#his delivery is just so clearly by someone whos used to being ignored and who just cannot command respect on his own

[pomodoriyum]

rewatching ep 6… why is des voeux such a little shit when he goes to get goodsir…like.. …

[whatifyoulivelikethat]

famous last words, m | jjk

pairing(s): jungkook x reader, very brief mention of namjoon x reader

summary: Words that should be written in your obituary but probably won't be: “How the fuck did I get myself in this situation?” Clever, right? No? Neither is fucking a stranger who bursts into tears within the first ten minutes of meeting each other. Ah. Well. Guess those will be your famous last words.

warnings: rated M (18+) for language; what should be a simple task ends with fucking no one saw that coming, hehe, get it?; mentions of infidelity / recent break-up / JK crying Q_Q; angst + comfort; smut (fem reader, dom!reader x sub!JK, nipple play, scratching, hair-pulling kink, cock-and-ball torture (dick slapping, ball slapping / squeezing, etc), m-receiving oral, handjob, spit kink, edging / orgasm denial, 69); non-idol!AU, ft next-door neighbor!Kim Namjoon

--

Somebody much wiser than you once said, don’t speak into existence the truth, for it will inevitably prove you right sooner rather than later, or something equally as pompous-sounding, but clearly you never got the memo as you rotted away on your sofa, staring at the red bubble of your unread messages, muttering under your breath, “Surely not every social interaction I have will end in sex,” and yet you still did not open the application. You were saying this to absolutely no one, by the way. You were the only occupant in your apartment.

Some would say by choice.

You would agree wholeheartedly.

What?

Before you could get on that mental hamster wheel, your phone started vibrating in your hand. For a split second, you debated on not answering it, however, the caller was listed under his full name in your phone. That meant it was either your boss or someone of equal importance. Or someone who would not be calling unless it was rather serious. Thus, with a sigh, you pressed the green button to accept the call with a bland, noncommittal, “Hello?”

Depending on the nature of the call, you would decide on how currently busy you were.

“Ah, hello! I’m so sorry to be calling right now,” came the slightly frantic and strangely relieved voice of Kim Namjoon, you next-door neighbor. He fumbled with the words and asked if it was, in fact, you, to which you confirmed, “Unfortunately, still alive and kicking.” This made him laugh for some reason. Perhaps it was your dry delivery. Or because he was nervous, which was a hilarious thought, as Namjoon was over one-hundred eighty centimeters tall with imposing broad shoulders and the chest of an ox. He had said something before about how he used physical exercise as a coping mechanism. For what? Impeding existential crisis from being highly educated? A question of another time.

You snapped out of your sidetracking as Namjoon said, “I was going to text you but then I remembered you said if it was important to call instead.”

You recalled the angry red bubble of unread messages. “Yes, the call was the right move,” you agreed. “Is something wrong? Have you locked yourself out of your apartment again?”

Indeed, there was a reason you had Kim Namjoon’s number. Because despite his towering frame and heavy canvas bags full of self-help books, you had previously found him sitting outside his apartment, looking like a dejected puppy, said canvas bags tucked around him, his pockets inside-out. At first, you weren’t going to ask – quite frankly you weren’t about the people-person life – but it would be a bit weird to just ignore the giant dejected puppy slouched against the unit next to yours. So, you inwardly sighed and walked up to him, asking why he was camping out at his front door.

He had locked himself out.

You nearly facepalmed. This late at night? Of course, the leasing office wasn’t open at this hour. Security didn’t have keys to the tenants’ apartments for safety reasons. You had debated on leaving him there, but it was too late, you had already asked what was wrong and now Kim Namjoon was doing that polite thing of saying he didn’t want to be any trouble, that he would be fine, and before you could remember to be rude, you had invited a stranger into your apartment to rot on your sofa, at least until the next morning when someone could let him into his apartment. Foolishly brave on your part. He could have been a serial killer. Could have bludgeoned you to death with those bags of books, which, considering the current trajectory of the world…

Never mind.

In any case, you didn’t feel threatened. Namjoon had those soulful eyes and double cheek dimples when he smiled, so the probability of homicidal psychosis was pretty low. And you were right. He was just forgetful. How he stayed alive this long was beyond you. Namjoon was the most incapable capable person you had ever met. He was a whiz with public transportation, bus and train. Had a bicycle when he needed it. He didn’t own a car for the good of the people (his words). The second time he had locked himself out, you had joked to Namjoon that he fuckin’ owed you. The third time, you had forced him to make you an extra key and gave him your number so he could call you to let him into his own apartment. He had felt like he owed you and, even though you told him that it would be more than enough if he simply learned to remember his damn apartment key for once, he had taken you out to dinner to make up for it, which surely explained how you ended up in bed with him the next morning.

Listen.

It wasn’t that serious. Really. There was nothing brewing here except wine-induced impulse and a why-the-fuck-not attitude. But all that might explain the awkward laughing. Not because anyone was harboring any secret feelings, just mostly because he was about to ask you for a weirder favor. Sucking his dick again would probably be a more expected ask than what he was about to say next.

“Ahaha, no, um…”

You could hear loud thump-thump noises on the other side of the line. No, not familiar thump-thump noises. You frowned. Was that the boom-boom of bass?

“Actually, I’m by the coast right now. I’m at a welcome party for a wedding of one of my closest friends. Er, what I mean to say is that I’m not close to my apartment right now,” Namjoon rambled, making you stretch your ears to understand. “I’m a couple hours away by train, it’s late, I thought about maybe trying to make it to and back, but I–”

“With all due respect,” you interrupted, realizing he was tipsy, over-polite, and overexplaining. “Can you tell me what you need me to do?”

“Ah, sorry, sorry,” his deep voice quickly apologized. “Could you open the door for my friend when he drops by?”

You raised your eyebrows. “Sure, I guess.”

Before you could ask what said friend looked like, Namjoon let out a whoosh of relief. “Oh, thank you. Thanks a lot. Um, if you could…? Please be nice to him.”

“Have you known me to be a rude person?” you inquired impassively.

He glossed over your question like a champ. “It’s… Complicated. He found out tonight his longtime girlfriend was cheating on him. I wish I could be there. He might not seem like it, but I know he’s very emotional right now. I told him to crash at my place, but if something seems amiss, please let me know, okay? I’m worried about him. I thought about going back, but I’m in the wedding party and…”

Despite everything within you being completely and utterly disinterested in babysitting a grown man with hurt feelings and probably a temporary poor perspective of women, your mouth was saying, “I’ll take care of it, Namjoon. And I will call you if I think it is necessary. You know I won’t let anything get out of hand. What’s his name? What does he look like?”

Twenty minutes later of you standing in Kim Namjoon’s beige apartment inspecting his rather impressive bonsai collection – something you had sadly missed the last time you were here as the living room was not the focus of the night – you heard the panicked smashing of the doorbell, indicating your visitor. You put a little more perk in your step and hurried to the door, opening it to the blubbering mess that was Jeon Jungkook.

You stared at him.

He stared at you.

From your side, you were looking at a rather disheveled man with wide bloodshot eyes, puffy cheeks, and windswept ear-length black hair clutching two big silver suitcases and a huge black duffel bag that looked like he had stuffed every skeleton of his closet into it. He was wearing a big white t-shirt with a big wet spot down the collar, torn-up slate blue jeans that appeared to have come that way, and untied white sneakers that had seen the streets of Seoul way too many times. As Namjoon had informed you earlier, his right arm was covered in dark and colorful tattoos, all the way to his hand, including a crown on his index finger. His big, dark brown eyes were pools of hurt and sadness that quickly twisted into confusion as he saw you. You suddenly realized how this looked to him. From his side, the door of one his best male friends had opened to a woman wearing flared black pajama shorts and a loose white tank top with a single red chili pepper embroidered in the center of the chest.

Which could mean a lot of things.

Or nothing.

“Jeon Jungkook?” you asked as a greeting.

“Uh… Y-Yeah…”

His voice cracked and he shook like a shaken leaf in the last days of autumn.

You waved him in. “Namjoon-ah let me know to expect you. Come in.”

He hesitated. Reasonably so. His ears were red, maybe from running, but a deep flush was developing on his cheeks. You could tell he was feeling somewhat embarrassed about it all. He had a youth about him, both in naïveté and in the anxiety of being ashamed at his emotional state. You softened. You didn’t comment on it. Instead, you said, “I’ll make you some tea. The bathroom is around the corner if you would like to freshen up. Don’t stand out here.”

There was a flash of defiance in his gaze, but it died when you didn’t react in a hostile manner. You simply moved out of the way, holding the door open for him. After an awkward shuffle and dance, Jeon Jungkook and his excessive amount of luggage was in the apartment. You closed the front door behind him, locking it.

“Did…”

His voice cracked. Distraught, he looked away and you politely stared vacantly in the other direction. A little part of you had wondered if Namjoon had put you in an unsafe situation – after all, you knew him but not his friends – yet upon seeing Jungkook, you were getting domestic pet vibes again. Puppy, or perhaps the big-eyed, trembling upper lip expression was giving bunny. He didn’t seem dangerous. Maybe you were being too trusting. Eh. Only one way to found out.

“Did Namjoon-hyung tell you…?”

Your eyes flickered to him. He was staring down at the floor. Damn. You could tell he was trying to put on a brave front as if his face wasn’t splotchy and his t-shirt wasn’t soaked in tears, but it was weak. Broken. He might be a stranger, but his current state was familiar enough to anyone who had experienced crushing disappointment. That was a lot of people, including you.

“That you were staying a while? Yup. Although he didn’t tell me where the spare towels were,” you added distractedly, crossing your arms. “He just told me you could use anything. But now that I think about it, you wouldn’t want to use his bath towel, no matter how close you two are. Hmmmm. I’ll go looking while you get settled then.”

“Are you… his girlfriend?”

You stiffened. You glanced at Jungkook, who was giving you a scrutinizing and halfway-jealous glare. You grimaced, shaking your head.

“No, I’m not. I’m the next-door neighbor. Which, contrary to what bad porn storylines might lead you to believe, does not equate to relationship material. Just a convenient person to ask to keep your spare house key when you constantly forget it,” you lightheartedly replied. “Which is a lot of the time, when you’re Kim Namjoon.”

Jungkook relaxed a bit, but he was still giving you that guarded expression. You realized he must have noticed that you were using rather familiar terms for Namjoon, which was the natural progression after the whole getting naked and sixty-nine-ing incident that he was very likely unaware of. Uh. You sort of hoped he would accept the neighbor explanation, because there was truly not much more to it. You probably wouldn’t have even done it if Namjoon hadn’t spoken so miserably about his last breakup, how he had felt so unloved and like he never mattered, and maybe you had been trying to convince him he did matter, even if only for a fleeting moment, which said a lot about your preferred coping mechanism versus his.

But.

Anyway. Haha. This wasn’t going to become a pattern. Surely.

Ahem.

“I’m sorry…”

You blinked. “Pardon?”

The not-so-strange stranger clutched his duffel bag, fidgeting, his face scrunching up, unable to look directly at you. “I’m sorry you got dragged into this,” Jungkook shuddered, tensing up. His shaking voice struggled to hold itself together. “I… It’s late… I couldn’t… I drove, my parents live in Busan, dunno if I could… I didn’t want to trouble… I’m so worthless…”

“You drove in this state?” you cut in sharply. You snapped your jaw shut, not wanting to scold him. His face looked stricken. Well, you’d been called heartless before, but you didn’t claim the title yourself. You calmed your tone. “Hey, I’m not here to judge you. Look, you don’t have to tell me anything. This is a safe place. I’m just here to prepare you a cup of hot tea. Maybe heat up some hotteok if I can find any in the freezer. Or I can leave you alone, right now, if you promise not to do anything stupid before your friend comes back.”

For a moment, Jungkook didn’t say anything. He was taller, bigger, more muscular than you, but he seemed small right now. The world stilled.

“Be honest… Do I seem like a pathetic man?” he asked in a broken whisper.

You looked at his frail form and answered rather confidently.

“Do pathetic men have the self-awareness to call themselves pathetic?”

Those big bloodshot eyes rose to meet your wry smile.

“Just be sad in peace. Emotions are not an attack on your masculinity.”

You spotted the flash of defiance once again. “What would you know?” Jungkook snapped. Then you could tell he instantly regretted it, shrinking back slightly. He didn’t apologize though. You waited. Minutes passed. The timing became awkward. His eyes shifted, lips quivering, trying to get the words out. You thought about forcing it out of him, but you let him have this one.

“I’m not against you,” you reminded him quietly.

“S… Sorry,” he mumbled, staring at the floor. “It’s… My girlfriend… um, ex… ex-girlfriend. Cheated on me.”

You could tell it hurt him to even say it out loud. His voice was thick and on the brink of tears.

“I… I was going to ask her to…”

He fell apart before your eyes.

“…To m-marry me.”

Jungkook sank to the floor and cried.

You didn’t know what to do.

Well, you did know what to do. It was a matter of whether or not to do it. You had only known Jeon Jungkook for less than ten minutes after all. You hadn’t even known he existed until barely thirty minutes ago. And you didn’t know if he wanted to be consoled by an almost stranger, as he had been holding back this entire time, albeit poorly and without experienced restraint, but who could blame him, his world as he had known it had fallen apart less than an hour ago.

Yeah.

His world as he had known it had fallen apart less than an hour ago.

It was entirely possible that Jungkook would recoil from you, and validly so. You knelt anyway, not yet saying anything. It was pointless to tell him not to cry, for he was already crying. Hell, you would cry too if your innocence was still intact. Deep down, you were glad that he was. It showed that he still believed enough to shed tears over a moment called love. Besides, sadness was better than misplaced anger.

You reached towards him and experimentally placed your hand on his shoulder.

What should have felt solid felt so very breakable under your palm.

“You don’t have to say any more,” you reminded him quietly.

His face was buried in his duffel bag, covered by his arms. A sob ravaged his entire body, possessing him with emotion. Frustration and sadness and regret and shame and self-blame, maybe warranted, maybe not. He was saying something, wetly, something about being not enough, not deserving, unable to make anyone stay. It was a jumbled, anguished mess. You didn’t refute any of his cries, because they were more for him than they were for you to respond to, and because you weren’t even sure he meant to be this vulnerable. You were sure that, at some point in the future, he would no longer relate to any of the statements he was declaring now, but he just didn’t know and couldn’t believe that yet so there was no point in saying it now.

You weren’t good at this kind of stuff, but you simply said what you told yourself when you were in a similar low point.

“These might be your consequences, but these consequences don’t have to define who you are.”

It was several more minutes of sniffing and clutching his duffel bag. You could tell the tears were subsiding though. It could have been what you said. Or it could have been him remembering you were there next to him. A woman he didn’t know was witnessing his breakdown. You almost pulled your hand away, but you sensed a ripple of discomfort in his demeanor, as if to ask, are you ashamed of me? The thought stayed in your mind. You shifted your hand and gently rubbed his upper back.

“Why don’t you take a shower?” you suggested softly, not leaning too close but close enough to be there as a physical presence. “Get into some fresh clothes. I’ll find a towel for you. Take your time. If you still want that cup of tea, I’ll be here to get that ready too.”

It was not your nature to give s single shit about a stranger.

It didn’t seem to be Jeon Jungkook’s nature to accept help either, and yet you felt those strong shoulders slump under your palm, giving up.

“O… Okay….”

-

You rapped your knuckle against the bathroom door.

“Hey, I’m going to put the towel by the sink and leave,” you called, hopefully loud enough to be heard over the falling water. “Take your ti–”

Everything happened very quickly.

You turned the knob with one hand as the other was holding the fluffy white bath towel you had found in the linen closet. Steam poured from the crack through the door, and you felt the heat before you felt the dampness of it. You heard the water shut off. You froze. And then, all of a sudden, the door was yanked open from the other side, revealing a dripping, wide-eyed, unquestionably naked Jeon Jungkook.

You stared at him.

He stared at you.

Was it something about doors or was it something about your poor timing? Perhaps he hadn’t heard you. You were looking up, at his face, by instinct. Droplets clung to his cheekbone and jaw. His black hair was flat against his head and did absolutely nothing in blocking those big dark brown pools of shock who really should not be shocked since he had opened the door on you. Unless he hadn’t known. But then why would he open the door trailing water everywhere butt-ass-naked knowing full well a stranger was somewhere on the other side?

Your eyes narrowed.

His ears were turning red.

The more you looked at his expression, the less you felt that he was inclined to move, hide himself, or literally anything else that would obviously provide the perception that he didn’t orchestrate this moment to some extent. Which is a lot of words to say – he had known you were there. He had opened the door on purpose. As this epiphany dawned on you, you saw his eyes dart. Flutter. He might have known but he hadn’t planned much else after that. You wondered what kind of reaction he had been trying to illicit by this, but the more time that elapsed and the more you thought about it, the more you understood that he was trying to do something reckless on purpose or worse.

Which would make you unintentional – or intentional – collateral to his current skewed judgement.

You didn’t like that.

You unfurled the towel and held it up lengthwise, pinching it by the two upper corners and continued directly staring into Jungkook’s face. With this action, he clearly caught on that you were catching on.

You saw him hold his breath.

You did not look down.

Oh, there were definitely things to look at. Even the hint of his defined shoulders and the toned upper half of his pecs was enough to give anyone a reason to look. But you didn’t, because that was basically the same as taking advantage of a drunk person. Although you didn’t really have qualms about giving the middle finger to other faux pas, questionable consent wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t thinking straight right now or, rather, you had no reason to believe that he was thinking straight because who the fuck is trying to sex up their friend’s next-door neighbor that they just met? He had just been cheated on.

So.

For revenge?

You pressed the corners of the towel to Jungkook’s wet shoulders and curled your fingers around them, touching his skin.

His inhale caught.

He stared into your eyes.

You dummy bunny, you thought.

His body was warm, and he was trembling. You still didn’t look down. You probably would have seen some things. Or one very obvious tent. In any case, you leaned in, not breaking eye contact. Jungkook seemed to realize that your approach was not giving what he thought he was going to be getting. Strangely, you could see a mixture of relief and disappointment in his expression. As if he was glad that you weren’t that kind of person, but also upset that the mere sight of his bare-and-available body couldn’t break your demeanor, somehow making him less in his own eyes.

This wasn’t your first rodeo, though. You’d seen all this shit before.

Maybe even been on his side of it.

Teenagers, right? No? Oh. Anyway.

He smelled clean. Herbal. A hint of yuzu. You synchronized your breathing to his. He didn’t seem to notice, but the shallowness waned. Dampness seeped to your palms. You felt him relax slightly, realizing you weren’t about to have an angry outburst at his appearance or his choice of, ahem, confrontation.

You stared into his eyes.

“You look better when you’re not crying,” you commented.

Jungkook flushed a little. There was good-naturedness in his awkward laugh though. “Uh… Thanks? I’d… I’d hope so…”

Your face was close to his. He seemed to notice it now. You let him have this suspended moment of heated wonder. You smiled at him.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” you asked.

A borrowed towel hung between his wet, naked body and your dry, clothed one.

His eyes held more life to them than before. “Ah… Yeah. Yes. If… If it’s not too much trouble,” he trailed off, embarrassment creeping into the timbre of his voice. “I don’t know… I dunno if there’s any hotteok.”

You held the edges of the towel. “I’ll look,” you reassured him.

He wasn’t looking away.

Your hair was messy from laying around all evening. You weren’t wearing any makeup because, again, it was evening and you weren’t expecting to leave your home. Your face might have been puffy from the salty soup of your dinner earlier in the night but, then again, there was always a little roundness to your cheeks. But Jungkook was observing your face very closely, and you were starting to think it wasn’t because of your appearance.

Or maybe it was.

You cut into his personal space just a little bit more.

“You need to hold onto the towel,” you advised.

Realization lit his ears bright red. You sensed his hands flying up, splaying over the soft white towel and pinning it to his chest, but you weren’t focused on that. You barely noticed. Instead, you were raising your eyebrows at the sound that came out of him.

Almost.

A whimper?

The moment hung into the air.

He knew you heard. You were still holding onto his shoulders. It wasn’t weird. You caught the look in his eyes. Well. You breathed out silently, backing away so he couldn’t feel the weight of your exhale. You had a task. Right. Your eyes connected for a split second. He saw something in yours that you didn’t conceal fast enough. You turned quickly, walking out of the hallway. Here you were, going out of your way for someone you barely knew. Make the tea, find a snack, get out, you told yourself, creating the mental checklist. He probably wanted to be alone to brood and all that. Yeah.

You made your way to the kitchen. Raised your hand to open the cupboards to begin your search for consumable comfort and noticed you were trembling. You frowned.

You smacked the back of your hand.

The shakes disappeared with the sting.

“For fuck’s sake,” you muttered, and prepared the damn cup of tea.

-

Thankfully, the following encounter with Jeon Jungkook didn’t involve a door and an awkward stare-down. You were beginning to think it was going to become a pattern, but thankfully it was only correlation, not causation.

Instead, now the two of you were awkwardly at Kim Namjoon’s kitchen counter. Him sitting. You standing. He was staring at the cup of tea and two circles of pan-warmed hotteok with tears in his eyes.

Improvement.

You cleaned up after yourself quietly, not wanting to make him more uncomfortable by you watching him eating, but you noticed he wasn’t touching the food or drink. After what seemed like an eternity of gazing into the abyss, he gulped down a lungful of air and closed his eyes. He was wearing a faded black t-shirt and a pair of loose blue plaid cotton pants. His hair was still a little damp. As you washed the frying pan, you saw Jungkook scoot closer to the counter and nibble on the hotteok.

Whew.

He jolted a bit at the temperature of the tea but didn’t complain. You wiped down the counters and busied yourself in making sure everything was how you found it. Acquainting yourself with Namjoon’s kitchen was easier than acknowledging the heaviness in the room right now. Not quite between you and Jungkook, but, well, the circumstances in him being here in the first place.

You turned around, washcloth in hand.

Jungkook turned slightly, reached down, and pulled his hand up.

Your eyes immediately followed the movement, even before your registered the emotion in his eyes.

With a sharp snap, a small jewelry box now sat on the grey granite.

Namjoon’s kitchen was set in a C-shape. The refrigerator and stove on one wall, sink and cabinets on another, and an extension entering the living space that doubled as more countertop area that could accommodate two barstools. You had been a little surprised at how little there was in the kitchen, as there had been no special kitchen gadgets or appliances. Just the basics. Still, it was a small space. So, there you were, boxed in the kitchen, looking down at an emerald velvet jewelry box, and Jungkook was on the other side of the counter, chewing on his sweet snack, and looking down at it with you.

