#i should have just bought a neutral scent like i always do or maybe a flower one
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newtness532 · 1 year ago
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why do women's lemon scented hygiene products smell different from men's lemon scented hygiene products?
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theshoegirldiaries · 5 months ago
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LOTD: Gucci Rouge A Levres Satin in 119 Matilda Sunrise with Dior Addict Lip Maximizer in 014 Shimmer Macadamia. #Scentoftheday From The Garden EDT by Replica, Maison Margiela.
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First impressions, day 5; The last time I did my first impressions reviews, I mentioned I'd bought several of the newer Gucci lipstick shades. They brought out a 'Neutrals' collection (I shared some mattes that time) and 119 Matilda Sunrise in the Satin formula is from that range. It's a nice rosy nude, not light, bordering on MLBB. The satin finish isn't super shiny and I was expecting something a bit lighter (feeling) or more sheer. This, whilst not heavy or mega creamy, doesn't have as much slip to it as I was imagining. I would say it feels lighter though than the Carolina Herrera satin yesterday and didn't have as much colour pay-off as that in one swipe.
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I decided to whip out all my satin Gucci's to swatch at once. 121 Elena Sand and 221 Mina Light Pink are also from the Neutrals collection (there were 6 satins in that), whilst 115 Bertha Blossom, 219 Mary Mauve and 220 Suzanne Sunset launched for summer last year alongside 208 They Met In Argentina (which I only have in the matte finish). The others were permanent shades. Swatches are shown in numerical order and as always are on bare skin, several swipes with no light/colour edits made.
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I feel like my perfume trials haven't been going so well and I'd heard bad things about the newest Replica scent. I'd heard it smelt like tomatoes, so after my very leafy tomato scent the previous day, I figured I might as well just get this one over and done with.
From The Garden by Maison Martin Margiela is a Chypre fragrance which launched in 2023, created by Olivier Cresp and Sebastien Cresp. It contains top notes of Tomato Leaf and Green Mandarin with Geranium in the middle and a base of Patchouli.
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Firstly I'm happy to report it's nowhere near as tomato-like as Amazonian Rose by Carolina Herrera yesterday, despite having it as a note. There is a garden smell (not flowers though), mixed with a more pleasant perfume scent. For an EDT it lasted well (Replica are generally poor when it comes to performance), but it's not a strong scent, certainly nowhere near as strong as yesterday. There's no projection, but I was also using a dab-on bottle, rather than a spray which should be noted.
I don't hate it, I'm willing and a little curious to try it again and maybe mix it with something else. Replica scents I think can be quite polarizing because they are based around a whole experience and memory of a time and place, rather than trying to be a 'pretty perfume'. They're often photo-realistic, whether that's of bubble bath, a flower market or standing under lemon trees. Therefore From The Garden will smell like the whole garden, veg, grass and stems included, not just something pretty from that garden like a rose. I commend them for always trying to do something different, but that's not to say I'm a fan of all their scents.
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shadow-and-sunshine · 1 year ago
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Feeling Good, Pt 3
Mitsuki Bakugou was a force of nature and of fashion. Izuku smoothed over the black lace of his dress one more time before stepping out into the flashing camera lights. He prayed the pasties would stay in place and his carefully hand-dyed thong would cooperate. The flowers in the lace were only so strategic.
The flashes seemed to pop faster as Izuku paused at each designated photo spot. Maybe he should have argued more with Auntie… No! This was not the time to think like that.
“Hero Deku!” the same reporter from the last charity event called him over. “A pleasure this evening!”
“Hello, Nakamura,” the omega hero couldn’t help the smile. The young woman had been delightful last time and clearly was unhappy about having to pry into the hero’s personal life.
“You look absolutely stunning this evening. Another Bakugou original?” Her earnest enthusiasm betrayed her preference for discussing the outfits of the night.
Izuku couldn’t help the giggle as he twirled carefully for her cameraman. “Of course! Auntie Mitsuki insisted on this dress for me tonight.”
Nakamura nodded. “As always, Mrs. Bakugou has an excellent eye.”
The pair chatted a moment more about the detailing on the gown and the preparations for wearing it.
“Now, Hero Deku, I have to ask. You did a photoshoot earlier this month in what I am presuming is a prototype of this dress.”
“Yes I did!” Izuku’s cheerful expression never waivered. He was proud of the photoshoot that Nakamura was referring to. “Thank goodness we did. There were some issues with the measurements we didn’t realize until that day. The zipper-“
Nakamura cut off Izuku’s rambling. “During the photoshoot you were destroying what looked like a replica of your wedding dress. Is that true?”
“Oh no!” Izuku beamed. Nakamura relaxed slightly. “It was the actual dress!”
The young reporter paled. She didn’t want to talk about this. Her boss was the worst. She wanted to cover the outfits down the red carpets, not pry into people’s private lives!
“And… you ruined the dress… why? Were you unhappy with it?”
“How could I be unhappy with something Uncle designed? No, that phase of my life is over.”
Izuku glanced up the carpet towards the entrance of the venue. “It looks like it’s time for me to go in! A pleasure, Ms. Nakamura.”
She could only gape at the hero’s exposed back.
*flashback*
Izuku was perched on a stool at the kitchen counter. Katsuki had just left after making their lunches for the week. Endeavor had the pair on a diet plan and Katsuki volunteered to do their meal prep. Katsuki had also brought in a magazine with the weekly groceries.
The headline had been the reason the explosive hero had even bought the “trashy as fuck rag” and Izuku… wasn’t sure how to feel. It was the fourth or fifth time since they’d gotten married three years ago his husband ended up on the cover of a tabloid with a scandalous headline. But that picture…
Izuku was so focused on the image he missed the front door opening and his husband’s greeting. A heavy hand on this shoulder and a kiss on his cheek clued him in.
“Hey, Zu,” Shindo scented him lightly. “Whatcha got there?”
Izuku didn’t miss the panic in Shindo’s voice. A few subtle sniffs also told him Shindo had used neutralizers. Recently. “A new headline for PR. Why were you out so late at a bar with the interns? I thought you were at the office doing paperwork.”
