#he's currently shooting some kind of movie and it's probably going to last three months

[yibo-best]

Cr:  yibo王一博 taytay

[detectivestucks]

Friday Night Fights

18+ content, Minors do NOT interact

Pairing: Kakashi x F!Reader

Summery: Work is getting stressful and during your weekly hang with Kakashi he finally unleashes all of that stress on your body.

Warnings: NSFW, Hard Dom Kakashi, Degrading, BDSM, Body Piercings, Squirting, Oral, Unprotected Penetration

Word Count: 5.7k

Anon Ask

Running the metal ball along the roof of your mouth, you play with your tongue piercing while you think. You’re reading over the files your team gave to you for revision. It’s near the end of the fiscal year and you are desperately trying to concentrate. Now that you were a team lead, you had more responsibility than you wanted. You really only took the promotion for the pay. Looking over at the stacks of paper in each corner of your desk, you remember how fun it was last year when you were a normal agent. Responsible for nothing and just having fun working with your two friends.

Three years ago you started at your current job. During your training class you made fast friends with Rin and Kakashi. The three of you spent all of your breaks and meals together. After the second day, you exchanged numbers and made a group chat specifically for your inside jokes about management. Then by the end of your first week your trio started a weekly ritual of hanging out every Friday for what you dubbed ‘Friday Night Fights.’

Each week you rotated who’s house you went too. The host being responsible for the evening’s food. The other two, responsible for the entertainment. Usually it was a movie or some kind of game. One of your favorite nights was when the three of you played twister. Rin had to reach her right foot to red and ended up sweeping your leg causing you to fall on top of her and accidentally hitting Kakashi’s face on your descent. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him more angry than when he thought his handsome face might’ve been blemished by your loss.

“Relax pretty boy. Women like scars”

Eventually though, life caught up with you. Kakashi switched departments and you got a promotion within your current one. Rin found a job in her field and you saw her less. Now she only comes to Friday Night Fights once a month, if that. Most of the time it was just you and Kakashi. The games became less frequent and Netflix began to take its place. The vibe shifted from wholesome fun to a flirty standoff between the two of you. Unsure if you want to cross the line from friends to more, even though you were definitely slipping down that slope already.

The last few weeks Friday Night Fights was essential for both you and Kakashi cause work was such a pain. The end of the fiscal year was upon you and there was a lot of pressure to close every project your team had been working on. The final profit report was due and your budget for the next year had to be submitted and reviewed.

Kakashi’s department was just as bad. It didn’t help that he was always going toe to toe with his boss cause she never did the projects correctly and always relied on him to fix it for her. She refused to listen to his advice ahead of time and only seemed to need his opinion a week before anything was due. The helplessness drove him mad.

“She literally dropped the same stack of reports on my desk that I told her last week needed to be itemized! Now I have to sort through two hundred accounts and pull up the breakdown of the services rendered by next Thursday!”

“Why don’t you come back to my department?”

“Cause I don’t wanna lose the pay. It’s not like they’ll give me a team lead role after a year of being in another department.”

“True. Maybe you should just take Val’s job.”

“Seriously. She makes me wanna choke someone out. How did someone so irresponsible become a senior manager anyways? It pisses me off.”

“Nepotism probably. Or maybe she slept her way to the top.”

“Har har. Wish I could sleep my way to the top.”

“Have you seen yourself? You definitely could.”

Kakashi shoots you a look. “Val’s manager is a guy.”

“And you could turn ‘im.”

Kakashi playfully smacks your ass while you finish cooking in the kitchen. You were craving strip steak so you splurged a little this week.

“What’s the occasion anyways?”

“The occasion is called self care. Work sucks this month and we still have a week to go. I wanna treat myself. Just count yourself lucky that I included you.”

“Don’t act like you wouldn’t have shared.”

“I don’t know, I’m a pretty selfish person.”

“Oh please, you're literally the nicest person at the company. You can’t say no to anyone.”

“Hey! I can say no.”

“Psh, yeah right. You’re a textbook people pleaser. That’s why you’re so stressed.”

“Maybe I’m stressed cause my best friend is making wild accusations.”

“Wild?! Hello Y/N, meet delusion.”

“Fuck off!”

Kakashi slaps your ass again before pushing himself off the counter to go look for plates.

“Can you grab the fancy napkins out of the towel drawer?”

“You wanna use cloth napkins?” he says in an almost mocking tone

“Yes. It’s been a shitty week. I wanna be fancy. Sue me.”

Kakashi nearly rolls his eyes as he grabs the restaurant quality napkins from the drawer. You wanted to be fancy yet he knew for a fact you wouldn’t be eating at the table. You plate the meal and grab your ‘fancy’ glass of boxed wine before heading to the living room.

The two of you sit on the couch and eat the potatoes and steak while Kakashi turns on “10 Things I Hate About You.” He always was a sucker for chick flicks which was one of your favorite parts of his personality. You find yourself leaning against him after your plates have been discarded to the coffee table, cleaned of their contents, napkins on top.

Near the end of the movie Kakashi gets a text. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and the title of the sender says ‘Val my Boss’ ‘Bitch’

Come in two hours early on Monday to get started on those invoices

Kakashi closes his phone without responding and throws it down on the couch.

“Everything okay?”

“It wants me there two hours early on Monday”

“That sucks! She’s the worst.”

“Fuckin sick of her”

“On the bright side, you get overtime pay.”

Kakashi scowls at you. “Did I ask for your opinion?”

You nuzzle into him some more. “I was just trying to cheer you up. You don’t have to be annoying about it.”

Something in Kakashi snaps. He turns to grab you. Fingers closing around your throat, “Don’t call me annoying. Didn’t anyone teach you that name calling was rude.”

In your surprise, you felt a jolt of excitement between your legs. You let out a little whimper and the sound was so gratifying that Kakashi lifted his fingers lightly just to regrip your neck and squeeze harder. He shifts his weight so he is fully facing you, leaning inches from your face.

“Maybe I need to teach you some manners.”

You silently nod as you look at him, eyes getting lost in his, excitement coursing through your body. He pulls you forward by your neck and kisses you, immediately shoving his tongue in your mouth. You moan. Your hands fly up to his hair, lightly pulling at the soft tresses. Kakashi mounts you, straddling you so you can’t run from him, not that you would. One hand on your throat, the other behind your head, pushing your face against his.

The heat between you had been building for the better part of a year. You had been imagining this moment for a while but never did you picture him choking you. It must’ve been your lucky day cause the choking was leaps and bounds hotter than any scenario you had imagined.

You push your tongue past his lips and rub your piercing along his inner gum line. Kakashi groans into your mouth, gently nibbling on the muscle between his teeth. You playfully flick the ball of your piercing along the roof of his mouth. He squeezes your neck harder and leans back.

“Shit Y/N, that’s fucking hot.”

He goes back to sucking on your bottom lip while you nibble on his upper one, each getting toothy with the other, slowly starting to pull on each other’s hair more with each passing second.

Suddenly it occurs to you that you might be ruining your friendship and things could be weird after this. You don’t wanna lose your best friend.

“Wait Kash, should we be doing this?”

Kakashi leans back, taking his hands off of you. For a millisecond you regret your words. You want this. You want him. Why the fuck did you stop it? But then you see him reach for his belt buckle and you exhale. You see him undo the clasp, pulling it out from the loops of his jeans.

“I’m so sick and tired of women telling me what to do.”

He wraps the belt around your wrists and tugs at the excess length, lifting your hands up and behind your head, elbows bent at the ears, his arm behind your back as his other hand comes up to your jaw. In a menacing tone he smoothly leans in to give you a piece of his mind.

“How about for once, one of you shuts up, and do what I tell you to do for a change?”

The question nearly knocks the wind out of you. You can feel your underwear soak. The sternness in his voice made you instinctually slip out the words,

“Yes sir”

You part your lips and he's back at them, playing with your piercing before you push it back into his mouth to keep running the metallic ball along his interior. You really were a textbook people pleaser.

The hungry moan from his mouth falls into yours. You want nothing more than for him to spend hours here in this very position but it’s not up to you. It’s up to him to decide how long you are to receive his lips. Which to your disappointment, is not very long.

He gets up off of you and yanks on the end of the belt so that you are forced to lie down on the couch. He slips his hand out from under your back but your body weight on the end of the tether keeps your hands in position. He’s on top of you once more and you can feel his erection through his pants. Your eyes shift down to gaze at the bulge when he distracts you.

Kakashi reaches for the hem of your tight tank and pulls it over your head so that your face is trapped under the fabric. He pulls up your sports bra allowing your chest to fall out of the support. You hear his growl as his eyes fall on your tits. To his excitement you’ve been keeping a naughty secret from him. Each peak lay trapped between two black cones. You had pierced your nipples as well as your tongue.

“Oh I’m gonna have fun with you.”

Oh gods I hope so…

Kakashi dragged his tongue tantalizingly slow over each bud. They were more erect than usual from the hauntingly beautiful man kneeling over you. He lapped at your right nipple, letting his lower lip catch on the jewelry earning a gasp from you.

“F-fuck Kashi.”

Grabbing your breasts with both hands, Kakashi went back and forth sucking on each peak, tugging on your piercing, then blowing cold air on the wet tip before switching over to the other. Your back arched up towards him involuntarily. You wished you could have watched him play with you but instead you were trapped in your own shirt waiting for Kakashi to let you see.

When Kakashi started biting down on your nipples you moaned loudly at the pain. He was enjoying your piercings too much. They already made you more sensitive on a daily basis and now he was out to torture you for his own fun. You started to squirm under him and he slapped down on your tit.

“Ah”

“Be still”

He barked, but he didn’t actually want you to be still. He just wanted to see your internal struggle. He wanted to wreak havoc over your body the way his bitch of a boss was wreaking havoc over his life. For once he was in control and he loved it.

You rubbed your legs together, the arousal you felt was too much. You craved relief.

“Kashi” you whine

“Fine slut, here.” he switched your legs so instead of being under him they were wrapped around his waist.

“Grind on me and make yourself cum.”

You obey, glad to get some alleviation from the flood of need consuming you as his muscle continues to glide over your peaks, tugging and rubbing on the black hardwear. The sensation in your nipples tingling down to the nerves between your legs, rubbing heavily on Kakashi’s lap. You push into his clothed erection, creating heat from the friction. You feel the desire building as you get reprieve where you need it. Little gasps and moans generate under the shirt, as your core works to roll your hips up and down on him.

“Mmmm, keep going little slut. Show me how much you want to get fucked.”

He tugs particularly hard on your nipple as you try to reply

“Gahhh! Yes sir.”

He wished he could see how your face scrunched up as he played with his new favorite toys but there was just something so sexy about you being trapped in your shirt. It made him want to take advantage of you. Like you were some pathetic weakling, waiting for him to destroy you.

You grind more desperately, feeling close to a release. Kakashi begins to mark your chest while his fingers pinch and play with your nipples. He was driving you insane. Your mind clouding as your hips frenzied up and down along the bulge in his pants. Breath becoming labored as you frantically chased your orgasm.

Kakashi released his lips from your skin, satisfied with his artwork but fingers still playing with your tips.

“That’s it. I know you’re close. Show me how much you want me to stuff you.”

“Yes! Yes sir, yes!”

Kakashi was so tempted to grab your hips and finish the job but he held himself back. There was plenty of time left to manipulate you. This was you earning it. To keep his hands busy he brought one back up to your neck, bearing down on your windpipe while the other found the belt, giving it another tug to keep your hands under your shoulder blades.

You slowed your strokes making them big and heavy, tugging your lips through your pants and soon he could feel you shiver against him.

“Did the little slut make herself cum?”

“Mhm” you whine under your shirt.

“Good job” he praises with another swat to your chest.

Kakashi begins to rip down your pants, spitting on your pussy before giving it a wack of his palm. He then pulls the neck of your shirt above your face so that it is still binding your arms together but now you can at least see.

He stands up and begins to shed his clothes. You watch, mesmerized by his towering figure. His work at the gym was yielding mouth watering results and you couldn’t stop yourself from gawking. You wanted to lick between each muscle and leave bruises all along his abdominals the way he marked your tits.

“Lets put this mouth to better use, hmm?”

You nod, looking up through your lashes at him.

“On your knees, whore. Now!”

You slide off the couch to stand up on your knees before him. He pushes your head down to his balls for you to collect them in your mouth. You stick your pierced tongue out to pull them into where they belong while Kakashi strokes his freed boner violently.

You fit both orbs in between your lips and suck, running your pink muscle all over them, massaging them with the stainless steel ball resting at the center of your tongue.

“That’s right. You’re nothing more than a good mouth for sucking on my nuts.”

You hum in agreement and feel Kakashi’s balls tighten as you do. “Fuck, just a perfect little slut. Yes you are.”

You loved his praise. Your eyes closed as you savored the taste of him. He ripped his balls out of your mouth and replaced it with his pink tip. You looked him in the eyes while you worshiped it. Giving light kitten licks before wrapping your lips around it. That’s when you noticed. He had been keeping a kinky secret from you too. Your lips run over a dydoe piercing on the top rim of his mushroom head. Your eyes widen.

“You like?”

You nod your head keeping him inside your mouth. You suck and begin prodding at his slit with the tip of your pointed tongue before rubbing it with the ball in your mouth. Kakashi shivers from the feeling.

You start to take more of him in your mouth, keeping your tongue out so that the round stainless steel end massages his shaft as you bob up and down on him. You can feel the small silver studs adorning his rim rubbing the back of your throat and you can’t wait to know how they feel inside your empty cunt. But you don’t get to enjoy these musings for too long. Kakashi places both hands on the back of your head and starts ramming himself down your throat. You choke and he holds you there. Keeping you down on him. The drool in your mouth starts spilling past your lips.

“That’s a good girl. Keep my dick in your throat.”

Your face was turning bright red as you waited to breathe. Finally he pulled you back. You gasp and pant, swallowing what oxygen you could before he was shoving himself back in.

“Eyes open, I want you looking at me.”

You obey as he bullies your throat. His hands in your hair tilting your face up so he can gaze down on you. Drinking in the feeling of power, having you down on your knees before him.

“You gonna be a good little slut and service my cock, right?”

You try to say yes but it comes out muffled. “Huh? What’s that? I couldn’t hear you.”

You try again but he deliberately starts thrusting in and out of your mouth. “Speak up if you have something to say.”

You try to say yes again but now he is freely fucking your face, ramming himself down your windpipe, while he pushes your head towards him. Hissing from the feeling of your tongue ring at the base of his shaft. He had never thought about how that stupid little steel bar in your mouth could be so useful to him. Now he may never stop thinking about it.

“Good girl.” he coos, “Don’t forget to look up.”

You try but then he pushes himself extra far and your eyes snap shut as your core tightens. You think you’ve had about all you can take when he finally pulls you off of him and spins you around so your face lays on the couch with your feet planted on the ground, displaying your holes to Kakashi’s leering eyes.

He immediately goes to swat at your lips dripping with arousal. The sound of impact is loud as you cry out.

“This cute little pussy is for me, ey?”

“Yes!” you cry.

You want him in you so bad. You need to feel him fill your hole the way he filled your mouth. You are eager to feel just how good his piercing rubs your walls. You wiggle your behind, asking for him to enter.

“You think you deserve a reward for taking my cock in your mouth so good?”

“Please sir”

He brings the palm of his hand down hard on your rear. “You don’t get rewarded for doing the bare minimum.”

Your skin stings from the blow but then it’s washed away from his tip prodding at your entrance. He teasingly enters only half way, stroking you lightly before pulling out and striking you with immense force again. As you cry he reenters you, deeper than before. Stroking in and out hearing your moans before he pulls out again and strikes with even more force. You feel like your skin is burning when he plunges in all the way. He thrusts in and out quickly making you sing before he rips out of your tightening hole to strike you several times. He repeats the brutal process, taunting you.

“You think you’re special just cause you can take a dick? Ha! You’re just a little whore.”

You reply with cries and screams, noises falling out of you from the beating.

“You think you’re special cause I chose to shove my dick in you? Think again slut. You’re just a toy for my pleasure.”

Your skin felt like it was on fire. Your knees grew weak from the game. It felt too good but he was edging you. Giving you pleasure but pulling out and hitting you before you could get off.

He unwraps your wrists and finishes taking off your shirt and bra. He throws them across the room and loops the belt around your neck, tugging on the end like a leash. Your fingers desperately reach up to the leather.

He holds onto the belt while shoving himself into you, taking you from behind like the little sex doll that you are. He rails through you pushing your organs aside while tugging hard on the belt, letting it constrict around your throat as your back bows. Nothing but grunts make it past your lips as the backs of your thighs collide with his hips. With his free hand he keeps hitting your plush behind, watching the ripples wash over your skin.

Your hands find their way to the couch cushions for support but he doesn’t like that. No, you’re not helpless enough like that.

“Spread your cheeks”

“Yes sir” you whisper

You reach behind you and spread your fingers before sinking them into the flesh of your behind, tugging outward so Kakashi could get a full view of your puckered rear and his wide girth gliding in and out of your labia. He groaned at the sight of your beautiful submission. Reveling in the feeling of how much tighter he had to hold the leash now that more of your weight was resting on your neck.

You choke as he wraps the belt around his knuckles. A reminder that you are no longer in control. At work you were in charge of so many daily operations but at this moment you were at Kakashi’s mercy. You were relieved of any choices. Your current master made them for you. Even the choice to breathe had been stripped away and that thought made juices squelch around his member invading your silken cavern.

Kakashi thrusts into you, abusing you, taking out all his pent up frustration on your body. He sees your starting to go limp and lets up on your tether, opting to grab you at your elbows instead. The improved grasp on your body allows him to slam in more forcefully and hit you even deeper than he did before.

Now that the tension had fallen from your neck you were able to properly breathe again. You begin screaming from the new depths of Kakashi’s dick in your slit. Feeling how his ring was massaging you in his assault, dragging along your walls as they squeezed around him.

As much as he savored the sounds of your surrender, he couldn’t have your neighbors checking in on you so he grabbed one of the napkins from the coffee table and stuffed it in your mouth, gagging you so as to muffle your cries. You couldn’t help how noisy you were. The stimulation was just overwhelming.

Thinking it couldn’t get more intense, he shoves you forward so your knees fall onto the couch. He grabs your hair and pushed your face onto the back of it, while reaching around your waist to begin rubbing your swollen bud. He begins stroking again and you feel yourself unravel. Your hands go to grip the couch again when he yanks on your hair to bring your ear close to his mouth.

“Did I say you could let go of your ass?”

You shake your head and bring your hands back behind you. He shoves your head back down and says,

“Grab your elbows. This ass needs some punishment.”

You whine, knowing your bright red skin can’t handle any more spanking but that isn’t your decision to make. You fold your arms behind your back and hold onto your elbows, bent over the back of the couch, your erect nipples grazing the upholstery. He lifts a foot onto the couch, posed as Captain Morgan so as to keep himself inserted as he brings his hand down on your cheek. He feels how you clench up in pain, straining around his girth. It eggs him on as he continues spanking your backside. You flinch and cry but he knows you like it. He feels how you drip. Slick coating your inner thighs.

“Only a whore would enjoy this so much. Tell me, are you a whore?”

You scream into the napkin as he brings his hand down again.

“Answer me!”

You try to scream ‘yes’ but the fabric has you silenced. He snatches it out from between your teeth as he strikes you again.

“Yes!! Yes I love it sir!”

He shoves the napkin back in, satisfied with your answer.

“Fuckin knew it, filthy slut”

With a final slap he pulls your hips back so you’re lined up along the edge of the couch. He stands behind you, one hand digging into your hip, the other still tangled in your hair, burying your face into the back cushion of the couch.

He drags in and out of you slowly, taunting you. Each time coming out to the tip so your ridge feels the metallic studs tug at it. Then he buries himself up to the hilt, pushing in just a little more when he’s flush against your rear. Satisfied moans come from your chest.

He drops the hand on your hip and brings it back to your clit, rubbing circles around it. You squeeze around him and flinch. He leans down,

“Do you like when I rub there?”

“Mhm” is all you can say before he releases your hair to take hold of your hips. He starts driving in. Both hands now placed on the flesh of your waist, pulling you back into him harshly with each thrust. He gains speed, the momentum causing his balls to crash into your clit, replacing the work his fingers were doing. Your face melts into a pleasured expression as you feel that coil of tension, that had been building since his earlier edging, on the verge of snapping.

His brutal pace left his sack crashing into your clit relentlessly. Your face bounces against the cushions until you finally release. You spray as you shake, graffitiing the couch with your fluids, the tingling warmth of the orgasm radiating from your cunt.

Kakashi pile drives into you, not letting you rest, allowing his balls to continue slapping into your swollen, wet clit as you spray, making your jerk violently. He grabs your hips tighter, keeping control of your body so he can continue to pound into you. You scream and writhe, trying to escape his grasp, almost letting go of your elbows to push him off.

Your sensitivity was all consuming and he didn’t care at all. You were a toy, a fleshlight, poised to service him. He was going to take advantage of how tightly your walls were bearing down on him, even if it was uncomfortable for you.

Your cries fell on deaf ears as Kakashi sank himself into you. He pushed you forward on the couch more, making room for him to kneel behind you. He brought up one knee and lifted your leg to rest on top of it, spreading you when you were already too tender to take any more. The new angle deepened his access, allowing him to push your diaphragm out of the way as he chases his pleasure.

You were brilliant. Your sweaty slick covered body contorted to his every whim. The look of your fucked out face turning around to plead with him for mercy where none would be granted. How the napkin was wet around your lips from the drool collecting in your mouth. The bright red on your ass cheeks from taking a beating by his hand and the perky peaks of your tits, rubbing along the couch’s fabric. The cones of your piercings, threatening to snag, tempting his hands to toy with them again.

One hand planted on your hip, controlling the pace, while the other reached up and began groping your chest. He was obsessed with your nipples. The piercings were too enticing. As much as he loved the current position, he needed to see your tits.

He withdrew from inside of you with a loud squelch and pulled you down to the floor, your bare back making contact with the area rug below. You brought your knees up near your arm pits, holding them spread as Kakashi sunk his tip past your folds, stroking in and out of you passionately while his hand roamed the surface of your chest, playing with the bars piercing your buds. You make doe eyes at him as he does, making him smirk with pride. Maybe this is his new Friday night ritual with you. You spread your legs while he plays with your tits.

He bends his head to give them both a harsh suck before he adjusts your legs to go over his shoulders. You hands wrap around his neck as he starts to slam into your corridor. You scrunch up from the intensity. Your head burying into Kakashi’s neck before a particularly cruel snap of his hips had you flinging your head back, nails sinking into the skin at the base of his head, your back arching off the carpet before he leaned forward, bending you in two. He was close to finishing, pounding feverishly into you. The last of his stress melting away as he wrecks your pussy, shredding the inside, rubbing it raw, filling it with his precum. His anger turns to pleasure. Teetering once more on the brink of orgasm. He leans in even more and you fall over the edge, gushing around him, cum dripping from your folds and down your ass crack. Your mewls are muzzled by the napkin still stuffed in your mouth as mascara runs down your sweaty tear soaked cheeks. You are the picture of wrecked and it’s the hottest thing he’s ever seen.

Just as he’s about to burst he rips the napkin out of your mouth and grabs a fist full of your hair to drag your face to his cock so he can shoot his heavy load down your throat. You stick out your tongue and hollow your cheeks to pull as much cum from his shaft as you can, feeling it rhythmically spring to the back of your throat. His salty taste filling your mouth.

When he’s done, you hold the suction and bob your head some more. He flinches but you grab his waist, getting revenge for his earlier brutality after you squirted. He fists your hair and pulls back forcefully.

“Nice try slut.”

You smile up at him, feeling fully fucked out. Smiling back down at you, he kisses your face. He pulls you up but only to push you back down on the couch so he can lay on top of you and sloppily make out while he plays with your nipple piercings some more. You sleepily wrap your arms around him, drained from his pounding. 

“I’m spending the night.”

“Yes sir.” you whisper in your ear.

“Don’t get me riled up again. I don’t think you can take a second round.” he murmurs into your ear before kissing your temple. You ignore him and wrap your legs around his waist, grinding against him with your bare sex.

Stopping you before he gets carried away, he stands up and throws your body over his shoulder like a nap sack. He hoists you up to your bathroom to shower. 

After turning on the water he fingers you under the spray, pinning you against the wall and toying with his new obsession. Your already very weak knees are unable to hold your weight as they quake in pleasure. His digits bury themselves inside you, scoping out the damage done by his length minutes prior, feeling how he tore and scratched you. 

After making you cum a third time, fourth time total, he washes himself off. Then scrubs down your weakened form, being extra gentle around the rug burn on your back as well as your very bruised and beaten bottom.

Turning off the water and drying you both, he pulls your exhausted body to your bedroom, grabbing panties and a fresh tank top from the top drawer of your dresser. You slowly and sleepily put them on as he goes to get his briefs from the living room. When he returns he sees you try to put on pajama pants.

“Absolutely not.”

You stop in your tracks as he strides over to swat at your hand. He kicks the bottoms aside for the crime of trying to hide your beautiful body and takes posession over your mouth. Kissing you as he guides you backwards onto the bed. You climb in together and pull the covers up over your bodies while you wrap your leg over his hips. You sleepily grind on him with your eyes closed, sucking on his face, feeling wiped out from how he ravaged you.

He tickles your ear as he whispers, “You realize you’re not allowed to wear bras anymore.”

“I’m not?” you dreamily ask between kisses

“No” he replies with a pinch to your nipples through your shirt. “I need to see these at all times.”

“I can do that”

“Good slut”

You laugh into his mouth, continuing to kiss him. Excited for next Friday.

Masterlist

[survivorofstars]

dash game — get to know the mun!

(repost. don't reblog, please)

———————————————————————

name: Jess

pronouns: she/her

preference of communication: preferably here, but sometimes discord (it’s being a pain in the ass for me rn, however)

single/taken: this is a weird question but if you really want to know, I am (happily) taken

three facts:

This is probably already a dead give away but I absolutely love creative writing. Fun fact: I’m currently working on a fanfic based after the events of RE: Village. I originally started working on it in December of 2022 but I’ve only typed out 4 chapters so far (real life was a MESS at that time). However, I’ll post it to archive of our own sometime this summer, perhaps :)

I absolutely love video games. Just like with writing, I use it as an escape from reality and to just get lost in another world for a bit. Some of my all time favs are: The Last of Us (first one), The Evil Within 1 and 2, Resident Evil 2, 4, 5, and Revelations 2, Dead by Daylight, Dishonored, Uncharted series, Tomb Raider series, and honestly the list can go on, so I’ll just stop here lol

Here’s a cute, little fun fact: I own a Russian tortoise! He just turned 5 last month and his name is Bolt! I’ve had him since he was around 4 months old :)

writing experience:

I actually started writing on twitter when I was around 13 years old, and (DON’T LAUGH AT ME) it was for the Nickelodeon verse (such as iCarly, Big Time Rush, Victorious, etc…)

I know it’s cringey but please, I was only 13

Since then, I’ve migrated to here and roleplayer.me - (not really that active on it anymore, though). I’ve even tried a few rp servers that I’ve found while searching random forums in the past, but nothing has ever really panned out except for twitter and here. However, I’m more active here since twitter is a complete shitshow lmao

I’ve been writing in the video game verse specifically since 2020, in which I started writing both Ellie and Joel from The Last Of Us.

writing sub-genres:

For the past… 7 or so years, I’ve found myself mainly writing in the horror/thriller verse, with a dash of action/adventure and sci-fi at times. Horror is my NUMBER ONE favorite genre to write in. The excitement and chills I get when writing a gory story or lengthy, thrilling reply will never bore me. I live for that feeling. I’m also a horror fanatic, big Halloween movie fan.

plots vs. memes:

Oof, I’m very indecisive, so I’m going to have to say in the middle… it also kind of depends on my mood. Some days, I love writing out lengthy replies or starters developed from plotting, while other days I just feel like shooting out quick one to few liners that can crack a smile on your face or make you chuckle.

So, yeah. I’m a mix of both.

long or short replies:

Jesus.

Again, I’m very indecisive, so I’m going to say a mix of both (similar to above). It honestly just depends on my mood!

best time to write:

I personally enjoy writing in the late afternoon (around 3:30 - 4:00 ~ oddly specific, I know lol) since this is usually the time I get home from work and have already taken a shower. I usually try to spend about one hour grinding out some ic and ooc replies before I go eat dinner and complete some coursework. (I’m a college student :))

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tagged by: @captianwesker

tagging: @abioweapon , @d4ngerous

[cherriesfineline]

savior next door

im on a writing trance so expect a lot of writings from me hehe, here's what i wrote last night, enjoy besties.

- fluff & a tiny little bit of smut (not really lol) | not proofread, sorry

Pairing: HarryxY/N

WC: 3.8k

the one where Harry is Y/N's shy and virgin neighbor.

The constant feeling of uneasiness has been haunting Harry ever since he almost got himself in a car accident almost a year ago.

It hadn’t been his fault – he was crossing a random street in a quiet area of New York when a hand grabbed his upper arm and pushed him out of the crosswalk, where a car speeded through without even slowing down. “Watch where you’re going, you’re going to get yourself killed.” The woman who’d saved his life scolded at him with a worrying look on her face. He remembers her eyes were glowing in such a splendor, something he’d never seen before – it intrigued him to know who his life savior was, but before he could even make a comment, the woman stormed off and got lost between the seas of people around the corner, leaving Harry in an unsuccessful search for her.

Harry has never been a people person. He always avoids big crowds, social events and especially, study groups. His university journey so far has been a lonely and reserved one, having movie marathons when not studying or discovering new kinds of herbal teas. His only form of social interaction is the occasional chat with his across-the-hall neighbor Niall, whom he considered -kind of- a close friend; his only one, in fact.

“Heard someone’s moving in to the flat next to yours.” Niall knows Harry isn’t exactly a social butterfly, and maybe it’s the fact that Harry is younger than him and how he seems like such a harmless human what makes him feel like he needs to help him. Harry just shrugs at his comment, not really interested in any possible intruder to their peaceful hallway (where both their apartments and the currently empty one in the corner were the only three ones on their floor). And maybe it was the fact that it has been almost a month since Niall’s comment what made him furious when he saw the cardboard boxes on their hallway, forgetting about the possibility of having a new neighbor.

