactly,” you point at him with your milkshake straw. A little drips onto the plastic table, but you ignore it. “However, you are not so lucky. And won’t have your license till February, right?”

He nods then blinks a few times as he puts it all together. “Wait…would you…I mean, do you still want to hang out?”

You don’t know how to feel about his expression. It’s more shock than anything else. Is he unaware that he’s your friend? Is this something you have to explain clearly and overtly to boys? 

Changbin did tell you once that guys were idiots (it had been a ‘don’t ever date’ kind of convo, but you suppose it still applies). 

“Yes.” You refrain from saying ‘obviously’ at the end of it.

He smiles (and you will never tell a soul how much you like his smile, braces and all). “Okay.”

“However, once you can drive too…you have to drive me around sometimes, agi”

He nods emphatically after making a face at the nickname (you’ll always call him that). “Of course, yes, absolutely.” He takes a fry from the plate of them you have in between you on the table. “Good.”

“Good?” 

You see his face turn pink, and he quickly busies himself with history again. You let it go, but that moment still lodges itself in your brain; ready to be pondered over much much later down the road. 

–

High school is a drudgery, and you get through it with little to no permanent damage. You date once during your junior year, and your time with Jeongin decreases. It’s logistics, but you find you miss him. 

When you break up with him, you even mention that.

“Huh?” Jeongin is this time indulging in a milkshake.

“I didn’t have as much time to hang out with you. Since we don’t have classes together, it’s like maybe I saw you once or twice a month. For six months of dating him.” You make a face. “Didn’t like it.”

When he doesn’t say anything, you look up from your notebook to see that ever-familiar blush warming his cheeks. 

“What?” you say.

“Missed you too, noona.”

You graduate somewhere in the middle of your class and start the ever-exciting process of prepping for dorm life in the city two hours away, Jeongin comes along to help you pick out bedding and various other items.

“No.”

You raise your eyebrows at him. “No?”

He shakes his head. “You cannot continue to only wear guys’ jeans in college.”

“And why not?”

“Just…trust me?” He drags you toward the women’s section, and starts picking out jeans, and tops; piling them into your arms. “They actually have ‘boyfriend fit’ for girls, you know.”

“That seems stupid.”

He looks at you. “Don’t you want to up your fashion game a bit?”

“Jeongin, just cause you care about it, doesn’t mean I do.”

He says your name in a very disappointed way, his bright expression turning toward pouting. 

He knows you’re a pushover.

“Fine, fine. You get free rein for now. But know I’ll just end up in pajamas for most of college anyway. That’s the brilliance of college.”

He lights up immediately. “So we can get you some cute pjs too.”

You have created a monster.

–

When you say goodbye to him the day before you leave to move into the dorms, you realize something. As you hug him (which surprises you both because he’s not real physically affectionate, and you tend to respect that), you feel his hands at your back and the brief contact of his cheek on top of your head (when did he get taller than you?). He’s grown up a lot.

Which makes you feel a little weird.

You two break apart awkwardly and you have to force yourself to look at him. He’s glancing at the ground.

“I won’t be far.”

“I know, noona.” 

You swallow, feeling dumb for feeling as much as you do. 

“Don’t get too cool as a senior to talk to me.”

He meets your eyes then, making a face. “I don’t expect to be cool, ever.”

Maybe it’s the fact that you’re a little older, or maybe because you like to observe your peers almost like a zoologist in the wilds of high school, but you think that Jeongin very easily could be cool by current standards. 

He’s pretty enough. And interesting enough though that might be why he can’t be. High schoolers don’t seem to appreciate actually interesting humans. 

What if he gets popular and doesn’t need you anymore?

“Noona…” he begins, his hands deep in his jeans pockets. “Thanks.”

You feel your forehead furrow in confusion. “For?”

There’s the blush that he wears all too often. “Just…high school was better cause we were friends.”

Oh jeez. You better get back home or you might hug him again. 

“Yeah. Same.” You nod and take a step back. “I’ll text you when I’m unpacked okay? You want to visit the school anyway, right?”

“Yeah.” He also walks backward. “I’ll see you?”

Why do you kind of want to cry, too?

“Absolutely.”

When you get into your car, you linger before driving away, watching him walk back to his house. 

– 

Freshman year in college is a lot. Not with studies because you’ve always been pretty decent at that, but everything else. There’s so much more time available and that overwhelms you a bit. Classes take only a percentage of your day and then there’s new people, living-on-your-own assimilation, and well…parties.

You never went to parties in high school. You weren’t invited (no big deal) because your brother was Changbin and he was invited, but not the little sister. Again, it wasn’t a big deal as you didn’t know that you wanted to go.

But now, you could. Changbin’s at a different university entirely and no one (well, maybe one or two former classmates) knows who you are and there’s a lot of freedom in that.

So when you get invited to one, you decide to go.

But you ask Jeongin to come with. 

You both lie to his parents (you’re pretty sure you’re going to hell for lying to the Yangs because they’ve never been anything but nice to you) that he’s doing a college visit overnight. And yes, he’s visiting, but there’s no class you’ll be going to, even if the party is a Thursday night and technically you could have class on Friday (you usually do, but your Everyday Biology professor canceled class for something he won’t reveal (you suspect a convention for other science nerds), neither you nor Jeongin will be attending.

Your roommate spends 90% of her sleeping hours at her boyfriend’s place, so you know that Jeongin can crash with you. 

Though he seems a little nervous about it. 

“I washed and changed her sheets, okay?” you say. “I even asked her if it’s fine.”

Jeongin is staring at the bed (there are a lot of pillows for one person to be sure). “And she said it was okay?”

“She hasn’t technically answered, but it’s been two days. If she had a major issue, I would have received a text.” You walk over to him, take his overnight bag, and toss it on the bed. “See, you’re good.” 

Between his arrival and party time, you guys camp out in your room, catching up on everything and nothing. His senior year and he’s taking four advanced placement classes (he’s just as smart as his brother, though far more subtle about it), a girl he’s thinking about dating, but feels a bit unsure.

“Why?” You give up on the behemoth of Paradise Lost for your literature class in favor of this discussion. You know he’s gone on dates, but he doesn’t talk about it. Occasionally he asks ‘hypothetical’ questions about girls, but Jeongin’s always been pretty private about romance. 

“She’s not…” Jeongin presses his lips together, thinking. “We don’t have much in common. Like she’s a cheerleader.”

You know not all cheerleaders are the stereotype, but it’s hard not to make a face at that reveal of information. 

“It’s not like it’s a lifetime commitment, agi.”

He lets out a sigh. “I know. And it’s our last year, so it can’t go anywhere, so should I even start it?”

You shrug. “I’m not gonna tell you yes or no, but I think seeing the potential end before even beginning is on a level of cynicism not even I have.”

He laughs. “Fair.” He’s quiet again and you look back at the stupid epic poem you have to read and understand. “I’m nervous about kissing her.”

It’s mumbled, his words, but for whatever reason, you hear it clearly.

“Wait, what? Why?” You scoot to the edge of your bed. “You’ve kissed before…?” Again, not an oft-discussed topic for you both, but still, you’re pretty sure he has. 

This is definitely new territory for your friendship.

You also realize that you’ve missed seeing his blush.

“Yeah, but not like…kissing.” He emphasizes the last word, face pink. 

“No tongue?”

“Jeez, noona.”

“You brought it up,” you say quickly so you don’t blush in embarrassment.

He covers his face with his hands. “I know. And no. I haven’t. And it’s dumb and everyone has and I should be an expert at my age and–”

“Hey…there’s not ‘should be,’ okay?” you interrupt and move to sit next to him on your roommate’s bed. You pat his knee. “Your path is your path. Whatever speed you move is fine.” 

He turns to look at you and even a month apart has changed him. His face seems so much sharper; cheekbones, nose, and jawline. Even his eyes seem more mature. 

Your cute friend has become handsome. 

“If she likes you, she’s not gonna care about whether you kiss perfectly or not.” You pause, wondering if you should share, but you decide might as well. “Less tongue is always better, especially when kissing someone new.”

“Yeah?”

You nod, knowing you didn’t avoid your face heating from the convo, but he’s your friend. He should benefit from your experiences. 

“Hey, find someone to kiss tonight at the party,” you suggest even as your stomach twists oddly. “Risk-free, you know? Unlikely you’ll ever see them again and you can get the first-time nerves out of the way.”

He stares at you for a few seconds, almost long enough for you to call him on it, but then drops his gaze to his lap. “Yeah, maybe.” 

You lose Jeongin about a half hour after showing up to the party. You don’t mean to; in fact, you worry a lot when you can’t find him immediately. You work through the crowd (you had no idea your school had this many people honestly), searching for him (he’s decently tall, you should be able to spot him). He’s not in the kitchen with the drinks, nor, on the patio with the stoners, nor in the living area with the dancers…did he go upstairs?

Your heart is thumping so hard right now as you imagine someone drugging your dearest friend and harvesting his kidneys (which you can fix because he can just have yours) when you squeeze behind some couple making out by the stairs. You grab the rail to steady yourself (you had two shots, but you are very much a lightweight) before you run right into him.

“Noona!”

You don’t hear that all that well (wow parties are loud), but you see his mouth form the word and everything in you just calms down. You grab him by the sleeve of his very nice pullover and drag him away from the stairs and main crowd, toward a mostly isolated corner. 

“Fuck sakes, Jeongin, I nearly had a heart attack when I couldn’t find you,” you begin before stopping to turn toward him. As you tilt your head up to meet his eyes, you sort of lose your train of thought. 

He’s looking at you differently. 

“Are you…are you okay?” you manage to get out. Maybe it’s the dim lighting, or the alcohol, or even the pulse of the music that seems to sound all the same, but your heart isn’t returning to normal rate despite finding him. 

His eyes are so dark. 

He moves into your personal space, which is hella unusual because the boy loves his own space, his head dropping just a touch. You back up a few steps, but there’s a wall that stops you. You watch, wide-eyed, as he rests his arm on the wall just above you, bracing himself.

Oh god, he’s leaning.

“Noona…” he says and now you can hear it, even though it’s mostly just breath. He’s a lot closer than he was a second ago. “Didn’t mean to worry you.”

You should reassure him, but you don’t think you can speak. Not when his mouth is inches away. 

He has a really nice mouth.

“So…did you find someone to kiss?” you squeak. You’d reminded him of that right before entering the fraternity house. He’d still looked nervous but had agreed.

He nods before cupping your cheek in his hand. 

“Oh yeah?” you might start babbling in a second. “Point ‘em out to me and maybe I–”

It’s quiet all of a sudden. All the noise mutes when his lips touch yours, soft and seeking. You haven’t kissed anyone since your boyfriend of six months in your junior year, and it’s like you forgot how nice that simple pressure can be. 

For a second or two, his mouth is still, but then you feel his tongue graze your lips and you let him in without a single thought (pretty sure your brain no longer works) and he sweeps in. 

He’s had a few drinks himself. You can taste the sweet and bitter, and it’s intoxicating. His hand wanders from your face down your neck. Light touches that make you shiver and reach out to pull him close. Your hands catch him by the hips and you pull until he’s pressed against you. 

