#i will post the link of the fic here when we get there

[akawifeyy]

silly girl | smau (LN4)

description: the life of a comedian is full of laughter, but the biggest punchline? your experience with love.

tropes: chaos galore, he's obsessed with her, sunshine x sunshine, age gap (23 and 25), comedian!fem!reader

face claim: faith collins

trigger warnings: suggestive content, some mature jokes, swearing

| note: hehehe i love this fic 🫶

@ yourusername: dallas was incredible, i had the best time laughing with you all! a recorded video of tonight's show is posted at the link in my bio if you couldn't make it. see you next weekend in austin 😘

tagged: @ standupcomedy

comments (2567):

@ user1: Amazing shows! I went to Night 2 and I couldn't breathe, I was laughing so hard. Wish I bought tickets for the other two nights.

-> @ user2: sooo real, i got to see her in miami and i felt like my heart was going to explode from laughing

@ user3: Incredible job, so proud 💖

@ user4: Mother has fed us during this tour, I never want it to end

@ yourbffusername: SCREAMING CRYING, I love you SO much Y/N

@ f1: Just 3 more days until COTA! How are you gearing up for the Grand Prix?

tagged: @ mclaren, @ mercedes, @ redbullracing, & 6 more

comments (49584):

@ landonorris: Can't wait to be a cowboy again 🤠

@ user5: COTAAAA MY BELOVED

@ user6: so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@ user7: No because I'm actually a second away from crashing out because I just realized @ yourusername's show is at the same time as the Austin GP

-> @ user8: wait nonono you're joking 😭 i bought tickets too

10/19/25 at Y/N's Show (Transcript):

Y/N L/N: I feel like if I don't bring this up, the masses are going to come at me with pitchforks. (clearing throat) Today's a pretty big day in Austin. Um, Formula One is having its COTA Grand Prix.

Audience members: (whooping)

Y/N L/N: Yeah, looks like we have quite a few F1 fans in here. I'd kind of consider myself one, but please don't ask me what DRS stands for off the top of my head or what Ferrari's strategies are during races, because I wouldn't be able to tell you. But anyways, I found out that I scheduled this show at the same time as the GP.

Audience member: (loud yelling noise)

Y/N L/N: (breaks down laughing) Yep, I know. I'm sorry. I didn't realize. But I totally get it. Seeing a bunch of rich, hot men drive around in circles? Like, aw man, where did my pants go? I swear they were just on. (continues giggling) Seriously, though, some of those drivers? It should be illegal how attractive they are. Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris. Oh God, don't even get me started on Lando Norris.

Y/N L/N: (eyes widen dramatically) I never liked brunettes or Englishmen, but he might just make me change my mind.

Interview with Lando Norris (2025):

Interviewer: Have you seen the clips from Y/N L/N's most recent comedy show here in Austin?

Lando Norris: (laughs) Yes, I heard about it!

Interviewer: Thoughts?

Lando Norris: She's very funny. I like her sense of humor. But as for relationships, I have to focus on my racing, so I can't get distracted. Sorry!

10/20/25 at Y/N's Show (Transcript):

Y/N L/N: So... Yesterday's show. (makes popping sound with lips) Some of y'all, I feel like I need to ban you – and before you boo, let me explain why. I made jokes about Formula One drivers, and how hot they are, and a select few of you decided to out me? (mock gasp)

Y/N L/N: Yeah, I know! Fucking Lando Norris was interviewed about me! Isn't that insane? This ultra-rich motor sport driver was asked about some redhead girl who yaps for a living. And he called me funny? I need to put this on my resume.

Audience member: You two need to date!

Y/N L/N: The matchmaking is insane. Oh God, wait until my mother hears about this, then I'm actually cooked. I'm 23 years old, I have a lot of biological time left, but you're vultures! When is it going to end? And don't say, "When you get married to Lando Norris", because it's not happening. Sadly.

@ ynupdates: Contrary to popular belief, Y/N did have a boyfriend! This was way back in 2019 to 2022. His name is Emmett Ellgren, and they dated for three years until their mutual split. Since then, Y/N has poked fun at the relationship, but no substantial details have been released about their break up.

tagged: @ yourusername

comments (2942):

@ user9: HELP i forgot about emmett he's such an npc 😮‍💨

@ user10: emmett is no longer relevant to the lore

-> @ user2: The real man we should be paying attention to is Lando Norris

-> @ user8: i know omg 😭

comments (3842):

@ user11: They're both silly gooses, I'm scared to see the havoc they'll wreak together in McLaren 🥲

@ user12: i'll believe it when i see it

@ user13: Lando is too immature to have a stable girlfriend

-> @ user3: which is why Y/N's perfect, they'll be immature together 🥰

-> @ user4: This just proves you've never watched one of Y/N's shows before lmao

Y/N's Instagram Story (2025):

comments (8521):

@ user13: OMG OMG OMG IT'S STARTING

-> @ user14: I'm so glad I get to be alive during the LandoY/N era

@ user12: It'll be so funny if this turns out to be from Oscar or something 🙃

-> @ user15: HELP

Text Messages between Y/N and Lando (2025):

@ landonorris: P3 in Mexico! Awesome results

tagged: @ mclaren, @ f1, @ yourusername

comments (64312):

@ user16: ALERT ALERT Y/N HAS BEEN TAGGED

@ user13: guys i'm actually gonna combust 🫣🔥

-> @ user17: They're together, it has to be

@ yourusername: nice sombrero 😋

-> @ landonorris: Thank you!!!

Text Messages between Y/N and Lando (2025):

@ yourusername: hola mexico 🇲🇽

tagged: @ landonorris

comments (3846):

@ yourbffusername: Looks so fun!

-> @ yourusername: yes it was incredible

@ user10: laaandoooo i see you 👀

@ user18: How does it feel to be living my dream

@ landonorris: So glad you could make it, had a lot of fun talking to you

@ f1gossip: It is rumored that comedian Y/N L/N and McLaren driver Lando Norris are together, after Y/N posted a photo of her receiving paddock passes, and the pair responded to one another's posts about the Mexico Grand Prix.

tagged: @ yourusername, @ landonorris

comments (1293):

@ user9: i'm waitinggg

@ user10: this is worse than the wait for reputation tv

-> @ user18: clowning so hard i know 😖

@ user19: HAVE ANY OF YOU GUYS SEEN LANDO'S INSTA STORY? 🤯

Lando's Deleted Instagram Story:

comments (235):

@ user20: OMGOMGDSDKLSDDNS

@ user21: my eyes are not deceiving me, this is y/n

@ user5: Y/N IS THAT YOU 😳

@ landonorris: OK OK yes I give in, we are together. Happy one month, @ yourusername, I love you to the moon and back!

tagged: @ yourusername

comments (34852):

@ user21: classic Lando accidentally posting the wrong thing and outing himself

-> @ user22: idk what else we would expect from chaos incarnate 😭

@ yourusername: love you too, muppet 😘

Interview with Lando Norris (2025):

Interviewer: So, you've just recently announced that you're dating Y/N L/N!

Lando Norris: Yes, I'm really happy about it.

Interviewer: Any plans to bring her to the next race?

Lando Norris: Maybe, we'll see. (laughs and smiles) The paddock is a lot cheerier when she's there, so hopefully, fingers crossed. I'm very, very lucky to call her mine.

─── ୨୧ ─── THE END ─── ୨୧ ───

[elodieunderglass]

Would you like to be sent other people's Killie headcanons? I wasn't sure if that would be welcome or like stealing your toys.

(Killie the jockey oc)

Thank you so much for asking! I’m going to say something wild - that it’s fine if you understand the risks and agree to the conditions. Sorry for writing an essay about the conditions, but it interested me a lot - I want to welcome this spirit, and am also conscious that published authors don’t do this (however, I don’t want their job.)

Long story short: you can, but it’s not legally advisable, but fuck it, we ball.

Grownups share toys, and Killie exists to be rotated - and, when he achieves sufficient velocity, thrown briskly into an obstacle. Sharing this burden with others pleases me. I’ve already said an emphatic GO AHEAD to fanart and AU fanfic, so worrying about this too much would be a case of shutting the barn door after the horse has eaten it. We do a lot of riffing and yes-anding each other, which is the ENTIRE fun of talking about Killie, and is the ONLY reason he’d get a book anyway. And my approach to intellectual property is more collaborative-Goncharov than the inciting published-authors-shouldn’t-read-fic-incident (1990s drama with Marion Zimmer Bradley.)

Killie’s intended to have a little self-published, non-commercial book that isn’t written yet. If I was already planning to do something similar to your ideas, it might lead to awkwardness for both of us. I’m not saying it would - we are too mature and kind - but that’s the risk I don’t want you to take unknowingly. I do mean to create 1 piece of fixed canon material (plan for that here), for which I plan to charge sufficient money to reimburse the cost of the editor I plan to hire for it. So you would have to decide whether you’d like to risk your headcanon being canon. I will say upfront that there is zero risk of Killie being commercially viable (CAN YOU IMAGINE) so there’s no chance of anyone (including myself) getting paid for anything; it’s more about the idea of intellectual property. Your headcanons belong to you, and by kindly sharing them with someone who hasn’t written the canon yet, you risk a lot more than someone writing about a closed, distant work.

You don’t need approval or permission for headcanons. You don’t need approval from anybody to enjoy them.

Of course, half the pleasure of sharing headcanons is sharing them for connection and communication ARGH.

It would be great if you could share them somewhere else, without worrying about me being involved, but Killie’s entire fandom is the 20 of us, currently housed here, in my living room.

I do want to encourage you to do that (posting without telling me/discussing with other people). you don’t need my permission, and are welcome.

But I do understand Killie’s fandom is housed in my living room at the moment. As much as I intend for him to move out in the future, ideally into a small kennel in YOUR living room, it’s very natural for current observations of him to take place in my living room.

(Could he please move into your living room, the kennel is very small)

Thus, here is my policy:

If you send me a headcanon, please understand that you are voluntarily and freely releasing your idea, in the spirit of willing sharing. There is a very slight risk that your headcanon will overlap with something in the unpublished Killie book, so you’ll have to agree that you understood this risk - and that I don’t owe you anything, if it’s similar.

If you have a very good idea that would be absolutely load-bearing, I’d like to reach out for a mutually consensual permissions statement to use it. You would have the ability to decline. Agreeing to its use would involve you getting full credit for the idea, my warm thanks for sharing it, a link to your blog in online material, the admiration of everyone reading the credits, and probably nothing else will be in my power. Payment is unlikely. Co-authorship is not on the table, as I can’t write checks I can’t cash (I.e. I can’t promise to pay someone with credit on a product that might not happen.)

submission of writing prompts is done freely in the tumblr context, and I’m going to make the formal statement that a prompt does not grant co-ownership of the resulting work. Submission does not mean co-ownership - if you submit a prompt, you’re giving me permission to use it in any way I like, with or without credit. At the moment, it’s all on tumblr and attached to usernames, but if the inspired work moves to another platform (I.e I include a comic in Killie’s book) I’ll endeavour to keep the credit to your tumblr handle. I plan to thank everyone who makes the work so possible and so delightful!

Once Killie has this completed piece of work out (working title Throw Your Heart Over) he’ll be fair game. Literally hunt him for sport with my blessing 👍

I would then put him in a hamster ball and kick him down the stairs step back a bit because I think it could be a bit oxygen-smothering when creators are TOO involved - I’d like to respond to asks, but would not want to know what people were saying elsewhere- but once moved out of my living room, Killie will no longer be my personal problem.

Death of the Author voluntarily. Pls.

I was thinking of licensing him as Creative Commons anyway, but he still needs to move out of my living room and get his own address for that. At any rate, then, it will be chill for all of us to do whatever. Intellectual property WHOMST. The only thing would be I don’t want him sold without permission.

The intention of Killie is mental freedom and growth of identity; if I hogged him all to myself, I’d break that intention, and he’d rightfully stop working for me.

In conclusion, by willingly sharing a headcanon WITH ME, you agree that you get: small but high-quality connection, engagement, my admiration, hoots of amusement, tears, maybe a comic in response.

You do not get paid, you don’t get co-authorship or have any ownership.

If your headcanon accidentally matches a canon statement that I haven’t publicly made yet, you’ll have done very well by guessing foreshadowing, but unfortunately receive nothing. Guessing canon in advance does not mean that you gave me the idea, and you have agreed that by sharing it willingly.

If your headcanon solves a plot problem, I might reach out for permission to use it, with the conditions that I can only realistically offer credit for the idea. You’ll have the right to decline, and the paper trail showing that you did.

You will have no way of knowing if I am lying, and by freely sharing headcanons, you accept that risk. (I don’t intend to steal and lie - I’m a goddamn grownup with a day job, I think we’re friendly and trust each other, I’m writing a novel as a present to you, specifically, @thethirdromana - but the risk can’t be ignored.)

If you share your headcanon with other people, I don’t need to know, and don’t need to be invited.

Once Killie’s published, you can eat him for breakfast.

Hope this all makes sense, and I’m sure published authors would be gnawing their nails in horror reading this, which they won’t, because it’s 20 people in my living room and won’t make any money.

Regardless of what you choose to do, I cannot thank you enough for joining me, sharing your heart and attention, and for the gift of your support.

[imagining-in-the-margins]

Undercover Challenge 🕵️

Hey everyone, I’m back with another monthly challenge! For the months of March AND April, I am formally challenging any willing writer to take a stab at writing fanfiction including someone undercover using their choice of Criminal Minds characters! Reader, Original Character, Character/Character ships, Gen/Platonic fics are allowed! Please check out the Rules below the Keep Reading.

There are prompts below the cut, so keep going!

(**This is NOT a request list for me—this is a prompt list of other writers! Feel free to request from someone else, and be sure to let them know about the challenge!)

General Prompts 🔍

Characters go undercover as a married couple.

A goes undercover as an escort to gain intel on B.

A feigns distress while undercover and is surprised when B saves them.

A goes undercover as a sex worker. B is shocked by their sexual persona.

Halloween masks offer the perfect opportunity to snoop on your coworkers.

A is excelling at their undercover work... until B shows up, also undercover.

Character goes undercover to a mystic who immediately identifies them as a spy.

A struggles with the more psychopathic aspects of their undercover work. B doesn't.

Character becomes close with their agent handler... they've never felt so cared for before.

Character is an investigative journalist trying to learn about the inner workings of the BAU.

It would be a lot easier to pretend if Character wasn't actually in love with their partner.

A thinks they've successfully tricked B... when B leans forward and speaks directly into their wire.

Character is surprised when their undercover partner is very good at pretending to be in love with them.

A becomes worries when B gets injured on an undercover mission that they were supposed to go on instead.

Character goes undercover as a stripper. This is how everyone learns they already knew how to pole dance.

Characters are both undercover, but think the other is in the organization they're investigating. They learn nothing.

Anything else you can think of!

Dialogue Prompts 🔍

"It's not real." / "It feels real."

"You should dress like that more often."

"You look... different." / "That's kind of the point."

“Did you really think this was going to work on me?”

“Your diamond ring is fake.” / “So is the engagement.”

"Maybe in another universe, I could’ve been different."

"You haven't even scratched the surface of my skillsets.”

“I’m just acting.” / “Oh? So you can make your heart race on command?”

“We should focus on the mission.” / “I’m trying, but you’re making it very difficult.”

“I know you have to go undercover, but do you really have to dress like that?” / “No, but I look good, don’t I?”

Rules

Your fic can be a Reader insert, an Original Character, a character/character ship, a platonic ship, or a Gen fic. It can feature any Criminal Minds character. AUs and crossovers are more than welcome.

Tag me in the fic, or send the link to me in a Direct Message. It can be already written, or you can write it for the challenge - I collect both! You can also tag “#mentioningmargins”

The fic can be any genre, but ONLY send me smut if your bio states you are 18+. I DO NOT WANT smut written by minors. Ever. At all. I will check. Platonic ships and pure, fluffy fics are 100% allowed. Please also include some indication of rating if it is NSFW.

Please include Content Warnings and a one-sentence Summary of the fic in your post. For xReader fics, PLEASE specify if your reader is Female, Male, or Gender Neutral.

Have fun!

The Masterlist of fics will (hopefully) be posted around April 30 If you finish after that, no problem - just send me the fic once you’re done and I’ll add it after-the-fact!

Feel free to message me if you want help developing a plot, have any questions, or just want to gush about your fic. I’m happy to help, and I’m happy you’re here ❤️

Happy writing!

[veltana]

Cate's Creation Celebration

Hello and welcome to my first ever writing event! 🫣😅😨😵

My birthday happens to fall the day before Walpurgis Night. Where I'm from we celebrate with friends, watching bonfires, listening to choirs and getting absolutely shitfaced. So we're going to combine that with the myth and folklore of Walpurgis Night and have ourselves a creation celebration! Are you going to confess to your best friend by the flames of the fire, or are you going to get snared by a dark warlock?

There are two parts of this! A writing event and submitting a writing request. For both you need to be +18 to participate. There needs to be some indication of your age in the bio of your blog.

If you want to submit a writing request, you can find the form here. Your askbox needs to be open to be able to participate. Read the rules in the form before submitting.

If you want to participate in the writing event please see the details below!

General details

The writing event is open to the end of May (but I'll accept late entries)

All entries will be put into an event masterlist.

Rules

I read for Sebastian Stan, Chris Evans and sometimes Henry Cavill characters. I'm open to reading other fandoms but no RPF.

Only reader-insert fics. Please use inclusive language and tag accordingly so everyone can have fun!

You don't have to claim a prompt but please keep to the theme of the event.

10k maximum word limit. Please put your fic under a cut after a reasonable amount of words!

Your fic can be part of a series but must be able to be read as a standalone piece.

No fucking AI fics.

No incest, grooming, underage, watersports/scat, vomit, necrophilia, cannibalism, bestiality or similar types of yucky stuff.

Otherwise works can be any genre (fluff, smut, angst ect), just make sure to include appropriate warnings. I do reserve the right to not read and/or reblog something that makes me uncomfortable. I'm not much for really dark fics or whump.

If you only post to AO3 then please send me a link or something so I don't miss it!

Tag @veltana when you post your fic and include #catescreationcelebration in the tags!

Here are some prompts to get the wheels turning!

Dialogue (you're free to change tense):

"Did you put a spell on me!?"