The sudden sound of glass crashing and a loud yell snaps Harry out of his frustrated trance, stepping around the huge boxes scattered around the door next to his to knock on the doorway of the open door. Even if he really isn’t very fond of having a new neighbor that doesn’t mean he’s not going to check on them to see if they’ve gotten hurt. “Is everything alright?” He still can’t see whoever is inside, but he decides on waiting if no one replies to step inside. But he doesn’t need to, because as he was about to make his way inside, a head pops up from one side of the entry hallway, assuming that’s where the kitchen is, as he notices the apartment is a replica of his own, but inverted.

“Hey, sorry, just dropped my favorite cup.” His breath gets caught on his throat when her life savior’s face appears in sight, the cutest frown adorning her features and her sweet voice resonating through his brain. Her eyes, exactly like he remembers shine with an unbeatable glow, like a thousand diamonds under a microscope, but the image he had of her on his brain doesn’t make her justice – she is even more beautiful than he remembers. “I’m Y/N, nice to meet you. You live in this floor?” Harry can’t help but be disappointed at the fact that apparently she doesn’t remember him.

“Y-yes, next door. H-harry.” He stutters. Her presence just makes him so nervous, he can’t help it. She is probably one of, if not the, most beautiful woman he’s ever laid eyes on. Her eyes are hypnotizing, the softness of them which appears to be constant warms his insides and he thinks he could spend hours upon hours staring right at them.

“Do I know you? I feel like I know you.” Y/N’s thinks out loud, her expression alluding to her thoughts trying to place him somewhere in her memories.

“Uh, I- I don’t think so?” Harry feels embarrassed, so he couldn’t come up with a better answer. He is silently hoping she doesn’t remember the time they met all that time ago – this is his chance, he thinks, to redeem himself, for her to see him as a normal dude instead of this clumsy and shy boy who couldn’t even thank her when she saved him from being ran over by a car.

He wishes he could read her mind. What’s her first impression on him? Does she think he’s cute? She probably doesn’t. He thinks she’s too pretty to even spare a second glance at someone like him; a shy boy with bad posture and still breaking out in his forehead despite being 22. And she, Y/N, a woman who could make anyone her own, a woman who probably makes every head turn her way when entering a room. Harry feels his chest deflate as his thoughts start beating him up.

During the course of her first two months living next door, Y/N and Harry barely interact. He keeps stealing glances her way whenever they run into each other in the hallway, getting shy and cheeks reddening when she catches him every time. He gets jealous whenever he hears her walking down the hallway from inside his apartment, obvious guests coming in and out of her apartment – and if the person (because he recalls hearing both men and women) is good enough, he can even hear her sometimes through the thin wall that divides their bedrooms, her headboard clearly mirroring his. He feels dirty and intrusive during nights like these, so he opts on putting headphones on, music playing in his phone to help him drift off to sleep.

But Y/N is fascinated by him, maybe not as much as he is with her, but enough to wonder how it’d be like to reallyhave him in her life. She knows he’s a very reserved man, her animated chats with Niall more usual than not drift towards Harry and how she wishes he’d just keep looking at her when she catches his eye instead of running away – not because her ego is enormous or anything, but she is aware of the obvious crush Harry has on her. “He’s not going to start conversation, you should just go for it.” She remembers Niall told her one night after having a small chat in his threshold; because all Niall wants is for Harry to put himself out there, but he knows he needs a little extra push.

But it all changes one night. A night Y/N drinks more than usual – shot after shot going down her throat making her feel nothing but dizzy, the sensation of puke going up her throat forcing her to call it a night. Barely making it out of the elevator she stumbles on her way to her door, and Harry hears her. The sound her combat books make is so engraved in Harry’s brain he knows it’s her after just a couple of steps.

“Fuck.” Harry hears the unmistakable sound of her keys, and how she’s clearly struggling to fit them inside the lock. After a loud banging sound and what sounds like her sliding down the door, he starts worrying about her and how she’s probably not going to make it inside her apartment without a little help. So he steps outside after sliding his old white vans on to find her on the floor leaning against her door, legs bent and elbows resting on either knee supporting her head.

“Y/N?” He calls her in a whisper. She shoots her head up immediately making her insides turn, and with unfocused eyes, she looks up at him and smiles fondly.

“Hey, pretty boy.” She greets him with a soft smile, eyes closing and opening again slowly and Harry feels his stomach erupt in a thousand butterflies. Did she just call him pretty boy?

“You need help?”

“Please.” Harry’s red cheeks don’t go unnoticed by her the moment she lifts her hand to give him her keys and she honestly thinks he might explode. He helps her get up and guides her inside her home with such gentle movements she could melt in his hold, and that’s when she decides (drunk out of her mind) she wants him to hold her again, soon. And while sober.

He lays her down in her bed and announces he’s going to take her shoes off, giving her enough time to object. “I always catch you staring, you know?” Her thoughts slip off her lips unannounced, but she doesn’t really care. Harry, on the other hand, freezes in his spot, one of her shoes still in hand and with wide eyes he connects their gazes for the second time that night.

“I- I… I’m sorry- I don’t mean to be c-creepy or anything I j-just-“

“Shh.” She cuts him off, his stuttering making its first appearance of the night. “Didn’t say I don’t like it.” She confesses and wiggles her feet so he can resume his actions. Harry’s brain is betraying him more than usual right now. His thoughts are everywhere, not a single coherent answer coming to mind, so he doesn’t do anything but finish helping her out of her shoes in silence.

“Goodn-night, Y/N.” Harry left her apartment that night after carefully placing a soft blanket over her body and making sure she had a glass of water on her nightstand (he didn’t want to snoop around her apartment for some pills for her hangover, so he just left her with the duty of doing that herself in the morning) and laid in bed with so many thoughts running through his head he barely got an hour of sleep that night.

And that went on for a week. Knowing she was sleeping on the other side of the wall makes him more nervous than before now that he knows Y/N is aware of his constant staring – but who would blame him? She really is a sight for sore eyes. Y/N knocks on his door the following Saturday, and he opens it surprised to find her on the other side, mainly because she’s usually out with her friends by now every Saturday (not that he’s constantly waiting to hear her walk on their hallway, but he truly is always sitting on his living room and the thin walls of their apartment complex don’t provide them much privacy).

“Harry, hi.” She offers him the sweetest smile, but there’s a shy and nervous undertone to it this time. “I just wanted to thank you, for helping me the other night.” She clasps her hands together in front of her and nods with a tight lipped smile. “But I also want to apologize, I know I probably made you uncomfortable with uh, some comments I made.” She slightly scrunches her nose, waiting for his reply.

But Harry is, in simple words, speechless. He can’t believe there’s a sober Y/N who just knocked on his door willingly talking to him. Her voice sounds so melodic and Harry just wants to cuddle her and the giant, soft looking green sweater she’s wearing isn’t helping him ease his thoughts. He wants Y/N to hold him while she talks to him with that sweet voice of hers, he wants to hold her small hands and fill her cheeks and mouth with kisses along with every inch of her body -not that she’d ever let him, Harry thought, but a boy can dream-, but most importantly, he wants to learn every single detail about her. How she likes her coffee in the mornings, or if she prefers tea. In which position she sleeps the most comfortable in and if there’s any TV shows she re-watches just because it brings her comfort. He has so many questions he wants to ask her he completely forgets they’d been standing in his threshold for long minutes, with him just staring at her.

“It’s ok, don’t worry.” He says barely above a whisper, and they stay in their positions for a while, again with no words spoken between them, until he finally gains enough courage to ask, “Do you want to come in?” He opens his door a bit wider with a wary look on his face. Y/N nods, her smile widens and makes her eyes sparkle with that glow Harry is still fascinated by.

They sit in the couch with a long distance between them; farther away from the other than any of them like. Y/N does most of the talking, but she truly doesn’t mind – she talks animatedly about this new show Bridgerton she binge watched last night, Harry making mental notes about most things she says. He wants to remember everything, from the way her voice slightly sharpens when she mentions something she suddenly remembers to the way she moves her hands to accompany her speech; he already loves how expressive she is with her face features, and only confirms how he’d listen to her speak for the rest of his life.

Y/N manages to get more words out of him than she expected, and asks for his opinion or thoughts on most things she mentions. She hates making conversation purely about herself, she wants to know about Harry as much as she can. She wishes he would initiate conversation or switch topics with no shame, but she knows she’s asking for too much. This night alone they interacted more than the last three months combined, and Y/N is grateful for it.

Three chapters of FRIENDS had passed when she finds herself scooting a bit closer to him, carefully trying to read his body language. When he stiffens in his position, she turns her head to look at him. His cheeks are tinted a cute shade of pink, and he’s blinking a lot more than he usually does. He places both hands on his thighs and runs them up and down to get rid of the sweat accumulating on them, and he can’t help but gasp when their thighs touch, meaning she scooted even closer. As if that isn’t enough to kill him, she softly rests her head on his shoulder.

“Is this ok?” Y/N whispers, and he forces himself to turn his head to find her eyes, which are already looking up at him. He slowly nods and makes the dumb mistake of looking down at her lips. He feels the hot embarrassment run up his neck and quickly turns to face his TV again, planning on pretending nothing ever happened.

That is, until he feels the soft skin of her palm and gentle fingers grab his jaw, forcing his gaze back on her. That touch alone makes him feel more than any other human has made him feel in his entire life – but it doesn’t compare to the eruption of jitteriness washing through him when her eyes look down at his lips.

“Can I kiss you?” Harry freezes in his spot. He wonders if he heard her correctly, not believing his senses when around her, the possibility of her wanting to kiss him are too low, he thinks, and when he doesn’t respond, she slowly begins to remove her hand from his face, taking a guess on his unspoken rejection. He, for once, reacts quickly enough; he grabs her by her wrist, placing her hand back again in its spot on his jaw, and works enough courage to just go for it. Harry lowers his face to gently envelope her top lip between his own. It’s quick but sweet (just like she had expected their first kiss to be, if she’d ever got lucky enough to experience it) and when he moves away just enough to separate her lips, she wastes no time in connecting them again. This time, the kiss is longer and with more determination than before, and when Harry feels Y/N melt into him, he gains enough confidence to grab her face with both of his hands, deepening the kiss.

They stay enveloped in each other for a while, mouths molding and moving in sync with so many unspoken emotions it feels overwhelming for both – they barely know each other, they’re very aware of it, but the undeniable infatuation they both feel is stronger than they’d ever admit. Y/N feels on her face the long exhale that leaves through Harry’s nose when she softly traces his bottom lip with the tip of her tongue, and when he meets her tongue with his, the mood that was settled between them switches drastically – from sweet and innocent to needy and passionate.

Harry isn’t very experienced with kissing, let alone with anything past first base. He’d only made out with a girl all the way back in high school during his senior prom, and the girl was so harsh and desperate Harry knew that moment he wouldn’t ever share an intimate moment with anyone again unless he truly felt something for them. Now, he knows it might seem like he’s rushing things in his heart, but he’d do anything with and for Y/N – but he knows he’s not ready just yet.

His nervousness consumes him again when she moves to straddle his lap, making him whimper at the new position. He shakily places his hands next to her legs on the couch, not sure what is too much and what is ok to do. She runs her hands from his jaw down to his shoulders, and moves them all the way down his arms to his hands, giving them a soft squeeze before placing them on her waist and sliding her own back up again towards his neck, never breaking the kiss.

He unintentionally lets a second whimper leave his mouth when she sits herself down on his lap, creating some friction between their groins. He knows he’s hard – he felt his dick grow in his pants the second she touched his jaw, but knowing Y/N could feel it now put him a tad on edge. He separates their lips; their agitated breathing mixing in between them.

“I- I’ve never…” Harry begins, but he’s having a hard time finding the correct words. Y/N understands almost immediately – she’s not proud to admit she had figured he was unexperienced, feeding the stereotype of shy-ergo-virgin, even though she was correct this time.

“We won’t do anything you don’t want to,” Y/N gives him a soft peck and continues, “you can say no, but I’d love to make you feel good, if you’d let me. We can keep our clothes on.” Y/N suggests. If she has to be honest, she hasn’t dry-humped anyone since high school, but the thought of doing it with Harry lights her insides in animalistic flames.

When Harry timidly nods, she shakes her head with her eyebrows raised in a disapproving look, “Use your words, H.”

“I- I want you to- to do it. I- I trust you.” His stuttering makes Y/N’s insides warm, the fact that she makes him nervous amuses her – she’s certain she’s never made anyone this nervous before, but it is the fact that Harry admitted he trusts her what sends shivers down her spine. All she does in response is roll her hips against his – and when he closes his eyes with a pleasured groan leaving his lips, she does it again. Harry’s grip on her waist lowers to her hips, squeezing the flesh that was subtly beginning to get exposed from all the movement, and when he throws his head back Y/N takes advantage of his exposed neck to finally attach her lips to it. Her hold on one side of his face moves to grip his jaw, turning his head slightly to the side so she can suck on the sweet spot behind his ear still rolling her hips on his, and when she pokes the spot with her tongue to soothe the pleasuring sting, he unconsciously thrusts his hips up to meet hers; Y/N can’t help but smile and leave a trail of sweet, wet kisses from his new deepening bruise to the place where his neck meets his shoulders, repeating her actions there to leave a second bruise.

Harry feels his cock twitch in his pants when Y/N rolls her hips with more pressure, and they both know he’s close - his inexperience making him not last longer than a couple of minutes. “Are you going to cum for me?” Y/N asks him, holding his jaw tightly to keep his gaze on hers, and when he shyly nods she adds, “I want you to look at me when you do it.”

Harry can’t believe what’s going on – he has the most beautiful woman in the word on top of him about to make him cum, and he’s sure he’s going to come so hard he’ll probably have to throw his briefs into the trash. Her gaze staring so intensely into his eyes is what makes his insides finally explode, his eyes seeing white for a moment – with his mouth open ajar and glossy eyes he feels the large amount of cum spurting from his cock, making a mess inside his pants. The pleasure and fullness he feels during this moment is something he has never experienced before, never thinking he would surrender this fast over someone else’s actions. Y/N slows her movements but doesn’t stop for a while, allowing him to empty his insides until he hisses at the friction. Harry hugs her lower back to pull her closer to him, and Y/N lets her head drop to his shoulder so they can both catch their breaths.

They stay like that for a while, hugging each other with Y/N running her hand softly through his chocolate curls and Harry tracing small circles on the small of her back.

“You saved me from a car accident, a year or so ago.” Harry confesses – the pure bliss he’s feeling makes him dizzy and unaware of his words.

“I know. I remember.” Y/N confesses herself, and when Harry’s soft caresses stop at her back, she removes her head from the warm spot on his neck to look at him in the eyes, finding a confused frown in his eyebrows and lips in a small pout – she kisses him soft and quickly, not being able to contain herself. “I figured you either didn’t remember or didn’t bring it up for a reason, so I chose to not mention it.” She shudders and gives him a soft smile.

“Was embarrassed, still am.” Harry whispers with red cheeks, and Y/N’s laugh resonates through his living room, and if he wasn’t already obsessed with her, her laugh completes his way there.

“So cute.” She pecks his lips. “Can’t believe it took us this long to… talk.” Another peck. A knowing look on her face knowing damn well they did more than talking.

“You are too pretty. And intimidating. Can’t even walk in front of you without tripping over my own feet.” Y/N giggles at his confession, finding him even more amusing.

“Do you want to go on a date tomorrow?” Y/N asked, not being able to wait another day to ask. Harry feels his cheeks hurting from all the smiling, but he is too content in this moment.

“I’d love to.”

x

As always, feedback is truly appreciated,

love, Joey.

[mst3kproject]

The Neanderthal Man

Since I'm taking a break from fishmen, I might as well let Bigfoot catch up a bit.  The Neanderthal Man isn't exactly a Bigfoot movie, but it’s along the same lines and its entire starring cast has MST3K pedigrees.  Robert Shayne was in Indestructible Man and Teenage Caveman. Richard Crane was Rocky Jones, Space Ranger! Beverly Garland was in Swamp Diamonds and Gunslinger. Even the composer, Albert Glasser, wrote music for Invasion USA, Last of the Wild Horses, and almost all of MST3K’s Bert I. Gordon movies.

Some little mountain town in the middle of the Sierras (which the Portentous 50's Narrator takes some trouble to tell us is a primeval place where 'the defacing hand of civilization has fallen but lightly') is having a rash of saber-toothed tiger sightings!  At first these are laughed off, but when the game warden himself sees one cross the road in the middle of the night, it's time to do something about it.  The warden shows a cast pawprint to Dr. Ross Harkness in Los Angeles, who is interested enough to come up and see for himself. Local Mad Scientist Dr. Groves pooh-poohs the whole thing, which is enough to tell me that we're not dealing with a local cryptid here.  Somebody is making prehistoric monsters.

So... I may not have actually run out of movies, but I seem to be running out of plots, because this is a remarkably similar movie to Monster on the Campus. The major difference between the two films is that Dr. Blake turned himself into a caveman by accident, while Dr. Groves here is doing it on purpose.

Another difference is that Monster on the Campus' story, while silly, was linear – events escalated in a way that felt logical, and there were reasons why things happened when and where they did.  By contrast, The Neanderthal Man feels like a first draft.  At the beginning of the film, we're dealing with the saber-toothed tigers that Groves has been creating by injecting cats with his de-evolution serum.  We hear about these slaughtering game and livestock, and it seems like only a matter of time before they move on to human beings.  The beginning of the film is quite upfront about the fact that Groves is responsible, too, as it is only mildly mysterious in its depiction of one of the creatures escaping his lab.

Sometimes the saber-tooths are represented by an actual tiger, usually filmed from behind or at a great distance so nobody has to put the prosthetic teeth on it.  They do have prosthetic teeth, but they're only visible in a couple of shots. Imagine being at a bar and some guy tells you his job is sticking fake fangs on real tigers for a caveman movie!  For close-ups, there's a hilarious puppet head that looks like the sort of thing you'd see mounted on a frat house wall as a joke.  The director had the sense not to linger on this in motion shots, but later we see still photographs Groves has supposedly taken of his experimental subjects and they're even stupider-looking than we imagined.

Anyway, this goes on for a while with rising action, as the game warden goes to get Harkness and they manage to shoot one of the animals, only to have it vanish from the kill site when they try to show it to Groves (the movie never bothers to explain how that happened, incidentally. The ending suggests that the creatures change back when they die, but there's definitely no dead kitty cat at the scene, either).  The whole movie could easily have just had the cats and their creator as the antagonists, perhaps even ending the same way as Dr. Groves proves his work to the other characters by injecting himself. That's not what happens, though.  Instead, the story mostly forgets about the cats one we find out Groves has also been carrying on human experiments.

(Before himself, Groves' first experimental subject was his disabled Latina housekeeper.  Another series of photos show her half-transformed into a cavewoman who for some reason is wearing drag queen false eyelashes.  And as long as I'm talking about the movie being gross and bigoted, there's a bit where a woman is violently raped.  This happens off camera, but the audience is not allowed to entertain any illusions about it.)

The problem is that before we see him give himself an injection in the arm, we have had absolutely no indication that Groves has been giving his serum to anything besides the cats! Cats are stealthy, cryptic creatures and if one of those has been seen wandering around killing things, then surely a full-on caveman beating people to death would not be able to stay out of sight!  If what we were seeing were the first time Groves had tried the formula on himself then that would be an explanation, but his notes reveal that he's been doing it for so long that he's on the verge of losing control of the transformation and permanently reverting to a pre-human status, as indeed he does for the climax.  Much like the stupid dinosaur in The Beast of Hollow Mountain, the movie's main monster is given no build-up whatsoever!

There's worse yet, though.  The main characters, Dr. Harkness and Groves' daughter Jan, are barely involved in the 'caveman' part of the plot. They get phone calls about the various murders that Groves is committing in caveman form, and they snoop around the lab to figure out things the audience already knows.  The same story could have been told without them, perhaps with the game warden and the hunter as protagonists, and it would probably have been more interesting. The script also repeatedly has Dr. Groves wander in and bluster about how the tiger sightings are hallucinations and tall tales, which seems a little unnecessary when we already know he's responsible. The film-makers can't seem to decide whether they want us to know that or not.

Dr. Groves wears glasses.  Maybe the reason his primitive alter-ego is angry and breaking shit (although it does politely open and close the window it climbs out of, which made me laugh) is because it can't see. This is also my theory about why the Hulk smashes, and what do you know?  In Avengers Endgame he's got Hulk-sized spectacles and only smashes when he's told!

The direction of The Neanderthal Man can probably best be described as 'serviceable'.  It shows us what's going on, but doesn't particularly add anything to the proceedings.  The 'Neanderthal' mask is immobile and uninteresting, not much better than somebody's Party City Sasquatch costume.  Even the eyes are just painted on, meaning the poor guy in the costume can’t do much because he can’t see where he’s going.

The dialogue is often very strange, with characters talking like they're in a Jules Verne novel. If only one person did this, it might seem like a character quirk – it works for Dr. Groves, for example – but it's everybody. Seeing the cat carcass is gone, Harkness declares, “I refuse to believe in the supernatural!  There must be some logical cause and effect to this unholy adventure!”  Groves' fiancee Ruth berates him for ignoring her, saying, “I want you, the man I once knew!  The good companion, the cheerful friend.  I want the happiness we once found in each other.”  It's bizarre to listen to, and often audibly awkward for the actors.

Monster on the Campus was kind of trying to be about how humanity must choose to evolve away from our inner savage, although the finale didn't bear that out.  There's a scene in The Neanderthal Man in which this movie seems to be trying to go in the opposite direction, saying that we were never savage to begin with.  Dr. Groves is speaking to a panel of scientists about the size of the brain in various 'primitive' species of human.  He points out that by the time we reached Homo erectus we were already working with four times the cerebral jelly of a chimpanzee, and argues that our ancestors would have been recognizably human in their behaviour and problem-solving capacity.

(Amusingly, his chart of human evolution includes Piltdown Man, which was proven to be a hoax literally a few months after this movie's release.  What makes this even more tragic for the writers is that their list of primitive humans seems to be the only place where they actually did any research.)

The problem with Dr. Groves' theory is that he already knows it's wrong. We soon learn that he's been experimenting on himself with his serum for a while already, and his notes show that he knows very well he regresses into a near-mindless animal.  The movie does not even try to reconcile these ideas.  If Groves were continuing his experiments in the hope that perfecting his serum would give him a more accurate reconstruction of ancient man, that would be one thing, but the script never goes there.

So now that we've had two 'man turns into caveman by injecting science juice' movies, of course I have to ask which one is better.  Monster on the Campus wasn't a good movie but it was definitely an improvement on The Neanderthal Man in several respects, and although I don't have any way to find out for certain, I suspect it was an intentional remake.  It's definitely more entertaining and gets bonus points for including the Meganeura dragonfly, but nothing in it is nearly as funny as The Neanderthal Man's fake tiger head.  I guess if you're gonna watch one or the other, stick to Monster on the Campus, but if you're gonna watch both, start with The Neanderthal Man and do them in chronological order, the better to spot the inspirations and references.

Before I go, a fun paleontology fact: current thinking is that the saber-toothed cat's eponymous fangs actually didn't show when it had its mouth closed!  There are zero cave paintings or ancient sculptures of a saber-tooth cat with teeth visible, and when scientists looked at the structure of the enamel in the canines, it suggested that in life the teeth were hidden by big, fleshy, St Bernard jowls.  Google 'smilodon lips' and behold how this looks fully three hundred percent more ridiculous than you're imagining.  I love nature.

[xaspiringbeamoflightx]

1 to 30 (yes, all the questions)

What did you dream about last night?

“I was shipwrecked on an island with my friends and there was a cookie shortage. I staged a mutiny to get the cookies and lost, so they put me in the handshaking room where I had to shake hands with men who had really sweaty palms until I apologised.”

What is your favorite color?

“Well, obviously it’s pink,” she said, gesturing to the plethora of green items currently surrounding her.

Do you feel more connected to the moon or the sun?

“The sun. Freckle me up, baby!”

Have you ever wished on a shooting star?

“Of course! Can’t tell you what I wished though, it hasn’t come true yet.”

Name a movie that makes you genuinely laugh.

“The first Scooby-Doo movie, every single time.”

When’s the last time you felt like you were floating?

“Like three days ago. Iridessa made some brownies. They were potent.” @iridessa-sol

What do you enjoy daydreaming about most?

“The future, I guess? Like... what my house is going to look like, or my wedding. And I think I daydream about my friends a lot too.”

Do you believe in guardian angels?

“I think I did at some point. If they exist, mine has fucked off a few years ago.”

What’s a smell that reminds you of home?

“Lavender and Honey.”

What is something (or someone) you’re in love with?

“James! I love him. Probably too much, to be honest. It’ll probably kill me.”

Describe the memory of the last time you felt true happiness.

Tina has to think about it through the fog of all the not-great feelings she has had over the last few months. “James and me were in the kitchen. I think it was last Sunday. He was making that really nice casserole that I like, and I was sitting on the counter while the kettle boiled for our tea. He was mixing the stock in the pot and humming to himself. He just looked really... content? And then he caught me staring because I let the water over boil, and he gave me a kiss, and let me try the sauce and it was just really nice... He’s turning me into a sap.” @magicaljameshook

Name a song that makes you feel ethereal.

“Freshly Laundered Linen by Boom Forest.”

What’s your ideal summer aesthetic?

“Like clothing-wise? Short dress, short-shorts underneath, grass-stained knees and a daisy chain on my head.”

Talk about one of your most cherished childhood memories.

“Uh... The day me and Peter and the Lost Boys finished building the treehouse. We all carved our names at the foot of the tree, and made a pact. Which... well, you can guess how that pact is going. I don’t really feel like talking about old memories right now. You can ask them about it instead.”

Talk about something exciting or good that happened to you this year.

Once again, sifting through the fog. “I’ll be honest, everything that has happened since I got engaged last Christmas is a bit of a blur and I can’t remember if things happened last year or this year. Oh! James and me started doing some wedding planning! That’s been exciting.”

Where do you feel most at home?

“I don’t really know anymore... I guess I should say James’ house, but... his house is too big, and it doesn’t really feel like my home. It’s his, and I just sort of sleep in it. I feel home when I’m with him, but that’s not really a where. I feel pretty at home in my apartment, but I’m giving up my lease soon, and I’m hardly there now. I can’t say the Lost Boy’s treehouse, can I? I’m not allowed there anymore. The trees kind of feel like home too, by extension. I don’t know! I don’t know.”

What is something you own that is important to you? What makes it so important?

“I have a teapot of important keepsakes in my kitchen that I’ve kept since I moved into my apartment. I have my first friendship bracelet that I made for me and Peter in there, it was the first thing I put in, but my wrist is too fat for it now. And James’ mom’s ring, the one he used when we did that fake proposal game, before I liked him. I should probably get rid of that, his mom is horrible. But it’s pretty, and it was the first thing he ever gave me...”

Do you believe dreams have meanings or are they completely random?

“Oh, for sure they meanings! I don’t know what my cookie mutiny dream meant, but it for sure meant something!”

Do you believe in love at first sight?

“Only when it comes to teapots.”

What’s the sweetest thing someone has done for you?

“A few summers ago, someone spiked my drink at a festival and I got really sick. Well, I say sick, I had a, like... I don’t know, a depressive episode or something stupid like that and it lasted way too long. Anyway, James was the only one that really checked up on me, even though I had been really horrible to him not long before. He ran me a bath and made me something to eat, and made sure I was okay.  “

Do you believe in mermaids?

“Uh, yes. Because they are real, and they will sing you down into the murky depths to your death.”

What do you like most about nature?

“Nothing brings you back to being a little kid like nature does. The smell of fresh cut grass, the sound of the wind rustling through the trees, or feel of the air as a big summer storm is rolling in over the hills. It just reminds me of coming home with dirt on my dress and grass stains on my knees after playing outside with the Lost Boys all day.”

What’s your zodiac sign? Do you think you fit the general characteristics of that sign?

“I’m a Leo! Google says we are lively, fun, loyal, and honest which I think definitely describes me, right?” *snorts* “It also says Leos want deep devotion, focused attention at the proper times, and experience. That sounds about right.”

Are you more of a hopeless romantic or realist?

“I think everyone would be quick to disagree if I said realist.“

What’s a song that gives off good vibes anytime you listen to it?

“What I Like About You by Lillix (the superior version, just saying).”

Do you usually remember your dreams?

“If they’re really weird, then yeah.“

Have you ever written a love letter?

“Oh God, no! What am I? A sap?”

Name a book you don’t mind reading over and over.

“I don’t think I’ve ever read a book all the way through ever in my entire life.”

Do you collect anything? And what are some hobbies you have?

“Teapots! Broken ones, old ones, new ones. Bring me your teapots! I like fixing them. I also collect trinkets and shiny things and anything glittery. I also like playing with make-up and skin care, and drinking tea on the front step (that’s a hobby, right?) and making moodboards!”

What do you do to feel at peace?

“Fixing teapots. You can’t be angry when you’re trying to fix something or it just gets worse...”

[imagine-docx]

for b.

Summary: The three times Bucky was insecure, and the one time you proved you loved him with your entire heart. [continuation of sneaky] [chubby!neighbour!au]

Warnings: body shaming, self doubt, swearing

A/N: the amount of love i got on sneaky is astronomical! thank you all for reading my work, and for those of you who asked, here’s a lil part 2 for you. - amanda 💛

if you haven’t read sneaky, click here to read it. reading it isn’t necessary, but many highly recommend reading it. 

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

You’ve made thousands of horrible decisions over the course of your life, but dating James Buchanan Barnes is not one of them. Dating him is probably one of the best things to happen to you. You still get butterflies anytime he picks you up from work, spontaneously calls you, random ‘i love you texts’, the entire works.

Since dating Bucky, you’ve seen his insecurities at an all time high. Which was completely understandable considering what happened to him in his last relationship.

For the first three weeks, he always tried hiding his metal arm. That was until one night you two were watching a movie in your living room and you practically had to crawl into his metal arm and reassure you loved him, metal arm or not.

He constantly shied away from your cell phone’s camera. Which ultimately resulted in you taking cute couple photos when he was asleep, and his face was buried in your neck, but he doesn’t know those photos exist.

One night the two of you were working at your living room table and he bent to give you a slice of pie, and his stomach accidentally brushed your arm. Which resulted in word vomit from him apologizing, and you opening the floodgate of reassurance telling him not to apologize and he was the cutest thing to exist.

The longer the two of you dated, it got slightly better, but still your heart ached at the fact that he doesn’t see himself as worthy enough to date you.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

The morning after the first time you two had sex, was probably the worst you’ve seen him at.

That morning he rolled over to wrap his arm around you, but that was until he was greeted with a cold and empty space next to him. He opened his eyes and realized you were gone. He rolled back onto his back and covered his eyes with his flesh arm, and felt the tears form in his eyes. He knew you would be too disgusted at his naked body, and were right to run when you could.