You had forgotten how good this can feel. And he feels especially good when he breaks away to press kisses to the corner of your lips. 

“Okay?” he murmurs. “Not too much tongue?”

Your body tightens at the low timbre of his voice. God, you want all his weight heavy on you, to feel every slant, plane, curve, and angle of his body. 

“Noona?” he prompts, already pulling away when you don’t answer. Your eyes open in panic and you slide your hands into his hair and don’t let him get too far. You can see he looks surprised, but you barely think about it, returning his mouth to yours. This time it’s your tongue that gains entrance, stroking his. You feel his moan, his hands sliding down your torso to your hips and behind. His grip pushes you against him so both of you can feel exactly how hard he is.

You wiggle, trying to find the friction that might release some of the tension that has taken you over. He gasps, his breath short; he turns his head to get oxygen, but you continue to taste him, your mouth along his jawline to his neck. You tug at the collar of his pullover to you can nip around his collarbone. His fingers dig into your ass when you bite a little hard. 

Fuck, you actually want to fuck your friend.

He whimpers your name and that’s when your brain starts to work again.

Fuck, you want to fuck your friend. 

You jerk back so hard that your head hits the wall, but it barely affects you. You can see the mottled red of his skin, from your mouth and teeth.

He just wanted to kiss someone and you just took that to a whole other level. 

“Jeongin…” you try to speak, though your panting is a bit much and your body is not happy at all with such an unsatisfactory ending. 

You crave.

His gaze is back on you, and there’s trepidation in those sinfully dark eyes and you hate yourself so much in this moment.

“I’m sorry.” Because what else can you say?

His lips part and you want to kiss them so badly, but apparently, your self-control has returned. 

“You’re sorry?”

You nod quickly, emphatically. “You were just practicing and I just…I’m so sorry.” You drop your head, the euphoria of what just happened morphing into absolute shame and misery. “You’re a very good kisser and I just got caught up. I shouldn’t have. I’m sor–”

“I get it.”

You peer back up at him. His hands have left you cold, returning to the pockets of his pants. He smiles at you, but you can tell it’s uncomfortable. 

You’ve made your friend uncomfortable. 

“I’m–”

His hand covers your mouth immediately. “Don’t say it again. I get it.” He meets your eyes before dropping his hand. “I think I want another drink.” And he walks away as you slump against the wall, your head hazy and confused and your heart aching. 

–

You don’t talk about it. He finds you sometime later that night, hand on your shoulder before he asks if you’re ready to head back. As you’ve been worried sick most of the night, you agree. You walk back to your dorm, shivering in the early fall wind. 

You don’t know what to say, so you don’t say anything. 

He sleeps in your roommate’s bed, several feet away from you, and your body hums at knowing he’s there. Despite the alcohol (now effectively out of your system as you didn’t drink anything but water after that ‘incident’), you seem to remember everything about him in perfect detail, your senses overwhelmed. 

It takes you forever to fall asleep. 

The next day is awkward, but neither of you comments on it, going to breakfast in the student union. You laugh actually when you see how happy all the food choices make him and though he grumbles at you making fun of him (you’re not at all…you just really like his smile and his joy), it feels like maybe it’ll all be okay. 

Never mind that when he gets into his family’s car to head back home, you don’t hug and though that’s not that unusual, it feels like you should do something and what you really want to do is kiss him again. 

It’s like you’ve opened up Pandora’s box and it’s full of Jeongin.

–

You don’t see Jeongin during winter holidays. You and your family travel to see relatives, and he disappears during the second half of the break to go with friends on a ski trip.

With his girlfriend.

His kissing apparently worked because you’ve seen a few photos posted with him and her. He gets tagged in a lot more of her posts than him posting, but yeah. The cheerleader and he seem to have worked out.

Which is good.

Even if you feel weird about it. 

You two still message each other from time to time. He often contacts you with a question about his college application or one of the teachers he currently has (you had them all before), but he doesn’t say much about his social life. Or his romantic life.

The day of the party seems to have been a one-off. 

So, when you see him right before classes start, it’s for all of ten minutes as he has to head to his girlfriend’s party. 

“I’m so sorry,” he huffs out as he jogs to where you are, leaning on your car in the high school parking lot. It’s a good meeting point, about halfway between your homes and you’re feeling weirdly nostalgic about the place. “I thought I could hang out for maybe an hour or two, but there’s this list of things I have to pick up and–”

“It’s okay,” you interrupt him, smiling. It’s so good to see him in person. Even if his appearance seems to be improving (not that it needed to) each time you do. His hair is wavy right now, still with auburn hints and though he could wear a puffer jacket and look more put together than you, he’s wearing a beige overcoat and looks like he belongs in a fashion magazine. “You look good.”

The compliment stops him from speaking for a second. The tell-tale blush showing up on his cheeks, the little tug on his ear. 

“Uh. Thanks.” He moves to stand next to you, also leaning on your car. “Did you have a good holiday?”

You shrug. “Mostly stuck with relatives who can’t remember my name let alone what I actually care about. But it was fine.” You cross your arms as the winter wind bites through your scarf. “Yours?” You look over him. “Doesn’t look like skiing ended too badly.”

He laughs and shakes his head. “No, though I stuck mostly to the beginners’ slopes. I’ll leave the physical prowess to Min.” He stares ahead at the empty outdoor lunch tables. “I had fun.”

You nod. “Good. that’s good. And…I mean, I see the posts. Stuff is going good with your…girlfriend?”

He looks down at you. “Yeah.”

“Good.” Never mind that you sounded the awkwardest you’ve ever sounded. “Good.”

“You don’t tell me much about uni, noona. Just the occasional, ‘this happened to someone I know’.” He gently elbows you. “Do you do anything other than study and go to class?”

“I sleep and eat too.”

“Noona.”

You shrug. “This coming from you, who never ventured out unless I made you…”

“Times change.”

His words hit you in the gut, almost like you can’t breathe for half a second. Times do change. The fact that talking to him makes you a little nervous, that you try not to stare at him, the twist in your stomach remembering that he has a girlfriend…all of it tells you that the friendship you cherished the most has changed. 

And seems unlikely to ever go back to the way it was. 

You hear a vibrating sound, deduce that it isn’t yours but his and keep your very melancholy thoughts to yourself. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and glances at the screen. 

“You need to go.”

He sighs. “I’m sorry.”

You force a smile to your lips. “It’s okay. Go drink and be merry. I’m glad I got to see you. Even if just for a little bit.”

He turns toward you, in so doing blocking some of the wind, and cocks his head in thought. “You sound sad.”

“Aren’t you? We have to go back to school tomorrow.” 

He chuckles and tugs on your coat sleeve. “Give me a hug and I’ll see you later.”

You don’t question that he asks for a hug, you’re not going to question any semblance of physical affection from him. You just wrap your arms around his middle and hold him tight. He’s so very warm and solid. 

You feel his chin rest on top of your head for a brief second before he draws back. 

“Take care, noona.”

“You too, agi.” 

–

Spring semester seems like a whirlwind. It’s all dead and grey in January and February, then everything speeds up like a roller coaster on its way down. You are grateful you focused on getting all the gen ed classes out of the way, but it makes for a chaotic focus during those months. 

The only time you actually talk to Jeongin is right after his birthday.

“Noona.”

You answer the phone without thinking, assuming your parents’ have called because no one from your generation calls on the phone. 

You pause at his voice. “Jeongin.”

“This gift.”

You wrack your brain about the present you gave him. It’s a mere 40000 won gift card because you aren’t exactly rolling it in at your part-time job on campus. You’re hoping he uses the gift card when he starts to get stuff for dormitory life because, honestly, back-to-school shopping for university (not counting overpriced textbooks) is the best thing ever. 

“That gift.” You wonder if you should apologize because it’s so small, but you know Jeongin. He is not obsessed with money any more than any young person is: wishing to have more, but unable to make it yet, wondering if it will bring all happiness like the world tells you so. 

“Noona,” he is not impressed with your cluelessness. “The attachment.”

Oh.

So one of the few friends you’ve made at uni, who you feel pretty comfortable with, is Jisung. You met him in freshman composition, and though your majors are massively and diametrically opposed, you two keep up. He’s in computer science and you’re in the social sciences (possibly anthropology, but who knows). He is constantly working on new ideas for apps, software, games; often starting one project one day and then abandoning it for another the next. 

The only reason you know this is because you often crash at their (he and his roommate Hyunjin) off-campus apartment. It’s quieter and less…well, dorm-y. Because of that, you see and hear about the constant line of projects come and go for Jisung. One of the projects that stuck around for a bit was what you sent Jeongin.

A digital fashion book (more like an online photo album, but the appearance was pretty slick, as was the way the pages turned, annotating photo captions and linking to original sites) entitled “What I’d Get Jeongin If I Had Money…And Fashion Sense.” 

You’d done your research, looking at recent trends and articles (okay headlines because you cannot read an entire article on fashion) and perused the interwebs for clothing pieces you thought might look nice on Jeongin, inputting it into Jisung’s program (with his help - only with the computery stuff…he was about as helpless as you about fashion) to create the final product. It was both a gift and help for Jisung with an assignment as he needed some example of what he’d been working on for one of his computer classes, you just changed Jeongin’s name for him to turn in.

“So you liked it?” you ask tentatively. You had second-guessed yourself a million times since sending it. Was it too much? Did it look like you paid way too much attention? Was it stupid? Was it a really bad representation of what his friendship meant to you? Were the pieces you picked all horrible?

There is a pause on the other end of the phone call. “It’s brilliant.”

You slump in relief, your head landing on your pillow. “Yeah?”

“No, really. This is cool. I like everything you picked out.” He chuckles. “Maybe my fashion has rubbed off on you.”

“We can only hope.”

He laughs again. “Really. This is…this is nice.”

You hear beyond his words. What you sent matters to him. And maybe in knowing that, he knows that he matters to you. 

The phone call doesn’t last much longer after that. You ask about how his birthday went, and he tells you about going out with his girlfriend and friends even though he kinda wanted to stay in. But it was fun and he doesn’t feel any different being eighteen. You promise to tell Jisung that he liked his gift (you’ve mentioned Jisung and his roommates a time or two) and that you’d be at graduation to see Jeongin in cap and gown. 

“And I’ll see you on campus next year,” he says as the call wraps up. 

“I know. I had no idea the film department here was something that interested you.”

“We’ll see. I like movies…and thinking too much about movies sometimes. Maybe it’s a good idea. Maybe it’s a bad one.”

“It’s just a choice, Jeongin. You can always change it if you want to.”

He sighs. “Yeah. Choices still have to be made though.”

You wonder if he has other choices on his mind and you want to ask, but you are still a bit reticent regarding what you can and can’t talk to him about. 

You wonder if his girlfriend knows enough about him to understand that he hadn’t wanted to go out for his birthday.

“I better go…” he continues. “Talk later?”

“Yeah. Talk later.”

“Thanks again for this…both gifts.”