"If magic made wishes come true, what would you wish for?"

"Are you alone out here?"

"You have no idea what forces you're playing with."

"I can't pretend anymore."

"I'm doing this for you!"

"I'm not supposed to fall for someone like you."

"It's really hot."

"Our love will either save the world or doom it."

"Is that a pentagram?"

"Don't tempt me."

"You're not supposed to be here."

"You're adorable."

"Do you feel it? The pull between us?"

"Ugh, I hate this!"

"I'm not just your protector, I'm bound to you."

"I'm really cold."

"I warned you, being near me comes with a price."

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

"You're the only light in my dark world."

"I gave up my soul for you."

"I've always wanted to summon a demon."

"You deserve to know."

"I've heard your voice in my dreams."

"The moon has whispered your name to me."

"Oh... oh!"

"I can give you anything you desire, but there is a price."

"Who are you?"

Setting/AU:

Bookstore

Bonfire celebration

Sacrificial ceremony

Cursed/Enchanted forest

Café

Academia

Soulmate

Abandoned cottage

Moonlit grove

Demon

Priest/Priestess

Monster

Omegaverse

Ritual

Warlock/Witch

Tropes:

Friends to lovers

Enemies to lovers

Forced proximity

Fake relationship

Secret relationship

Second-chance

Marriage of convenience

Arranged marriage

Fated mates

Only one bed

Amnesia

Professor/Student

Idiots in love

Fuck or die

Haaaave fuuuuuun~

[builtbybrokenbells]

Oh! We’re sharing food for thought! Lucky for you, anon—I have fucking lots.

Without fear of sounding like a broken record, I’ll say it again with my whole chest: what gives you the right to sit behind an anonymous function with your own cowardice bleeding you dry, trying to tear someone down who makes literal art for you to consume for free?

Don’t read it bestie, because clearly it’s not for you! ❤️

I will sit here, every single time I get that post notification, with the utmost of excitement and gratitude for this wonderful person as I prepare to read each and every one of those 50k words. I will sit here, overflowing with pride for my fantastic, beautiful, talented, amazing friend who worked her ass off to write those 50k words. I will cheer her on, reblog, comment, tag, recommend, and even read it all over again because I can feel the heart and soul that went into creating this through the screen, and I think everyone should experience the beauty of her work. At the end of it all, I always find myself wishing that it was even longer, because it’s never enough for me.

As a person who loves to see the best in people, I wanted to believe you sat in front of your keyboard, typed this out, read it over and sent it in some backhanded rendition of constructive criticism. When I read that back, I realize how fucking ridiculous it sounds.

You wrote that with ill intent, hoping to tear down and hurt. You wrote that for no other reason than to be miserable, and the only reason you had the nerve to do it was because you didn’t have to show your name or face. You are a miserable person with a me-first mentality who thinks the world revolves around you. If you had any respect for the people who provide you with your free, captivating, inspiring content, you would have scrolled past or kept quiet and enjoyed it anyway, in one perfectly fine chapter.

But you don’t have respect, nor do you have any class. You also don’t have any right to tell an author how to write their story, yet you’re doing it anyway. I suppose that ties in with the first two elements of life you’re greatly lacking in.

You wonder where all the fic writers are, why we have no desire to post or share or respond to messages or requests, and then you send shit like this. If you want a story written a certain way, I guess it’s time for you to pick up a pen.

@joshym is more than just a beautiful, envy-inducing author with skill I couldn’t begin to comprehend. She’s a beautiful person with a radiant heart and soul that brightens anyone’s day just by existing. It’s not hard to see that, and a simple scroll of her blog could tell you that alone. To intentionally want to tear down such a wonderful person makes it all the worse, anon.

To the author that I love so dearly—keep writing, as much or as little as you want, and post your chapters however you see fit. I would wait my whole life for the next chapter of Le Morte, whether it be in 6 parts or one, real long one. In fact, I’d read it if you linked a Google doc with the whole damn thing. No word count could scare me off, because I truly love and appreciate your writing. I will make the time, I will read just as eagerly and appreciatively, because I love this story.

Don’t you ever think that what you do is less than perfect, because there’s lots of people here who feel the same as I do 🫶🏻

Listen, your story is good. However it can be a little off putting to see a word count like that. One single chapter being almost 50 thousand is too much. It’s overwhelming as a reader to see that. There was no reason you couldn’t split that into even three more chapters. It makes me not want to read it honestly. I bet you could even post more frequently if you made the parts shorter. Your writing is really good but just a little food for thought

well.

i guess the nice thing about this is you really don’t have to read it all at once. don’t even have to read it at all if you truly don’t want to. i’m not entirely sure what the point is that you’re trying to make here — are you implying i’ve given you too much for free? i wasn’t aware that was a problem, if i’m being honest. i mean, thanks for the compliment, though it feels incredibly backhanded & i’m not flattered in the least. not really sure what to do with this one.

anon, i wish you understood what this story truly means to me & what an unnecessary comment like this feels like when i’ve worked for months on this last update. it just kind of hurts, dude.

[sydneyofalltrades]

huh, what if i did another challenge?

for 1k notes, y’alls will get an rtc oneshot collection fanfic, and all of you will get to put in a submission

EDIT: deadline is february 17, so i really don’t expect 1k notes on this post but leggo

EDITED EDIT: https://archiveofourown.org/works/53795932/chapters/136163545

here’s the fanfic!!

[muzzlemouths]

lol. lmao. i'm actually getting this chapter out today huh

[sunfloweraro]

Stormy Nights

Wind and Bunny both hate storms. Tonight, Wind’s overprotective older brother instincts (mostly) win out.

Tagging: @thatonecrazysidekick @tiredgaytheatrekid <3

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 .

Once he had shucked his sopping wet day clothes, strung them out to dry, and thrown on his comfortable pyjamas, Wind settled by the fire, inching a little closer when lightning lit up the room. Maybe, if he pushed himself close enough, the crackle and warmth and light of the fire would banish the storm from where it crawled over his shoulders and pierced his memories.

Another boom. Wind flinched, squeezing his eyes shut against the painful memories pressing up against the backs of his eyelids. Tried to focus on the warmth and the crackle of the fire washing over him and not the hard wooden floorboards of the ship swaying beneath him and—

A small sound. Wind looked up, curious. At some point, Twilight had dropped Bunny off beside him to dry and settle. Alone, Bunny shook like a leaf in a gale. He had curled up into a tight, likely painful ball, his face pressed down into his front paws and his eyes squeezed shut, just as Wind’s had been seconds ago. Another soft sound—a cry from Bunny, weak and whimpering.

Wind gasped, understanding washing over him.

“Hey,” Wind said, just loud enough to be heard over the storm. “Everything alright, Bunny?”

Bunny’s head whipped up. He stared at Wind with wide violet eyes, glistening with unshed tears, and Wind’s heart twisted. He had never seen an animal cry before.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” He shifted closer, but didn’t yet touch Bunny. He had seen the bandages on Warriors’ hand, had seen the nasty wound left behind by Bunny’s teeth. “Are you scared of the storm, little guy?”

Another boom of thunder that Wind barely noticed under his heavy concern for the rabbit. Bunny, however, let out a cry, scurrying closer to Wind and burying his face in Wind’s leg, hiding away.

“Aw, that’s okay,” Wind murmured. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Do you mind if I…” Carefully, he set a hand over Bunny’s shaking back. When Bunny leaned into his touch, he swept the rabbit up into his arms, cradling him close and pressing Bunny’s little face into his shoulder. “There you go. I’ve got you. I’ll keep you safe.” Under his comfort, Bunny’s shakes began to settle quickly, and Wind understood Hyrule and Twilight’s infatuation with their newest member—Bunny was so soft and perfect to cuddle, and if his older brother protectiveness was running this high after mere minutes of interacting with the rabbit, then he could only imagine how whipped the other two were. And as Bunny heaved a sigh and relaxed completely into him, Wind knew he could die for this sweet little rabbit.

Lost in soothing Bunny as he was, Wind wasn’t prepared for another booming crack of thunder. He jumped with a soft eep!, head whipping around, wide eyes fixated on the outside world. With no doors in the stable, he could see the pounding rain, the world lit up by strikes of lightning. Fear turned in his chest. His breaths quickened.

Bunny let out a whine.

Immediately, Wind loosened his hold on the poor rabbit. “Sorry, sorry. Guess the storm startled me. Are you alright? That was a big one.”

Bunny was watching him thoughtfully, calm as ever under Wind’s comfort. He had been told Bunny was a little more intelligent that most beasts, but Wind hadn’t expected for the rabbit to be staring at him with genuine concern in his eyes.

That wasn’t any normal animal. Not even Wolfie seemed to understand to this degree, though Wind had his suspicions about the wolf.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Wind said, rather than the millions of questions in the back of his mind. “I’ll keep you safe tonight, okay? I promise. You can always come to me if this happens again—there’s no shame in asking for help.”

Bunny nodded slowly, another pebble on the ever-growing pile of Wind’s questions. But for tonight, with the raging storm outside, he would leave it be. He had a new friend to keep safe.

And if he comforted himself in the process, well then, no one else needed to know.

[ekingston]

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

I am on my knees begging you to reblog this post and to stop reblogging the original ones I sent out yesterday. This is the complete account with all the most recent info; the other one is just sending people down senselessly panicked avenues that no longer lead anywhere.

IN SHORT

Cliff Weitzman, CEO of Speechify and (aspiring?) voice actor, used AI to scrape thousands of popular, finished works off AO3 to list them on his own for-profit website and in his attached app. He did this without getting any kind of permission from the authors of said work or informing AO3. Obviously.

When fandom at large was made aware of his theft and started pushing back, Weitzman issued a non-apology on the original social media posts—using 

his dyslexia; 

his intent to implement a tip-system for the plagiarized authors; and 

a sudden willingness to take down the work of every author who saw my original social media posts and emailed him individually with a ‘valid’ claim,

as reasons we should allow him to continue monetizing fanwork for his own financial gain.

When we less-than-kindly refused, he took down his ‘apologies’ as well as his website (allegedly—it’s possible that our complaints to his web host, the deluge of emails he received or the unanticipated traffic brought it down, since there wasn’t any sort of official statement made about it), and when it came back up several hours later, all of the work formerly listed in the fan fiction category was no longer there. 

THE TAKEAWAYS

1. Cliff Weitzman (aka Ofek Weitzman) is a scumbag with no qualms about taking fanwork without permission, feeding it to AI and monetizing it for his own financial gain; 

2. Fandom can really get things done when it wants to, and 

3. Our fanworks appear to be hidden, but they’re NOT DELETED from Weitzman’s servers, and independently published, original works are still listed without the authors' permission. We need to hold this man responsible for his theft, keep an eye on both his current and future endeavors, and take action immediately when he crosses the line again. 

THE TIMELINE, THE DETAILS, THE SCREENSHOTS (behind the cut)

Sunday night, December 22nd 2024, I noticed an influx in visitors to my fic You & Me & Holiday Wine. When I searched the title online, hoping to find out where they came from, a new listing popped up (third one down, no less):

This listing is still up today, by the way, though now when you follow the link to word-stream, it just brings you to the main site. (Also, to be clear, this was not the cause for the influx of traffic to my fic; word-stream did not link back to the original work anywhere.)

I followed the link to word-stream, where to my horror Y&M&HW was listed in its entirety—though, beyond the first half of the first chapter, behind a paywall—along with a link promising to take me—through an app downloadable on the Apple Store—to an AI-narrated audiobook version. When I searched word-stream itself for my ao3 handle I found both of my multi-chapter fics were listed this way:

Because the tags on my fics (which included genres* and characters, but never the original IPs**) weren’t working, I put ‘Kara Danvers’ into the search bar and discovered that many more supercorp fics (Supergirl TV fandom, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor pairing) were listed.

I went looking online for any mention of word-stream and AI plagiarism (the covers—as well as the ridiculously inflated number of reviews and ratings—made it immediately obvious that AI fuckery was involved), but found almost nothing: only one single Reddit post had been made, and it received (at that time) only a handful of upvotes and no advice. 

I decided to make a tumblr post to bring the supercorp fandom up to speed about the theft. I draw as well as write for fandom and I’ve only ever had to deal with art theft—which has a clear set of steps to take depending on where said art was reposted—and I was at a loss regarding where to start in this situation.

After my post went up I remembered Project Copy Knight, which is worth commending for the work they’ve done to get fic stolen from AO3 taken down from monetized AI 'audiobook’ YouTube accounts. I reached out to @echoekhi, asking if they’d heard of this site and whether they could advise me on how to get our works taken down.

While waiting for a reply I looked into Copy Knight’s methods and decided to contact OTW’s legal department:

And then I went to bed.

By morning, tumblr friends @makicarn and @fazedlight as well as a very helpful tumblr anon had seen my post and done some very productive sleuthing:

@echoekhi had also gotten back to me, advising me, as expected, to contact the OTW. So I decided to sit tight until I got a response from them.

That response came only an hour or so later: 

Which was 100% understandable, but still disappointing—I doubted a handful of individual takedown requests would accomplish much, and I wasn’t eager to share my given name and personal information with Cliff Weitzman himself, which is unavoidable if you want to file a DMCA.

I decided to take it to Reddit, hoping it would gain traction in the wider fanfic community, considering so many fandoms were affected. My Reddit posts (with the updates at the bottom as they were emerging) can be found here and here.

A helpful Reddit user posted a guide on how users could go about filing a DMCA against word-stream here (to wobbly-at-best results)

A different helpful Reddit user signed up to access insight into word-streams pricing. Comment is here.

Smells unbelievably scammy, right? In addition to those audacious prices—though in all fairness any amount of money would be audacious considering every work listed is accessible elsewhere for free—my dyscalculia is screaming silently at the sight of that completely unnecessary amount of intentionally obscured numbers.

Speaking of which! As soon as the post on r/AO3—and, as a result, my original tumblr post—began taking off properly, sometime around 1 pm, jumpscare! A notification that a tumblr account named @cliffweitzman had commented on my post, and I got a bit mad about the gist of his message :

Fortunately he caught plenty of flack in the comments from other users (truly you should check out the comment section, it is extremely gratifying and people are making tremendously good points), in response to which, of course, he first tried to both reiterate and renegotiate his point in a second, longer comment (which I didn’t screenshot in time so I’m sorry for the crappy notification email formatting):

which he then proceeded to also post to Reddit (this is another Reddit user’s screenshot, I didn’t see it at all, the notifications were moving too fast for me to follow by then)

... where he got a roughly equal amount of righteously furious replies. (Check downthread, they're still there, all the way at the bottom.)

After which Cliff went ahead & deleted his messages altogether. 

It’s not entirely clear whether his account was suspended by Reddit soon after or whether he deleted it himself, but considering his tumblr account is still intact, I assume it’s the former. He made a handful of sock puppet accounts to play around with for a while, both on Reddit and Tumblr, only one of which I have a screenshot of, but since they all say roughly the same thing, you’re not missing much:

And then word-stream started throwing a DNS error.

That lasted for a good number of hours, which was unfortunately right around the time that a lot of authors first heard about the situation and started asking me individually how to find out whether their work was stolen too. I do not have that information and I am unclear on the perimeters Weitzman set for his AI scraper, so this is all conjecture: it LOOKS like the fics that were lifted had three things in common:

They were completed works;

They had over several thousand kudos on AO3; and

They were written by authors who had actively posted or updated work over the past year.

If anyone knows more about these perimeters or has info that counters my observation, please let me know!

I finally thought to check/alert evil Twitter during this time, and found out that the news was doing the rounds there already. I made a quick thread summarizing everything that had happened just in case. You can find it here.

I went to Bluesky too, where fandom was doing all the heavy lifting for me already, so I just reskeeted, as you do, and carried on.

Sometime in the very early evening, word-stream went back up—but the fan fiction category was nowhere to be seen. Tentative joy and celebration!***

That’s when several users—the ones who had signed up for accounts to gain intel and had accessed their own fics that way—reported that their work could still be accessed through their history. Relevant Reddit post here.

Sooo—

We’re obviously not done. The fanwork that was stolen by Weitzman may be inaccessible through his website right now, but they aren’t actually gone. And the fact that Weitzman wasn’t willing to get rid of them altogether means he still has plans for them. 

This was my final edit on my Reddit post before turning off notifications, and it's pretty much where my head will be at for at least the foreseeable future:

Please feel free to add info in the comments, make your own posts, take whatever action you want to take to protect your work. I only beg you—seriously, I’m on my knees here—to not give up like I saw a handful of people express the urge to do. Keep sharing your creative work and remain vigilant and stay active to make sure we can continue to do so freely. Visit your favorite fics, and the ones you’ve kept in your ‘marked for later’ lists but never made time to read, and leave kudos, leave comments, support your fandom creatives, celebrate podficcers and support AO3. We created this place and it’s our responsibility to keep it alive and thriving for as long as we possibly can.

Also FUCK generative AI. It has NO place in fandom spaces.

THE 'SMALL' PRINT (some of it in all caps):

*Weitzman knew what he was doing and can NOT claim ignorance. One, it’s pretty basic kindergarten stuff that you don’t steal some other kid’s art project and present it as your own only to act surprised when they protest and then tell the victim that they should have told you sooner that they didn’t want their project stolen. And two, he was very careful never to list the IPs these fanworks were based on, so it’s clear he was at least familiar enough with the legalities to not get himself in hot water with corporate lawyers. Fucking over fans, though, he figured he could get away with that. 

**A note about the AI that Weitzman used to steal our work: it’s even greasier than it looks at first glance. It’s not just the method he used to lift works off AO3 and then regurgitate onto his own website and app. Looking beyond the untold horrors of his AI-generated cover ‘art’, in many cases these covers attempt to depict something from the fics in question that can’t be gleaned from their summaries alone. In addition, my fics (and I assume the others, as well) were listed with generated genres; tags that did not appear anywhere in or on my fic on AO3 and were sometimes scarily accurate and sometimes way off the mark. I remember You & Me & Holiday Wine had ‘found family’ (100% correct, but not tagged by me as such) and I believe The Shape of Soup was listed as, among others, ‘enemies to friends to lovers’ and ‘love triangle’ (both wildly inaccurate). Even worse, not all the fic listed (as authors on Reddit pointed out) came with their original summaries at all. Often the entire summary was AI-generated. All of these things make it very clear that it was an all-encompassing scrape—not only were our fics stolen, they were also fed word-for-word into the AI Weitzman used and then analyzed to suit Weitzman’s needs. This means our work was literally fed to this AI to basically do with whatever its other users want, including (one assumes) text generation. 