He suddenly felt a weight straddling him, as well as a pair of soft hands cradle his face, “Baby? What’s wrong?”

His eyes snapped open, there you were in one of his old red henleys and your panties, “You’re here? I thought you left,” he managed to stammer out.

“Alpine looked like he was about to kill you if you withheld food from him for another twenty minutes. Though I love Alpine, I love having a super cuddly boyfriend more,” you said stroking the stubble that littered his jaw, “Now what’s got my baby boy upset?”

“I thought you left after seein-” you cut him off before he even got to his point.

“Nope, and I never will,” you looked into his eyes, “Buck, I love you for you. Six pack or not. Metal arm or not. That doesn’t change the fact that I love you, and will continue to love you.” You pushed the stray strands of hair out of his face, “I fell in love with that heart of gold you have. The one that cooks me dinner when I work late because he’s worried I'm not eating good. Or when he comes and picks me up out of nowhere for coffee. Or all those times we’ve cuddled while watching movies and you pretend you don’t fall asleep. Hell even when you’re pissed off at Mario Kart. I love everything about you.”

Bucky teared up once again before pulling you into his arms and engulfing you in the tightest hug you’ve ever gotten. He buried his face into your hair, “I love you so much doll.”

“I love you more Buck, don’t forget that,” you said stroking his back.

“Can we stay here all day?” He asked.

“As much as I want to say yes, we need food,” you said, as he pulled away and looked into your eyes.

“All the food I need is here,” he said squeezing at your hips.

“Listen babe, as much as this is fun, you worked up an appetite. I’m gonna need to eat if you’re gonna be jumping at my bones all day,” you said stroking his hair, “I got Wanda to drop off bagels and coffee, so we need to eat.”

He groaned before letting out a, “Fine.” He untangled himself from you, and got up and put on a pair of boxers, he looked back to see you looking at him biting your lower lip. “Are you checking me out?”

“Why wouldn’t I? You’re the hottest thing to walk this earth,” you said getting up from the bed.

He wrapped his arms around your waist before planting a peck onto your lips, “I love you.”

You wrapped your arms around his neck, “I love you more. Now go brush your teeth and I’ll meet you downstairs.”

He planted another soft one before releasing you, and the moment he turned around, he felt a light tap on his ass. He turned back to see you practically ran out of the bedroom giggling. You would be the death of James Buchanan Barnes.

The rest of your day consisted of random love making on random surfaces, cuddling, napping and eating.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

The second time you’ve caught his insecurities at a high was one night that the entire office had to go for drinks late in the evening and he shot you a ‘SOS’ text.

You let yourself in with the key he gave you and made your way up to his bedroom, walking in, you saw the amount of clothing that buried his bed, and Alpine snuggled against one of his military green t-shirts.

You saw Bucky’s back in the closet, you quickly lifted up Alpine who meowed at you, and took the shirt and hid it under your body.

He didn’t know you were there, because he walked back and threw yet another set of clothes and yelped when he saw you were there, “Jesus Christ doll, warn me when you’re here next time.”

“Now as much as I love fashion, I didn’t think you were into it. So what’s happening?” You asked him, as he held up two shirts against his body in the mirror.

“Office drinks, and I have no clue what to wear. I was hoping my fashionable girlfriend would help her clueless boyfriend out,” he said turning around and pouting at you.

“I guess I have to put my job to use,” you jokingly said.

Looking at the pile of clothes on his bed, you knew he was searching for too long before he sent you the text. Kind of like how you can tell how old a fossil is based on how much material is on top of it.

“Did I break my girlfriend? Does she not even know where to start?” He jokingly asked.

“No, just my boyfriend being stupid and not realizing he looks cute in everything he wears,” you responded, looking under his pile of clothes.

He could feel his cheeks burn up, he wrapped his arms around your waist and buried his face into your hair, “Thank you.”

You managed to pull out a military green bomber jacket, a black t-shirt and some black jeans. “Bam, an outfit.”

He kissed your hair before pulling away, “Thank you doll.”

He was about to walk into the washroom to change, “Where do you think you’re going?” You asked.

“To change in the washroom?” He said, confused.

“Change here,” you said.

“A-are you sure?” He stuttered out.

“Buck, I’ve seen you naked thousands of times, this isn’t any different,” you said reassuring him.

He walked back to the bed, and slowly peeled his current outfit off of his body and replaced it with the one you provided him.

“What do you think?” He asked.

“I think that this would look better on the floor,” you said slyly.

He chuckled before throwing the shirt he was previously wearing at you, “Jokes on you, you’re never getting this back.”

“That’s fine with me doll, you look better in my clothes than I do,” he said.

“Are you sweet talking me to avoid paying me for styling services?” You faked offence.

“Is it working?” He joked back.

“A little,” you said fanning yourself.

He laughed, before coming around the other side of the bed, and wrapped his arms around your waist, and you instantly wrapped your arms around his neck. “Will you be here when I come back?” He asked.

“Can I borrow your Disney plus then?” You asked.

“Of course doll, you can have anything you want,” he said kissing your forehead.

“I think you made the worst decision telling me that,” you responded, burying your face into his chest.

“And why’s that?” he hummed out.

“I’m stealing your entire closet, and maybe your cat,” you said.

“I said what I said doll, you look better in my clothes.”

He felt this sense of warmth knowing his girlfriend picked out this outfit and he wore a smile with confidence, which didn’t go unnoticed by Sam. And Sam being the number one hype man he is, kept telling Bucky that if he didn’t have a girlfriend he would have snatched him by now.

He came home later than he anticipated, and heard the soft sounds of the tv playing from his room. He walked into his room hoping you were awake, but his heart melted at the site of you curled up in his bed, wearing his shirt, with his cat next to your sleeping form.

He let the TV softly play while he went to shower so he doesn’t wake you. He came back, moved Alpine to his bed on the floor, and crawled underneath the covers with you.

He thought his heart couldn’t get anymore mushy after seeing you in bed, but the moment he laid down, you curled up into his arms, and his heart exploded.

Turning off the TV, he got comfortable with you before falling asleep.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Bucky sat on your couch reading over one of the files for work, while you were typing away at your laptop. Your eyes were starting to hurt while you were finishing the final details for the fall fashion show that is supposed to happen within the next month.

Pushing yourself away from your laptop, you turned to study your boyfriend. He was in sweats, had his hair pulled back in a low bun, and were innocently chewing on the tip of his pen. “Babe?” You called out.

“Hmm?” He hummed out.

“I need to talk to you,” you responded.

He was still staring at the file in his hand, “Shoot doll.”

“I need your attention,” you responded.

He looked up, only to have you throw yourself into his arms and stay there. “Okay what do you want to talk about?” He asked.

“Nothing,” you responded.

“But you wanted my attention?” He asked, even more confused.

“That’s literally it, I needed your attention,” you said burying your face into his shirt.

He chuckled before tossing the file and pen onto the coffee table in front of him, he wrapped his arms around you. “And I thought I was the needy one.”

“How can I resist myself when I have a hunk of meat sitting on my couch?” You asked.

He rubbed gentle circles into your back, “Hunk? Never heard that one.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

“I guess you’re right about that part doll.”

“Have you ever been to a fashion show?” You asked.

“Not in my lifetime,” he responded.

“Come to the one I have next month?” You asked.

“Will my pretty girlfriend be there?” He asked.

“Of course,” you responded.

“Then I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he said squeezing you.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

It was the morning of the fashion show, and Bucky once again found himself panicking and not knowing what to wear. But this time he couldn’t send a ‘SOS’ to you because you were at work doing last minute touches on the show.

He turned around from his closet only to be greeted by Sam and Steve, “Jesus Christ,” he put a hand over his heart, “Do you knock?”

“No,” Steve responded as Sam dangled the spare key Bucky hid outside.

“Fuck both of you,” he grumbled.

“Listen, your girlfriend sent us because she knew you would have a heart attack picking out an outfit, and she also sent us tickets,” Steve said.

“And I’m gonna make sure my baby boy is dressed real nice,” Sam said, “Now move and let uncle Sam work his magic,” Sam continued before going into Bucky’s closet.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

It was 4:30, Sam, Steve and Bucky were standing in the venue sipping champagne whilst waiting for the hall to open for seating. Looking around, Bucky felt so out of place, “You look good Buck,” Steve noticed and reassured him.

“Of course Buck looks good, my man looks good all the time,” Sam said.

“Your man? I’m convinced he’s mine,” he heard a familiar voice from behind him. He turned around and had the air knocked out of him.

There you were, in a long sleeved black sequined shirt, that was tucked into your black shorts, and a pair of knee high heels. Even though it was simple, you were the only person who stood out in the room.

“Sam may be wrong about that, I’m only yours,” he said wrapping his arm around your waist and pulling you into him.

“Sorry Sam, I won this round,” you joked.

“I got the two of you together and now you’re the sole owner for him? I call bullshit,” Sam retaliated.

“Okay fine, you get him Monday to Friday, and I get him weekends,” you negotiated.

“Now you’re talking.” Sam responded.

You heard someone call out your name, knowing you had to be pulled backstage yet again. “I gotta go, I’ll see you after?” You asked.

“Of course,” he said, before you pecked his lips and disappeared to where Carol called you.

“Tinman got some game,” Tony said coming up to the group.

“I didn’t know you were invited,” Steve said.

“I’m always invited to these things Cap, and lucky for you I am sitting next to you guys,” Tony responded, stealing Bucky’s champagne.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Bucky didn’t realize what was happening until Sam nudged his ribcage, “All of those look like things you would wear.”

And yes it was. There were henley’s, t-shirts, sweaters, jeans, sweatpants, hell they were in colours he would wear too, black, red, navy blue, military green, etc. It looked like someone took Bucky’s entire closet and remade all of his clothes and put it on display for him to see.

He also realized there were models of different sizes, some with prosthetics, and he felt his heart swell. He knew you managed to convince everyone there to do this. He never thought you would do it on such a grand scale of doing it at a fashion show.

For the remainder of the show, he sat there with the biggest smile on his face and it didn’t even falter, not even once.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Bucky waited for you to finish up before taking you out for milkshakes and a walk in the park. Since it was colder than when you left this morning, he draped his suit jacket on you, and held your hand. You were sipping on your milkshake before Bucky asked, “Did you put together the entire show for me?”

“What gave it away? The fact I literally stole your closet to do this? Or the fact it’s called ‘For B.’?” You asked.

He nearly choked on his milkshake, “You named it what?”

You stopped and looked him in the eye, “‘For B.’ because it’s for Bucky. I know you always talk about how you aren’t as pretty as models, which is a complete lie might I add and they don’t wear what you wear. So I thought, why not make it for you. I’m sorry if you don’t li-”

You were cut off by Bucky engulfing you into his arms, “Doll, no one has ever done that for me.”

“I love you Buck,” you said looking up at him.

“I love you more doll,” he said, kissing you.

[peeterparkr]

perfidy;tom holland|1

chapter 1: the script

enemies to lovers au

story summary: Tom and you have been sworn enemies since you were young. However, you happened to be best friends with the twins. When one of your friends challenged you to break Tom’s heart, you immediately accepted to get back at him for all the times he’s hurt you. Old feelings might come back, while both of you try to go past your pride and your lies.

chapter summary: the first time he broke your heart 

pairing: tom holland x y/n

warnings: swearing, flashback in italics, juuuuuust slightly angsty but not really      

word count: 3.9k

teaser next chapter series masterlist wanna be tagged?

As you know, Limits of Desire is coming to an end so I’m starting this new series. I’m very excited for this! Maybe it’ll flop but I like the idea, so I hope you like it too!

You were running late. Your alarm had not gone off and you were currently running around your apartment. Your wet hair was leaving droplets around the kitchen as you quickly devoured a cereal and tried to apply your makeup at the same time. You needed to look presentable, you’d have an interview to be an official writer on the series you currently interned at. 

Everything was going too quickly this morning for your own convenience, it seemed like you were running out of time and it seemed like nothing was real. It didn’t feel real, but it was. You were trying to catch your breath as the excitement and nerves were tickling your skin.

A writing assistant/intern/coffee-runner was all you were by now, but you didn’t want to give up. Everybody’s got dreams and maybe yours were closer each day. You knew you’d have your big breakout one day, maybe it was closer than you could think of. 

But everything had seemed to be stopped suddenly, as soon as good things were coming down your way, life would bring in more and more pebbles to your path. Just like the day before, everything was ready but your car, however, had decided to stop working, and of course you had been stuck under the rain in London. 

Cue to the next day, to this morning when you had overslept and your nose was slightly red, and you had no transportation. You believed life hated you, but you ended up not worrying, everything would turn out to be fine even if all the odds were constantly turning around for you.

You had called your best friend, and he had assured you he’d be there to give you a ride. Seemed like he was the guardian angel that you so much needed in your life at the moment. Besides, you were excited to see him, you’d barely seen him in the last few months, his new girlfriend was taking him away from you. And you weren’t jealous, you’d still have Sam, but Sam was too busy with his own things so whenever you went to visit Harry you’d end up stuck with his older brother, whom, thank you very much, you despised. 

You heard the usual claxon honking outside your building, you grabbed your coat and bag and rushed downstairs. 

Harry would be picking you up and he’d probably give you a very needed pep-talk to get you ready.

You ran to the car as you felt butterflies inside your stomach. It’s alright to be nervous, you guessed, it was the opportunity of a lifetime. 

But life was once more proving to you how much it could suck. 

“I thought Harry was picking me up,” you stated as soon as you saw who was behind the wheel. Tom looked up from his phone and dedicated a corny smirk, you could even see a wink under his sunglasses. 

“He got some stuff to do, you’re stuck with me,” Tom said. 

“Was Sam not available?” You groaned. 

“Work.” 

“Haz?” You asked with hope. 

“He had a shoot.” 

“Paddy?” You were desperate. 

“Oh, fuck’s sake y/n, be thankful I came. I was about to leave, took you long enough, you know makeup won’t do you miracles.” 

You rolled your eyes as you opened the door and hopped into the car. You pulled out your phone to avoid any further conversation. 

“You know, I’m no uber,” he sassed. 

“I know, uber drivers are usually nice,” you snapped. 

Tom started the car. 

“I brought you tea,” he said as he eyed the cup with a smirk. 

You frowned staring at it. 

“I didn’t poison it, y/n,” Tom said condescendingly. 

You slowly picked it up, “Thanks,” sceptically, you took a sip. 

“I did spit on it, though,” Tom grinned. 

You widened your eyes and glared at him. “Oh fuck off, Tom.” 

“Oh, you’re gonna be that way?” Tom frowned. “You know I could pull over right here and you’d have to walk to your precious interview,” he snapped. 

You sighed. “I’m sorry,” you rolled your eyes. “Did you really spit on it?” 

“No, I’m kidding, y/n, gee you don’t have to take everything that serious,” He chuckled as you flipped him off. 

“I don’t trust you,” you admitted. 

“I know you don’t,” he laughed. “Which is the reason as to why I didn’t even have to do anything with the tea, your sole mind is doing the trick.” 

You remained quiet. The ride was going to be very long.

“Are you nervous?” He turned slightly to look at you.

“A little,” you confessed. 

“Ya goin’ to pitch a screenplay?” He asked.

You shook your head. “I...uh, not really.” 

“Good, they wouldn’t like your writing anyway,” Tom cornily input. “Bit cheesy.” 

You clenched your jaw. “They liked your acting, didn’t they?” 

He scoffed. “Remind me who’s got a career.” 

You stayed quiet and looked out the window. He pursed his lips. 

“I’m sorry,” he broke the silence, and it seemed real. “I was joking, you’ll do amazing.” 

“You really don’t have to try to make conversation, you know?” You said, slightly hurt. 

There was no easy way to explain your relationship with the Holland’s. With each member of the family, you had your history. 

Your mum was best friends with Nikki since diapers, they had been to school together, roommates at college and even their respective maids of honour. Naturally, they had expected you to be friends with all her kids. You were sure your mother and Nikki had had the fantasy of their kids playing in the garden, while they enjoyed a mean cup of tea. You were also sure they both had had the stupid fantasy of one of their kids falling in love growing up and becoming best friends with the others.

And it kind of went like that, growing up with them in your house, birthday parties with them, some Christmas, New Years. Always together. You knew them perfectly. Too much for your own convenience. 

You were friends, at least with the twins and Paddy. There had been no trouble with the twins, the three of you got along perfectly. Sam, Harry and you had been inseparable since you were young, even if you were slightly older than them. You had hit it off right away. Even if they were fighting between them, you’d always be alright with them.  It was a very innocent friendship. 

Especially with Harry, both of you had shown your interest in films and cinema from a very young age. You’d be seen together always with a camera on your hands and directing Sam and Tom to act. You’d come up with the stories and Harry would help you bring them to life. Usually, your homemade movies came out fine, even if they usually involved hours of you and Tom fighting. 

Especially since you lacked crew, the four of you would end up playing roles you never really liked. 

But Harry would always bring out the camera your parents would borrow and film everything. Thanks to that, you’d have a lot of memories of your childhood on video. Even the ones you didn’t want to remember. 

Tom always wanted to be in front of the cameras, but since you were the only girl at the time, you’d often be paired up with him. That’s when you stopped coming up with romantic stories, you really didn’t want to even hold hands with Tom, 

Tom, Tom was complicated. Older than you, and extremely annoying. You had been “ friends” when you were kids, but he seemed to always have a reason to bother you. It was extremely annoying. When you were only toddlers, you got along fine, but of course what problems could toddlers possibly have. 

But you grew up, and Tom possibly, no, he definitely was the worst kid you could have ever possibly imagined. He never wanted to share anything, he would always whine and he’d throw tantrums. And he’d pull your hair and he wouldn’t let you play and he’d go running to his mum to cry to complain if you ever won while playing together. He, very maturely, would stick his tongue out whenever you spoke, and he’d push you, and he’d mimic you. Now, now, if you were completely honest you weren’t good friends, you’d both always end up on the floor fighting each other. You would always pride yourself on being able to take him down. More than once you had been on top of him, after an innocent and childish wrestle. 

However, you were getting tired of never being able to have 5 minutes without him insulting or bothering you. Because even with everything, you found the boy cute. Whenever he wasn’t bothering you, he was nice, he was remotely kind. It was cute. It wasn’t that you guys didn’t get along, well, you didn’t, but it seemed that Tom wasn’t able to be decent around you. 

He had his good moments, like whenever he would be a gentleman and give you the first cookie, or whenever he would cut a flower and give it to you, but of course, that was usually followed by dirt being thrown at your face, as if he was trying to make a point. 

And he’d constantly confuse you and your stupid little heart, which would make you blush whenever he decided to be remotely kind. 

And you cursed the day your mother and Nikki had said the following words; 

“He bothers you because he has a crush on you,” Nikki had said. 

“That’s true, boys want attention and the only way he’s getting your attention is by being annoying. He likes you.” 

And being the stupid 6 yeared old you were, you changed the way you viewed Tom, and finally became completely foolishly smitten with him. Very stupid decision. Because, really, whoever came up with that theory was very stupid. Why would you bother someone you like? And why would people go on around telling girls that guys treating them badly would mean they loved them. It was fucked up, wasn’t it? Of course, now you were older and you didn’t believe in any of that bullshit. Because at the end of the day, that’s all it was, pure horseshit. 

But of course, you didn’t know well back then, so after they told you Tom had a crush on you, you, it started, the stupid decision to crush on him more. And you started to act differently, and initially, he noticed. He would ask why you would wear more dresses rather than the tomboy look you loved to have when younger, and he’d ask why you had stopped being fun. Because of course, you’d take longer to brush your hair and now you wouldn’t be playing soccer with him as much. You’d still let yourself wrestle him every now and then because that meant you could, if you took him down, hold his hands. 

You were very stupid. 

And you took your shot, because not only were you stupid, you had the balls. Which, looking back at it, only made you more of an idiot. But one day, just as you’d taken him down, and as he was trying to push you off of him, you decided to try something different. 

“Calm down,” you had said just before you kissed his cheek, making the boy turn red and frozen to shock. 

You hadn’t said anything else and you had quietly left him. 

He had changed after that. It seemed like he had caught on to that, and he had stopped in a way, bothering you as much. Of course, he’d always bring in his childish games like burping in front of you, or proving how masculine and ‘better’ he was whenever you’d play anything. He’d still get angry at you whenever you beat him in a videogame or any game at all. 

But something had changed. He’d now be nicer, in his own particular way. He’d be smiling more often and he’d give you more hugs, like children do. He’d let you use his favorite car, or let you be spiderman if you played. 

Tom Holland had broken your heart several times throughout your life, that didn’t mean each time it hurt less, but you got used to it. You weren’t going to let him get near your heart ever again, or so you had promised yourself. 

The first time he’d ever hurt you, you had been young. He was 10, you were 8. And you had taken the guts to finally tell him how you felt, in your own particular way. You’d told the twins, 7 back then, to help you. 

And you had planned it perfectly, a new homemade movie. Your script consisted of you telling him you had a crush on him, and you had the guts to even write a kiss. And you were going to film it, and to this day you remembered it, and even if you didn’t want it, it was on camera. 

“Alright, so the princess is going to…save the prince!” You explained to Tom. “Because she is in love with him!” 

“Why does it have to be a princess?” Tom frowned. “Why not be a superhero! Besides, it should be me who saves the damsel!” Tom pushed. 

“This is my movie, Thomas,” you complained. 

“This is my movie, Thomas,” he mimicked. He groaned. “Why can’t I be the dragon? Why does Sam get to be the dragon?” 

“Because you’re the prince!” You pushed. 

He took the script off your hands. “What does it even say?” He asked as he read it. “This is stupid!” 

“No, it’s not!” 

Tom frowned. “Why would we kiss?” He wrinkled his nose as he stuck his tongue out. 

“Because we like each other,” you explained. 

“Why would anyone like you?” He sounded disgusted. “You’re ugly and stupid and you’re you!” 

“Tom, Tom,” Harry said behind the camera. “It’s a movie, it’s pretend!” 

“I don’t want to be in this movie anymore, less with her,” he frowned. “You’d have to be pretty stupid if you think I’d kiss you.” 

“Maybe I am.” 

“Everything you write is very stupid.” Because Tom and you had had boundaries, and he knew he was crossing the most important one. 

“Tom that’s very mean,” you said. 

“I’d rather eat a frog than kiss you.” 

“She did this because she likes you,” Sam admitted, with a giggle. An innocent stunt a child pulls. “Tom and y/n!” Sam sang. 

Tom walked past you. “Disgusting.” 

And he left, and Harry pointed the camera at you. Your face was conflicted, and confused and sad. 

Your first official heartbreak was on camera, and of course, you never watched it. You guessed your current feelings for Tom were derived form that one moment. You had been cold after that. And that was the first time you even truly cried because of him. But you were 8, it was stupid to cry over a boy. 

Your mum understood why you had distanced yourself from him, for a while, at least. Even Nikki understood, so for a while, you didn’t visit the Holland’s household, and you’d only invite the twins. 

And you were very petty and explicit if you ever were with the three brothers you’d use his words: “I’d rather eat a frog than have you come over.” 

And the movies were ceasing, at least for a bit. But Tom did apologize, and you had been sure Nikki had forced him.

 But he had come to your house with flowers on your 9th birthday and apologized, and you were sure he had written and learned the apology. But you were still very angry, and it wasn’t even because he had rejected you, it didn’t even have to do with the fact he had dared to reject you in the meanest way he could, but you were angry he had insulted your writing. From a very young age, your pride was even more 

“I’m very sorry, y/n, I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean your writing was stupid and I am sorry for calling you all that, I was the one being stupid,” he had said. “And I really want to stay friends with you, because I really like you as a friend. And you look pretty in that dress.” 

You had looked at the flowers, gently took them in and said: “I like the flowers but I don’t like you and I don’t want to be friends but you can have cake, I guess.” 

And he was slightly upset, you could tell. And then you walked away and placed the flowers on the bin. You were dramatic. 

But he had had his revenge right there on your birthday, one stupid insignificant revenge, he had ‘accidentally’ tripped on your dress and dirtied your dress with cake. 

And it had started, the war. Tom and you were constantly fighting and you were sure you were now sworn enemies. It started innocent, from little pranks to insults, to very hurtful pranks that had had you crying. But you were hanging out together again, at least in the same room, and now the videos weren’t movies anymore, they were just you and Harry sillying with the camera, or sometimes Sam. Even Tom. Creating memories, you guessed. You filmed everything, birthday parties, the first time either of you got drunk, proms, studying sessions and successes. 

Tom and you were friends sometimes, sometimes you weren’t, sometimes he’d act like more than friends which would make you very untrusting.

There had been several more times when Tom had hurt you and he’d later apologize. It seemed like that’s the only thing he knew how to do, apologize without meaning it. Because an apology wears out when you keep on committing the same crimes. 

But you’d always end up believing in him again, and he would pull the exact thing he’d always done, give you flowers and then throw dirt at your face. 

But he was so complicated, so complicated. But you guessed your feelings were more complicated. You hated him, you couldn’t stand him. Whenever he was around you’d get annoyed. But there were sometimes, just like you were kids that you’d end up having nice times, like when he’d give you one of his favorite cookies, or when he let you play with his favorite controller. 

Because he’d done things that were nice, very significant things. Like the time your boyfriend had broken up with you hours before prom and Tom had shown up at your house, tux and everything, maybe it was slightly awkward at first, but he’d been there to cheer you up. He had been decent then, even nice. You had even believed, for a bit, that he could like you. Of course, he stopped talking to you the very next day and then proceeded to say that you had pathetically begged him to go to prom with you. Even if Harry had on camera how Tom had picked you up and given you flowers, he denied it, saying you had been the one to ask him. 

Yes, he was still an asshole. 

Yet you never seemed to learn your lesson, he always managed to warm your heart just slightly and make you forget, at least for five minutes that you hated him . You never learned that he’d always end up hurting you, just like right now, you were in the car with your stomach hurting from listening to yet more hurtful words, even if he knew he had crossed the line he shouldn’t cross. And you wished you were somewhere else instead, because he knew he had poked on what he shouldn’t have poked, and you knew he was sure you wanted to cry. But it seemed like he loved doing that, his favourite sport. He loved to play with your heart. 

Because Tom and you had an off and on relationship, the relationship being enemies. But sometimes, if you were true to yourself and to each other, you were nice. Just like right now, even in his own rude way, he was still driving you. 

“I really do mean it, y/n,” Tom pushed again. 

You ignored him. 

“Y/N.” 

“What? You meant I suck at writing?” 

“I meant you were amazing,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.” 

“You’re always sorry,” you sighed. 

Tom bit his lip. “You know, you could...uh, send me one in an I could help you get to producers, or we could write one together, or I could produce one-” 

“Thanks but I--” 

“I know you want to make a name by yourself,” he sighed. “But I could help you in.” 

“I know, I know, thanks, Tom,” you were merely saying this  because you wanted to avoid any further conversation. 

“And—uh, I’m really sorry for last week when—“

“Don’t bother, don’t worry,” you quickly silenced him before he could continue with the subject. You really didn’t want to get your head thinking on anything but the interview. Probably Tom was trying to sabotage you and that was the reason why he was bringing it up.

He played music. It seemed extremely awkward. But you didn’t want to give in to any kind of conversation, because if you did then you’d have to understand if today you were going to be decent or if you were going to be rude. 

You didn’t want to be anything, you didn’t have the energy to fight with him and you didn’t have the energy to pretend and be nice. It usually was his call, you just played along unless you were in the mood for something. It was either fight or flight with him. 

His phone rang, and he gulped as he saw it was Harry calling. He answered it with the free hands mode anyway. 

“Tom—Where’s the car? Fuck, I overslept, I didn’t set my alarm.” Harry seemed rushed. 

“I took it,” Tom explained. 

“No wait, I forgot I had to drive y/n—Shit I’m gonna call her.” 

“No need man,” Tom cleared his throat. 

You raised your brows. 

“Tom, fuck, I know you guys are very angry again but this is very important to her, like—“

“I know,” Tom seemed anxious listening to his brother. 

“I need the bloody car, don’t be an asshole,” Harry stated. 

“You don’t need it,” Tom pushed. 

“Tom—“

“Hi, Harry,” you chipped in. “He’s driving me.” 

“Wait—what?” Harry was shocked. 

“I was up early, tried to wake you up but since I saw you were definitely not waking up I grabbed the keys and I’m driving her,” Tom explained. 

You raised your brows, perplexed. So today, he had decided it, he was your friend. 

“What?” It seemed that Harry was as confused as you were. 

“Yeah, I’m here,” you said.  

“Y/N I’m so sorry I completely forgot last night to set it,” Harry apologized. 

“No worries,” you chuckled. “I overslept, too.” 

“Are you being held against your will? Is Tom not trying to kill you?” Harry asked. 

“No, I’ll do that later,” Tom laughed. 

“Well—uh, I’ll—“ 

“See you later, man,” Tom hung up quickly. 

You stared at him. “I don’t want to know what you’re up to. But now I’m even more scared of being in this car with you.” 

“Can’t I be nice?” Tom smirked. 

“No, you can’t,” you stated. “But—thank you.” 

And you would believe Tom was being nice, but you knew that he wasn’t doing this to be your friend, he was probably feeling guilty about last week. This was just another empty apology. 

But you could live with it today.

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[doorsclosingslowly]

This Is the Time of Our Great Undoing

“Do you think Kaz could fuck someone in a full-body bondage suit?” Jesper whispers, more to distract Inej from what’s on the screen than anything else, but still—the idea won’t leave Kaz alone.

5.8k | modern AU | Kaz[/&]Jesper, part of a polycule

content note: despite the premise this is about cuddling, gambling addiction and existing during climate change

It starts the way most things used to start: with all of them piled onto ancient couches on the fifth floor of an otherwise empty building on the edge of Amsterdam, also called the Slat. These days, it’s harder and harder to get everyone together. Nina and Matthias are both in Rotterdam now, doing associate degrees that Kaz doesn’t care about. Wylan’s got room and board and a plan for the future and a social worker, and she already disapproves of Jesper as a bad influence so it’s not worth it, generally, for Wylan to come back to his old squat and hang out with the whole gang of ex- and current reprobates.