You hang up soon after that and though you were in the middle of reading for class, you stare at your ceiling for a few minutes, wondering if having Jeongin on campus will either get you two back to the friendship you used to have or just spiral this crush even more.

–

You survive your freshman year. No flying colors on grades or anything, but acceptable passes, even a few above averages.  There isn’t much fanfare on completing your first year of college, but there is when you graduate high school, so you make plans to slip into the high school gymnasium on that Saturday after you move home to see Jeongin walk across the stage. 

He looks so tall.

You clap as enthusiastically as you can without bringing attention to yourself, though it doesn’t matter because quite a few students cheer for him (he did get popular). The whole ceremony is a weird thing to sit through once you’re on the other side, but the nostalgia is nice. 

Almost makes you think high school was a pleasant thing (it wasn’t, anyone who says it was you will never trust). 

When it’s over, you start to head toward the parking lot thinking that you’ll message him later, but you hear your name shouted. You turn to see him, graduation robe unzipped and flying behind him a bit like a superhero cape.

He bounds up to you, all smiles and joy. 

God. Look at him.

“Hi,” you say when he stops in front of you.

“You came.”

Now you’re the one blushing and embarrassed. You drop your gaze. “Of course. You came to mine.”

He makes an unimpressed sound. “Seungmin.”

You laugh and look back up. “Okay. You came because of Seungmin, but fair is fair.”

He hugs you. No warning at all. He’s as warm as the day is, right on the verge of too hot. 

“Congrats for surviving, agi,” you mutter into his shoulder before he draws back.

“Thanks.” He beams at you, clearly on a high of finally being done. “There’s a party tonight. Wanna come?”

You raise an eyebrow. “Of graduates?”

He nods.

“I…hmmm…”

He laughs at your reluctance. “Okay, noona. But soon. We’ll hang out?”

You nod. “Yeah. Go back to your family.” You ‘shoo’ him away. He laughs again before squeezing your hand. 

“Thank you for coming.” And he disappears back into the crowd of family and students. 

You walk back to your car, shaking your head at how much damn fluttering your heart did during that five minutes of interaction. 

–

The summer post-freshman year has been…normal. You work to get some extra money, catch up with a few high school friends who are home as well. 

But you spend most of your time with Jeongin. 

“Your girlfriend…doesn’t mind?” You ask him late in June after realizing that you have seen him three days in a row (he’s also gotten a job at the mall you work at; though he’s at a clothing store and you avidly blend smoothies for people).

You’re both on break (you and he may have tried to get your shifts at similar times so you can have lunch together) and he’s scrolling through his phone after finishing a box of fried chicken. 

“Doesn’t mind what?”

You poke at your pasta with your fork. “Us hanging out so much?”

He cocks his head to the side as he looks up from his phone. “Well…it’s not really a thing.”

“What’s not a thing?”

“She and I aren’t… a thing.”

“You’re not?” You’re so confused right now.

He shrugs. “She’s traveling all this summer and wanted not to be ‘tied down’ and I guess…” He trails off. “I guess it didn’t bother me that she felt that way. Which seems like maybe I didn’t want to be tied down either.” 

“Oh.”

He smirks. “We never talk about this, noona. Why are you so interested?”

You poke at your pasta again. “I just thought it was weird that you hadn’t said anything about her. That’s a big part of your life…a significant other.” You swallow. “I am trying to be a good friend here.” You lift your chin, daring him to argue.

He laughs and steals your fork to take a bite of your food. “Don’t try so hard. It’s weird.” 

“Thanks.”

He chews slowly before speaking again. “It’s okay, you know? I liked her, but it wasn’t…we weren’t…” he shrugs again. “We just weren’t.”

He meets your gaze.

“I’m okay.”

You nod. “Okay.”

He glances at his phone. “But you’re not because you only have a minute left.”

You curse and jump out of your seat, moving to clean up, but he waves you off.

“I got it, noona.” He smiles again at you and you just want to hug him. 

–

Life at university with Jeongin is something. You’re happy to have him near again. Neither of you has a single class together, but you never did in high school, so that’s not new. Whether by happenstance or an unconscious intention on both your parts, you make sure to have lunch or coffee with each other at least once a week; though usually twice. There’s something enjoyable about hearing his new experiences with classes and classmates, and dorm life. He shares things with you via messages but it’s much more fun to see his facial expressions and hear his voice intonations when he imitates a certain professor or classmate. 

You introduce him to Jisung (and subsequently Hyunjin) and they all click like they’ve known each other forever. They baby Jeongin a little bit and you know it gets on his nerves (you’re pretty good at reading his subtle tics when he’s with others), but he also seems to enjoy having big brothers nearby (you know he misses Seungmin because you miss Changbin even if neither of you wants to admit how much you love your older brothers). Sometimes you find out later that he’s been hanging out with them, without you, and though it’s annoying for him to steal your friends, you also don’t mind much because well…it’s Jeongin.

Who you might be a little in love with.

Perhaps that isn’t a revelation to anyone if they’d been inside your mind for the last year or so, but to you, it’s kind of a smack in the face. This is Jeongin, your best friend since he was fourteen and you were fifteen. You don’t believe in stories about childhood best friends to lovers as they always seemed a bit too idealistic to be real. You know that he can smell gross when he comes in from mowing his parents’ yard. You’ve seen him when he gets out of bed in the morning (nope, never mind that’s not a bad image and you need to stop thinking immediately). 

He’s just Jeongin, your friend who can be a little quiet, a lot savage, who loves fashion and movies and often looks at you like you’ve grown another head when you start talking about how eastern culture deals with death in healthier ways than western culture. 

You deal with this epiphany like you deal with most things: acknowledge it, but don’t do anything about it.

Winter break comes and goes with little fanfare. Jeongin tells you that he’s moving in with Jisung and Hyunjin and you make a face at him because why does he get to live off campus as a freshman when you’re still stuck on campus as a sophomore. You send a message to Jisung saying basically the same thing, and both of them assure you that you can crash there any time you need to get away and that they are protecting you by not letting you move in because they’re boys and are gross.

You’re somewhat appeased.

–

“A party?” 

Jeongin is nodding as Jisung spins in his office chair for no reason other than the fact that he has an office chair that rolls and spins. You’re on Jisung’s bed with Jeongin, avoiding your research work for an hour or so by listening to Jisung ramble on about some anime that he and the rest of the apartment have gotten into. 

You make a note to consider studying why animes capture teen and 20-something boys the way they do.

“We’re having a party,” Jisung repeats, like his mentioning it wasn’t out of the blue. “A welcome party for Innie, for the new semester, for the fact that none of us ever go to parties which shows just how pathetic we are in our college lives.”

“I’ve been to college parties,” you say before the weight of those words hits you. You try to glance at Jeongin without too much obviousness. He meets your gaze and you can’t hear Jisung’s words for at least a minute.

You look away, the memory of that party flooding your brain, your senses. You’ve kissed since then, haven’t you? A kiss isn’t that big a deal…even if you have feelings…it’s just a kiss. 

Jisung stops spinning in his chair and looks at the both of you. “What?”

You clear your throat. “Nothing.”

“Bullshit.” He points at Jeongin. “Spill.”

Jeongin has never been easily intimidated by anyone, especially Jisung. He points back. “No.” 

That doesn’t stop your hyperactive friend. “Ohhhhhh.”

Which annoys the shit out of you.

“Oh god, it’s nothing, okay?” You throw up your hands, frustrated that this event still holds so much sway over you. “He came out to visit last year, and came to a party with me, we both were drunk and kissed. That’s it. Just a drunk, dumb thing.”

Jisung starts cackling at your confession, but in your peripheral, you see Jeongin focus on you. 

“It wasn’t that dumb,” he says so softly that you don’t think Jisung hears, before getting up off the bed. “I have to finish watching two more silent films for class.” He cuffs Jisung on the head as he leaves the bedroom. Jisung rubs his head before looking at you. 

“So…you coming to the party?”

–

You’re in the corner of the hallway and living area of the guys’ apartment. You’re nursing a red solo cup of some concoction that Hyunjin handed you when you walked into the kitchen. You don’t know what you expected from this party, but this many people was not it. You apparently had blocked out the idea that anyone existed outside the bubble of the four of you though you recognize a fair amount of people milling about. 

So you could go talk to them.

But you stay where you are, watching. 

Your eyes find Jeongin more often than not (the radar you have for him is hella annoying). Currently, he’s talking to two girls you don’t know…maybe freshmen like him. They’re pretty; smiling and gazing at him like they see exactly how stupidly attractive your friend is.

You begrudgingly admire them for actually making their interest known. Even if you seethe just a little.

“Talking to people is not the worst thing, you know.”

“Go away, Sung.” You reply without looking over at him. You can see him sway slightly from drink, which explains why the introvert is telling you to go talk to people. 

He bumps shoulders with you. “But you’re one of my favorites.”

You smile and glance at him. “But I rank below Jeongin?”

“Everyone ranks below Innie,” he tells you. “You’re above Hyunjin, though. If that helps.”

You laugh and lean back in your little corner, glancing back at Jeongin and his two admirers. 

You can feel Jisung watching you, then at where you’re watching. He says your name quietly and you know, you just know that he sees exactly what you hope no one sees because he can be really perceptive. 

You shake your head, wondering if maybe what you’ve been drinking has had more of an effect than you realized. 

“I think I just want to kiss someone,” you say, knowing deep down that that isn’t the damn problem, but you can be stubborn and you could use a distraction. You finish up what’s left in the cup and meet Jisung’s gaze. “Ever thought about kissing me?”

His eyebrows shoot straight up, eyes go wide. “Um…yes?”

“Really?”

He shrugs. “I mean, I kinda think that about anyone I find hot. At some point.”

“That’s reasonable.” You tilt your head up. “Want to?”

“Just cause?” 

You nod. He shrugs again and leans in to press his lips against yours. Your eyes close and you can smell that he’s been drinking tequila. His fingers settle on your waist before his mouth parts and his tongue meets yours tentatively. 

Okay, he’s pretty good at this. 

“What is going on here?”

Hyunjin’s voice breaks the two of you apart, which is both a relief and an annoyance. Jisung mumbles something, face pink with embarrassment as you glare at Hyunjin. 

“You’re not that stupid, are you?” you ask him. He smirks at you. 

“Why are you kissing Sungie?”

“I kissed her,” Jisung protests weakly. “She asked me too.”

“Oh yeah?” 

“Kinda missed kissing someone,” you say, rolling your eyes before looking back to where Jeongin still was. One less girl, but they are a lot closer to each other. “Want to?”

As different as Hyunjin and Jisung are, they have both the same surprised expression when you proposition them like this. Eyebrows up, widened eyes. 

You reach out to grab the open collar of his shirt, tugging him a little. 

“Scared?”

He scoffs and braces his arm next to your head (kudos to him for that classic move) before meeting you halfway. You hear Jisung make some sort of nonsensical exclamation when Hyunjin immediately slips his tongue in your mouth. 