You glanced at him.

Emotionless, he reached over. The snake tattoo on his right wrist was what you fixated on, dark and winding and coiled, and you watched his forearm muscle underneath ripple as he cracked open the box, revealing a ring.

An engagement ring, you guessed.

He sat back, hollow.

You looked down at it.

The focal point was a round, clear stone. It didn’t quite hold the intense, prismatic sparkle of diamond, but it was large. Several carats mounted on a shining yellow gold band. Expensive, yet not extravagant or gaudy. Classic. You searched Jungkook’s body language to see if he wanted some type of reaction out of you, but he simply looked deflated. Out of it. Chewing and swallowing and taking another bite until all of the hotteok was gone. He drank the tea as the engagement ring glittered between you and him, now in Namjoon’s apartment, oblivious that it would never grace the hand of its intended owner.

“I hid it in the pocket of the pajama pants I’m wearing now.”

You almost didn’t register that Jungkook was talking because he sounded nearly robotic. Dissociated.

“I didn’t have to worry about her finding it. I always did the laundry. She hated doing laundry.”

You lived alone, so whether or not you hated doing laundry was irrelevant. You still had to do it. Hating it only made the chore worse. Hating doing the dishes was allowed because the dishwasher could do all the hard work for you. Not that any of this mattered. You were trying to mentally distract yourself to avoid interrupting him or forming any opinion.

“I didn’t mind though,” he continued, looking somewhere only he knew. “I like cleaning. I’m good at it.”

You weren’t sure if you liked this version of Jeon Jungkook speaking in complete sentences. His detached tone was becoming disconcerting. He looked somewhere between falling apart at any given moment and hurling the mug in his hand with a torn scream.

“She told me something once. About how my birthstone and her birthstone are the same. Sapphire.” You did the math. September children. Christmas-to-New-Years boinking for their parents. You tried not to grimace so Jungkook wouldn’t notice, although he was rambling to himself and had probably forgotten that you were right there. “I don’t know about that stuff but she showed me and I guess it’s true. I didn’t know they had white sapphires. The jeweler told me they were associated to new beginnings. Perfect for the start of a martial journey, he said. I thought that would be nice, and I could afford a bigger stone too. Girls like that, right? I don’t know. Once I got it, I thought, wow. It would look perfect on her hand. She could show it to all her friends every time she goes out. She loved going out and doing stuff. I stopped going because I felt like I was invading on her special time with friends. Or something. I trusted her, anyway. Right? I should. She…”

His head moved, his dark eyes shifting.

You raised your head, and he breathed out, gazing at you from far away.

“It was my fault,” he said, his voice cracking.

You raised your eyebrows. “I don’t know anything about the situation but I kinda doubt it.”

He looked down. “It must have been. I was too suffocating, she said. Too clingy. Her friends thought I acted too childish. She told me not to care… I could tell she cared. Two years. What was it for?”

You wished you had a good answer for him, if only to ease his misery. The best you could do was continue listening.

“I found out by accident,” Jungkook whispered. Small but enough for you to hear. “She didn’t mind if I touched her phone. She was sleeping, and it kept ringing. I took it to another room and turned off the sound, but someone kept calling. Wouldn’t stop. I knew the guy’s name. I remembered her talking about him before. She had a couple guy friends. She always talked about them just as much as her female friends. I never liked it, but I have to be a grown up about it, right? And then her KaokaoTalk started popping off. She didn’t have an existing thread with the guy. Weird. I didn’t mean to read the messages, but they kept coming one after another, it was just…”

His eyes hollowed again. He was reliving it. Second by second. Minute by minute. Pain clouded his expression. His voice became tight. His hand on the mug clutched hard, knuckles tense.

“He kept warning her he would tell me. Tell everyone. I couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t believe it. Then my phone started going off. Screenshot after screenshot. Messages. Photos. Videos. And she was asking him in all of them. Initiating. Begging. Then her phone was going off again, all the other chats she had. Like a fucking bomb went off.” He seethed, dark brows furrowing, jaw tightening. But then a strange look superseded all of the anger, replacing it with emptiness. “And all at once I felt it.”

He raised his head and looked…

Guilty?

“Empty.”

You tilted your head curiously.

“Nothing,” Jungkook repeated, exhaling hard. “Just nothing. I didn’t feel anything for her. How fucking scary is that? Did I even love her at all? One moment I felt anger, betrayal, hatred. And the next, I felt nothing. I wish I could delete it all. Everything. She had moved into my place, but I don’t even want to look at that apartment anymore. I don’t want the furniture. I don’t want to walk down that street. I’ll pay until the lease is up but I just don’t want to be there. I packed my clothes, my game consoles, my equipment, but anything we shared I left because I don’t want to fucking see any of it. She woke up while I was packing. Trying to act all sweet and surprised. I just shoved her phone in her face and let her deal with that. She was yelling at me, saying all kinds of bullshit, trying to take stuff from my hands, and I told her not to fucking touch me and not to fucking speak to me ever again.”

Well.

Shit.

He glanced at you again. Apologetic.

“Sorry. I’m a bad person. I’m sorry you had to help me…”

You blinked at him.

He couldn’t raise his head.

“You sure about that?” you asked the silence.

His eyes shifted but didn’t rise. “What?”

“You sure I don’t help bad people on the regular?”

He lifted his head and frowned at you, searching your face. You didn’t elaborate. Your hands were on the edge of the counter, away from the sparkly trinket at the center, a symbol of something shattered still so pristine, then it was an empty plate, empty cup, and finally Jungkook, his features contorted, trying to understand what you were saying.

Good luck, because you mostly said it to break him out of his self-pity party. Although, all things considered, it wasn’t a lie. How many good people were there on this forsaken planet, truly? Meh.

“Yeah…” he mumbled. “I don’t know anything about you.”

You shrugged and figured that was it.

“So, tell me.”

You raised an eyebrow. “What?”

His brow furrowed defiantly. “Yeah. Tell me.” He repeated himself, sharper this time. You made a face at him. He remained stubborn. “I told you about my life. What about yours?”

You weren’t impressed by his delusions. “Uh, unsolicited, by the way. I didn’t ask. You’re the one who started yapping.”

Jungkook blinked at you, startled by your dismissive tone or perhaps your word choice. You folded the washcloth primly and scrutinized him back. He faltered under your gaze, looking down at the empty light blue plate. There were a few tiny crumbs left, but its purpose had already been served.

“R… Right. Sorry.”

A little thought in the back of your mind nagged you. Please be nice to him. Namjoon’s words rang in your ear. You winced, and Jungkook didn’t seem to notice, too busy being ashamed for himself. There was a brief mental tug of war within yourself before you finally said, “I’m not currently dating anyone.”

His form ruffled a bit but it wasn’t much.

You tried not to roll your eyes. “I’ve had a couple of serious boyfriends,” you admitted. “But they didn’t work out for one reason or another. Nothing dramatic. For example, one of them we simply broke up because his parents hated me.”

“Why?” He perked up and was looking at you now.

You twisted your lip. “Because I’m a whore,” you sneered.

Jungkook blinked at you, taken aback.

“Anyway,” you continued, glossing over it. “It’s not for me.”

“What isn’t?”

“Romance.”

“Why?”

You narrowed your eyes and then sighed. What an exchange. “Because what I want is not something other people want.”

“What do you want?” Jungkook followed up, curious, sitting up in his chair now. “What’s different?”

You rubbed the back of your head. “Different…” You mulled over the word. You looked down at the ring between you and him. “What is this ring to you?”

His eyes followed, downcast. “Uh… well… it means I want to be married…?”

“That you want other people to know, hey, that’s my future wife?”

Something flashed over his expression but disappeared just as quickly. “Yeah. I guess.”

The ring shone, its many facets silvery and sparkling.

“Well, I want to have sex,” you professed.

On cue, Jungkook tore his eyes away from the counter to gawk, startled at your forwardness. You made eye contact. Half-smiled. What? He had a cute face.

“Most people have sex because of what sex means. Then there are people like me who have sex because of what sex is.”

He was staring at you like a fish out of water.

“This ring is an example of the things humans do to create an image for others.” Your finger circled around the ring, toying with light and shadow above the shine. “Which is not a bad thing, to want your bond to be acknowledged by others. It can be empowering. But sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s something we do to protect ourselves. Something we do to strengthen the walls of the house that is slowly revealed to be made of cards.” You pulled your hand back. Jungkook’s face fell, gradually understanding what you meant. “Me, I don’t care what the outside of the house looks like. Sure, it would be cool for the outside to be perfected just the way I like it, but ultimately I don’t care. I only care about what’s inside. I find most actions connected to the word ‘romance’ are things we do to be acknowledged by others. There is an unnecessary pressure to fit your story into an ideal that other people need to approve of. And I hate that. So, I don’t pursue it.”

There was a pause.

Through a filtered gaze of his messy bangs, Jungkook asked, “What did you mean?”

“About what?”

“About having sex… for what it is.”

That’s what he got out of that? Still, you raised a hand to ask him a question. “Why do you have sex?”

The tips of his cheeks blushed red. “Uh.”

You started ticking down fingers.

“To express your love to your partner. To feel connection with someone else. To do something for someone that, supposing you both agreed, is an act of service you can’t get anywhere else. To make up for your mistakes to them. To show your worth and value to them.”

Your hand a fist.

“To get off.”

Jungkook’s big eyes shifted from your fist to your face. You hadn’t raised or lowered your hand for the last one.

“Selfishness is usually last on the list,” you said, uncurling your hand. “And the first and main reason why people break relationships. So, it’s bad. Supposedly.” You placed your hand on the cool stone. “And maybe I am selfish, which would theoretically put me at the bottom of the list, since I don’t have sex for other people. I have sex for the act itself. To explore the complexity of physical and mental interacting. To satiate my curiosity in that unique type of pleasure and all the things that contribute to it. To me, sex is pure. You cannot hide. You cannot lie. People try to do both, and I find that type of dishonesty exhausting and ugly.”

You looked back to Jungkook to see if he was following. His eyes were glazing over a little bit, but he seemed to understand the general sentiment. That was okay. It would be better not to spend too long on the soapbox.

“Anyway, it never feels like anyone is fully committed to the act. They are trapped in the reasons of what sex means to them. Or their relationship with sex is more deteriorated than they like to admit. The sex sucks. I can taste that it is tainted, and not in a good way.” You cocked your head. “People tend to seek to replicate what they felt before. Or they want something better than what they currently have. The past and future constantly compete with the present. Achieving orgasm has become more important than anything else. In search of meaning, the fundamentals have become an afterthought. I’m not saying love isn’t important, but I can’t accept that sex plays second fiddle to everything else. That sex needs some other reason than itself to be valid. We’ve lost the damn plot, I fear,” you chuckled, giving him a moment to absorb that.

Jungkook frowned. He didn’t look wholly lost though. “So… Romance isn’t for you because, uh.” He paused. “The purity of sex? Or something?”

You half-laughed. “That and because no one wants to put up with my bullshit.”

A beat before a soft, “Oh.”

His pensive face was rather charming. You continued to smile.

“I kinda agree though,” he mumbled.

“Hm?”

Discomfort invaded his thoughtful demeanor. “Uh… Whenever we had sex… It was on her terms. Because she had to give her consent first. Since I wanted it more than her.” He wasn’t looking at you nor speaking that clearly. Still, you stayed attentive. “I’d… uh. I’d get hard and then put it in her and then finish and… yeah. Yeah. That was it.”

You blinked.

And blinked again, more rapidly this time. “Sorry, what?”

Jungkook grimaced, cowering a bit at your tone. “It felt good. And stuff,” he said defensively.

You felt offended for him. “You’re joking.”

He gave you a sidelong glance and sighed. “It wasn’t good. But I figured it wouldn’t be like the pornos.”

“Well, it’s not,” you agreed. “But sex sure as hell isn’t… whatever fuckery you just described.”

His spine was emulating a shrimp at the moment. “Yeah.”

You looked down at the ring.

“You wanted to marry this woman?”

His eyes followed yours. “The parts of it that were good were good.”

You doubted it but you bit that lackluster lure anyway. “Like what?”

Something in his eyes broke. “Like… We watched the same shows. She loved to dance. Had a great smile, loved to laugh… I used to make her laugh all the time.” His lashes lowered. “In the beginning, she’d surprise me by signing us up for random classes around the city. Pottery, painting, cooking, flower arrangement, making traditional Korean alcohol. We learned a lot of stuff together. It was good,” he breathed out, his hands clasped around each other. “And then… One time, she signed us up for some activity but I already had plans. I didn’t want to cancel them. We argued. I remember she was so uncharacteristically angry about it. She was almost never like that. So, I must have been the wrong one, right? She never enrolled us for another class again. We had fun, until…” He trailed off.

Leaving the empty calendar as his constant reminder, you thought. It was a clever tactic. Even now, he was questioning himself. You narrowed your eyes. Poked the bear a bit. “Sounds more like she dragged you around without even asking you first. Did you actually have fun at any of these things?”

His gaze shifted. “I… I did…”

It didn’t even sound like he believed himself.

You sighed, defeated. “A ring wasn’t gonna save that house of cards.”

His eyes went to the almost-engagement ring. You tried to imagine it. Something so alive becoming so catatonic over time. Trying to do everything you could to resurrect what was lost, only to learn it had been alive after all.

Just not with you.

“No. It wouldn’t,” he agreed hollowly.

Silence.

Back to square one.

You reached over and took the plate and mug. Washed them, lathering up with the dish soap, rinsing it off. Dried them, because you were unsure if Namjoon’s dishwasher was a frequently used appliance or a drying rack. It was empty so it was hard to tell. You squeezed out the sponge and set it back into its niche. Placed the dishes back into their respective places. Dried off your hands. Turned around.

Jungkook was still staring at the ring.

“Life only gets harder,” you said softly.

He raised his head, confronting you with a devastating desolation in his eyes. Part of you wanted to lie. Lie, and say it got easier. Lie, and say he would find someone better. Lie, but what would be the point to lie to someone that had already been lied to so deeply, so cruelly, still bleeding from a wound that would become a scar someday? You couldn’t assure anything. You couldn’t lie. It got harder the more you cared. It got harder the more hurt you had time to witness. It got harder as time slipped away. You just had to hope that random chance and a bit of luck was on your side.

“Could I put it on your finger?” Jungkook asked.

You set down the washcloth. The comprehension of his question sank in. “What?”

He reached down.

Wrapped his shaking fingers around the box, and tilted it towards you. The white sapphire glistened, foreign, beautiful, and not yours. Not for your eyes. Not for your hand. Not meaning anything to you, to that relationship, to anything anymore.

It was another shiny thing that had become dull without meaning.

“Could I put this ring on your hand, please?” he pleaded again. “Just once. Just once since… Since I don’t know if I… If I will ever get the chance to do it.”

You wanted to tell him, of course you will. Of course, being that handsome and naïve and innocent and, goddamn, he has such big wistful eyes, fuck, you thought, taking one step. Two. Three. That was all it took. You looked down at the ring. You saw his tattooed fingers fumble a little with the thin band. It was almost comical. You were in your house clothes. Jungkook was in his pajamas. Namjoon’s kitchen counter was not a place for a not-proposal. Your left hand came forward. Your fingers spread out a little, and Jungkook’s left hand gently slid under, lifting your wrist, warm and careful, and your eyes found his.

A complex maze of emotions met you.

You lifted your ring finger.

Jungkook said your name, very quietly. It appeared that he had finally read those tests Namjoon had sent him ages ago. Probably before or after his shower. You nodded, not really knowing what to say. This wasn’t in the life handbook, per se. And the way he said your name, delicately and with such breakability, made you not want to dispute it.

He looked down and slid the engagement ring on your finger.

Stared.

Pulled his hands away, letting out a tense exhale.

The large stone gleamed.

You moved your fingers ever-so-slightly, and the ring flipped, the stone dropping down to the inside of your hand.

Awkward.

“Oh…”

You used your right to adjust it. “It’s… Sorry. It’s slightly too big for my ring finger,” you muttered, trying to jam the gold band down a bit to help. “Welp.”

“It’s okay,” Jungkook chuckled and, to your surprise, he sounded almost amused. “I just wanted to see what it would look like on you.”

“It’s very shiny,” you admitted. Namjoon’s previous words gave you another swift kick to the pants. “I mean, it’s nice. It’s a lovely ring. You made a good choice.” You held the band delicately and switched it to your middle finger. It fit perfectly, without moving. “Ah, there we go.” You held your left hand up, palm towards you and showed it off to him. “Now you can see it without it slipping and sliding anywhere.”

You stilled once you saw his expression.

A longing for something no longer possible.

And yet there was a ghost of a smile on his lips.

He noticed your focus on him and Jungkook smiled for real, the action not reaching his eyes at all.

“It looks good on you. Pretty hands.”

It was a compliment but he said it with all the joy of one getting their heart ripped from their chest.

A strange surge of protectiveness overcame you.

You had never met Jungkook’s would-be fiancé, but in this moment, if you did, she sure as hell would not want to meet you. You couldn’t keep it in your damn pants, woman? Bitch. You scowled even at the thought. Jungkook was too transfixed on his engagement ring on your middle finger to give a fuck. This whole situation was infuriating. Sure, you were too clinically cynical for a mushy-gushy fairytale but, fuck, couldn’t we bend life’s rules just once for this sucker? You lowered your hands. His eyes followed, dulled in the presence of the sparkle. You moved to take it off.

His gaze snapped to yours.

You stopped.

It was like seeing someone alive and dead at the same time. He seemed to be in the midst of a daydream and a nightmare, thoughts crossed between what could have been and what was lost. You wanted to say something movie-script worthy, something to make it all better, and yet you held back once more, not quite believing in them yourself. The ring seemed unusually heavy now.

“It doesn’t match you though,” Jungkook suddenly muttered.

You looked down at the ring. “No. Not really.”

“White gold would look better.”

He was correct. Maybe he could tell from the small hoops in your ears. “Ah, yeah. I’m more of a white gold girl.”

“You deserve a diamond.”

You scoffed. He caught your eye. For once, you were the one to look away, breaking that contact.

“Hah… No, I don’t.”

Not like you did anything to deserve a diamond. You went to work. Went home, puttered around. Passed out. Sometimes you went out in search of a fuck. Sometimes you traveled a bit to cut through the mundane. But there was no charity work here. For what? To end up like Jungkook? To have your trust broken, shattered by someone you thought would keep it safe? And you couldn’t blame them and take revenge, because the high road had no room for low blows. Supposedly heaven was only for the most righteous, which already excluded you. Might as well live to the bare minimum instead of chasing an ideal knowing you could never be forgiven.

And all that shit.

Somehow your space-out had resulted in you completely losing track of Jungkook. One second, he was sitting in the tan leather barstool in front of you. The next, it was empty. You started, and then turned.

Face-to-face.

Jungkook took your left hand in his right.

Held it.

The conversation had gone on so long that his hair was dry now. A little frizzy from being air-dried. It covered his forehead, but not his eyes. His warmth and yours connected. From palm to palm. Under those big eyes was heavy darkness, hinting at sleepless nights. You paused, unsure of his motive. He seemed to be searching for something.

You caught his wrist.

Jungkook froze in mid-movement, about to lean his head down.

You shook yours.

“Don’t.”

He didn’t advance but also didn’t back off. “… Don’t what?”

You squeezed his wrist. His expression rippled. A sound muted in his throat.

“Don’t do it,” you warned again. “You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

Contemplation flitted over his face. His eyes went from his ring on your middle finger to you. Tense, elongated seconds passed. You could tell Jungkook hadn’t quite expected that answer from you. He had expected the rejection, and yet. There was a mixture of defiance and innocence in his gaze. You could smell his scent under the body wash he had used. Masculine and earthy.

You inhaled deeply.

Don’t, you thought, but this time it was to scold yourself.

“It won’t make you feel better,” you assured him.

He was more focused on your hand gripping his wrist than your words. You did not let go. In fact, you tightened your hold, your fingers pressing into his tattoos, the ring digging into you and into him. His dark eyes raised.

“You sure about that?” he whispered.

Uh oh.

Jungkook reached up with his left hand and brought your joined hands to his body. For a brief suspended moment, the round cut white sapphire cut into his clothed chest, close enough for you to feel the racing beat of his heart. You let go of his wrist, giving way to the pressure, and immediately he turned your hand, placing your palm to fabric.

Grazed your touch over his quivering pecs.

He sucked in a breath, his expression hazing over.

You stared at him.

He stared back, his lips forming your name.

Your right hand shot up and covered his mouth. You were trembling. You seized up immediately, wondering if he noticed, but at this point what did it matter? His left hand was still keeping yours on his body, pressing your fingers to the contours of his muscle. “What… What are you doing?” You sharpened your tone, trying to drag him back into reality. You almost expected a cliché answer at this point, but Jungkook only replied breathlessly, “I don’t know.”

I don’t know.

For someone that had been practically disintegrating before your eyes minutes ago, Jeon Jungkook was feeling very solid right now. But it was obvious what he was doing. Right? You looked into his eyes but couldn’t hold it. He just wanted comfort. He just wanted a feeling more than anything. He just wanted to prove that he was worthy of some kind of intimacy, any kind of intimacy, and he was using you, but it didn’t have to be you, it could be anyone.

You clenched your jaw, curling your fingernails inward.

Jungkook’s low moan cut through your venom.

You raised your head, turning your head to him. It didn’t have to be you. But he was looking at you like that. It doesn’t have to be you, and you kept telling yourself that, you kept thinking that but Jungkook kept looking at you like you could save him, from the first meeting at the front door to the standoff at the door of the bathroom to the gaze over empty dishes and a sparkling stone, save you, shit, I can’t even save myself, and you were still wearing his almost engagement ring for another woman on your middle finger, a big fuck-you to that shattered martial life, and before you knew it there was a collision of your lips to his. Your right hand had shot up, hooking around his head, and you dragged Jungkook down to your level.

Low, because the high road had already fucked him over.

He let out a startled squeak that you swallowed, consumed, devoured, and you stole every breath he took in lips and tongue, clawing your fingers through his hair. Then your mind caught up with your body still electrified with craving, asking yourself if you should stop, but then you noticed Jungkook’s hands were grasping for your upper arms, dragging you to him. There was a brief thought of how this was not the kind of intimacy he had received in a long time, and so perhaps his hunger was justified.

Truthfully, hunger was putting it mildly.

You bit his lower lip and sucked hard, opening your eyes.

Jungkook was looking back, and he was falling.