“I finished up and they invited me out. You were already home or I would’ve texted you too.”
“Oh,” Izuku turned to look over at Shindo. “Is that why you neutralized?”
Shindo’s wide eyes don’t escape Izuku’s sharp gaze. His alpha had been hot and cold with affection lately. Shindo was nervous. “Yeah. Didn’t want to overwhelm you with all the scents from the bar.”
Izuku hummed, not really sure if he believed his husband, but choosing to let PR deal with it.
*end of flashback*
BREAKING: HERO DEKU WHISKED AWAY BY RED RIOT AFTER FAT GUM AGENCY CHARITY GALA. WHERE WAS PINKY?
Mina cackled as she trashed the magazine. “Is Shindo paying these losers?”
Eijirou snorted as he passed the half-packed kitchen with more full moving boxes. “Did I at least look good, babe?”
Izuku was in tears and clutching his stomach on the floor. Mina had been roasting the photographers for a solid fifteen minutes for the bad angle. She had pointed out if they had been a step or two to the left, they would have gotten more of Izuku in the shot than they planned. The scandalous headlines after the charity galas had become a running joke for the pack.
“OI! Get a move on, Shitty Hair. We don’t have the truck for that much longer,” Katsuki stomped inside to growl at the packing crew to move faster. “Deku, Raccoon Eyes, the kitchen doesn’t have that much shit in it! Let’s go!”
“Come on, Blasty! Cut a pregnant omega some slack!” Mina whined, placing a hand gently on her barely-showing stomach.
“Babe, you’re like 4 months along,” Eijirou walked by again. Empty-handed this time. “At the very least you could tape more boxes together.”
Izuku giggled as Mina whined at her mate.
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harleysarchive · 3 years ago
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Monegasque Kiss | Charles Leclerc
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Fandom: Formula one Warning: My favorite trope, pining after each other and then confess your love. Friends to lovers. 2500 words. I enjoyed writing this a LOT. Pairing: Charles Leclerc x neutral!reader Summary: You and Charles are pining after one another and it ends up with a kiss, with some help from Pierre Gasly
A/N: Once again I’m thanking Screnwriter’s prompts, nr. 10, for sparking my inspiration to write, your prompts are the best! Gif by dams-racing. Honestly, I’m having such a blast writing for Charles and the other drivers, it really inspires me to continue writing.
There were some perks with being friends with formula one drivers. For instance you could go watch them race and kick ass on the tracks. You had known Charles and Pierre since you were younger. You had the fortune to meet them when they raced go kart and you just happened to be in Monaco on vacation with your family when their race was there. You had met them by accident and the three of you had stayed in touch ever since that day. Even though you couldn’t meet them as much as you wanted, you were happy to accompany them on their races, especially when it was in Monaco. 
You were by the docks looking at the people on their boats. Music started blasting through the speakers on the boats and people talked loudly to overpower the sound. Champagne was popping, spilling onto the wooden deck and laughter was heard from tipsy people. Girls were tanning on the deck and guys shouting at the people below. But you loved this, the commotion of people and how happy everyone was.
Screams were heard behind you when you saw that the big screen was showing all the drivers and that the drivers were posing in front of said screen. The crowd cheered the loudest when Charles' face was shown and he walked in front of it. Your heart made a jump when you saw him. Ever since that day many years ago, you had had a crush on Charles. But there was no way in hell that you were going to tell him that. Your friendship were too important to destroy by a stupid crush. But something inside you hoped, wished that he felt the same towards you. 
Pierre had seen you on the docks and made his way over to you, hugging you from behind. You shrieked, but soon relaxed when you realized who it was. Pierre laughed loudly at your reaction. 
“Pierre, you scared the living shit out of me.” you said and smacked him on the arm. His smile just grew even wider. 
“I didn’t know that you would be here so soon, (Y/N). I thought me or Charles were going to pick you up at the airport when you landed.”
“No need to, plus I didn’t want to ruin your fashion show down there.” you said and winked at him. He shoved you slightly which made you giggle. The two of you walked towards one of the cafés. The weather was amazing. You and Pierre caught up with everything while waiting for Charles to arrive. Pierre talked about the race and how he had enjoyed some time to hang out with his friends. You talked about your life and what was going on there. This was the first race that you could attend in Europe and you were happy that it was in Monaco. 
“So, anyone special at home?” he asked, with a look on his face like he knew something. You looked at him suspiciously. 
“No, why?”
“Well you are beautiful. I just wondered why you haven’t found someone yet.” his smirk grew. 
He definitely knew.
“Thank you, Pierre. I don’t know.” you tried to sound innocent and oblivious. “Maybe I haven’t found the right one.”
“Or the right one haven’t asked you.” he mumbled into his coffee, which made you turn bright red. 
Charles was on his way to your location and he had stopped by a flower shop to buy you some flowers. It had been ages since he had seen you and he wanted to give you something. He had seen you and Pierre hug on the docks, which made him feel a wave of jealousy crash inside of him. But he didn’t want to admit it to himself. The two of you were friends, nothing more, nothing less. But god did he hope for more. 
He rounded the corner to see the two of you talking at the café. The sting of jealousy came back again, because it looked like the two of you were on a date. But he tried to dismiss the thought and put on the biggest smile on his face. Pierre saw him first and waved him over, which made you turn to face him. Charles stopped in his tracks when his eyes met yours. His stomach filled with butterflies and he could feel his face getting flustered. 
You rose from your chair to run to him and you gave him the biggest hug.
“God how I have missed you, Charles.” you said. He hugged you back and inhaled your scent. How he had missed your hugs and your scent. 
“I have missed you so much, (Y/N).”
He let go of you.
“These are for you.” 
He gave you the flowers he had bought and you had the biggest smile plastered on your face.
“You didn’t have to.”
“I wanted to.”
“Thank you so much, Charles.” you beamed and smelled the flowers.
The two of you joined Pierre by the café and continued your chat for some time. You talked about everything and nothing.