It’s good. Of course it’s good. Especially when your brain is a little hazy from drink and your body more than touch-starved. Hyunjin’s hand sneaks up under the hem of your top and you shiver.

“Noona?”

You jerk back to see Jeongin approaching this weird set-up with bewilderment all over his face. 

Hyunjin glances at his roommate and gestures toward you. “Your turn.”

Jeongin shoots a look at Hyunjin, then you, then at Jisung. Then you again. 

“What is going on?”

Your heart is pounding with his eyes on you. Even in your intoxication, you know that despite the talent Jisung and Hyunjin have at kissing, if Jeongin kisses you…

You brush it off, shaking away your hyperawareness of the tiny peek of collarbone you can see because of the wide collar of Jeongin’s t-shirt. 

Your teeth ache.

“Just wanted a kiss.” 

He doesn’t look away from you or the defiant lift of your chin. He moves close as Hyunjin draws back to let him and wraps an arm around Jisung’s shoulder, utterly amused. You can’t take your eyes off Jeongin’s mouth as he gets nearer. 

He doesn’t touch you. His hands stay in his jeans pockets as his lips brush your cheek so lightly that you aren’t even sure if it’s real. 

You ball up your hands into fists in a conscious effort not to grab him and pull him to you. Because as little as it is, his touch unravels you.

When your eyes open, he’s not looking at you, but pushing away Jisung who is attempting to kiss him. 

“Come on, if you’d kissed her lips it would have been an indirect kiss…Finally, baby boy!!” Jisung reaches out for the younger as Hyunjin snickers, trying to keep Jisung from mauling Jeongin. It’s playful tussling and it’s enough of a distraction for you to slip away. 

You toss your empty cup into the kitchen trash, avoiding bumping any of the party attendees as your heart tries to return to a normal speed. 

You find another quiet corner, this time on the balcony of their apartment. It’s chilly out there, so people only come out to grab a quick smoke or get a gulp of fresh air. You’re so quiet and unobtrusive that you’re only noticed about half the time. 

Leaving the party immediately after kissing three different guys seems too obvious, so you’re going to wait until it’s nearly one am before you make your respectable departure. You had planned to stay and help clean up while crashing on their couch but you can’t do that now. 

You can’t be near him when all your feelings just want to burst out. Burst out singing and dancing on the kitchen counter like a poorly-made musical.

You let your head rest on the brick wall behind you, the railing of the balcony digging into your hip. You don’t adjust away from the slight pain. The pain feels a bit deserved for your stupidity and it keeps the fogginess at bay. 

Maybe you need some space. Maybe seeing him multiple times a week is making this worse. Maybe distance would help you move on. 

Maybe falling for your best friend is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.

The sliding glass door opens and closes. You don’t look over, not wanting whatever random person to think that you want to engage in interaction. You glance at your phone for the time, thinking that you can probably make your exit now. You don’t even have to say goodbye. The guys will be too wrapped up in socialization to worry about you. 

You know it’s him when he leans against the wall next to you. He smells like his cologne and coconut rum. 

Your heart responds accordingly.

He doesn’t say anything for several seconds. Nor do you. You haven’t processed through everything yet. You haven’t gotten back to your usual self around him and if you speak, you know he’ll know.

And he can’t know. Because if he does, everything is irreparable and you can’t handle that.

He takes a deep breath before shivering. 

“You should put on a jacket, agi,” you say quietly. 

“You should too.”

You’re in a long-sleeve thin sweater, so it’s not as ridiculous as Jeongin in a t-shirt in February weather. 

“You don’t want to get sick before your birthday.”

You can feel his eyes on you then and it takes all your self-control not to look back. Because you know, you know that if you do you’ll just want to take his mouth, let your hands explore the planes of his body, feel his hair between your fingers, hear his sighs and groans, breathe in all of him so the alcohol you’ve consumed has nothing on the mere intoxication of him. 

Seconds pass. He shivers again.

“Go in,” you say casually. “I’m gonna head back to the dorm anyway.” You force your eyes up to make eye contact. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

His thumb is at your bottom lip before you have time to register that he’s moved. His thumb brushes over your bottom lip then the top as he leaves his spot to stand facing you. 

“Jeongin…”

He’s staring at you, eyes so clear in the night, not even glassy with tipsiness. He cups your chin with his hand, long fingers grazing your cheek. His other hand takes yours, fingers lacing together as the space between your bodies lessens centimeter by centimeter. 

“Don’t go,” he whispers with his lips mere breaths away from yours. “Stay.” He gently wipes your lips again. “I am not kissing Jisung-hyung or Hyunjin-hyung.” There is a petulance in his voice that makes you half-laugh despite feeling like you can’t move. “Why did you?” His gaze slides from your mouth back to your eyes. 

“I just…” How do you explain any of this to him? How do you put into words your feelings that you know you shouldn’t share? “I thought it would help.”

His hand tightens around yours. “Help what?”

“Not wanting to kiss you.” It pours out of you, like a dam that could never be held back. 

You see the curve of the edge of his mouth, the self-satisfaction. “Did it work?”

Words are pointless. He knows; you’ve basically admitted everything. Why is he asking? You can feel your entire body lean toward him as though he’s some sort of human version of gravity, pulling you. 

So you don’t use words. You just kiss his fingertips that are still lingering near. You hear the slight catch in his breath before he removes his fingers and covers your lips with his. His arm wraps around you, pressing you against him so tightly you think you can feel his heart beat against yours. His mouth opens, his kisses wet and hot and you can only cling to his shoulders, on your toes to meet this surge of want. 

Your brain shuts down and you can’t think. You can only focus on how he feels under your fingers, how he tastes (that coconut rum), the sound of his sharp pants of breath. When he draws away to gasp, you open your eyes to stare at his swollen lips. 

He is so pretty. 

You stumble closer, lips pressing along his jawline. He turns to kiss you again, letting go of your hand to slide under your thigh, lifting so your leg is at his hip. He rocks into you, making you break the kiss, and your head falls back against the brick. It doesn’t deter him, his mouth skimming down your neck, letting his teeth graze your skin. 

You bite your lower lip to keep from making a sound, though he must hear something because he looks up at you. 

With a smirk so damn knowing, he tugs you closer against him by your leg, pressing firm enough to make you squirm and he laughs.

He laughs.

It’s breathless, but you can’t help but scowl at him for laughing. He kisses your unhappy expression; your forehead, nose, and lips. He lets go of your leg, framing your face in his hands. 

“I changed my mind,” he speaks so softly. 

Your heart freezes.

“You did?”

He nods, his eyes darting back and forth over your features. 

“Don’t stay here. Let’s leave. Your roommate isn’t there?”

You shake your head (she’s never there) but it takes several seconds for what he’s saying to actually sink in. He’s asking. He’s wanting.

Oh. Oh wow.

“You want to–”

He straightens, his hands leaving your face and you grab one, afraid for him to be too far away. 

“I thought…” He swallows. “I thought you wanted to.”

He apparently cannot perceive how your body is thrumming.

“Jeongin…” You attempt to catch your breath. “We…we’ve been drinking.”

He rolls his eyes, though he doesn’t pull away from your grasp. “I’m not drunk. You aren’t drunk. I’ve seen you drunk.” He watches you for a second. “Do you want to?”

“Yes.” You close your eyes as what feels like the second confession comes out. “Yes. So much. But you…we…”

The balcony door opens then and several party-goers fall out onto the small space. He gets closer to you, as though you need a buffer between you and them. He drops his head so he can speak in your ear. 

“Let me walk you back?”

–

He grabs a jacket before leading you out of their apartment. He even grabs an extra of his hoodies to wrap you in before you even hit the outside. 

“Jeongin, I’m fine. It’s not that far.”

He doesn’t argue but zips up the hoodie for you and you just make a face at him. His answering smile is innocent, but then he takes your hand in his and starts to walk. You nearly trip after him, thrown by the ease with which he holds your hand. Like it’s nothing and everything all at once. 

You want to say something, the cold air is making any intoxication excuse for your blatant honesty about your feelings pretty null and void, but you can’t. You don’t know what to say. 

“At that party,” he begins slowly, looking over at you once. The streetlight is behind him so you can’t see his expression which doesn’t help your low-level panic at everything that has happened this night at all. “Last year. The party.” You see him swallow. 

He didn’t seem nervous five minutes ago, his teeth on your skin. 

“Yeah?” 

“You said you were sorry.” He pauses at the intersection, looking both ways before leading you along. “I thought that you didn’t like it. That you regretted it.” He takes a deep breath. “That you didn’t want me.”

You stop immediately so he is almost jerked back by your linked hands. You can see his face better now, more streetlights to illuminate. His features look sharper with the shadows cast under his cheekbones and along his jaw and neck. 

“Noona?” he prompts you because you’ve definitely forgotten what you meant to say in your staring at his unearthly face. 

“Oh. No. Um…” Now it’s your turn to take a big breath. “Fuck, Jeongin, this is…we’re friends and I don’t want to–”

“It’s way too late for that,” he answers, the same note of frustration in his words as in yours. “I can’t pretend that didn’t happen.” He gestures back toward their apartment. “That I didn’t want that.” 

Something tight in your chest loosens just slightly at his words. Maybe, just maybe.

“I said I was sorry because I felt bad. That I took advantage. That you were just trying to get some practice or experience and I like…mauled you.” You decide to stare at the sidewalk as it seems safer. “You were drunk and I just near assaulted you.”

You hear a snort, a laugh and that makes you look up at him. He’s covered his mouth as though that will lessen the fact that he’s laughing. Again.

You try and pull your hand away from his, but he’s stronger than you and just tightens his grip.

“I had no idea you were an asshole.”

He shakes his head, the laughing dying too. He tugs you close, arm wrapping around you in a hug. 

“You didn’t assault me,” he murmurs in your hair before pressing a kiss on top of your head. “I wanted you just as much as I hope…I hope you wanted me.”

That same knot in your chest loosens even more. “Really?”

He draws back so you can actually see him. “You didn’t know? You didn’t know that I’ve had a crush on you pretty much since we met?”

“What?”

He laughs again, but it’s embarrassed now, shy. 

“This pretty, older girl just starts talking to me and becomes my friend despite having no classes together, just two brothers on the same baseball team. Of course, I liked you.”

“But…” You try and wrap your brain around this information. “Your girlfriend.”

His smile saddens. “I figured, you know,…there was no way you’d ever like me back. Should try and move on.”

“I’m sorry.” The very idea that you could and did hurt his feelings makes you want to throw bean bags at past you. “I’m so sorry.”

“I didn’t tell you. How could you know? I thought it was obvious.” He stares at you for a few moments. “Jisung-hyung and Hyunjin-hyung figured it out like four months ago.”

Were you that stupid?

“Come on,” he picks up leading you back to your dorm, which is a good thing because you don’t know if you could find anything with the way your brain is currently unable to compute. 

It’s really not that far and by the time both of you enter your dorm room, your brain is running again, but this time it’s on the entire ‘no roommate…you brought a boy home’ train. 