***Fan fiction appears to have been made (largely) inaccessible on word-stream at this time, but I’m hearing from several authors that their original, independently published work, which is listed at places like Kindle Unlimited, DOES still appear in word-stream’s search engine. This obviously hurts writers, especially independent ones, who depend on these works for income and, as a rule, don’t have a huge budget or a legal team with oceans of time to fight these battles for them. If you consider yourself an author in the broader sense, beyond merely existing online as a fandom author, beyond concerns that your own work is immediately at risk, DO NOT STOP MAKING NOISE ABOUT THIS.

PLEASE check my later versions of this post via my main page to make sure you have the latest version of this post before you reblog. All the information I’ve been able to gather is in my reblogs below, and it's frustrating to see the old version getting passed around, sending people on wild goose chases.

Thank you all so much!

[artemisdesari-blog]

A writer friend told me something that broke my heart a little bit today; they're going to quit publishing their fanfic.

My instant thought was that they had been trolled or attacked or that something terrible had happened in their life because this person is so passionate about their writing. It wasn't any of that. Engagement with their works has been going down, as it has for many of us. Comments are like gold dust a lot of the time, and just looking through the historical comment counts on old fics on ao3 demonstrates this trend very clearly. It was not simply the comments dropping off which caused them to decide to stop posting, however.

My friend came across a discord server for their fandom (I should point out here that their fandom interest and mine diverged a couple of years ago, we stay in touch but don't currently read each other's posts because I'm not into their fandom and they would rather gouge their eyes out with a wooden spoon than read anything Star Wars) and specifically to share fic in that fandom. They joined, because we all love a good fic rec, only to discover that their latest multichapter fic, which has almost no comments and very few kudos, is being hotly discussed in this server as one of the best stories ever. Not one of these people has bothered to say this to them on the fic. When they asked, none of participants could see the point in telling the author of the fic they apparently loved so much that they love it.

This discovery has absolutely destroyed my friend's love of sharing fic. They share because they love seeing other people's enjoyment, and fic writers do that through comments and kudos/reblogs/likes because we don't get paid. There is no literary critic writing a blog post/article about how amazing the story is for us to copy and keep/frame. There is no money from royalties. All we have are the words of the people reading our works.

Those people on that server could have taken five minutes of the time they spent gushing about how amazing my friend's story was to other people and used it to tell the one person guaranteed to want to hear that praise how much they loved it. They could have taken a moment to express their opinion to the person who spent hours upon hours plotting, writing, editing, and posting those chapters. Instead, they deprived my friend of thing that keeps them sharing their writing, and in the process have killed their love of it. My friend now feels used and unmotivated.

I won't be sharing a link to their fic, they said I could share their experience but not their identity. I know they plan to post one final chapter. I know they intend to express their hurt at being excluded from the praise for the thing they created, and I know they intend to announce that as a consequence they will not be posting for a long while, if at all.

So please, I beg you, don't hide your love of a story from the writer. It's just about the only thing we have.

[pipermca]

New AO3 Tag Wrangling Policy and the Transformers Fandom

Edit in the event people come back to the original post: Please do not email AO3 about this issue. See their response about this issue!

(This is a long one, folks, but I think it's important.)

A new tag-wrangling policy on AO3 has the potential to create some massive confusion and chaos in the Transformers fanfic community, with regards to fandom tags. There is a Reddit post about it here with a focus on anime fandoms, but I want to give some concrete examples for the Transformers fandom on why we DO NOT WANT this, and why I think it's a horrible idea.

The Problem

Basically, AO3 is looking to get rid of the "All Media Types" fandom tag across the board, either by dismantling them or just not maintaining them. The Transformers - All Media Types tag has been an all-purpose tag that you could select when your story doesn't fall into any one specific continuity. Additionally, all most (see below) TF continuities on AO3 are considered a subtag of the Transformers - All Media Types tag. For example, if you look at the link above for all works in the All Media Types tag, you will see fics that are also tagged ONLY with Transformers: Animated, because it falls under the All Media Types tag.

One exception: With the upcoming Transformers: One movie coming out imminently, there will likely be a big influx of stories tagged with Transformers: One. In fact, there are several already. However, it hasn't been linked to the larger Transformers - All Media Types tag yet. I wasn't worrying about it though, because I know these things can take time.

With information about this new tagging policy, however, I'm now wondering whether it'll EVER get linked to the All Media Types tag. If that happens, and when more continuities are developed in the coming years (since you know Hasbro loves creating new universes) this has the potential to cause massive confusion when looking for stories to read.

Searching for Stories with the New Tagging System

So let's say the All Media Types fandom tag isn't accurate anymore, because it no longer includes ALL of the continuities (such as TF:One). You will need to include ALL the Transformers continuities when browsing for TF fics.

How many tags is that? Well, here are all of the tags currently listed under the Transformers - All Media Types tag:

Note that this doesn't include Transformers: One since it hasn't been categorized yet.

You will potentially have to have 40 or more different fandom tags in your search, just in case the author tagged their story with something you weren't expecting.

This massively decreases the findability of a story.

Tagging with the New System

The email response from the Tag Wrangling group (see the linked Reddit post above) seems to be a bit flip in the response to the user's concern. "...encourages creators to tag with the media they intend."

While I appreciate what they are attempting to do, this policy change feels like a solution in search of a problem, especially in larger fandoms with multiple continuities, versions, and media types that are all cross-pollinated in both canon and fanon. While I'm focusing on Transformers fandom, imagine a creator in the DC comic universe writing a story that incorporates bits and pieces from a dozen different reboots.

For example, let's say that I am writing a fic about Ratchet. I am using the setting of the original G1 episodes, but I also am using the characterization of him as a bit of an old man grump. That characterization originated in the Animated continuity, but I want to incorporate bits of pieces of his other characterizations as well (old friend of Optimus from TFP, Ratchet ran a faction-free clinic like he did in the War for Cybertron series, he's got a Decepticon boyfriend like in IDW1 - or maybe even Cyberverse, etc.)

With this new tagging structure, I might potentially have to tag the story with ALL of those continuities. So instead of just slapping down the "All Media Types" tag (and maybe one other fandom tag that matches the characters as best I can), I'll have to analyze my story and try to figure out how best to tag for the characters I used.

And what if you're doing a completely AU version of the story? For example, a humanformers story, or merformers? Using the All Media Types tag along with a Alternate Universe - Human or Alternate Universe - Mermaid tag worked perfectly, since you weren't writing the story to fit into one specific continuity. But now, that might not be an option.

What To Do??

The first thing I would suggest is to contact AO3 (using the Feedback and Support page) and let them know (nicely) that you think this is a horrible idea. Give them some examples on how you use the All Media Types tag to find stories to read, or to help you tag a story. People outside of the Transformers fandom don't always appreciate how absolutely tangled the continuities can be with each other, and providing examples might help them see why this would be a really messy change.

Readers: Be aware that when you are looking in the All Media Types tag, it will no longer show newer continuities. And if AO3 starts dismantling that tag like they suggested they are doing, be aware that some stories won't show up in that tag like they used to. You can also create and then bookmark a custom search page that includes all 40+ continuities. REALLY annoying, but it's a workaround.

Writers: Until they start dismantling the All Media Types tag, ALWAYS ALWAYS tag your stories using Transformers - All Media Types... Especially for newer continuities. This will be especially important if you are writing a Transformers: One story. Right now, anyone who is only browsing the All Media Types tag will not see a story tagged only with Transformers: One. Make sure you're aware of how tags work and how they can affect the visibility and findability of your story.

Epilogue

Ugh. That's a lot of words for a long-weekend Saturday. And maybe I'm overreacting a tiny bit. But my work involves information architecture, and this change just absolutely baffles me. It's almost as though they want to make it harder to find stories. Considering that AO3 won a Hugo partially because of its fantastic tagging system, this change seems like AO3 is doing its best to shoot itself in the foot.

When you have a square hole, a round hole, and a rectangular hole… Yeah, you DO want each peg to go in the "right" hole. But if all of the pegs fit in the square hole, who cares? You got the job done.

I love you @ao3org, but please reconsider this change... Especially for IPs that are as old and are as varied as Transformers.

[hootbon]

TADC Freakshow AU Masterpost

May you be warned, this is a horror/gore based AU. If that’s not your thing then I’d probably not click on the links

+ bubble

(these will be updated when new ones come out! None of them are in a particular order, some of them will be and hopefully soon there will be an actual order)

Go check out @jokerskellington !! They helped me out with a lot of the designs and the concepts :D

Story comics

Abstraction

Aftermath

A little chat

Notes

Stitches

Replacement

Outside

Broken faces

Lost friend

Restart

Looks decieve

selfish kindness

needle and thread

needle and thread pt2

Bloody tracks

I don’t want to.

Rule-Breaker

Eclipse

community choice adventure

Misc

posters line-up

Freakshow&carnival templates

Q&A

Q: Can we make ocs/fanart/fics/etc.?

A: Of course you can! I love getting work of my AU from others, please tag me in them! (Do not send them in my ask box, I prefer it when people post their own work)

———————————————————

Q: Is the community choice adventure continuing?

A: Yes. You don’t need to keep asking me, I have been taking a little hiatus but I will be working on it soon.

———————————————————

Q: Do you have any boundaries?

A: Not necessarily, but my only rule is to keep things chill over here.

———————————————————

Q: can we make Nsfw?

A: I don’t mind, if it’s sexual, please don’t tag me. However, extreme gore and violence is A-okay with me (infact please tag me in those.)

———————————————————

Q: Will X character be in this au?

A: all characters seen in the show will be characters in this AU and more than likely have designs when I get the time.

———————————————————

Q: if gangle abstracts, what would happen?

A: she will abstract, simple as that. Then be replaced with an AI much like her sister.

———————————————————

Q: can or will the virus be cured?

A: no.

———————————————————

Q: what would happen if x character met y character?

A: I strongly dislike these questions, please don’t ask them.

———————————————————

Q: art requests?

A: I don’t usually take them unless I like the idea and actively want to do it. 8 times out of 10 I likely won’t do them but who knows.

———————————————————

Q: Art commissions?

A: I promise I plan to open those up for the people of tumblr soon, I am currently rehashing my prices and setting up my sheets but I will make a post when I am ready!

[taintandviolent]

Taco Tuesday ; Gambit x reader!

summary: You live across the hall from Wade Wilson, and one Tuesday, he invites you over for tacos. 🌮 And that’s where you meet him. The Gambit. Post-Void, everyone got out alive and everything is fine. [PART TWO HERE]

word count & w a r n i n g s: 5.4K | smut with very little plot, alcohol mention, slightly drunk (but very consenting) reader, French and typing out accents/dialects, pet names (cher, mon ami, mon coeur, etc.), dirty talk (cos he is a dirty talker, don't argue with me on this), fingering, unprotected sex, p in v, no use of y/n.

a/n: this is based 100% on Deadpool and Wolverine Gambit / Channing's version of Gambit!! sorry for the lack of plot here, he deserves better than this filth, but I am down ASTRONOMICALLY and I needed to get it out. I spent so much time trying to get his accent right, I hope it comes off the way I wanted it to... anyway! i'm not certain if anyone will read this, but if you do - thank you a million times over! as always, requests are open! - banner by @/strangergraphics, and Remy gif by @scintie!

↓ full fic under cut! ↓ / ao3 link here! / I don’t have a taglist anymore, but please turn on post notifications if you’d like to be notified of future fics!

He’s handsome. Like really handsome. 

Your stomach does a flip as he smiles at you, reaching for the bottle of Jack between your legs — wait. Pause. Rewind. How’d we get here?

Living in the same apartment complex as Wade Wilson was a trip. Even more of a trip was living across the hall from him. The things you heard coming from that apartment... nobody would believe you. So, you never told anyone. 

He’s kind. Albeit, zany but kind. Your interactions have been cordial and nauseatingly neighbourly. But on one regular ol' Tuesday afternoon, Wade invited you inside. He said something about having a party later that night, making tacos and being neighborly. He assured you that it wasn't a sex party... which to be honest, you weren't worried about until he'd mentioned it. Against your better judgement though, you'd agreed, and said you'd bring some liquor.

So, that evening, you opened your door, one bottle of Jack tucked under your arm, and another in your left hand. You shut the door to your apartment and walked straight across to your neighbour’s door. Your fist had rapped against the wood only twice before the door swung open, revealing Wade, and a very… strange and very bald looking dog in his arms. 

"Oh, what the fuck?" You asked, looking down at the creature. "I didn't know you had a dog…?"

Wade’s voice rose an octave or two, in a cutesy tone. "She's a new addition, yes she is!" 

"I brought... well, this. Sorry, it was all I had in my cabinets and to be perfectly honest, I wasn't about to go out and spend money on this. I like… barely know you."

"HA! Brutal honesty. We love to hear it." 

Wade took hold of your shoulder and yanked you inside, harsh enough that you made a small sound as he did. He shut the door with his foot, and towed you towards the table, where everyone was gathered. And that was when you first saw him. He wore all black, save for a tan trench coat with a high collar. He lounged casually on one of the dining chairs, playing with a deck of cards. They fluttered from hand to hand effortlessly, and for a moment, you were stuck, mesmerized by the dexterous way he handled them. You weren't sure what was pulling you towards him harder, your heart or your cunt, but you felt an undeniable draw to the man.

Wade's arm wound itself around your shoulders, guiding you around the room to meet each of his friends. At that point, living next to him, mutants were a forced transition. You were used to the concept of them, so meeting a giant silver man, for example, wasn't unexpected. Vanessa was the most normal - you were pretty sure she was human.

Finally, he got to the one you really wanted to meet. The one that your eyes had been darting back and forth to the entire time, the one that when he briefly met your gaze, your heart thudded in your chest. 

"And this... handsome slice of man, is the Gambit. Good luck understanding him, he's a real mouthful."

I’ll bet he is, you thought. 

He pocketed the cards in a quick motion and stood up from his chair. With a syrup-smooth chuckle, the man laughed and said: "You can call me Remy." He did in fact have a thick Cajun accent and spoke quickly – almost too quickly. You blinked once, focusing hard on his words.

"Remy," you repeated finally, before saying your own name and extending your hand. He took it gently and as he shook it, your palm tingled with what felt like electricity.

"Enchanté." (Enchanted)

Your cheeks burned, and you knew they were flushing. You couldn’t control it. "De même..." (Likewise.)

His brows lifted, surprised. "You speak French, mon ami?" (my friend) 

"Heh, uhh... comme un enfant." (Like a child) You chuckled low, averting your eyes for a millisecond. "I took a few years of it in high school and again in college. I’m by no means an expert."

Wade's eyes were wide, flicking back and forth between the two of you. There was obvious chemistry there, and a knowing smirk drew itself across his lips. Abruptly, he yanked one of the bottles of Jack Daniels from beneath your arm, before leaning against the nearby wall.

"Oh, fuck me. You understand Gumbo here? That’s cute. No idea what either of you are saying though, someone forgot to turn the subtitles on. I'll leave you two to get acquainted." Whatever that meant. You scoffed, but turned your attention back to Gambit, looking at him.

“Sit a while, cher.” 

You happily took the chair that he pulled out, not caring that it was facing away from the others, and plopped down onto it, situating the other bottle of Jack between your legs. You gripped the neck of the bottle tightly, and looked at him with a timid, but a come hither sort of smile. After a moment, you twisted the cap off, and flicked it off somewhere to your right. Wade would find it later, or he wouldn’t. You didn’t really care. 

You two talked for hours, most of which consisted of him telling you about the Void, and how hard it had been, while you pretended to comprehend it. Between words, you passed the bottle back and forth, taking mouthfuls, and inadvertently swapping spit as you did. The thought occurred to you about halfway through the conversation, and your stomach tightened. You shook your head lightly and clenched your thighs together, trying to stave off the arousal that was bubbling in your core. 

There we go. That’s better.

He’s handsome. Like really handsome. 

Your stomach does a flip as he smiles at you, reaching for the bottle, which was still situated between your legs. His fingertips just graze the side of your thigh and his eyes flit to yours. He holds his smile, waiting for you to either protest or move the moment forward, and all you can do is gawk, because your cunt starts throbbing. 

As the evening wears on, though cautious, it’s obvious that Remy feels the same pull that you do. He remains cool on the outside, but internally, he was battling the magnetic tugging he felt from you. He couldn't shake it. He’d compliment you, you’d compliment him. At one point, in between sips, you casually drop that you think his accent is hot and he whispers something underneath his breath, something you don’t understand. Before either of you realized it, you had started to lean closer to each other, your faces inches apart, and you felt the warm rush of his breath over your cheeks.

It was as if you both realized it simultaneously. You rear back, an embarrassed expression plastered on your face. Remy clears his throat. His attraction to you was stifling; something that he rarely felt. He was powerless in his want for you, the draw you had was irresistible.

"Maybe we should... uh..." You murmur, looking deep into his eyes. In a room full of people that were starting to fade away the closer you two got to each other, you were thankful you were still sober enough to suggest a different setting. Any longer and you surely would’ve just straddled him and gone to town. 

Remy moves first. 

"We gon' take a walk." He announces to the others, getting to his feet. 

The conversation stops abruptly, silence hanging heavy. You straighten up, trying your best to avert your gaze, but you still see everyone’s reaction. Someone clears their throat and your heart sinks, feeling like you might die on the spot. The one that had been introduced as Logan, gruff looking dude, raises a single brow at you. In true Wade-character, he ugly cackles, shattering the moment. Your shoulders sink, embarrassed, as you head towards the door, doing the proverbial walk of shame. 

Remy meets you at the door and pulls it open, holding it for you. You duck underneath his arm, looking sheepish and as you exit into the hallway, you think you heard Wade mutter something about a fanfiction but Remy yanks the door shut before you can react. 

“You want to… get some air? Or um… I have… well, no I had liquor, but I brought it to Wade’s.” 

He smiles, and looks down at the floor, before lifting his eyes back to you. “We can do whatever you want, chère. You ain’t gon’ catch me complainin’ eitha’ way.”