You released him, your tongue snaking out, and simultaneous shivers sprang forth from the fork in the road. Your nails raked over clothes and skin, drawing out his gasps like droplets during a thunderstorm, and you gleefully drowned in his sound. Your tongue pressed to his throat, teeth soon after, leaving bruises in your wake, dying for that taste of flushed skin. Bodies close but pain even closer, and there was no good reason that this should feel good which was precisely why it felt heavenly.

You dragged your hands up to his head, caged into his hair possessively, feeling the unrelenting trap of the ring still on your bent fingers.

Your right eye and his left locked as your tingling lips moved against his cheek.

“I’m still wearing your ring.”

His hot, heavy breath radiated against your neck.

“The ring,” he corrected.

The rebellion in his eyes gleamed.

The ring.

Your left hand trailed down, onto his chest, turning your nails inward, and you watched him follow it, fixated on the ring, replacing any former thoughts he had of it with right now, with the way you slipped your fingers under the hem of his shirt, deliberately catching it onto the large stone, all those expensive carats brought for someone else and now worn by a deviant, creeping up his torso, pushing away the fabric between his nakedness and your carnal intent.

Your eyes connected.

You licked the side of your lip, slowly smirking. “Your plan was for me to fuck you wearing it?”

His cheeks turned pink at your teasing.

“N-No, I d-didn’t… I…”

Jungkook sucked in a tight breath as the pad of your finger brushed over his nipple. You did it again. He looked embarrassed. You weren’t. You pressed your other hand against his abdomen and felt him tense, exposing muscle that was surely crafted from long hours at the gym. You dug your nails in. He moaned, and you hissed his name like a fond prayer, mesmerized by the way his hair fell over his eyes, his body bowing towards you. You gripped his shirt in one hand, his pants in the other, and pulled them away from his body, up and down respectively, exposing skin and desperation.

He grabbed the sides of his shirt and yanked it up and over his head.

Your tongue touched his chest, sliding upwards.

His head fell back, black hair flaring, dark eyes half-moons of lust, his mouth open and depraved sound escaping, all the way up his throat until you reached his chin, rising to tiptoes, and then Jungkook returned, catching your lips with a persistent kiss, possessed by instinct.

You thrust your tongue into his mouth and felt his hands slide under your tank top, wrapping around your waist. You weren’t wearing a bra. After all, you had originally intended on not spending much time here. That hadn’t worked out. The looseness of the top had prevented you from revealing any obvious shape and until now you hadn’t given it much thought. You felt Jungkook pinch the edges of the fabric and tug back, shaping the white jersey into the soft curve of your breasts and the peaks of your hard nipples. He was looking too, even with your tongue in his mouth.

He let out a muffled, “Fuck…” in between gasps.

You pulled back with a nick of his lower lip. Entranced, he leaned down, his hands pressing into the small of your back, and you bent into it, arching your spine as you felt warm wetness rub against one of your nipples.

You watched him.

He watched you back, circling the tip of his pink tongue around the nub, soaking the fabric and sticking it to your skin. Sucking on it, sending a flare of pleasure up your torso, his palms solidly in the bend of your waist. Your pulse snaked upwards, catching in your throat, reducing all thoughts to white noise, and you lost yourself in the way his tongue moved, licked, trailing from one nipple to the other, saliva soaking through your shirt and clinging to your skin, painting you in clear lust.

You hooked a leg around his hip and you could feel him.

You reached between your bodies and dragged the hem up your chest, baring your breasts to his eyes and searching mouth. Jungkook didn’t need to be asked twice. It was as if everything he had seen, longed for, dreamed of, all that he had repressed and tried to forget burst up to the surface, uninhibited any longer, and the feeling of his eager tongue on your wet, hard nipples was intoxicatingly electric. Your grip dug into his hair, pressing his head into your chest. Heat rising from your bodies, sparks igniting in your blood at his frantic licks, rolling your hips into his growing erection.

There really was very littler separating his hard cock and your dampening pussy.

Your nails raked over his back.

“Harder,” he groaned, clutching your waist so hard that it was impossible to get away.

You growled and delivered.

His eyes rolled back, his eyelids fluttering, and you had a fistful of his hair, pulling hard. You wondered if this was actually his kink or a product of circumstance. The glazed-over look in his eyes and violent twitching of his hardness between your thighs was hinting towards the former, which wasn’t a good thing.

Mostly because being on the other side of masochism was your kink.

Fuck.

You shoved his face into your chest and muffled his desperate moan as you yanked on his hair again, striking your hips into his hard-on, putting more force in it than necessary. He held your waist and grinded into the dip of your upper thigh. You closed your legs around him. The friction was sending him over the edge, even to the point of you being able to hear and feel the squish of drenched fabrics between you and him. Your breathing was rapid, shallow, thinning.

You shoved him off you.

Jungkook had a moment of disoriented breathlessness.

Your shirt flew off, over the counter and somewhere into the living room. You immediately dropped with such speed that he had no time to react when you snagged your fingers over the two waistbands of his pants and underwear, and yanked them down to the floor. Those big eyes widened, but you fixated on his thick, hard cock that sprang out, the tip dark red and angry. Slick with pre-cum. You would smell him. Heady and needy. He had nice balls, you observed. Supple and full.

Not for long.

You slid your right hand up. Covering his balls with your palm, anchoring his shaft between your middle and ring finger. Raised your left hand, and looked up at him.

Jungkook looked back, mouth open, eyes widening.

You slapped his erection.

Hard.

His entire body jolted and his gasp morphed into a strangled moan. You watched flashes of reaction overtake his expression. Shame. Desire. Regret. Then regret at that regret. Then need, want, starvation, his hands curling into fists, his chest rapidly rising and falling, and you took his breath away by smacking the shaft again, hard. His cock snapped back into place instantly, twitching, harder than before. He sucked in a tight breath, shaking his head with his lips whispering, “P… Please…”

You tipped your head back and slapped his dick, the ring on your hand visible every time you smacked it down.

Ecstasy rippled through his body. You could tell Jungkook could see the whisper of the sapphire too, maybe even feel the gold band, and it was turning him on even more. Due to the placement of your other hand, you could keep him still and increase the force, even pressing your palm into his balls to add further pressure. He fell apart in real time, but in pain superimposed with pleasure, each strike a spike to your core, thundering heartbeat roaring in your ears.

You stopped mid-slap.

Jungkook nearly protested.

Until you swallowed his cock.

You felt him swell and shudder at the contact of your tongue and throat closing in around his girth, and you pushed up, swirling wet muscle around him, covering him in saliva, drunk at the taste and fullness trapped between your lips. Up, down, vibrating the low point of your throat before drawing back, grazing your lips around the head, slow-fucking the tip.

You raised your eyes to stare into his face.

He was looking back, in awe and intoxication. He had fallen over a bit, draping you in shadow, his hands gripping the edge of the kitchen counter, and you sucked lightly, arcing your spine to delight him with the perkiness of your breasts.

“Oh… fuck… O-Oh, god…”

You tilted your head back and took him in deep, circling your tongue around the length before closing in at the back of your mouth and gently stroking the throbbing head with the contraction of your inner muscles. A low groan drifted from his lips, astonished at the precision of your control. You reached up and kneaded his balls, applying even pressure throughout before pulsing tighter. His reaction was immediate, yelping as his eyelids fluttered, letting out a weak and desperate, “A-Again…” You squeezed again, sucking hard in unison. “F-Fuck, again, p-please…”

But you did him one better.

You smacked his balls with the pads of your fingers.

Jungkook threw his head back and bit back an intense moan, his shoulders shaking.

“Holy… w-what…?”

The trick to it was to apply force but immediately cease all movement after contact with skin. His nerves would immediately register the power of the hit while the recoil repercussions would be minimal. His nuts couldn’t handle being a springboard, after all. It took a lot of control, and was easier to do if you angled upwards, as it would prevent your fingernails from getting caught on his balls while also allowing his body to absorb the shock. You didn’t hit him that hard. It was very likely that he didn’t have much experience in this – unless he was smacking his own balls while jacking himself off. Unlikely, though. And this was confirmed by the way he froze up and simply allowed you to choke with dick with your mouth as you smacked his balls. No part of him resisted. He left himself be at your mercy, even asking for more, nonsensical pleas above your head, and you could feel that he was nearing the end, mostly because he was biting hard on his lower lip, his obscene noises even louder despite being stifled in his throat, and so for the very end you switched to keeping his balls in a locked grip, maintaining constant pressure as you focused on his cock, up, down, repeat, over and over, feeling him twitch against your tongue.

His thick cum flooded the back of your mouth.

His head snapped back and Jungkook screamed behind closed lips, orgasming in your punishing mouth in the middle of Namjoon’s kitchen, his pants and underwear at his ankles, his chest beaded with sweat, and his cock jolted again, streaming more down your throat. You swallowed shallowly, and Jungkook’s pitch hitched to pathetic. His right hand flew to his chest and he dug his blunt nails into his skin, scratching down his chest roughly, moaning to the ceiling as your tongue ghosted around his still-hard cock.

You swallowed again.

Jungkook cried out and thrust his hips into your face.

His chin tipped down and you caught his surprised cry, “I… I’m still hard?” As if he wasn’t trying to end your life right here on foreign tile. You grabbed his hips, easing him back a little, then resumed a deliberate, leisurely back-and-forth, watching his every move.

His arm lowered, his dark tattoos glimmering with sweat. Panting. You raised your left hand and spread your fingers along his v-line. Traced his abs with your middle finger, cocking an eyebrow. His eyes chased your actions with wanton fervor. As if he almost forgot you were still wearing the ring, but then remembered once you put it in his vision again. It aroused him. You felt his cock shiver as you touched him. The wrongness of it all turned him on.

A very expensive turn-on, but a rare silver lining of the day.

His gaze shifted to your face, shame clouding his eyes.

You pulled back, resting the head of his cock on the flat of your tongue.

“Tell me you like it,” you ordered, talking around his dick.

“Uh… W-What?”

Your eye-line went from the ring to his face. You pinched your lips around the base of the head, causing him to gasp sharply, before opening your mouth again to speak.

“Tell me you like watching me get you off while wearing the ring.”

His eyes widened.

You slipped your left thumb along the underside of his drenched length and sucked on the head, closing your fingers around the shaft. His breath caught. You pulled your head back, perfected your grip, and started jacking him off.

With that very expensive rock completing the obscene image.

The whine Jungkook made was in between raw shock and intense bliss, gawking at your audacity. Or depravity. Whichever. He was going to need a good jewelry cleaner before selling this ring back, but you wouldn’t mind paying for that. The gold band was slippery with spit and a hint of cum, but you kept your fingers together, preventing the stone from moving, dispersing tight and firm pressure throughout his pulsing hardness, feeling a grin creep onto your lips, relishing in his whimper and panic, betrayed by his body leaning into the punishment.

“I… oh, f-fuck… Fuck…”

You lifted an eyebrow and slowed down just a tad.

“N-No, please...! I… I like it,” he whispered, his normally deep voice strained.

You smacked the front of his balls with the backs of two fingers from your free hand.

Jungkook moaned and crumpled, almost into a ninety-degree bow, clasping the edge of the counter. “A-Ah, g-god… I l-like it…” His eyes swam with desire, ensnaring you in his immoral feelings. “I need it… It’s so fucking hot… You getting me off while wearing the ring I brought for a-another woman…” His voice wavered. He clenched his jaw, tightening his core, giving you more room to continue. “Spit on it. Let me cum on it. Fuck. Fuck, ruin me.”

Your hand was rapidly moving on its own while your lips parted, locked in the twisted passion of this fucked-up context.

“Ruin me.”

Jungkook was staring right at you, an order and a plea in the same breath, his eyes so dark in this shadow that they seemed black. A bolt of sinful pleasure slid down your spine. You gripped his cock, tighter, imprisoning him. Somehow he had become even harder, his rapid pulse against the palm of your hand. You could feel his greed for pain, his appetite for your power, his directed attention locked on you, just you, you and everything you were right now, fighting the burn in your bicep but not stopping, fueled by feral willpower and corrupt adrenaline that was better than any runner’s high.

You smiled, unable to hide your enjoyment any longer.

He saw it, acknowledged it, and shuddered.

“I-I’m gonna cum, oh fuck–!”

You opened your mouth and Jungkook shot onto your tongue. Thick, hot, viscous streaks, the bittersweet taste coating your tongue. Devilishly divine. You pressed the tip to your wet muscle and he whined, forcing his eyes open to watch himself dump his load into your mouth. You rubbed it back and forth, making him flinch all over, and so you subsided in seeing him reach his limit even though his eyes were devouring every second of this wickedness.

You drew back a little.

Closed your knees inward, which lifted up your torso.

And spat onto your hand.

Onto the ring. Coating it in an unholy mixture of cum and saliva over a still glimmering white sapphire and shining yellow gold. Jungkook gasped your name in amazement, speechless at the depravity. You tucked your head back, watching the silky fluids sink in between your fingers, smirking, your skin tingling as you witnessed it.

You looked up at him.

He looked back at you. Jaw slack. Eyes wide. Half-hard in your hand and getting harder as you slowly, deliberately, stroked his cock with the slick, milky, makeshift lubricant. You felt it stick to his balls, run down your wrist, making a mess, the heady scent of his release saturating the air and this memory.

“You’re persistent,” you remarked, ticking your chin to his dick.

A whimper bubbled from his chest. “That’s… That’s n-not me.”

You shot him an oh-really look.

“That’s all him,” Jungkook protested, gesturing wildly to his lower half. “I don’t even… I’m not normally like this!”

“Uh huh,” you agreed dismissively.

“It’s true!”

“Well, I wouldn’t know,” you pointed out.

“I… Oh, f-fuck…”

-

You opened the front door to your apartment to a shirtless Jeon Jungkook with his blue plaid pajama pants so hastily yanked on that you wondered if half a butt cheek was hanging out. Then you wondered what the fuck he was doing here.

You stared at him.

He stared at you.

Out of breath, clutching one side of the doorframe, relief crushing through the panic in his eyes. His hair was sticking up halfway, as if he had attempted do it something about it but ultimately decided he didn’t care. He stood in the dark hallway, the light from your apartment washing over him. You had a good reason for being in your home at the moment. Ultimately the idea of using Namjoon’s dishes to clean off Jungkook’s bodily fluids on a very expensive ring was, uh, too much. Overstepping an unspoken boundary, mayhap. As if having sex with his friend in his kitchen wasn’t. Anyway, you had jewelry cleaner under your kitchen sink. The plan was simple. Get in your apartment, put the ring in one of the shallow metal saucers you had, rinse off your hands while heating up a bit of hot water, wash off the ring with said hot water in the safety of the saucer, polish it up with jewelry cleaner. It was dying on a paper towel in your kitchen right now. Nowhere close to the sink because you weren’t about to lose millions of won that didn’t belong to you to the sewer.

So, yeah. That was why you were here.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” you loudly whispered.

Jungkook exhaled hard, his dark brows knitting together. “What? You have the ring,” he hiss-whispered back.

You bristled. “I told you I was cleaning it off.”

His eyes darted up and down, as if disapproving that you had put your tank top back on. Of course you had put your shirt back on. What were you going to do, slink back into your apartment with your tits out and one of your hands covered in his cum? Yes, that happened. After spitting on him, you had put his hard cock back into your mouth, sucked him until about halfway to the high, and finished him off with your right hand, all so you could make him orgasm onto the ring on your left, onto your middle finger, cum sliding down your forearm. It hadn’t taken long. You had pointed that out to Jungkook too. He had told you to shut up, his ears bright red as he did so.

Naturally, you took that moment to hightail it out of there so he could fix himself up in peace and relative dignity.

“How would I know you weren’t stealing it?” he snapped.

You rolled your eyes. “Yes, I’m totally going to drive to the pawn shop with a cum-covered ring and get extra for your excellent sperm sample. It’s time sensitive, after all,” you added sarcastically, not backing down despite his irritated demeanor. 

He flapped his jaw, likely not knowing how to respond to that, and then collected himself. “Well, just because you’re washing it off doesn’t mean you would come back!”

You were personally offended. “I was coming back,” you retorted.

A darkness laced into his gaze.

“I have no reason to believe that,” Jungkook muttered.

Any anger you had dissipated upon hearing his words. Your shoulders slumped and you lowered your eyes. Right. Yeah, obviously. The fight seemed to deflate out of him too, as if you both suddenly remembered why he was here at all, why you even knew who he was, why an almost-engagement ring was sparkling in your kitchen right now. You raised your head, and yet you hesitated at his hunched-up form before you, because in this equation the most probable outcome was you being nothing more than temporary comfort for a temporary wound.

Right?

Yeah, obviously.

Jungkook looked up, meeting your eyes, and, despite your best self-deprecation, something in his expression told you that he didn’t run over here half-naked for the stupid ring.

Your lips parted.

Somewhere down the hall, a bubble of laughter and conversation began to rise.

Panic shot through your chest. He caught on just as quickly, his big eyes widening, half-turning, as if there was time to gauge how much time he had to make his getaway, but your hands moved on their own, snatching him by the shoulders and pulling hard, throwing both of you into the confines of your apartment. His arms flew about like a rag doll. Jungkook stumbled in with a wheezing, “Wah!” You twisted, clearing the curve of the closing door, and pinned his back to it, slamming it shut.

Sudden quiet.

Except for the heightened awareness of your own rapid breathing. You closed your eyes, mentally counting, one two three four, two two three four, taking stock of each inhale and exhale. Shit. Shit, what the fuck were people doing out at this hour? Having fun?! With friends?!? Goddamnit, you thought, hoping nobody saw the shirtless man standing outside your door bickering with you, and suddenly you remembered said shirtless man was in your hands.

You opened your eyes to see Jungkook gawking at you with those innocent-looking big eyes of his.

He didn’t say anything.

You wondered if he would believe you.

“I was coming back,” you repeated, emphasizing it with a nod.

A complicated set of emotions flashed through the shadows of his expression. He nodded back, and you could tell he was doing it only to appease you. You shook him against the door and smacked your hands down on his shoulders, glaring back at him.

“I was coming back,” you growled.

Jungkook looked pained, as if he wanted to believe you more than anything, but just couldn’t.

You sucked on the inside of your cheek and flung yourself from him, spinning around sharply so he couldn’t see your face. You couldn’t blame him. Oh, you had lied before, lied with a straight face and no remorse, but for some reason the idea of Jungkook thinking that you were doing so made you terribly upset. Fuck, yeah, it pissed you off. And it wasn’t his fault, Rome wasn’t built in a day and all that shit, yet some part of you wanted to scream, believe me, please believe me, and you couldn’t for the life of you make heads or tails of why that was, walking in a circle, wringing your hands, rubbing your temples with a grimace, not wanting to take your outburst out on him.

It was such a small thing.

You were coming back, he didn’t believe you, and that was that, you would have to accept it.

But you couldn’t.

You just needed a second to accept it. Right?

“How the fuck did I get myself in this situation?”

You muttered under your breath, abruptly ceasing your pacing and turning around, intending to march over to the ring, drop it in Jungkook’s palm, and shove him out of your apartment. Shove him and his stupid sexy butt into Namjoon’s place to neatly compartmentalize that, so long and goodnight, and promptly flop onto your bed to sleep and forget any of this ever happened.

Except, when you faced him, Jungkook caught you.

You started, not realizing he had followed. One second his hands were on your upper arms, and the next they were wrapped around your back, pulling you to him and trapping you in a tight, encompassing embrace that was not for you.

Your hands instinctively came up to cradle his waist.

He buried his face into your hair and inhaled deeply, holding onto you as if his life depended on it. Almost crushing. You thought he was trembling but perhaps it was just your imagination as you felt each shuddering breath steady against your chest. Honestly, you weren’t the hugging type, but this night was proving to be a night of exceptions. You closed your arms around him, not saying anything, letting him have this. Probably the most normal interaction of the night, truly. Jungkook wasn’t crying. He might have, if you had rejected him, but your instinct didn’t have the heart to. You caressed his back, running your fingers over his soft skin.

You didn’t know him.

He could be a serial killer.

Well, if he was, you were considering to offer to bury the bodies.

“Hey… You shouldn’t…”

Even so, you trailed off. You weren’t sure you quite believed what you were trying to say.

“I don’t care.”

His warm breath haloed the crown of your head. He pressed his lips to your hair.

“I don’t care,” he said again, softer this time.

A small, sweet, wrong happiness fluttered at those words.

“Okay,” you breathed, your lips brushing against his neck. You kissed him lightly. Felt him shiver. You smiled. Truth was, you didn’t care either. That was pretty selfish of you. But he was here of his own volition. And Jungkook held you first. And who the fuck were you justifying this to? I’ve lost it, you told yourself for the umpteenth time as he was turned his head and suddenly his lips were a centimeter from yours.

In shadows, your eyes met his.

“I turned your whole world upside down,” you confessed, warning him that this was a one-way highway and he was breaking the speed limit.

You felt Jungkook smile.

“Thank fuck for that,” and then he put pedal to the metal.

Upon reflection, what the fuck was Jungkook thinking, bursting into your apartment with only pajama pants and a dream? Oh, and some sandals borrowed from Namjoon, which quickly flew off as you both stumbled into your living room, abandoning your clothes at an alarming rate. Your top over your head, your hands down his sides, and he hadn’t even bothered with his underwear, this would be my luck, I would want a lunatic, you thought as his thumbs hooked onto the edge of your shorts, pulling down. All the while with your tongue in his mouth.

Normally you would have a conversation about limits and intent and what this was all supposed to mean afterwards but under normal circumstances you would also never imagine having sex with someone you barely met after watching him cry within the first ten minutes.

So.

There was that.

You felt your panties slide down your ass and you grabbed his wrists, yanking them back up as your shorts and underwear slowly migrated down to the floor.

“Wha… W-What?” Jungkook sputtered, breaking out of the kiss and looking like a startled deer confronted by the headlights of your abrupt shift in body language. You sucked in a breath, your lips tingling.

Taking notes.

He immediately stopped even without you explicitly saying stop. He was not trying to overpower you to coerce you for more, even if he was now explicitly staring at your naked body with a bug-eyed expression. You pushed your hands forward and Jungkook stepped back, not quite understanding and blindly trusting you, which was not indicative of a sane headspace.

“You’ve done this before,” you breathed out, glaring up at him from below.

He shook his head very quickly. “No. Well… I mean… it is n-normally what I search for when I wanna get off, so you’re kinda a dream come true for me…”

You narrowed your eyes. “What are you talking about?”

A flutter of confusion.

“Uh… Being dominated by a hot woman?”

You stared at him.

Jungkook tilted his head.

“That’s not what I’m doing,” you said while gripping his wrists and in command of the situation.