“Do…you want…uh…I think I have coke?” You undo his hoodie from your frame and set it on the small sofa that you have set under your lofted bed. You open the mini fridge, trying to remember if you actually have coke?

“Noona, I’m okay.” You can hear him sttle on the sofa, rustling of clothes as he takes off his jacket. “You okay?”

You shut the minifridge door and look over at him. His head is tilted to the side in question. 

“I’m…processing.”

He laughs and pats the spot next to him. “Process next to me.”

You do sit next to him, though it’s tentative. He gazes at you for several seconds before leaning in to kiss you softly, his hand coming to cup your chin. 

“Why are you still processing?” he asks, his lips not far. 

“I’ve kinda spent over a year trying to not think about you like that.” You kiss him back and he manuevers you carefully so you’re sitting in his lap, facing him. “Smooth,” you comment, feeling your face heat.

He smirks at you before resting his hands at your hips, squeezing them gently. You touch his hair, watching his face as his eyes close. You card your fingers through the strands, messing up whatever style he had going on this evening. He hums contentedly before opening his eyes again. 

“So…this is a thing.”

He laughs again and sits up, hands sliding to your lower back, eyes alight with mischief. 

“Use your college vocabulary, noona.”

“I hate you.”

“No. You don’t.” There’s a hint of bafflement in his voice as he leans in to kiss you. 

Your mock-annoyance melts. “No I don’t.” You let your lips linger on his. “I guess I can’t call you ‘agi’ anymore.”

He makes a face. “I don’t mind, but it’s a little weird?” You feel his fingers slip under the top of your jeans, fire against your skin. 

“Jagiya?”

You feel him tremble just slightly. “Yeah, that’s good.” His hand slides farther down and this time you tremble. “Are you still noona?” You can feel his smug grin against your mouth.

“Um…” Never mind that you can barely concentrate to speak with his hands on your ass. “Sure? Sure.”

“Good.” He squeezes, making you yelp. With that irrepressible smile, carefully turns and lays you down on the sofa, settling on top of you. 

Your eyes flutter close at his weight. 

“Do you have a condom?”

You feel him still and you open your eyes.

“Um.”

The blush, despite the mere fact he’s on top of you, is beyond endearing. 

“No,” he replies. “You?” He glances around your dorm room.

“Nope.”

“Why not?” he asks, eyes bright despite the fact you only have your fairy lights turned on in the room. 

“I didn’t…It’s been awhile, Yang Jeongin. Don’t judge.” 

He chuckles and kisses you softly, tongue meeting yours just enough to make you want before he draws back.

“I’m sure my roommate does somewhere, but…”

He waits, one hand tracing your ear and the other bracing himself against the couch. 

“I’m not saying I don’t want to. I just…I swear an hour ago I was telling myself that I needed to get over you.”

He nods, meeting your lips again. “And I haven’t even taken you out on a proper date.”

“Jeongin…that’s beside–” He interrupts your incoherent words, kissing you deeper.

“It’s okay, noona. I like kissing you.”

You cover your face with your hands. “That’s my line.”

He kisses the back of your hands before you peer through your fingers to look at him. He’s staring at you fondly, thoughtful. 

“Can I stay with you?”

You lean up to kiss him, hands sliding through his hair. He doesn’t pull away, sliding one hand under your top and along your side. You twitch a little at the ticklishness and you can feel his smile. 

“You can stay, jagiya.”

--

© yoongihan 2023. please do not steal, translate, repost, or whatever. stray kids belong to themselves and all idols used in this piece are just the inspiration for characters and do not in any way reflect the actual humans.

[shmaptainwrites]

𝐔𝐍𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋 [𝐅𝐈𝐓𝐙𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐀𝐌 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐘]

PAIRINGS —  Fitzwilliam Darcy x fem!Reader

SUMMARY — Reader, encountered with an unexpected cold, finds herself staying longer at her friend's home in Pemberley and influencing him with her unconventional attitude

WARNINGS — sickness

NOTE — Here's the 2nd Mr. Darcy fic! It's been a draft for a while but I finally managed to finish it off, I hope you guys enjoy.

“Fitz! Come quickly Miss (L/N) is here!” Georgiana called her older brother as you rode into the Pemberley estate in your carriage. 

Mr. Darcy listened to his sister, but didn’t waste a second in telling her that there was no use yelling in such a big house and that she should have just sent someone to get him. 

“I know, I’m just so excited to see her,” Georgiana grinned. “Aren’t you?”

“I am happy she could come visit us for the week,” he said simply. “She’s quite busy keeping house for her brother.”

“Exactly, which is all the more exciting that she was able to come,” Georgiana grinned. 

The Darcy siblings met you outside, helping you deal with your bags first and then taking the opportunity to say hello. 

You kissed Georgiana on the cheek, taking a moment to really take in how much she’d grown while you hadn’t seen her. 

“My goodness, a few more months and you’ll be taller than me,” you laughed, Georgiana’s hands clasped tightly in your own. “Oh how I’ve missed you.”

“Just me?” Georgiana teased. 

“Now now, your brother knows very well that I’ve missed his company as well.”

“Then it is unfortunate you will only be able to stay with us for the week,” Mr. Darcy commented. 

“Yes, it most definitely is.”

“Please, come. Dinner is waiting inside, I am sure you are hungry after your travels,” Mr. Darcy, guided you and his sister towards the entrance of the large home. 

“You have assumed correctly, Mr. Darcy,” you nodded. 

“All the better that we can eat immediately then,” Georgiana smiled. “How is your family? Your brother? And sisters?”

“All fine and healthy thank you,” you said. “My elder sister is actually getting married very soon. The engagement was quite recent so she asked if I could pass the news to you both in person.”

“Oh how delightful!” Georgiana clapped her hands together. 

“You will both be invited to the wedding of course, it wouldn’t be the same without you there,” you smiled. 

“We shall greatly look forward to such a wonderful event, won’t we, Fitzwilliam?”

“Yes, of course. Any opportunity to see your family is a great one,” he agreed. 

Dinner was quite pleasant, you caught up on the events happening in your respective lives and reminisced about the days where you were closer together. 

The week at Pemberley passed faster than you would have liked and on your last day you decided to take a quiet moment to yourself, walking the grounds before dinner. 

The property was extensive and you often lost track of how far you had gone. This time, the realization came when it began to rain and you did your best to hurry back, hoping you wouldn’t get sick. 

Arriving back at the house, the bottom of your dress was soaked completely with mud and the rest of you was dripping with rainwater. 

Mr. Darcy happened to be walking by as you came inside and quickly came to attend to you. 

“Are you sure you’re alright?” he asked. 

“At this point, yes,” you nodded. “I just got caught in the rain.”

“Let us get you something to dry off, perhaps a change of clothes and some time by the fire will do you good.”

“Mr. Darcy, you needn’t worry, I’m sure everything will be fine and I can take care of it.”

“I insist. You are my guest, what kind of host would I be if I didn’t at least attempt to make sure you were alright.”

You conceded and let Mr. Darcy instruct someone to bring you a towel to dry off and walked you to your room before informing you he’d make sure a fire was started in the fireplace of the drawing room. 

After you changed into dry, clean clothes, you made your way there noting that you were beginning to feel a bit ill. You hoped it was nothing and that the feeling would pass, but it became clear during dinner when Mr. Darcy had to quickly rush to your side after you had almost fainted. 

He instructed someone to call a doctor and asked Georgiana to write a quick letter to your brother to inform him you would have to stay at Pemberley until you were feeling better. 

“Mr. Darcy, I really-,” you paused, taking a deep breath to fight off the nausea. “I wouldn’t want to impose and stay longer than I was intending.”

“Nonsense,” he shook his head. “You are in no condition to travel. I don’t know what your brother would say if I sent you back while you are in this state.”

You closed your eyes and nodded your head, allowing Mr. Darcy to lead you into your room, sitting you down on the bed and assuring you he’d be back with tea and a doctor. 

Your fever was the worst the first night. The doctor stayed at Pemberley to make sure that you’d be on track for a healthy recovery. He informed you that whatever ailment you were suffering from could take some time to completely leave your system and as Mr. Darcy had already suggested it would be best for you to stay at Pemberley until you were completely healed. 

It pained you to sit around and do nothing aimlessly every day, but you knew there was no way you’d be able to get any better otherwise. 

One evening, after you had assumed everyone had gone to sleep, you badly wanted to stretch your legs and decided to make your way to the kitchen to make a pot of tea. 

You took careful steps, still feeling a little dizzy, only in a nightgown with a shawl pulled over your shoulders, when the flicker of a candle signaled to you that someone was there. 

You turned around and saw Mr. Darcy who was clearly still awake and staring at you quizzically. 

“Miss (L/N), what on earth are you doing out of bed?” he asked, increasing the pace of his stride so that he could reach you faster. 

“I was just hoping to make some tea,” you said. “And stretch my legs. Please don’t send me back to my room.”

Mr. Darcy pursed his lips and sighed, 

“Alright, let’s get you some tea.”

You began to walk, slightly more wobbly than before so Mr. Darcy carefully wrapped an arm around you and pulled you closer to him so you’d have some support as you walked. 

“Are you feeling any better from this morning?” he asked. 

“A little, but much better than that first night,” you said. 

“Good,” he said simply and you continued your walk to the kitchen in silence. 

You tried to take initiative to grab a few things to make the tea , but Mr. Darcy stopped you and insisted he take care of it. 

“Mr. Darcy, you spoil me,” you chuckled. “Ever since we were little ones, you always have.”

You swore you saw a small smile make its way onto his lips as he placed the kettle on the stove. 

“I have very few people I’m able to spoil Miss (L/N), I’m happy you indulge me,” he said quietly, still holding you close to his side. 

“As much as I appreciate it, I do believe I can stand on my own,” you commented. 

“Let us see how those legs of yours hold up,” he took a small step away, removing his support and you almost fell backwards if it weren’t for his quick reflexes that caught you. 

“Perhaps not, then,” you chuckled, hiding your face in slight embarrassment. 

The water was boiled not that much later and you allowed the tea to steep for a bit before Mr. Darcy poured you a cup and carried it for you as you made your way into the sitting room. 

The room was only lit by the light of the candle and after sitting you down, Mr. Darcy stayed right there next to you. 

You knew if anyone caught you like this the rumours would go flying, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care, feeling far too comfortable in his embrace. 

“You know my mother used to hold me like this when I was sick,” you yawned. “It’s not quite the same, but I guess you’ll have to do.”

“Surely you jest,” Mr. Darcy said and you shook your head. 

“Me? Jest? Fitzwilliam, who do you think I am?”

“That medication the doctor has prescribed you is surely doing quite a number on you,” he placed the back of his hand to your forehead only to see that you most definitely weren’t feverish. 

“It’s not the medication,” you shook your head. “Perhaps the exhaustion made me slip up, but don’t you think it’s incredibly silly that I shan’t refer to you by your name even though I have known you all my life?”

“I suppose it is,” he nodded slowly. 

“Just try it,” you suggested. “No one is watching, it's just you and I.”

He paused to a moment, still unsure if he should say anything, but he’d spent the entire night indulging you so he thought he might as well continue. 