You chew on the inside of your cheek, considering the options. Your heart was hammering in your chest at the prospect of just being near him without the others around. You two had been close to kissing in Wade’s living room, and now, you had the opportunity to continue that… or take a walk. The latter seemed less appealing. 

“Y’know what, why don’t we… just…” You take a few steps backwards, jerking your head towards your front door. Concerningly, you had forgotten to lock your door. However, it allows you to open it quickly, and walk backwards into the apartment. Gambit follows you in, his attention never leaving you. 

"You sure 'bout dis, mon ami? I can walk away righ' now." His words land heavy, a promise behind them. He was a gentleman at heart, you could tell. Fortunately for him, you were very sure, and wanted every inch of him.

Mon ami - something that in the few hours you'd spent with him, he'd called you often. Among other things. Mon ami meant my friend, but you knew you two weren't just friends. You saw how he acted with others, and the comments he made. Sure, he had a quick wit and a mouth on him, but the flirting... god, the flirting.

He stands in the doorway, his shoulders filling the frame. Silently, you nod and take another step back, giving him some room to enter. He takes one wide step towards you, leaving the door open behind him. He reaches for your hip, and you immediately take to playing with his large hands. Delicately, you pay attention to each long digit, trailing your middle finger along the knuckles, and up and down the length of them. You dip into the spaces between, your fingers barely ghosting over the webbing. 

Was that a shiver? Your eyes flit to his, searching them for a hint.

"You sure do know how to make a man feel good." 

Your heart flutters at his words. With his accent, even the simplest of things sounded charming. At least to you. You felt that he could ask if you wanted coffee or how the weather was and you'd be twirling your hair around your finger like a desperate schoolgirl. Embarrassing. 

You’re about to respond and defend yourself by saying that all you had done was play with his hands, which was hardly considered foreplay, but his fingers come up underneath your chin, gently closing your mouth with a dull click of your teeth. He tilts it upwards to an angle where he could easily kiss you. And kiss you, he does. 

It was the kind of kiss that makes your knees buckle, sends a violent shudder from the nape of your neck down to the base of your spine. It’s the kind of kiss that needs to come with a warning; Danger: Will Result In Sex. As his lips move against yours, you feel the urgency of his need, of his want, and hum into his lips. Remy takes that as a green light and deepens the kiss, moving his body so that it’s pressing flush against yours. The action leaves you immediately breathless and in response, you break the kiss, tucking your chin to your chest. Your hand finds his torso, pressing hard against the muscles underneath the shirt.  

"Ah, don't you be actin' shy now. You been teasin' me for hours."

“I have not!”

“You think I didn’t notice all ‘dem touches an’ looks you were givin’ me? I may ‘ave been born at night, but I wasn’t born last night.” 

He had you there. You couldn’t deny that, at all. Even if you’d wanted to. Which, part of you did. Part of you was very nervous, standing before this very handsome man, with the taste of his mouth still lingering on your lips but another part of you, the louder one, was delighted that he’d noticed. Furthermore, that he’d enjoyed them enough to come to your room.

You lift your hand behind him, pushing the door shut with a harsh shove. With a twist of your fingers, you activate the locking mechanism, sliding the deadbolt into place. Gambit chuckles, grinning down at you. Your heart leaps into your throat, but you press on bravely, lacing your arms around his neck. They trail down the front of his body, feeling the muscles as they twitch with each ragged breath. 

He quirks a brow as if to ask, 'Oh, really?' You simply smirk back at him. The contact is electric, and you find yourself resisting the urge to grind against him immediately. Instead, you focus on his hands again, bringing one of them up to your lips. You press a delicate kiss on the pads, before slipping one into your mouth and sucking gently. Remy makes a deep, husky sound in his throat, and brings his other hand to your hip, where he pulls you roughly against him.

For a man that uses his hands often, the sensations are high. The way your mouth envelops his finger, your tongue writhing around the digit had his jaw clenching, muscles fluttering on the side of his face. When you draw his finger into the confines of your throat, deep-throating it, his eyes roll back in pleasure. He pulls his hand back, shaking it off as if the inside of your mouth was hot to the touch.

"Woo, you nasty, huh? Nevah’ woulda' guessed... you been actin' like a good little girl 'uhround me." 

After that, it all happened very quickly. Gambit takes a step and connects his lips with yours again, pushing them into you in an act of desperation. Without breaking the kiss, he shrugs out of his jacket, tossing it onto a nearby surface. You push against him until his back hits the door with a heavy thud, definitely loud enough for any innocent bystanders to hear. Your fingers undo the button of your jeans, breaking the kiss for only a second to slide them down your legs. 

Once you return to his waiting mouth, the kiss deepens and the coil in your stomach winds tighter, claiming your body in a deep, fiery arousal. His big arms wrap around you, enveloping you in a heated embrace. Just for a moment, it’s tender — but shortly after, his hands drop to your ass, fingers slipping underneath the band of fabric to take greedy fistfuls of each cheek. 

Your hands find their way to his shoulders, gripping the roundness of them to use as leverage. Letting out a little hum, you sweep your hips across his groin, pressing tightly against him. His eyes drift shut, head bumping against the door as he leaned it back, a low growl coming from his throat. Keeping at it, you grind your hips against him, feeling the outline of his length as it hardens.

“You be drivin’ Remy crazy, grindin’ on me like ‘dat.”

“That’s the intention….” You stand on your tiptoes to pepper kisses on his lips, your warm breath fanning over his face, smelling faintly of Jack Daniels. Remy trails his hand carefully up your rib cage until he gets to the side of your breast, where he quickly slips around to the front, his large hand cupping the fullness of it outside of your shirt. Your reaction is visceral; your breath hisses through your teeth at the sensitivity. 

Remy laughs again and with his free hand, pulls your hips back to his. Swiftly, he spins you around, pinning you between his body and the hard surface of the door. He presses himself tightly against you, shifting slightly so that his thigh was between your legs. The sensation of something that close to your core is dangerous and brings a weak, mewling whimper from your mouth.

“We gon’ have ourselves some fun.” His voice is low, tinged with a new sort of lustful tone that you hadn't heard before. Your mind is spinning, growing dizzy with lust. The alcohol had certainly helped your nerves, you were never usually this brazen. Your core burns with desire at his words, silently begging for everything he was about to give you. His lips hover just over yours; you can feel his breath on your skin and the heat that radiates off his body as it presses into yours.

"Oh my god," you whisper into his mouth. "Fuck..."

His teeth nip at your bottom lip before he captures your mouth in a heated, passionate kiss again. His tongue explores the inside, swirling along your own wet muscle. With every passing second, your heart beats faster and his hands grip your hips tighter, thumbs massaging the flesh above your jeans.

“Wrap ‘dem legs around me, mon coeur.” (My heart) Remy’s voice is husky with want; amongst his playful, lilted tone, a possessiveness lingered, and the thought sends a chill down your spine. He nods once, encouraging you into his waiting arms. You jump up, and he catches you effortlessly, gripping your thighs tight and hoisting you up into his grasp. Feeling secure, you wrap both legs around his waist and encircle his neck with your arms. Your gaze meets his and you can see the wanton need mirrored in his own eyes, darkened with desire.

Remy's smirk is dripping with confidence. Your body's response to him was causing his ego to swell within his chest, and his cock to swell within his pants. He leans in close, his lips against your ear, nipping at the lobe softly before pulling back slightly. In one fluid movement, his hips buck up against your center, teasing you over the layers of clothing. You let out a moan, throwing your head back against the door.

He thrusts up into you again, chuckling low against your ear. The hard line of his cock grinds against you, making you stutter out expletives as it presses against you with a needy demand. 

"You like 'dat, cher? Talk t' me..."

You nod, swallowing and wetting your throat. "Y-yeah, fuck... I do... need you – it – so bad."

“Whaddya’ need?”

“N-need you… so bad.” 

“You can do betta’. Tell Remy what you need...” 

He presses you harder against the door, your back sliding against the wood as he kisses a trail down from your mouth to your shoulder, sucking and biting with all the right intensities. As his hips grind against yours, you feel the damp fabric slide across your cunt, alerting you to just how wet he’d made you. Fuck. 

“Need… need you to fuck me. Hard. Need to feel you everywhere.”  

A few hours ago, you’d agreed to Taco Tuesday at Wade’s. Now, you were getting dry humped by a really hot Cajun guy and moaning into the curve between his neck and his shoulder. You were positive that if someone opened their door, they’d hear you. Somewhere in your brain, the thought should have been moderately embarrassing, but you were far too invested in Remy to care. 

Without warning, Gambit lifts you away from the door and carries you to the nearby couch. He never breaks the kiss, still feverishly claiming your mouth as he moves. Your back hits the cushions and before you can process it, his body weight is on top of you. He slots himself in between your legs, and his hard-on bumps into your stomach as his hips rut against you, finding some relief in the friction. But not enough. 

Remy’s hand finds the hem of your shirt, lifting it just enough to allow his fingers underneath the fabric. You bite down on the pillow of your bottom lip and push your hips up into his. Thick, strong digits sweep across your skin, leaving a burning trail of fire in their wake. Every touch brings your temperature up, and it isn’t long before your entire body is consumed in flames. You sigh contentedly, arching up into his touch. 

Abruptly, Remy straightens up, crosses his arms over his torso and pulls his shirt over his head, revealing his tan skin and bulky muscles. His stocky stature makes your tummy clench with anticipation. He was fit, as you assumed, but that didn’t stop your jaw from falling open at the sight. 

“Wow,” you finally choke.

Remy grins. “You like what you see?” 

You nod furiously, hands snapping to his toned abdomen. He’s warm and his skin is soft, begging to be touched. The muscles flex underneath your fingers as you trace a long stripe from his belly button to his collarbone. Your hands claw at his shoulder, attempting to pull him back down on you, but he resists. 

He spoke with a playfulness, almost a sort of pleading. His thumbs flicks at the hem of your shirt. “Ah, c’mon, ‘dat ain’t fair. Enlève-tout toi, huh?” (Take it all off.)

You thought you understood, but if you didn’t, it didn’t matter. Remy was quick to translate his words, busy undressing you, pulling your worn t-shirt over your head, and reaching around your back to unclasp your bra. Most men would’ve fumbled with the clasp, but not him. His adept fingers make quick work of it, allowing your breasts to fall free. He throws your bra somewhere behind him. 

“Hooo, cher…!” His eyes light up at the visual and you feel heat blooming on your cheeks again, half expecting him to make a lewd comment. Instead, his hands cup your tits, kneading the soft plumpness like dough, thumbs grazing the nipples. He exhales through his mouth, jerking his head to the side. 

Finally, he kisses you again. It’s wet and sloppy and his mouth is consuming you, tasting you hungrily. His hips are still moving, sweeping into yours with a calculated precision. You try to spread your legs but the back of the couch thwarts your attempt. He notices this, watching as you struggle with the space. 

“You got a bed?” He asked in between smearing kisses along your neck and collarbone. 

“Yeah-yeah…. Down the hall.” 

“Remy be needin’ more room for what he wanna’ do t’you.”

His weight is suddenly gone from you, an unwelcome sensation, even though you know he’s about to carry you wedding-style down the hallway. He bends down, one arm sliding underneath your neck, the other in the crook behind your knees. For the second time that night, he lifts you into his arms.

You rest your cheek against his warm pectoral muscle, rocking back and forth, as he walks you both down the dark hallway. The only light in the room comes from the window, the city outside alive and humming. Carefully, Remy sets you down on the bed, unmade from this morning, your dark gray sheets cool to the touch. 

In nothing but your underwear, which at this point, are damp to the touch, you’re left feeling very exposed. But you can’t muster up any shame, not when he’s looking at you with such hunger, such want. Your tummy feels tight, and the feeling gets worse when Remy’s hands drop to his waist, unzipping and unbuttoning his pants. They fall loose at the waist, and he shucks them down the rest of the way, leaving him in nothing but a pair of deep purple boxers. Your eyes swing heavy to the outline that’s now presented to you. 

Oh my god. 

Your breath hitches in your throat. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise; Remy was a big guy, and that proved true downstairs, too. You can barely pull your eyes away from it, but you begrudgingly rip them away, to look up into his gaze. 

“Please,” you beg. “You’re too far away…” Your cunt is aching and nothing but him, his hands, his dick, will sate her. 

He leans forward, flattening both hands on the mattress and walks them back until his face is in front of yours. He sweeps you into another kiss and your heart races. His hands are perfectly positioned on either side of your hips, you feel them graze the flesh. His finger hooks around the elastic of your panties, twisting it around his pointer finger and gradually, he tugs them down over the curve of your hip.

You nod lazily against his mouth, as you feel the warmth of his hand near your core. Your legs drop apart, knees touching the mattress as you allow him access. One hand sweeps across your inner thighs, stroking them, while the other palms your soft mound. His other hand comes to pause at your knee, and pushes his weight into it softly, forcing you to stay spread-eagle for him. No way you could’ve done this on the sofa. 

There’s no hesitation in the way he fingers you; sweeping up through your slick folds, smearing your arousal around until she’s coated in it, splaying your pretty, wet cunt apart with his fingers, looking upon it hungrily. He knows what he’s doing, and how to do it right. You briefly wonder if that’s another mutant power he has… though being an expert at fingering someone seems outlandish. But he’s just so good at it. His middle finger barely touches you, circling the bundle of nerves delicately. Your back arches up towards him, a desperate groan vibrating your vocal chords. Delighted by your reaction, his finger flicks upwards at your swollen, sensitive clit, making your body literally quiver. 

“Uhugh – god…. Shit, oh my god.” 

He continues like this for several minutes, until your cunt is blazing hot and clenching with every moan you give. 

By the time he presses one finger inside, you’re teetering on the edge of an orgasm and your voice fills the room with needy, desperate sounds. You let out a shrill whine, and he slips in another finger, feeling the stretch of muscle as he does. His heart is pounding in his chest, overcome with lust. The way you sound, the way your body is moving and writhing on the bed, he can’t wait to sink himself into you. 

Amidst a laugh, he says: “People gon’ think we up in here watchin’ porn.”

Did he just insinuate that you sounded like a pornstar? You lifted your head, wearily, to look at him. Your chest heaves with each breath as you try to formulate a snarky remark to no avail. He looked so good – well, always – but he looked particularly good on top of you, his bright eyes lust blown and hungry. 

“We’re… we’re… porn… it’s…  oh god.” 

He shushes you. “You just lay back and keep moanin’.” 

Defeated, you huff and your head hits the sheets again, but not before you catch a glimpse of the way the muscles in his forearm ripple as it pumps back and forth into your cunt. You can’t help but moan at the sight, feeling a shockwave rupture your core. Your hips meet his fingers, rutting and writhing against the mattress in a needy rhythm.

Your first orgasm claims your body before you can stop it. You’re clenching around his fingers as they move, crooking upwards into your sensitive spots. Your slick coats his fingers and when Gambit pulls his hand back, thick, clear strands string from between them. He smiles down at you. 

Remy raises himself to his knees. “Turn ‘round…” 

You flip over and back yourself towards him, thinking that he’s going to go at it doggy-style, but to your surprise, he pulls you upright, pressing your back against his chest. His dick is hot between your legs, and when he reaches down to line it up, you let your head loll back against his shoulder. Gambit’s mouth finds the side of your neck, streaking it with wet, suckling kisses. He was taking his time with you, savouring you and you hum happily through closed lips, reaching behind you to thread your fingers through his hair.

“Fuck, you feel so good…” Instinctively, your hips undulate and his cock slips between your folds. Remy’s hips buck once, letting out a groan that comes from somewhere deep. 

“You ready, cher?” He asks, sweeping your hair away from your neck. You nod furiously. You’ve been ready – you were ready the moment you laid eyes on him.

Remy reaches down to sweep his fingers along your entrance briefly, before gripping himself and guiding the head of his cock into the slit. You keen at the feeling of his velvet-soft head pressing into your entrance, warm pre-cum leaking from the slit. He murmurs words of encouragement into your ear as you feel his hips press against your ass, urging his thick, veiny shaft inside your cunt. He does it gently, allowing you time to adjust to the girth, but the sting still makes you cry out. “Fffuck!”

He begins to thrust his hips shallowly, your cunt stretching around his cock. The feeling is all-consuming, and your body feels heavy in his grasp. One hand is gripping your waist tightly, the other, fingers splayed out on your stomach just above your cunt. There’s a pressure building in your cunt, and each thrust magnifies it. The sting of his cock fades to an ache, then to a dull throbbing that makes you want more and you lean forward slightly and press your ass into the curves of his hips, meeting his thrusts. 

“Mm, ‘dat’s it, cher…” His voice is hot on your skin. 

His thrusts get deeper, but there’s a lingering tension in his body that makes you feel like he’s not getting what he wants. You’re right; all at once, Remy pulls his cock from you and switches positions. 

You’re suddenly on your back, looking up at him as he looms over you, all muscle. His cockhead nudges your entrance again, but doesn’t penetrate. 

“Say my name, cher… I needa’ hear it leave ‘dat pretty mouth.” 

“Which one? Gambit? Or Remy?” You ask, breathlessly.

The way his eyes rolled back at the second option told you everything you needed to know. A smirk twisted your lips cruelly and you lifted your body slightly, just enough for your mouth to reach his ear. You moan his name over and over again, knowing full well the effect it’s having on the mutant man.

“Remy, Remy, Remy….” Your tone is high-pitched and whiny, but he seems to enjoy the lewdness of it all. He bucks his hips hard into you, and the fullness reaches an all-time high as he bottoms out, his pelvis hitting yours with a slap.

“Huhhh—!” You gasp, breathing ragged. “Fuck!”

“Gonna’ make you cum so hard you ain’t gon’ walk right for days.” His voice is low and filthy and leaves a stain on your mind. Your cunt clenches around him possessively, pulling him somehow deeper inside of you. 

As your head bangs into your headboard, the tip of his cock bumps your cervix over and over again, and your jaw goes slack, literally fucked silent. Remy hears the thudding of your skull and puts a hand between it and the wood, but he doesn’t stop his relentless, deep thrusting. 