“(Y/N), you should join us tonight at the party.” Pierre said.
“There’s a party tonight?”
“Yes, it’s on one of the yacht’s by the dock. I’m sure that you can come as our plus one.” Pierre said and winked at you, which made Charles' expression sour.
“Sounds fun and I get to hang out with you guys even more.” you smiled.
“Great, there will be more formula one drivers there tonight. But just stay close to us and you’ll be fine.”
“What time is it?”
“Around seven.”
“Great, can you pick me up by my hotel before that?” 
“Of course.” they both said. 
You grabbed your flowers and left them to get ready for the party. Inhaling the scent one once again and felt the butterflies go nuts in your stomach.
He gave you flowers!
At the hotel you had packed some more fancy clothes, in case this happened and now you were extremely happy that you did. You were done just in time when someone knocked on your door. Outside stood Charles in a blue shirt and he looked ravishing. You opened and his face flustered by your fancy attire. 
“Wow, you look amazing.” he breathed. You blushed by his comment and invited him in. He closed the door and sat down on the bed.
“You know, you could’ve stayed at my place for your time here.” Charles said. You froze by his statement and he saw your reaction and he could feel the panic grow inside him.
“I-if you wanted, that is.” he stuttered trying to save the situation. “You are always welcome, you know.”
His hand touched his neck in a nervous gesture and his face was even more flustered than before. You tried to not think too much about what he said, he wanted to be a kind friend towards you. Nothing more, nothing less. 
“Thank you, Charles. I will surely take that offer next time I’m in Monaco to see you.” you said and took one last glance in the mirror before the two of you headed for the lobby. The ride towards the party was fun, the two of you cracked jokes which made you cry with laughter. Charles felt proud that he could make you laugh like this and he enjoyed that the two of you were alone. 
On the yacht there were people everywhere, talking, drinking, you think you saw someone making out with someone behind the stairs. To give the lovely couple some privacy you turned around to walk over to the bar. Charles and Pierre had to do some interviews and mingle with the bosses and such, which made you stand alone for a while. But you didn’t care, because then you could watch the different people that were at the party. You saw Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel. In one corner you could see Daniel Ricciarido laugh with some people you didn’t recognize. 
Sebastian had seen you alone and came up to you. Charles had introduced you when Sebastian was racing for Ferrari and you could tell that Charles looked up to Sebastian. The two of you got along well as well, which made Charles even more happy. However, Sebastian could see the looks the monegasque racer gave you when you weren’t looking. The wistful and yearning looks that only a love-sick person could give. The slight tint of pink on his cheeks whenever you gave him attention or how his attention or body was always turned towards you, no matter what. 
“Hey, (Y/N).” he said and embraced you.
“Hey, Sebastian.”
“Enjoying the party?” he said and let go of you. 
“It’s nicer now that I have someone to talk to.” you joked and looked over to Pierre and Charles doing some interviews with reporters. Sebastian could see the look you gave them, especially Charles. He felt bad for you that you felt alone.
“Well, I can introduce you to some people if you want?” he asked. You nodded and followed him towards the crowd of the other racers. You met Max, Sergio and Lewis. 
Charles had glanced over at you to see that you were doing okay, but that wave of jealousy came crashing inside of him when he saw you talking to the other racers. And with the jealousy came the worry. You turned around to meet his piercing eyes and you smiled at him. His insides melted by your smile and some of the worry and jealousy went away. Some of it, but not all. 
When the interview was over he and Pierre went over to the bar. Charles ordered two drinks, one for him and one for you.
“Some encouragement?” Pierre asked.
“For what?”
“Asking (Y/N) to be yours?”
Charles almost choked on air by Pierre’s statement. 
“What are you talking about? She is a friend.”
“Yeaaah, a friend that you like… or even more than that.”
Charles just shook his head and headed over to you. You smiled at him when he reached you and someone said that we should continue the conversation on the sofas nearby. The crowd started moving towards the sofas and somehow you didn’t get a seat. Pierre came by to slightly nudge you so that you lost your balance and landed in Charles lap.
“I’m so sorry.” you said frantic, feeling yourself getting flustered, but not as flustered as Charles. You tried to get up from his lap, but he wouldn’t let you. 
“I-it’s fine. You can sit here, since there is no other room for you to sit.” he stuttered and eyed Pierre. Pierre just raised his glas towards him and continued his conversation with Esteban. Trying his best to look innocent, but it was exactly the opposite. You nodded and tried your best not to blush profusely. His body was radiating so much heat and you took some deep breaths and tried to relax. But the tention between you and Charles. You could cut it with a knife and you bet that the both of you were blushing messes at the moment. Charles didn’t know where to keep his hands and you didn’t want to move around to much. Charles wanted to both kill Pierre for doing this and thank him at the same time. But now he mostly wanted to kill him. You could feel how stiff your posture was in his lap and tried your best to not lean against him too much. But you wanted too. Charles' hand found its way on your lower back, to act as a backrest. You tried to act cool, but this whole situation made your mind and body freak out. How could you focus on anything else than Charles hand on you back? His warm body and his muscular thighs which you were currently sitting on?
You tried to continue your conversations with the boys. Throughout the night Charles got more and more bold with his actions. It started with that he rested his other hand on your thigh, which made you freeze when he did it, but you soon relaxed to his touch. Then he started to pull you closer to his chest so you were resting against his chest. You could feel it rise up and down, but he hoped that you couldn’t hear his racing heart over how close you were to him. Your arms snaked around his waist and you rested your head against his shoulder. He had a hard time breathing normally with you so close to him.  
Later that evening Pierre joined you, which made you break apart from your cozy situation. You and Pierre were talking about some silly things, as usual, and now there was room for you to sit on the sofa, but you didn’t want to leave Charles' lap. Somehow, you had gotten into the topic of different kissing techniques. This made Charles pull you even closer to himself, as he didn’t like the topic that you and Pierre were discussing. 
“Have you ever had a french kiss (Y/N)?”
“No, I don’t think so, why?”