“What do you wish me to ask you, (Y/N)?” 

“See that’s much better,” you nodded. “I quite like having you call me by my first name.”

“There are a lot of unconventional things I seem to find you enjoying,” Mr. Darcy commented. 

“Ah yes, the long walks alone, being held by a man while barely clothed, and of course referring to my oldest friend by his first name.”

Mr. Darcy couldn’t help the chuckle that had escaped, he decided then to simply shake his head and continue to hold you close. A signal to you that he didn’t really mind it. 

Now that your tea had cooled off, he passed you the cup and helped your slightly shaking hands lift it to your lips. 

“You know (Y/N), Georgiana is quite happy you haven’t left us yet as unfortunate as the circumstances are, she’s still enjoying your company.” 

“And I hers,” you sighed. “She’s grown so much since I last saw her, I really do wish I could be here more often.”

“As do I,” Mr. Darcy agreed. “Am I correct in assuming your brother has many engagements?”

“Constantly,” you nodded with a small yawn. “It’s exhausting, honestly. Even though I am unwell, Pemberley has given me some much needed rest.”

“I suppose some gratitude is warranted on both ends then.”

“Yes, it does seem that way,” you said yet another yawn. “You wouldn’t mind if I-,” you yawned again. “just…fell asleep…right here.”

Before Mr. Darcy could utter a single word, your head had fallen against his arm, your eyes shut, and your mouth slightly open, a quiet snore escaping every now and then. 

Mr. Darcy could only stare in admiration, pulling your shawl a little tighter around you so you didn’t get cold. 

Carefully, feeling that if he did it any other way he might be caught, he pressed the smallest kiss to your forehead. 

“Sleep well my dear (Y/N).” 

—

After that evening, you found yourself asleep in your bed the next morning as if nothing had happened. You were already feeling exceptionally better and within two more days you were well enough to make arrangements to head back home. 

“I wish you weren’t leaving so soon,” Georgiana sighed dejectedly as she pushed around her potatoes at dinner. 

“Georgiana I’ve been here two weeks longer than expected,” you chuckled. 

“I know, but it never feels like enough time.”

“I feel the same. I hope I’ll be back soon, but I really don’t know,” you said honestly. “When I was a little younger it was easier, not the same kind of responsibilities.”

“Right,” Georgiana nodded. “Wait, does this mean I must keep house for you if you’re not married soon?” Georgiana turned her attention to her older brother. 

“Perhaps,” Mr. Darcy nodded. “But I don’t think you should worry about that right now Georgiana.”

You felt a pang in your heart as he said that. It was only a matter of time before Mr. Darcy found a wife, but a part of you deep down always wondered if perhaps he’d consider you. 

You knew it was silly, he probably thought of you as a younger sister, but you couldn’t help but feel drawn to him, especially when he treated you with such tenderness and care. 

To save your own feelings, you quickly changed the topic, asking about something general like the Darcy’s dogs or how the weather had been slowly improving. 

You went to bed that night without much thought of the conversation at dinner and got up early enough in the morning so you could get a good start on your travels. 

Just as you were about to go and inform someone to prepare the carriage you heard a knock at the door of your room. 

“Hello? Who is it?” you asked, your hands busy fixing something on your dress. 

“It’s me.”

You recognized the voice as Darcy’s and told him to come in. 

He opened the door and came inside the room, shutting it behind him. 

“Is something the matter, Mr. Darcy?” you asked, seeing the tense expression. 

“So formal,” he said with what you thought was a nervous chuckle. “What ever happened to your inclination to use my first name?”

“I didn’t think it was appropriate,” you said quietly. “Is there something you need?”

“I have a question to ask you,” he said and you nodded your head for him to continue. “I’d like you to stay longer at Pemberley. Would you?”

“I-Fitzwilliam, you know I’ve been here far too long, my brother needs me back in London. Even if I wanted to, I can't visit longer,” you sighed.

“I meant…I meant permanently.”

“P-Permanently?” you stuttered. 

“I apologize if I haven’t made it clear already-I suppose my nerves have gotten the best of me,” he rambled. 

“A-Are you asking me to marry you?” you asked finally and he nodded his head. 

You could already feel your head spinning, confused tears welling in your eyes. Where did this come from? Why was he asking? Why now?

“I-Fitz, where is this coming from?” you asked him. “If you just wish for me to visit more I can find ways to get out of London, you don’t have to ask me to marry you.”

“Why would you think I’d ask someone to marry me?” he asked, his voice was gentle as it always was when he spoke with you, but it carried a twinge of hurt. 

“I-I don’t know!” you threw your hands up. “Someone who can look after Pemberley for you? Do all the things a good and proper wife should?”

“And not for love?”

You swallowed thickly, your hands tensed and clenched with emotion. You couldn’t bear tiptoeing around it any longer. 

“Fitz, please don’t trifle with my feelings, just say it. Say it and I am yours.”

“I love you,” he closed the space between you, cradling your face easily in his large hands, pressing your forehead against his own. “I have loved you, (Y/N) since I knew what the word meant and I shall love you long past my dying breath. Stay and let me spoil you. Stay so that I may be able to see your beautiful smile every minute of every day. Stay because I love you.”

You nodded your head, knowing your words would fail you. 

For a moment there wasn’t propriety, no obligations, no societal standards. Just you and him. 

He gently kissed away your tears, knowing you were both protected by the closed curtain before quietly saying. 

“As much as I would love for you to stay, I believe the carriage should be ready now. I shall meet you in London in a few days to ask for your father’s blessing.”

“Yes, of course,” you wiped away the remainder of your tears with the sleeve of your dress before taking a moment to trace your fingers along his jaw. “I shall miss you, dearly.”

“And I you.”

But there was a certain lightness in both of your hearts, knowing that you’d get to spend the rest of your lives together. 

“Fitz,” you whispered. 

“Yes, my darling.”

“I almost forgot to say I love you too.”

You swore the smile that came across his face could have brightened the whole room. You brought his face closer to yours, stepping on your toes to press a kiss to his forehead. 

“I shall see you soon.”

He held your hand and gave it one last squeeze before you slipped out of the room, your heart beating out of your chest. 

—

Several Years Later

“Mrs. Darcy, lovely to have you back at Pemberley.”

“It’s wonderful to be back, I felt as if I was visiting my family in London for ages,” you dusted off your dress and took a pleasant look around the home. 

“Shall I inform Mr. Darcy of your arrival?”

“No, that’ll be alright, I can handle it,” you smiled. “He’s in his study?”

“Yes ma’am.”

You took off your coat with some help and began walking down the halls, quickly visiting with Georgiana when you ran into her and assuring her you would have plenty of time to catch up over dinner. 

When you arrived at your husband’s office the door was already cracked open so you carefully snuck inside and shut the door behind you, having to stifle a laugh at the fact that he didn’t even flinch or seem to notice you’d entered the room. 

You pressed your back to the door and waited patiently as he informed you that he would be one more moment and as soon as he put his pen down and looked up from his papers his eyes grew wide with surprise. 

“You’re back,” he smiled. “A day early.”

“I couldn’t wait,” you chuckled. “But you clearly could, you barely even noticed it was me!” you teased him. 

“My darling, I was far too engrossed in the letter I was writing, but I surely shouldn’t have been,” he came up to you and you were about to open the door so that you could leave the study, but he stopped you by putting his hand on the handle and cornering you between himself and the closed door. 

“Fitzwilliam,” you gasped and turned around to face him. “You naughty man.”

“Is it a crime for a man to wish to kiss his wife after having missed her for two long months?” he raised a brow. 

“I suppose not,” you chuckled while his thumb and forefinger tilted your chin upwards so that he could meet you in a tender and longing kiss. 

He was right, it had been too long since you had last seen each other and you wished your relatives would come to Pemberley instead of insisting you visit in London. 

Every moment you spent there you could barely enjoy because you wished desperately to be back in the company of the man whom you loved dearly. 

When you pulled apart, Fitzwilliam still held your face in his hands and asked you how your visit was. 

“Terrible.”

“Terrible?”

“Alright, it wasn’t terrible. I’m exaggerating, but I did miss you terribly,” you turned your head to gently kiss his hand. 

“And I you,” he kissed your forehead and lingered there a moment to savour the feeling of having you close again. 

The middle of your quiet moment was interrupted with a pounding knock to the door which started both of you. 

“Mama stop hogging Papa! I haven’t seen him either!” you could hear a small, but stern voice come from the other side of the door and both you and Fitzwilliam chuckled before opening it, revealing your daughter standing with her arms crossed over her chest, a pout on her lips. 

Fitzwilliam didn’t waste a moment, swooping down to pick her up and press a kiss to her cheek. She was still small and you knew especially when you were in private he liked to soak up as much of those moments as he could with her. 

“My darling, look at you! You’ve grown since I last saw you,” he said. “What did your grandparents feed you?”

“Too much veal,” you grimaced at the thought and he chuckled. 

“Did you miss me?” Louise looked up at her father with big pleading eyes. 

“Of course I did,” he assured her. “Your mother just came and found me first, that's all.” 

“You did say you wanted to stay with auntie Georgiana for a little while, don’t you remember Lou?” 

She nodded her head, conceding, but pressed a big kiss to her father’s cheek. 

“Next time maybe you should come find me, Papa,” she suggested. 

“I completely agree,” he gave her a small smile before continuing, “Now you two must be tired from your travels, why don’t we go see how long dinner will take and until then we can sit with Georgiana and have a cup of tea while you tell me all about your visit to London.” 

“And maybe Lou can convince you to join us next time,” you grinned and kissed your daughter’s cheek. “Isn’t that right my little munchkin.” 

She giggled and agreed emphatically, “Yes, Papa has to come with us! Because Mama says that I'm the boss.”

Fitzwilliam looked over at his daughter then you. He was happy Louise took after you, perhaps when the right time came she would give another young man the courage to share his love. 

@/icemankazansky

[sooniebby]

ఌ 𝐘𝐀𝐊𝐔𝐙𝐀

꧁ 𝙊𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙭 𝙢𝙖𝙡𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧 ꧂

Teaser ➤ the day life went to shit and got you a husband

Word count › 4.6k

Rating › NSFT

Warnings › talk of trafficking (not actually shown)

Kinks › dub con, a/b/o, bitching

╭┈─────── ೄྀ࿐ ˊˎ-

╰┈─➤ ＢＥＧＩＮＮＩＮＧ

Harada (Name) was pretty much a gem to others. An alpha so sweet that he rivaled omegas. He was beautiful, a bit feminine compared to other alphas but most didn’t mind.

His family didn’t care too much about him. Despite everyone else loving him, he was weak compared to his older brother. A stereotypical alpha that was cold and heartless. Only saw omegas as a breeding stock for their alpha pups.

Most now didn’t think that way. Omegas were equals now and had protection over themselves. Of course there was the weirdos, like (Name)’s brother and family, they were really an outlier.