His eyes shifted from side to side. “A… Aren’t you?”

A chill crept up your back. “What did you think I was going to do?” you pressed.

He looked back at you, blinking. “I don’t know,” Jungkook answered, sounding truthful.

You squeezed tighter. He gasped a little, his inhale hitching. You relaxed. He seemed disappointed.

“What’s wrong with you?” you snapped.

He paused for a moment and then replied with, “Trauma?”

Well, he wasn't wrong.

“Get on the sofa.”

“What?”

“Now.”

You had one of those viral extra-comfy modular sofas that could be placed in various orientations. Currently, it was as it always was – all linked together, turning the couch into more of a bed than anything else. Hey, there was a reason you enjoyed rotting on your sofa. Maybe you should have taken him to your bed, but Jungkook didn’t seem to care, reacting immediately when you shoved him. Actually, he seemed to approve of your furniture choices. He sat. You planted your hands on his chest and pushed him down, straddling his waist. He yelped, which you immediately silenced with a hand over his mouth and one on his dick, sliding down the underside and squeezing his balls.

His big eyes got bigger.

You slid up his torso, realizing you where dripping pussy juice everywhere. His hands ended up on your breasts. You raised your eyebrows. Those big eyes pleaded with you. You didn’t say anything, instead tilting your head back and toying with his balls, testing the waters. It was a little distracting with the pinching and rubbing of your nipples, but you took a second to test how much pressure he liked, if he enjoyed scratches (he did), if he enjoyed a tug (he did), and if he was fine with your weight on top of him (he was and he seemed to be trying to get you to move up a little higher for personal reasons). His dick was definitely into it. His stiff length was smacking your wrist. Pre-cum was smearing onto your forearm.

Without much warning, you sat back up, climbed over him, and turned around.

Your knees hit his shoulders. There was a gasping, “Wow, oh my god,” when Jungkook came face-to-face with your pussy. You leaned down to your elbows, hovered your hands over his inner thighs, his erection centimeters from your face, and slapped him extremely close to his balls.

Jungkook let out an inhuman noise and muffled him with your ass.

Hot, wet muscle slid against soaked skin. His arms wrapped around your thighs, his hands on your hips, sending a wave of sparks up your core as you descended, wrapping your tongue around his cock, running your fingernails over his balls, relishing in the sensation of tightened skin, tense muscle, and his taste, oh, fuck, his taste, your tongue running over the swollen tip. You kissed downwards. Your teeth braced around one of his balls, licking the curve while pressing the warm shaft against your cheek, using your palm to stroke up and down. Your hair was getting in the way, annoyingly, so you switched sides and swept it aside in the same movement, practically laying on his hard thigh and your upper arm as you kept a hand around his cock and sucked on one of his balls roughly while pinching the other between your knuckles as you jacked him off.

With your pussy rocking against his hungry mouth, of course.

You felt his tongue hit your clit and your body stiffened from the unexpected burst of concentrated pleasure, but that was soon replaced by his lips sealed around it, desperately sucking. He lacked technique, but then again it probably wasn’t that easy to concentrate either. A perverse sense of accomplishment simmered through you as you realized his blunt nails were digging into your ass, aiding you in the pace and his own suffocation. So, instead of actually getting him off, you edged him.

And continued edging him.

Until he made you cum.

You knew exactly when he was going to orgasm because he would pause, gasping, breaking the seal for a breath, and then at the very last second you would release his cock, making him whine and cry out before planting your pussy onto his mouth again. You did it again, and somewhere in Jungkook’s lizard brain he got the hint, gripping you harder and licking faster with his stifled groans vibrating against your thighs, building heat, the muscles in your back tightening, sucking harder as you felt the coil within tighten, so close, throbbing in your palm, close, the thinning thread almost at breaking point, and you lifted your head, tugging, his wet ball popping out of your mouth, and replaced your hand with your lips as something inside you snapped.

For a fleeting, desperate moment, you were plummeting through euphoric freefall.

The next, your contracted muscles suddenly relaxed with a pins-and-needles sensation shooting all throughout your nerves, overwhelming euphoria almost unbearable, barely registering that it was slippery and sticky between your thighs, realizing that you haven’t moved your head, but Jungkook was gasping, clutching your legs and arching his back so his chest pressed against your stomach. Aggressive flinches shot through his entire body, ricocheting from his core. His cock jerked in your mouth, beginning to soften. You didn’t taste any bitterness. Ah. He orgasmed without delivering any unpleasant package. In the back of your mind, you were relieved. This would have been the fourth nut of the night. It probably would have tasted quite bitter and you weren’t a quitter; you were lucky to be spared this time.

He couldn’t control it but you patted his thigh with gratitude anyway.

When you unpeeled yourself from him, Jungkook looked like he badly needed another shower.

“You okay?” you asked, poking his shoulder.

His chest was glistening with sweat. His hair was a mess. He looked like he was discovering oxygen for the first time. His eyes were unfocused. He didn’t even try to lift his arms, or move at all for that matter.

“Y… Yeah…” Jungkook wheezed.

You sat on your sofa and wondered how you ended up in the same place that you started this night.

-

Well.

As it was with life, things didn’t go as intended and now you were stuck in the usual fuckery. But that was fine. You could go back to your regular life of existing in what would most call a frivolous manner quite easily as long as you could somehow get rid of Jeon Jungkook. Which wasn’t happening. Oh. Great. You nodded at yourself in the bathroom mirror after washing up. Everything is going to be fine, you reminded yourself.

You turned around and Jungkook was standing behind you.

In the doorframe of your bathroom. Of course. You and Jeon Jungkook and doors. You blinked quickly, a little disoriented at how quickly he cleaned himself up in your kitchen. Such was the way of men that you would never understand. His hair was still unbrushed and wild, and he was rubbing his shoulder slightly with a grunt of discomfort, jolting to attention when he realized you were done. He was sans pajama pants. Your clothes were somewhere on the floor too.

“Um.”

You really thought at some moment Jungkook would have this internal revelation and shrink away from you, the burden of the past twenty-four hours finally hitting him, but instead he was in la-la land of following you around. A hair’s breath short of a musical number, probably. Delulu was the solulu. And while you wouldn’t advise the avoidance tactic yourself, you weren’t ready to break his reverie just yet.

But.

Sooner was better than later.

“Do you feel better?” you asked.

The dark cloud poisoned his eyes a little but not as much as before. “Uh… I don’t know.”

You hadn’t expected much of an answer. There was still a little sting of disappointment, though. “Pain is not as bad as everyone makes it out to be,” you said. “And a complicated emotion at that.”

His shoulder leaned against the doorframe but not in the stance of blocking your way out. It was more like he needed something else to hold him up. He still put on a brave face though. “I… I just feel like I wasted my time more than anything else,” he mumbled, running a hand through his hair and making it worse. “Shit, even fucking around like this was a million times better than whatever the fuck I was doing for the last two years.” He started, realizing how that sounded. “Not that – Not that this was fucking around, I mean…!”

You laughed.

Jungkook stared at you, his panic frozen.

You shook your head. “It was fucking around,” you said with a smirk.

“No, I don’t–”

You placed a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. It’s the only way I know how to cope myself.”

The conversation died.

The words from your mouth finally caught up to your brain. You stiffened, shooting Jungkook a flustered look and seeing a reflection of your emotion in his expression. “I mean… Comfort others. No. Well. I… It sounds worse than it is…” You trailed off, making it indeed sound worse than it was. “You’re… You wanted it?” It was supposed to be a statement but it came out as a question.

“Uh, y-yeah. Yeah, I did,” he stuttered, his eyes darted away swiftly, embarrassment evident. “S-Sorry.”

“No, I did too,” you added, and then abruptly cleared your throat. You sighed, annoyed at yourself for making this more difficult than it should be. “I… I really didn’t want you to do anything stupid. You seemed so… so sad. It bothered me. I wanted to do something for you,” you confessed after a pause. You chewed on the side of your lower lip. “Not that anything I’ve done mattered, I don’t think I’m a god or anything, I can’t control your feelings, so…”

“You are… You are probably the closest thing to a god I know.”

You raised your head and Jungkook was trying not to look at you and failing. He was picking at the paint on your doorframe, or at least pretending like he was.

“In the flesh. ‘Cause I guess we can’t really see gods and stuff…”

He was rambling a bunch of nonsense.

And you didn’t know why, but there was this feeling. It wasn’t about if you found him physically appealing. It wasn’t even about how endearing you found his habits, or about how he told you everything while pretending like he wasn’t, or about how you had an affinity for doing things that were not really the hallmarks of a good person. There was just this feeling. This awkwardness that somehow didn’t feel negative. This state of high that wasn’t going away even though you weren’t really thinking about screwing him again. You might never see him after this. You might see him for a little bit and part. These were all probable outcomes. Forever only existed in the afterlife which was why you lived on a false prayer and a why-the-fuck-not attitude. You knew all this.

And yet, the feeling persisted.

“I must say,” you mused, staring at him, this feeling bubbling up your ribcage. “I haven’t done a stupid thing like this since I was in university.”

Jungkook blinked at you.

“Which was years ago,” you clarified. “I thought I was over that phase.”

Your eyes went to his tattoos. Then back to his face. He had a bunch of ear piercings you noticed right now. To be fair, you weren’t exactly ogling his earlobes while he was sobbing into his duffel bag. That would be weird. He noticed you looking. Consciously but trying to play it cool, he shifted his right arm to show off a little more. You pretended that you didn’t notice while totally noticing. This close to an eyebrow wiggle. And then you suddenly remembered something.

“Erm… Where are you gonna live?”

He frowned as if he, too, hadn’t thought that far. “Uh. I dunno. I was gonna stay with Namjoon-hyung a couple days and then look up apartments…” He looked pained. “I might have to rent a room… I can’t go back to Busan. My work is here. Man…”

“Ah,” you timidly agreed. “Yeah. Good call.”

There was a pregnant silence.

“But the leasing office only gives out two keys,” you thought out loud. “And I have his other one. So… I could give it to you. But then you would have to be the one that comes to rescue him every time he’s locked himself out. I guess I could let him stay my place until you arrive. Or maybe you have a flexible schedule, so it wouldn’t be an issue.”

Jungkook rubbed his chest, wincing. “Oh… I’m a videographer. I have a schedule every two weeks, but there are odd call times, especially when we are filming outside… depends on the client and what they need. Uh…”

You coughed awkwardly. “Hm. I work from home. So. I’m always here, basically.”

Both of you were avoiding each other’s eyes. There was another, heavily pregnant silence.

You cast him a sidelong glance.

He gave you a similar hesitant but hopeful look.

“You don’t know me,” you reminded him. “I could be really horrible to live with.”

Jungkook peered over your head to observe the state of your bathroom. He glanced back to you. “Looks clean to me.” His eyes were shining. So bright. So adorable. It was over for you.

“I spend all of my free time rotting on my couch and watching YouTube,” you admitted, weakly trying to dissuade him.

“Me too!” He chimed in, a little too excitedly. He coughed and straightened a bit. “Uh… I cook too. And do laundry. I’m really good at household chores. I can show you. I can clean right now!”

You grabbed his arm before he could shoot away and top-down scrub your apartment at three in the morning butt naked. “Er, we could… Do a trial run. Of you…” You noticed that you had yanked him hard enough so that you were now staring at his chest as you spoke. With each word, you raised your line of vision. From his clavicle, to his neck, to his dark pink lips clearly indicative of shared kisses, to his soulful eyes gazing down at you.

Yearning.

“Living with me,” you finished, loosening your hold a bit. Trailing down to his wrist. “If you want.”

His eyes shifted but he was doing anything but resisting. “You sure… About that?”

You weren’t and at the same time you were.

“It’s only until you get back on your feet.” You tried to sound firm about it but somehow you were holding his hand now, clutching it tightly. “I’m sure you want… More space. Or there will be something you don’t like about this apartment. For example, I only have one bed. And it’s a full-sized bed.”

Jungkook was staring into your eyes and his face was getting closer.

“Sounds nice,” he murmured, his breath against your nose.

“It’s not,” you assured him, and you tilted your head up to kiss him.

--

masterpost

[kaciebello]

Too many voicemails

Masterlist Delivery Express ✿ Summary: The reader sees an opportunity to run an untapped market in Hogwarts.  Howlers are the worst thing that can be delivered. Warnings: disturbance in the library, one (1) use of horny joke, no use of y/n Authors note: English is not my first language, so I apologize for any mistakes beforehand. I want to spread this into a one-shot series. They took away my yellow colouring of the text ┬─┬ノ(ಠ_ಠノ). I will riot. Proofread by me and me only (Ｔ▽Ｔ) • Previously: Wrong address, • Next part: Message cannot be sent word count: 1.1k

Notes to deliver: 679

A box with neatly placed envelopes slammed on the table making all the boys look up and then up to the familiar girl with a yellow bow in her hair. She received a few looks from the other kids in the library which she apologetically smiled at.

“What you got there?” Asked Lorenzo, leaning to see inside the box.

“Howlers.”

“Howlers?”

“Howlers.” A definitive nod from the girl. Leaning on the table over all the boys. They all look from their homework, waiting for her to continue but she does not.

“What are you doing with all of these?” Asks Draco, chewing on the end of his pencil. The girl just rolls her eyes.

“Delivering them, what else.” Her answer made Draco roll his eyes and pretends to return to his DADA homework. She just smiles. Lorenzo moves a bit so she can squeeze next to him.

“And you think bringing them to the library is a good idea?” Hissed Blasie, clearly not in the mood to get in trouble with the librarian. She just gives him a tight lip smile and titles her head to a side. 

“Where else?” She asks and puts her legs over Lorenzo's lap otherwise she risks falling from the bench. She just lifted her hand in stop motion before he could say anything else.

“I am just here to give Lorenzo Charms notes, I am not delivering anything to you,” She says and pulls out the said notes from her bag. Lorenzo's smile widens and grabs it from her. Theodor gives her a pointed look before trying to snatch the notes from Lorenzo, unsuccessfully. Lorenzo and the girl sway a bit but they manage to keep themself on the bench.

“Why does he get that privilege, hm?” He asks them. Pointing to the notes that are now lifted above Lorenzo's head. Draco tilted his head so he could read the visible portion before writing down whatever he could make out.

“ Because I like-” “ Because Lorenzo helps her with broom riding.” Cuts her off Mattheo, who was now going through the many howlers sitting in the box. Although seems like he hasn't found anything interesting. Draco looks at her with a raised eyebrow. ‘ you can't ride the boom?’ leaves him amused. To her, it seemed like he was mocking her for not being able to ride the broom like the rest of them. Completely ignoring, in her mind, that they are all quidditch players. She just huffs and crosses her arms.

“Hey, you know what? If they all went off, we could easily sneak into the restricted section.” Says Mattheo completely oblivious to what he just revealed. The girl gets up and stands next to him, inching the box away from him slowly.

“How about we don't.” She says, not trusting the boy to not do without thinking. “ plus I think like 15 of these are from one girl, all to one boy. I'm gonna be honest I don't think I wanna hear that.” She finishes and pats Mattheo on the back

“I'm here for you if you need oral support- moral support, I mean moral support.” Says Mattheo, pulling her to a side hug.

“Just say you're horny and go.” Tells him Blasie with a disgusted face. Theodor just shakes his head at his antics. Mattheo just shrugs and lets go of the girl, unbored by their reactions. Going back to his seat. A book flies past them and they barely have time to dodge it.

“I swear, it's gonna kill someone one day.” Says Lorenzo looking at the books flying by.

“Like you haven't summoned like 5 books for the 3 hours we were here.” Argues Draco. Lorenzo did not even bother to react, instead talking to the girl.

“ What do you think it's in them?” He says and reaches for one of the envelopes. Snatching it before the girl could stop him. Opening it, it slipped from his hand and started floating above the table. The group watched like hawks. 

The envelope stayed silent for some time, terrible singing after that. A horrible attempt at the song ‘I Will Always Love You’ had the boys scrambling to shut the envelope up. Matheo managed to lay down on it and silenced it. Some people were looking at them, some with curiosity, some with annoyance. If looks could kill, there would be an empty table at the library right now.

Mattheo pulls it out from beneath him, thinking it is over. Once the envelope is free, it starts to sing again. Panic among all of them. Lorenzo almost knocked over the box but the girl luckily caught it. Blaise, seeming the one who was holding their shared brain cell, pulled out his wanted and set the envelope on fire. Again receiving some looks. Even the librarian was making her way up to stairs to check the commotion.

They all watched it burn, sinking into their seat in relief, before quickly spewing the ashes away. The girl quickly sat and squished herself next to Lorenzo and pretended to help him with his homework. The other followed her lead so that the librarian would not suspect it was them. None of them wanted to be kicked out of the library.

After some time, the air seemed less stuffed and they all felt like they could breathe again. Without much more time, the girl gets up and hurriedly takes the box in her hands.

“I'll go before you guys decide to cause trouble again.” She says giving them a judging look.

“ Hey don't blame all of us! We didn't collectively open the howler!” Defends Theodor. and points accusing Lorenzo, who looked shocked and offended his friend was throwing him under the bus.

“Yeah, but you didn't try to stop him either, did you.” 

“ Neither did you!” Draco chimes in. She could not argue with that, she didn't try at all. Shaking her head. She adjusted the box on her hands, as it was a bit heavy. Maybe she could have charmed it to just float behind her and follow her. It would certainly make the delivery much easier.

“It's better none of you are near these, ever.” She says making sure to point at the group with her finger.

The girl picked up her box, ready to be on her way. Accio was heard from somewhere in the library and a book flew right next to her head, startling her. She jumped up and the box flew out of her hands. With horror they all watched as it landed on the floor, realizing all the howlers inside. They all turned on. 50 howlers, going on in the library at the same time. She watched in horror as all eyes were on them. The boys knew what to do. They packed their bags with unwitnessed speed and book it. Lorenzo grabs her hand, making sure she follows them.

And honestly, they were right, it was an excellent distraction, and none of them made their way to the restricted sections.

Notes to deliver: 629

Tag list:

@daisiesformylove , @klimovatereza-blog , @lafrone , @enfppixie , @rafegfs , @frogtape , @lovelyygirl8 , @catiwinky, @anyam444 , @leeleecats , @ghostgardn , @reverse-soe , @ultramarinetovelvet , @jazz-berry @iwishigotswallowed

[gublernatural]

The Summertime & Butterflies ✿ Spencer Reid

from the river to the sea, palestine will be free 🇵🇸 READ: this account stands with palestine, and so— i require everyone who interacts to educate themselves, and support/donate. READ THESE; 1 and 2, HELP HERE, BOYCOTT. silence is complicity, do not scroll past this.

♡ SUMMARY: a local florist helps spencer make a peony arrangement for a friend.

♡ WARNINGS: florist!reader, cheesy flower shop names, not edited, that's it really

𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘.𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘.𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘.𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘

“And these ones,” You gestured to the white chrysanthemum arrangement you made that morning, “represent loyalty, which is also necessary when proposing.” You practically floated through the little corner store filled with flowers, very obviously fitting in. This was your element, basically your home. You spent more time here, at ‘Cherry Bloom Barn’, than anywhere else in the world. Coincidentally, you were also the happiest here. Not many people could say that about their job, you were extremely fortunate in this way.

“Okay, I think I’ll take those,” the woman you were currently touring around gestured to an arrangement you had shown her earlier, “and those,” she pointed at the chrysanthemum arrangement, “and maybe we could do something with those sunflowers? Those are her favorite.” You hummed in agreement, already brainstorming the different ways you could incorporate them.

You had been working with Eloise for a few hours now, ensuring she had everything she needed to propose to her girlfriend. She had described her vision in detail, and you were sure you could make it a reality. It would take some time, and definitely a lot of work, but there was nothing more motivating than helping someone who was very clearly in love.

The only thing you enjoyed more than gardening and flower arranging, was helping people in love. Being able to bring someone’s vision for their partner to life, and knowing you will, in a bit of a roundabout way, be a permanent mark in their love story, was more fulfilling than any other career you could imagine. 

You brought Eloise back to the small desk you kept in the corner of your store. There were vines sprawling across it, but it felt homey nonetheless. You wrote down your notes, finalized the arrangements and delivery, and had Eloise sign the agreement. You knew you were discounting your prices a tad when you handed her the receipt, but no one had to know that. 

“See you in a few days!” You smiled at her, and she waved on her way out. With a sigh, you began to neaten up your space. The time you’ve dubbed the ‘in-between’ was the best part of your day. No one to greet, no sales pitch to make, just you and your flowers. What more could a girl want?

Your ‘in-between’ lasted almost an hour and a half, before the bell in front of your door chimed, signaling a new arrival. You were in the back, turning on the plant-safe light you used when there was a lack of sunlight coming in through your large shop windows. With the summer setting, it was a need. “Be right there!” You hollered from your hidden nook, fighting with the old light switch. It took a few seconds, but after a bit of flickering, the lights came on.

As quickly as you could without breaking any pots, you shuffled your way out to the front of the shop. You straightened your apron and wiped your sweaty hands along your thighs. Once you looked up, you were met with the most beautiful eyes, on the most beautiful man, you’d ever seen. “Welcome!” You said, cheerfully. You chose to ignore the butterflies swirling in your stomach.

He gave a tight-lipped smile, holding on to the satchel that was draped across his broad chest. “Looking for anything in particular?” You questioned, offering him a wide smile. “Yes, actually,” he said, suddenly very comfortable, “I need peonies.” He declared. It wasn’t very often a man came in and knew what flowers to request. You were stunned for a minute, before ushering him over the the ‘Peony Point’. There was a wooden sign hung above the corner, with little paintings of peonies decorating it.

This section of the store was covered in different colors and arrangements of its namesake flower. You were especially proud of the red ones, knowing how prestigious the meaning of them can be. You let him look around for a second, noticing how drawn he was to the yellow ones. After a few seconds, you approached him again, “The yellow ones represent,” you started, but were quickly cut off. “Joy and good fortune. I think these will be perfect.” 

Your mouth ran dry at the way he cut you off. You weren’t sure if it was some kind of intimidation tactic, maybe he was looking for the cheapest flowers, or if it was excitement from some life event he was about to celebrate.

“Awesome,” You forced out, a bit more timid than you usually would be with your customers. “Are you looking for an arrangement with other flowers, a plain bouquet, or some kind of planter?” The man took a look around as if he was weighing his options. “Could you do an arrangement? I need it by tomorrow, but I am willing to pay extra.” You glanced around, brain already conjuring up flowers that would match in color or size.