The pleasure reaches a peak and your nails dig into his back, leaving crescent moon shaped indentations on his golden skin. Remy’s groaning loud into your ear as he cums, muttering in an almost incoherent melange of French and English. His accent is somehow heavier, and you can barely make out the words as he’s saying them into your skin. It doesn’t matter though, because you feel how full you are, and Remy’s hot, white completion is leaking out the sides and staining your sheets. 

He stays like that for a moment, hovering on top of you. His cock softens inside, completely spent and eventually, he slips it out, rolling over onto your bed.

“Ah, joi de vivre, huh.” (the joy of life), he says drowsily.

You laugh, and nestle underneath his arm, in the space he’s left for you. 

If you had your way, you’d do it all over again. 

Though he doesn’t say it, so would he. 

[lisired]

love jones

pairing: photographer!haechan x (f) reader

genre/warnings: smut, angst, strangers to lovers, hollywood!au, photographer!haechan, model!reader, unprotected sex (don’t be silly wr- [gets hit by a car])

summary: After breaking off your engagement to your fiance, you move to Los Angeles to pursue a modeling career. There in the fairytale land where stars go to shine you meet Haechan, an aspiring photographer with a penchant for mischief and flirtation.

word count: 12.4k (/25.5k)

a/n: inspired by love jones; the song by leon thomas featuring ty dolla $ign and the movie by theodore witcher. this is a repost of an old fic that i will be publishing in 2 installments; it is also the prequel to supermodel, which you do not have to read. installment two will be linked here when posted. as always, feedback is appreciated!

The air was different in California. 

“The land of make-believe,” you sighed, holding the cold metal bar in your hands. This was your new home. Sine die. 

Better than New York City, you muttered crankily to yourself. Everything there reminded you of him. Every street, every scent. You would rather not think of the asshole that cheated on you with another woman while you gave him everything. California, on the other hand, was a brand new slate. Free of assholes that showed other girls their penises while being months away from vowing forever to you. You had let out a massive sigh of relief when your doctor confirmed that you didn’t have any infections.

Still, you fondled the engagement band on your finger. 

“I know you’re not out here thinking about he who shall not be named,” Chaewon chided in disapproval, hands on her hips. 

You turned around. You hadn’t heard the door open. When she came beside you, you turned around again, facing the busy street just below of you. 

“No. I’m not thinking about him,” you lied through your teeth. “I’m just brooding.”

“Same damn thing.”

You rolled your eyes. 

Chaewon back-hugged you and wrapped her arms around your waist snugly, making you giggle. “I forbid you from thinking about that asshole any longer. The whole point of you coming here was to forget about him.”

“And the new opportunities,” you added. 

“Exactly. He was holding you back. He wanted to be the man and bring home the bacon, and couldn’t stand the thought of you being a successful independent woman perfectly capable of taking care of her damn self,” Chaewon said without taking a single breath. 

You mulled it over. That was a little too true. Your ex-boyfriend always talked about having kids and taking care of you and them, but you hated to think that your independence might’ve driven him away. “But you don’t just forget about the life and broken promises of the future you made,” you whispered sadly. 

Chaewon let out a little sigh. She was sad for you. Her heart, too. 

Then, she backed off and said, “You know what? We’re going to the club.”

You gawked and did a one-eighty. Full speed. “What?”

“You heard me. And put that ring up, girl. You’re not gonna get any dick if a man sees that on your finger. I don’t know why you haven’t given it back to him yet. Better yet, you should throw it off a mountain. We have plenty.”

“Oh, please,” you replied boredly. “I know these Los Angeles boys don’t give a damn. They would fuck the hole between the ring if their dicks were small enough.”

“Oh, don’t bring your Manhattan bullshit over here. The boys I know have decorum,” Chaewon replied matter-of-factly. 

“I’m sure,” you deadpanned. 

Chaewon cocked her head at you and planted her hands on her hips. “When you’re done being a drama queen, you need to go change into something risqué. I’ll be back in an hour to pick you up.”

“Yes, Mother,” you said coolly, in spite of not being even the least bit inclined to bump and grind at a club tonight. 

“I’m serious. If that ring’s not off your finger by the time I get back, I’m kicking some ass.” Then, she went back inside. You shook your head. Los Angeles, you thought. What am I going to do with you?

The club was packed with people, which was to be expected given that it was a Friday night. You paid them no attention, sticking close to Chaewon like a toddler kept close to their mother’s bosom. 

“And I told her, ‘but that doesn’t make any sense. Gladys Presley popped Elvis Presley out of her coochie eighty-six years ago. There’s no way you could be his mother.’”

The group laughed at Jeno. 

Jaemin hurled back a shot of vodka and added, “Gladys Presley didn’t look happy in a single picture I’ve seen of her.”

“Shit. If my son was Elvis Presley, I wouldn’t exactly be exhilarated either,” Ryujin quipped. 

Mark covered her mouth. “Lower your voice. You cannot say that too loud out here.”

Ryujin shoved him off. “Get your hands off me, freak,” she hissed, narrowing her eyes at him. 

The group laughed again. Except for Mark. 

And Haechan. 

Winter casted a glance at Haechan. “What’s up with the sun man?”

Jaemin, who was to the left of Haechan, nudged him and asked, “What’s wrong, my man?”

Haechan didn’t even blink. He was too busy staring past the tables. Something had evidently caught his eye. 

Jeno followed his gaze and snickered. He spotted you, sitting at the bar with Chaewon. “I know what’s got my boy’s attention.”

Everyone glanced where Jeno was looking. There you were, obliviously laughing and chattering with your best friend. You were wearing a flimsy black dress now in lieu of the dolphin shorts you’d worn while moving the last of your stuff inside your new condo. 

“Damn, she’s bad,” Jaemin murmured under his breath. 

Winter angrily hit him. 

Jaemin immediately stammered, “I mean, you’re badder. She’s nothing compared to you. I’m just saying she’s a little cute. For someone like Haechan, maybe.”

The table erupted in laughter. 

“Mm-hm,” Winter hummed doubtfully, crossing her arms. 

“Come on, baby. You know I’ve only got eyes for you,” Jaemin said, giving Winter a smooch to the cheek. “Billions of girls in the world and I still choose you. You’re the only one I want.”

Mark deadpanned, “He’s so smooth.” 

“He must get it from you,” Ryujin shot, voice dripping with sarcasm. 

Mark shot her a glare. 

Jeno draped an arm around Haechan’s shoulder. “Come on, man. You just gonna sit and stare at her or what? You gotta make a move.”

Ryujin quipped, “And what do you know about making moves?” 

“August twelfth, two years ago.” 

Ryujin narrowed her eyes at him. “Only losers who get little play remember the exact date they fucked somebody.”

“Well, that says a lot more about you than it does about me, doesn’t it? I could have been talking about anything,” Jeno quipped, smirking. 

The boys, especially Mark, laughed. Winter fought a chuckle in female solidarity. 

“I pieced it together,” Ryujin mumbled. 

“It’s okay to admit you’re a little lonely, Ryujin. I mean, after Sunwoo fled to Chicago, I can only imagine it’s been a long minute since you’ve gotten any attention downstairs,” Mark crooned like potent venom. 

There were a couple of ‘ooh’s from the boys. 

“You guys are annoying,” Haechan finally said after having not spoken for the past few minutes. Which was unusual for someone like him. “I’m going to go get her number. Watch this.”

The table whooped and hollered, cheering him on. Meanwhile, he approached you stealthily, popping a stick of gum. 

Haechan sat at the available seat to your left (because Chaewon was to your right) and greeted, “Hello, ladies.”

Chaewon took one glance at the handsome stranger to your left and had raging heart eyes. You, on the other hand, were wishing you would have ignored her and brought your ring to deter any unwanted visitors. The one thing he was good for, you grumbled to yourself. But if you were being honest with yourself, the stranger was pretty cute. Pretty brown eyes, like your ex-fiancé. Smooth skin. And he had the cutest, most kissable lips. If you hadn’t already written him off as bad news, you would have let yourself be interested. 

“Hi, handsome,” Chaewon flirted, giggling like an idiot. You stiffened. You knew your way around men, but you weren’t in the mood. 

Haechan smiled, but he was all eyes for you. Ironically, you were wishing he would disappear. He asked, “Can I have your name?”

“You haven’t done anything to deserve it,” you replied with complete disinterest. 

“Hard to get. I fuck with it,” Haechan noted. “What do you want me to do?”

You pretended to be in thought. “You can start by removing yourself from my vicinity. Please and thank you.”

Chaewon winced and told him your name.

“Chae,” you groaned.  

Haechan repeated after her. “A beautiful name for a beautiful girl.”

“Oh, could you be any more original?” you deadpanned. “By the way, I’m engaged.”

Haechan laughed. “You are definitely not engaged. I know that and I know nothing about you.”

You narrowed your eyes at him. “And how would you know that?” 

“Because engaged people have engaged people vibes. You have painfully strong ‘I hate anything that has to do with love and romance’ vibes,” Haechan answered slickly, then leaned close to sing for only your ears, “And I don’t see an engagement ring on your finger.”

Chaewon was having a laugh at your expense. Meanwhile, this stranger pulled back and smirked at you, reading your thoughts. You wanted to be mad that he was right, but you kind of liked his voice in your ear.

“She’s single,” Chaewon added, as if it were necessary. “Maybe not ready to mingle though.”

You were fighting the most irritated groan at this point. 

Haechan raised his hands and backed off, taking the mean scowl on your face as a firm ‘no’ and the rejection coolly. “That’s cool. Look, I’ll leave you ladies alone. Have a good night.”

“You, too,” Chaewon said, waving him goodbye as he stepped off the barstool. 

When he was finally gone, you let out a breath of relief. 

Chaewon gave you a look. “He’s so into you. I’m not even mad. You fumbled so bad. He’s fine as hell.”

“You’re forgetting that I didn’t ask to be dragged to this club in the first place. I don’t want to get dicked down by some dude whose name I don’t even know,” you grumbled, finishing what was left in your cup. 

“I’m sure he would have given it to you if you asked,” she replied teasingly. 

You rolled your eyes. “He can keep it to himself. I don’t want to fuck and forget.”

“Ugh, lame,” Chaewon groaned. “Fuck and forget is every young model’s motto.”

“Well, not mine,” you huffed, vexed. With a smidge of attitude. 

Chaewon noticed your tone and frowned. “Okay, timeout. Babe, listen. I’m not trying to pressure you into doing anything you don’t wanna do. If you don’t wanna fuck around then don’t. I was just suggesting it might be nice to get to know somebody else. See where it goes.”

“I know,” you sighed, squeezing her hand. “Tonight’s just not a good night.”

Chaewon bobbed her head. “I understand. Take your time. You’ll know when you’re ready.”

You gave her a weak smile.

Meanwhile, Haechan was doing something adjacent to the walk of shame as he approached his clique’s table, empty-handed.

Jeno immediately taunted, “What a snag, man.”

“Shut the fuck up, Jeno,” Haechan hissed, throwing Jeno his middle finger. 

Mark gave Haechan a compassionate look. “You get an ‘E’ for effort, dude.”

“L for loss,” Jeno murmured under his breath none too quietly.

“She looked like she wanted to kill you with her bare hands,” Jaemin retorted, holding Winter’s hand under the table.

Winter snickered. “And how would you know what that looks like?”

“Because I see Ryujin look at Mark like that everyday,” Jaemin quipped, earning a couple laughs around the table. 

“Whatever,” Haechan said, feigning nonchalance. “You win some, you lose some.”

Jaemin braced his hand on Haechan’s shoulder. “This is just the trials and tribulations, buddy. You’ll get her next time.”

Haechan downed a shot of liquor. “We’ll see.”

When Tuesday morning arrived, you were up bright and early. You slipped on a minimalist outfit and got a taxi to the record store. 

Ryujin was working the cash register when you walked inside. You didn’t recognize her, but she recognized you, smirking in amusement. “Good morning. Can I help you with anything?”

“Yeah, I’m looking for a Michael Jackson vinyl,” you replied, holding your purse. 

“Vinyls are back that way,” Ryujin said, pointing her finger. “Good luck. He still sells fast.”

You thanked her and headed straight for the back shelves. Your record collection was a vinyl away from being finished after a number of years spent putting it together and you were desperately on the hunt for the finishing piece. Not a second later, Haechan meandered inside clad in denim jeans and black leather. He looked like nothing short of any parent’s worst nightmare. 

Ryujin beckoned him over and whispered, “Aren’t you the king of good timing? Your girl’s in the back.”

Haechan furrowed his brows. “My…” Then, he faced the back of the store and saw you carefully sifting through records, trying your absolute hardest to find the one you were looking for. From the looks of it, however, your efforts were in vain. 

Haechan glanced back at Ryujin in shock. “Shit. Should I shoot my shot?”

“I mean, the last time you shot your shot, you missed,” Ryujin replied, propping her pretty face up on the counter. “Like Michael Jordan against the Toronto Raptors in 2002 missed.”

“And he still won. So, watch it,” Haechan shot back. 

Ryujin rolled her eyes. “Whatever. But don’t make me get the buff Johnny guy from next door to escort you out of the building. The cute one that’s pretty tall.”

“Everyone knows who Johnny is, Ryu,” Haechan muttered, making his way towards you. Again. 

You didn’t even give Haechan the chance to speak when you noticed him. Your face scrunched up and you droned, “You again.”

Haechan lifted his hands. “You know, most people usually greet others with a ‘hey’ or a ‘good morning.’”

“Not in New York City.”

Haechan gave you a curious stare. “You’re from New York City?”

You grimaced. You didn’t mean to let that slip. “I’ve already said too much.”

“You’ve said just enough, girl,” Haechan replied with a smirk. “Whatchu looking for?”

“A Michael Jackson Thriller vinyl. It’s for my record collection,” you answered absentmindedly, ransacking the shelves for the record to no avail. Which was irritating. It’s like his most popular album, you grumbled to yourself.  

That certainly got Haechan’s attention. “Oh,” he said, sticking his hands in his pockets. “I have a signed Thriller vinyl at my crib.”

You scoffed. “Please. As if.”

“I’m deadass,” Haechan insisted, but the untamed twinkle in his eyes made him hard to believe. 

“Right,” you droned. “And I’m guessing this is the part where you invite me back to your crib and try to persuade me to hook up with you.”

“Hey, I’m not that type of guy. Scout’s honor,” Haechan said, though sensing your raging skepticism, he called out, “Look. Hey, Ryu! Don’t I have a signed Michael Jackson vinyl?”

“It’s like you won’t let us forget,” Ryujin shouted back, annoyed. Then, she leaned over the counter, noticing the reluctance all over your face. “Yeah, he’s got one. It’s legit. I’d tell you if this punk was bullshitting.”

For whatever reason, Ryujin’s words of confirmation finally pushed you to believe him. You badgered, “How in the hell did you get your hands on a signed Michael Jackson vinyl? He couldn’t have given it to you. You were how old when he died?”

“Legends never die, baby,” was Haechan’s witty reply. 

You almost rolled your eyes, but settled for stubbornly folding your arms instead. “Okay. What do I have to do for it?”

“Go out on a date with me.”

That didn’t surprise you at all. Haechan had been trying to ask you out from the get-go. He was nothing if not persistent as ever. “A date,” you repeated with a smidge of boredom. 

Haechan bobbed his head. “I mean, it doesn’t have to be a date-date. My friends and I are having this get-together tomorrow night. You should come. Ryujin has been bitching about how there’s an uneven boy-to-girl ratio.”

You arched a brow. “And you want me to even things out?”

“Well, with you we’d have four boys to three girls, but if you find me worthwhile you can start bringing your friend and then we’ll be as even as a figure eight.”

You mulled it over. One date wouldn’t be so bad, you contemplated. It wasn’t as if you would be alone with this boy. There would be five other people in the room with you. Not to mention Haechan truly didn’t seem that bad. And if you were being honest, under better circumstances, you probably would’ve already taken him to bed. 

Besides, after spending most of your dating life with a cheating bastard, you definitely deserved to move on. Something fresh. If you decided that you didn’t like Haechan after this date, you could cut him off. Matter of fact, you could cut him off afterwards whether you liked him or not. Anything for the vinyl. 

Haechan watched your lip tuck out in thought and thought it was the cutest thing ever. He could tell you were really mulling it over. The gears in your brain were spinning quicker than ever before. 

“Fine,” you finally said after a while. “I’ll go on a date with you.”

In his head, Haechan was doing a very, very strange victory dance. But instead, he played it cool, and said, “Sweet.”

“Cool.”

Haechan pointed to the vinyls behind him with his thumb. “Can I play you something?”

You shrugged. “Sure.”

Haechan did a smooth one-eighty and grabbed a Michael Jackson Bad vinyl before popping it into the record player beside you. You watched him skillfully set the needle, as if he had done it a thousand times before. A song you knew very well started to play. 

“I just can’t stop loving you,” you exhaled, noting the song name. You knew every word. 

Haechan nodded and smiled at you. Then, he stretched out his hand. “May I have a dance?”

You giggled and took his hand in yours, putting your other behind his shoulder as he wrapped his around your waist. You wanted to be mad that you liked how his hands felt on your body. Ironically, you couldn’t remember the last time you had felt the touch of a man. 

In little to no time, you were slow dancing in the back of a record store with a stranger. A very handsome stranger at that. You locked eyes and it was enough to make you hold your breath. 

Neither of you took your eyes off of each other afterwards. You were just swaying to the rhythm, breathing in the sweet, titillating scent of him. Sharing the warmth of your bodies as they touched. 

It was almost romantic. Then, a thought struck you. “I never got your name.”

“My friends call me Haechan,” he replied, flashing a smile. “But you can call me ‘baby.’”

“Haechan,” you said, tasting his name on your tongue. And ignoring his attempts at flirting.

Haechan’s face faltered for half a second, but he was quick to recover. “Because I like the way it rolls off your tongue, I’ll let it slide.”

You snickered. 

That sound was music to his ears. “So,” Haechan started. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow night at seven. Sound good?”

“Sounds great,” you chirped. “I’ll give you my number.”

“I hope you like motorcycles,” Haechan replied with a chuckle. 

“You drive a motorcycle?”

Haechan pointed to the entrance with his shoulder. “Parked right outside. She’s my baby.”

You stared over his shoulder and right through the glass window, spotting his motorcycle parked directly out front. It was a sleek, black motorbike that coupled perfectly with his mischievous attire. 

Oh, boy. 