“Well, there are a lot of french people here, would you like to try it with a real french man?” he smirked and you burst into laughter, which made you fall of Charles lap and landed between the boys instead. This made Charles expression sour even more. You and Pierre shared a loud and long laughter by what Pierre just said, but Charles… not so much. His eyes darkened as he looked over to his best friend.
“In your dreams, Pierre.” you said and dried away some tears and shoved him away from you. 
“Perhaps, but it is certainly in someone else’s dreams.” he said and patted you on the knee and left. You looked at him confused and then turned around to Charles. His eyes were still dark as he followed Pierre, but his flustered cheeks told you something else.
“Do you know what he was talking about?”
Charles’ directed his attention towards you again, trying his best to look unbothered.
“No.” he lied. 
You shrugged your shoulders and rose from the sofa.
“Come on, let’s look over the city.”
You grabbed his hand, feeling more bold now that you had sat in his lap for most of the evening. You dragged him towards the railing and looked over Monte Carlo. You hadn’t let go of his hand when you looked over the city. He drew you closer to him and you let your head rest on his arm. Then his curiosity sparked from the conversation you had with Pierre before.
“You haven’t had a french kiss?”
“No, I haven’t.” you laughed but tried to hide the nerves and your embarrassment over the topic. Charles nodded and turned around to face you. You looked at him curiously, which made his stomach do flips. How gorgeous you looked in this light, or in every light for that matter. Your smile, your hair, your laughter, you personality, it was all perfection to him. A wave of confidence crashed inside of him and he saw his chance now. He wanted to be with you and he hoped that you felt the same towards him.
It’s now or never, he thought.
“Well if you haven’t had a french kiss, you probably haven’t had a monegasque kiss.” Charles said with a smirk on his face. He let his hand touch your arm slightly, drawing circles on it. 
“A monegasque kiss? What is that?” you asked. 
“It’s like a french kiss but better.”
“Better?”
“Yes, because it is with me... “ Charles leaned in closer to you. “And you.”
He closed the gap between the two of you. One of his hands grabbed your cheek while the other hand was on your lower back, pulling you closer to him. Sparks flew as your bodies touched and you stopped breathing for a second, which made Charles nervous. But you soon realized what was happening and you moved in sync with his lips. It felt like no time had passed but your lungs were screaming for air. You broke apart from the kiss, looking into each other’s eyes.
“You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do that.” Charles breathed. You just beamed over what had just happened. Charles’ hand caressed your cheek.
“So… What Pierre said about me kissing a certain someone in a certain someone’s dreams. Was that you?”
“Guilty.” He said and from the back you could hear Pierre cheering and shouting something like ‘finally you guys did it!’.
You just laughed and kissed Charles again, which would be one of many kisses to come and quite frankly, you enjoyed the monegasque kiss much more than you would ever like any other kiss in the future.
A/N: Thank you for reading! 🥰
TAGS: @ohmyolympusssy @baueoud @marvelishgirl​ 
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quillsanddaydreams · 3 years ago
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i don't like you
james potter x reader
—author's note: This was a story from my main that I adored so I thought why not rewrite it? The plot is the same, my ability to tell a story however, has changed. James and you do not like each other. Not even a bit. I hope you enjoy ;) Please do leave a comment, it makes my day.
—warning(s): couple of harmless pranks, slytherin! gender neutral!reader (pronouns aren't used).
—word count: 3,431
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Groaning, you got up and squinted to make out the details of your dorm. Shouts and rushing made your head thump. You slowly realized a god-awful smell was filling up your room, quicker than you could think. Squeezing your nose shut, you rushed out. Other Slytherins were alongside you, you could hear coughing all around. Your eyes pricked with tears, your throat felt raw. Seeing a very familiar messy dark-haired boy run away jeering; you sensed rage gripping your form like a vice.
Third time. It was the third time the same week that Potter and the elder Black brother had pranked you all. Except it wasn’t funny anymore. That was what pranks were supposed to be right? Something that made everyone laugh along? Looking towards Elodie who was clenching her eyes shut at the sensation, you made a plan in your mind. You knew it was crazy. But when did that ever stop you? James had never conversed with you. Nor you, him. Yet it was clear that he did not like Slytherins. Not one bit.
-♡♡♡-
James yawned, stretching his limbs for a new day. Scrunching his nose, he felt a flowery scent attack him. Maybe it was just Sirius with one of his experiments. Shrugging, he got up and into the shower. That day he had transfiguration, charms, and astronomy. Thankfully nothing with the snakes, they might still be sour about the prank they pulled yesterday. Getting out of the washroom, he hummed to himself as he passed Peter who was still fast asleep. Remus was asleep and Sirius was furiously scribbling on his homework. Always finishing at the last moment.
He didn’t realize the uniform he was putting on until he looked at himself in the mirror. And boy oh boy did he panic. Eyes widening almost comically, he rummaged through his wardrobe, everything a dark green color with silver accents. A note fell at his feet.
“Dearest Marauders,
Take this beautiful gift of green robes from me. I know not all of you deserved this, but then again, I didn't feel like any of you should be left behind. I know how much you love us, Slytherins. Why not showcase it?
With love,
(Y/n) (Y/l/n)”
“Sirius! Remus!” he called out. “Wormtail!”
Sirius didn’t even look up from his parchment, Remus let out a grunt in response. The only answer he got was a faint ‘what’ from the shared bathroom.
“Mates listen to this,” James said firmly, reading the letter out loud. That got their attention. “Our robes are all green. Vivid Slytherin green!”
Remus got up suddenly, with wide eyes rushing to check his almirah. He groaned loudly on finding them in the same predicament James foretold grass-like and smelling heavily of flowers. Sirius however, started crackling.
“What?” James bellowed, his nostrils flaring.
“Well, the sarcasm in that letter is…” He snorted, stopping himself seeing James’s frown. James shook his head as Remus glared at them both.
“This has a strong one-week dye,” he said, punctuating each word, infuriated. “There’s no way it can be removed before the expected time. Why should I suffer for all the things you two do?”