You nodded, “I think I could make that happen, depending on the size.” He turned back to you, with a much brighter smile than the one he’d given you earlier, “Thank you. I would prefer things with meaning, like prosperity, long-lasting love, and purity, if you could.” You once again nodded, “I think I can do that.” You assured, waving him over to your desk. You chuckled at the way he perched himself up on the stool you had for customers. It definitely was not made for people of his height.

“A medium size will do, with a white vase?” He questioned. “Let me double-check my inventory, give me one second.” He nodded in response, smiling at the way you rushed away. He could tell this environment made you happy, even front the brief amount of time he’d spent here. Your customer service skills were excellent, and your work even better. You were clearly made for this.

“I have two different medium white vases,” You emerged from an overgrown closet, holding two vases. “This one,” you raised your left hand, “Has a handle and is significantly more round, but this one,” you lowered your left hand and raised your right, “is my favorite! It has this more asymmetrical design and sharper edges.” The man smiled, recognizing that you were describing them even though he could clearly see them.

“If you say it’s your favorite, I think I have to go with that one.” You couldn’t tell if his tone was more flirtatious, or if he was just giving your enthusiasm a subtle compliment. Regardless, you could feel those butterflies again. “Awesome,” You sighed a bit nervously. “Let me get this all written up.”

You learned his name was Spencer when you swiped his card. You got another good look at his hazel eyes as you went over costs. He offered an express fee and handed it to you anyway when you declined. In return, you left your personal phone number on his receipt, just in case he wanted to get in contact about his order in a faster manner. He smiled, his face turning a bit red.

By the time you were done with Spencer, it was time to close shop. You would’ve stayed later to work on it, but you knew Casper, your three-legged white cat, would throw a fit if you were late for dinner.

You got to work earlier than normal the next day, knowing you had to get Spencer’s order done. You made sure Casper had everything she needed, before hustling out the door. Your outfit was made of pastels, allowing you to almost blend into the flowers covering your shelves. You were deeply immersed in putting together Spencer’s arrangement by the time your phone alarm went off, signaling it was time to open.

You were content with the progress you’d made, taking a step back and marveling at the start of your project. You reached for your phone to turn off your alarm, and took a moment to check your notifications. A message from an unsaved number caught your interest:

Hello, It’s Spencer. I wanted to make sure it was okay if I picked up the arrangement during my lunch break. I would like to deliver them to her after work if that is possible. Thank you for your hard work and for making time for me.

You smiled at the formal tone of his text, as it was perfectly him. However, that smile quickly fell when you realized he was delivering the flowers to a female. Obviously. Why else would a man know what kind of flowers he wanted? Why else would he worry about the meaning of them? He was in love.

And you flirted with him. You flirted with him and gave him your personal number, and he has a girlfriend. A girlfriend he is in love with.

The only thing you can think to do to hide your embarrassment is to start opening the store. You did some minimal cleanup, knowing you were going to return to your project until a customer came in. You laid out your books, which showcased your extra options that may not be on display in your store. Then, you propped open your door and flipped the open sign on.

You were determined to make this the best arrangement you’d ever made. Spencer was a man who was doing his best to impress his lady. He knew her favorite flowers, the meaning behind them, and the color of the vase he wanted to match. This was a man who cared about his girlfriend, and you were going to make sure the arrangement he took home was perfect. No minuscule attraction to him was going to get in the way of that. 

You breezed through the arrangement, due to this newfound inspiration. It took maybe another hour or two before you were completely done, moved the arrangement into the vase, and were gathering all the essentials to send Spencer home with; care instructions, plant food, and even a few different cards, just in case he wanted to leave a note. 

You texted Spencer back, sending a picture of your arrangement with a caption: It’s all done! You are free to pick up whenever! I hope you love it!. He replied with a thumbs-up emoji.

You busied yourself with taking care of your plants and then working on Eloise’s order. You drew up some ideas for different bouquets and vases of flowers, as well as cut some stems to use to show her the different mixes and matches you could make with the flowers she’d picked. You’d almost forgotten about Spencer’s pick-up by the time he arrived.

“Hello,” Spencer greeted, breaking you out of your hyperfocus. “Spencer!” You cheered, rubbing your hands on a towel, before moving to shake his. “Oh,” he hesitated, “I don’t really shake hands.” You nodded in response, before waving him over to the table where his order was. 

His face lit up as soon as he laid eyes on it, “It’s beautiful!” He marveled. Those butterflies in your tummy started to flutter again, against your will. “Thank you,” you mumbled shyly, not used to the attention. “I’m sure your girlfriend will love it.” You promised, moving to bag everything up for him. You were quite proud of the sustainable bags with the logo you had made.

“What?” Spencer questions, face scrunching up. That embarrassment from earlier started to bubble up in your stomach, killing the butterflies. “I was just saying,” You hesitated, “This arrangement is beautiful, you did an excellent job selecting flowers. The receiver is very lucky.” Smooth recovery.

Spencer’s face relaxed, “I hope so. My best friend just had a baby. I couldn’t show up empty-handed, you know?” You smiled at his words. Butterflies revived.

You and Spencer wrapped up. He paid his final dues and you educated him on the use of plant food. “I will let you know how she likes it!” He promises as he disappears out the door, awkwardly shuffling out. You chuckled at him, and a sense of relief washed over your body.

Casper was content next to you on the couch. You were surprised at how calm he was, despite the opened bag of popcorn on your lap. You were completely serene, engrossed in the newest episode of your show. Nothing could disturb you at the moment.

Except for your phone buzzing on the coffee table in front of you, lighting up with ‘Spencer’ written across the top. You smiled, paused the episode, and waited a few seconds before swiping on the call, answering it with a cheerful, “Hello!”

“She loved it! She absolutely loved it!” Spencer cheered, too excited to allow himself to question why he was calling you. It was like a gut reaction from him. After leaving JJ’s hospital room, he immediately reached for his phone, feeling a need to let you know. He was glad you’d given him your personal number. 

“I’m glad, Spencer!” You responded. He could hear your smile from over the phone. “She asked me to be the godfather!” Spencer informed. His rambly, awkward self was completely gone, overcome with glee. “How can I thank you?”

You laughed at his question. He didn’t need to thank you, he paid for his order. Overpaid, in fact. “Spencer, there is absolutely no need. I’m glad everything worked out for you, and I’m glad she loved it.” Behind the phone, Spencer shook his head. He was alone in the train station, allowing him to be completely himself. “Let me take you out.” Spencer surprised himself with his proposal. 

Of course, he’d been attracted to you the second he walked into the Cherry Bloom Barn, and his attraction was starting to turn into a crush the more time he spent around the shop. He didn’t know you yet, but he was very much interested in getting there.

Still, he was shocked at the words that came out of his mouth. He was on a metaphorical high. Adrenaline was running through him from his amazing time with JJ and the team. His long limbs were almost shaking, and yet he wasn’t nervous. He was comfortable talking to you, and that meant a lot in his world.

“I’d like that,” You stuttered out, “but, it doesn’t have to be a thanks. Take me out because you want to take me out, not because I did a service for you.” You clarified, wanting to make sure you were on the same page. “Of course!” Spencer’s voice cracked as he stepped onto his train. “I do want to take you out. I’d be honored to.”

“It’s a date.” You declared with a smile. “Alright, awesome, I’ll get back to you with a time and stuff.” Spencer couldn't believe his mind was being reduced to words like “awesome” and “stuff”, but between his excitement from being Henry’s godfather and your agreeing to go on a date with him, he was basically a puddle in his train seat.

“Okay, I’ll talk to you then.” You said, before moving into goodbyes. Casper’s relaxed state quickly dissipated as you squealed, letting the butterflies in your stomach win for a second. 

[orlesianhennin]

I love the banter between Vivienne and Solas so much, but these two in particular stand out to me because they represent how similar they are at their core in their worldview, but also how Solas recognizes this and respects her enough to try and teach her (in his vague, condescending manner) without giving too much about himself away. Vivienne sees small-mindedness, mockery, and venom in his "lessons," but I don't think that's his true intent. I don't think he cares about her, of course, but I think he could, possibly, if he allowed himself to. I think she frustrates him because she is just like him.

They definitely do not consider each other peers. To Solas, for all her brilliance and talent, Vivienne is a dogmatic and close-minded mage who willingly limits herself. To Vivienne, Solas is clearly more than he appears - she knows he is up to something and more than he seems - but there is nothing that he could teach her. She has achieved the highest position and enlightenment a mage in her society can; he is a vagabond who doesn't value what she values (power, influence, standing), and therefore his insight must be worth little. Little does she know, the spirit of what she believes in has a lot in common with the things that Solas believes in. That is the irony of their relationship; Vivienne is who Solas might have been if he had been in her position. They have nothing in common on the surface only because they exist in different worlds. Bring them together with all other things being equal, and they are undeniably peers, who could work together and even develop a friendship/rivalry and deep mutual respect - if things were different.

I used to think the "Dirthara-ma" banter was pure spite from Solas at Vivienne because she, on the surface, represents all that he despises (speaking only from what the Inquisitor knows about both of them during their journey when Solas would say this to her). But I don't think it is just sneering (though that's part of it - his reaction is genuine and I'm not arguing otherwise - his delivery shows his disgust for her arrogance). I think that he is warning her where this kind of grandiose thinking leads... because he learned. He believed the world was better off with him "setting its course" and now believes it was a mistake and he lost everything because of it and will destroy everything to undo it. He knows the folly of being a powerful, ambitious, and idealistic mage; he knows it is nothing more than arrogance to wish to shape history and command empires. And while he certainly grows frustrated at Vivienne's barbs and constant challenges, he clearly respects her a great deal, and I think much of that respect stems from Solas seeing a younger version of him in her (because, Solas is, lets face it, a bit self-involved). It doesn't ultimately matter to him if she doesn't heed his wisdom, of course. Because she is a product of a world that is wrong and nothing she does ultimately matters.

I like to think that if things were different, Solas would have been a great mentor to Vivienne. I see them as kindred spirits even though they are so distanced in history and context. I think if he does see some of himself in Vivienne (including some flaws in common) it adds a layer to his experience with the Inquisition and his time walking Thedas in general. "Neither of us is a fool" means a lot coming from Solas, especially a Solas who would see this world destroyed; he sees value, commonality, in someone like Vivienne who is so totally a product of a world that he despises. She could have been a peer, a rival, even an apprentice to him if things were different. She is a proud, powerful, determined mage, doomed to learn that she doesn't have all of the answers. She is him, or someone he's known, and he can't save her. But in spite of this, he does warn her, again: "Only a fool would ignore such a stark reminder of the destruction of an empire.. but neither of us is a fool." One way to read this is that Solas is telling her of what is to come; destruction of an empire from the very relics and magic that they are agreeing are dangerous. He is careful enough with his words that one may not even recognize the threat, and I don't think Vivienne does in the moment. He tells her in this instance that she is right, and she is no fool, and she may be suspicious but she doesn't truly know what he is saying. We see this with her interactions with Iron Bull, too; Vivienne is susceptible to flattery and quick to believe that her superiority is being recognized.

And does Vivienne heed anything he says, or recognize his wisdom? I think she, at the time, sees little value in what Solas tells her, and when her suspicions are validated by his betrayal, all that it does is strengthen her resolve to stop him. But these comments in Trespasser...

... make me think that his warning gave her a lot to think about. I do think this commentary demonstrates an evolution in Vivienne's worldview, as much of her prior commentary involved restoring order by her own hand, and valuing being in control, and "steering the world's course." I think her comments show that she knows these things are illusions and impermanent. I won't give Solas all the credit here, but I do think he gave her things to think about.

[jaegerisim]

Vent post y'all are gonna hate me for.

I viscerally hate how the Duffers treat most of their non white or queer characters and I hate even more viscerally, how y'all big byler blogs in your circle jerk of other 5 big byler blogs casually like to ignore many red flags the show has.

Y'all like to say: "tHe DufFeRs ArE gReAt WrIteRs" and it's like girl, who are you lying to??? They aren't top shit writers at all. The Duffers are pretty mid imo. Yeah, they run a good show that's fun to watch and theorize abt , but that doesn't mean they're good writers cuz they're not.

1. they completely side lined Will during s3 for the sake of their straight romances: lumax, jancy, mlvn, duzie and partly stobin (even if stobin wasn't endgame, thankfully, Steve's intentions were clearly wanting to date Robin and they gave it a lot of screen time). Will was sidelined bc he didn't fit the straight romance plotline bc they planned to make him gay or whatever. Now in s4 Will and his feelings have been used as mlvn toilet paper. Yes, we like to say this is build up for byler but canonically, Will's feelings have been used to clean the shit mlvn leaves behind.

2. Billy was sympathized a lot during the last 2 seasons. They gave him the sad backstoryTM in order for ppl to feel sorry for him. Billy's backstory is literally Jonathan's but whatever.

3. El's anger issues are constantly girlboss-ified. They down play her bullying situation and literally just use it for El to be a ''girlboss" without realizing how triggering that is. As someone who has lived bullying, seeing it be ignored by canon and fanon is super sad. The whole Rink-O' Mania experience must have been so traumatizing for her yet, everyone absolutely forgets abt it 🤷🏻‍♀️

4. Robin, Erica and Argyle are stereotypical characters. Robin is the quirky lesbian with social anxiety, Erica is the badass black woman and Argyle is the Latino stoner that sells weed to white kids and works as a pizza delivery guy.

5. Altho Argyle and Eddie both do drugs, (Eddie actually sells K-12 to a minor and nobody batted an eye. He has a huge fan base). Eddie is held in a pedestal bc "poor thing 🥺 he lives in a trailer with his uncle 🥺". Tell me a single fact you know abt Argyle that isn't "he smokes weed", "he is Jonathan's only friend", "drives a van" and "he works at a pizzeria". Exactly, Eddie is given a useless backstory and Argyle isn't.

6. Dustin stopped being important to the plot sometime around s2 and s3. He is only there to curse and be mildly funny. My guy needs to hangout with ppl his age cuz he only hangs out with seniors.

7. El needs to stop having so much "I'M THAT BITCH" screentime like I need in s5 for El's arc to not just be her becoming more powerful and falling in love with Mike. I need the Duffers to explore her trauma and problems.

8. Angela should have been run over by the van.

9. Patrick should have been given a backstory that isn't the basic "strict black parents that hit their kids cuz they are a disgrace". Patrick's backstory is actually racist af, fight w the wall.

10. As Lex already said, they didn't trigger tag the ep where Jason and his friends assault Lucas and Erica. Like wtf? Why was that necessary? Why did I have to see a black boy being held at gunpoint by some white guy?? Was it relevant to the plot?? I don't think so. And then I've got to see ppl online be like "Jason wasn't that bad. He was just mourning" like bitch you can stfu. This is what happens when you make the racist assholes conventionally attractive.

Also the fact that Lucas's arc is fulfilled by him fist-fighting Jason and "embracing his weirdness" aka accepting he is black. His arc was not fulfilled at all cuz that ending spoke so loud to me. It showed how little empathy ppl have towards the struggles poc ppl living in the Midwest have. Y'all circle jerks can only see racism when it's super obvious.

Furthermore, parents complained when ST showed "an excessive amount of smoking" yet nobody batted an eye when Billy tried to run over Lucas, when Erica (an 11 y.o ffs) was chased by white kids or when Lucas was held at gunpoint by Jason.

All of this happened while they focused on Max's guilt and mourning that, yeah, are important but certainly not less important than racism!!!

11. In s3, they gave us that whole Nancy vs The Bigots arc that was honestly just triggering and useless. It didn't help Nancy's character at all, quite the opposite it put unnecessary angst.

12. Lonnie being presented as an abuser just for him to never be spoken of again. Can we please get to explore the trauma he left the Byers's with?

13. The fact that both queer relationships are considered "sloppy seconds" is extremely sad. Both Vickie and Mike are rebounding from their failed relationship with Robin and Will. These 2 ships have caused more commotion than Jancy and Jopper together! (These last ships are technically sloppy seconds too but everybody forgets that. Shocker!!)

14. Last but not least, ppl blame Argyle for being the one to get Jonathan into smoking weed as if Jonathan probably wasn't the one looking for it. Let me tell you, that you only find weed if you look for it.

[thebearer]

no but i love your writing! ever since i watched s1 and 2 last weekend because of a youtube ad, i peaked in the carmy tag and was a surprised to see the amount of stories carmy had! would love a scenario where he’s married to a sassy, take no shit type of reader sim to natalie. his wife legit could work with him for all i care. but for whatever reason he does something w/o checking in— he prolly just forgot. she finds out and confronts him hella pissed (could be at family or during restaurant prep idc) and she says “oh, if carmen said it was cool.” not even carmy the full government name bro 😭. p much how natalie articulated it 🤣. can’t remember the ep but in early season 1 when marcus blew the fuse you can also include slick commentary from richie (and fak) if you’d like! tysm in advance 🥰. also if you don’t me me asking, do you have name/alias on this blog? what we can call you? enjoy your week

- 🥣

yes yes yes ahhhhh! he definitely needs someone who keeps him in line but walks that fine line where he can also keep them in line (bc dom!carmy is living in my heart rent free forever lol). also you can call me e if you'd like :) thank you for your sweet words! i hope you have a good week, and hope you enjoy this!

"What's this?" You ask Sydney, looking at the new box being unloaded from the truck- big and bulky in a crate, far too large to be a produce shipment.

"Uh, I think it's the new glassware for the bar." Sydney looked at her clipboard, back at you carefully.

"Glassware? What new glassware. We haven't picked that out yet." You frowned, looking at the crate carefully.

"Oh, well, it was in Carmen's notes for the day, so... I think that's the only shipment we have. Unless the hostess stand came early, which would be amazing, but you-" Sydney stopped her ramblings, seeing your soured expression. "You know what? Never mind, uh, ignore me. I'm just...Carmen's with Sugar and Richie in the back if you want to ask him."

"Thanks, Syd." You muttered, ripping the bell open with a shrill before bounding towards the back. You could hear them before you saw them, a familiar chorus of chatter and rising voices.

"Hey, so what's the delivery out front?" You ask, not bothering to wait for them to acknowledge you. If you did, you'd never talk, they all talked over each other.

"The new glasses for the bars." Sugar turned, smiling softly at you. "How are you doing?"

"Good." You muttered, eyes cutting to Carmen. "We haven't ordered new glasses yet."

"Uh, well, I thought you liked the ones from last week, angel." Carmen's eyes were bulged, clearly flustered.

"I said I liked them for basics, but I needed you to confirm a drink menu." You glared at him, arms crossing over his chest.

"You can't put the drinks in that?" Carmen asked, hand flying out towards the hall.

"Not if you want the specialty, no." You huffed. "Carmen, I told you to wait just a few days and we could get them at the wholesale market. The textured ones for the signature at least."

"Uh-oh," Richie muttered, snickering to Fak.

"Can you not use the glasses I got?" Carmen sighed.

"I can, but did you get enough? And did we decide if the signature is going in a whiskey glass or a cylinder one? Did you order double of those?" You lifted a brow, taking a step towards him. Richie and Nat watched, heads turning from you and Carmen like a tennis match.

Carmen paused, running a hand down his face. "N-No, but-"

"-So what are you going to do when we open and you run out of drinks, huh? When everyone orders the signature and it comes in different glasses? You think those travel groupie influencers won't notice? Won't post about it and make it a big fucking deal?" You countered.

"Then we'll figure it out!" Carmen huffed. "Look I gave the order to Richie, and-"

"-Hey, no fuckin' way cousin. You gave me your order." Richie held his hand up. "Sweetheart, Carmy said it was good so I just placed the order."

"Well, if Carmen said it was good, then it must be, right? He's the fucking boss." You snarl, glaring at Carmen furiously. "Seems like you've got it under control, Carm, so I'll leave it to you." You turn on your heel, furiously stomping away.

Richie and Fak wait until they hear the slam of the office door, to release their cackles. "Oooh! Cousin, you are in the fuckin' dog house now." Richie laughed, Fak's chorus of barks emphasizing his statement.

"Shut up, ok? Just shut the fuck up." Carmen growled, running a hand through his hair.

"Carmy, why wouldn't you ask her before you ordered? She's your mixologist." Nat sighed, shoulders heavy with disappointment.

"Also your girlfriend." Sydney added, poking her head in. "I told you to wait. Just saying."

"Thank you, alright, thank you all for your fuckin' helpful words." Carmen snapped. "Just... Nat, make sure they get all that shit set up right, ok? Make sure the dishwasher fucking works before we're open, please."

The office door was shut, and Carmen hesitated, reaching for the knob anxiously. He wasn't sure if he should knock- I mean, fuck, this is his office but... you were already so mad at him. Knuckles rapping on the door, he didn't wait for the invite in- knowing he'd never get one.

Carmen found you, sniffling in a furious pout in the corner, body angled away from the door. "Baby-" Carmen started with a sigh, shoulders falling gently at your upset state.

"-Don't." You snap, wiping your eyes. "Don't even start with me, Carmen." The way you say his full name sounds so bitter, too formal and full of malice to be from you.

"I-I'm sorry. I thought we agreed on it, and-and Richie was pressuring me and... And you're right. I shouldn't have made that decision without you, and I'm sorry." Carmen said slowly, waiting for your gaze to meet his, angry, wet, waterline.

"Yeah, you shouldn't have." You agreed bitterly, wiping your eyes. "I get this is your restaurant, Carmen, but don't ask for my help if you're just gonna do what you want anyways. That's-That's not nice."

"I know." Carmen nodded slowly, approaching you with the caution he would a wild animal. "I want your help. I do, and-and I like your idea that the house drink goes in the special glass. Makes it stand out."

You lifted your gaze up to his. "Yeah?" You asked, he nodded, sitting next to you. "Did you blow your budget?"

"No," Carmen shook his head, not a total lie. Fak had been able pull some strings with the new stoves, turns out he did have a guy. It left a little over five thousand left over.

"We could go to that place, if you want to. Go look and see if they have the glasses. Get a rough estimate of about how many we'd need." Carmen offered, his hand cupping your thigh gently, thumb rubbing over your leg in soothing circles.

"As long as Sydney or Nat does the numbers and not you." You snorted lightly, rolling your eyes at him.

He laughed, nodding in agreement. "Yeah, I'll get Sugar to run 'em, alright? Then we can go. Call it an early night."

You beamed at the idea, letting him slide in next to you, melting into your side. "That sounds good." You hummed, letting your head fall on his shoulder.

"I-I'm real sorry I didn't as you ." Carmen muttered. "That was shitty."

"Yeah." You sighed in agreement. "I just... I want to be included in things." You asked, looking up at him sweetly. "Not everything, but-but at least the things that apply to my area."