For an entire hour, you carefully planned your date night outfit with Chaewon (who after loudly celebrating your secured date agreed to assist with the wardrobe assembling prep) over FaceTime. 

Not that it was a fancy date. Which was exactly why you were conflicted. You wanted to dress to impress, but you also didn’t want to seem like a try-hard. Like hell you were trying to impress Haechan, but you knew men like him perceived the slightest things as sexual advances.

You went for jeans and a crop top with a cute puffer jacket in the end, and called it a night. Just in case it got chilly, which was unpredictable in bitter Los Angeles evenings. Over the night and throughout your day, you caught yourself thinking about the handsome stranger that liked motorcycles. 

The slow dancing in the record store. The eye contact. The warmth of his body beside yours and his perfect scent throttling you. And you found yourself smiling. When Chaewon asked you how the dance was after you confided in her about the little event at the back of the record store, you’d replied, “It was magical.”

You were standing on the fence. Haechan was cute and could be an excellent distraction from your mess of a love life. But you weren’t exactly ready to risk getting your heart broken again. 

So, you decided you wouldn’t be getting your heart involved. Haechan was harmless fun.   

But you were still counting down the hours until he arrived at your front door. 

Haechan arrived punctually at your front door with two minutes left to spare. You grabbed your phone off the charger and dropped it in your purse before racing to open the front door. “Hi,” you said. 

Haechan waved. “‘Sup, baby.”

“You’re on time,” you commented, maybe slightly surprised.

Haechan chuckled at that. Seemingly not offended. “Yeah, I am.” He cocked his head.  “Should I have stood you up?”

A part of you somewhat expected him to and you would be lying if you said it hadn’t. Sue you for being cynical. After all, your last relationship had taught you to be a little more careful with your heart. Deciding you wouldn’t be answering that question, you gave him a quick scan and concluded that you liked what you saw. “You clean up nice.”

“Is that your way of saying I’m handsome?”

“It means you dress up well. Take the compliment before I retract it,” you replied, crossing your arms. 

“You already said it. No take-backs,” Haechan teased, grinning all smug-like. “You look pretty. But you’re always gorgeous.”

His flirting was going to be the death of you. “You’ve seen me three times and not once without makeup.”

“Take the compliment before I retract it,” Haechan mocked, giving an impersonation of however your voice sounded in his head. 

You gawked. “I do not sound like that!” 

Haechan snickered and grabbed your hand, shutting the door behind you with his other. “Listen, baby,” he started. “While I would love to get on your nerves, we’re going to be late.”

Realizing he was right, you dropped it. For now. “Okay,” you sighed. “Well, let’s go.”

Haechan led you outside to where his motorcycle was parked, making small talk with you along the way to fill the silence in the air. You didn’t talk about anything special - most of it turned into him being endearingly aggravating - but you noted that you liked his voice. 

When you got there, Haechan passed you a pretty pink helmet and told you, “I bought this for you. I hope you like pink. You gave me a pink girl vibe.”

“Because you’re just so good at knowing what vibes I give off,” you deadpanned, realizing this was the second time he had told you what vibes you gave him. And had been correct. 

Haechan didn't do shit but smirk. “Well?”

You sighed. “I love pink,” you admitted, attempting to put it on. 

Your confession made him grin even broader, but instead of teasing you, Haechan opted to help you put the helmet on correctly. “You a virgin?”

The use of that word made you shudder a little bit in surprise, but you quickly realized what he meant. 

Your faltering didn’t go unnoticed by Haechan, no matter how brief. “I meant a motorcycle virgin,” he added.

“I know,” you replied, chuckling. “And yup. Nobody has ever taken me for a spin on a daredevil before.”

“I’m glad to have taken your motorcycle virginity,” replied Haechan, stepping back after clasping your helmet. “Ready, babe?”

Your voice wavered, “Sort of.”

Haechan mounted his bike and gestured for you to mimic him. When you were straddling the seat, he gently steered your hands around his waist. “Don’t be scared. You’ll be fine as long as you hold onto me really, really tight.”

You narrowed your eyes. “And you liking me touching you has nothing to do with it?”

“Those are the pros.”

“And what else are the pros?”

“On a motorcycle, we get to dodge all the traffic,” Haechan replied with a grin, securing his own helmet. “Now, like I said, hold on tight.”

You did as told, tightly clasping your arms around his waist and holding on for dear life when you felt the motorcycle jerk alive underneath your shared weight. 

And it was exhilarating, flying past the city lights at the speed of light itself and watching splashes of color bleed into each other. You could feel the wind on your face and whip through your hair. You found yourself laughing as Haechan quite literally took you on the ride of your life. 

He weaved in and out of lanes adroitly, avoiding stationary cars with a technique only years of training could upskill. Which was reassuring. You weren’t sitting on the back of the bike of a total amateur. 

Hearing your noises of excitement made Haechan crack a broad smile. She likes it, he thought smugly. It was a step up from the night he met you and he would gladly take any tiny accomplishment. He couldn’t wait to see the look on the boys faces when he popped up with you in tow. No one believed him when he said he’d scored a date with you. 

Well, of course Ryujin did, because she saw the whole thing go down. But she wouldn’t support him nor deny that he had snagged you. So it would be a huge surprise. 

With some minutes of driving out of the way, you and Haechan finally dismounted his bike, arriving just shy of Jaemin’s house. You both caught your breath for a second, leaving your helmets behind. When you knocked on the door, a man you obviously had never seen before answered, a cup in hand. He saw you and his features instantly twisted with surprise. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered under his breath. 

“I told you so,” were the first words to leave Haechan’s mouth. 

Jeno stepped aside, making room for you. And ignoring his friend. “Come on in, beautiful. The party’s just getting started.”

You weren’t wooed by the pet name, which made Haechan snicker as he walked inside the party, arm locked with yours. 

The look of surprise on everyone’s faces did not go unnoticed by you and you quickly turned to Haechan, asking, “Did you not tell your friends I was coming?”

“Oh, he wouldn’t shut up about it. We just didn’t believe him,” Jaemin answered for your date, shock promptly fading into amusement. He held out his hand for you to shake. “I’m Jaemin. The host of this shitshow.”

You kindly shook hands with him and told him your name. “Nice to meet you.”

Haechan took over from there and pointed to his friends in the order that they appeared on the couch as he introduced, “Winter, Ryujin, Mark. And I guess the fuckward that opened the door for you is Jeno.”

Jeno lifted his middle finger. “Oh, fuck you, Haechan.”

“Love you too, man,” Haechan replied smugly, ushering you to the couch. 

In little to no time, you were socializing with Haechan’s clique as if you’d been good friends for ages. None of them made you feel like an imposter, which you appreciated. Jaemin and his girlfriend Winter, who was sitting squarely on his lap, encouraged you to get comfortable. You felt right at home, laughing at their shenanigans. Many of which were Haechan’s, who was quite the shit-stirrer and troublemaker. You weren’t at all surprised. He screamed chaos. 

His friends had a noteworthy amount of individuality and magnetism too. Jeno was everything you thought Haechan would be, but hilarious. Maybe even charming depending on who you asked. He liked taking turns hurling insults with Haechan. They were like brothers. 

Jaemin and Winter were absolutely smitten with each other and were insufferable when apart, but grossly cute together. She was glued to his lap most of the time, but added a unique sense of humor to the conversation in between kisses. 

Ryujin and Mark were mortal enemies and couldn’t go a half second without bickering and endless banter, but they were a killer Spades duo and gave you and Haechan a run for your money. Their similarities to an old married couple were reminiscent of your grandparents and you made a mental note to check on your grandmother later.

“Talking to yourself is not weird,” Mark whined some hours later. 

Ryujin shot, “Maybe on whatever planet you come from.”

The pack (and you admittedly) let out a laugh at poor Mark’s expense. 

Jaemin set down his drink and took a hit from the joint you had all started to pass around not too long ago. Everybody was at least a little buzzed by now except for Haechan, which surprised you. You didn’t expect him to be responsible. “Okay, okay. Chill. Every man deserves to give himself a good pep talk in the mirror.”

“Okay, so are we talking pep talks or having full-blown conversations with yourself?” asked Jeno. 

Winter turned to Jaemin and asked, “You give yourself pep talks?”

Jaemin bobbed his head. “Sometimes,” he said. “Like when I asked you out. I gave myself a long speech of encouragement.”

Ryujin furrowed her brows. “Didn’t she say ‘no’ the first time you asked her out?”

Everybody laughed. 

Haechan turned to you and explained, “Jaemin asked Winter out in our freshman year of college in the courtyard. He pulled out all the stops - flowers, chocolates, the whole nine. She rejected him and the whole campus talked about it for weeks.”

“I thought he was so weird!” Winter exclaimed. 

“She thought Jaemin was weird. Jaemin talked to himself. I’m connecting the dots,” quipped Ryujin, passing the joint.  

Mark hissed, “You didn’t connect shit.”

“I’m connecting them.”

Jeno pointed to you with his drink. “What about you? Do you talk to yourself?”

“Sometimes,” you admitted. 

Mark leapt up and exclaimed, “Yes!”

“But only when I’m self-deprecating.”

“Oh,” Mark replied darkly. Ryujin had to tug him back down. 

Haechan grabbed your hand and said sweetly, “Never talk to yourself.”

You rolled your eyes. He was such a flirt. Maybe you were starting to like it. 

Some more colorful banter later, Haechan decided to connect his phone to Jaemin’s bluetooth speaker and everybody got up to bust a move to his wonderful music selection. He volunteered his hand and you took it gladly, in a world of your own as you each danced. 

Haechan quickly became talented at making you laugh. He shimmied his hips in a very, very unattractive way and you almost snorted. “You know,” Haechan started a couple minutes later, your bodies much closer. “I can’t shake the feeling that you’re really familiar. Like I’ve seen you before.”

You shrugged. “Maybe. I do modeling.”

“Really?”

“Mm-hm,” you hummed. Your faces were dangerously close. One wrong move and your lips would be touching. “Mainly in New York, but I’ve decided to come here for a fresh start.”

Surprise was Haechan’s initial reaction, but he quickly responded, “That checks out. You are breathtaking, after all.”

You groaned. “It’s like you have some compulsion to flirt with me.”

“I do,” Haechan replied with a grin. “I’ll keel over and die if I don’t flirt with you.”

That checks out, you were tempted to mock, but instead you mimicked monotonously, “Must flirt. Will self-destruct if I don’t flirt.”

Haechan laughed loudly and you smiled at the sound of him. As the night carried on, you were finding less and less to dislike about him. He also only got even handsomer at this range. You could see every little detail on his pretty boy face. 

Needless to say, Haechan was also hyper aware of the lack of distance between your faces and bodies. His eyes kept flitting to your plump lips and all he could think about was how kissable they were. “I think it’s really interesting that you’re a model,” he began. 

You casted him a glance. “Why?”

“Because I’m a photographer.”

“Really?” you asked, somewhat shocked. 

Haechan bobbed his head. “Mm-hm. My whole life kinda. It’s my passion.”

“Interesting,” you replied, though it wasn’t a lie. You were thinking over his admission. He was splurging your assumptions of him, dime by fucking dime. Haechan screamed spoiled rich kid at first glance and you’d doubted that he even had a job. 

“Tell me something else about you,” Haechan said, locking eyes with you and doing his best to keep them there. You tested the limits of his self-control and he didn’t know whether he liked it or not. 

“Like what?”

Haechan shrugged. “Anything.”

You thought long and hard about it. His weighty stare didn’t help in the slightest. After a minute you confessed, “I like cheesy movies.”

His eyes flickered with surprise. “Seriously?”

You smiled coyly and replied, “Yes. It’s a character flaw, I know.”

“Wow,” he said, shaking his head. “The model with an attitude that collects vinyls as a hobby likes cheesy movies. You amaze me, you know.”

You gasped. “I do not have an attitude!”

“You have lots of attitude, baby. Snark for days. And I love every minute of it,” flirted Haechan for the umpteenth time this night alone. 

You were tempted to roll your eyes, but you kept them on his face, realizing again how good-looking he was. His lips were calling your name and you wondered if they were as soft as they looked. “Relax,” you said, feeling your hold on the reins slacken. You didn’t like it not one bit. “I’m only going out with you because I want that Michael vinyl.”

Haechan seemingly didn’t take offense to that and replied, “I know, but I thought that maybe if we went out on a date you would realize there’s actually a lot to like about me.”

You had already reached that conclusion on your own, feeling yourself become attracted to Haechan the longer you spent time with him, but your heart had intricate security and you were in no way inclined to let your guard down. 

“Like what?”

Haechan didn’t waste a second on hesitation. “We have similar music tastes. We both like cheesy movies. I’m a photographer. You’re a model. I mean, come on. We go together like pancakes and syrup, baby.”

Him likening you both to pancakes and syrup made you snort. “Is that the best analogy you could come up with?” you asked. 

“Cut me some slack,” Haechan groaned. “The last time I ate was ten this morning. I’m starving.”

You laughed. 

He squeezed your hand affectionately and said, “Speaking of which, there’s a diner down the block that serves really good pancakes. I can vouch. Wanna go grab some?”

You pretended to mull it over and eventually replied, “I would like that.”

Haechan sported a victorious grin before disclosing to his clique that the two of you would be seeing yourselves out. Ryujin bid you goodnight and Winter pouted, asking when she would see you again. You and your date barely managed to escape the party, slipping outside into the cold after a solid five minutes. 

The sky looked a little darker now, the city a little brighter. Time really did fly by when you were having fun. Among other things. “C’mon,” Haechan said, grabbing your hand. And you both held hands as he walked you to his parked bike. 

The diner was bare, given the early hour as the clock transcended past midnight, but the food was delightful as promised. Only a pair of employees were working their shifts, but you and Haechan tried to keep it down as you talked over an early breakfast in the booth. 

Which failed tremendously. Haechan was just so hilarious. Your laughter rang out through the breakfast joint in spite of how much you constantly reminded yourself to be quiet. You weren’t even paying attention to the pair of co-workers increasingly losing the will to live. You and Haechan talked about everything under the sun. The city and its shallow. Work and speeding vehicles. The best spots in the entire city. Your heart sped like how it did when you were speeding on his bike. 

“Your friends are cool,” you told him after a while. 

“But I’m cooler, right?” Haechan asked jokingly, earning a roll of your eyes. 

You picked up your coffee and droned, “Very.”

Haechan laughed playfully but sobered a little to confess, “I’m glad I met them. It’s kill or be killed in this city. It’s hard to find people that don’t share the same three superficial personalities.”

“Oh?”

He bobbed his head. “Yeah. It’s brutal.”

“Tell me about them.”

“Shit, where do I even start?” Haechan said, chuckling a little, but soon finding the answer to his question. “Jaemin is a complete geek. Don’t be fooled by his looks. There’s a reason Winter turned him down the first time, but he’s a chill dude that doesn’t bother anybody. He’s studying to be an engineer.”

That surprised you and tempted you to laugh. “Really?”

“Yup. Ironically, he’s probably the most regular person out of all of us. He doesn’t like to draw attention to himself,” Haechan ranted, pausing to sip from his drink. “Winter is the complete opposite. She’s a model, like you. Been in Vogue. When she’s not feeling up Jaemin, she loves to tend to her garden.”

So that explained the abundance of flowers in their front yard. It was vibrant plant galore. They looked nurtured, obviously a lot of love was being put into taking care of them and keeping them healthy. 

Haechan continued, “Ryujin is a unique blend of art kid and debate club survivor. She works part-time at the record store obviously, but she has big hopes for her paintings. She’s really talented.”

You were genuinely intrigued. “Wow. I would love to see her art.”

“That painting in Jaemin and Winter’s living room is hers. It was a housewarming gift when they moved in together,” Haechan told you like he was giving you the inside scoop. “Mark is a single pringle with way too much time on his hands, but he makes great music. He wants to be a famous rapper.”

“Mark and Ryujin aren’t boning?”

Haechan snickered loudly, shaking his head. “Nope. They’re like brother and sister. Ryujin has a boyfriend, but they’re dating long distance. He lives in Chicago or something like that.”

You made a face. “Commitment. That’s impressive. I respect it.”

“Yeah, same. I couldn’t handle it. I need too much stimulation for that shit,” Haechan said. 

“Hypothetically, you wouldn’t be willing to make it work for me?”

Haechan thought over his answer, chewing over his words. “I would at least try,” he told you admittedly. “But I can’t say for sure I could make it work.”

You admired his bluntness. His ability to be straightforward was something you genuinely respected. You knew he wanted to impress you, but on top of all that and his acute need for humor, Haechan was incredibly honest. Unlike somebody you knew. 

Curiously, you cocked your head, realizing you were missing somebody. “What about Jeno?” you asked. 

“What about him?”

You cocked a brow. “You were telling me about your friends?”

Haechan made a face of remembrance. “Oh, right. Jeno is single, but Giacomo Casanova reincarnated. He could have been written by Shakespeare. Another aspiring model.”

Why aren’t you a model? You took one good goddamn look at Haechan and not very subtly licked your lips until they were dry. He was so breathtaking. You couldn’t believe he was the man behind the camera. “You’re kinda handsome, you know,” you admitted. 

Haechan snickered. He hadn’t expected those words to come out of your mouth, but with how you were unabashedly checking him out, it was no secret you found him attractive. “Is that what you gathered from what I said?”

“No. I gathered that you’re fine enough to be a model and yet you are not. I think you even have the charisma,” you told him blatantly. “Why stand behind the camera?”

Haechan shrugged. Feigning nonchalance. “That’s just who I am,” he said. 

“Do you like it?”

“I love it,” he replied with zero hesitation. 

You shot him a smile. “Then, I guess that’s all that matters.”

Haechan nodded in agreement. He wouldn’t trade his job for the world. He liked being able to do his favorite hobby for a living. Not everybody had that luxury. You were the same way, but damn it you couldn’t take it off your mind how Haechan looked straight out of a magazine. You had seen hundreds of handsome men in your lifetime, far and up close, but he took the cake.

It was hard to believe Haechan was anything but a casanova himself, considering your first impression of him was that he was a player trying to get into your pants. Which was fair because he was, and he couldn’t deny that. But in spite of his good looks, magnetic personality and charisma, Haechan had some admirable personality traits. 

You narrowed your eyes at him, accusing, and asked, “What do you think about debauchery?”