“And I am not suffering?” James quipped back as Remus just shook his head, huffing, and went back to his bed. James looked at Sirius who didn’t look worried at all.
“What? Aren’t you bothered at all?” James asked.
“I look great in everything,” he replied shrugging, making James want to punch him.
He dressed up quickly after, dashing out of the dorm towards the great hall. Ignoring the looks of the students from around and the snickers he looked for you amidst the Slytherin table. It was infuriating, how casually you ate your breakfast, almost oblivious. Stalking towards your place, he cleared his throat grabbing your attention. Your eyes sparkled amusedly, taking in his appearance.
“Why the hell did you do this?” he demanded.
“Now, that’s not a way to talk about the gift I gave you,” you said, batting your eyelashes as he scowled at you. You muttered a spell under your breath, waving your wand slightly before continuing. “I worked hard, you know?”
“You Slytherins are the best thing to walk on this planet!” he shouted before he could stop himself. His eyes grew large. Everyone’s attention now seemed to be on your table.
“Thank you, I know,” you smirked, challenging him. He narrowed his eyes on you.
“You put a speaking charm on me didn’t you?” he hissed as you put on an innocently sweet expression.
“Well, I thought you needed some help with words,” you prompted, getting better reactions than you hoped for. James growled, jumping up and down in annoyance. You tried not to laugh. Did. But the corners of your mouth turned up anyways. He looked like an idiot. The giggle you let out grabbed his attention, his cheeks turning a rosy red.
“I don’t like you,” he said in a rather squeaky voice.
“I don’t like you,” you retaliated. James hated himself for thinking the laugh you let out looking adorable. Anger, which was more of a frustration gawned on his skin. He knew exactly what he was going to do next. Giving you a sickly sweet smile, he enjoyed the slight shiver that went through your arm. Let the prank war begin.
-♡♡♡-
You rushed out of the bathroom, vexed. It had been a long exhausting day and this was the last thing you needed. Your skin was tinted green. Bright neon green. Elodie stared at you in stupor.
“What happened?” she asked and you couldn’t help the raucous whine that escaped your lips.
“I don’t know, okay? I was in the shower and after using soap, my skin turned freaking green,” you hissed as Elodie tried to calm you. You handed her a small piece of paper. “Oh and look what I found beside the shampoo bottle.”
Dear (Y/n),
A gift from me, to showcase your pride in your house. You could thank me later.
James.
P.S. This gift in no way means I’ve started liking you. I don’t.
“James. James did this; that bastard!” you said, nostrils flaring as Elodie rubbed your back.
“Well, it’s just hands and legs…”
“I'm gonna get back at him. Just watch me.”
Your jaw clenched. You knew just what you were gonna do. James started a fight with the wrong person. And you didn’t like him. At all.
-♡♡♡-
You were reading your book when you saw James pacing towards you, from the corner of your eye. Trying to keep a straight face, you fixed your gaze on the book in your hand. Yet you couldn’t help the twitch your mouth gave as he stood right in front of you, folding his arms.
“Wow,” he breathed through clenched teeth. You looked up.
“Real mature of you,” he said in a baby’s voice. It sounded like he pronounced everything through his nose. You made an effort not to start crackling right then.
“Well, one of us had to be, right?”
“Yeah. And giving me the baby voice makes you the adult.”
“I’d think so, yes.” You said brushing his hair. They were surprisingly soft. James glared at you.
“I don’t like you.” He squeaked as you raised an eyebrow.
“I thought we already established that. I don’t like you either boy,” You said, letting out a laugh.
-♡♡♡-
Adjusting your cap, you pulled your books closer to you. It was like everyone was staring at you. Specifically how stupid you looked. A whistle caught your attention. James, it had to be. When you turned towards the sound, you were sadly proved right.
“I like your cap,” he commented, clicking his tongue.
“Geez. Thank you. Just bought it,” you said, threateningly. Take one step James, I dare you; you thought. He didn’t get the message.
“I wonder how it would look on me,” he said, taking a step towards you. You hissed.
“Sorry, not gonna let you borrow it,” you tried to say in a normal tone, but it came out quite high pitched. James dared to grin.
“What if I just…” he said, coming closer as you took a step back, glowering at him in a warning. Not that he took it. He snatched the cap from your head as the long white hair fell. They reached your feet.
“James, give it back,” you warned and he put it on his head.
“Nope,” he said, his eyes full of mischief. You hesitated at his expression, he looked as candid as a child. Maybe you never noticed it, his hair fell round in pretty curls, framing his face. James winked, making you break out of your reverie.
“I think,” he said thoughtfully. “I think I’m going to keep this cap with me, I quite like it. If you want it back, you’re gonna have to take it from me.”
James took a step back as your eyes dilated. He turned around and started sprinting in that direction.
“James!” you shouted, chasing him.
People around you bolted aside, gasping at the scene. A ghostly white-haired student chasing after James as he chortled. It had been going for quite some time and everyone wondered who would win. Few in the favour of James, who had been pranking ever since he set foot in Hogwarts; a few for you since you were a Slytherin and Slytherins never lose. Others just shook their heads, wishing they would get it over with already the cat and mouse game was becoming rather tiring. No one however had the courage to raise their opinions out loud, lest they got involved in the prank war.
-♡♡♡-
“James," you said calmly, though the atmosphere made you anything but. Thick hot fumes rose from all around you making beads of sweat form on your forehead. "James, this doesn’t go in. We have to stir it first.”
“Why don’t you do it then? Little miss know-it-all” he snided. You looked at him fiercely. Slughorn had paired the two of you together for the next project and it couldn’t be more of a disaster. Only if he could just listen.
“I would if you let me,” you pointed out, finally taking over the shared pot. James watched you take a few breaths before starting to work on the potion. Muttering for ingredients from him now and then, you stirred the concoction. Soon, it started to show the exact signs given in their books.
James couldn't help but stare at you as you worked, humming to yourself all the while. You seemed cute like that, bending over the book, occasionally muttering to yourself. His face heated up when you caught his gaze. Luckily he could blame it on the heat.