"I know." Carmen nodded, his hand catching your cheek softly. "I'll let you handle it next time, alright? I trust your opinion."

"You don't have to do that-"

"-No, you're right, I don't. But-But I want to." Carmen nodded. "I know you're lookin' out for the best in this place just like I am."

[summercourtship]

78. "Don't fucking touch what is not yours"

Jonathan finds out Eddie and reader had sex and decides to arrive conveniently when Eddie is at the apartment, forcing him to hide while Jonathan fucks the reader (knowing Eddie is there and saying stuff to rile him up)

Oh yeah, that’s the good stuff. Reminds me a bit of a dream sequence idea I had for earlier in the fic where Edward fucks the reader while Jonathan watches but its like… clinical. IDK, there's a reason it didn’t get used, it’s not a good idea. The ideas you have while ovulating are not always the best in the long run. this one was... interesting to write lmao. i don't think it's particularly in character but i also am incapable of writing truly perverted stuff (maybe one day i'll do it.... i have the ideas and then when i go to write them they become so sanitized lmao)

warnings: possessive behavior, voyeurism/exhibitionism, not super explicit, minimal proofreading lmao | word count: 850

A knock at her door spurred Edward into motion. Even if it was just a delivery person, he didn’t want to risk being seen and quickly slipped into her bedroom while she somewhat flailed about trying to figure out what to do (it was endearing, at least). He shut the bedroom door carefully, not wanting to make any noise that would alert anyone to his presence. Then, slowly, he pressed his ear to the door, listening and waiting. 

Sometime between when he had left the couch and shut the door behind him, she had answered the front door. He could barely make out her voice, though it seemed tense- whether that was because she was anxious about someone finding Edward or because of who was on the other side of the door, he was unsure. A lower and softer voice answered her before becoming louder- she had let whoever it was into the apartment, which was enough to clue Edward in to who had showed up unannounced.

He listened to them talk, straining his ears as he was unable to make out what they were saying. Then footsteps started to approach down the hall and Edward was once again forced to move, scrambling to the only option available- the small closet in the corner of her room. The door had just snapped shut when the bedroom door opened and Jonathan Crane entered, pulling her behind him. She looked around, her eyes clearly searching the room for Edward before focusing back on Jonathan before the latter became suspicious of her distraction.

Jonathan took her by the arm and pushed her onto the bed, and Edward was suddenly very grateful that he hadn’t opted to hide underneath it. 

He would like to say that he kept his eyes shut, that he willed himself to ignore everything that was happening just a few feet away from him. And he did close his eyes for what felt like an eternity as he listened to the sounds of Jonathan kissing her, to the rustle of clothing being removed, to the noises he knew she was biting back for his sake. 

The sounds by themselves would have been enough to arouse him, but knowing that the whimpers and half-muffled moans were coming from her was enough to send him imagination reeling, which in turn created a fairly obvious problem in his pants that he wouldn’t be able to deal with discreetly anytime soon. Any attempts to will himself into an unaroused state failed, her near constant sighs enough to keep his blood pumping. 

When he finally gave in to himself and opened his eyes again, he could see her through the slats of the closet door, laying on her bed, shirtless with her breasts on full display. Jonathan was perched over her body, holding her arms above her head as he kissed her hungrily. Edward watched, trying not to focus on the way her hips ground up against Jonathan’s thigh, nestled between her legs.

Her eyes slid to the closet door, heavy and unreadable. He wondered if she could feel his eye contact, burning a hole in the wood. Then, as if realizing that she was looking at the closet for too long, she quickly returned her attention to the other man. But it was enough, and Crane slowly turned his head to look at the closed door. His pupils were blown, his face flushed, and his hair wild. 

It was silent for a moment until Crane tilted his head to the side. 

“Are you going to watch me fuck her, Nashton?”

Edward was very still. Jonathan didn’t look away, still looking back at the closet door with an unreadable expression. As he continued speaking, he began to run his hands down her torso.

“Are you going to watch me take what’s mine? Because she is mine, and you know that.” Jonathan’s hands cupped her breasts, his thumbs swiping over her nipples. All Edward could think about was how his hands had been in that same position not an hour ago. “You’re just going to stand there and watch me fuck her until she can’t even remember who you are, until all she knows is my-” he pinched her nipples between his fingers then, her back arching slightly as she stuttered out a gasp- “cock.” 

He continued down her body, his hands resting on her underwear.

“Or at least until you learn that you don’t fucking touch what’s not yours.” Crane’s voice was low, the words a warning. Then, he yanked her underwear down her legs, leaving her completely naked to both his and Edward’s stares. 

“You belong to me.” Jonathan had leaned down to hiss in  her ear, but Edward heard it clearly and knew it was for the both of them. A warning, a reminder. 

But then Edward thought of her last night. Legs around him, riding him like he held the key to her salvation. Her eyes, looking into him with an intensity he only saw in himself when he decided to watch back his own videos. Her mouth, hot and wanting, willing and accepting. 

Last night, he thinks when her eyes slide over to the closet again, she belonged to him. 

[worriedvision]

I love your tighnari fanfic angst!!! how about Cyno & Tighnari x reader ( not polly) finding reader getting injured after argument?? it can be fully angst or angst > fluff!!

Gender neutral reader, decided not to kill off the reader so that'll be nice lol, tagged as angst.

-

Cyno:

"You really need to stop fretting over a silly little cut on my leg." Cyno shakes his head, you refusing to leave the wound unattended.

"Honey, you don't know if the instrument had poison on it!" You huff, inspecting the wound closer as you begin to apply the powder you produced to detect such a substance.

"See, the wound isn't a threat." Cyno huffs.

"You need to look after yourself more." You retaliate, disinfecting the wound before reaching to apply the bandage. Cyno stands up, walking away as you try to call out to make him stop. "Cyno, I wasn't done!"

"No, _, you are done." Cyno states. "I cannot afford to waste my time here, I'm sorry. You know how my work is."

"And a few more seconds was just that important to you, huh?" You tell out, Cyno ignoring you as he closed the door on you.

--

You had been talking to doctors all day the next day. The argument was fresh in your mind, but you couldn't help but think of him. Was he safe? Did his wound get exposed?

Oh, no matter. You had to focus on the medical mumbo jumbo these doctors were trying to impress you with. See, you weren't open to just giving the powder to any doctor, and you knew the ones who approached you were purely wanting to figure out the exact formula, selling it at a horribly high price.

Walking back home, you felt like someone was watching you. Deciding to take a longer route, through the Avidya Forest, you wanted someone to see you in the case someone hurt you. Feeling someone plunge a scalpel into your back, your eyes widen as you seem to lose the ability to hear. Was it adrenaline? Fear? You didn't know. You see Tighnari rushing over with a forest ranger, pointing at the culprit as the forest ranger wrestled them to the ground as he performs care on you. You trust him, and you hold out the powder to him. Furrowing his brows, he grabs it as you pass out.

--

You wake up to Tighnari taking notes, Cyno sitting by your bed and clearly nodding off to sleep. Groaning out, you slowly start to get familiar with your surroundings.

"Morning, sleepyhead." Tighnari cheers, nudging Cyno awake. Cyno looks over, seeing you awake, and he sighs out of relief. "Your powder was certainly interesting to use. After using the powder, and treating you for a possible poisoning, Cyno demonstrated the reaction that takes place when there isn't poison."

"Yeah, I had doctors trying to buy the lot. I could tell they didn't plan on using it for direct treatment." You shake your head.

"Well, the criminal who assaulted you was apprehended." Tighnari states.

After a couple seconds of silence, you get an idea.

"Say, would you like to have a delivery of the powder?" You ask. Tighnari nods, tail wagging.

"Tighnari, can I have a word alone with _?" Cyno asks. Tighnari nods, grabbing his clipboard and continuing his writing after leaving the room.

"I do appreciate the effort you put into taking care of me." Cyno states. "You're only being cautious about the possibility of poison. Seeing you get poisoned with a small wound like the one on my leg made me realise you had a point."

"...Do you have work today?" You ask. "I wouldn't want you to skive off work because you wanted to say sorry to me." You bitterly spit out.

"No. After hearing what happened last night, I made sure today would be off. I want to spend time with you, to show you I love you"

--

Tighnari:

"So you didn't get the materials?" Tighnari raises a brow, completely unimpressed.

"Nari, the deserts had bad sandstorms. I couldn't get the materials!" You protest, Tighnari groaning out of frustration.

"I need these materials for medicine. Do you not realise I am out?" Tighnari tuts, crossing his arms and shaking his head.

"Fine, if it's that vital I'll just go out in the middle of the current sandstorm that's been predicted to last for a few days." You huff, walking out.

"Stop your excuses, I need this medication for several people!" He screeches, you not daring to turn back. "Don't come back empty handed."

--

Unfortunately, you couldn't get far. The sandstorm grew worse and worse as you ventured further, hoping to get the fruits required. Dehydration, heat exhaustion and the pain of the sandstorm was enough to knock you out.

You got carried by Dehya to Aaru Village, where Candace allowed you to stay while you recovered. The recovery was not speedy, and she was not allowing you to leave as the sandstorm hadn't finished up. Upon asking you why you were there, you explain the situation.

"We have a supply, I would be more than happy to aid you. If it means you don't venture out into the sandstorm again, that is." She explains, you nodding.

"Oh, and your boyfriend got these flowers delivered for you. He must have done something silly, he's written you a letter. Of course, I don't know the contents, but I know these flowers usually are gifted as an apology." She giggles, handing you said letter.

'_,

I'm sorry I didn't believe you when you explained the situation regarding the Sandstorms in the desert. Upon reflection, I should have controlled my temper with you. I heard through Cyno that you had been found in the middle of a particularly bad sandstorm, and I know this was because I pushed you to get the desert specialties.

When you return to your home, I can assure you I won't make this mistake again. You don't need to fear the idea of coming back with nothing - if I had to choose between you and some materials that could be obtained easily, the answer is obvious.

I hope you like the flowers. Usually, I'm not one for gifting bouquets, however I know you can find a creative way of appreciating them in their beauty.

I look forward to showering you with love when I next see you,

Tighnari'

[lukecastellanshandholder]

Ok, I’m back with my thoughts on episode 6! I had quite a bit of them so I put them all in this post 💜

⚠️ Spoiler warning for episode 6 of the PJO Tv Show and major book spoilers ahead! ⚠️

Kronos talking to "the lightng thief" : "Give me a reason to question your worthiness again, and there is another that just might be ready to take your place. *looks over at Percy* Isn’t that right, little hero?"

I’m sorry??!!! Maybe I’m forgetting but, was it ever clearly mentioned in the books that Kronos planned on using Percy as a replacement if Luke didn’t do as he was asked? Because I have been speculating this for years but, was it actually in the books? Because if it wasn’t?? Rick is really trying to make sure the foil nature between Percy and Luke can not be ignored

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

Percy: "We know who stole the bolt."

Luke: How do you know? 😅👀😗

I just know that he was SWEATING 😭💀

~~~~~~~~~~

Grover not giving a solitary fuck about the humans and only caring about the animals after they free them from the trailer is hilarious to me 😭💀

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

Just the mere fact that they just talk about May (sure they don’t mention her by name but 🤷‍♀️) is so promising to me. Like we’re getting to know about some things that we don’t get to really know about until the 5th book of the series?? And it’s only episode six of season 1????? Yeah, they’re really trying to let more of Luke’s backstory be known and I love it 😌

~~~~~~~~~~~

Annabeth: "we’re friends of Luke’s."

Hermes: *starts sweating profusely*

Good, he should be nervous! It’s only the consequences of your actions coming to haunt you 😌💅

~~~~~~~~~~~

Hermes: " Time and space is easy, kids. Parenting is something else entirely."

Well first you would have to try and be a parent… 🙄

~~~~~~~~~

Hermes: "I was warned to stay away from Luke and his mother. Warned that no matter how much I tried to help I would just make things worse. And I went anyway. And it wasn’t just awful for Luke… It was awful for all of us."

Hmm, I wonder why?? It couldn’t have been because you literally ignored your son every time he prayed to you and asked for help. It couldn’t have been because May would tell Luke over and over that his Father would visit soon, and then you never showed up! And it definitely couldn’t be because when you saw Luke, you told him that he never should have came back and that he was making his mother worse. Ya know, blaming him for what his mother was going through.

But yeah, it’s a real mystery for sure 🙄

~~~~~~~~~~

Ok but I need to know what that flashback is of Percy’s! Is it supposed to be Hermes insinuating that Percy hurts Sally and manipulating him into thinking that he’s hurting Sally? The same way that he blamed Luke for May. If so, what is his obsession with victim blaming???

Or is it going to show something between Sally and Poseidon? I don’t know but I need to know!

~~~~~~~~~

I am not trying to be insulting to Lin, I actually mean this as a complement, but he does too much of a good job playing a narcissistic, manipulative asshole. That whole part where he’s showing Percy that flashback and the the way he looks over at Annabeth and says; "Should I remind you, too?"

Listen, I don’t mean to trauma dump on main, but I’ve seen that look in someone else’s eyes and I’ve heard that tone of voice being used by a narcissist irl and… yeah, it’s scary how much Lin’s line delivery reminds me of those times.

When I say that the casting directors knew what they were doing, I’m not lying… 😅

~~~~~~~~

Hermes: "I don’t get involved anymore. It’s just not worth it."

I swear, if I hear anymore people trying to make excuses for Hermes after this, I’m reminding them of this line.

Like, let me get this straight. You know what is about to happen, what has been happening to Luke for years now. You knew what was going to happen to him ever since Luke was a baby. You swear up and down that you truly love and care for Luke and May… but at the same time their not worth it??? Why? Because Luke "failed" his quest??? Because he’ll do things that might bruise your fragile ego??? Yet, you truly care about them as well… Be so fuckin for real 🙄😤

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

Hermes: "It was your father (talking about Poseidon) who warned me to stay away. Said it was awful watching you struggle and feel powerful to stop it. But that sometimes… that’s what parenting is."

Hold up…

First of all, Poseidon literally had Percy 7 whole years after you had Luke. So what did you do during the first 7 years? Do nothing to help all on your own?? The whole blaming Poseidon for your being neglectful is not doing what you think it’s doing…

Second, watching your child suffer is parenting?? Like sure, ok, sometimes you need to let your children learn from there own mistakes. It’s how we grow. But those mistakes are usually small things like letting them get a terrible haircut that you know they won’t like but they insist on getting it. Or them insisting on eating something that you know they won’t like, but you don’t stop them. Not watching your son have to watch his mother suffer and be in pain for the first 9 years of his life. Not looking away as your son is tormented and brainwashed by quite literally the most evil entity in your universe! FFS!

~~~~~~~~

Hermes: "I guess we’re all just doing the best we can."

Hate to be the barer of bad news, but sometimes that just isn’t good enough ☺️

My god, Rick really pulled Lin to the side and said, "I need you to act like a raging narcissist with a victim complex that’s bigger than the galaxy." And Lin delivered like his life was on the line. He definitely wasn’t throwing away his shot💀

~~~~~~~~

Hermes looking at his watch and then telling Percy that he’s basically out of time??? Hermes knew exactly what he was doing keeping Annabeth and Percy distracted.

But don’t worry, guys. He’s trying his best 🥹🙄

~~~~~~~~~~

Annabeth picking Hermes’ pocket? She is so real for that!

She definitely learned that skill from Luke 😌💅

~~~~~~~~

Grover: "We’re late? Are we late because of me?"

Me: *sobbing* 😭🥺💔

~~~~~~~~

Percy trying to drive: "That guy didn’t even slow down! 😡🤬*honks horn aggressively* "

Calm down, Percy. The New Yorker in you is showing😭💀

… but also, that’s a mood 😅

~~~~~~~~~~

Ok, but I’m a bit confused why they changed it to where they’ve run out of time for the quest. Like, what does that mean for the rest of the story? Is everything going to happen as normal still, or will there be changes? 🤨

~~~~~~~~~~

Last thoughts: I am so, so happy with how this episode turned out, imo. I was kind of skeptical on how they would portray Hermes, but I’m glad that they didn’t make him a "good guy". They showed him in his barest form, the form that we don’t really get to see until the 5th book, and I love that. I can not wait for the next episode.

[the-contemporary-critic]

Reviewing the Pilot, “Rise of the Turtles,” of 2012 TMNT

The Plot

The first episode of the 2012 show starts with the four turtles training in battle. The show introduces Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael. In blue, we have Leo with katanas. Raph in red and with his sais. Mikey in orange as he uses his nunchucks to fight against Leo. Donnie has a bo staff and a purple mask. Already we can see their character reflected in the color of their masks and their choice of weapons, which I’ll address in another section.

It’s clear Ralph & Leo are the two best fighters. They beat their brothers in their 1-on-1 battles & go on against each other. At the end of their battle, Raphael wins & we meet Splinter.

Unlike the turtles, he’s a rat. Splinter is their sensei & their father. He seems wise & has plenty of authority.

In the kitchen, the family is celebrating their “mutation day,” aka their 15th birthday. Splinter goes into the backstory of their mutation & how they became a family. They have kept the canister that had the mutagen responsible for their mutation, which Mikey refers to as “mom.”

The four ask Splinter if they can go to the surface for their birthday, & after some hesitation, he allows it. This is where the real adventure starts.

As they wait for nightfall, Leo watches his favorite cartoon, Space Heroes. Often, the scenes in the cartoon illustrate the themes of the episode. Leo also dreams of being like the captain in the show. The others don’t find the show as appealing as Leo does.

Finally up top, they fall in love with New York City. This is where their love of pizza starts as they scare off a delivery boy who drops a pizza while driving off. As they jump from rooftop to rooftop, Donnie catches a glimpse of April O’Neil & falls in love.

At that same moment, she & her father get kidnapped. The four decide to help against Splinter’s wishes of staying away from humans. Although all of them are decent fighters, they have no chemistry with each other. The entire battle is a mess. Both April & her father get carried away by the mysterious cloned men.

The others go off & leave Mikey alone for a bit, then he makes a discovery. The men aren’t actually human; they’re robots with aliens controlling them. The viewer sees the other three don't listen to Mikey much. He is a bit ditzy and intelligence isn’t what he’s known for, but there’s a sense that they just see him as stupid. He’s ignored.

Back in the lair, they blame each other for why they lost the battle. Splinter explains that they weren’t prepared & the fault is his as he had not trained them as a team but as individuals. He considers not letting them back up until another year of training, but Donnie objects. As Splinter thinks about it, we see a photo of human Splinter with presumably his wife & child. This causes Splinter to allow the four turtles to go back to the surface & save April & her father. This is also when Splinter gives Leo the position of leader. Ralph is clearly upset about this decision.

The turtles stake out a spot that has the same logo as the van that kidnapped the O’Neils. Mikey doesn’t fully understand the plan, Ralph is doubtful, & Donnie is bored. Just as Ralph complains about how no one will show up, someone shows up. Leo mimics the captain from Space Heroes, but the others are already gone & starting the fight.

After chasing down the guy, they’re confronted with the same canister as the one they’ve preserved from their mutation. This is where part one of the pilot ends.

My Review

I’ve already completed the show, so this isn’t the first time I’ve viewed this episode. But this also gives me a different point of view as I’m already aware of all the characters & what everything leads to.

Going back to the color of their masks & weapons, we see that there is a connection between the personalities of the turtles & their colors and weapons.

Leo’s blue represents his trustability, dependability, and tranquility. These traits are why he’s picked as the leader. His weapon is widely known and a classic. It works for him perfectly as he easily beats Mikey in their 1-on-1 battle.

Ralph’s red shows his fiery and sometimes aggressive personality. His sais are weapons used for stabbing and striking but have a good defense too. Like his weapon, he’s an all-rounded fighter but prefers to be on the offensive.

Donnie wears purple, a color associated with individuality, creativity, and wisdom. This is clear as he’s the science guy of the team, which makes him useful but alienates him from his brothers as they couldn’t care less about science. His staff isn’t the best weapon, which shows that he’s not a fighter, but a thinker.

We see Mikey in orange. Orange is a color related to positivity, liveliness, and high energy. All the perfect descriptions of Michelangelo. His nunchucks also represent him well. Their origins are unknown and they were popularized through pop culture, which already seems like a Mikey kind of thing. They’re weapons that are difficult to use, as they can’t simply be swung around, but it’s obvious that they’re perfect for Mikey.

The characterization set up in this episode is a good foundation for what they later develop into. It shows the viewers the turtles’ personalities & dynamics of the team. For example, Ralph’s temper & Leo’s calm don’t go well together and that’s shown in this episode.

Splinter’s character is also expressed well. We even get to see some of his ninja skills when he tells the backstory. Throughout the entire show, I wished they would’ve allowed for some more of the fatherly aspect of Splinter to come through. It would’ve been nice to see this here in the beginning.

The plot of this episode isn’t the best in the series, but it’s good enough to drag you in. After it ends, you want to watch the next episode to find out if they save April, if they can work together as a team, and if they end up believing Mikey. You also want to figure out more about the strange alien robots and why they kidnapped the O’Neils. There’s also the canister of mutagen that the guy had that was the same as the one that mutated the turtles. It leaves plenty of intriguing unanswered questions that can only be solved by watching the next episode.

There was a good amount of light-hearted humor in there. The episode didn’t have me laughing until tears, but there were parts of it where I did laugh. Its action & adventure is fitting for children and fun to follow along with. One thing I didn’t like was how abrupt the kidnapping was, but once again, this is a children’s show. And that one trait didn’t ruin the entire episode for me.

Overall, I would rate the episode an 8 out of 10. Out of all 5 seasons, this wouldn’t make it in the top 10 for me, but it wouldn’t be anywhere near the bottom 10. It had good humor, adventure, action, and characterization. It was good, but not perfect.

[thedailymaskedmerchant]

Continued!

Balor is heading back to Mistria, walking tired. It’s a Saturday morning, and he had just finished a particularly frustrating delivery service for emergency supplies.

His focus was thrown off by something cracking. Electricity maybe. He turns around and there is…someone there. It looked wrong.

I’ll make a comparison to this. Imagine a beautiful oil painting depicting a natural landscape. It has all the components to make it iconic with some added star and flowers. It is an artist prided work. And then comes the infamous tomato soup. It hurled straight at it, muddling colors and painting the canvas. A bullet or a cut leaves a mark, tomato soup bleeds. Its two art styles clashing, yet one is causing significantly more damage. No glass protects this world from Zacharie and his GUN.

A simple daily edit couldn’t comprehend the aura that ever so slightly, and so clearly, ripped through the air like lightning. It desaturated the atmosphere.