And Inej—fuck, Kaz wishes she was just a little less righteous, less concerned with how the world’s going to shit. She’s faced off against more cops now than he has, probably. Water cannons and charging horses and riot shields. She knows criminals all over the country, Europe, probably the world—but they’re the kind of criminals with morals and worthless targets, with bandanas and badly sewn patches, who will talk about Federici and sea levels and the Invisible Committee and use value if you don’t leave quickly enough. The kind that live on trees, as Inej’s going to do in a few days. The kind that don’t make any money. The kind that have even less of a chance of making it out of a job alive and free than Kaz does—and with the enemies she’s talking about, politicians, banks, Shell, he doesn’t even know if he’ll be able to extort her out of jail next time.

For now, though, they’re all together in the big room, watching some ancient movie on the massive 8k screen with mood lighting, etc, the works, that’s in the Slat courtesy of some MediaMarkt manager desperate enough to save her marriage to bribe Kaz into silence, but not so desperate she wouldn’t fuck two other women in the breakroom.

It’s impossible to know whose fault it is that they’re currently watching Pulp Fiction.

Kaz is inclined to blame Jesper, because most things are his fault in some way or another, and he’s supplying the login data for an old uni flatmate’s streaming accounts, which is where they found that film, front and centre, paid to rent until tomorrow. Who even pays for films? If that’s the calibre of people they send to university these days, it’s no wonder the planet’s going to the dogs. Jesper, though, swears he wanted to watch some goofy horror flick, so he’s splitting the blame with Nina and Matthias: Matthias, for growing up in a cult and having never heard of what’s apparently a film classic and mentioning that to Nina, who of course cooed over her boyfriend and insisted on it, even though actually none of them have watched it before either so it’s not like it’s an important cinematic milestone. Or just not b horror, crime, some weird arthouse thing with complicated morality… It’s weird and has crime but there is nothing to figure out, so Kaz is bored. It’s Inej’s fault, because instead of vetoing it she said yes, just because she has a heart-shaped soft spot for Nina. Wylan could have done his oh I’m still an innocent barely-two-years not a minor this looks bloody thing, and Kaz might not even have mocked him this time if he'd insisted on Jesper’s pick instead just so he could hide in Jesper’s arms for the most minor decapitations.

Jesper’s been talking through the whole film. Kaz got used to that a long time ago: the landing and failing of small non-sequitur jokes like rain against the window, whispered to Wylan who’s cuddled into his side on the left, or to Inej who’s burrowing under Jesper’s outstretched right arm. Sometimes Jesper thinks a quip will land better with Nina, so he shouts it over to the futon where she and Matthias are always just shy of engaging in heavy petting, and the really mean and bleak jokes he saves for when he’s made eye contact with Kaz.

Now, though: in this scene Mr Motorcycle and the gang boss are captured in a pawnshop and dragged into the basement, and Gang Boss gets raped. Inej’s hand is white-knuckled on Jesper’s arm, and Jesper’s talking non-stop. He’s talking about the flooding, and asking whether Inej thinks Doggerland will happen again but here, soon, you can never know when the scientists are so wrong about the speed of climate change, and apparently it all flooded in a day because something broke off Norway, and then he abruptly pivots to some demo where he bashed in a shop window and got new shoes, and then if she’s got dates for more street fights because then he’s in but please, don’t trick me into another book club, I don’t care about why the cops are bad I already know I just want to hit them—not topics Kaz would have chosen, exactly, but he’s rooted in his red leather armchair off to the side, not even able to hold her for comfort, not like Jes does now, and why didn’t they think to look up the content beforehand, why did they assume it was tame just because it’s an old film—and then, long after it’s over, Jesper idly asks, “Do you think Kaz could fuck someone in a full-body bondage suit?”

Wylan groans. Kaz wishes a sound existed that could express his own current emotion.

“You saw the guy, right?” Jesper turns over to Wylan, while still stroking Inej’s hair. “There was no skin on him. All leather. And that’s the trigger, so—might solve all our problems. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before!”

“I don’t see a huge difference,” Nina snipes. “Kaz is already in all-black, with gloves. Though I guess, that hood would hide his atrocious haircut…”

“Stop being so mean to Kaz, Jesper,” Matthias mumbles. “Although he does deserve it.”

Kaz downs his entire glass of vodka. When he tops his drink up for the second time—he exed the first refill right in the kitchen—he brings the bottle and some maracuja juice over and refills Jesper’s, too, because Jesper’s been anxiously glancing over at him, every moment he thinks Kaz has turned his head away, since he shot his stupid mouth off and actually, it’s—Kaz isn’t thinking about it now but it just might—maybe it could work—well, he fills up the glass to stop Jesper from worrying himself into yet another mental crisis and also so he can bend over Jesper’s ear and whisper lovingly, “I’m going to make the leather for the suit out of your skin.”

“We should look for an Ed Gein film next!” Jesper laughs, much more brightly than the joke warrants, and Kaz refuses to interpret the look on his face.

+

By the time Kaz gets back to the Slat, on a day roughly three months later, it’s long past two in the morning. He’s in a foul mood: of course Haskell won’t even reimburse him for the taxi he had to take because he missed the last metro. Of course he just told Kaz to take a night bus. Haskell won’t even apologize for the last minute details he wants included in his casino’s tax returns. The old man’s not even mentally capable of understanding the extra work he caused. Yes, Kaz is good at filing taxes creatively, exactly tailored for the business to pay nothing whatsoever and meticulous enough to never arouse any suspicion, but that takes work. Things have to balance. Haskell thinks Kaz just has to press a button, and that he’s paying Kaz so he doesn’t have to press the button himself, and that it’s only worth it because he doesn’t want to sully his mind with ‘the Spreadsheet Program’. Which is also why he’s loaning Kaz out to a friend of his, which he just remembered to mention today, for that guy’s mattress store slash money laundering business, so that’s even more work for nowhere near enough money.

Sometimes, Kaz amuses himself with the idea of sneaking in small ‘mistakes’. Enough for even the stupidest tax official to unravel the whole sordid scheme and land Haskell in prison for tax fraud, whereupon he’ll also be discovered to be involved with drug smuggling, blackmail, murder, … none of which will ever trace back to Kaz. But the one time he was livid enough to try, nothing happened. He’ll never manage to plunge the true depths of stupidity of an average bureaucrat, apparently, and is thus doomed to failure.

And anyway, it’s good regular money for little work. Usually. He can’t really complain. Especially not to his friends, because three are going legit, Inej will just rant about the uselessness of defrauding the Belastingdienst for a few measly million euros a year when the world’s being set on fire every day, and Jesper’ll tell him to quit, again, because they live in a squat after all. It’s not like they’re paying rent. Jesper’s never heard of forethought, or gratitude. He doesn’t know how many of his bills Kaz has paid off.

Kaz’s leg aches after the climb to the third story. Two more to go. As usual, right at this point he remembers the joke Jesper made eight months ago about fooling someone into installing a stair lift, and as usual, he dismisses it in disgust after two more steps. Stomps harder on the next flight of stairs, with grim satisfaction at the shooting pains in his knee. He doesn’t need help. He doesn’t need to move to a house with a working lift, and he doesn’t need a stair lift, either. Fuck you, Jesper. I’m the actual functional adult with a job in this household. I don’t need a stair lift.

That’s what he would throw at Jesper’s head, but it’s nearly three o’clock, and Jesper’s probably out. Over at Wylan’s, if he knows what’s good for him, but given how evasive he’s been all week, how manic… Inej’s still camping high up in some forest to save the frogs or something, but no news there is supposed to be good news. If the cops had chucked her off a tree house, it would have been on tv. About everything else, he can worry after he’s slept.

He doesn’t bother with the lights in his room. The streetlight coming in through his open curtains is more than enough, and anyway, he found the empty tenement he turned into the Slat five years ago, fully moved down here three years ago when he met Jesper, and he knows every single thing in his room by heart. The antique dresser he made Jesper and Matthias carry up with the threat of cutting off a finger for every scratch it received is next to the door, the place where he leaves his gloves and wallet and phone and cane. The coat rack beside it, where the hangers for his suit are, then the hamper, and at the foot of his bed the long black linen nightgown that Jesper’s never, ever allowed to see, and—

There’s a black shape on top of his bedcovers, Kaz realizes when he’s pulled on his nightgown.

Kaz takes his cane back. He hasn’t made any new enemies recently as far as he’s aware—none who know his name—but he was careless, brutal, desperate when he was a lone kid getting by on the streets, and those victims had gangs, families, business partners. Just because no-one’s ever traced little Kazzie the bastard rabid dog back to the Slat-that-wasn’t-then doesn’t mean a thing. The fact that the friends he started collecting press-ganged him into doing more behind-the-scenes embezzlement and fewer turf wars because ‘they’re watching us, they have all our faces and fingers and DNA on file and cameras everywhere and did you hear about that informer having kids with the activist he spied on?’ or the more pragmatic, ‘If you don’t stop fucking up your leg on purpose I’m going to send you to a kink party you fucking masochist’…

None of it means safety, not really, and Kaz is glad he’s alone now. They’ve all moved on, and even Jes… well, if he’d been here tonight then the whole squat would be trashed because Jesper doesn’t come quietly. And now, if he comes back to find Kaz gone or his throat slit… Jesper’s going to fucking collapse. He’s been one phone call away from going hysteric all week. Who knows, though—he has Wylan now, and maybe it’ll be the push he needed, the path none of them could ever find, to get his life back on a solid track.

All of that is presupposing that Kaz loses, of course.

And he does not intend to.

The weird black ninja on Kaz’ bed hasn’t reacted yet. They’re curled into a foetal position and they’re snuffling, quietly, because they’re asleep.

Not even assassins dressed up as b movie henchmen expect the toll taken by Per Haskell’s technical naïveté and utter disrespect for Kaz’ work-life balance, apparently. He got back home so late he missed his own murder. Well, then. Kaz hasn’t tortured anyone in two years and he may be out of practice, but the films he’s been forced to watch in the meantime have, if anything, made him more creative. He’ll teach them not to underestimate the brutality of Kaz Brekker, even when he’s moved up a few rungs in the ladder of Amsterdam’s underworld and landed a desk job.

He’ll—but Kaz hasn’t had to stalk silently towards his prey in two years, either. He’s underestimated the extent to which his lame leg’s gotten worse.

Also, someone’s pulled a box out from under his bed.

Kaz stumbles, and in the split-second before he catches himself on the edge of the mattress he wonders—will they have a gun? I can still bash them in the head before they fire, I haven’t gone that soft—and then the would-be assassin stretches out their lanky body as they wake up.

With their arms raised over their head, Kaz can see the bright white light of the street lanterns outside reflect off the gleaming black PVC fabric they’re wearing. Sleek and skin-tight, no ornamentation except a few steel buttons glinting at the crotch, and a full-cover leather hood over their face adorned with one-euro-sized rivets at the jaw, the forehead, the bridge of the nose, the large buckle around the neck. More buckles, at the back of the head and hanging off the right side at eye-height. The open silver zipper at the mouth reflects the streetlight, too, as does the padlock that hangs off it.

Oh no. Kaz knows that mask. Not even shoving it all the way back to the furthest corner under his bed allowed him to forget the way it looks.

Oh no.

Jesper yawns loudly. “Morning, boss. Evening. One of those. I thought you were finishing work early?”

“Haskell had some last-minute revisions to his tax returns.” Kaz sighs. “Don’t cook tomorrow. I’ll be out late for the whole next week—don’t expect me before three am. New client. I need to create a whole year’s documentations from scratch.”

“Just fuck him over, boss. He doesn’t appreciate you, and you don’t need the money. We live in a fucking squat.”

Sweet, financially illiterate nuisance Jesper, who probably doesn’t even know what that awful mistake he’s dressed in right now cost. The thing he’s dressed in. Which was hidden under Kaz’ bed. In Kaz’ room. Which they are inside right now. “You broke into my room,” Kaz rasps. “Again.”

“You know, Kaz,” Jesper replies with poorly feigned innocence, ”this thing is a little big for you. Fits me pretty well, though.”

“I told you I don’t keep cash under my bed. I told you that, the last time you tried to steal from me to pay off your gambling debts. I like my room organized as it is, and so I don’t keep any money here. Not under the bed, not in the wardrobe. And you won’t find any of my actual caches, because I’m smarter than you.”

“You’ve lied to me before.”

“You’ve stolen from me before. Remember last year? Remember you made Inej cry? I though you were clean. I thought you promised Wylan, when you asked him out, that you were done gambling. Maybe we all had too much trust in you.”

Jesper pulls his PVC-clad shoulders up to his en-leathered ears: a ridiculous sight, and Kaz doesn’t know what’s worse. That a bondage sex slave could actually look this dejected and humiliated and alone, or that Jesper does. He’s almost ready to call off the assault. It took a while to figure out, but as usual Inej was probably right, because she’s been researching and discussing the mental health industrial complex in general, and the traumatizing nature of modern life, with her comrades. Even though Kaz is neither the kind of person to touch people with kid gloves, and nor does he like thinking of Jesper as someone who needs that kind of handling—when Jesper’s in a shame spiral this deep then any criticism will drive him even deeper into the arms of the next casino. So the adrenaline and dopamine can wipe out everything else, or to feed his self-loathing even more by being exactly the person he’s terrified people think he is—Jes couldn’t quite explain it himself during the Intervention, except that everything is too much sometimes, even more too much and faster than usual.

He’s a pitiful creature. Kaz almost has pity. Then, though—

“It’s not working, boss. I know why you’re reminding me I fucking relapsed, again, and tried to steal from my best friend, again, and that I’m going to beg you to lie to Wy, again, but I still haven’t forgotten I’m wearing a bondage suit that you’ve been keeping under your bed for—two months now, is it?”

It’s just one month, actually. The manufacture and shipping took six whole weeks.

Two can play that game. Kaz might be very slightly embarrassed, but Jesper’s relapsed into the combination of addiction, theft and deceit that destroyed his life three years ago, and nearly did so again, two-and-a-half years ago and one year ago. “Careful. I haven’t even yet agreed to lie to Wylan, Jesper. About your problem. That you promised you’d tell him about.”

“Also, I notice it fits me, not Inej. Not Nina. Not Matthias. Not even Haskell, I bet. Me. Almost like it was made for me.”

Kaz ignores his insinuations. The answer’s obvious, anyway: yes, he did take clothes from the main washing pile in Jesper’s room and measured them. Yes, he used the measurements when he ordered a bondage suit. Yes, that’s creepy. Yes, a decent person would have asked. No, he’s not sorry. Jesper knew who Kaz was when he moved in with him. And it’s not like Kaz is the one who’s really at fault here. If Jesper just stopped gambling, he’d never have found out.

“Even attempted theft is illegal, Jesper. Completed robbery is worse. I cover my tracks, but you… you should be careful what you say now. They’re still looking for whoever robbed that jeweller last year.”

“Inej’s gonna cut off your head if you try. It’s like you never read her hoodies. All cats are beautiful, et cetera, Kaz. Thirteen-twelve. Keep up.”

Sometimes, the only thing that keeps Kaz from tossing Jesper out of the Slat is that Inej hates landlords and landlord-adjacents just as much as the pigs. If only he’d known back when he let the drunk penniless fancy uni boy who jumped into a fight to defend Kaz from some thugs—a fight Kaz would have won regardless—if only he’d known, before he let Jesper crash on his floor for a night or two, where all of this would end. “I’ll never mention anything about tonight again if you don’t either. Forget it. It was a bad idea. A failed plan. That’s all.”

“Without even trying it?”

“I will zip your mouth shut,” Kaz rasps. “I’ll lock it. I’ll throw the key into the harbour. Fuck you.”

Jesper, though, somehow got even mouthier when he put the bondage suit on. Less respectful. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. “Come on, Kaz,” he wheedles. “I put it on, right? So I’m fine with it, if you’re worried. Aren’t you curious? If our places had been reversed—well, if you’d found it in my room you’d have murdered me, so we’re not exactly identical, but still. Come on, sit down next to me. This is—PVC right? Good job choosing me. Inej would hate it. So much plastic.”

“It’s less like skin than leather.”

“Not complaining, Kaz. I have some juice with a straw over there to keep me hydrated in case I sweat like a pig, but I haven’t, yet. I can probably camp out in this for a few more hours.” He tries a patented Jesper I’m flirting in an over the top way to make you laugh which is my flirting style for when I’m genuinely worried about the reaction because this way I can pass off exasperation and mockery as the response I intended look, probably with fluttering eyes, but since Kaz can barely make them out through those open zippers and the rest of his face is a complete mystery, it falls flat. It looks ridiculous, though, so it also works, and Jesper has the nerve of complaining about Kaz’ eight-dimensional chess plans. He’s worse. He’s worse, and animated by Jesper’s ridiculous, familiar movements the bondage suit doesn’t look like a pathetic attempt anymore. Not like the desperation of an emotional cripple. It just looks like Jesper, with an extra layer on his skin. Jesper, probably making a duckface, purring, “Don’t you think I’m sexy?”

Kaz looks away. “Are you serious right now?”

“Of course,” Jesper replies instantly, as if there was never any reason to doubt him. As if he doesn’t blame Kaz for doubting, simultaneously. As if Kaz is allowed to try. To fail. To fuck up, risk hurting him. There is a reason why Kaz never even considered someone else for the suit. “Come on, get on the bed.”

“We have to talk with Inej first. And with Wylan.”

“One-track mind,” Jesper replies, and just like that Kaz is ready to murder him again. “We’re not fucking. We’re not doing more than normal, except maybe touch. We don’t even know yet whether this helps you. I’m not risking it. We’ll just try touching, and if you think it’s triggering, we stop. We’ve got all the time in the world to work up to more. Until this city sinks into the ocean and the grid collapses from heat, which might be tomorrow, so. Or the fascists win.”

“You’ve been listening to Inej.”

“I do try to keep up.”

“Well, stop. Or listen more carefully, until the end, when she gets to the doomerism is the opiate of the masses part.”

“Just get on the bed, Kaz.”

Kaz puts his bent good knee onto the mattress and pulls himself over to Jesper. The fabric of his linen smock rubs against his heated skin: not like corpses, not like that, not like Jordie and he won’t even think about him or this will be over but—it just feels like his own familiar coarse age-softened nightgown that Jesper hasn’t even made fun of yet, his thin nightgown that in a second will be one of only two layers between him and Jesper.

He rolls over so he can sit down next to Jesper, at first. Daringly, he leans an arm against his best—well, they’ll figure that out later.

“Okay?” Jesper asks. He has to crane his head a lot to look through the thin eye slits of his bondage mask at Kaz’ face, and even then he’s probably mostly seeing the gleaming teeth of the eyehole zippers. And still he leans forward forty-five degrees and twists his torso and neck so he can look up into Kaz’ face, carefully keeping the arm that’s touching Kaz as motionless as possible, because he’s being careful with Kaz. Kaz has told him a thousand times he hates being coddled. He’s not a poor little abused dog, he’s a vicious murderer who destroyed his leg and his ability to be close to people while he was murdering, that’s all he ever told Jesper. That lie. And yet—even if he’s only fooling himself because this scene is so patently ridiculous, and the psych ward he got sent to once for the crime of rough sleeping while underage would stamp every single thing about what they’re doing as deeply unhealthy, and he can’t see Jesper’s soft concerned expression under the hood… Whatever it is, Kaz feels warm all over. He feels good. Safe.

Jesper can tell, apparently. “Want to touch my chest? Or climb into my lap?”

Kaz moves over, carefully smoothing down his nightgown before he sits down on Jesper, angled so he can lean with his left arm pressed against Jesper’s chest. It’s safer, somehow, than giving him the back, but perhaps someday…

Jesper loosely wraps his arms around Kaz. They’re just there, barely touching, the hands lax on top of Kaz’ right knee. You can leave at any time, they say, I’ll let go as soon as you’re uncomfortable, and Kaz would have known that regardless. Jesper’s never usually this still, unless he’s lost in concentration: and Kaz, who’s seen how gambling can destroy someone’s life, how it is currently destroying someone’s life, would still bet everything he has ever owned that Jesper’s concentrating on every single aspect of Kaz’ body language right now.

It’s not necessary, though. Those hands are gleaming black PVC. They don’t look or feel anything like Kaz’ memories.

He drops his own naked right hand onto Jesper’s gloved one. Joins them. Anchors Jesper. “How much do you owe this time, Jes?”

A beat. Jesper’s face drops down towards Kaz’ lap. Trying to hide his shame, and he’s forgotten that he’s wearing a full bondage mask, that Kaz can barely make out his eyes through the slits of the zippers. If he’s trying to deny everything, Kaz will just beat it out of him. He’s done it before. A year ago, when it was bad, but Jesper promised he got it under control. But Jesper’s promises were never worth much, not for this. If they were, they’d never have met.

“Four grand.”

“To?”

“Tom Geels. One of Big Bol’s old friends—”

“So he put you up to—”

“I was already playing when he walked up to me, Kaz,” Jesper grinds out. Aware that he could save himself from at least a little of Kaz’ disappointment by casting Bollinger as the tempter. Simultaneously aware that Kaz promised to feed Bollinger to a marine propeller last year if he ever took Jesper gambling again. Noble, to try and save Bollinger’s life—or to save Kaz from committing another murder—not that either of them deserves his loyalty. “I’ll pay you back, Kaz. I’ll have the money. Give me—give me half a year, Da’s still sending me—sending me rent money, Christ, he’s—I’ll save it. No, you’ll get it straight as soon as I get it, and in six months, you’re paid back in full. I promise.”

“We’ll figure it out. I have some jobs I could use you on. Nothing big. Intimidation, mostly. Some breaking, some entering. Boring stuff, not even worth mentioning to Wylan I should think.”

“Thank you.” Jesper’s forgotten all his restraint. He’s kissing Kaz’ forehead, or rather kissing the inside of his mask that’s pressed against Kaz’ forehead. He’s wrapped Kaz tightly in his long bondage arms too, painfully twisting Kaz’ shoulder and elbow and wrist because Kaz is still holding onto his hand. It’s that welcome pain, and the texture of the bondage suit that Kaz still isn’t completely used to, that keeps him from breaking Jesper’s nose. Keeps him—he isn’t back in the North Sea. He isn’t with Jordie. He should be, but he isn’t, and even if it comes…

Inej taught him about grounding. None of them trust the system as far as they can throw it, so she didn’t send him to a shrink when they started dating, unlike he feared, but—she said they helped her, those grounding exercises she found on the internet, and so Kaz has been diligently practicing breathing techniques and focusing his awareness on details of the present moment. Five things he can see: well, it’s dark, but the way what little streetlight gets through reflects off the folds of the suit on Jesper’s bowed stomach is quite interesting. His own knees. His hand, still clutching Jesper’s. The cane, on the floor. The floor. Five things he can hear: early morning traffic, Jesper’s breath, Jesper trying not to sob out loud in relief or shame or a mixture of both, the rustling of fabric, the squeaking of fabric. Five things he can feel: The old ache of his leg, always. Jesper’s hand. Jesper’s thighs. The hard buttons at the flap over Jesper’s crotch, digging into his side.

Somehow, Jesper’s noticed his shift in focus. At least he’s stopped crying now. “You know, you could have just asked how big I am if you wanted a suit with a dick pouch,” he teases in a voice that almost manages to sound happy. “I wouldn’t even have been suspicious.”

“Just because you have no boundaries, Jes, doesn’t mean I have to sink down to meet you at your level.”

Jesper takes a big breath. To forestall the whole Who bought this bondage suit argument Kaz elbows him in the stomach, hard. Once Jesper’s done coughing—a wriggling movement against Kaz’ side that he’s never even felt before—he mumbles something else, though. “I texted Da my new number. He called last week. Wanted to know how I was doing,” and oh. That makes sense. That’s what did it. “Apparently I’m graduating in seven months, according to that fake schedule you made me so I could keep my lies straight. He wants to come to the graduation. He asked me whether I have a job lined up.”

“I could hire somebody to fake you a degree,” Kaz offers. This should be Inej’s job. She shouldn’t be off somewhere, saving grasshoppers. She should be here. She’s the one who tried to talk Jesper into coming clean to his father, last year. All Kaz knows, all he has ever done, is to keep digging, and it’s worked for him. So far. “It’s all the rage now I hear. Cheap, too. No-one will find out. Just don’t become a politician in Germany.”

Jesper sighs. The air kisses the back of Kaz’ neck. “I don’t even care anymore. I could have a degree, or not, it all doesn’t matter. Universities are a scam to regulate economic class relations anyway. I don’t know that I can keep lying forever, or get a job, just so I don’t have to tell Da I betrayed him. Because nothing matters anyway. We’re collectively throwing the future down the drain. It’s not like anyone needs another mechanical engineer when we hit four degrees. I don’t know what we need. I just know everything I know is pointless.”

“I’m sure Inej can hook you up, if you want to blow up a coal power plant.”

“But what about you, then? What would you do?”

“I could have you kidnapped,” Kaz says. That’s not what Jesper meant. Kaz refuses to think about what Jesper meant. “Fake your death. Colm will be so relieved when they find you that he won’t even care you failed all your studies so you could become a live-in human blow-up doll.”

“That’ll only keep Da happy for a year at most and you know it.”

“Well, then Colm’s just going to have to get used to it. Get used to you, like we did. Real, annoying, good-for-nothing directionless screw-up Jesper.”

Jesper rubs his leathered cheek against the crown of Kaz’ head. “Fuck you. Thanks.”

Kaz runs his fingers over the squeaky PVC on Jesper’s forearms, steeling himself before he whispers idly against Jesper’s neck, “If Inej’s right about the warming and the sea level over the next decades, it won’t just be refugees from the south we’re letting drown, people it’s easy to lock out. Maybe you’re right about the Doggerland thing, and we all get flooded.” He swallows. The words are high up in his throat, trying to spew out. “Then it won’t just be one stupid child with a stupid family going out boating in the North Sea when there’s a storm coming. Not just that one kid thrown out of a sinking boat nearly drowning and clinging to his brother’s corpse. Your blow-up doll skills will be in high demand if everyone else gets triggered by skin contact too.”

Jesper, miraculously, reveals a talent Kaz didn’t even know he possessed: he shuts up. He ghosts his gloved hands over Kaz’ shoulders, and then he starts carding his fingers through Kaz’ hair. Kaz can feel the static electricity building up, the crackles and the safety, and then he realizes his eyes have drifted shut. He realizes he doesn’t know how long Jesper’s been petting him.

“Take off your hood,” he mumbles.

“Kaz?”

“Take it off. Scuttle over so your head’s on the pillow.”

Jesper obeys, like Kaz always knew he would. He looks up at Kaz with something that might be confusion but might also be—trust and deep joy and more, something Kaz can’t quite admit anymore now he’s in his bed, and Kaz puts his head down on his chest. His legs will still fit, and this way, he has the squeaky PVC right where he needs it. Squeaky, rhythmically rising warm dry plastic under him. The exact opposite of a waterlogged corpse.

“I don’t have time to call you an ambulance when you get into a bondage suit erotic asphyxiation incident, just so you know. I have a full schedule for today, remember. I’ll be at Haskell’s until after midnight. I have to break Bollinger’s thumbs. My alarm is at seven. Turn it off and I’ll send you to Colm in bite-sized pieces,” Kaz rasps, and then, with a movement that no-one would call timid if they wanted to keep their tongue attached, wraps his arms around Jesper. “You’ve kept me awake for two hours, so be a good pillow. If I kick you off the bed while I’m dozing, remember. This is your fault.”

[yslkook]

#by the books (5)

#corporate masterlist

summary: seokjin helps you come to several epiphanies. you wrestle with your growing fondness with jungkook, while determining how to talk to him. word count: 5570 warnings: cursing, parental death, discussion of mental health, some alc a/n: this is part 2/3 of being in tokyo!

SUNDAY

Seokjin knows something is wrong when you don’t respond to his texts for over fourteen hours. It’s well into Sunday morning, closer to the afternoon, when he makes the executive decision to camp out outside your hotel room until you let him in. He knows you’ve been on your phone- you’ve been on Instagram. You’re just avoiding him, and probably the rest of the world. As you usually tend to do, when you’re upset.

You don’t know what to do. You’ve never yelled at someone the way you yelled at Jungkook last night, much less literally ran away from someone like that. Embarrassment colors your memories, internally cringing when you replay the night’s events in your mind. It plays like a movie, the same moment mocking you incessantly. Jungkook’s heartbroken, doe eyes haunt you- you’ve barely been able to sleep because you’ve struggled coming to terms with the fact that you put that look on his face.

The reflection in your mirror disgusts you. And yet, you still do nothing about it, burying yourself under the duvet and ignoring anything that wasn’t sleep. It’s easier that way.

Your phone rings again- it’s Jin. You ignore his call. That’s your first mistake. He nearly screeches your name outside the door to your hotel room, menacingly knocking on your door. He’s clearly on a mission to piss off everyone who had the bad luck to be staying in the hotel rooms adjacent to you.

“I’m sleeping,” You shout easily, your voice muffled from the comforter.

“Open the damn door,” Jin demands and you groan. He won’t stop until you let him in, much to your chagrin. You just want to wallow in your self-pity for a bit, is that too much to ask for?

So you finally force yourself out of the bed and drag your feet to the door. “You look like fuckin’ shit,” Jin remarks, taking in your bleary eyes and the permanent frown on your face.

“Thanks, Seokjin. Just what every girl wants to hear,” You mutter and burrow yourself in bed once more. Without a moment’s hesitation, he gets under the covers next to you, curling into your side. Like he’s done a million times before.

“Leave me alone, Jin,” You mumble, without any real heat in your voice, “Yuna wouldn’t like this. Your girlfriend wouldn’t like you to be in bed with another girl-”

“Shut up, stupid. You’re not just another girl,” Jin dismisses you, only tightening his hold around your waist.

“Go away,” You try again, rather weakly. Instead, you let your hand sit on top of his. You both lay together in silence like that for a while. His presence always calms you down, brings you back up a few notches.

“I did something awful last night,” You finally say, voice hoarse from disuse.

“What did you do?”

You take a deep, shuddering breath. “I yelled at Jungkook in front of my favorite ice cream shop… and then ran away from him.”

“What did you yell at him for?”

You tell him- you tell him how he told you he couldn’t keep up with you, how he called you his dream girl, how you screamed at him that your dad died and that you dropped out of school because you couldn’t handle it, how just seeing Jungkook reminded you of when you were happier.

“I’m such a fuckin’ idiot, Jin,” You mutter, pressing your face further into your pillow, “A-and how can he say I was his dream girl, I’m just such an-”

“Shh,” Jin says, muffling your mouth with his hand. Once you stop your self-deprecating train of thought, he pulls his hand away. Jin lays with you in silence once more, only running a hand over your upper arm to soothe you.

“Let’s go get lunch,” Jin suggests and he already hears the protest about to erupt from your lips, “You look like shit and I know you haven’t eaten. Go shower and wear something new. I’ll wait.”