There you went with the random statements and questions again. Haechan snorted, leaned back in his seat, and replied silkily, “I am quite the debaucher.” 

“You mean debauchee,” you corrected. 

Haechan groaned, “Who gives a fuck? I love pussy.”

You snorted back a laugh. Again, honesty. Noted. 

Haechan finished what was left of his pancakes in one final bite and chewed without any particular rush. “Listen, if you’re asking me this because you think I’m a player, you’ve got the wrong guy,” he said eventually.

Your mind was racing. You were plagued by doubts. “Do I?”

“You do.” Haechan dropped his fork, reaching for a napkin. Then, he added, “I fuck. I fool around. I’m not gonna lie and act like I’m a fucking prude. But when I’m tied down, I get tunnel vision.”

“Something tells me you’re not tied down often,” you remarked, never taking your eyes off of him. 

Haechan met your stare and shot back, “Something tells me you don’t like being tied down.”

He caught you there. You wanted to be upset, but you couldn’t. Not when he was so right about you already. “I don’t mind being in a relationship but… I don’t like it when men act as if a woman being in a relationship should deprive her of her individuality. I want to be independent.”

“Then, we’re the same in that regard,” he replied, grinning at you. “I would never try to control you or anything like that. You’re a grown ass woman and I’m a grown ass man. I just hate feeling stagnant and I need constant stimulation. Hypothetically, could you handle that?”

You pretended to mull it over. “Yeah.” You nodded your head. “I could.”

Haechan grinned wildly. He was liking where this was going. And he definitely wanted to see you again. Little did he know, you felt the exact same way.

Haechan checked his watch and frowned. “It’s late. I should take you back home.”

You quipped, “What kind of grown ass man has a curfew?”

Haechan snickered and started to tidy up his things. 

You left the diner a couple minutes later, hopping back on Haechan’s sexy motorbike. He drove you through the city, besotted with how your arms felt wrapped so tightly around his waist as he sped through the night. 

When he dropped you off at your doorstep, fingers laced through yours the entire trip there, something bittersweet came over you. You didn’t want the night to be over. Haechan had won you over in just one night alone. 

“I guess this is goodbye,” you said when you’d reached your door. 

“Goodbye for now,” Haechan corrected you, smirking. He could hear the sadness in your tone you tried to veil. “By the way, I’m free tomorrow. You can swing by my place to pick up the vinyl. I’ll text you my address.”

Confusion twisted your features for the briefest second before you remembered the reason you’d even agreed to go out on a date with him in the first place. You had forgotten all about your record collection. “Sounds great,” you chirped, reluctantly taking your keys from your purse. You were glad you would finally get your hands on the vinyl, though still crestfallen that he had to leave. 

Haechan didn’t want to leave until he was certain you were safely inside your condo and he heard the door lock, but you surprised him when you unlocked your door and turned around to say, “I had a really great time tonight.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m glad.”

You pointed inside your place with your thumb. “Do you… wanna come inside?”

It was no secret what that meant. You wanted to fool around with him, there was no doubt. “I shouldn’t,” Haechan said. 

Not that he didn’t want to. But it was the first date and he didn’t want to seem like he was only after one thing.

The disappointment on your face was noticeable, but you forced a smile. “Right. You probably shouldn’t.”

Something told Haechan to bid you goodnight and leave it at that, but then he thought, Who the fuck am I kidding? And with all his self-restraint parked squarely beside his bike, he smashed his lips against yours. 

Your first instinct was to be surprised, but then you kissed him back just as hard. Fuck, you had been resisting the urge the whole evening. It was so satisfying to finally know what his lips felt like pressed to yours like a mold. You lost your mind a little at how romantic his kisses were. They were hard, but slow. You met him halfway, feeling something shift in your body as the kiss steadily grew more and more heated. And you couldn’t fight the heat that wafted over you as his hands kneaded your hips. 

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He’s a great kisser, you screamed internally. It drove you mad. It made you crazy with burning ache. 

Naturally, Haechan ultimately ended up slipping past your doorway, locking it shut behind him and kissing you through the hallways. “Bedroom?” he asked between kisses. 

You pointed, although you were losing your sense of direction as you became drunk with the taste of him. You panted, “Over there.”

Each of you were both half-naked by the time you charged through your bedroom door. You were reduced to your underwear, your clothes scattered across the hallway in your wake. Haechan pulled you towards your bed, collapsing over you as your lips synced messily. 

His warmth made you moan, little noises escaping you at the meeting of your bodies, skin to skin. Then, his lips attached to your throat, sinking lower and lower until you could feel his breath at your abdomen. “Can I taste this wet fucking pussy?” Haechan growled while flitting his gaze to your eyes. 

One look at him between your thighs and you were tightening around nothing. There was no reason that should have been as attractive as it was. Please, your body begged. “Are you any good?” you asked. 

Haechan cocked a brow at you and chuckled, reaching for some pillows to hand over to you. “Get comfortable,” were his only words. 

You tucked the pillows he passed you underneath your elbows obediently and lifted your hips. Haechan started to slip your panties off, pulling them right down your ankles before they were tossed into oblivion. All it took was a single glance at your bare cunt for Haechan to dive between your legs. He gripped your thighs, spreading them apart and holding them in place. Your thighs were plush and it was no doubt he liked the way they fit in his palms. 

Haechan spent a moment wandering, just getting a feel for what made you tick. Not a bunch of time was wasted idly and he caught on quickly, reducing you to moans and squirming quicker than anybody before him. It was infuriating. His hold on your thighs tightened, keeping you rooted and still. You bit your lip, trying to smother the sound of your soft sounds in an endeavor to wipe the smug look off his wet lips, but to no avail.

Haechan was eating you out like he just couldn’t get enough of you. Which wasn’t far from the truth at all. Your moans were pornographic and made him crazy with a burning, all-consuming flavor of lust. You covered your mouth flat with your palm, tense when he sucked your clit, moaning, “Fuck,” into your own hand. 

You were already unbelievably sensitive. Maybe because it had been a while since you’d had sex. I’m so busy, you thought. Work had taken priority in your life. In between being pursued by Haechan, you were also becoming high-demand in shoots. None of that changed the fact you’d been maybe subconsciously hoping that this would happen though. You even shaved in the shower just before throwing on your clothes. 

Your whole body was unstill. You clenched your hands into fists, over and over again, before finally letting yourself run your fingers through his dark hair. His lips felt so good, tracing the skin around your thigh. He was disarming you. Slowly but surely. Or maybe not that slowly at all. 

“Haechan, shit. Fuck,” you cursed, your tongue tied in knots. Nothing could articulate how he was making you feel, how the walls of ice around you were collapsing in on themselves.

Haechan merely groaned against your cunt with a mouthful of pussy and the noise was powerful enough to kill you. You were already seeing god. 

Your back arched off the mattress, your hips driving into his face. You couldn’t get enough either. He was making you greedy and you didn’t even understand what for. All you knew was that you wanted him and the attraction was so fervent it was undeniable now. The boy between your thighs had a mutual thought. The room was a hundred degrees hotter than it had been before, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t feel the heat from the outside, too engrossed with how besotted and hot for you he was internally.

He was going to get you to climax even if it was the last thing he did, not that you were far from finishing. And when you thought things couldn’t possibly get any better, he stuffed a pair of fingers inside your pussy. 

The bedroom was too hot to breathe in. You kept panting, kept crying out Haechan’s name, pulling at his locks of hair as you pleased. And he let you. Your body was so indecisive, arching into him but flexing away involuntarily, as if it couldn’t decide what it wanted. 

“Don’t stop. Please,” you cried out. 

Your body only knew him right now, on the verge of going numb because of how sensitive and swollen your clit was. Haechan did the opposite of slow down. He was undeterred and absolutely nothing would stop him from bringing you to climax while he went down on you like a madman. You could feel the heat gathering in your thigh, like it would consume you at any given moment. 

It was practically over for you when he continued to finger your sweet spot, dragging his fingers in and out of your perfect cunt. You were a whirlwind of excitement, less and less able to keep still the longer he sucked and fucked, and touched on you. You could feel sweat on your back and chest. “I’m gonna cum,” you warned. 

“Cum,” Haechan told you, voice a little deeper. “I want you to cum, baby.”

The pressure was building. And it kept coming. There were no peaks, no limits. Like steady rainfall in the forest. 

You cried out his name one last time before your orgasm got the best of you, making you shudder and shake, and tangle your fingers deeper into his head of hair. The whole world stopped for a second. But Haechan kept tasting you through your climax, not stopping until it was over. You arched off the bed, too many sensations hitting you at once. 

When the last of your high faded your back hit the mattress with a thud. You were completely out of breath, a couple of tears forming a shroud in your eyes while they gathered at your lashes. You were finally broken. 

But with your permission, Haechan went down on you one final time after that. For safe measure. Haechan finally pulled back once you’d cum for a second time, meeting your stare, but the eye contact only lasted for a couple of seconds because you couldn’t take yours off of his slick lips. He licked your release nonchalantly and something primal took over you. You were feeling less and less like a woman. More like a beast.

Haechan, grinning to himself as he took notice of how defeated you looked, cocked his brow at you expectantly. “So?” 

Ah. You had asked him if he was any good. “Mind numb,” you panted. “Can’t think.”

Haechan laughed. Feeling a little less lethargic than before, you clambered over to him, tugging at his boxers. You could see the print of his hard dick against it. 

“Someone’s impatient,” Haechan teased. 

“Someone’s not moving fast enough,” you shot back, pulling them down for him to step out of. You gawked, licking your lips at the sight. Fuck, he was huge. You should’ve known. 

You glanced up at him with a little glimmer in your eyes, asking, “Can I suck you off?” 

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to,” you replied, your lips dry from how much your tongue passed over them. He was just so fucking mouth-watering. You wanted a taste badly. 

There was no way Haechan could tell you no when you looked at him with that sexy gleam in your eyes. Plus he wasn’t at all against feeling your mouth on his dick. “Alright,” he said, playing nonchalant. 

Haechan moved to sit on your bed and you crept between his thighs, sitting on your knees. You spat in your hand and grabbed his dick, only pumping him in your fist for the meanwhile. 

Then, you slowly transitioned into swirling your tongue around his dick, though not yet drawing him inside your mouth. You were toying with him, trying to see how much he could take, and Haechan realized very quickly that you were pushing his buttons. Which was strange. That was his thing. But he kinda liked it. 

A high-pitched moan left him when you finally - fucking finally - started to take him past your lips, hollowing your cheeks, and he fisted your hair behind you. Giving you a full scan, Haechan realized how sexy you looked sucking him off, kneeled between his legs with that sexy ass stare in your eyes gazing up at him. You must have known it was his kryptonite. 

And you did. Meeting his stare, you could read him just by looking at his handsome face. It was your time to be a smug little bitch. You wanted to break him, just like he had broken you. “Fuck, baby. Like that,” Haechan grunted, throwing his head back. Which meant you must have been doing something right.

You were feeling benevolent and took him deeper inside your mouth while wrapping your fist around whatever was still available. There were many sensations on his dick and it was doing something inexplicably unhinged to his brain. 

One look at his face made you feel extremely accomplished. His features were tensed and his lips were parted. I’ll suck the soul outta that dick any day to see that face, you thought very amusedly to yourself, resisting a chuckle. 

You pried yourself away for a while, still looking into his eyes, and taunted, “Too much for you, baby boy?”

“Never,” Haechan retorted, voice airy and light. Like he was on some fucking cloud. 

You lifted a brow, amused, though in that case, decided it was time to up the stakes. You sucked him a little faster, taking him a little further until he hit the back of your throat. Very eager and deliberate. 

Haechan was losing whatever was left of his goddamn mind. His thighs trembled, cock twitching inside your mouth. You were doing unspeakable things to him right now and he was absolutely obsessed. Your tongue touched the base of his dick and your free hand squeezed his bare thigh. God-fucking-damn, was all Haechan could think. Literally. His mind was numb, thanks to you. In a matter of minutes, his legs would probably be as well.  

A couple of tears gathered in your eyes, but you willed yourself to power through. You couldn’t be finished until he was finished. You were way too resolved to make him unravel. At the sensation of your warm mouth, Haechan whimpered, “Fuck,” grabbing and using your hair. 

His sounds were just so fucking hot. You wanted to record them so that you could put them on loop. Arousal seeped between your thighs, but you ignored it, just for his sake. 

Some time had passed since your last blowjob. It was good to know that your mouth was still spectacular, if his sensitive movements and high-pitched moans were any indicator. You squeezed your thighs together. There was throbbing between your legs. Mutual chaos. Mutual destruction. The two of you were a very, very unlikely duo.

Haechan was warm to the touch everywhere you touched him, blood circulating through him swiftly like a Shanghai maglev. You traced your fingers up and down his thighs, giving them a little pinch, and were surprised to find he was incredibly pliant. You little freak, you thought teasingly. You jotted down a mental note to playfully scold him later, too concentrated on stringing him to climax. 

The male before you looked a total of seconds away from malfunctioning altogether. You were making short work of him like no other girl and it was giving him much to think about.

Your nails found purchase in his thigh, dragging your nails down the flesh and leaving little red lines, just before you brought one of your hands to his cock again. You’d been pulling out all the stops to chase him closer to the finish. Every other thought on your mind vanished as you fixed all of your attention on making him cum. Haechan had the same thought, involuntarily bucking his hips as he tried to fuck your mouth.

You let him control the pace, let him do whatever he needed to finish. You moaned around his shaft again, sending vibrations that shook him. A little longer and he wouldn’t last. 

“I’m coming. Shit, babe. Keep going…,” he mumbled, winding his fingers through your scalp again. His pace was erratic. It was all you could do not to choke, giving him permission to use you to get himself off. And it was too fucking hot. You were in disbelief. 

Haechan tried to be careful, not wanting to trouble you, but you knew what you were doing and he couldn’t exactly control his impulses. His impulses controlled him. You sucked and swallowed, all good and pliant. 

Seconds later, Haechan was orgasming, painting the back of your throat with cum. His thighs shook and you could physically feel his dick twitch inside your mouth as he released. He moaned your name loud enough to wake the neighbors. 

You took as much of his load as you could fit inside your mouth, but as it turned out, Haechan came a lot. Some dripped from your chin and you wiped it with the back of your hand. When he let go of your hair, you pulled back, just watching your handiwork smugly. You mocked, “So?”

Haechan blinked, like it would clear the invisible haze. He was barely handling the stimulation. You were undoubtedly one of the best he’d ever had and he was officially sprung with you. “High fucking hell,” he groaned. 

You giggled. That was answer enough. 

For an uncertain amount of hours (nobody was counting), you and Haechan took turns finishing each other, even sixty-nining once or twice till you needed a break. 

“Okay, timeout. I can’t feel my dick,” Haechan sighed after a while, surprising himself. Usually, he wore other people out. Not the other way around, but the two of you were in a competition to see who could exhaust the other first. Haechan realized then and there that you were matching his energy and it shocked the hell out of him, because that was a first. He was even more interested in you now. 

You chortled and collapsed on the bed. You were also having some revelations, but you kept them to yourself. He hasn’t even asked to put his dick in me, you realized after a moment. He was definitely a pussy fiend, but he hadn’t even fucked you and it’d been ages. 

That was a first. 

You held your chin in your face while staring at him. “Are you busy tomorrow?”

Haechan looked high as hell and he hadn’t done a single drug in your presence. “Not as we speak,” he replied quietly. “Other than playing pool with Jaemin later and giving you that vinyl, I don’t exactly have plans.”

“You should still rest,” you told him assertively. “Do you wanna stay the night?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

You smiled, resisting a squeal to contain your excitement. You patted the spot beside you, gesturing for him to come over. Which he did. “Goodnight,” you whispered.

“Goodnight, beautiful,” Haechan said, blowing a kiss your way.

You rolled your eyes, but quickly devolved into giggles and tangled yourself in his arms. 

Sleep came easy for you that night and had you not forgotten to turn off your alarm, you would have slept past noon. You could feel the sunlight on your face and flipped over, desperate to escape its brightness. 

That was when the memories of last night slammed into you like an eighteen-wheeler. Haechan’s fingers tangled in your hair and his mouth between your legs. Sleep had sobered you, the inebriety of lust distant, save for the ache that lingered in your thigh. Your heart fluttered for a second, but it was gone the second you noticed the man you’d spent all night with had disappeared, his arms no longer thrown around your waist. 

You started to worry then. There was no note on your nightstand. You immediately grabbed your phone from your bedside table, hopeful of finding some sort of message, but Haechan didn’t even have the courtesy to leave a text or voicemail. Bitterness seeped into your chest as you assumed the worst. He’s had his fun and now he’s done, you thought disdainfully. Why you expected him to be any different was beyond you. 

You threw on your robe and slipped on your slippers before stomping downstairs, full of attitude in large quantities. Maybe it was for the better that you didn’t exactly let him hit. But you still felt stupid, because you would have. If he would have asked. 

But he didn’t. 

Thoughts of hunger broke your reverie when you smelled eggs from the kitchen, which was strange, because you were certain that nobody was there. You grabbed a vase off a nearby table and approached the kitchen with slow, cautious strides. 

A part of you hoped it was only Haechan, but surely enough, you were taken aback when you got an amazing view of his back while he faced your stove. 

Haechan is here - and he’s cooking? 

You shook your head. This man was full of surprises. 

Haechan was none the wiser, humming to himself, and didn’t even realize you were present until he turned around to grab something from the island. “Good morning,” he said sweetly. He pointed to the vase in your hands. “Thought I was a killer?”

“You scared the shit out of me,” you sighed, walking over to the island and sitting the vase down. 

Haechan grinned. “Why - you didn’t think I was gonna still be here?”

You didn’t have to answer that question. And you wouldn’t be. You didn’t like that he saw through you so clearly, it made you feel transparent. Changing the topic, you asked, “What you cooking?”

“Omelets,” he replied nonchalantly, fixed to the stove again. “I know we technically had breakfast not too long ago, but I saw how much you liked omelets.”

Something fluttered in your chest. It was sweet, dare you say. 

“That’s really thoughtful of you,” you whispered, getting comfortable at the island. 

“I’m a thoughtful guy.”

“That you are.”