“Could you cut some beetroots for me?” you asked, ignoring the way he flushed. James nodded, chopping them to the required amount. The two of you finished up fairly swiftly after that.
"So," you started after Slughorn left. He had commented on your work and applauded you both. Happiness was evident from the smiles on your faces. "Library at 4?"
James grinned, giving you a thumbs up. He packed up his stuff before turning to leave. You couldn't help but stare at his retreating figure, thinking, maybe he wasn't so bad after all. Shrugging, you shook away the thought and went your own way. There were things you had to get done that day.
-♡♡♡-
As time passed, the thought started becoming more predominant. He wasn't so bad, your mind reminded you time and time again. The more you started to know James, the more you believed in it. Constant teasing and bickering wasn’t something that became unheard of between the two of you. But it was more lighthearted now… almost as if you were friends crackling over a shared joke. James had somehow caught your eye again, in a completely different way.
It seemed you were noticing new things about him, like how he didn’t look at you with hatred. Come to think of it, was it even ever ‘hate’? Yet there was something soft about the way he gazed at you now, gentle even— you couldn’t put your finger on it. You had come to enjoy his goofy personality, the smile he gave when his eyes were light with mischief. Knowing where these musings led, you had tried your best to beat them down. What was it that you did not try? Remembering every single detail that made you despise him once, all those times your blood boiled at the prank he pulled but nothing— nothing ever worked and your heart still fluttered every time he complimented you.
Was it that bad an idea though? Liking James?
You shivered, pulling your sweater closer to you. Walking had failed to heat your body the way it always did and you reckoned that your deliberation also had something to do with that. It wasn’t about you liking him, your mind prompted, it was about whether he could feel the same way. And if you knew something, you knew that you couldn’t take the answer to be no. The skip in your step halted, and you couldn’t help the sigh that escaped your lips.
Path to the library couldn’t have been more daunting. That was until you saw James and Lily around the corner. Talking, laughing, and standing too close to be called friends. Evans, the one girl James was head over heels for, the one girl you never paid attention to much.
It was like the final shoe dropping. James and you didn’t like each other. People knew that you did as well. It was time you believed it too. Your stomach twisted up at the sight, your mood souring. You turned, walking away.
“Oi!” James called out to you, apologizing to the students he bumped into. You brisked forward, hoping to make it to your dorm. It didn’t work, James ran to catch up with you. Damn his long legs.
“Stop fucking running,” he huffed on reaching you. “Where are you going? We have a study session. You haven’t changed your mind, have you?”
You gritted your teeth.
“I was heading to the library but you and Evans seemed quite busy, so I thought against it,” you said, albeit aggressively. Jealousy was never a good color.
“We were just talking for a moment,” James explained. “I want us to complete the project first though.”
He looked at you, confused. It was hard controlling your anger right then. You couldn’t help the dry laugh that escaped your lips.
“Of course,” you said in a temper. “The faster we finish up the project, the faster you can get rid of me, right? Because you don’t like me.”
James’ smile dropped. Sadness gave way to rage. Of course, you still thought that even after all the time he spent with you.
“Yeah. I don’t like you,” he hissed, gritting his teeth. “So let’s complete the project, shall we? To get rid of each other?”
You looked away. It was the last thing you wanted to hear. You yearned for him to tell you otherwise, to apologize for his words, and to reassure you that it wasn’t so. That you two were something. Friends, companions, anything but this. Yet the bigger part of you told you that he was right. And you were nothing to him.
“Yeah, sure.”
-♡♡♡-
The following study session was tense. You two never worked quietly. Jokes, laughs, and incessant chatter filled the air when you were together. James had regretted his words as soon as they came out of his mouth. He watched your expression fall and a wall build up around you. Your eyes hadn’t met his since. It ate him up. Somehow he didn’t know how to break the bubble he created.
He hated seeing you close off to him.
You heaved a sigh checking the last lines you’d written and then looked at the clock. It had been two hours.
“I think we should stop. There are just two pages left, we can do them tomorrow and you’ll be free,” you said, packing up your things. James opened and closed his mouth as you picked up your bag.
“Hey, wait!” he said as you turned towards him.
“I didn’t mean to, “ James started, but you cut him off.
“James, it’s alright,” you said, taking a deep breath blinking away the tears that emerged. “I understand. You don’t like me, I don’t like you and we’re stuck together for some time. You don’t have to apologize for that.”
James sucked in a breath. That wasn’t right. At all.
“But—“
“There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you,” a voice came and you shifted to see Elodie. You looked over at James, whose eyes pleaded you to stop. But you couldn’t.
You left the library, walking towards your friend leaving behind the boy who stood transfixed at his spot. Why did he feel like he was losing everything? He grudgingly moved his feet towards the common room, your thoughts plaguing his mind. James heard a shout behind him, twisting to see Lily jog up to him.
“James, I was wondering,” she began biting her lip. “Maybe we could sneak out for some butterbeers today? It’s freezing and the snow looks heavenly.”
James found himself shaking his head. His mood was far too spoiled for anything.
“Not today, Lily,” he answered. “I’m tired.”
“Oh, I meant it as a date, you know?” Lily added hopefully. James considered her for a moment. It was everything he had wished for years. Yet he couldn’t feel the happiness that should have come with it. He wanted, no— he needed someone else, someone who made him far giddier. He needed you.
It was like a bolt striking him. He had never been so sure of anything else. Unable to keep the grin off his face, he spoke his next words in a rush.
“Lily, I’m sorry but I can’t,” he shouted, sprinting towards the dungeons. Running through the rather empty corridors he saw the snow which coated the grounds. His breath came out in puffs as he urged himself to move faster. He stopped when something caught his eye. You. Standing out in the snow, looking at the sky with a smile.
Moving towards you, he conjured up a snowball and threw it on your back. Your eyes widened in shock as you jumped, looking towards him.
“What now James?” you snapped.
He conjured up yet another ball and threw it at you. Your eyes grew larger and you glared at him.