You groan before forcing yourself out of the bed and dragging your feet into the bathroom. Jin rolls his eyes when you shoot a death glare in his direction. Jin was right- the hot water against your skin was soothing. You welcomed the stinging of the water as it pelted your skin with open arms. Feeling a little better coming out of the shower than you did going into the shower, you change into day clothes.

“Lookin’ better already,” Jin says, pulling you into a side hug.

Why is Jin friends with you, when you can’t stand yourself some days? You don’t know what he sees in you. Not when you seem to hurt everyone around you, so selfishly, as if it’s second nature.

But he keeps you close to him, his arm tight around your shoulder and those thoughts don’t throb in your mind as much as they usually do.

Jin sits across from you in a small, quiet ramen shop. You’re in a corner, away from most of the other patrons. There’s only four other people here, including the waitress. Jin says nothing about your outburst at Jungkook from the night before, only noisily slurping his ramen and then screeching with he bites his lip accidentally.

“You eat too fast,” You admonish, shaking your head when he rubs his bottom lip gingerly. Jin immediately takes his phone out to take a selfie and sends it to Yuna, claiming that he needs a kiss to make it better. You roll your eyes fondly and smile at him.

Puppy love is cute on him.

“So,” Jin finally says and your heart races. His tone has instantly shifted to a little more quiet, a little more serious.

“What do I do, Jin?” You whisper, shoulders slumping and avoiding his eyes, “He didn’t know. The kid didn’t know why I left, that Appa died- a-and I don’t know why he’s so hung up over it either. ‘Snot like we were friends like that back then anyway… God, Jin, you should’ve seen the look on his face before I ran away, like a fuckin’ coward.”

You hold your head in your hands above your half finished bowl of ramen and groan. “What a mess. I’m a fuckin’ mess.”

“Jungkook considered you friends back then,” Jin says slowly, “As far as I know, at least. I mean, I remember him being excited to see you every week for those mentor mentee sessions. And how grateful he was when you pulled him away from mean girls. He’s sensitive, you remember at least that much, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” You laugh despite your misery, “Used to call him Bambi back in the day. He’d get so flustered. But… I just- like, I told him it hurt too much to even look at him. Because he reminded me of when I was happy. Who fuckin’ does that?”

“But are you happy now?” Jin asks bluntly, slurping another mouthful of noodles.

“I don’t… know,” You murmur, “I think I can be.”

“Happy isn’t a constant thing. You won’t be happy all the time, the same way you won’t be sad all the time. But the last few years have been so hard. Let yourself be happy, sweetheart,” Jin says, reaching over to squeeze your hand, “Happy back then doesn’t have to be the same as happy now.”

“How do I just be happy?” You wonder out loud, making a mental note to talk to your therapist about this.

“I don’t know, but for starters, talk to Jungkook. He considered you both friends. You hurt his feelings when you left without a word. And he’s hurt now. And… I know you spent a long time blocking out the last few years, blocking out all of the bad. But there was some good, too.”

“Can’t believe he called me his dream girl. What does he know?” You grumble, crossing your arms over your chest but you feel a little lighter.

“You gonna tell me you didn’t like that?” Jin asks smugly.

“I didn’t!” You protest unconvincingly. Jin says nothing, only eyeing you with a knowing smile.

“You’re fooling no one. Eat your ramen, stupid.”

And so you do, the spicy broth curling in your belly as if it’s your home.

It feels like it’s been too long since you had spoken to Grandma, so you call her the minute you and Jin part ways. You tell her about the events of the past few days- how you had met up with friends you hadn’t seen in years. And how you had screamed at Jungkook undeservedly-

“I miss Appa,” You mumble, eyes watering, “He would be so upset with me. For the way I’ve been acting. Like he never existed, never talking about him…”

“He’d just want you to be happy, honey,” Grandma says kindly, “And to forgive yourself. To allow yourself to love and be loved.”

And then you cry some more. Grandma does, too.

Later, when you drive Jin, Jimin and Hoseok to the airport, all three of them wrap you up in tight hugs. As if you wouldn’t be in the same city as them in less than 48 hours. You promise to keep in touch with Jimin and Hoseok. Maybe they believe you, because they both hug you again with bright smiles.

MONDAY

Today’s the day. It’s the day that the Seoul team meets the Tokyo team face to face for the first time. Excitement brims in your blood- you’re certain that you have a lot to learn from this team. They’ve been a part of more submissions than your smaller team had been, and it had been a big surprise that Namjoon was named as the main lead of the project. But he was more than capable, as he had shown in the last few months.

The Tokyo team consists of Lisa, Irene, Minhyuk and they’re led by Mark. Mark, who you’ve known for about as long as you’ve been with the company. He had started with you in Seoul, in the same position and had quickly moved up in the ladder. Which seems to be the case for a lot of people, namely men, around you. He had actually beat you out for the job that he currently had. It had left a sour taste in your mouth for a long time- what did he have that you didn’t? But slowly, with time, you had gotten over it. After all, the job was in Tokyo, and you don’t think you were ready for that kind of move at the time. Everything happens for a reason, or so they say.

The company office in Tokyo is a little older than the one in Seoul- after all, the Seoul office had been recently renovated. If there was a word to describe the Seoul office, it was sleek and modern. You quite liked it.

Minhyuk had picked you, Jungkook, Sana and Namjoon up in the lobby to take you to the conference room that you would be working in. He’s a chatterbox, telling you about the history of the building, how long he’s been with the company and how grateful he is to be part of this team.

Jungkook tunes him out, nodding when needed and asking questions when appropriate. He casts his eyes over to you despite himself. You had put on a little more makeup today than usual, trying to conceal the puffiness of your eyes. Not that Jungkook could tell. He thinks you’re pretty. And the way you chew on your glossy bottom lip as you listen to Minhyuk- he thinks you’re cute, too.

You’re hyper aware of Jungkook’s presence next to you as you walk through the hallways and finally reach the conference room. He sits across from you, and for the first time since Saturday night, you allow yourself the luxury of looking at him. Despite a room full of new faces, the only person you want to look at is him. His dark hair is softly tousled over his forehead, barely there dimples dotted in his cheeks when he smiles at his new team members.

His gaze is transfixed on Mark and Namjoon, as they introduce themselves formally to each other and the rest of the team respectively. Mark’s eyes brighten when he sees you, but he keeps it professional, only shaking your hand with a smile that borders on a smirk.

Irene and Lisa eye you almost warily, until you introduce yourself to them with a warm handshake and a warm smile. You’ve been told you have an intimidating persona when people first meet you- in fact, your boss is the one who always tells you to smile more. What a jerk.

Mark and Namjoon both present on the mission and the objectives of the submission, and then what each individual team will be responsible for. You take a sip of your coffee, and cast your eyes around the room. Irene, Lisa, Sana and Minhyuk are intently listening to Mark and Namjoon and taking notes. While you’re staring at Jungkook.

And he’s staring back at you.

You pull your eyes away first, heart doing almost painful somersaults in your chest. You don’t mind being caught at staring at him, but you just feel like there is so much you need to say to him.

Like apologize. You need to apologize for unloading and dumping on him when he didn’t ask for it. But then, his smile fades and his doe eyes are sad. Because of you. It’s all because of you.

You and Namjoon present your slides for your team’s plan going forward, with details on the timelines and deliverables. Jungkook and Sana will be working on the logistics piece to organize another face-to-face workshop, and for the next one, the Tokyo team will come to Seoul.

Despite the heat of Jungkook’s gaze on you, you speak clearly and confidently. Jungkook loves the sound of your voice, the way it floats out into the room and wraps itself around him comfortingly.

Even when you had yelled at him outside of the ice cream shop, about how your Appa had died, about dropping out of school, and about how seeing him reminded you of when you were happy… Even then, he could never wince at the sound of your voice.

Jungkook was pissed that nobody had told him- that he had gone this long thinking so selfishly about you. He could have never have fathomed the gravity of your circumstance. He had yelled at Jimin the next day, but Jimin had only yelled back at him-

“She dropped off the face of the earth! She wanted nothing to do with us and it was her thing to tell!”

“So she was all alone that whole time? Because you all thought it was her thing to tell?”

“Don’t act like you’re better than all of us just because you didn’t know! You and I didn’t reconnect until recently, how was I supposed to tell you? And we tried to reach out to her. She shut us out, literally. What could we do if she ignored us for five fuckin’ years?”

You were alone. With your Grandma and with Seokjin. But still, alone, and possibly thinking that nobody was checking on you. Even if there is truth to Jimin’s words, Jungkook can’t help but feel like he’s too late. If he had known…. Well, what would he have done?

This crush of his feels more and more childish as days go by. And yet, when you look at him, the way you’re looking at him now. With softness lined in your irises, he can’t help it.

He can’t help but look back at you. Maybe you can see his apology in his face.

“Hi,” A voice comes from your left side. You’re at the coffee bar, refilling your second cup of coffee before noon. His voice is reserved, almost shy. Your heart seizes up immediately at the sound of it.

“Morning, Jungkook,” You say breathlessly, grateful for the coffee cup in your hand for something to hold on to. To channel your nervous energy into.

“Morning,” Jungkook says softly, “Can I talk to you later? Maybe after the happy hour?” He asks, hope shining in his voice and sparkling in his eyes.

No- it was supposed to be you who would reach out to apologize. After all, you were the one who had screamed in his face and ran away. He’s probably only reaching out out of pity, you think cynically. Nevertheless, it throws you off.

And apparently, since you’re the keeper of bad decisions, your response to him is predictable. Despite every synapse in your heart screaming at you to say something else.

“Uh. I don’t think I’m going to the happy hour. I’m not really feeling great,” The lie blooms from your painted lips easily. His face falls and you pretend like your heart doesn’t ache over his doe eyes.

“Oh, okay. Feel better,” Jungkook says and you give him a barely there smile, passing him to head back in the conference room.

A headache is beginning to brew in the back of your head. It’s the last thing you need.

Why does it bother you that Jungkook had been the one to reach out to you first, rather than the other way around? After all, you were the one who caused a scene. What reason does he have to want to talk to you? If anything, you’re the one who needs to apologize, right?

You stare at the shifting trees in front of you, hoping that if you stare hard enough, the leaves will whisper an answer to you.

Maybe you’re just overthinking it. Maybe he just is that good, to want to speak to you just because.

You’ve been sitting here, at Appa’s park, for the better part of an hour. You’re hoping for an epiphany, or some type of sign. It feels strange that Jungkook is weighing so heavily on your mind. You’re not used to this feeling.

A whistle of wind rustles through the collar of your thin jacket, curling around you in comfort. With a loud exhale, you stand up from your bench.

“Oh, fine. I’ll go to the stupid happy hour,” You scoff into the sky. As if the sky can hear your complaining. And so you turn on your heel and leave the park, begrudgingly making your way to the happy hour venue.

Usually, showing up to work events like this alone was a breeze. It was easy for you to think about these things as just being something to check off in your list of things to do for the day. You stayed to say your hellos and made some small talk before leaving, all within an hour.

But today feels different. Your carefully put together nerves are beginning to fray at the seams. You take a deep breath before swinging the door open to enter the bar. Namjoon and Mark had rented out a corner of the bar for your teams to have your own space. High tables of appetizers and drinks surrounded the bustling voices of your teammates.

Your hands are inadvertently balled into tense fists. This place is littered with people and still, you feel so alone. You wish Jin was here. You wish Jin was here.

Jungkook sees the crown of your head the minute you walk into the bar, even with the dimmed lighting. He had been sulking before, barely interested in the conversation that he had forced himself into under the pretense of ‘networking’. Not that anyone would be able to tell- Jungkook has mastered the art of making it seem like he was present. He would never jeopardize an invaluable opportunity like this, and he’s never been one to allow others to surpass him in settings like this. He knows what the stakes are. But he’s become adept in the art of multitasking.

Your lips are pursed, eyes darting across each side of the room. It feels overwhelming, like too much. Maybe you shouldn’t have come…

You cross your arms and dig your nails into your cloth covered bicep nervously. Before you can calm the thudding of your heart in your ears, you turn your head and see Jungkook walking towards you with a smile.

You can’t help but smile back.

“Jungkook,” You exhale, “Hi.”

“You came,” Jungkook says, eyes crinkling at the sight of you. Has he always had those deep laugh lines around his eyes when he smiled? For a second, you’re breathless but you break his gaze, not wanting to let your eyes linger over the rest of him for too long. At the risk that you’ll be sucked into his warm, brown whirlpools.

“Yeah,” You say faintly. Jungkook can sense your nervousness- you can’t help your eyes darting around you at the number of people surrounding you.

“Wanna get a drink with me?” Jungkook asks, gesturing towards the bar with a flick of his fingers.

“Really? You wanna get a drink with me?” You ask incredulously, with a raise of your eyebrow. How could he possibly want to spend time with you, when you had treated him the way you had?

“It’s on Namjoon and Mark’s company card,” Jungkook shrugs and you laugh. He leads you towards the bar. There are a few people seated at the navy blue leather bar stools surrounding the bar, a few of them eyeing Jungkook curiously. It doesn’t surprise you- he looks good in a form fitting black turtleneck and black slacks. Rings adorn his fingers and small hoops sit in his earlobes, a soft smile peeling across his face when he looks at you.

Yeah. You’d stare at him, too. If you didn’t have the fortune to know him.

“What can I get you?” Jungkook asks, relaxing with his elbow on the bar top.

“You mean what can Namjoon and Mark get us?” You say, pulling a laugh from him. Your heart sings at the sweet sound. “Hmm… I’ll have wine, I guess.”

“Red or white?”

“White?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?” Jungkook teases and your cheeks heat up.

“Telling you! I’ll have a… chardonnay,” You reply, turning your head towards the bar so he can’t see how flustered you are. But he does, and he pockets the information for later.

Once Jungkook orders two glasses of chardonnay for both of you and you’re both holding the wine glasses in your hands, you gently clink your glass with him. It makes you a little nervous, how easily you find yourself talking to him. How comfortable you feel around him, as if you were old friends. As if you hadn’t been so mean to him only the night before.

You don’t know him well. But you remember that he’s always had a big heart, offering his forgiveness to those who didn’t deserve it. Would you ruin him? But maybe a little selfishly, you want to chase this feeling.

“I went to this park earlier,” You murmur, swirling your wine in your glass, “It’s really pretty and quiet. I used to go there all the time when I was younger.”

“You’ve been to Tokyo before?” Jungkook asks.

“Yeah,” You nod, “I used to come here a lot when I was a kid and spend summers here with Appa. Sometimes Grandma, too. Appa taught me Japanese from when I was really young, it’s probably why I’m even on this team…”

“That’s not true, you’re on this team because you’re really smart and good at what you do! And I know Namjoon values your opinion a lot-” Jungkook protests, an annoyed furrow in his brow. Is that really what you think of yourself?

You laugh and give him a grateful smile. With a breath of seemingly transient courage, you part your lips- “Jungkook,” Your voice is soft and small and nothing like what he’s used to, “I want to-”

And then you’re both interrupted by both Sana and Namjoon slinging their arms around your shoulders. Jungkook gives you a reassuring smile, a promise that you’ll talk later. You wonder if you’ll lose your courage by then.

Namjoon pulls you away from Jungkook and Sana, introducing you to some people that you’ve never met. You recognize them as higher ups, Hyo-Jin, the head of submissions for all of Asia and Hae-ri, the head of business development. The realization makes you take a few generous sips of your wine and straighten your back.

You can hear Jin’s voice in your head, telling you to make a good impression. Namjoon easily pulls you into the conversation, giving you plenty of opportunity to insert yourself in-

“She’s my right hand woman, though I don’t think even that is a good enough term to tell you what she is to me,” Namjoon says. Compliments like that always fluster you, and this time is no different.

“Namjoon speaks too highly of me,” You brush him off, “I’m just glad I have this opportunity, I mean being on the submissions team has always been one of my favorite parts of the job.”

“Oh? Do you see a future for yourself in submissions?” Hyo-Jin asks curiously, with a quirk of an elegant eyebrow. She’s a no nonsense woman, you can tell just from the five minutes you’ve had with her.

“I definitely want to lead submissions teams one day. I mean, Namjoon is a great teacher,” You grin, elbowing him, “But even more than that… I’d like to oversee an entire product line end to end later down the line. And I think it’s important to invest in our young talent, too-”

“Young talent? As in people development?” Hyo-Jin asks.

“Yeah, I mean they’re our future leaders, aren’t they? It’s important that they have the tools to succeed now and beyond,” You say vehemently.

Hyo-Jin says nothing, only nodding and taking a sip of her drink. “And you? Do you have the tools to succeed now and beyond as a future leader?”

The question makes you stumble. Do you throw your boss under the bus? But you’ve never been a liar, and you sure as hell won’t start now.

“No,” You say bluntly, “I’ve learned so much with Namjoon and being part of this team. And in general being part of regulatory and submissions projects. But I don’t think my skill set is being effectively used in my current role. If you want an honest answer.”

You can practically hear Jin scolding you from far away. But you won’t build a professional relationship on a fallacy. To your surprise, Hyo-Jin smiles.

“That’s refreshing,” She says, her painted lips splitting into a smile.

“What is?” You ask, feeling rather stupid.

“Your honesty,” Hae-ri chimes in, “People aren’t always honest with us, because of our titles. Like they have something to prove.”

“Yeah, well, maybe people are rightfully more concerned about making a good first impression than I am,” You joke, gripping the handle of your wine glass tighter. Hyo-Jin and Hae-ri both laugh with you, telling you to put time on their calendars to meet with them virtually when you go back to South Korea after the trip. With that, they both slip away from you, making sure you know that they appreciated your presence. And then you let out a breath.

“Holy shit. I fucked that up,” You mutter, “My boss is going to kill me, Joon. What the hell is wrong with me-”

“Relax,” Namjoon says easily, his dimples on display, “They loved you. Trust me, they loved you. They already knew who you were, you know.”

“What? How could they possibly know who I was?” You gasp incredulously, “I’m a nobody!”

“Seokjin’s right. For someone so smart, you’re dumb-”

“Hey! That’s unprofessional of you,” You say, but a smile threatens your lips.

“They never tell anyone to put time on their calendars unless they like them. So just trust me. And this submission has the eyes of all of the higher ups. Our good work doesn’t go unnoticed.”

“I just,” You sigh, “I’m used to it going unnoticed. So I guess… Thank you. For your leadership, your guidance… and your friendship.”

He smiles at you brightly and clinks his glass with you. “C’mon, let’s go find Mark.”

Jungkook can’t help but cast his eyes in your direction every so often. He knew, he knew you were about to say something poignant at the bar. All of the signs were there- your serious eyes, the way you forced yourself to look him in the face, the barely there nervousness that he could taste.

It seems that everyone suddenly wants a piece of you- you flit around with Namjoon, taking it all in as he introduces you to people. Jungkook is beyond happy for you, that you’re finally getting the recognition you deserve from the company.

But still, he can’t help but crave just a minute alone with you. Especially when he sees Mark’s face light up at the sight of you, pulling you into a too-friendly hug. And you don’t even realize it, it seems. Only offering him a smile in return, surprise coloring your face when he hugs you so tightly.

Jungkook tries his best to stay present in the conversation he’s in, with Sana and a few other members of the Tokyo team. But he has such a nice view of you that he can’t help his eyes drifting every so often. He can’t help noticing the way your pink pants sit on your hips, and the way your black blouse is tucked into them. More than that though, he can’t help noticing Mark noticing.

Do you know? That Mark sees you in that light? He’s so obvious about it, and yet. It seems like you’re oblivious.

Namjoon eventually excuses himself from both of you, claiming that he can hear Sana calling for him. You think nothing of it, shrugging and continuing your conversation with Mark.

“Hey, you did great today,” Mark compliments, stepping just a hair closer to you.

“Oh! Thanks, I know,” You wink at him, “I have a great team, I mean it.”

“Well,” Mark says, taking a sip of his soju, “You’re pretty great, too.”

“Oh, stop,” You wave him off with a roll of your eyes, “You don’t need to butter me up, Mark. Save it.”

“C’mon, you know I mean it. We’ve been through a lot, you and I,” Mark says with a crooked sort of grin. You understand why people fawn over him, that smile could get anyone to do anything but you roll your eyes.

“Have we, Mark?” You ask dryly.

“We go way back,” He says self-assuredly, almost cockily.

“No, we don’t,” You mumble under your breath, and he hears you. You subtly take a step back from him, turning on your side. Only to find Jungkook already looking at you.

“You wound me,” Mark murmurs, placing a hand over his heart dramatically. You roll your eyes, but still give him the same grin. It’s polite, nothing more, nothing less.  

The way Mark looks at you teeters on the edge of something more than friendly professionalism. It’s clear that you both have known each other for a while. Maybe through work? Maybe something else? It bothers Jungkook, and he knows it shouldn’t. Especially when Mark leaves you for a minute, only to return with a refill of your wine.

An irritating ember settles in the pit of Jungkook’s stomach. Perhaps he has an ulcer, he thinks dryly.

Mark has your phone number, from other projects you’ve worked with him on. He does text you every so often, maybe once every few months. You’ve never thought much of it, only responding to him out of obligation since he is your colleague and technically your superior. You don’t think it’s malicious- he’s always been a charmer. Even when you first met him when you first started at the company.

By the time you manage to shake yourself of Mark, Jungkook has disappeared. How long has it been since you’ve been here? You look outside of the windows quickly, taking in the darkness of the sky and the moon hanging from it.

“Hey, you ready to head back to the hotel?” Namjoon asks, Sana already in her coat next to him.

“Yeah, where’s Jungkook?” You ask, craning your neck to see the top of his fluffy hair.

“He left a bit ago. Said he wasn’t feeling well,” Sana says, fastening the buttons on her coat. The bitter pill of regret settles in your belly. How ironic that he had left happy hour saying he wasn’t feeling well, when that had been your excuse to not attend.

So still, even when you are in your hotel room after the happy hour, changed in your pajamas and about to watch a show to end your night, you think nothing of it when Mark texts you later that night:

Mark: it was good to see you tn :)

Despite Mark’s name lighting up your phone, you feel an ache in your heart. Over the fact that you hadn’t had the chance to speak to Jungkook. He’s somewhere in this hotel, and you could, you really could just ask Namjoon his room number and talk to him. But the bolt of courage from earlier seems to have fizzled out long ago.

So you text Mark back instead. Thinking nothing of it.

[lovelylogans]

honey, you’re familiar (like my mirror)

see other chapters, notes, and warnings here!

chapter four: symbiosis

symbiosis: interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, typically to the advantage of both.

VIRGIL

“Uh,” Virgil says, scrambling in the face of his mother—hair wrapped for the night, blinking the sleep out of her eyes, her arms crossed, “My—myself?”

Technically true, he guesses, according to some of the sensate’s personal beliefs about the connections they share with their clusters, according to Logan according to Dot. Like having other selves scattered across the world.

Andisiwe frowns. “At this time of night?”

Virgil shrugs weakly.

She frowns deeper. Then:

“You know,” she says, looking at him very intently, “your grandmother used to talk to herself at all times of day, too.”

Virgil stays silent. His mother crouches to sit with him on the floor, settling with a long sigh.

“About anything at all,” she continues. “She’d talk about the snow when this country hadn’t seen snow for ten years. She’d laugh when no one told a joke, cried when nothing sad had happened. She’d make recipes I’d never heard of before. You remember her pitha?”

Virgil nods, confused. Of course he remembers her pitha. They’d have it at every large family gathering.

“That’s an Indian dessert. She’d never left South Africa in all her life, but she knew how to make pitha and speak Tamil like she was born in Bangalore. Just like you were speaking a language other than Xhosa or English just now.”

Oh, Virgil thinks, then, oh.

“So unless you started taking language lessons while studying for your doctorate,” she says, staring at him.

Virgil chews at the inside of his cheek.

“No,” he says hoarsely. “No, I didn’t.”

She nods, accepting this. “How long…?”

“I don’t know,” Virgil admits. “A week and a half? Two weeks?”

“Not long at all,” she murmurs. “ I suppose it might skip a generation. She told me once it started when she was a child. A horrible headache struck her, and once it let up she had seven new friends all around the world. When they were all ten, maybe.”

Ten, Virgil thinks, mind whirling. God, to deal with all this at the age of ten?

“Sensates,” Virgil croaks. “We’re called sensates.”

His mother offers him a smile. 

“I know,” she says. “Tell me about them.”

“One’s here,” Virgil says, and he looks at the big, tall, tattooed man. “I don’t think I got your name last time.”

The man walks from his plush apartment rug to sit on the hardwood floor. 

“Patton Taumata,” he says with Virgil’s mouth, offering a bright smile to Virgil’s mother, sitting beside him. “Māori, New Zealander.”

And then Virgil feels what Patton does next—pull seems too strong a word, but it’s the closest he has.

Sitting across from him, looking vaguely disgruntled to find himself on the ground, yet still sitting at his desk in his home office.

“Janus Slange,” he says. “London.”

He slides out of Virgil’s body to find a spot to sit that’s a bit more refined.

Patton turns his head, and Virgil turns his gaze to follow.

“Roman Regio,” the actor says, looking up from his script to gesture beside him. “And my brother, Remus. Who is currently on his way to Mexico City, which he should have done as soon as he got accused.”

“This is such a dumb plan,” Remus groans, resting his head simultaneously against the bus window and Virgil’s bed. “I want all of you batshit hallucinations to know that I don’t come up with plans this stupid. My plans are refined in the way they cause utter chaos.”

Sitting in his bed in the barracks and beside Virgil, so close their thighs almost touch, giving Virgil a thrill that shoots all the way to his fingertips—

“Logan Zieliński,” he says to Virgil’s mother, careful to sound respectful. “I was just here. I’m Polish, but I’m currently studying in Antarctica. Space research.”

They’re here. All of them here. But Virgil sees Patton reach again—

EMILE

—and Emile beams at the sight before him. Patton turns to grin at him.

“Well done!” Emile says, filled to bursting with pride. 

Patton! Reliably being able to pull them all in to visit together! That kind of skill—coupled with the fact that Patton, back in his apartment in Auckland, is peaceably planning lessons with a sitcom in the background—can take other sensates months of practice to truly achieve. 

“Is this your mother?” He asks Virgil.

Virgil says, “Um, Mom, my—cluster parent?”

Emile makes an eh handwavey gesture followed by a thumbs-up. “Whatever you’re comfortable with, I’m comfortable with!”

“—is here right now. His name’s—”

He speaks at the same time as Emile does.

“Dr. Emile Picani, hi there—!”

“—and he’s American.”

Virgil’s mother’s brow wrinkles in distaste, but she does a good show of trying to hide it.

“That’s fair,” Emile says. “Americans are—well, y’know. You’ve seen the news.”

“This is my mother, Dr. Andisiwe Nkosi. My grandmother was a sensate too, apparently.”

“Oh, that’s lovely!” Emile exclaims. “There are sensates within biological families, of course—” he gestures to Roman and Remus, “—but things are still up in the air about if and how being homo sensorium passes down.”

“Dot said the number of sensates is rising due to epigenetic factors,” Logan says.

“Oh, you’ve met Dot!” Emile says delightedly. 

“She answered many of the questions I have,” Logan says, and for a blip, they’re all sitting in the barracks in Antarctica as Logan reaches for a notebook and pen. “But I still have many questions.”

“Entirely understandable,” Emile says.

“Wait, you got your questions answered?” Roman demands, and they’re all sitting on Roman’s apartment’s massive balcony overlooking Mexico City. “I just got this one—” he points accusingly at Janus, “telling me hey, surprise, you’re not actually losing your shit!”

Janus shrugs, and they’re all surrounded by monitors, blinking with so many different points of data it makes Emile a little dizzy. “He just showed up in the mirror while I was shaving.”

“Well,” Emile says, and they’re all in Emile’s apartment at home. Emile puts a kettle on the stove. “I’m here now. So what questions can I help you answer? Or, at least, activate the Archipelago to get some kind of answer for you. If you can think of some kind of subject, there’s probably a sensate that knows something about it, but I suppose we should probably start with the sensate-specific questions.”

Remus puts up a hand and asks, loudly, “Can I use the psychic connection with other sensates to have some kind of insane worldwide orgy?”

ROMAN

Sasha is out for a key art photoshoot, so Roman has the whole apartment to himself. Which is good, because he got a bit busy last night with the whole explanation of what exactly it is that’s been happening to him, and then yelling in disgust when Remus asked gross questions about it.

Roman’s considering if he wants to paint his nails—it’s not like he can keep it, if solely for movie continuity—just to have something to do with his hands when the door cracks open.

And in steps Remus—absolutely filthy, staring at Roman incredulously, a fake mustache plastered above his real mustache that he immediately rips off.

“It worked,” Roman says gleefully. “It worked!”

“First of all, cops ain’t shit, I probably should have expected literally every police officer to sleep on the job when seeing someone suspicious board a bus, but Jesus fuckin’ Christ, your security munches ass,” Remus declares, “They let a murderer get into your apartment.” 

Roman bursts out laughing.

“It’s not funny!” Remus says, pulling off the fake beard he’d donned. “It took five pesos of stolen fake beard and mustache to fool everyone, are you fucking kidding me—?!”

Roman slides off the couch, gripping his stomach, he’s laughing so hard.

“What?!” Remus demands, throwing off the overly large trench coat he’d been huddling under.

“You,” Roman wheezes, then, “you said the plan was stupid and it wouldn’t work—!”

“It is stupid! I come up with way better plans than this, you’re telling me that you came up with the stupid kid movie plan and I didn’t?! And it shouldn’t have worked—Roman, stop laughing, your fangirls are fucking batshit crazy, could you imagine what kind of weird Wattpad shit they’d get up to if they knew how easy it was to break in here?!”

Roman is screaming with laughter, because literally all they needed was a fake mustache and beard, and ooh Roman can tell that Remus is pissed that Roman came up with this plan first because it’s such a perfectly Remus plan. He isn’t sure how much of it is a sensate thing versus a twin brother thing, but all the same, Roman knows that Remus is absolutely fuming, which makes it even funnier.

Remus storms off, shouting, “Just for this, I’m going to use up all your fancy shampoo! I’m going to take the biggest, nastiest shit in your bathroom! I’m—I’m going to eat all your soap! I will! I’ll do it! I’m eating all your soap!”

LOGAN

It’s still a little startling to look over at his notebook and suddenly find himself in South Africa, but he’s gotten a little more accustomed to it since the night before. He’s been feeling a pull to South Africa all day, like an ache deep in his chest. He isn’t entirely sure why.