The Harada family were well off to say the least. Their house was certainly large. Nothing to scoff over. But (Name) never knew just what his family did. They wouldn’t tell him. He first believed they were lawyers when he found a diploma for law school.

But they wouldn’t give him an answer. They even told him to no longer bother them about his silly questions. (Name) had stopped asking after that.

His older sister, a beta named Kokomo, was much nicer to him. Maybe the only family member that liked him. His big brother, Haru, hated him. He wasn’t even sure why.

When (Name) reached the age of 18, he was finally going off to college. But he was forced to chose a college that was close in his area so he’d stay at the house.

In hindsight, he should’ve known that it had to do something with the secrets his parents were hiding.

“(Name)! You paying attention?” Hana huffed, shaking her head. She was one of the few true friends he had recently made.

“Sorry.. a lot on my mind.”

“Like what?” Kei, another friend, asked.

“My parents. They haven’t come home yet…”

“Oh,” Hana sighed. “Probably got stuck with some stuff at work. Nothing to worry about.”

Yeah, (Name) thought to himself. Maybe he was just freaking himself out. He continued the night with his friends, ending the study session with new confidence for his test tomorrow.

He walked home alone, like always. A hum on his lips as he lightly skipped home, excited to see Kokomo at home. If his parents and Haru still weren’t home, he’d get to enjoy himself with his favorite person in the whole world.

A grin spread on his lips as he picked up the pace. He was lucky enough that his house was only twenty minutes walk away from the university. Being an alpha had its perks in that he didn’t fear walking home alone.

Once he reached home, he noticed it was quiet. Way too quiet. (Name) felt a rush of panic in himself, wondering if anything went wrong. He rushed to Kokomo’s bedroom, hoping and praying that she’d just be asleep in bed.

And she was. (Name) sighed with relief, closing her bedroom door back once he confirmed she was just asleep. He shook his head, he was going crazy.

(Name) then just decided he needed a shower and to take a good nights rest for his big day tomorrow.

Once he made it to his room, he saw his window open. Weird. He shrugged it off and closed it, glancing around quickly to see if something was off.

But it was normal.

With nothing odd roaming about, he pulled off his clothes for his shower. (Name)’s body was smaller and slimmer than any other alpha he’s ever met. More feminine like—even with his facial features.

If it wasn’t for his scent, most would assume he was a taller omega. (Name) had always felt insecure about it but he still had many omegas and betas want to date him even with his features so he mainly ignored it.

“Wow, a show? Just for me, baby?”

(Name) shrieked, covering his body with his hands. A random man came out from the bathroom connected his room. Fuck, he forgot to check the bathroom. He panicked, wondering if he could just sprint to his door and run out.

But he couldn’t. The man was right near it, he could easily grab him. The window also wasn’t a good idea since he was on the second floor. Falling to the ground might break some bones.

He also couldn’t just leave Kokomo alone with this strange man.

“Who are you?!”

The man smiled. “Your mommy and daddy haven’t told you?”

“Told me what?”

He sighed, “your parents suck, huh?”

A scream was heard as (Name) felt himself freeze up. No. Why didn’t he think that this man would be alone? All this staring and trying to talk to this man gave whoever his parents were enough time to get to his sister.

(Name) gasped as the man was suddenly in front of him with a napkin in his hands. Before he could even try to dodge it, the napkin was pressed firmly onto his face, directly into his nose. Whatever was on the napkin, he quickly felt himself slipping away into a deep slumber.

All he could see was the smirk on the man’s lips before his eyes closed.

ꕥ

“(Name)!”

A groan left (Name)’s throat as he craned his neck around to get a look of what had happened. His eyes felt a little blurry, as he tried to take in what was happening. From his blurry vision, he could tell that he was still at home, just in the large living room.

He was on the floor, tied tightly around both arms and legs. A cry from his sister caused him to try and fight against the bonds but nothing happened. He wasn’t even sure if his thoughts was cooperating with his body right now.

“Harada? We have your son and daughter here… if you’re done with hiding, come and get them before we leave a nice blood splatter for ya!” A voice chuckled.

No… was his family in a gang? Just what did they do?

A grip on his hair caused him to finally see more clearly. It was the man from the bathroom looking at home, a calm and calculating look on his face.

“Hey, kid, we’ll have to use you and your sister as bait, alright? No hard feelings. We won’t hurt you.”

(Name) wasn’t sure if he believed them but he couldn’t argue. He felt so tired. The man placed his head back on the ground before walking away, leaving (Name) alone to ponder his situation.

There were more people with them. Maybe three others? Two alphas and two betas. The man was certainly an alpha and felt like a leader. (Name) couldn’t see the others but heard their whispering of something his parents and brother owed them.

Were they an omega trafficking ring? He wouldn’t put it past them to do such a thing. A grunt left him as he tried to move around to face the couch from his spot on the ground. He could hear Kokomo crying, pleading on letting her and him live.

(Name) wished he could hug her but all he could do was try and turn his body around.

“Your parents, Miss Harada, are in a bit of trouble. They decided to kidnap our boss’s sister for their little shit of a son. But they didn’t get far.” A random woman laughed, an alpha.

“Papa’s dead. So now we only have big bro and mama. Let’s see what happens to them hm?”

(Name) could heard Kokomo’s cries on the news about their father’s apparent death. He couldn’t find himself to care. They really tried to kidnap some random omega woman for Haru? Why couldn’t he just find someone?

“That’s not all,” a new voice chimed in. “Papa and mama have some crimes they must answer for. And big bro was about to join those little crimes.” A beta male said.

“What crimes..?” Kokomo asked.

“Trafficking ring.” The bathroom man said. “It was stopped a week ago. I’m sure that’s when your parents left for their little work trip.”

And it was. (Name) didn’t know how to feel but it was certainly anger building up. Was that really how they made their money? The luxury he lived in was built off the exploitation of innocent omegas?

“No! Mom and dad aren’t like that!” Kokomo yelled, but even (Name) could hear that she didn’t believe herself.

Did they really know their parents when they focused solely on Haru?

“The police…” (Name) muttered, earning eyes on him.

“We’ll send them after your mom and brother if they don’t come,” the woman said.

“Anyway, aren’t you going to go through with the plan?” A beta female said, startling (Name) when she grasped his hair and pulled him up. He grunted in pain, finally getting a clear look at Kokomo and the others.

Kokomo was clutching a pillow to her chest as she sat on the couch, staring at (Name) with a look of fear. He wished he could run to her and calm her down. But his body still felt weak.

Just what was that thing on the napkin?

“So, how do you wanna do this? They need to see it,” she said, pulling out a knife. Kokomo screamed but was quickly silenced by the male beta. She gripped the hand covering her mouth as wet tears streamed down her face.

The female beta brought the knife towards (Name)’s cheek, pressing it into his skin. He felt completely silent, wishing they wouldn’t go through with it.

But then Haru and his mother stormed into the room, looking completely calm despite the situation they were in. (Name) was not happy to see them but at least the bathroom man was distracted.

“Kimura!” His brother yelled, a snarl on his lips. His disgusting scent filled the living room of burnt marshmallows as (Name) wanted to gag. The other people in the room seemed to agree with his feeling as they also looked mildly disgusted.

The bathroom man, Kimura, smirked. “Haru-Chan! How’s it going? Thought you wouldn’t leave that new home of yours. You too, mama.”

(Name)’s mother scowled. “You already took my husband anyway from me! What more do you want?”

What…? Did she not see Kokomo and (Name) in custody of these gangsters?

Kimura hummed. “Well, I thought you’d care about your other kids but I guess I was wrong…”

His mother only laughed. “Care about a feminine alpha and a disgusting girl who became a beta? You were sadly mistaken.”

The alpha woman shook her head, “wow, no wonder you had no problem having that trafficking ring.”

“The things my family did to give us a roof over our head,” his mother exclaimed. Haru simply nodded in agreement.

“A roof over your head in favor of using those poor omegas?!” The beta woman gasped, pressing the knife deeper into his skin, causing a sliver of blood to appear on his cheek.

“Yes. I did what I could for my husband and son. Those two just happened because his condom failed.”

Oh. He knew she didn’t like him but to actually hear it…

It actually hurt. Kokomo was now sobbing, not believing her own mother would say such words about her like that. Haru’s scent that had previously dominated the room was beginning to disappear, being dominated by something else.

Kimura’s scent.

It was a scent of a rainy night in a forest. In any other time, (Name) would’ve enjoyed it. But now it was angry. He somehow felt the urge to show to Kimura that he would not disobey him. Was it because he was a much stronger alpha?

“I’m sure you do care about the reputation of your family. Now that’s basically gone, I guess I can just do what your son did to my sister.” Kimura muttered, walking over to (Name).

A look of panic washed over Haru and his mother. What they did his sister? Reputation gone? What the hell was he talking about.

Kimura grabbed the knife from the beta and pushed in deep, ignoring the cry from (Name) as he slashed downwards, effectively cutting his skin. Wet blood covered his left side of his face as Kimura soon did it to his right side, equal in length and area of his face.

(Name) felt himself whither in agony, the pain of being cut so deep as blood flowed down his face. He could hear Kokomo screaming as she was kept down on the couch by the alpha woman and the two betas.

Haru and his mother didn’t even try to help. They only stood there in fear.

(Name) glanced up as Kimura tugged at his hair. He didn’t think he could take anymore damage. His face would be permanently scarred now. Matching scars on both cheeks that traveled from his cheek bone to the middle of his cheeks.

“But scarring her wasn’t the only thing you did to her….” Kimura said, loud enough for Haru to hear. “You didn’t get to go through with fully going through with it but I will. Fair is unfair, yeah?”

With a sharp tug to pull his head back, Kimura kneeled down and bite down on (Name)’s scent gland. (Name)’s body rejected the claim, causing him to scream in pain. The physical contortion of his body rejecting the claim from an alpha almost made him completely pass out.

“(Name)!!! Please, don’t hurt him!!” Kokomo cried. “Haru!!! Mommy!! Do something!!”

Kimura leaned back in and bit down on his scent gland again, earning another scream from (Name) the rejection was less violent but he still felt himself shiver in pain.

His body was against it. It didn’t want it. He wasn’t made to handle such bites.

(Name) could only see Haru and his mother just stare in fear. They really weren’t going to do anything. He was going to be killed by the time Kimura was finished.

But (Name) wasn’t even sure what the man was doing.

Was he trying to intentionally hurt him…?

“Only need one more bite and then the process starts…” Kimura muttered, looking back at Haru as if he was waiting for him to protest. Do anything to save his little brother from the worst pain imaginable.

But he only stared.

Kimura shrugged before his sharp teeth bit down on his scent gland, making (Name)’s body actually take this time. His sharp canines went through the gland, effectively claiming him as if he was an omega.

A cry left (Name)’s lips as his body convulsed in jolts of pain. He felt himself faint soon near after, wet tears in his eyes as he knew something terrible happened to his body.

And there was no way to reverse it.

ꕥ

A heavy body on (Name) stirred him awake as he looked around. He wasn’t in the living room. And this certainly wasn’t his home. He glanced down at the body in his chest to realize it was a Shiba Inu. The dog barked happily, noticing (Name) was awake.