Balor believed he saw a monster. Well he was right, “humans” in the OFF world breathed smoke. Could Zach breathe anyway—well ignore that. He’s built different. My narration doesn’t properly convey the unervingness that is this scene. Enjoy this edit.

He tried to analyze which item was which, and what came from where. Everyone was cramped in some impossible space, too square on one end, completely monochromatic the next. All being carried by some sort of masked man.

It didn’t cross Balor’s mind that this would be the adventure Adeline requested, because the request for one hasn’t been picked up.

But…it IS Saturday, and that’s when Mistria had operated its annual market fair. Usually, merchants would notify Adeline before selling, and it’s about the same people every time. They had stopped the fair due to the Earthquake destroying the bridge. From the looks of it and the impossibility Balor suspected that this merchant traveled far to get here. That far, meant new items, and new connections. Balor wasn’t going to let previous grievances get in his way.

And so, two traveling merchants came together. Existing for mainly the same reason. To sell, in Balor’s case he could be romanced. Players could only dream of rizzing up Zacharie. Back to topic, they immediately went down to introductions.

Zachaire isn’t incapable of reading the room here. Balor is trying to figure out who he is, and what is the Portal Gun. For this acquaintance, Zacharie kept answering questions vaguely, and mostly agreed to whatever Balor said. Yes! He did come from a place very very far away. Somewhere Balor wouldn’t likely ever reach. If Zachaire told him the whole truth, Balor would likely believe it. But the reality is more bizarre than lies. This wouldn’t stop Zacharie from being willing to show his goods. It’s his purpose.

His half-truths and woven around lies crash. And it’ll be because Balor knows the value of gems better.

Zachaire is guided into town, and shown off to Adeline. Who he’ll then display all his wares too. He kinda literally just dumped everything in front of her. From the gems he’s collected, to the meats acquired, the baseball equipment, everything. Adeline could hardly keep up with the items that just don’t seem to end. Video game inventory be like—

Balor took a moment to process it all. These emeralds, diamonds, and ores. They were all weirdly shaped, but definitely real. The prices of these pristine (still strange) diamonds were absolutely criminally cheap.

Sure, some could be considered novelty like the Jokers, the tarot cards. But then he pulled out literal raw MEAT. Stacks of it, it was fresh, bloody, and somehow didn’t get any of that grime on the other merchandise!

How Zacharie priced things, he just converted Credits directly into Tesserae. He organized all the prices anyway on his computer. He could’ve uncharged it and let them bargain, but gold in itself were valuable to the tiniest chip. These also looked prettier than the gold nuggets be mined in the Nether, could be used for any domestic products at home. He’s been hoarding a ton of supplies in order to not crash the economy, so having these tiny things are worth it to him.

We don’t use Tesserae where I come from. We use paper, because gold is too valuable to be used as currency.

Part of Balor was offended. Gems were a part of his culture and highly analyzed. Luster, color, shape! It all came together. Balor would be an idiot to not buy it and trade it in for a phenomenally higher value. Look at the two, so similar in thought. It’s a win-win, gold for diamonds! Vise versa. They would be making bank with each other. There was a click. Balor was the first to think about building a partnership. Zacharie was a foreigner, so he might need an assistant.

What better to do than discuss it over a meal. They did go into the Inn, and for nearly the entire day a lot of Mistria’s NPCs did introduce Zacharie to Mistria along with the whole region they live in. It was a surprise to how much Zacharie didn’t actually know much about the Captial. To get to Mistria he had to have at least gone there. Zacharie didn’t answer that question and kept switching the subjects to something else. It didn’t take much to get Balor to talk about jewels. The process was so interesting, it was the main topic discussed about along with Aldaria. It allowed some people to brush aside a bit of the creepiness.

To add to this, Zacharie kept asking Celine about flowers and plants. He wanted to stay over for the Spring Festival as he explained he needed ideas and inspiration.

Adeline had thought the same of Balor before. That he was a shady merchant, but Zacharie. He had things that could hardly be understood.

Juniper was frustrated. She was a witch. She could sense a disturbance of magic in the air, twisting around this guy. There were times where she swore she was staring at a toad, or a cat, or angel. Most people wouldn’t exactly understand. A ton of people forgot overtime the historical influence of magic. Some people don’t believe monsters exist. She was right to think of Zachaire as an alien because he literally is. She wanted answers!

And Zacharie didn’t answer them like she wanted. He could talk about his adventures, or how metals come from cow tumors. It didn’t provide her with any of the magic related information, because Zachaire simply didn’t know what magic even was. It’s all just programming to him.

It drove Juniper nuts.

Valen was also trying to understand. Her family legacy was in her hands replicating “Pancea” but tickets here seemed to do half of the work for her. It’s some magical bandage that can fix a slit wrist in five seconds what? Zacharie was just trying to pitch in his products and to set fuel to the fire erupting in the inn.

Well…that is what he gets trying to sell foreign items that aren’t meant to be sold to people of Mistria. He still made bank though, and he’s still disgustingly wealthy. Eventually, things had to calm down and Adeline made it so. It was rude of them to bombard a guest with questions and assumptions.

Things returned to a normal topic, then it became dark. Midnight I mean.

Just before he left. He did tell Balor the truth. He was from another world, and well it explained everything strange about him. He told Balor about his adventures in Minecraft, and the Zones in his homeworld. The Zones sounded like horror stories. Industrialization is a foreign concept in Mistria. But he put it aside. Balor is more excited than anything, promising to help him if he can get his hands on easy specialty goods first. They made a deal! Yay, buisness partners! That metal was quality and he didn’t have time to complain when Mistria needs all the help it can get.

Seems like in the end, everything went alright. Zacharie wasn’t exactly done with this world. He’d be back definitely. He wanted to see the Spring festival, and he’d even bring along Sucre if she wanted too.

Note: I am trying to make a fanfiction with the two in a more spooky atmosphere, where photos don’t mess up the entire aesthetic and such. And in Balor’s limited perspective. To show vs to tell are two different things! You’ll see some ideas told here, but not all. Besides, it’ll be funnier to see it happen rather than be told it did happen. I’ll do my best to show it better in the fanfiction. If I ever actually finish it. Minecraft is not included.

[ducknotinarow]

Stolas - Mun talks about the Muse

| Mun talks about the muse. Send one of the following to ask the mun… (please specify muse for multis)

STOLAS!!! I feel it’s no surpise I still love and adore this character. Stolas is just such a great character I love his design, his VA is so good too his singing voice and delivery just sells it for me. Turtle a top favorite character of mine. So picking him up as a muse was a no brainer cause how could I not? Every episode he is in just makes me love him more and want to write him more and more ;3; I just ca not get enough of him ;3;

✍ Favorite thing about writing the muse?

His way of speech for one, since Stolas comes from a royal background I’m very particular in how I present his speech patterns. Stolas is very clearly a character that only knows how to speak from what he’s learned in other words Stolas dosen’t know casual conversation style of speak. He only knows a more proper way to do so. Of course, he has picked up on things over time but from the fact he still speaks this way even around the ‘lesser’ demons it’s very clear.

Stolas is altogetherjust a fun character to write and that I relate to as well on many things, I like his personality as well he’s buddy but a sassy bitch to boot as well.

👀Favorite thing about the muse’s appearance?

Everything uwu Stolas has a very pretty design. He’s got this dark blue and black coloring to his feathers and talons that fade into each other in a nice soft gradient the red eyes that glow and pop out again the blue and his usual purple pallets. I really love his tails fathers as well Stolas is just a very pretty easing and it’s very eye catching for me. I love that his top eyes sort of act like eyebrows it just makes for a unique look on his face expressions since sometimes th top set of eyes are slightly different in look from his main ones.

🌌Favorite alternate version of the muse?

I don’t really have alternate versions, I mean there are different takes based on the verse I’m writing for but even at that Stolas is still well Stolas. Even it’s the new Stolas and Dice au we have there isn’t really a difference in Stolas himself.

💕Favorite ship for the muse? 

All the ones I got with Kenzie for my Stolas uwu

As we know I’m obsessed with Stolas x Blitz I have be a loyal passages on this ship since the start! And I am never getting off this boat!! I truly see Stolas and Blitz as soul mates and star crossed lovers ;3; Blitz being this rough and tough imp so used to being alone and seen as unlovable with Stolas someone who craves to love another with all he has because he so lonely? It’s so good I love them so much they are so fucking stupid as well TOT

Stolas x Dice cause well two pathetic purple men uwu nah this cross over was truly fun to test, I don’t really know much about cup head XD I watched others play it a bit and only watched one episode of the Netflix series. Yes it was the Dice episode so I could have some idea about Kezzie’s muse XD But you know what I am a fan of? Old movies with character types like Dice that I just know Stolas would drool over. That old school charm and class it’s easy to mealt the romantic Stolas is. Besides I like that they sort of had a simallir means of trying to show off to the upper class of demons they were doing fine. Dice by being around a roya demon and Stolas by being seen on the arm of another after it got out he not only divorced Stella but his ‘imp boyfriend dumped’ him as well. Only for the pair to become real friends in the end and soon fall in love even ;3;

Stolas x Shane XD at first I too was a hater BUT Kenzie convinced me u-u Shane was just too cute to ignore ;3; and I think it’s nice for Stolas to be able to in a sense move on ;3; with someone who matches what he likes but also can match Stolas’ vibe in the same vain ;3;

💔Least favorite ship for the muse?

XD I guess any Stolas with female ships sorry buuuut even before it was cannon I already saw Stolas as a very gay man uwu

💢Something about the muse that annoys you?

That Stolas spends so much time elf reflecting he seems to forget not everyone sends the same amount of time having personal refection on their actions and emotions. Stolas is very much someone who likes to avoid conflict and internalizes everything so there’s just no way for others to even understand where he is coming from Stolas can very much be blind sided by Stolas because he has these habits. It’s annoying because I hate the miscommunication trope XD and Stolas is perfect for said trope because of these habits damn this stupid beautiful bird XDD

😈Worst thing you’ve ever done to your muse? 

Hmmm make his mother leave his life and him never really know who she is outside of her name which he used when naming his own daughter after since Stella wouldn’t care uwu

Have him constantly mix alcohol with his depression pills.

Have Bliz be his biggest heart break depending on the verse of course uwu So now he second guesses everything about himself wondering if those traits are truly turn offs for others now uwu

😂Funniest thing that’s ever happened to your muse? 

Mmmm I would say when Stolas and Dice had a fight over who the better love interest is for Gabrielle he told Dice to sleep on the couch only to come back and grab their head because well it’s funny since he took te half that can still basically talk when he grew tried of Dice being so clearly wrong XD

The second thing I can think of that would be funny event to happen to Stolas would ofc be when Dice confessed his feelings because Stolas had no idea what Dizzy meant, just Dice had this whole heart felt speech and set up this very romantic moment with Stolas in the was favorite place in the garden. Only for Stolas to be all “wut ._.”

Super old ask but when Blitz found the dead mice in Stolas’ freezer XD just cause I dunno it was dumb that Stolas even showed blitz how he eats them whole XD I dunno it’s just the expression describe from Blitz was so like confused yet like answered so well why Stolas can take his dick so easy.

💡 What inspires you to write the muse? 

Mostly just my general love and intrest for his charter. But also his songs from the show cause I listen to them on repeat Spindel please get the show versions of the songs on Spotify PLEASE TOT I need to hear Bryce sign more often than I already do XD also anytime a new episode drops? My muse for Stolas tends to sky rocket a lot XD Cause I wanna like play with what had been shown of him. Depending on the verse s well it can help me add ideas on to on goings.

I gotta admit I don’t fully know where Stolas and Blitz stand when we started to write them I believe only up to Ozzy’s had come out? And we had this whole thing with Stolas trying to give Blitz the book with out the deal. But Blitz took it much like a break up and demanded to see Stolas ;3; ((Also dang we were very close to cannon there XD))

With Dice it’ all the more hell’s lore and such that’s gets applied since Stolas stays n his position in that verse.

With Shane now Stolas has been stripped of his power and position. And basically starting his life over ;3;

📷 Favorite picture/screencap of your muse?

📑 Favorite part of your muse’s backstory? 

That the butler Stolas had with him as a child is the closest thing he has ever had to a real family in a sense. It’s the same imp I have having beef with Shane for like no reason other than he just is waiting for the incubus to hurt Stolas both because of Shanes demon type and cause of what happened between Stolas and Blitz.

that all of stolas’ life has been planned out for him and for a long time Stolas was generally excited about that and wanted nothing more than to live up to the exceptions that were set on him to the point he was trying his best to even make the life him Stella and Octavia in the least a comfortable one even if it wasn’t the life he wanted for himself it was the one given to him and he tried to live it. XD because it gives a lot of angst potential

📝 Favorite headcanon for your muse? 

- Stolas talks and names all his planets and personally cares for them all himself. Stolas love for his plants is so large he spends time talking to them like holding real conversations with his plants. He also has named every single plant.

- Stolas knows multiple languages because well this man has nothing but time to read and learn so he has learned all of earth’ languages seeing how rituals to summon him are possable makes sense he would know other ones so he can speak with the humans who end up summoning him.

- Stolas can not cook, the only thing he can handle making up for himself is cereal and that’s his like favorite depression meal to enjoy since well it’s easy to put together uwu

- Stolas is such a lover of romance he reads and watches it he even has his own secret romance novel in the works that’s he keeps to himself of course uwu depending on the verse his romance story is based off whoever he is dating uwu

-Stolas hates tea bags, he only dose loose leaf tea uwu

😒 Is there anything canon about your muse that you ignore? 

Uhhhhh I guess the rocky relationship he has with his daughter outside that I don’t think I ignore much?

🔮 What do you see in your muse’s future? 

This varies of course depending on the verse, with Blitz and Stolas I like to think it will be them learning to make thier relationship work and uncaring for the outside factors. Stolas the rules he grew to follow and for Blitz the social norms and his own hang ups holding him back, They wont change anything mind you but they will at least be able to enjoy thier own life together ;3; uncaring what others think o the relationship ;3; I like to think Stolas will get his powers and position back and that will even help protect Blitz’s businesses. Stolas likely coming up with good reason for why it should be allowed and him. Sense being like an over seer of it s Blitz would get a new stone more related to Stolas uwu

Dice: Wth Dice of course I feel Stolas will avoid having his powers take from him, having Dice as his right hand maybe he is able to hide evidence from Stolas transaction with Blitz, because eventually Blitz is hired by the devil so maybe that whole deal I what protects Stolas unlike the real trail. So Stolas is able to keep his status and power making it so I can’t be taken allowing him and Dice to live out thier lives in comfort uwu

Shane we discussed they are in a time where Stolas is stripped of power and status after a run in with Blitz who Stolas is with at the time cause he is in just such a state of shock. Of course he will eventually go back with Shane and soon Stolas will get a job at the flower shop that Jas works at and sort of just learn how to live a normal life. Because well now he has to learn how to do simple tasks that he never had to before. So not only is Shane there to help Stolas through this big change in his life but he’s there to help Stolas adjust to a whole new life.

🔥 Unpopular opinion about your muse? 

We’ll be here all day if I answered this i will say this. That well Stolas is in fact a privilege Richy demon in hell’s society he isn’t like Stella or her bother who uses that as an excuse to act how he wishes. Yes he has bad habits that he isn’t even aware of himself but in part that is because of how he grew up and guess what? Sometimes you are not aware of your own habits.

💭 Favorite memory of the muse? 

Hmmm when Blitz got Stolas a bush and set it out on his door step for Stolas to find well the imp hid and watched Stolas get it because he was too nervous about how Stolas might react ;3; Blitz is so guarded and plays to the tough guy act that the fact he second guessed himself so much about if a gift Stolas would clearly love would be accepted by him at all? ;3; nah I love it it’s so sweet

😩 Hardest thing about writing the muse? 

Honestly? I don’t find Stolas hard to write at all.

⌨ What’s a situation you’ve always wanted to RP with the muse? 

Stolas working at imp with Blitz uwu maybe he even is able to ‘disguise’ himself as an imp for a time to help keep things lowkey. Basically imp stolas uwu just him and Blitz going about the change in everything together now since well Stolas is in this situation because of Blitz yet he still picking to stay with them even if he has to live in hiding. Only really able to be his full self in the office when no clients are around or when at Blitz apartment

As you know I’m here for Stolas flower shop and Shane tattoo artist au uwu XD just need to start things up for all of that

🎭 How similar are you and the muse?

Very. I deal with depression and anxiety and Stolas handles his own in ways that I myself to, I stick to a image of sorts and live by it like yes this is who I am focus on this part of me only. But deep down I’m going through it all the time. I’m very good about making it appear all is fine and ima all good and there isn’t anything going on.

I very much a self refection person like Stolas, i spend a lot of time with my emotions and my thoughts and i often kind of forget others don’t do this either. I only recently started taking pills for my mental health and am still getting used to that being part of my life, but I did take it into consideration to reach out about maybe doing so after seeing Stolas takes them.

Stolas frantic behaviors are very much in tune with myself as well XD The way I can spiral out of control how I will do a sort of laugh but its me just still trying to keep it all together XD

Of course a love for space as well I’ve always been a space ace after all my shoes even say so uwu Stolas being a big reader as well I love to read and i like books that I can escape into as well because well sometimes that’s all you need a few hours in a different life uwu.

[o-uncle-newt]

I promise I didn't forget about this, just want to do it justice!

I totally agree that it's not as hard as I made it out to be to find episodes that are mostly great sketches (or even entirely great)- and I personally think S6 is a particularly mid season so I usually just ignore it with the exception of the sublime piano musical. But S2-4 are generally excellent and that's usually where I get my airplane/dentist/grocery store drive/etc listening from.

In terms of your excellent point about the more character driven element, I'd say a couple of things, one of which relates to the other thing we were talking about. The first is that I genuinely think that JF's biggest talent is his story construction. I don't only mean plot- I mean in sketch form as well. The thing that I think makes his sketches particularly good is that he's really good at finding the shape of the sketch- and that extends, as you point out, to finding the shapes of ongoing stories as sketch themes repeat over time. Bringing back a popular character (or even just one that he likes) never really feels gratuitous in the way that these things sometimes can- he's really good at figuring out how to convey whatever idea has sparked the sketch he's working on most effectively.

And that leads to another point, which is that his observational comedy sketches (like pretty much everyone's) are only as good as their construction. There are very few things that any comic is observing for the first time, and so it always comes down to delivery- and as you note JF's generally really good at developing micro-characters and micro-stories in order to do that. Take the seashell sketch- the two observational comedy points there are "well people THINK you shouldn't sell seashells on the seashore but of course it's the best place to do it" and "management consultants SUCK, don't they?". The first is a fun point, the second needs a bit of finesse so as not to come across too blatant and therefore obnoxious (especially as their idea is the usual "shower thought" one that JF is trying to debunk), and the excellent framing device of this sketch allows both of them to be built into one of his best sketches- having the first point be explained via tongue-twister-like poem, having it be set clearly in the world of nursery rhymes and with very rhythmic dialogue even besides the poem, the management consultants being cartoonishly obnoxious in their own right even besides their idea... just in general it builds up a whole mini-world that beautifully conveys everything the sketch is trying to do in a way that takes different observational points and integrates them into a whole story.

(I'd also note- this is also SO down to his incredible crew of actors. He writes for their voices and they have a lot of fantastic voices. He really gets the rhythm of how people speak and it's just great. The fact that he also knows EXACTLY how to write for himself helps too.)

And that brings me back to that final point, about the kind of sketch of his I DON'T like. He's actually talked a bit semi-autobiographically (I assume?) in... I think it was Now Show segments about how he grew up largely atheist/agnostic in British schools that had sort of everpresent religious content, and about the UK being a basically Christian country (in the context of "conservatives need to stop moaning about how it's not a Christian country, and tied in with this stop being weird about people of other religions"). The interesting thing is, his Now Show stuff on religious topics I thought were fine. I don't really go out of my way to listen to him on politics/current events, but on the occasions that I have, his approach is "I may find religious stuff silly but the people who do it have the right to," which on a practical level is probably one of the better ways that someone can approach being atheist/agnostic in a multicultural society. It's a useful framing when discussing events that relate to religion in current events (IIRC he did sketches on people complaining about saying/not saying prayers in the Bideford town council, and one about separate swimming hours for women and resultant media hysteria... not sure what else but I found both of those basically well done and measured).

The thing is... that's not really a basis for observational comedy! Hence my complaints in the tags of my other post- if he says "this is silly and they have the right to do it" then fine, he has the right to think that what I do is silly. If he describes the particular silly act to an audience, explains exactly what's silly about it, and then says "well of course they have the RIGHT to do it and there's nothing wrong with it," then at a certain point that's just a form of mockery that he thinks he's actually too open-minded and tolerant for, as the rest of the sketch (IIRC) is all about. It's totally possible that it actually is funny observational comedy, in which case don't apologize for it- but if it makes him too uncomfortable then you can't split the difference by being all "I'm not ACTUALLY making this joke because I'm too openminded and tolerant for it."

Part of it, and that speaks to my point above about construction, is that he was making that particular joke as part of a more standup-style joke. Basically, there's a reason why JF isn't a standup- I'm sure he'd be perfectly good at it, but he's much much more than perfectly good at doing sketch and narrative comedy! The other kind of sketch he does where he tries to sneak in these kinds of "well obviously I'm not ACTUALLY making this joke" jokes is his meta sketches, and while he does have some really good meta sketches these sorts are some of his worst. One particularly weird one that I don't remember super well is where someone asks why he doesn't have diverse characters and he's like "well it would be really weird to give diverse characters to my all-white cast." Like, maybe, but in that case the easy rejoinder would probably be "well um maybe diversify your casts" but that's a different thing.

(Also- and I now think that this may have actually been the sketch with the observant Jew at the traffic crossing- at one point he's like "what, I should deliberately bring in diverse/minority communities just so I can make jokes about them?" to which I'm like "dude, if that's the way you think about it then just don't bring this whole thing up at all." Like, he's clearly uncomfortable with that idea, and in a one-writer show that's not actually unreasonable, but by attempting to get ahead of/subvert insecurities he may well have about the show's lack of diversity, IMO he's just accentuating them and not in a totally convincing way. And he STILL manages to bring in a minority community just so he can make a joke about it.)

(Also also- if he's really worried about diversity, maybe don't have totally-white casts for any potential future series of Double Acts. Nobody's telling him to change his longstanding sketch program cast, but a diverse Double Acts cast is very very doable. Also I just want more Double Acts.)