Virgil glances over at him and smiles, just a little. Logan smiles back. Virgil clears his throat and returns his attention to the textbook before him.

“Roman’s plan worked,” he says. 

Logan huffs, shaking his head. Honestly. It’s like those American movies when three children stack on top of each other and wear a large trenchcoat and a fake beard to gain access to the movies, but it actually worked. 

In retrospect, Logan’s sure that Remus would have foregone his escape into the wilderness if he’d known that donning a disguise and having his rich brother pay away the arrest troubles and their psychically connected lawyer argue before the court would have worked so neatly.

However, considering that nearly every aspect of that plan is absolutely off the rails ridiculous, the escape into the wilderness must have seemed like a prudent measure to take at the time.

“How’s your research?” Logan asks, sitting down on Virgil’s bed. 

“Pretty good,” Virgil says, his tone very casual. “I think the fact that abrus precatorius—”

“The scientific name for rosary peas,” Logan assumes. He is rewarded by a nod from Virgil.

“—isn’t native to Mexico and the fact that Remus hasn’t traveled for years on end is a pretty good basis for Janus to go on. Plus, abrin—”

“The toxin?” Logan clarifies and receives a nod.

“—is incredibly toxic, to the point where anyone ordering rosary peas would probably get pinged under some kind of monitoring system. So there wouldn’t really be a way for Remus himself to get them. Miguel Contreras, on the other hand—”

“The murder victim?” Logan says, startled.

“Yes—on the other hand, he went to Florida very recently. He got back three days before his death, in fact.”

“I thought they were native to Asia and Australia?”

“Yeah, they are, but rosary peas are an invasive species, and they’ve been clocked in the pine rocklands there,” Virgil says. “Symptoms usually occur pretty quick, but it can take up to five days to show up, depending on the method of ingestion. And considering the seed of just one pea could be fatal…”

“Then the cause of death could very well be found in Florida!” Logan says. “And the only thing they have on Remus—”

“—Are threats, exactly,” Virgil says enthusiastically. “And considering the way Remus is as a person, Janus could probably get those hand-waved away as being under jest, rather than an actual threat to kill him.”

They smile at each other again, Virgil’s lips twisting wryly. 

“I’ve been wanting to visit you all day,” he says abruptly, and Logan feels that flutter in his stomach again, the one he’s been feeling since they first met; he’s willing to admit to himself that it most certainly isn’t unease, now. It is a near antonym of unease.

“I have too,” Logan admits, trying his very best to keep his voice informal.

Virgil’s smile softens, a little. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” Logan affirms, and the flutter in his stomach intensifies.

They stare at each other. Virgil’s eyes, Logan notices abruptly, are objectively beautiful. Framed by long lashes, his eyes are so dark a shade of brown they’re practically black, so easy to stare at, admiring the way a sudden shift in the lighting would illuminate the subtle honeyed depths of them. 

For a moment, Logan gets a flicker; he’s looking at his own eyes, blue and framed by his glasses, but the emotion in him doesn’t change, the fleeting thought of look how gorgeous, and suddenly he is back to looking at Virgil, and, as one, they look away.

Virgil coughs awkwardly. “This sensate thing—weird, huh?”

For the first time, Logan wonders if the feeling in his stomach is not entirely his own. If it is something shared.

But, Logan thinks, sneaking a look at Virgil taking notes, twirling his pen idly over the backs of his long fingers, he supposes that neither of them would be able to tell that, anyways.

REMUS

Remus is bouncing his leg so much that the cop near him is giving him a disdainful look.

Or maybe the look is because the cop thinks he’s a murderer. Whatever.

“Are you sure this is gonna work,” Remus mutters out of the corner of his mouth because he hasn’t gotten the hang of visiting someone in his cluster and going about day-to-day life like a normal person, the way more experienced sensates can. 

“Positive,” Janus says. He’s sitting crossed-legged beside Remus in his holding cell, where they’re waiting to be transported to the courtroom. Remus is pretty sure most lawyers shouldn’t turn up to court in pajamas, but considering that to the rest of the courtroom Remus is going to play at being his own lawyer, it’s all fine. 

“All they have on you is proximity and threats,” Janus continues. “And considering the voice in your novels, along with the parts in your dust jackets’ where you literally threaten your readers, I can get that set aside no problem.”

Remus inhales heavily and exhales just as noisily.

“Right,” he says. “Right.”

Roman flickers into sight just long enough to shoot Remus a thumbs up, and as Janus resumes spitting legal jargon, Remus feels his shoulders relax.

PATTON

“Be careful with our bezzie Buzzy Bee!” Patton says brightly. He’s crouched before Sophie, having helped untangle the string. “Let’s make sure we don’t tangle him up again, eh?”

“I will, Mr. T!” Sophie shouts, already on the run with the toy, and Patton huffs ruefully. It’ll probably be tangled up again by the end of the day.

A brief chill across his skin, and Patton shivers before he refocuses on the sunny afternoon, here, in Auckland.

By the time he’s stood upright, Logan’s beside him, in a white lab coat.

“Do you really need that much air conditioning down there?” Patton says. “Seems a bit overkill, mate.”

Logan shrugs, closing a door, hiding away some kind of equipment that looks very finicky and complex. “I’m not the one in charge of the facility.”

“Fair enough,” Patton says. “I’m pretty sure I’ll be asked to join in on some kind of game, soon. You like rugby?”

“It’s not exactly popular in Poland.”

“Hm. Guess not,” Patton says. “Probably should’ve known that already.”

“The whole sharing knowledge aspect of this does seem to be rather dependent on a variety of factors,” Logan says thoughtfully. “I don’t think I automatically know the minutiae of New Zealand history and culture just because you might; I think we have to be doing something to trigger that sharing of knowledge.” 

Patton huhs thoughtfully.

“If you didn’t know how to drive a car, for instance,” Logan theorizes, “and I did, and you sat behind a wheel and needed to drive somewhere, I would probably be able to impart that knowledge to you.”

“I can ask Emile,” Patton says, ready to turn and look in on Florida, but he’s stopped by Logan’s frustrated, “how do you do that?”

“Hm?” Patton says, turning to look at him.

“This seems to come so effortlessly to you,” Logan says. “You drop in and seem totally at ease, you could control if we all came to see Virgil a couple nights ago, and by the reactions of those around you, you don’t seem to be talking to thin air—”

“Well, we’re mostly, surrounded by five-year-olds, they wouldn’t be too phased by the concept of me having an imaginary friend,” Patton points out. Logan doesn’t seem particularly amused by this.

“I don’t know,” Patton admits. “Emile thought I was just very communicative, for a sensate. That might be it; I’ve always been pretty chatty. It also might be because Māori have beliefs about how we are all connected—people, nature, all living things—so maybe I was a little more prepared to accept that I was literally connected to other people because I grew up with that as a sacred ideal.”

They watch children run and play for a few minutes; Manaia, diving to catch a football in the game of rugby that had assembled; Sophie, racing between everyone with her Buzzy Bee clack-clack-clacking behind her; Oliver, shyly joining in on a game of hopscotch.

The grass sways in the light breeze, the sun had peeked out from behind its clouds, leaving the entire playground awash in light and warmth. The laughter of children carries on the wind. Patton’s coworkers occasionally look up from their tiny charges to smile and wish him a good day.

“It’s really rather nice here,” Logan says quietly. “I’ve never been remotely near this continent. Coming to research in Antarctica is the most travel I’ve ever really done.”

“Do you miss home?” Patton asks.

Logan considers this.

“Some things,” he says. “Kluski, makowiec, honey mead. Newspapers written in my native language. The coffee shop I studied in throughout all of university. Proper herbata góralska. My mentors. The ability to go to a grocery store. My mother.”

There’s a beat of silence.

“But I love the research I do here,” Logan says firmly. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be able to study down here.”

“It sure seems like it,” Patton says, his admiration clear in his voice. 

“This whole situation threw a bit of a wrench in the works,” he says.

“I think it did for all of us,” Patton says. “Not all bad, though. Remus would probably still be on the run if he hadn’t connected with Janus.”

“No,” Logan muses, a soft flush touching his cheeks. “Certainly not all bad.”

Unbidden, images flash in his mind; black coffee, an expanse of wide sunny road, the sensation of dirt under his fingernails, purple jacaranda blossoms.

Patton tries his hardest not to grin. But—

“What,” Logan says defensively.

“Nothing,” Patton says, not hiding his smile, and Logan huffs irritably.

“You know,” Patton says, “Emile’s been dating someone in-cluster for, like, nine years? They were the first people that they saw, of the people in-cluster. In-cluster relationships are apparently pretty common, which I guess makes sense. Sharing feelings, knowledge, everything—it sure can bond two people together.”

Logan’s flush deepens. 

“Just sayin’,” Patton offers cheerfully, and he goes off to join a game of hopscotch, leaving Logan with his thoughts.

JANUS

The language is different. The procedure is different. The situation is, most definitely, different. 

He’s used to English, English law, English crimes. He’s been a barrister for years, jumping from one firm to another because the latter had seen partner potential in him; it paid much better, too, which certainly hadn’t been a negative. Janus had become a well-polished lawyer, a viper in the courtroom, a boomslang to his rivals. 

He’s good at it, is his point. He’s always been good at it.

He stands, surveying the judge. A different uniform, but a similar dime-a-dozen judge. He’s seen this type dozens of times. He could debate them in his sleep.

But as he looks to the side—Remus sitting, Roman beside him, the rest of the cluster in a line past them, just peeks of their profiles past the twins—he remembers why he started to study law, too.

Because he wanted to be able to get himself and his brother out of any and every sticky situation they could ever stumble into.

Janus stands when he is bid to. He takes the oath, Remus’s mother language tripping off his tongue like it’s his own. It is now, Janus supposes. 

Roman reaches over and grips Remus’s hand. Remus pinches Roman as hard as he possibly can, but Roman doesn’t flinch.

Janus begins smoothly, “Your honor, ladies and gentlemen of the court...”

[myrandom-fandomlife]

I Think I Kinda, You Know Chapter 1: The Agreement

JJ Maybank x Carrera! Reader 

Moodboard, Summary, and Playlist

Gif Credit 

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: Swearing, implications of smut, mentions of a toxic relationship and cheating

A/N: So, I’ve been working on this for a while, trying to make it an awesome first chapter. I was originally going to write actual smut into it, but I decided against it because I feel like my smut is super cringe. I might write descriptive smut in future chapters. I’m really proud of this, so I hope you guys like. Huge thanks to my beta and irl best friend @otherfandomsrun​ for proof reading, helping with ideas, and hyping me up. Show her some love! I kinda ended this on a cliff hanger, but I’m already working on chapter 2! Fic is below the cut, and feel free to ask to be on the tag list!

You sat next to your sister, Kiara, on the HMS Pogue. That pogue group of friends had expanded quite a bit in the last year. First it was you, Kie finally deeming you old enough to tag along on their adventures. (Which you had, anyway. You were only a year younger, for God’s sake.) Then Sarah, who you and Kie weren’t too fond of, but once you got to know her she was actually pretty awesome. Sarah’s dating John B, Kie and Pope are… complicated, which leaves you and JJ. Generally, you are left alone together because the others have paired off, and recently there has been some unexplained tension between the two of you. You couldn’t lie either, JJ is hot. But, you knew JJ wasn’t one for commitment, and if Kiara knew about your attraction to him, you wouldn’t hear the end of it. So you try your best to repress any non-platonic feelings of attraction down.

“You good Y/N?” Sarah asked. She’s laying her head in John B’s lap across from you. Pope is driving the boat and Kie is next to you, looking out at the water. JJ is on the other side of you, smoking.

“Yeah, just spaced out for a second. I’m good though,” You smiled and leaned over to the cooler to grab another beer. 

“I’m bored,” JJ complains, promptly stealing your beer, taking a long gulp. 

“Come on, JJ! I just opened that!” He smirks at you so retaliate by stealing his blunt from his hand and taking a hit.

“I know,” He takes another long drink. You take another hit and blow the smoke in his face. 

Kie pinches your side, making you flinch, “Careful. If you go home smelling like weed, mom and dad will have a fit.” Your parents weren’t strict, really. And they had warmed up to your group of friends quite a bit, occasionally inviting them over to dinner or to eat at the restaurant. Surprisingly, your mom’s favorite of the group was JJ, and she had always wanted either you or Kie to date him. She loved Pope, though, of course, but you thought she probably wanted to take in JJ as the son she never had. 

“Nah, Kie, let her live a little. Plus, your parents aren’t home tonight. Something about a ‘much needed date night.’” He shrugs at your confused faces and steals the joint back, taking a long drag. “She told me I have to stay with Y/N while Kie is working late tonight.” She was always talking to JJ and putting him to work when he came over to pick up you and Kie, so you weren’t surprised she had told him that before you guys left.

“Oh no, you don’t have t-” You start.

“I’m glad she’ll have someone there, I don’t like her being home alone,” Kie cuts you off, giving you a look that says ‘don’t argue with me, because I’ll win.’

“Yeah, some of the guys on Figure Eight, are super creepy,” Sarah adds. John B nods in agreement, but you think he’s dozing off. 

“You mean like, your brother?” Kie asks, causing Sarah to laugh.

“That guy, Chad, that Y/N dated was a huge creep, though,” JJ adds with a hint of hostility, and everyone nods in agreement. 

“And a cheater!” Pope calls, causing you to tense up. Chad was still a sore subject for you. You had dated for 6 months and right at the end you found out he had been sleeping with other girls the whole time. You broke up about a month ago and you were definitely over him, but it still hurt to know you wasted 6 months of your life on that scumball.

“Too soon, man,” JJ answers, passing the blunt back to you. You and him had grown closer in the past month, him being there to comfort you after the break up when the others couldn’t. Not to say that Kie and Sarah weren’t there for you, Sarah came to your house and you three watched movies all night when it happened. Of course, all three of the boys offered to fight him for you- which you politely declined; but it’s the thought that counts. Everyone helped you cope one way or another, but whether they were working, doing school work, or navigating their own new relationships, they couldn’t be there for you as much as JJ had in the past month. You weren’t mad at all, though. You were sort of grateful it had been him. Everyone else was walking on eggshells around you the first week or two, like they were scared to be happy in front of you. JJ was his usual self, though. He would make you laugh, and let you cry. He was there when you needed him most, and you were glad.

You happily take his offer and shrug the comment off, “It’s okay, J, he’s right.” He gives you a sympathetic look that says, you sure? And you nod, handing his joint back. 

“Oh shoot, I have work in an hour,” Kie says just as we pull up to the dock.

“Dad needs me home tonight to help with some project at the house,” Pope adds, while JJ starts securing the boat to the pier.

“Hey,” Sarah taps John B’s face lightly, “We have dinner with my parents soon. Time to wake up.” He stirs and opens his eyes groggily, flinching a little from the light. Everyone gathers their things, sunkissed and exhausted from the day of boating.

“And we have absolutely nowhere to be,” JJ playfully bows and holds out his hand to help you up onto the small deck. 

You laugh and take his hand, stepping off the worn vehicle. “Except for watching Friends at my house.”

“Very true. Pizza?” He asks brightly. JJ coming over to watch movies or binge a tv series while eating pizza with you and sometimes Kie had become a common occurrence. These nights usually ended with the two or three of you falling asleep sprawled on the sofa together.

You nod, “Duh.” A small chuckle escapes him and you walk up to the Chateau, where you had all met that morning. Then you all start going your separate ways, but you, Kie, and JJ all pile into the silver SUV your parents had gotten for Kiara when she turned 16. They got you a car when you turned 16 a couple of months ago, but Kie liked driving more than you did. You thought maybe it made her feel like you still needed her, which you do. You can’t imagine not having Kie to help you through everything in your crazy life. 

The sound of JJ saying your name from the front seat snaps you out of your thoughts, “What, JJ?” 

He turns his head and his lips curve into a smirk, “Oh nothing, I was just saying how hot you look tonight.” He then bursts out laughing at what you assume is the look on your face.

Small giggles leave you. Kie shoves JJ’s shoulder lightly and adds, “Stop hitting on my sister!” At that you and Kiara crack up too, the car filled with your laughter as you head home.

--------

Approaching the large house, Kie jumps out of her car almost as soon as it’s parked, muttering about being late and needing to get ready. As you and JJ head inside, JJ questions, “Want me to order the pizza?”

“Yeah, I just want to change out of this swimsuit,” You scrunch your nose up, “Saltwater.”

He softly smiles, “The usual?” You shake your head yes and shoot him a grin in return before turning to go up the stairs. You swear you can feel his eyes on you as you retreat.

You try to be quick, donning a cropped t-shirt and some cotton shorts. You throw your hair into a messy bun, bounding down the stairs when you’re done. Your eyes land on the blonde-haired boy in the living room and you see that he already has the pizza, “What are you? Magic?”

His eyes slowly trail down your body, making your face heat up, but he laughs, “Nah, just had to name drop and I was given high priority on my order.”

You giggle, and he adds that Kie had left for work while you were changing. You help get blankets set up on the couch, and turn on the tv. He’s already grabbed a few beers to split between the two of you and you usually just eat the pizza straight out of the box. Pressing play on Friends, you start your favorite kind of night.

--------

A whole pizza and two beers each into your sleepover, you’re both feeling a little buzzed. Currently, you are discussing Chandler and Monica’s relationship, “Yeah, I don’t know. I haven’t been laid in a while so I feel like I need a situation like them, where they just have sex. Minus the feelings though, because gross.�� You shudder dramatically and he laughs.

“Yeah, I agree. I just want someone I can have really good sex with, no strings attached.”  He pauses, then looks up at you, a calculating expression on his face.

Then you get what he’s thinking, “JJ...”

“No, think about it. We’re both super hot, we both want to get laid, and we both want no feelings. We could even make a contract if that makes you feel better?” He rambles for a second, still thinking.

“Okay, say we did do this. What would the rules be?”

“Well, there’s the obvious one. The other pogues cannot know. Especially not Kie.” He licks his lips.

You nod, “Yeah, I get that. How about, if one of us gets uncomfortable with the arrangement, we stop?”

He meets your eyes with his dark blue ones and moves toward you on the couch, “Agreed. The last one is very important. We absolutely are not allowed to fall in love. Can you manage?” His lips curve into that smirk again and you can’t help but let a small laugh tumble past your lips.

“I can, can you?” He moves even closer from his side of the couch, and your breathing hitches. The noises from the TV can’t be heard over the sound of your blood rushing in your ears.

“Definitely.” Then his lips are on yours and you forget how to breathe for a second. His tongue is exploring your mouth, hands moving to the bottom of your thighs to wrap your legs around his waist. He starts kissing down your neck, your hands pulling at his hair and making him groan into you.

You feel him bite down on your soft skin, your chest heaving. “Fuck, JJ. Upstairs,” You moan when he continues his antics. He complies with your request and let’s just say, it was a very good night.

--------

You wake up naked, with an ache between your legs as you slowly recall the events from the night before. You groggily open your eyes, spotting a familiar blonde head right away. He looks peaceful. You turn over to check your clock and realize you have an hour until your early work shift, meaning Kie will be knocking at your door very soon.

“Shit,” You tap JJ lightly on the shoulder and he stirs, “J, get up, Kie’s gonna be at my door soon and I don’t think she’s gonna like that you’re currently naked in my bed.”

He smiles, “Good morning to you, too, sunshine.”

You hit him with your pillow, “I’m serious, JJ!” You get up, stumbling a bit on your sore legs, which he smiles proudly at. Then you’re rushing to put some clothes on and he reluctantly does the same.

He puts his hands out in front of him in surrender, “Okay, okay. How am I supposed to get out without Kie seeing? I can’t exactly walk out the front door.”

“Um.. how about the window?” Before JJ could respond, there was a knock at the door, both of your eyes widening in shock.

Tag list: @treestarrrrrrrr​ @sspidermanss​ @harrysbbby​ @thatsonobx​

[thatgirlwritingficsatnight]

Odi et Amo II

Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris? nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior  

Catullus, 85

After a few years of working in the USA for Disney and playing the role of The White Fox in Marvel Cinematic Universe you came back to your motherland - Korea only to be greeted with hatred and contempt. To make things harder for you the universe sends you the most irritating neighbour ™. Will you be able to find your happiness and  accomplish your dream of becoming loved actress in Korea without complying with standards of patriarchal society?

pairing: Park Jinyoung x reader

genre: actor au

warnings: angst, foul language (please don’t read it if you’re not old enough)

words: 5764

A/N: It was supposed to be published last week, but I was unhappy with it and ended up rewriting it/adding some things. Sorry! (*_ _)人 P.S Sorry for my grammatical errors! Enjoy!

Chapter I

***

Currently sitting in front of your manager you eyed him. He seemed tired and you felt a pang of conscience it was probably because of your tweets last night and you wouldn’t even think of meeting him if you weren’t in dire need of getaway from the uncomfortable conversation with your neighbor. You didn’t meet in your agency’s building since both of you despised the place even though it was a new and flashy building made out of something that looked like a white marble. Both of you agreed on meeting outside it, so you were sitting in the café nearby while wondering how did your shitty boss manage to rent it. Last time you’ve been here, it was a few rooms in shabby, old building. You shivered while imagining going in, that place had an evil aura even from across the street.

"Where did you get all that money to rent it?" you asked.

"We actually bought it." 

"Well, business goes well then."

"Actually we are only able thanks to your movies. Don’t tell Kim Pd-nim I told you, he thinks you'll become arrogant."

"I already am." You smiled coldly.

"That's what I told him."

Your manager had a sarcastic smirk on. Both of you and hated your CEO and even mentioning him would bring up unpleasant memories. Kim Sanghoon was one of those bosses who wouldn't even think about trying to help idols and stars that were bringing him money. No matter what it was — crazy fans destroying your life, death threats, your collapsing mental health he didn’t care. Once you were attacked by media and netizens you were on your own and if it was too much for the company your contract was terminated. You often wondered when would you become too much for them to handle.

"How do you feel?" Your manager caught you off guard, even though you had known each other for a long time there was an unspoken rule between you not to talk about other things than work.

"Honesty..I'm fine I don't understand why everyone asks me that." You huffed a bit irritated and run fingers through your hair. 

"Well it's just.. I know it was important to you and you worked hard to earn the hearts of your Korean fa..."

"I'm fine." you didn't manage to hide irritation in your voice. You were not used to talking about it and you didn't like it one bit. Besides what were you supposed to say anyway? No one else was as hated as you. Of course there were idols and stars that were occasionally criticized but not one of them was constantly a target of such hatred. Even when you left there were still death threats send from your motherland to you, nothing changed. Not to mention no one else got such welcoming on the day of return to their home. It was unfair, stupid, infuriating and saddening. And yet you couldn’t understand what people were expecting of you? Both Mark and your manager knew you, or so you thought. What were you supposed to do? Cry? You wouldn't cry, that was what weak people do, that would show you actually care about what those assholes think about you. You were just fine. Ok. Neither sad nor happy. You'd endure whatever you had to but you won't conform to their image of idol and woman nor will you show any sign of weakness. You'd rather stay hated than do that. Your manager sighed and it pulled you out of your thoughts.

"Well then. If you're okay then I'm glad. So just as I told you I have this drama for you if you're interested." You weren't the slightest bit. Frankly you'd rather stay in bed for the next three months jobless than play some crazy villain or villainous second female lead. Then again you felt bad about the amount of work he probably had because of you. You looked him in the eyes and answered with a sigh.

"I can't promise anything but I can at least listen what it’s about.." Your manager seemed surprised, but he didn't wait long, perhaps in case you'd change your mind. He took out some papers and handed them to you. You cringed on the sole title "Love is your destiny" — it sounded sappy. 

"So it's a love story between fallen angel and this human..." he started.

"Angels...so who do they want me to play? Satan? Devil? Succubus?" You browsed through pages to find the villain.

"You'd know if you'd let me finish." You sent him a small apologetic smile. "They want you to play the main role." You stared at him confused before you burst with laughter.

"They want me to play cute girl in love with the angel?" The idea of you playing the sweet female lead was absurd, not that you weren’t able to do it, you were a good actress it wouldn’t be a problem for you, if anything it would most likely be a challenge for the audience.

"No, no! You'd play the angel. See this is drama with strong female lead. The origin of your character is fascinating. You had to watch the mistreatment of a woman extremely devoted to god. The lady prayed, but she still got beaten, almost killed even. Moreover, you had to be the guardian angel of her torturer — the aggressive husband. You pleaded to god, you asked him to let you guard her instead, but he didn’t agree and forbade you from intervening. One night when the husband got drunk, he beat her unconscious and you were sure he’d kill her. You decided to save her, you kill her husband and this is the moment when you fell. That's when you became deviant and promised yourself you'd help those who were denied it. You’d protect them and avenge them. Fast-forward a thousand years, and we are in Seoul and you meet a man, a painter..." He was so excited you almost didn't understand some words because of the speed. He was waiting for your response but you were too occupied with reading what he handed you. Once you finished it you looked at him with a mix of surprise and excitement.

"It's like it was made for me.." you said with bewildered tone.

"That's because it was made for you. The screenwriter wrote it with you in mind." You looked like a cartoon character, eyes wide, mouth in a shape of letter "o", once you heard him.

"Me?"

"Yes. She is apparently a big fan."

"And tvN is ok with that?" You furrowed your brows confused.

"Perhaps they aren't. But it is co-production with Netflix, and they pushed for you since you’re popular worldwide." 

Your heart fluttered and the tips of your fingers tingled from excitement as you rummaged through the pages once again, not only it would be showed in TV during the prime-time but also streamed on Netflix weekly.

"The screenwriter and producer kept calling me since yesterday as soon as it was known you came back. They almost cast someone else. They were sure you're staying in the USA. Isn't it amazing?" He was as excited as you were and you felt some remorse for being so rude to him before. You gave him your warmest smile, one you usually used only around Mark and your family.

"It really is. Thank you and I'm sorry for being rude earlier." He was clearly uncomfortable with your apology, red spreading on his cheeks as he waved his hand dismissively.

"Ah don't mention it. Does that mean I can call them and say you are interested." You looked at the pages in front of you once again and smiled broadly before simply saying.

"Yes!"

Jinyoung was still amused you threatened him in his own café. He couldn't focus on the book he had in his hands anymore as he chuckled replying your angered and irritated expressions in his head. It was fun to tease you because you reacted so well. He could tell you could be great friends if you'd let him. He smiled to himself mouthing your own words "bloody Y/N". He was truly shocked that he met you here of all places and found it rather amusing when you yelled in English and caught his attention. He felt some disappointment upon seeing a half naked man talking to you from the screen of your phone but the feeling disappeared as quickly as it came up once your friend ended the call. Jinyoung wouldn't call himself a noisy person, but he found you interesting, and he wanted to know who it was and what kind of relationship you had although he rarely cared for stuff like this... His thoughts were interrupted by his ring-tone, BamBam's face illuminated the screen. He sighed but answered it anyway.

"Skrrrt, skrrt!"

"Ah yes, good morning to you to Bam." Jinyoung said in amused tone.

"Oh, hyung you seem in good mood. What you're up to?"

"Reading, thinking."

"Sounds boring wanna hang out?"

"Actually I wanted to ask you about something." Jinyoung ignored his question once he remembered how obsessed with celebrities and their styles Bam was.

"Shoot."

"Do you know any celebrities under the name Y/N." BamBam laughed wholeheartedly.

"That's very funny hyung."

"What do you mean?"

"OMG you're not joking! Are you living under a rock, hyung? Y/N is like the hottest actress ever. Her style is chic and comfy and artsy it's really cool, and she actually doesn't have a stylist, she does it on her ow..."

"She is an actress?"

"She is the actress! She played the White Fox in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Lol, you call yourself an actor and you don't know the most popular Korean actress abroad."

"You know I don't like those superheroes movies. Besides why didn't I hear about her Korean career if she's so good?"

"You are so old it scares me sometimes. Well you should know her from internet. I think it's national sport to hate her or something. She just came back, and they're already frying her online not to mention the media and dating rumors."

"Dating rumors?"

"Yeah she dated few actors. I think Seojoon hyung dated her and Changwook hyung even almost proposed. The media made her to look like heartless vixen though. I mean they never liked her but her last ex gave a very unfavorable interview to dispatch and after that she became villain number one. She left shortly after."

"Mmmm... I see." Jinyoung only started his career four years ago so it shouldn't be weird you've never met before. He was also the type of person who couldn't care less about internet gossip and gutter press or dispatch. He sighed. Suddenly your angry reaction made much more sense and Jinyoung didn't feel as good about it as he did before. He scolded himself for being too frivolous and selfish. He just wanted to see your reactions - it was cute and funny...

"Why did you ask? OMG you've met her didn't you. I'm so jealous. What was she wearing? Was it Gucci? I heard she likes it."

"Ok Bam. I have to go. Thanks for the talk."

"Wait, so you wanna hang out?"

"Last time when you asked me to hang out I had to shop for 4 hours with you."

"Well... I am your stylist. Besides, it was fun, come on." 

"I think we have different definitions of "fun""

You woke up to no noise pleasantly surprised. It seems that Sunday's were free from renovation and thanks to that you could sleep in. You stretched out and grabbed the phone to check the time. It was already past eleven. You smiled to yourself and fell to bed lazily. Soon you wouldn't have time for lazy days like this as the production team was supposed to finish up casting for the drama by the end of the next week. You thought about picking some groceries, maybe cooking yourself some food and enjoying the day with a book or perhaps some video games. You took shower and put on some comfortable clothes — beige cardigan you stole from Mark clearly too big for you and some black trousers pairing it up with brown coat. You left the apartment and as soon as you did the irritating voice in your head reminded you about your debt. Hesitant at first you shook off the feeling quickly and knocked on the door. This time you were prepared for teasing, you were expecting it even so you wouldn't be caught off guard. At least that's what you were telling yourself. Your neighbor, however, didn't act the way you expected him to. Instead of smirking at you and teasing you or straight up mocking you, he seemed nervous. He had deep purple bags under his usually sparkling eyes. Perhaps he didn’t feel well... you wondered whether you should ask him if he needed some help. You decided it would be extremely awkward and so you cleared your throat and spoke up — softness now somewhere in your voice.

"Is that bad time? I can come later I just wanted to give you back your money.."

"N-No." He started nervously "I mean no. It's fine. I'm actually glad you're here. Would you come in?"

You didn't want to come in and it must have shown on your face since he continued.