“I wanted to say something,” he said as you conjured up a ball and threw it at him in response. He hissed at the icy sensation.
“Then say it.”
“I don’t want to get rid of you,” he said, throwing a snowball at you as your teeth clattered at the sensation. You threw a snowball in return, narrowing your eyes at him.
“Then stop acting as you do.”
He threw yet another ball at you.
“You make me act like that,” he stated. You threw a huge one in response.
“I make you act like an idiot?”
“Yes, you drive me crazy,” he said, throwing some snow at you as you grunted.
“Then why don’t you leave me alone?” you huffed as he threw yet another ball at you, making you cough and splutter.
“Because I can’t.”
“Why?” you asked, throwing a ball at him.
“Because I can’t leave the best thing that happened to me,” he said, making you stop. You stalked towards him and poked his chest with every word you spoke.
“I'm the best thing that happened to you? What is this? Some kind of sick prank? You don’t even like me,” you sobbed, frustrated and angry. That was how he made you feel. Everything all at once. James didn’t know how to answer you so he just took your hand away and cupped your cheek with his other one, leaning in to kiss you. Your eyes fell shut as feeling his lips against yours. You grabbed his shirt pulling him closer feeling his arms tighten around your hips, sucking his bottom lip. When you pulled away you both caught your breath.
“I promise those are the truest words I’ve ever said,” he whispered, his hair messier than usual. He cradled your face, pressing his lips against your forehead. You crossed your arms.
“I still don’t like you,” you said in faux anger. James let out a teary chuckle.
“I don’t like you either,” he replied, smiling.
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—as for the taglist: I don’t make taglists, I have a blog @from-my-quill ​ which is updated whenever I post fanfiction. You could have the notifications on for it and it will work just like me tagging you.
⟨⟨REBLOGS AND FEEDBACK ARE APPRECIATED⟩⟩
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wrenhyperfixates · 3 years ago
Text
Home Is Such a Lonely Place
Pairing: Loki x reader Summary: When Loki is handpicked to be part of the Avengers new space force, it causes some problems in your relationship. Will distance make the heart grow fonder or is it too much to bear? Warnings: none I believe :) A/N: Based on the song Home Is Such a Lonely Place by Blink-182. This has been sitting in my drafts since February so here it is. Hope you enjoy :)
Permanent Tag List: @lucywrites02 @frostedgiant @lunarmoon8 @twhiddlestonsstuff @lokistan @lowkeyorlokificrecs @gaitwae @whatafuckingdumbass @castiels-majestic-wings @kozkaboi @cozy-the-overlord @birdgirl90 @myraiswack @mythicalgarlicknot @what-a-flammable-heart @marvelouslovely @laurenandloki @fallinallinmendes @sophlubbwriting @mooncat163 
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Disclaimer: Gif not mine
Loki was perfect. No, you weren’t exaggerating; he really was everything you’d ever wanted. It was the circumstances that were the problem. Because you were born a mortal and he a god, so you were relegated to Earth while he spent increasingly more time in space.
The Avengers and SHIELD had both reached the same decision that Earth needed to be protected from extraterrestrial threats. So, who better to send out to space than those with the most experience out there? A team had been assembled, and Loki was put on it, traveling with them for a good many months now. You could still remember when he’d first told you.
“Darling?” he called out, coming home from work that fateful day.
“In here,” you called from the kitchen.
He walked into the messy room, hugging you from behind. Loki rested his head on your shoulder after placing a quick kiss to your cheek, breathing in your scent. You sighed as you relaxed against him, but there was an odd, nervous sort of tension in his body. Frowning as you tried to figure out why, you got an idea.
“Here, try this, love,” you suggested, holding a steaming spoon of pasta sauce to his lips.
After blowing on it a bit, he’d taken the spoon in his mouth, swallowing the sauce. He’d smiled at you, cupping your cheek. “Delicious, my sweet darling.”
“But...?” you’d prompted.
“It could use just a dash more oregano,” he conceded, pinching a small amount of the herb between his fingers and tossing it in, stirring the pot. Mimicking your actions from just moments ago, he held out a spoonful for you to try. “Well?”
“It’s perfect, Loki,” you beamed, pulling him closer. “So perfect, in fact, that I think you need a taste too.”
“Oh, is that so?” he chuckled.
“Mhm,” you hummed before kissing him, the taste of the sauce still on your mouth.
“You were right,” he purred, pulling back a little bit. “Absolutely perfect.”
Troubles momentarily forgotten, the raven haired god set the table for two as you finished cooking dinner. The two of you sat, chatting and eating and holding hands. Everything was going so well, and then you asked a question that made his smile falter.
“So how was your day?” you’d inquired.
“About that,” he said, setting down his utensil. “We need to talk.”
“Uh oh,” you responded. You felt a little nervous as you put down your fork too. “That doesn’t sound good. Is everything ok?”
“Yes... and no,” he sighed. “SHIELD is putting together a team to take care of threats from other planets. A team that they have told me I am to be on.”
“Oh,” you replied, trying to keep your face neutral. You didn’t want to be upset if it was something he was actually excited for. “And it’s required you go?”
“Not exactly. If I plead my case, I’m certain I can stay. Believe me, I do not want to leave you. I will stay, if you wish me to.”
“Well, how long would you be gone for?”
“I am uncertain. It could be three months, or it might be ten.” He bit his lip. “But, darling, tell me to stay and without hesitation, I shall.”
It felt like the floor was falling out from under you. Of course you wanted him to stay, but would that really be fair? Could you let yourself be the one to hold him back? If there was one thing you knew, you loved each other. As long as you didn’t forget or doubt that, you could weather anything.
“No, Loki, it’s a great opportunity,” you said. “You should go. I’ll be waiting here when you get back.”
“Oh, darling,” he whispered, sliding out of his chair. Kneeling before you, Loki rested his head in your lap, and you ran your fingers through his silky black hair. “I swear these next three weeks shall be the best of your life. I will dedicate all my time to you before I leave.”