(Name) felt any panic in his heart, disappear as he cuddled the dog. He could oddly feel himself purr in glee at the feeling of the dog. But it was odd. He never purred before at the touch of a dog.

He’d seen other omegas do it but he never did.

(Name) reached over on the nightstand for anything but only found a tv remote. With nothing else, he turned on the tv, right to the news to see what date it was.

“Good morning! I’m Yoshida Nana! It’s October 18, at noon today. It’s only been two weeks since the capture of Harada Asa and Harada Haru for their omega trafficking ring. Others have now been caught and charged for participating.”

“The body of Harada Yuki has also been found. We once again thank the Kimura family for bringing the Harada’s to justice and saving all of the victims that were tragically captured. Please, If you find any word of other rings or people who may have participated, report to the police immediately.”

(Name) covered his mouth as he gently pushed the dog off of him and rushed to the bathroom, kneeling down in front of the toilet as he threw up. He forgot. He forgot about everything his parents and brother had done.

No way.

No way.

He couldn’t go back to normal after this. Omega traffickers?? People would think he had something to do with it. He was an alpha as well, he couldn’t just say he had no idea without proof.

The dog whined as it pressed it’s wet nose against his leg, earning a soft smile from (Name). He sighed softly before getting up and walking over to the sink, looking in the mirror to see what has become of him.

He slept for so long. Two weeks?

(Name) gasped. Two matching scars were on his face. They were light, looking to not be too recent but they were still there. He felt a bit better at the fact they’d be gone soon but how long did he have to wait?

Weeks? Years?

He glanced at over parts of his body and noticed he had gotten shorter. Much shorter. His 5’10 frame had gone down at most three inches? He had to be around 5’7 now? Maybe even 5’6. How did this happen?

His legs didn’t look as long as they were. And his body.

It was skinny before. Thin as a pole but now it was plump. His chest had actual fluff. His thighs weren’t just thin but actually had fat on it. His ass as well.. it wasn’t flat anymore. There was a curve.

Like…

Like an omega.

He had features of an omega….

No.

No.

(Name) felt himself panic. Not when he was finally confident in his features and secondary gender. How can it just be taken away from him as if it was nothing?

Why couldn’t anything go right for him?!

Something inside of him was whining. Whining for someone to comfort him. An alpha? But he didn’t have one. (Name) stumbled over to his bed, the tv still playing the news as he collapsed on the bed.

The dog was hot on his tail, barking as if it wanted to get (Name) to calm down. (Name) felt weak. He wanted to sleep. But he couldn’t—not on a bed that didn’t feel like home.

He wanted Kokomo…

With his tired body, he lazily moved pillows and sheets around the bed as he built a makeshift nest. He reached down and pulled the dog onto the bed and laid down, finally able to sleep in something…. More homey.

It was possibly only a few minutes but an hour to (Name) when he felt the touch of someone on his head. He awoke quickly, glancing to see who it was. It was Kokomo. (Name) couldn’t help the tears form in his eyes as he got up, accidentally waking up the dog, and pulling her into a hug.

Kokomo gracefully returned it, whispering about how much she missed him. (Name) felt the sudden urge to scent her. He had never felt this way when he was an alpha. But he had never scent anyone so he wasn’t sure how.

“(Name), are you okay? I was so worried!”

“Mmh, I feel odd. But we need to get home.”

“There is no home… they took it…” Kokomo muttered.

“Why…?”

“We don’t own it. But we don’t have to worry about people thinking we were apart of it! Kimura-San proved us innocent!” Kokomo grinned.

“How?”

A blush appeared on her face. “Oh… uh… well, Kimura-San, the boss of this company, had been previous business partners with mom and dad… they knew something was odd when mom suddenly got enough money to pay off any debts.”

“So they spied of them?” (Name) asked.

“Kinda. They didn’t tell me much. Just that the police won’t need to investigate us… the public is a different story. But Kimura-San will let us stay here.”

“What’s in it for them?”

“Nothing. But it’s good for an omega to stay with his alpha.”

“Excuse me?”

Kokomo frowned. “It was probably traumatic for you. But he did bitch you. It was because his sister was almost bitched by our brother.”

(Name) felt himself frown. “So I was bitched for revenge?! I was forcibly changed and removed of any good status I had in this life because of fucking revenge?!”

He stood up from the bed as he paced around.

“Good status? (Name) you don’t mean that…”

(Name) growled. “Of course I fucking believe that. An omega!? A fucking omega!? I had a good life as an alpha! People loved me! And now I’m stuck as a fucking breeder!”

A slap rang out in the room as (Name) felt his eyes widen in shock. Kokomo had slapped him. He turned back to stare at her, wondering when she got the audacity to hit him.

“I know you are panicked! Turning into an omega isn’t something easy. But I won’t allow you to talk down about omegas or yourself. Taiki will take care of you!”

“Taiki?! Who the fuck is Taiki?!”

Kokomo sighed. “Just… allow him to help you. He’s been caring for you for awhile now.” She walked over to the door. (Name) watched as she left, leaving him alone in the unfamiliar room.

Was she… did she really turn against him?

(Name) felt tears stream down his face as he wondered if this was it. Was he screwed over forever? He glanced over at the dog on the bed as he tried to calm down.

He needed something. He wanted someone.

Despite the bright sun shining into his room, (Name) joined the dog on the bed and went right back to sleep, feeling defeated in his short life. He was sure if he wanted to wake up.

The feeling of something cool against his hot skin was healing towards him. A whisper was heard as he was manhandled into something cool. He could smell that Kimura man… was it because it was his house?

“Sana! Give him some space,” the voice said, pushing away a barking animal. (Name) stirred in the man’s arms, wanting to get a good look at who it was.

He glanced up and saw the bathroom man. Kimura. The man who turned him into this… shell of himself. But he couldn’t feel angry. He felt himself purr at the sight of him. If he had a tail, it would’ve been wagging.

“Baby, are you feeling okay? Being bitched isn’t something most alphas can handle…” Kimura muttered. “But you seem to be handling it pretty well, huh?”

(Name) hummed. “You bitched me because of my brother, right? Why are you treating me like this?”

Kimura gripped (Name)’s chin and forced him to look up at him. “I would’ve bitched you even if your brother didn’t kidnap my sister. I wanted you for awhile now.”

“Wh—wha? How did you know me?”

“You don’t remember me, do you?” Kimura smirked.

“Does it look like I do?”

Kimura simply hummed as he leaned down and pressed a soft kiss on (Name)’s healed mating mark. A sudden mewl left (Name)’s lips as he felt his cock twitch at the touch. He couldn’t contain his purring as he felt Kimura bit over his mating mark.

“You don’t have a clue on how long I’ve waiting for you.” Kimura whispered. “No matter how much you initially fight me, I’ll continue to love you.”

(Name) blushed. Love? This man, who could be five years his senior, loved him? He, in the first time once he saw him, got a good look at his features. Dark jet black hair with medium length bangs. Sharp monolids that resembled a cat. Medium lips that could widen into a sinister smirk if he wanted to.

He wasn’t scary to look at, at least.

(Name) opened his mouth to speak only to feel a sudden gush of something wet from his ass. He watched as Kimura only had to sniff once to know what he was smelling.

“Already? Your heat is coming.” Kimura muttered, easily maneuvering (Name) to lay down on the bed as he pulled off his boxers. (Name) hated how he didn’t struggle.

He wanted to but his body wouldn’t listen. It was the stupid omega that was purring at the sight of ‘his’ alpha pleasuring him.

“Before you touch me down there, who are you? Yakuza?”

Kimura stared at (Name) before grinning. “Maybe. You can’t be this rich without some side businesses.”

“Like my parents.”

“We’re nothing like your scum of earth parents. Don’t you ever try to say my family is anything like them, alright?” Kimura glared at him, making him quickly agree,

“Don’t worry, baby. You won’t be a Harada anymore. You’ll be a Kimura.”

“Then… you’re Taiki…?”

“Yeah. Taiki, wanna scream it?”

(Name) shook his head even though the slick looking at his ass was beginning to bother him. Taiki simply chuckled before slipping in two fingers into his ass.

A scream left the newly omega beneath him as he thrusted the fingers deep inside, dragging them against his warm walls as they tightened around him. (Name) hated how he craved this. How he wanted to pull Taiki in closer.

“Can you imagine my cock instead of my fingers? I think you’d honestly prefer it,” Taiki laughed.

“Shut your fucking mouth!” (Name) cried, not sounding at all as the angry alpha he used to. Now he only reminded Taiki of a whiny omega who needed to be fucked during their heat.

“Fine, fine. We can sit in silence.”

With that, he thrusted in a third finger, dragging it in deep enough to brush against his prostate. A scream left (Name)’s lips as his back arched. He’d never had anything up his ass before and he hated how easily his body was taking it.

There was no resistance. Slick continued to drip out, making it easier for Taiki to continuously stimulate his prostate. (Name) didn’t really like the silence, being as his moans and whimpers were the only thing in the room.

Well, until a certain bark caught his attention.

“OH MY GOD!!”

“What?!”

“Get the dog out!!”

“Sana is fine. She doesn’t know what we’re doing.”

“Out or you’ll never fuck me!!”

Taiki cursed but did as he was told, removing his fingers and grabbing Sana to take her out of the room. Sana whined at this but didn’t fight his hold. Once the door closed when she was put out, Taiki frowned to see (Name) fully covered with a blanket.

“Seriously?”

“Get away.”

“If I’m away, your omega will cry.”

“No sex.”

“Fine. You initiating it will be sexy later. Since you’re still leaking slick,” Taiki said, turning on the tv.

“I’m stuck like this…?”

Taiki turned his attention back over to him, leaning over. (Name) watched as Taiki surprisingly showed off his neck, his scent gland. Did he want…

“Go ahead. Bind me to you like I bound you to me.”

(Name) should’ve pushed him away. Slap him. Fucking kick him away for doing this to him. But he gripped Taiki’s shoulder and pulled him in as he bite harshly at his scent gland. He enjoyed the grimace he earned from Taiki, making sure the mark would take.

The taste of blood was metallic and a bit gross at best. (Name) pulled away with blood coating his lips as he stared at the mark. It was…

It made his heart swell at the sight. Taiki was his…

The stupid omega in him was fucking happy but he wasn’t.

He couldn’t be.

“Happy?”

“No! Get out of my sight!”

“No. This is my room.”

“What?!”

“And you’re wearing my clothes.”

(Name) was ready to take this clothes off but decided against it. He’d rather not be naked.

“You’ve ruined my life.”

“I think I made it better, Omega.”

(Name) ignored the sudden rush of slick in his ass.

He was screwed.

╭┈─────── ೄྀ࿐ ˊˎ-

╰┈─➤ ＥＮＤ

Wrote way more than I usual ever do… this character actually has plot 💀 first time besides Riki (who gets a part 2 on Sunday)

Taiki’s debut! Can’t wait to write more for him, if you guys want a part 2!

Thank you so much for 1k followers!