"Come on. I don't bite." He smiled warmly and it seemed much more normal than the timid self he showed you seconds ago. And so you came in curiously looking around his own apartment. It was a mirror image of your own in terms of room placements — a hallway leading to living room with opened kitchen. You came into the living room and Jinyoung rushed after you quickly turning the TV off. You didn't pay it any mind since you were looking around and taking in how different was his home compared to yours. It was very modern and yet it kept the homey feeling. Yours on the other hand, well it was raw yet full of stuff? Mark would probably call it unfinished and cluttered. Your neighbor sat on the other side of the couch leaving quite a lot of space between the two of you and run a hand through his hair. He wore a cardigan very similar to yours both in color and style in fact it could be the very same brand and style it’s just neither of you noticed it.

"So what did you want to talk about?"

"I wanted to apologize." He responded quickly and gained a surprised look from you.

"Apologize?"

"Yes about yesterday…I shouldn't have said those things in public I could say I just didn't know about your situation but it’s no excuse. I’m truly sorry." he paused. "You don't have to be stressed about press or rumors though. It is my café and my staff, so they won't talk about it with anyone I took care of it." You took back everything you said, you weren’t prepared for meeting him, especially not getting apologies from him. On top of that he was the owner of your favorite café...

"I… it's fine." You said confused and tried to act as normal as possible while being very aware of your palms spread on your thighs. They were unnaturally clammy. It was a surprise to you, you rarely got any apologies and you were expecting some more teasing not something like that. Your eyes were everywhere except on him and you were screaming at yourself internally to say something, anything, but nothing was coming to your mind. Once again you lost your ability for forming witty sentences around him or in that case any sentences. There was awkward silence between you and you immensely regretted coming to see him today. You weren’t used to this. Somewhere in your belly you could feel as if butterflies - or rather moths — yes, moths of anxiety were fluttering their wings desperately trying to get into your chest. You never felt like this before. You tried to avoid looking at him but your own eyes betrayed you and fell on Jinyoung only to find out he was enjoying your anguish. His brown eyes were glimmering and his lips formed half smirk that he tried to cover with his left hand in a gesture of propping his head up. Immediately irritation came to you burning all the fluttering wings in the pits of your stomach. A frown formed on your face and you send him a glare. Wondering how could you be so stupid and fall for his act.

"You're really cute when you're shy or embarrassed." He chuckled now mocking you openly.

"I can't believe I took your apologies as sincere." He chuckled again clearly pleased with how you responded.

"They were sincere. I just enjoy teasing you."

"Could you stop? That's inappropriate you don't even know me."

"What do you mean we are neighbors and soon to be friends." He smiled broadly and for a second your mind travelled somewhere else simply admiring his beauty. You cursed his handsome face it could blind and charm everyone really. You wanted to leave, no you needed to leave. It was stuffy in here.

"I'm here for a reason." You reminded him, he was watching you with amusement. It felt almost as if a cat was observing you.

"Ah right... money." his tone seemed inattentive somehow. "I don't need it. Let's say it was a part of my apology."

"Just give me your account number and take the money."

"I don't remember it." You were getting more irritated every minute you talked to him.

"You don't remember your account number?" This man was unbelievable. He shrugged.

"You can send it to me through KakaoTalk if you really want." He smiled and took out the phone from the pocket of his pants. 

"Fine. Just give it." Not wanting to spend any second longer here with him, you scanned his qr to add him quickly and transferred the money.

"Done. Now if you excuse me."

"Of course." He smiled again and you felt mocked by the sole action of his lips shooting upwards. He walked you to the door and watched as you slipped on your shoes. You tried to look as cold and dignified as possible but still tripped over the doorstep. He caught your arm firmly and straightened you. Your heart was beating so fast and hard all you could hear was blood pumping in your ears in fact you were sure he could hear it as well. On the other hand whose heart wouldn't when you almost fell face first, right…? Right? It surely wasn't because of his warm breath now tickling the crown of your head, nor the dangerously beautiful eyes... you absolutely regretted coming here today. It was foolish of you to think your cursed neighbor wouldn't shake you up today. And he was still holding you — how awkward is that; and you felt fine with being hold like that — what on earth was wrong with you? You started to think that maybe it would be better if you'd actually fell and hit that stupid head of yours.

Jinyoung was having very dangerous thoughts. The kind he didn't have in a very long time. He wasn't prepared for this kind of proximity. He was already shaken up yesterday by your touch and closeness he only held your hand for a second or two. Maybe he didn't show it but he was. Honestly he wasn't even into PDA or flirting with someone or even thinking of flirting with someone. Yes, he liked teasing, and he teased you but it was in a FRIENDLY manner. Well it was safe to say he didn't have friendshippy type of thoughts right now. Jinyoung reacted automatically upon seeing you fall he just grabbed your arm and pulled you his way. He was still holding your now tensed muscles, but he couldn't let go of you. He was in trance. Your warmth radiating onto him, the way the smell of your shampoo was tingling his nose, your huge doe-like shocked eyes, parted lips, soft pink on the apples of your cheeks. He was wondering how badly would you kill him if he asked to kiss you right now. He was seriously considering it worthy asking even if you were to pull out his tongue like you threatened yesterday. He didn't ask though, the rational part of his brain finally letting go of you. His own feeling were mess, but he did what he knew best — he masked his emotional disarray with some more teasing hoping you wouldn’t notice.

"Falling for me already?" He smirked even though internally he was screaming and already thinking of confiding in Jackson to get himself calmed. He was clearly the one falling and he was panicked. You rolled your eyes on him seemingly gaining the composure while he was getting stunned even by such simple gesture like this.

"You're way below my standards." You seemed annoyed. He smiled again although he wanted you to leave quickly and leave him alone with his feelings, so he can sort this out. Your eyes narrowed at him even more.

"I need to go now."

"Well, have a great day."

"Right, you too." You were so cold Jinyoung almost chuckled at it because it almost wounded him, and yet he liked it. He enjoyed teasing you too much. You were already walking to the elevator, but he couldn't help himself.

"Oh, and try not to fall when I'm not around to catch you, Y/N." He laughed and you were already frowning at him absolutely mad which made his heart skip a beat, you were really too cute when you frowned. Jinyoung closed the door before you could say anything or worse before he did. He realized he was in deep shit. He tried to think reasonably. He probably just had a crush because he spent a whole night watching movies and dramas you were starring in, he might have also accidentally watched all of your interviews and went to sleep at 6 still smiling to himself from that interview where you had to answer questions about your body in preparation for your role in that Marvel movie. The reporter wouldn't stop asking about your body and making comments on it even though you were clearly uninterested in the topic which you finally cut with your own questions. "Are you looking for some weight loss tips? You look great. Seriously what is it about? Are you trying to fit in my suit?" The last question was asked with whole whisper theatrics and Jinyoung laughed at loud at five am hoping he didn't wake you up through the wall. The suit in question was extremely fitting white leather catsuit. It wasn't the only interview in which you showed off your wits, eloquence and badassness, or how Bam would call it "swag". You were also the most attractive actress he had seen. Of course, you were also attractive when you weren't acting but on the screen... you were amazing. So Jinyoung tried to calm himself down rationalizing his earlier thoughts as simply being starstrucked. That’s what fans felt towards their idols, he was simply charmed by his own new idol. Yes that was it — that’s exactly the type of thoughts some fanboys or fangirls would have. He called Jackson anyway, he knew the designer was the right person to talk to in situations like this. 

Twenty minutes later Jinyoung regretted ever calling his best friend.

"OH MY GOD YOU ARE SO IN LOVE WITH HER!" Jackson basically yelled to the phone. Jinyoung groaned and massaged the space between his brows. 

"Were you even listening? I'm just a big fan."

"Yeah, sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night man. I’m a big fan of Christian Dior and all I can think of is making out with him." 

"Don’t compare it, he is dead!" Jinyoung yelled and his friend filled his ear in response.

 You were regretting not taking the car for shopping. The walk did help with your racing heart, and helped ease off your mind but it turned out the supermarket isn't that close any more when you have to drag home ten bags of food and products. Thankfully a convenience store was on your way so you could make a stop there maybe you'd be lucky enough to see Seoyun, buy her coffee and have a chat. You knew it was stupid, because she could've just feel obliged to say she is your fan but you still wanted to tell her about your new upcoming role. Sadly she wasn't there and so you just made a stop and sat on one of nearby benches. Massaging your palms that had those harsh red lines imprinted in them now thanks to the bags. You could swear you heard the sound of released shutter and so now alarmed you looked around but it seemed you were the only person here. You sighed, how paranoid have you become that you started hearing the cameras when there was none. Then again you were extremely lucky dispatch and paparazzi haven't found you yet. Just before you left to the USA, your ex gave this interview and your life became hell. You didn't have a day without paparazzi running after you or spying on you. The memories came to you not without acrimony and hurt. Your ex, an actor just like you, used you to create scandal and gain some popularity. You could remember how enraged and morose it made you. You didn't date anyone since then even when Mark tried to introduce you to some people. You intended on staying that way. You didn't need anyone, you had Mark, and he was enough for you. Just you and your best friend. You weren't sure how long you stayed like this, deep in your thoughts. You moved only after you fingers became stiff from cold. Somehow you managed to carry the groceries back home. You were so tired that you just counted it as your training today. You checked the time and it was one PM, perfect time to call your bestie.

"Markiee!!" You whined as soon as his face appeared on your screen.

"Y/N-ah. I miss you." He was wearing some blue hoodie this time.

"That's my line. Do you have time to talk?"

"Bruh, for you? Always. What's up?" 

"I am going to star in a drama!"

"What? I thought you hate those." He was genuinely shocked.

"I know, I do. But this one is different. I'm not playing the villain I got female lead, and she isn't some damsel in distress she is a badass character!" You almost screamed and he chuckled.

"Woah. Someone's excited. I'm so proud of you. So who is getting the privilege to be cast with you?"

"I don't know yet. I'm supposed to meet the cast next week." He nodded his head and smiled. "Anyway what are you up to?"

"I was actually thinking of playing Among Us and streaming wanna join?" He grinned.

"Absolutely, prepare to get wrecked Tuan." You used to play together at least once a week when you were in the USA, his fans loved you and shipped you even though you both told them you were just friends — it is some rule in the internet though, to ship close friends.

Few hours later you were once again killed as the first person, this time by Mark.

"YOU GONNA REGRET IT WHEN WE’LL MEET TUAN. I SWEAR I’M GONNA WHOOP YO ASS..." You screamed on top of your lungs and Mark laughed wholeheartedly, while his chat filled up with hundreds of LOL’s and LUL’s.

"You guys she threatens me. Someone make a clip and send it to the police once they find my dead body." He kept laughing and you couldn’t help but laugh as well. His smile and laugh were just too contagious.

"You really put our friendship to test lately Tuan, here I was foolishly trusting you when you killed me in cold blood. " You stretched and your stomach rumbled reminding you that you haven’t eaten yet and it was already around four pm.

" Hey don’t hate the player, hate the game. "   He shrugged and winked, while you rolled your eyes.

"Okay Mark, I gotta go and eat. It’s already afternoon here."

"Sure, chat say bye to Y/N." They did as he asked and it was soon filled with many hearts and goodbyes. "Love you Y/N! Call me soon." He grinned and you smiled warmly.

"Love you too Mark. Bye guys!" With that you logged off the discord, and switched off his stream. You make your way to the kitchen and took out the ingredients for kimchi jjigae you bought before. You carefully read the recipe opened on your phone and began cooking. You had to make anchovy stock first so you grabbed some dried anchovies, kelp and slashed the daikon in cubicles — it looked quite awkward as each cubicle was different size but hey it was you eating it not some kind of culinary critic. You added water and left it to boil deciding to take care of the rest of ingredients. You cut some kimchi and ate some as a snack and reward for not ordering food today, sliced some green onions, cut the pork and the tofu as well. By the time you were done it was time to strain the broth and add the rest of ingredients. It had to cook so you decided to watch some TV in the meantime. You turned it on, it was some kind of reality show where idols were supposed to camp in the wild for a few days. The idols clearly didn’t feel like being there and the fact you knew neither of them didn’t help. You dozed off before you noticed, your eyelids getting as heavy as iron. The smell of burning woke you up. You shot upwards from your couch and rushed to the kitchen, bumping into a coffee table on your way there.

"FFFFFF-UUCK." you hissed, when your shin pulsed with pain. You quickly grabbed the pot with stew to get it off the fire, forgetting it would be hot as well. You hissed in pain and let id drop on your marble floor which was now covered in burned kimchi and some other things. "Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fucking shit." You cursed as you tried to navigate to the sink to ease off the burn with some cold water. The cold water did help and you sighed with relief only to later follow it with a sigh of resignation. You had to clean up this mess. It was when your phone barked — a new message. You checked it.

From Unknown number: Are you trying to burn down the whole building?

You furrowed your brows confused, wondering if it was one of those jokes or spam messages you heard about.

To Unknown number: Who’s this?

From Unknown number: Guess.

You huffed in disbelief.

To Unknown number: Ok, enjoy being blocked.

From Unknown number: Wait!

From Unknown number: It’s Jinyoung.

To Unknown number: How did you get my number? Never mind I’m blocking you I’m too busy to deal with you.

With that you put the phone back in your pocket and began cleaning up. You finished in no time now tired out by scrubbing. You sat on the floor and took out your phone to check it out. From Unknown number: Don’t block me what if you need my help one day.

To Unknown number: With what exactly?

From Unknown number: What if you get stuck in your bathroom and need someone to let you out?

You rolled your eyes and saved his contact

To Devil: There is at least 7 billion more people I’d rather ask to help me

From Devil: Ok then what if I get stuck in the bathroom and need your help.

To Devil: I’d leave you there

From Devil: Heartless

To Devil: Better tell me how did you get my phone number

From Devil: You gave it to me when you scanned my kakao code

You were bewildered, was that his plan from the very beginning or were you just paranoid? You were either prejudiced or he was in fact the devil with angel's face.

To Devil: Did you lie about not remembering your account number?

From Devil: Maybe

You couldn’t believe it, the audacity, the smugness. You could feel irritation building inside you but you decide to let it go when your stomach rumbled at you aggressively. After eating you took shower, read a few chapters of The Vegetarian and fell asleep.

Next week passed quickly but in the feeling of anticipation as you were supposed to meet the rest of the cast as well as the scriptwriter and director at the meeting on Friday. You kept calling your manager throughout the week trying to find out who could they be, but he didn’t know anything or didn’t want to tell you. And so you spent the week on training, running, reading and occasionally calling Mark to express your impatience and excitement. You didn’t meet your irritating neighbor even once this week — something you counted as blessing or perhaps a sign that the universe finally turned your karma around. It was finally Friday and you were already sitting in the meeting room waiting for everyone to come in. You smiled at the young man sitting next to you, he was really cute and had this mole under his right eye it added to his charm. He was about to introduce himself, when someone came through the door and greeted everyone cheerfully. You couldn’t believe it. You were cursed, actually cursed.

"YOU?!" was all that left your mouth upon seeing him entering the room.

[brokutosan]

Title. Quarantine Tales Or alternatively; Bokuto Tries Baking and Nearly Poisons His Two Roommates/Best Friends

Pairing. Bokuto Koutarou x Platonic!Reader x Kuroo Tetsurou + Minor BokuAka and Kuroo Tetsurou x Fem!Reader

Summary. In which a pandemic hits the world and tests the ten year long friendship between three roommates. Or; Kuroo enters quarantine as a cheeky bastard, and walks out of it as a cheeky bastard with a really pretty girlfriend.

Warnings. Manga spoilers, very strong language, and lots of sexual innuendos. Also lots of platonic cuddling and skinship. It gets kind of steamy at the end but nothing too bad. This is basically just a collection of short stories that also kind of has a plot. Fair warning: excessive use of the words ‘bro,’ ‘dude,’ and ‘man.’

Once the news of the pandemic hit Japan, the three roommates were confident they’d come out as better individuals. Maybe pick up on a new hobby, drop a few pounds (or in Bokuto’s case, gain some muscles), and just have a good time, making the best out of the worst situation. They were good at that.

At first, however, the three friends each had a different response to the news. Bokuto decided to splurge and buy everything they need and then some they didn’t (he was making bank from being a pro athlete). He was convinced that the apocalypse was going to happen soon, and that they’ll need all the rations they could get before it’s too late. Kuroo decides to confiscate his Netflix account and told him to stop watching The Walking Dead.

During the first few days Y/N easily got swept up in Bokuto’s bullshit, also convinced that the apocalypse was coming. (“Kuroo, look! The cases doubled over the last few days! Tell me that doesn’t mean something!”) But she was easier to snap out of it, mostly because she’s not as childish as Bokuto. She did, however, buy all of her favorite snacks and put them in a secret stash. (Although Kuroo figured out where it was within three days).

Kuroo is the mediator between them. He’s a man of science, so “no, Bokuto, there’s no way the infected ones are turning into zombies, now stop crying!” He also took the liberty to create schedules and laid out some ground rules on when and how they should shop for groceries and things of that sort. He also made the rule that no one joins their Zoom meetings in the living room after Bokuto walked in on his screen ass naked.

All in all, they (Kuroo) were able to set up a system that ensured Bokuto doesn’t lose his mind out of boredom and Y/N doesn’t try to kill them in their sleep.

-

“If aliens take over the planet do you think I could become their overlord?”

“Doubt it. You need to have the brains for it.”

“Hey! I’m pretty smart!”

“Explain the process of osmosis.”

“Fuck you, Kuroo.”

Y/N listens in on the idiotic conversation between her two roommates, not daring to speak up in fear of losing her much needed brain cells.

“Y/N! Listen to this, Kuroo doesn’t think I’m smart enough to become an alien overlord!” Bokuto sits up from his spot on their living room floor, one elbow propped up to support his body. Y/N sighs, closing her book realizing there’s no way she’ll get the peace she needed.

“Kuroo doesn’t know what he’s talking about, Bo.” It’s only been one week since the mandated quarantine started. If Y/N gives in now, then she’ll only spiral into madness as the months go by.

“Hear that, you bastard?! Y/N-chan believes in me!” Kuroo looks unamused. There’s a shit eating grin on his face that Y/N wants to wipe off. Or punch off. Whichever happens first.

“Y’know what they say, owls of a feather stick together.” Kuroo’s probably referring to the fact that both Y/N and Bokuto attended Fukurodani. Either way, he’s insulting her. Y/N is seething.

“Shut up you cocky cat!” Y/N screeches, flinging her book to his relaxed figure on the floor. Kuroo lets out a groan as the hardcover book makes contact with his groin. “Shit, there goes my future generations.”

Bokuto emphasizes with his bro, placing a protective hand over his ‘lil man.’

-

During the third week of quarantine, Kuroo comes down with a cold. Or maybe he got the virus. That’s what Bokuto and Y/N are currently trying to figure out.

“Kuroo, man, I searched up your symptoms here and it says you have network connectivity problems. What does that mean?” Bokuto grumbles, aggressively tapping the laptop screen. Y/N scowls at the way he’s manhandling her laptop before snatching it away from his hold.

“That’s not what that means, dumbass.” Bokuto pouts. “It means someone fucking forgot to pay for the wifi for this month.”

Y/N is glaring at her bedridden roommate through her face mask, but the rooster head throws his hands up out of innocence. “Sorry, I was too busy trying not to die!”

“So what now?” Bokuto asks, trying to cut through the tension between his two roommates. Y/N sighs in response, shutting off her laptop. “Now we just have to wait for him to sleep it off. If he has the virus then we burn his room with him in it.”

“Hey!” Kuroo tries to object. Instead what comes out is a garbled noise followed by excessive coughing and Bokuto screeching something about the ‘zombie virus infecting his home,’ and then he bolted out of Kuroo’s room.

“Whatever,” Y/N sighs, knowing Bokuto would have been useless in this situation anyways, “just try to rest. I’ll come in to check on you every now and then to bring you food. You better eat it!”

“Aw, Y/N-chan, you really care about me, huh?” Kuroo fake gushes, pressing one hand on his chest and another on his forehead. “It’s sweet how you try to act all tough.”

“Bo! Go find the lighter!”

-

Six weeks into the quarantine, Kuroo is over his ‘virus scare’ and now it’s Bokuto who’s sick. Correction, lovesick. It’s starting to test Y/N’s thinning patience.

“Do you think ‘Kaashi would get annoyed if I call him again?”

“Bo, you’ve been facetiming him every single day since this quarantine started. What changed?”

“He hasn’t been messaging me back the last three days! Do you think he got tired of me? Do you think he realized I’ve been in love with him and now he hates me? Do you think he hates my owl memes? Damn, I should’ve just told him before this whole thing started.” Y/N snorts. Clearly. One less headache for her. Even the sight of Kuroo breathing is starting to irk her. One time she nearly slapped him across the head for sleeping on the couch. Quarantine is doing something to her.

“Y/N? Why aren’t you answering? Oh my god, you hate me too, don’t you?” Crap. She was too absorbed in her hatred towards Kuroo’s existence that she forgot this big baby was lying down on her lap crying about something. What was it again? Akaashi hates him? Impossible.

“Impossible.” Y/N doesn’t realize she is running her hand through his two-toned hair. Bokuto hums in content. Y/N is suddenly reminded of her dog from back home. She wonders how he’s doing.

“Keiji’s like, in love with you. If anything he’s probably just drowning in work. You know how busy he gets.” Even Y/N’s not buying it. Busy or not, three days of radio silence from Akaashi has to mean something. She just doesn’t want to deal with an emo Bokuto. She decides to pass the responsibility to Kuroo.

“Bo, I bet Kuroo has some pretty good advice for ya. Remember when he had that crush on Akari-chan for all of highschool?” Bokuto shoots up with a new look of determination. He yells out a ‘you’re the best, Y/N-chan!’ over his shoulders before dashing straight to Kuroo’s room.

Y/N smiles in triumph as she receives a plethora of messages from one very angry Kuroo Tetsurou, ranging from ‘Why would you do this to me?’ to ‘I fucking hate you.’ Serves him right for finishing the ice cream.

(Later they find out that Akaashi simply broke his phone and had to wait three days to get it fixed. Bokuto was over the moon).

-

Sometimes Y/N wears their highschool jerseys because she thinks they’re comfortable. Some days she wears Bokuto’s. Other days she wears Kuroo’s. Today she’s wearing Bokuto’s, and Kuroo doesn’t know why it’s pissing him off.

“Oh man! That thing looks like a dress on you!” Bokuto squeals like one of his fangirls. He dashes to where she is, minding her business making toast in the kitchen, and picks her up from under her arms a la Lion King style.

“Bo! Put me down, you dumbass!” She wiggles in his hold, legs thrashing around. It’s all meaningless though. Bokuto is a pro athlete and is 190cm. Any attempts to free herself remains futile against this giant man-baby.

“Kuroo, look! So cute!” Bokuto gushes, showing her off like a baby. He lightly loosens his hold on one arm and extends his hand to bring a finger up to her cheeks. Y/N is emitting a strange aura. Kuroo suspects she’ll start tearing his ass into pieces within ten seconds.

Correction, three seconds. Because somehow she figures out how to kick behind her and shove an ankle deep into Bokuto’s groin. Now Bokuto is wriggling around on the living room floor as Y/N returns to her toast.

Kuroo finds this amusing, yet there’s a foreign feeling deep inside his chest. Is he getting sick again? He’s gonna need to check on that later.

-

“Ou! What ‘ya watching?”

“Your Name.”

“Huh? Bokuto Koutarou. Did you forget?”

“Dude...” Y/N stares at him in disbelief. Bokuto doesn’t notice but that’s because he’s Bokuto, and just about everything flies over his head. Instead he plops down on the couch next to her and hogs all the blanket.

“Get the fuck out! Get your own blanket!” Bokuto doesn’t reply, but he hums and opens his arms as an invitation. Ah, another platonic cuddling, as Bokuto puts it. Y/N is touch starved and she can’t deny it, so she slides closer to his lean figure and lets her head fall on his chest.

Eventually they settle in, huddling impossibly close to each other as the movie reach its tear-jerking climax. They don’t notice Kuroo walk in with a scowl on his face.

“Oh hey, bro. Wanna watch?” Bokuto notices him first, lifting his head up from the crown of Y/N’s head. Y/N finally looks over Bokuto’s chest and spots Kuroo moving around in the kitchen.

“I’m good.” Is his short answer before he trudges to his room with a loud bang! from his door. Y/N flinches a little, but pays no mind to it. Instead she directs her focus back to the movie, where another sad scene is unfolding.

The movie reaches its ending, but not before Bokuto could ask, “So, what’s the actual title of the movie?”

-

One peaceful afternoon Bokuto decides to take in a stray cat. Except...

“Bokuto, you fucking idiot that’s a racoon!” Y/N screeches as she climbs Kuroo’s back. The rooster head screams as he backs away from Bokuto and ‘Mr. Fluffles.’ Bokuto stares at his frightened roommates and the ‘cat’ in his hand and then back at his roommates again.

Realization strikes, and now Bokuto is screeching with the other two, holding the raccoon as far away from his body as possible.

“If you fucking drop it, I’ll kill you!” Kuroo threatens, holding onto Y/N’s arm that’s starting to dig into his throat. “Take it outside!”

“But it’s raining!”

“Bokuto!”

“It’s you or him, man!”

The two continue their little back-and-forth, not noticing the raccoon had escaped Bokuto’s grasp. But Y/N notices. And it’s heading into her room. And now she’s seeing God.

“Bokuto, gah-!” Kuroo is rudely interrupted by Y/N’s tight hold on his throat getting tighter. Before he could give her hell for attempted murder, he notices the look of horror on her face. “What’s wrong?”

“Your fucking raccoon went in my bedroom!”

“Ah shit!” Both Kuroo and Bokuto scramble, the former forgetting all about the human person hanging onto his back. Said person is too scared of letting her foot touch the floor, afraid that it might be met by the furry abomination Bokuto brought home. So she kinda just...lets Kuroo run off into her room with her dangling off his neck.

“Where’d he go?!” Bokuto panics, not seeing Mr. Fluffles anywhere in his immediate vicinity. He starts flinging stuff off the ground and her table and her bed, making a huge mess in the span of ten seconds. Y/N takes one foot off of Kuroo’s waist and kicks him square in the back.

“Quit trashing my room!” She scolds like a mom. Bokuto pouts but continues looking, until they hear the quiet pitter patter of claws hitting the wooden floor. “Wait shut up!”

Y/N huffs but still complies, wanting nothing more than Mr. Fluffles gone from her room. Kuroo takes the liberty to start questioning Bokuto’s stupidity.

“How could you have possibly thought that thing was a fucking cat?!”

“In my defense, it was pretty dark outside.” Bokuto grumbles in his low and whiny voice, before firing back, “And stop calling him a ‘thing!’ Mr. Fluffles has feelings too!”

“Bokuto we’re not keeping it!” This time it’s Y/N yelling at him with fire in her eyes. The poor guy looks like he’s about to cry, but Y/N is far too gone over the thought of a raccoon making its home in her bedroom.

Bokuto lets out an ‘aha!’ as he emerges from under her bed with Mr. Fluffles. Y/N visibly relaxes knowing that the raccoon is safely contained. Until she remembers what was stashed under her bed.

“Ah, there’s something in his mouth.” Bokuto announces, holding Mr. Fluffles disgustingly close to his face. Her secret stash of snacks. The bastard got into it.

“Bokuto!!!”

(They later find out that at least four neighbors filed a noise complaint against them).

-

It’s two months in to the quarantine when Bokuto discovers TikTok. Within one week he’s dropped his towel in front of Kuroo, sat on Kuroo’s lap during his work Zoom meeting, smacked his gym bag across Kuroo’s face, and then some. Y/N finds humor in this, of course at Kuroo’s expense, but that’s even better.

Speaking of Kuroo and Y/N. Lately there’s been undeniable tension between his two roommates, and Bokuto doesn’t know how to resolve it. Everytime he tries to get them to talk they end up arguing.

He’s asked Akaashi for advice, but Akaashi simply told him to let them resolve it amongst themselves. Bokuto does not have the patience for that. He’s scared their meaningless arguments might rip a tear into their ten year long friendship.

So Bokuto does what he thinks is best, bake them cookies! No one could possibly be in a bad mood while eating freshly baked cookies, even Bokuto is drooling at the thought. So with a new resolve, Bokuto scrolls through his new favorite app (TikTok) to find some good recipes. Because TikTok has all the answers.

Except when he bakes the cookies he later finds out he used two cups of salt instead of sugar. He doesn’t know how that happened, but it could be because he grabbed the first white substance he saw and dumped it in the bowl.

Kuroo and Y/N somehow found a way to blame each other. Bokuto is reaching his limits.

-

Bokuto calls for an emergency meeting. He needs help deciding whether or not he should drop 40,000¥ on the Animal Crossing Limited Edition Switch that comes with Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Y/N says go for it because she’s secretly plotting on stealing it the moment he gets tired of the game (which knowing Bokuto, would be fairly quick). Kuroo objects because Bokuto blew 50,000¥ last month buying shit he didn’t need for the quarantine.

And now there’s a fullblown argument between the two. Bokuto is reminded of his parents, except their fights never got this hostile and he’s pretty sure his mom never called his dad a “rooster-hair bastard!” He’s too scared to cut in. He thinks they might cut off his head. So he decides to sneakily crawl back into his room.

He ends up ordering the switch anyways, and when it arrives a week later Kuroo calls Y/N a bad influence. They argue again.

Bokuto has an epiphany.

-

Two days after Bokuto’s epiphany, they take a trip to the supermarket. Bokuto wants to drive but he can’t because his license got revoked after he ran through five consecutive red lights. Kuroo tells him this but he gets pouty so Kuroo had to buy him ice cream on the way there to get him to shut up.

So now Bokuto is slobbering up Kuroo’s car, much to the latter’s distaste. It isn’t until Kuroo brake checks him and Bokuto slams the ice cream on his face, does Kuroo show a look of content. Bokuto pays no mind, and decides to bring up his recent epiphany.

“So, bro, when are ya gonna tell Y/N you’re in love with her?” Kuroo slams his foot on the brakes again, this time out of shock. “I - uh - what - what did you just say?”

“Oh man,” Bokuto lets out a boisterous laugh while licking the ice cream that dripped down his shirt (gross), “you didn’t know?!”

“You two have had this sexual tension between you brewing for weeks! It’s like - I could actually cut through it with a knife, like a piece of pie or something!”

“I hate everything you just said.”

“Whatever man, just let me know if you want me gone for the night. I’ll even come up with a good excuse.” He winks, and Kuroo resists the urge to crash the car into a tree.

-

Bokuto’s words affect Kuroo a lot more than he would like to admit. Ever since that fateful trip to the supermarket with his owl-eyed friend, Kuroo’s been too wary of his other roommates existence. He wants to prove Bokuto wrong. He, Kuroo Tetsurou, is not in love with L/N Y/N, his best friend since his first year of highschool.