Comfortable silence enveloped you in its wholeness. For the first time since you met him, if it was worth noting. Neither of you liked the quiet very much - silence gave too much room for thinking - but you didn’t mind it right now.

Haechan slipped a steaming omelet from the pan to your plate masterfully, handing you a knife and fork. You opened your mouth to thank him, but he beat you, finally starting, “Speaking of thinking, I been, well, thinking. And I need you to not go ghost on me after this.”

Your eyes flickered, but you glanced at your plate to hide your surprise, cutting off a morsel. “Why would I do that?” you asked. 

Haechan shrugged his shoulders, but ranted, “I just hate when you think shit tight with a girl, and then after you hook up, they don’t wanna keep in touch anymore.”

“Huh,” you mumbled. “Funny. I feel the same way.”

Haechan took the seat beside you. His eyes met yours, something sober in them. “I say all of this to say that I like where this is going and I want to see you again. But if you’re not on the same page, let me know right now.”

“I’m on the same page.”

He pressed, “Are you sure?”

“Yes, Haechan,” you replied, setting down your knife. “If I didn’t want to keep seeing you after this, I would tell you in no uncertain terms. I’m having fun.”

Haechan nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay,” you repeated. “This is really, really good, by the way. Where’d you learn to cook?”

The boyish smile was back on Haechan’s handsome face. “Everything I know I owe to my parents,” he said. “This particularly to my mother.”

You taunted, “Ah. You a Momma’s boy?”

Haechan chuckled. “Something like that, yeah.”

Almost endearing. You got a mental picture of a tiny Haechan peaking around the corner, watching his mother cook, and it brought a smile to your lips. 

Both of you talked over breakfast. You got orange juice out of the fridge for you to drink and spent what was left of the morning chattering incessantly. You finally accepted that you liked Haechan. Maybe unconsciously, you’d been fighting it because of your ex. 

As of now, you were playing tug-of-war with your heart. On the one hand, there was a part of you that lingered over him and it still felt forbidden to be interested in other men. But one swift reminder that he was interested in other girls while apparently being interested in you, and all the feelings you had for him dissolved into resentment. 

Plus you weren’t exactly ready for another relationship, nor did you completely trust Haechan yet, but on the other hand, he made you forget all about the bastard that hurt you. And how it felt to be hurt. 

Needless to say, you would be seeing him again. Haechan made you feel something you hadn’t felt in a long, long time. 

You were sad when he had to leave, picking up his clothes that were scattered across your entire condo and redressing himself, but gladly kissed him goodbye. On the cheek. For various reasons.

Besides, you would be seeing him later on that day anyways. You both had things to take care of. 

Chaewon was sporting the biggest smile you’d ever seen when you climbed into the back of the taxi with her. You expected a stern reprimanding, given that you hadn’t returned any of her calls or texts since last night, but somehow this was worse.

“Don’t even,” was the first thing you said when you entered the backseat. 

Chaewon grinned mischievously, singing, “You’re glowing.”

“Yes. There’s this cool thing called a skin care routine. You may have heard of it,” you deadpanned. 

Chaewon wriggled her eyebrows. “Does this skin care routine consist of Lee Haechan’s semen?”

You grimaced. “Gross.”

“You guys totally boned, didn’t you?” she asked. Though it was less of a question and more of a declaration. You hoped the driver was tuning both of you out.

“Jesus, Chae. Good morning to you, too,” you replied boredly. 

“Good morning, bestie. Now did you or did not you bone Haechan?”

You just rolled your eyes. She was relentless. “Okay, fine,” you started, sighing out a little. “We hooked up.”

“I fucking knew it,” Chaewon exclaimed. 

You added sharply, “But we didn’t have sex. It was strictly head.”

Chaewon gave you a look. “Girl, seriously? How was it?”

You pretended to think about it. Memories of last night plagued you. You couldn’t get the image of Haechan strumming you to climax out of your head. You admitted quietly, “He made me see a star or two. Maybe a galaxy. Maybe another universe.”

Chaewon clasped her hands together and made a squealing noise of excitement. 

All you could do was shake your head. But you couldn’t deny that all of your doubts and hesitations about Haechan had been converted into an inexplicable will to see him again. You had an impulse to smile and faced the window so that she couldn’t see. 

“You’re smiling,” Chaewon teased, watching your reflection. 

“I’m not.”

Chaewon nudged you with her elbow. “Come on, girl. You deserve this. You deserve to be happy.”

“I am happy. And I don’t need a man to be happy,” you quickly replied. 

Chaewon frowned. “You know that’s not what I meant. You’ve obviously been down in the dumps since you called off the engagement and I think it’s a good thing you’re letting yourself be a little more lax.”

You let out a disgruntled groan.

Chaewon slipped her fingers through yours and continued, “No one’s saying that you’ve gotta jump the broom. With how hard you’ve worked all these years, you deserve to play.”

“I know, and that’s all he is. We’re just playing around,” you assured her in spite of the fact that nobody questioned it in the first place. “We’re just kickin’ it.”

Chaewon squeezed your hand. 

Meanwhile, Haechan was across town with a friend of his own. 

“I’ve got a question for you, man,” Haechan started after a total of three minutes of silence. 

Jaemin slung his head back and whined, “Oh, brother.”

He had seen it coming from a mile away. Haechan treated silence like the black plague and when he wasn’t chatting his friends ears off for every second of every minute, he was thinking. Of course, Jaemin knew his friend well enough, so it was no doubt he had a question. 

Truth be told, Haechan hadn’t stopped thinking about you since he left your condo. The endless hours of chatter, you dancing in his arms, the sex. All of it was giving him a lot of shit to ponder. 

“It’s been weighing on my mind for a while,” he continued, choosing his words carefully. “Do you think you’re with the someone you’re meant to be with?”

“You mean like my soulmate?”

Haechan gave him a nod, although Jaemin was too busy resting the cue between his fingers. “Yeah, like your other half or some shit like that. The one you’ll live for and die with.”

Sparing his friend a couple seconds worth of a glance, Jaemin paused his endeavors and mulled the question over. “You know, not everybody wants to be in love. But everybody wants to be loved,” he began. “People who get in relationships solely to feel loved don’t know what love is.”

“What’s that gotta do with my question?”

Jaemin shrugged his shoulders. “I wouldn’t trade the love Winter and I share with each other for the world, but what nobody tells you about love is that it has its fair share of ups and downs. There’s bad days and disagreements. Not everybody wants to deal with that.”

“That’s some profound shit, brother,” Haechan teased. 

“Whatever, man. I’m just saying that the idea that love has no bounds is false. I’d give my life for Winter and I wanna marry her someday, but we’ve both got boundaries because love is mutual respect.”

Haechan’s mind was adrift again. He was thinking.

Jaemin connected the dots, blocking the corner pocket with his hand. “Now wait just a second. Don’t tell me this is about that girl.”

Haechan groaned, “What are you doing, man? Can I get my shot?”

“No, no, no. This is about that girl you brought over last night, isn’t it?” Jaemin asked. 

Now, Haechan was officially caught. He heaved a breath, stood to his full height, and said, “You just don’t get it, man. We were talking for hours and she could actually keep up with my bullshit. Not only that, but she understood. Then, I get her in the sheets, and man.”

Jaemin snickered. “I’m guessing it was good?”

“Understatement of the year,” Haechan sighed loudly. “I mean, we didn’t even fuck. She volunteered to suck me off. She left me mind-blown, you hear me? Mind-blown. I can still feel my thighs shaking.”

Jaemin whistled. “Goddamn. So, you think she’s your soulmate?”

“Nah, man,” Haechan replied nonchalantly, setting his cue back on the table. “She’s impressive. That’s all. We’re just kickin’ it. You know I don’t do the whole love thing anymore.”

Jaemin could sniff bullshit from a mile away but shifted his hand. “Alright, man. But when those jones come down,” he started, blunt. “It’s a motherfucker.”

Haechan’s eyes flickered.

[avis-writeshq]

not me asking for it https://www.tumblr.com/avis-writeshq/744966259884556288/if-someone-asks-for-it-ill-write-a-fic-based-on?source=share

pairing: s9!spencer reid x fem!reader genre: fluff, established relationship, SMUT warnings: 18+ CONTENT; MINORS DO NOT INTERACT !! oral fem receiving, spencer reid is a munch, hair pulling, fingering a/n: a promise is a promise !! based off of this post <3 i hope this lived up to expectations !! first time writing fem oral ha h a ha wc: 1.1k

Honestly, if there’s one person Spencer can blame for the situation he is currently in, he blames himself. After all, he should have known that a ‘gathering’ at Rossi’s house that was planned by Penelope would only call for a lot of teasing, a lot of ‘get to know each other!’ games (despite the fact that he has worked with this same team for more than seven years. What else is there to know?), and a lot of alcohol. He didn’t quite realise that these games would be of the drinking variety. Alas, here he is, sitting on one of Rossi’s incredibly expensive leather couches and cringing at the horrid taste of whiskey. 

The game they’re currently playing is an alcoholic’s rendition of ‘who is most likely to?’, involving a thick stack of cards with different topics while each member of the team took turns reading out. Whoever ended up with the most amount fingers pointed in their direction was forced to drink.

Spencer hates this game. He has drank from his cup a grand total of six times, and he is not getting any more used to the spicy-poison-equivalent in his hand. 

“Alright, this is a good one,” Derek announces with a manic snigger. “Who here is most likely to be a munch?”

There is no hesitation in anyone’s answers, and all six fingers point into Spencer’s direction. His jaw drops at the betrayal, his head spinning from the sheer amount of shots he had to take but also what the hell is a munch?

“I don’t even know what that means!” He insists. 

“Oh–” Penelope wears a half delighted half pitying expression at his words. “We really need to get you onto the internet more. Reddit is probably up your alley.”

“Even Rossi knows what it means,” Emily cackles, gesturing to Rossi who looks all too pleased. “Hotch was my second option though.”

Aaron shrugs, sipping at his drink. “Guilty.”

A chorus of laughs and shrieks erupt from the group, leaving Spencer even more confused. “What?”

“Don’t Google it,” JJ chimes in. “Seriously.”

Spencer nods, and although he knows that he should have taken the warning seriously, the curiosity was getting to him and he had no choice but to search it up as soon as he got home. He gets the usual answers– the etymology of the word, what it means in the Oxford Dictionary, the popularity of the word since the early 1800s, and he really doesn’t understand what the fuss is. Does the team think that he eats loudly? Or that he chews with his mouth open? His brows furrow at the unsightly thought. 

His interest soon shifts to a different a different link, namely The Urban Dictionary. He blinks, clicking on the link without much thought and– oh. He does not get much sleep that night.

*** 

Your relationship with Spencer isn’t a secret. At least, it was never supposed to be classified as such. He is simply an incredibly private person that even his closest friends don’t know that you exist. It simply never popped up in conversation– or so he says.

The relationship isn’t necessarily new either. It’s nearing the one year mark and you have gotten to the point where the two of you have been more ‘experimental’ when it comes to sex. He finds it embarrassing. You find it unsurprising that he would. You find it even more surprising when he breaks a kiss halfway to lower you onto his bed, your head falling to one of his very expensive memory foam pillows. 

“I want to try something,” he announces softly into your ear, squeezing gently at your waist and looping his fingers into his shorts. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” you breathe, body hot with anticipation as he pulls down your shorts. It’s only when he brings his face between your thighs do you realise what he intends to do. “Spence, you don’t have to–”

“I want to,” he repeats softly, his fingers running up and down the lacy fabric at your slit. “If you want me to stop, you can tell me.”

You shake your head immediately at that, your hands moving to his grip his shoulders. “No, I don’t want you to stop but– but Spence, this is the first time you’ve done this. It’s okay–”

“Let me do this for you,” he says, his breath ghosting against the sensitive skin of your thighs. “I’ve done my research.”

“What–”

You’re silenced as soon as he presses his lips to your cunt, only separated by your pretty lacy underwear. He groans quietly at the taste of your slick seeping through the fabric, and his hands hold onto your thighs to keep them parted. It’s so good, so good, but it just isn’t enough. He pushes the fabric to the side, watching the way it clings and sticks to your skin. 

All it takes is one swipe of his tongue on your pretty clit for his brain to grow blank. The grip he has on your thighs grow firmer and his fingers dig in hard enough to leave little marks. His nose bumps against your clit while his tongue travels against your folds. 

“You taste so fucking good,” he breathes against you, lapping at your dripping cunt. “Fuck, angel, you’re so beautiful.”

Then, he’s on you all over again. His lips wrap around your clit and he whines into you as he sucks at the bundle of nerves. Each one of his actions has your back lifting from the bed and your hands tugging at his curls, to which he responds with a quiet moan. Amidst the pleasure, your mind nags you to be gentle, and you loosen your grip despite it taking all of your self control.

“Do that again.” He says it as a demand, guiding your hands back into his hair. “Do it again, angel.”

His head is spinning and he craves for more of you, his tongue flattening against your clit over and over again. He brings his own fingers to brush against your entrance, coating them with your slick before slipping his middle finger inside. It’s only the first knuckle but it’s enough to have you squirming beneath him. He pushes further until it reaches all the way, and Spencer groans at the feeling of you tightening around him. He kisses your clit again at the same time he curls his finger inside you and it’s all too much. 

“Spence–”

You gush around his finger and he licks and laps at your pussy like he needs it to breathe. His finger curls open and closed inside you while you rock your hips against his face, your grip on his hair tightening as each second of your high passes. 

“So good,” Spencer moans, kissing your clit. “Taste so good. You can do one more, right, angel? Just one more, I promise.”

reblogs are always appreciated !!

tagging the people who commented on the original post: @mosaicbrokenherz @doigettokeepyou @goblinintheblog @cassioxpeiaxmgg @daddytenebra @lilliumrorum @matthew-gray-gubler-lover @lightreiding

[12daysofchristmas]

Join us in the 2024 12 Days of Christmas Challenge as we hope to spread a little ✨holiday joy and cheer✨ through the magic of writing fanfiction & creating art!

About & Rules

The challenge will run from December 13-24, 2024.

The challenge is open to any and all fandoms.

Submissions must include at least one of the prompts for that day but can combine two, three, or all four.

Prompts for the day always include: a word/words, a scenario, a quote, a "famous" quote (taken from songs and movies)

Tag your submissions with #12daysofchristmas2024 and/or mention this blog so that we will be notified to reblog your submissions here. (Also, it would be super cool if you gave this blog a follow!)

Submissions for the day must be posted before midnight YOUR time. We're not super hard-and-fast about this rule, but posting within time is very much appreciated! 

If you’re posting your submission directly on Tumblr (as opposed to linking to an external site such as AO3), you MUST use a “keep reading” cut!

Edit: We're now also allowing ALL KINDS OF ART: drawings, edits, aesthetics, mood boards, videos, podfics, fiber arts... go wild!

!! Absolutely NO AI creations !!

Please format ALL submissions with the following heading:

Title Day/Prompt(s) Fandom/Character(s)/Ship Warnings (if applicable): Word Count/Medium (in case it's art):  Example: Santa, Baby Day 8 - “Prompt(s) for that day” AEW - Adam Page x OC Warnings: Alcohol, cursing, sexual situations (explicit) Word Count: 7,290 or: Medium: fan video

You can also include a summary, gif, edit, whatever you want! Just don’t forget the “keep reading” if you’re posting directly on Tumblr!

If you're posting on AO3, here's our collection: 12 Days of Christmas Collection

2024 Prompts

Day 1 ❄️ First snow ❄️ Getting soaked ❄️ “Your hands are so cold.” ❄️ “I suppose it all started with the snow.” —Frosty the Snowman

Day 2 ❄️ Little lie ❄️ Trapped together in a snowstorm ❄️ “I thought you knew where you were going?!” ❄️ “I don’t know what to say, but it’s Christmas, and we’re all in misery.” —National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

Day 3 ❄️ Accelerated heartbeat ❄️ Kissing in the snow ❄️ “Here, take my coat.” ❄️ “Let's hope the snow will make this Christmas right.” —Queen

Day 4 ❄️ Mulled wine ❄️ Playing board games ❄️ “I have no regrets.” ❄️ “Cheer up, dude. It's Christmas.” —How the Grinch Stole Christmas, 2000

Day 5 ❄️ Cookies ❄️ Holiday-themed contest ❄️ “That definitely looks… interesting?” ❄️ “That is exactly why you want a high-quality fire extinguisher right in the kitchen.” —The Santa Clause

Day 6 ❄️ Present ❄️ Making a new Christmas tradition ❄️ “Not another Christmas movie!” ❄️ “You say you hate Washington’s birthday or Thanksgiving, and nobody cares, but you say you hate Christmas, and people treat you like you’re a leper.” —Gremlins

Day 7 ❄️ Decorations ❄️ A little accident ❄️ “I was just trying to help!” ❄️ “I want my house to be seen from space.” —Deck The Halls

Day 8 ❄️ Touch starved ❄️ Telling secrets around the fire ❄️ “Sometimes the hardest part is forgiving yourself.” ❄️ “Santa, can't you hear me?” —Ariana Grande & Kelly Clarkson

Day 9 ❄️ Christmas fair/market ❄️ Late shopping (together) ❄️ “Hmm, this is actually not bad.” ❄️ “When you're still waiting for the snow to fall, doesn't really feel like Christmas at all.” —Coldplay

Day 10 ❄️ Surprise visit ❄️ Lighting scented candles ❄️ “I didn’t know you were here.” ❄️ “You’re skipping Christmas! Isn’t that against the law?” —Christmas with the Kranks

Day 11 ❄️ Fairy lights ❄️ Christmas party/ball ❄️ “I never want this night to end.” ❄️ “I won’t even wish for snow. And I’m just gonna keep on waiting, underneath the mistletoe.” —Mariah Carey

Day 12 ❄️ Feast ❄️ Indoor picnic by the tree/fireplace ❄️ “I baked your favourite cookie/pie/cake.” ❄️ “You are all I need tonight underneath the Christmas lights.” —Sia

Extra Challenge

Angst or fluff, romance or platonic - you're unsure in what direction your fic should go? Spin our

Wheel

and let it decide for you! You can spin it once and write all fics with what comes up, you can spin it daily and change course accordingly, you can spin it as often as you need or not at all - it's all up to you.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions! Also, feel free to share this post and help spread the joy and cheer!

Happy writing, and good luck 🍀