The thing is, he has other religion-based jokes that I don't particularly love (and some that I do actually like), but they are at least well-constructed! He's able to give them dimension and entertainment value beyond the particular religious thing that he thinks is funny, and they as a result work much much better, because he's taken full advantage of the thing that he's actually incredibly good at rather than done a less constructed, more indulgent soapbox sketch. Actually, the example I'll give here isn't a JFSP sketch- it's his Good Omens S2 minisode, which is definitely biblical satire (which was obviously already on the menu, because it's Good Omens) and is by a mile the best thing in that season despite, honestly, not being a particularly imaginitive biblical satire. Like, Job is honestly pretty low hanging fruit, and his take is kind of what you expect a Good Omens take to be. But it's still an absolutely BRILLIANT minisode, because he used a relatively basic observational premise and beautifully shaped the story, integrated impeccable character work, and of course made it incredibly funny.

Basically, his gift isn't observational comedy per se (not that he's bad at it), it's turning that comedy into more than just the observation.

Hi! I hope you're doing well and having a lovely holiday season :)

Sorry if you've already talked about this before, I haven't been following you for a long time - but what do you think of the other series of JFSP apart from series 9?

Personally I love them to bits, I have listened to every episode more than 30 times and they're probably one of my favourite things in the whole world. I just love the humour, the characters, the situations - it feels very safe, no mean spirited jokes, very comforting. The sketches feels very autistic-coded to me as an autistic person, much like Martin from Cabin Pressure - some of the sketches are things I doubt a neurotypical person would notice or comment on from the angle he chooses. Like the geek sketch and the 'friend I'm in the mood for' sketch from series 5.

What are your thoughts on these series?

Thank you for asking, that’s an awesome question!

The basic answer is that I am, of course, a big fan. That said, I’d say that as much as I overall enjoy sketch comedy, I do tend to find it hit or miss; and while JFSP has a higher hit rate than most, and plenty of sketches are fantastic*, it definitely doesn’t get there ALL the time.

*Notable faves- Spooktacular, seashells, reincarnation/past lives, “Stop Saying G’nus,” tricyclist… there are loads and loads more, just off the top of my head! Not to mention the excellent ones you already cited…

The functional difference for me ends up being that while I don’t think there’s a 100% hit rate on Cabin Pressure or Double Acts either, I know that if I pick one episode that I like I will enjoy myself for a full half hour. Because I’m less familiar with a given episode of JFSP given how many there have been and how many sketches are in an episode, I don’t have that same sense of instant “ahhh” from turning on an episode of JFSP* as I would from the other two shows, where a lot of my emotions about it come from knowing it like the back of my hand.

*Major exception- S7E6. A perfect episode of sketch comedy that I can listen to literally whenever. No notes.

This isn’t to say that I don’t really enjoy JFSP! I just wish I could pick off a menu of sketches, not simply because I like some better than others but because I like the feeling of “oooh this” on demand that I get from turning on a favorite half hour episode. I will say- I find JFSP to be PERFECT for things like dental procedures and car trips, where I might be in the chair for anywhere from five minutes to two hours and can just turn on a bunch of sequential episodes for as long as I need. But it doesn’t necessarily have the same immediate impact for me as the episodes I love of the other shows.

That said- some of the best things JF ever wrote are Since You Asked Me sketches. I want them pumped into my veins.

[dmwrites]

The job was easy. So easy, Punz almost felt bad for charging as much as he did. Almost.

The job? Go to Foolish’s desert party and steal every gold block in the place. Sure, Foolish could be considered a friend. But the jobs come first. Usually.

Punz dressed in beach shorts and a tank top; according to the briefing his employer had given him, the theme was “teen beach party but without the singing”.

The job was going to be a piece of cake.

The job was easy. So easy, Purpled almost felt bad for charging as much as he did. Almost.

The job? Go to Foolish’s desert party and steal every gold block in the place. Sure, Foolish could be considered a friend. But the jobs come first. Usually.

Purpled dressed in jeans and a t-shirt that said “my other ride is your mom” on it; according to the briefing his employer had given him, the theme was “teen beach party but without the singing”.

The job was going to be a piece of cake.

Guests were scattered around Foolish’s summer home, holding drinks and plates of food. Punz snagged a white claw, nodding his head in time to the music. He surveyed the crowd, looking for his employer. He caught sight of him standing at the bar, and headed over. Right before he was at proper speaking distance, someone rammed into his shoulder from behind.

“Out of my way old man.”

“Fucking- Purpled?”

“Language, Punz.” Badboyhalo, standing at the bar, looked over at both of them. “Oh, we’ll look who it is! I feel like I haven’t seen either one of you muffinheads in ages! Come on in boys, let me buy you some lemonade!” He grabbed both of them by the shoulders and ordered Purpled a lemonade and Punz a “special lemonade”.

“You don’t go to parties.” Punz spoke past bbh to Purpled.

“Neither do you.” Purpled replied. “So what the fuck are you doing here?”

“I go to parties. You don’t know what I do on Saturday nights.” Punz said, grabbing the special lemonade and taking a sip then pulling a face. Apparently bad’s version of “special lemonade” was just adding more sugar. “But you’re a kid. And I haven’t seen you in years. So what the fuck are you doing here?”

Purpled wasn’t stupid. But he suspected something stupid was going on. “Bad…”

“Boys!” Bad said suddenly. “I have to show you something over in a corner where no one can overhear us! Please, come with me!”

“You were a lot better at being subtle when you were egged.” Purpled told him, but he and Punz followed him anyway.

“Well, I’m so excited to see that you’re both here on time for your job!” Bad clapped his hands. “This is gonna be such a good troll!”

Punz and Purpled stared at Bad, and then each other. “Did you hire both of us?” They said at the same time.

“Yes!” Bad cackled. “Oh, I’m so good at trolling! Not only am I gonna get Foolish so good, but I also pranked both of you! It’s like when you order pizza from two different delivery services and they arrive at the same time! This is fantastic!”

Punz had his head in his hands. Purpled looked so done.

“But! It gets better!” Bad continued. “Now that you’re both here, it’s time for a little competition!”

“Bad, I’ve killed many people and you’ve hired me to play a game?” Punz asked through his hands.

“Bad, I’ve double crossed you and killed people, and you’ve hired me to win a game?” Purpled asked, pulling out his phone to play fruit ninja.

“The game is simple.” Bad ignored them both. “Whoever gets the most gold blocks from here wins twice the amount of payment.”

That got their attention. Punz took his face out of his hands. Purpled turned his phone off.

“Bad, how can you afford to do this?” Punz asked in concern, although he was already scoping out the nearest gold blocks.

“Dude, shut up, Skeppy is his sugar daddy, clearly.” Purpled snapped, mentally mapping out a path across the dance floor.

“Well, get to it, muffinheads!” Bad, who clearly wasn’t listening, clapped his hands again, and the two mercenaries took off. Punz headed for the nearest gold block, and Purpled took off to a shady corner.

“This is so fucking stupid.” Purpled muttered, taking out his pickaxe.

Running into each other was inevitable, and it happened when they both mined into different sides of Foolish’s sphinx to get to his chests.

“Fuck off, old man.” Purpled began opening chests.

Punz rolled his eyes and hurled a throwing knife at Purpled’s back. It missed him by millimeters, as Purpled jumped to the side at the last second.

“I’m a kid you can’t hurt me!”

“You’re 18, you little slimeball.” Punz whispered angrily.

“Slime? No, I killed him.”

“What?”

“What?”

“Anyway.” Punz continued. “Go find your own spot. This place is mine.”

“Fuck no!” Purpled took off for the stairs at the other end of the room and ran down them. Punz followed, and they found themselves in a huge room filled with gold blocks. They gasped in sync, looked at each other, and started mining as fast as they could.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Purpled and Punz looked up after fifteen minutes of solid mining to see the totem man himself, Foolish, looking down at them with crossed arms.

“Foolish! Baby! Aren’t you looking dashing tonight!” Punz instantly said, standing up and looking him up and down.

“Yes, thank you, but I’d love to know why you two are touching my gold.” Foolish tilted his head dangerously.

“We’re cleaning them, of course.” Punz gave Foolish his most charming smile.

“Def.” Purpled confirmed, miming shining a block with his shirt.

“Gold cleaning? I didn’t even know gold needed to be cleaned.” Foolish looked confused.

“We’re doing a free sample.” Purpled said.

“Yeah, and you can’t see it until we’re finished.” Punz began leading Foolish back up the stairs, waving at Purpled to keep mining. “Now, if you ever want to get your abs cleaned, that’s a service that only I provide…”

“Ew.” Purpled said when Punz returned.

“Ew? Are you ew-ing me flirting with Foolish? What are you, homophobic?” Punz mined a few more blocks.

“No, I hate love equally.” Purpled handed Punz half of the blocks.

Punz looked down at the blocks and then at Purpled. “Listen, we both have our strengths and weaknesses here. There’s no denying that we’re both great at this. How about we split the profit?”

“Better idea.” Purpled said. “How about we just get the same amount of blocks, and then when we tie, we just demand that we both get double the money. Stonks.”

Punz laughed. “Now that’s innovation. Let’s do it.”

“Bad! Bad!”

Elbowing each other, Punz and Purpled ran over to Bad, who was drinking yet another lemonade.

“Oh, my bestest friends in the entire world!” Bad’s words were a little slurred, and he spilled lemonade all over Punz’s shirt while trying to give him a hug.

“Here’s my blocks.” Purpled tossed a bag of gold to him. “100 gold blocks. Read it and weep, dipshit.” He snarled at Punz.

“Language!” Bad hiccuped. “What about you, Punz?”

“I also got 100 blocks.” Punz handed his bag over to Bad. “Oh no! We tied! What ever shall we do?”

“Oh muffins!” Bad sighed.

“I have an idea that I came up with just now: how about you give us both extra money because we did so well and tied?” Purpled suggested.

“Oh, I suppose so. Here you go.” Bad counted out a bunch of money and diamonds and handed a stack to each mercenary.

“Now that was a real gamer moment.” Punz muttered to Purpled as they walked away from the party.

“That’s cringe, you’re cringe, I’m going to kill you the next time I see you.” Purpled flipped him off and tridented out into the sea.

[beccascribbles]

totally inspired by ur omegaverse manager going into heat it is literally a masterpiece!! could you maybe do the same prompt but for seijoh in honor of oikawa's ear making an appearance🥺been thirsting for seijoh content lately sos

a/n - writing this a little (sorry, a lot) later so it's in honour of his ear and his 5 seconds of fame. also i'm really pleased you enjoyed it!! i had a great time writing it (first time in a while that i finished a fic in one sitting). hope you enjoy this one :)

Managing Seijoh was an experience, one that you were sure you would look back on with fond memories in the future. However, at the moment, it was borderline undesirable. A group of omegas and betas surrounded you, pressing letters and gifts into your arms.

"Please give this to Oikawa," one of them begged, placing a carefully wrapped parcel on the top.

You forced a smile onto your lips, peering around the stack in your arms to look at the people surrounding you. Voice filled with false kindness, you spoke, "I'll hand deliver these to him straight away. I'm sure Tooru will really appreciate it."

That last sentence was a lie. It had been a while since the gifts Oikawa received hadn't been shared between the team, particularly the food which was likely to feature heavily in the pile. A chorus of thanks followed you down the corridor, and your smile dropped as soon as you turned the corner.

"Dumb fan club," you grumbled, fighting the urge to throw the pile of gifts into the next bin you saw. You couldn't understand why they always came to you, why they begged you to hand him the gifts when he would likely appreciate it more if they were given to him in person. You kicked open the door of the gym, yelling out, "Delivery!"

Heads turned in your direction, volleyballs hitting the floor as everyone stopped practicing and jogged towards you. Iwaizumi removed a majority of the gifts from your hold, going to place them on the bench, and shooting Oikawa a glare, jerking his head in your direction. Begrudgingly, Oikawa took the last few gifts from you and placed them where Iwaizumi had placed the others.

"There any food there?" questioned Kyoutani, picking up a parcel wrapped with a teal ribbon. He sniffed it, nose wrinkling as the scent of an omega filled his nose. Then, he threw it to the side and grunted, "Tell me when you find the food."

"They smell a bit sickly, don't they?" you giggled, giving him a nudge with your elbow. Kyoutani simply nodded, moving away to sit on the floor, back leaning against the wall. You turned to Oikawa, hands resting on your hips. "I expect adequate payment for the hassle this caused me."

"Does my love and affection forever count?" he beamed, wrapping an arm around your shoulder and tugging you into his side. You simply glared at him, arms crossing over your chest. He chose to ignore your clear displeasure at his reply.

"You think way too highly of yourself, Loserkawa," smirked Iwaizumi, throwing a gift his way. Oikawa caught the item, cringing at the small piece of fabric that dangled from his finger. It was dainty, a delicate lace.

"Clearly that one was just meant for you," snickered Hanamaki as Oikawa held the item upwards, taking it in from a different angle.

"y/n?" he questioned, holding it out to. "Could be a good addition to your wardrobe."

"Fuck off," you snapped, turning away from him to grab a bin bag. You shoved it towards him. "Throw it in here."

As Oikawa disposed of the item, Matsukawa could be heard opening a parcel. He pulled out a DVD from the remains, peering at what was written on the case. He mumbled, "Watch when you're alone?"

"Oi, Oikawa!" he called, drawing his attention. Oikawa skipped over, clearly expecting something good. "I think someone sent you a video of themselves. Send us your reactions, yeah?"

Oikawa snatched the DVD from Matsukawa, throwing it into the bin, his nose wrinkled in disgust. He whined, "Where's the food? Why have they all got so much worse?"

With a sigh, deciding you had tortured Oikawa and delayed practice enough, you clapped your hands together. "Shoo. Get back to practice and I'll sort this shit out. All offending items will be binned. Only food will be kept."

By the time you had sorted through all the items, the bin bag was full, full enough that it required you to take it out. Only a small pile of food had been found, barely enough to share between the team. You supposed you would forgo your portion in favour of ensuring the first years got something. They were always hesitant to dive in, letting the third years take control. Kyoutani was also threatening, growling at any who got too close to the food he had acquired. You stood up, grabbing the bin bag and hefting it over one shoulder.

A sigh escaped from your lips as you pushed the door open. Maybe Oikawa could start requesting food, you contemplated, shifting the bin bag into your other hand. The weight was surprising considering the items you’d had to dispose of. Honestly, a part of you still couldn’t wrap your head around what Oikawa had received. How could they think Oikawa would appreciate that?

You grunted, swinging the bag into the larger bin around the back of the gym. Stepping back, you dusted your hands off, stretching slightly. As you turned to head back to the gym, a sharp, unfamiliar scent filled your nose. It burnt your nostrils, reeked of aggression and anger. The rational part of you told you to leave, to return to the safety of the gym. But the other part of you, the part that told you to help others, kept you rooted in place.

"Hello?" you questioned, inhaling deeply as you attempted to pinpoint their location. Judging by the strength of the scent, they were close to your location, somewhere to the left of you. You stepped in that direction. "Are you okay?"

A growl cut through the air, and you halted, eyes widening as you saw an alpha leant against the wall, hands clenched into fists. He was panting, nails cutting through the skin of his palm. He looked up, catching your eye and pleading with you. "Stay the fuck away from me. Please. Stay away."

It clicked for you then. The sharp scent growing more prominent, the aggression, the desperation with which he pleaded with you. Immediately, you clamped down on your scent, tugging it in as much as you could and ensuring it didn't head in the alpha's direction. You had to question whether bringing more alphas to him would be an aid. Knowing Oikawa, he would feel the alpha going into rut was a threat and would act aggressive in return. Matsukawa and Iwaizumi would likely be no better if they perceived them to be a direct threat to you. Kyoutani was usually aggressive at the best of times. It went against your better judgement to involve any of the first years. They were too young to be exposed to such danger. Actually, it went against your better judgement to involve any of the team. All you should do, you reasoned, was inform the coaches quietly and keep it hidden from the team.

The longer you stood there contemplating, the weaker you could feel yourself growing, a steady heat rising through your body. You cursed under your breath, a quiet fuck, before raising the volume of your voice. "Just stay here, okay? I'll send the coaches out to help you."

Slowly, you backed away, careful to avoid sending your scent towards him. Your scent was slowly growing sweeter, more enticing. It would cause him to lose his control, a situation neither of you wanted to be in. Judging by the tightening of his muscles and the way he launched a fist into the wall, he had caught a whiff of your change in scent.

"Get away," he growled, a low threatening sound. The spike in his scent told a different story, pheromones strengthening in an attempt to weaken you further.

Your throat felt tight, knees weak as you continued to retreat. Even at the door to the gym, his scent was overpowering. A desperate sound escaped your throat, a high-pitched whine as you collapsed against the door. Footsteps, quick and hurried, echoed from inside, the door being yanked open to reveal Oikawa, the rest of the team on his heels. His lips were drawn, teeth bared at the danger that was hidden from sight. A ferocious growl ripped from his throat at the smell of the alpha in rut.

"Coaches," you gasped, pointing in the alpha's direction. "Alpha. Rut. Get him. Safe."

Iwaizumi shot you a concerned look, picking up on your condition and the overwhelming scent of alpha around you. Oikawa's reeked of possessiveness, rising up to fight against that of the other alpha. Kyoutani's scent was pure anger. He was eager for a fight, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Matsukawa's scent was calm, but domineering enough to add to the scents already assaulting your nose. That was without mentioning the bitter smell of panic drifting from all the first years as they watched in fear.

"For fuck sake," he sighed, kneeling down to pick you up, cradling you to his chest. His soothing pine scent flooded your nose as you buried your face in his chest. A helpless sound escaped your lips as your hands curled into his top. Greedily, you drew in a deep breath, craning your neck up to brush your nose against the scent gland in his neck. Iwaizumi drew in a sharp breath, holding you closer. He looked up, making eye contact with Hanamaki and Watari, and jerking his head towards Oikawa and Kyoutani. "Keep them away from that alpha. I'm taking y/n somewhere safe. Yahaba, get the coaches. Kunimi, Kindaichi, head back into the gym and tidy up."

Iwaizumi didn’t remain long enough to see if the commands he had barked at the team had been followed. In his arms, you were slowly growing more feverish, your breathing coming out in heavy pants. All he could focus on was you. Your nose tickled the scent gland in his neck as you nuzzled against it, finding comfort there. It was a sharp contrast to the scents that had surrounded you previously. Iwaizumi had been the only one to not give in completely to his animalistic urges, his eyes immediately falling on you, his nose sensitive to the change in your scent. His first instinct was to take you to the medical room. However, he knew that you would feel safer at home, within the confines of your nest.

It was fortunate this wasn’t a usual heat. Your body had reacted to the overpowering scent of a young alpha’s rut, preparing you for what may have happened had the young alpha not had so much restraint. It was a defence mechanism, one meant to protect you from what could have been a traumatic experience. Therefore, your body would calm down once you were removed from the situation. As he turned towards the gate, you let out a whimper, “Locker room, Haji. Smells good.”

That whimper was all it took for him to change direction once again, heading towards the room. It wouldn’t be comfortable, but it was clear you craved the scents within there. After all, the team was your pack. You felt safe with them. His mind whirled as he tried to think of how to make it more comfortable. Iwaizumi knew Oikawa had some spare tops in his locker which could help form a cushion. He supposed he could place a couple different training jackets on the floor for you to rest on. His own he would use as a blanket.

Carefully, he placed you on the floor, leaning you against the wall and wrapping his jacket around your form. He brushed a kiss to the top of your head. “Just give me a second. The nest will be ready soon.”

“So hot, Haji,” you whined, tugging at the material of your thin t-shirt. Iwaizumi let out a sigh, scanning the locker room for anything that might cool you down. When he turned back around, you had removed your top and were curled up against the wall. He felt a flush rise to his cheeks, ducking his head as he finished laying the jackets down on the floor. Before moving you, he placed a hand to your forehead, feeling the heat radiating from you.

"Um, do you need a cold flannel?" he questioned, and you shook your head, reaching out to hold him, burying your face on his chest.

"No, just need you," you mumbled, pausing for a second before continuing. "And Tooru. And Issei. And Kentaro. And..."

"I know," he soothed, running a hand down your back, feeling the warmth of your bare skin against the roughness of his palm. "I know. The team will be here soon."

"Okay, Haji," you sighed, letting him pick up your weak body and lay you down on the nest of clothes he had prepared. You turned your nose into the t-shirts acting as your pillow, inhaling deeply when the scent of Oikawa hit your nose. Your hand reached out, grabbing loosely onto his top, stopping him from moving away from you. The continual tugging of his top hinted to him what you wanted. He lay down behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you back against his chest. As you felt yourself relax, felt your body steadily returning to normal, the door was thrown open.

Oikawa stormed in, coming to a halt when he saw you and Iwaizumi curled up on the floor together. He needed no prompting, joining you on the floor and draping an arm over you and Iwaizumi. Oikawa pressed a kiss to your forehead, then your cheek, letting out a pleased purr at the smile that tugged at your lips.

"Sorry about earlier," he mumbled, nuzzling his head into your neck. "Shouldn't have lost control. Should've been there for you."

"I had it handled, Shittykawa," grunted Iwaizumi. "Some of us can keep our alpha in check."

"You're so mean to me, Iwa-chan," whined Oikawa.

"He's not wrong, Tooru," you mumbled, though the kiss placed to his forehead showed there was no ill-will behind your agreement. You understood how hard it was to control your instincts, having fallen afoul to them yourself.

He stayed silent, letting his scent weave through the air around you, twining with Iwaizumi's. Just as you were settling in again, the door was thrown open, revealing the rest of the team. Matsukawa and Hanamaki collapsed onto the floor at you feet, the first and second years surrounding you. Kyoutani laid out behind Iwaizumi, partaking purely to help you and make you happy. Kunimi and Kindaichi curled up on the floor beside Matsukawa, while Watari and Yahaba laid down beside Oikawa. You let out a content sigh, breathing in the various scents.

Matsukawa traced patterns on your ankle with his fingertips, shooting you a lazy grin. "Feel better?"

"Much better," you said, another pleased sound escaping your lips. "Thank you."

"No need," said Kyoutani gruffly, rolling onto his side and propping up on one elbow so he could see your form.

"What are you accepting the apology for?" piped Yahaba, shooting a teasing smirk in Kyoutani's direction. "You did fuck all except getting angry."

"Shut up," growled Kyoutani, though he made no move to throw himself at Yahaba, mindful of you.

You felt a smile appear on your face at their interaction, the familiar sound of their arguing reminding you everything was normal and that you were safe.