L/N Y/N is one of the guys! That’s like saying he likes Bokuto (Kuroo bites back his disgust). And Kuroo doesn’t like Bokuto, thank you very much.

Except L/N Y/N is not Bokuto.

L/N Y/N is his endless highschool memories that he always goes back to on a bad day. She is going to the beach during the summer and playing in the ocean until they tire themselves out. She’s like a warm hug that welcomes him after a long and tiring say. She’s like the rock that was flung at his ex’s window after she cheated on him with some other guy. She’s like the fun he’s had during the summer away games, where he got to play volleyball with his friends for one week straight. She’s like taking the long way home just so he could walk back with her. L/N Y/N is his best friend.

No, Y/N is not all those things. She is, however, the person he’s shared those memories with. The person Kuroo could say one hundred percent, without a doubt, knows him best (aside from Bokuto and maybe his mom). She’s the person that’s always been there through thick or thin, for ten years and counting.

Oh god. Kuroo Tetsurou is in love with L/N Y/N.

-

Bokuto has a plan in mind. A plan to help his two best friends hook up (and maybe date afterwards). Bokuto tells Akaashi his plans but Akaashi tells him all his plans are moronic, so he goes to his teammates Hinata and Atsumu, who says he’s a genius.

(The plan is simple: make Kuroo jealous. That bastard is as possessive as a dog over his food).

Which is how he finds himself seated at the kitchen table, phone in hand with a disgusted Y/N right across from him.

“No, you’re not giving my number to Miya Atsumu. That guy has shifty eyes!”

“Come on, you’ll learn how to love it! ‘Sides, Tsumu-tsumu is a nice guy! Did’ya really think I’d set my bestest friend in the world up with some sketchy guy?” If Bokuto’s normal talking voice is at a hundred, he’s talking at a hundred twenty now, just to make sure Kuroo can hear him from his room.

Y/N presses her palms to her ears, not really questioning why he’s talking so damn loud. Instead she blackmails him. “Bokuto if you don’t stop I’ll send Keiji all your embarrassing pictures from our first year.”

“You wouldn’t!”

But the look in her eyes says she would. And the ping! sound that came from her phone says that she just did. “Y/N!” Bokuto cries out, scrambling incredibly fast to his room where he left his phone plugged in, hoping he could stop Akaashi from witnessing the embarrassment that is Bokuto Koutarou as a fifteen year old.

Moments after Bokuto bolted to his room and is screaming out, “‘Kaashi! Block Y/N-chan right now! Don’t open her texts!” Kuroo steps out of his bedroom, having been shamelessly eavesdropping on their previous conversation.

“So,” He leans over the kitchen counter (he thinks he looks like hot shit but Y/N begs to differ), “Miya Atsumu, huh?” Her face contorts into something out of digust or discomfort, he can’t tell which one. Is it bad for him to say he likes that reaction? Probably.

“Don’t.” Is her short response, bringing up a hand in front of her body. “If Bokuto thinks I’m desperate enough to go for one of his teammates, then I’ve got a surprise for him. No offense to Shouyou.”

“So what I’m hearing is...it’s not the aspect of being in a relationship you’re totally against, but the guy himself?” Kuroo thinks out loud. Y/N throws him one of her infamous ‘what-the-fuck-are-you-talking-about’ looks, but he feigns ignorance to it.

“I mean, yeah? I haven’t had a good fuck since-” Kuroo decides to cut her off there, not really eager to learn the name of the man she’s...well, you get it! (Bokuto was right, this man truly is possessive).

“Anyways, good choice. I heard the other twin is where it’s at.” Kuroo ends the conversation there, with new knowledge about his new found crush and confidence over the fact that he still has a chance.

-

A week goes by just like that. Bokuto makes it painfully obvious he’s trying to make Kuroo jealous. Except painfully obvious is not obvious enough for his slightly-frustrating friend, Y/N.

At one point, when obviously Atsumu didn’t serve much of a threat to Kuroo (curse that idiot for being too easy to mock), Bokuto took matters into his own hands and tried flirting with Y/N himself. And while Bokuto is a lot of things, being smooth isn’t one of them. There’s a reason why he hasn’t made whatever he has with Akaashi official yet, he’s terrible at relationships and anything related to it.

(Though Kuroo had a riot witnessing Bokuto’s failed attempts at heterosexual flirting:

“So, you come here often?”

“Bo, I fucking live here.”).

And as much as Bokuto wants to just go out with it and announce to Y/N (and the world) that his totally radical bro, Kuroo Tetsurou, is in love with her, he has just about enough self control and conscience to know that doing that could only result in his immediate death at the hands of a very angry rooster-head. So he’s just been beating around the bush. For a week he’s tried to drop subtle hints that were, sadly, left dropped by Y/N. She’s almost as helpess as Bokuto. Almost.

But when an opportunity like this falls on his lap, Bokuto just knows he has to take it.

It’s at one of their annual roommate-bonding, a tradition they’ve held since moving in together during college. This time Kuroo is unable to join due to some hold-up at work. He’s in his room furiously typing away at his computer.

“So...” He makes sure to drag out the last vowel to gain her interest. Though it’s pretty useless since Y/N is as easy to fool as Bokuto himself. They’re best friends for a reason. A very bad reason, one might say.

“So what?” She asks, shoving about ten pieces of popcorn in her mouth all at once. Bokuto realizes he is tired of beating around the bush. He decides to set the metaphorical bush on fire. “Admit it, Y/N. You like Kuroo, don’t ‘ya? You wanna screw him or something?”

“Shh!” Suddenly Y/N is more invested in whatever Bokuto has to say than the shitty movie he picked out. And now she’s launched herself off her side of the couch onto his, pressing a greasy, buttery palm to his lips.

Bokuto easily swipes her hand away with a shit eating grin on his face. “So I was right! Which one is it? ‘Ya like him? Or you wanna screw him?”

“Bokuto!” She warns. Her eyes dart to Kuroo’s closed bedroom door, suddenly too aware of just now thin these walls actually are. It also didn’t help that Bokuto’s normal speaking voice is about as loud as a race car engine.

She realizes there’s no point in hiding it, since he’s looking at her with those creepy owl eyes, just daring her not to spill everything. “How’d you even find out?” She sighs in defeat.

“Come on! You’ve been so irritated lately that there was only two possible explanations: ya either love the guy or hate his guts. I don’t think you’d be friends with him for ten years if you hated him so much.” Y/N blinks in surprise. That’s surprisingly perceptive, coming from Bokuto. She tells him this.

“Hey! I’m capable of using my head too!” He doesn’t like how she’s giving him that judgement look. Clearing his throat, Bokuto decides to skip past that.

“So? Since when did ‘ya like the lucky bastard?” Bokuto expects one month, maybe two at best. What he didn’t expect was this: “Probably since highschool.”

“Wha-?!” His outburst is contained by a smaller body flying on top of his, as well as two palms pressed tightly over his mouth. Eyes wide, he looks down to see a flustered Y/N, pink cheeks and all, looking menacingly at Kuroo’s door, trying to see if he heard any of that.

Once she confirms she’s in the clear, she lets out the breath she’s been holding and smacks Bokuto across his biceps.

“Idiot! Don’t just scream like that!” She huffs, arms crossed at her chest. “I told you ‘cus I trust you, Bo. Don’t do anything stupid with that trust.” The man simply nods, still too shocked to form coherent words.

Once he does however, Y/N is hit with an onslaught of whispered questions. “Since when? How come I didn’t notice? How come anyone didn’t notice? Why-” He pauses, realizing his questions aren’t being answered. So he waits as she brings her legs up to her chest with an unreadable expression.

“I mean it was pretty easy to hide it. We went to different schools, and whenever we hung out you were always there,” Y/N starts, but quickly adds, “I mean, not like I didn’t want you there! It’s just - it was easier to forget I even liked him whenever the three of us were together.” Her voice is barely above a whisper, probably still wary of the fact that Kuroo was only one room over. Bokuto notices this and turns up the volume of the TV, earning a small smile from his nervous wreck of a friend.

“At one point I was actually gonna tell him, but then he started dating Akari-chan.” Bokuto scowls at the name. Akari, the girl that Kuroo crushed on for a full year, but also the girl that ended up cheating on him with some guy in her painting club. “I wasn’t really the type to cry over a small crush, I had other things to do. Actually I was kind of relieved. Kuroo being taken meant I didn’t have to act on these weird feelings I started having.”

“And next thing I knew we were off to college. I started dating other people, and my feelings for him started shrinking. Even when we decided to move in together, we were all so busy with our separate lives, so I wasn’t really worried about it...until, y’know, we kinda got stuck here together. I guess seeing him 24/7 just caused my head to malfunction. I thought fighting with him would stop these weird...feelings, from coming back. But I guess that backfired on me since you ended up finding out. Wait - Bokuto are you crying?”

The said man tucks his head in his arms, mumbling out “No,” even though it was pretty obvious. Y/N softly smiles, finding his reaction kind of cute. It was nice to know he cares that much, no matter how infuriating he could get.

“I didn’t even know you went through that much, Y/N-chan. C’mere! Lemme give you a hug!”

“Bokuto, no! I don’t need-” The rest of her complaints are drowned out by a sturdy chest meeting her face. Great. Bokuto’s way too emotional now.

“I’m sorry, I promise I’ll help you tell him!”

“Wait what? I don’t want that!” Y/N tries to argue, but her voice is muffled due to being stuffed into his chest. Suddenly remembering that Bokuto has a tendency to be a loud mouth and could never keep a secret from Kuroo, Y/N shoots up, pressing her palms to his chest to release herself from his hold.

“Bo, you have to promise me you won’t tell him anything.”

“But -”

“Bokuto!” He slightly recoils from the sternness of her voice, before he bows his head and nods. Y/N relaxes a bit, settling back into her previous position and fixed her focus back to the movie playing on the TV as if their previous conversation never happened.

Unbeknownst to her, Bokuto is already putting the pieces together for his master plan.

-

Y/N comes to regret telling Bokuto her ‘dirty’ little secret exactly one week later, at their next roommate-bonding. This time Kuroo is there, with Bokuto right in between them on the couch. There’s another shitty movie playing in the background (curtesy of Bokuto’s horrible choice in films), but Y/N can’t bring herself to pay attention.

She does however, snap out of her little daydream when Bokuto shoots up, phone in hand and reaching for the door. Oh no. Both Kuroo and Y/N think to themselves.

“Ah! What’s this?! There’s an emergency at ‘Kaashi’s apartment?! Guys, I’ll be right back!” Bokuto is out the door before either of them could object. Y/N knows Akaashi. Akaashi is a safe guy. He’s not the type to call out of nowhere because of an emergency, and even if he did, Bokuto surely would not be the first contact in mind. Which means, Bokuto, that sneaky bastard, planned this with the single brain cell he had left.

Silence fills the air for the next five minutes, until Kuroo’s phone sounds off. It’s a text from Bokuto, reading: When I come back you two better be-

Kuroo decides to turn off his phone there, fearing the contents of the very explicit paragraph Bokuto sent following those words. Instead he turns his head to his friend next to him - or rather on the opposite side of the couch, avoiding him like he’s the plague.

He doesn’t like this awkwardness at all. Conversation between them used to always just flow, even if most of them end up becoming a heated debate over the most trivial things. Kuroo decides to man up. It’s now or never.

“Okay so -” “Hey -” The two pause, finally making eye contact for the first time in past week. All of Kuroo’s brain cells fly out his brain and out the window, leaving him to fend off for himself in this awkward situation. His head is like that one Spongebob meme. Oh god, he’s turning into Bokuto-

“So,” Y/N’s voice snaps him out of his train of thoughts, or rather his lack of it. This is pathetic. He’s a grown man and he’s acting like a highschooler over a pathetic crush. Except this isn’t a pathetic crush. This is Y/N - his best friend for the past ten years, who he’s just now realized is a lot prettier than he initially thought.

“I’m in love with you.” Yes, yes he is. Wait, that wasn’t his voice. And that definitely wasn’t his subconscious trying to patch up what’s left of his decimated ego, which means -

“Kuroo?” Jesus fuck, when did she even slide over this close? “You don’t have to answer or anything, I just thought I should tell you first before Bokuto breaks. I understand if you don’t feel the same way-”

“No!” She flinches at how loud his voice is. “I mean, fuck - wait. You gotta let me process this real quick.” Kuroo is suddenly aware he’s redder than his Nekoma jersey, and her face is super close to his, and her lips look totally kissable right now.

“I’m in love with you, too.” Kuroo finally speaks up. He notices how she goes stiff, and how quickly her face turns into a bright shade of red.

“You don’t have to say it just ‘cus you feel bad! This doesn’t have to change anything between us! I mean, I’ve kept it a secret for ten years, I can do ten more-”

“Y/N.” She finally stops her rambling, meeting his eyes. And she doesn’t know why, but suddenly she just knows he’s being sincere. She could probably die right now and she’d say she lived a happy life.

“I’m gonna kiss you now.” Kuroo waits for her confirmation, in this case a shy nod, before cupping her cheeks with his large and warm hands. He inches over slowly at first, but lets his lips eagerly meet hers with a smile. He feels her hands wrap around his waist, letting him deepen the kiss.

It starts of slow and steady, everything Y/N could have ever dreamed of, until needy hands start roaming her body. She has to crane her neck to meet his lips, and Kuroo probably sensed her discomfort because now he’s gripping her waist tightly, lifting her up gently and placing her down on his lap.

The new and more comfortable position allows Kuroo to deepen the kiss, and Y/N finds her hands grabbing the hair she’s been insulting so much for the past two months. Kuroo sighs into the kiss, with Y/N smiling a bit at the situation. As things escalate, a loud gasp breaks them out of their trance.

“Oh. My. God!” Bokuto is squealing like an idiot and Akaashi is behind him unamused. “Finally.” Is his short statement.

“What the fuck Bokuto!” Kuroo growls. Y/N, suddenly a bit too self conscious climbs off the spot she made for herself on Kuroo’s lap. Though her embarrassment doesn’t last long, before she joins Kuroo in glaring at Bokuto.

“I just came back ‘cus I forgot my wallet, but oh man! You guys are adorable!” Akaashi is still behind him, but this time he looks more apologetic. “Bokuto-san, maybe we should leave.”

“Nah, I kinda wanna stay.”

“Bokuto!”

“Get the fuck out!” Bokuto only laughs as he catches both the pillow and the remote control thrown at him. He drops both items back down on the living room floor and snatches his wallet from the counter before calling over his shoulders,

“Yeah, yeah. Just make sure ya make me the best man and the maid of honor!”

A/N. Reupload! This fic was totally self-indulgent bc I am so bored of quarantine and am currently wishing I had a Bokuto and Kuroo to keep me entertained. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! And as always, thank you for reading! Leave a like if you...liked it? Is that how it goes? - chuu

[nickrobinsondaily]

Nick Robinson Was Done Playing High School, Until He Met A Teacher

The actor opened up about voicing his opinions online, his celebrity crush, and shooting sex scenes with Kate Mara. By Isabel Jones

You could be forgiven for assuming Nick Robinson is years younger than his true age of 25. The actor has been playing high school students for a full decade, beginning with a four-season run on ABC Family sitcom Melissa & Joey and concluding (or so he hopes) with FX on Hulu miniseries A Teacher. 

In fact, Robinson vowed to end his journey as a perpetual teen after playing the eponymous Simon Spier in coming-of-age film Love, Simon. “I’ve graduated, hopefully,” he told Ellen DeGeneres in a 2018 interview, “and won’t be going back.”

Well, it wasn’t long before A Teacher nullified Robinson’s promise, returning him to the world of pep rallies and study sessions. 

“I hoped that no one would watch that interview where I said that I would never play high school again,” he tells me over Zoom with a laugh, looking rugged and definitely over-18 in an unpretentious 66˚North beanie and flannel shirt. “I'd made that ultimatum, and then I read the scripts for the series, and I met with [creator Hannah Fidell] and Kate [Mara], and I kind of went, ‘Shit, one more.’”

Robinson joins our call from British Columbia, where he’s currently filming miniseries Maid opposite Margaret Qualley. We delay the interview for 15 minutes so he can get a COVID-19 test — a process he must undergo three times a week while in production. He tells me he had a mild case of the virus earlier this year, back when he was living in Williamsburg and “doing a play.”

That ever-so-casually-noted “play” happens to be Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird on Broadway, aka the “highest-grossing American play ever.” Judging by our 40 minutes together, 2,500 miles and a computer screen apart, Robinson doesn’t strike me as the type of actor who eagerly name-drops his prestigious projects or A-list co-stars. He greets me by name when he comes on screen — a simple act of courtesy that feels largely forgotten in a year marked by hate crimes and awkward interactions made from beneath face coverings. From his unfussy style to his nearly-dormant Instagram account, Robinson seems like an actor committed to just that: acting (and also maybe being a pleasant and approachable person). He takes questions and answers seriously (even when they’re about bagel toppings), pausing to find the perfect articulation for the words in his head. The celebrity of it all doesn’t appear to be on his radar.

On the rare occasions when he has updated his 1.5 million Instagram followers over the past few months, it’s been to encourage them to vote. 

“If there's a time to say something, it's now,” he tells me, his passion for the topic evident in the minutes-long monologue of sorts that follows. “To be honest, I feel like I should be doing more. There have been a million times where my finger has kind of hovered over ‘post’ or ‘share’ and not done it because there is this thing where people would be like, ‘Oh, just stick to acting, we don't need to hear your opinions,’ but fuck that.” 

With A Teacher, Robinson is able to participate in a project that not only highlights his acting skill, but furthers a conversation. He plays Eric, a high school student who has an affair with his teacher, Claire (Mara). Unlike many of the predecessors who have tread this same cinematic territory, the series is as dedicated to drawing the viewer into the illicit relationship as it is to immersing them in the brutal and enduring aftermath.

“The show does a little bit of a bait-and-switch on the audience, which is intentional,” Robinson explains. “It makes them complicit in Eric and Claire's relationship.” 

Ultimately, though, A Teacher’s stance on its subject matter is clear. “Everyone involved in this production took this story very seriously. It wasn't to make light of these kinds of relationships. It wasn't to glorify them. It really was to make a character study on what happens to these people after the headlines,” he says. “There are a lot of headlines, a lot of clickbait, and there’s not a lot of follow-up.” 

The role of Eric wasn’t an easy one to play, and the emotional toll was heavy. “That's something that I'm trying to get better at,” Robinson said of shrugging his character off at the end of the day. But this particular journey compelled him.  

“I was really interested in exploring how male survivors internalized this kind of trauma,” he says. “And oftentimes it's really suppressed for years.”

“The relationship is often used as a kind of social currency for the survivors. They're given high-fives and told ‘you're the man’ and all that. So, the push and pull of that, of wanting that to be true, but also dealing with some very complicated emotions internally, I think was what a lot of the second half of the show is about: Eric grappling with the reaction of his peers versus what he's actually feeling inside.” 

That said, Robinson’s research would be for naught if he and Mara didn’t have chemistry. Luckily, their connection was instant. 

Robinson extolled Mara’s “wicked sense of humor,” which came in handy during some of their more “intimate” scenes.

“You kind of have to laugh at some of those scenes when you're doing it,” he told me. “If you did a macro view it would just be two people with a bunch of burly grips around and camera operators and lights on you. So it's not actually an intimate experience.” 

Though Robinson’s still playing high school, the rules have changed. The laugh-tracks have fallen away and the happy endings once found at, say, the top of a ferris wheel, are just out of reach. His performance in A Teacher is a departure from a body of work that tends to skew “teen,” but it’s a defining one. 

Read on below as Robinson tells us his favorite “long and bad” joke, recounts his first kiss, and names his favorite Robert. 

What's the last thing you do before you fall asleep? 

Honestly, especially recently, the last thing before I do before I fall asleep is check the news and check social media. Probably not healthy. 

If nothing else, can we please just end this to change the news cycle? Because it's crazy-making. The whole thing is just, it's constant turnovers. I'd just like some peace and quiet.

The plotline of 2020 is really insane and implausible. It jumped the shark a long time ago.

Who’s your favorite villain?

Don Draper.

You see him as a villain?

I do. But that's the best part — most of the really good villains have some humanity and are maybe slightly ambiguous, but I think ultimately, yeah, he's a villain.

What was the first album you ever owned?

“Who Let the Dogs Out” is one of the first songs I really remember having playing, in like kindergarten, so I didn't buy it. But I had a portable CD player, which was really cool. And I had a Roy Orbison Greatest Hits CD that I liked a lot.

Do you still listen to that?

Sometimes. Yeah. I was also a big Elvis fan growing up. A lot of the oldies. And I do still listen to that, but there are  newer folks now that I prefer, I guess.

What's your favorite cheesy pickup line?

Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?

A classic.

It's a classic. It's really the first one that popped into my head.

I'm going to assume you've never used it in real life?

Never.

If you ran for office, what would your slogan be?

I don't think I would ever run for office. It's not something that appeals to me, but I did see a good hat the other day that said “Make Orwell Fiction Again,” that I thought was kind of funny.

Name one place you've never been but have always wanted to go.

Vietnam, I would say, or Thailand. Southeast Asia generally. Egypt ... I'd like to go to North Africa as well sometime. A friend of mine shot a movie in Vietnam and fell in love with the country and it's been on my to-do list for a while.

Read the rest of the interview on Instyle

[introvertguide]

Goodfellas (1990); AFI #92

The current film up for review is Scorsese’s famous crime drama, Goodfellas (1990). It is the story of Henry Hill and how he lived through the psychotic and neurotic life of a mafia member. The film was nominated for six academy awards including Best Picture and Best Director, but only took one trophy home for Best Supporting Actor (Joe Pesci). I watched the movie 3 times over the last 2 weeks and my opinion changed from one opinion to another as I watched each time and I want to discuss why. First of all, however, we need to do summarize the plot with a standard warning...

SPOILER ALERT!!!!! I HAVE ALREADY GIVEN AWAY THE PLOT IN PREVIOUS POSTS AND I AM ABOUT TO DO IT AGAIN EVEN MORE SO!!!! CHECK OUT THE MOVIE FOR YOURSELF IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY!!!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The movie begins with three men checking the trunk of their car and finding that the body in the trunk was actually alive. Tommy (Joe Pesci) stabs the man multiple times and then Jimmy (Robert DeNiro) shoots him multiple times. Henry (Ray Liotta) looks on and explains his life in voice over and how the men all got to this position. 

In 1955, a young man named Henry Hill becomes enamored with the criminal life and Mafia presence in his working class Italian-American neighborhood in Brooklyn. He gets a job working for local mob boss Paul "Paulie" Cicero (Paul Sorvino) and is introduced to the entire family. Most important were associates James "Jimmy" Conway, an Irish truck hijacker, and Tommy DeVito, a fellow juvenile delinquent. Henry begins as an errand boy for Jimmy, gradually working his way up to more serious crimes. The three associates spend most of their nights in the 1960s at the Copacabana nightclub where they can impress women. Henry starts dating Karen Friedman (Lorraine Bracco), a Jewish woman who is friends with Tommy’s current date. She is initially troubled by Henry's criminal activities but is eventually seduced by his glamorous lifestyle. She marries him, despite her parents' disapproval.

We follow Henry and his rise in the mafia along with Jimmy and his growing paranoia and Tommy with his constant chip on the shoulder. In 1970, Billy Batts, a made man in the Gambino crew who was recently released from prison, repeatedly insults Tommy at a nightclub owned by Henry; Tommy and Jimmy then beat, stab and shoot him to death. The unsanctioned murder of a made man invites retribution; realizing this, Jimmy, Henry, and Tommy cover up the murder by burying the body in Upstate New York. Six months later, however, Jimmy learns that the burial site is slated for development, prompting them to exhume and relocate the decomposing corpse. At this time, Jimmy begins watching his back, Tommy feels invincible, and Henry takes on girlfriend while Karen stays at home with the kids.

Fast forward to 1974, Karen finds out about the infidelity and harasses Henry's mistress Janice and holds Henry at gunpoint. Henry moves in with Janice, but Paulie insists that he should return to Karen after collecting a debt from a gambler in Tampa with Jimmy. The mafia is all about family and there is no divorce and appearances must be kept. Things don’t go as planned because, upon returning, Jimmy and Henry are arrested after being turned in by the gambler's sister, an FBI typist, and they receive ten-year prison sentences. In order to support his family on the outside, Henry has drugs smuggled in by Karen and sells them to a fellow inmate from Pittsburgh. In 1978, Henry is paroled and expands this cocaine business against Paulie's orders, soon involving Jimmy and Tommy.

In 1979, Jimmy organizes a crew to raid the Lufthansa vault at the JFK Airport, stealing several millions in cash and jewelry. After some members purchase expensive items against Jimmy's orders and the getaway truck is found by police, he has most of the crew murdered. This part of the film is based on a true story Jimmy, in fact killed almost a dozen people in attempt to keep things silent. In his voiceover narration, as dead bodies are being discovered all over the city, Henry theorizes that Jimmy would have killed them anyway rather than share the profits of the heist. Tommy and Henry are spared by Jimmy since they had worked so close together. Also, Henry wasn’t actually involved in robbery and Tommy is going to be a made man and Jimmy wants the connection. Tommy is eventually deceived into believing he is going to be made, but he is murdered on the way to the ceremony, leaving Jimmy devastated.

By 1980, Henry has become a nervous wreck from cocaine use and insomnia. He notices that a helicopter is following him but is trying to visit with his family and deliver drugs at the same time. He sets up a drug deal with his Pittsburgh associates, but is arrested by narcotics agents and jailed. After bailing him out, Karen explains that she flushed $60,000 worth of cocaine down the toilet to prevent FBI agents from finding it during their raid, leaving them virtually penniless. Henry has nowhere to go so he returns to Paulie to ask for help and admits to dealing under the table. Feeling betrayed by Henry's drug dealing, Paulie gives him $3,200 and ends their association. Henry meets Jimmy at a diner and is asked to travel on a hit assignment, but the novelty of such a request makes him suspicious. Henry realizes that Jimmy plans to have him and Karen killed, prompting his decision to become an informant and enroll, with his family, in the witness protection program. He gives sufficient testimony to have Paulie and Jimmy arrested and convicted. Henry is grateful to be alive, but he is forced out of his gangster life and has to readjust to normal life once again; he narrates, "I'm an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook."

The end title cards state that Henry is still a protected witness as of 1990, but that he was arrested in 1987 in Seattle for narcotics conspiracy, receiving five years' probation. He has been clean since then. He and Karen separated in 1989 after 25 years of marriage, while Paulie died the previous year in Fort Worth Federal Prison at age 73 from respiratory illness. Jimmy is serving a 20 years to life sentence in a New York prison for murder, in which he will be paroled in 2004, when he will be 78 years old.

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Even more of an update from the end title cards, Henry Hill and Karen Hill divorced in 2001 and then Henry remarried and fathered one more child. Karen and her kids have lived in hiding and fear they will never escape possible retribution. Jimmy died in prison in 1996 before he was eligible for parole and Henry died in 2012 of cancer. With their history of explosive violence, I am kind of glad that all three of the main men (Tommy, Henry, and Jimmy) have shuffled off this mortal coil.

So I ended up watching this film three times in the last couple of weeks and I liked it less and less each time. So many people have such good things to say about the movies (including me), yet what the movie is most celebrated for is what I like the least. The first time I watched was with my housemates and they talked throughout the movie and laughed at the antics of Joe Pesci. I feel that many viewers enjoyed that crazy performance, and this was probably the reason for the Best Supporting Actor award. I am sure that capturing the volatile nature of a lunatic mafia hitman is very difficult and deserves praise.

I then watched it twice more to take notes on the different camera shots and then to compare to the real story of the Lucchese family and Lufthansa heist. I was not disappointed with the camera shots since Scorsese tends to let his actors go wild and then move the camera in interesting ways to capture the action while telling the story he wants to tell. He uses extreme close up shots and the vertigo trucking shot to represent the paranoia of Henry Hill and Jimmy Burke. He used the tracking shot to bring the audience into the world of the mafia man using the the character of Karen Hill as the “fish-out-of-water.” The choice of music was great including using the Sid Vicious rendition of the classic “My Way” popularized by Frank Sinatra. The colors were so bright in the beginning and became so bleak and washed out by the end. Fantastic cinematography and direction. 

By the last watch, I realized that I did not like Tommy DeVito (real life name Tommy DeSimone) because he made everybody around him scared. It was like having a pet feral tiger and just hoping that he never turned on you. He was not loyal at all. In actuality, he tried to rape Karen Hill while she was married to Henry. He really killed a young bartender named Spider because Jimmy was teasing him. He brutally attacked and murdered out of anger because he was completely unhinged. Just watching Joe Pesci play the part made me anxious and I wanted him to go away every time he appeared on screen. I guess this makes him a great actor, but it also doesn’t make me want to watch his movies. 

I brought this up with the Godfather movies on the list, but do Brooklyn based Italian-Americans act like these people in the movies? Constant noise in which men treat women terribly and the women go off to the kitchen and make food? I can except the loud large families and the giant shared meals, but I sure hope that the poor treatment of women and the huge lack of equality between the genders is fake or at least outdated. I have met some really nice Italian people who are nothing like the people in these films, so I believe it is a stereotype (if this is true, then Hollywood needs to stop promoting these stereotypes).

A final positive note towards the acting, I thought that Lorraine Bracco did a wonderful job as Karen Hill. She played a sheltered girl that wanted a little danger and got way more than she ever wanted. There is a scene in which she realizes that her husband is cheating and that she and her children are miserable and unprotected. She wakes up Henry with a gun in his face, but she can’t kill him because she wants that drama in her life. She is treated horribly and at one point barely walks away from a hit set up by Jimmy, yet she still stays with Henry until she is forced into the boring life of Witness Protection and she leaves him. After wading through the history of all the different characters from the movie, I actually find her story to be the most interesting.

In the end, I still want an answer for the same two questions. Does this film belong on the AFI top 100? Absolutely. It is a well made movie with a strong vision about one version of growing up in Brooklyn and how searching to realize the American dream can lead you down dark and dirty paths. Great vision by Scorsese and a well told story. Do I recommend it? Not really. I recommend doing the research on these American mobsters and get a feel for what these people were really like. I recommend checking out clips on YouTube that show the filming techniques that have become hallmarks of great directors. But don’t watch these portrayals and laugh. They are not fun or funny like they come off in the movie, these are horrible (yet interesting) people that should serve as a lesson/warning and not have their lives glamourized by Hollywood.