“My love, I would like nothing more, but I don’t want to monopolize all your time,” you hesitantly said. Though you wanted to spend as much time with him as you could before he left, you didn’t want him to feel obligated to. “If you really don’t mind, though, please do.”
Of course, he was more than happy to and spent just as much time with you as he had promised. But now he’d been gone for six months, and you missed him terribly. You laid on the roof, petting the cat Loki had bought you before he left. So you never got lonely, he said. It had shiny black fur and beautiful green eyes. As soon as Loki gifted your new friend to you, you’d named him Loki Jr., earning you a playful eye roll from the trickster god.
Remembering that night brought a brief smile to your face. Now, you looked up at the moon, Loki Jr. purring as you pet his soft fur. You wondered where your lover was out there in that great expanse of space. Was he looking at it like an empty void? Or was he appreciating the stars and the wonders that were held out there? Maybe he was just indifferent to it, you thought. After all, he’d grown up on Asgard, so perhaps he was used to it.
Going back to your room that evening, your bed felt empty. Your home just felt so lonely without Loki. The real Loki, anyway. As much as you loved Loki Jr., it just wasn’t the same thing. Was your love thinking the same thing, you wondered? You hoped so, but didn’t want to think about it too much, lest your brain make you believe he didn’t miss you.
Sighing, you buried your nose into Loki Jr.’s fur. You had no one to blame except yourself, really. Loki had asked you repeatedly if you wanted him to stay, but you always said no. Told him he had to live his life to the fullest. That he couldn’t wait for you to give him the ok. You’d still be here when you got back, and you had your job at the Tower to keep you occupied. Of course, every mission you observed from there reminded you of Loki. How you’d met and all the shy glances you’d shared. You couldn’t help yourself from wondering how he was doing. He’d be alright, you were sure. But until he got back, it seemed there was nothing you could do to ease your worrying.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Space was beautiful, there was no denying that. But it was kind of cold and empty too. Especially since the trickster god had to be without you, his beloved. Now that’s not to say he wasn’t having fun or wasn’t enjoying the time he got to spend with his brother. He just still really missed you and your company.
Loki ran his fingers over the picture he had of you. Not too much longer until he could brush his fingers over the soft skin of your beautiful face. Oh, how eight months could feel like a million years, Loki didn’t know. Well, in a way he did; any time spent away from the one you loved with your whole heart as he did you was bound to be tedious and feel drawn out. He’d be arriving back home tomorrow. Or, rather, today, he realized with a thrill as he checked the clock, reading midnight.
It was a bit of a struggle, but soon he was able to fall asleep. When he woke up, there was a mere hour left before reentry into Midgard’s atmosphere. Even with as empty space was, it somehow felt even lonelier with you. And now he’d be back with you in your shared apartment. He couldn’t wait until that night when you got to lay together just holding each other, basking in the other’s presence.
“Well, brother, are you ready to head back?” Thor asked, clapping Loki on the back.
“You have no idea just how eager I am, brother,” Loki replies. “It has been too long away from my beloved.”
“And certainly, they are missing you, too,” the God of Thunder assured.
“I can only hope. But what if they have moved on? We have not even been able to talk to each other in over a month. What if... What if they do not love me anymore?” Loki let himself be vulnerable, utilizing the relationship he and his brother had cultivated on this journey. “They did, after all, encourage me to go. Quite a bit.”
“Yes, but you know they just did not want to hold you back. Cheer up, Loki. Everything will be just fine.”
By the time they landed, Loki had mainly eased his worries, though he did feel a twinge of panic in his heart when he didn’t immediately see you while walking off the ramp. Luckily, you were there, he’d just missed you in the crowd.
Immediately, you ran to him, giving him the biggest hug you could. He reciprocated, beyond happy to feel your frame pressed against his. Tension relieved from both your bodies as you held each other.
“Hello, sweet darling,” he smiled.
“Hello, my love.”
Kissing the top of your head, Loki led you, following the gathered group as they walked further into the Tower while laughing and chatting with their recently arrived teammates. Loki kept an arm around your shoulder, and you one around his waist, the need to keep each other close quite obvious.
You and your boyfriend had to separate for a little while as Loki went to a debriefing. Soon he was back out, and the two of you joined the Avengers for a little welcome party of sorts. It was really just a get-together for the team to catch up. Even though it was a ton of fun, you were more than happy when you and Loki were in your car, driving back to your apartment.
“Welcome home,” you grinned, opening the door. Loki Jr. immediately came and rubbed himself against your legs. Loki smiled as you bent down to pet the cat, glad to know his plan had worked, at least in some degree. “Did you miss it?”
He cupped your cheek, looking deep into your eyes. “You have no idea, darling.”
Unable to wait any longer, Loki leaned in and kissed you. You responded immediately, brining him closer to you. He lifted you up and put your body between his and the wall. You giggled when the two of you finally broke for air, and Loki planted a million little kisses along your neck.
“I missed you, too,” you panted, still breathless.
“Next time,” he said between kisses, “I am telling them I am staying here.”
“Wait.” You brushed a few of his raven locks behind his ear, cocking your head at him. “Next time?”
Loki sighed. He knew he shouldn’t have brought this up so soon. The last thing he wanted was to make you upset on the day he came back home. All the trickster god wanted was to be with you, but of course he had to mention it. You had an adorable inquisitiveness in your eyes as you continued to play with his hair, twirling some of it between your fingers. He wondered if there was still a chance to save the day after his blunder.
“Yes. Fury wants to ship the team back out in a few months. After so long away from you, my darling, the thought sounds torturous. I will stay here. With you,” he explained, setting you back onto the ground.
“But that’s not fair to you,” you protested. “I shouldn’t be the only thing tethering you here. I don’t want to hold you back.”
“No, darling. I want to stay with you, I swear,” he vowed. You frowned, and he felt his heart drop a little. You said you missed him, and yet you were telling him to go again. “Look, sweet darling, it is late already. Let us just enjoy this night together. There is plenty of time to decide.”
“Ok,” you agreed, burying your face against his chest as you hugged again. You really didn’t want him to go, but a human like you shouldn’t tie down a god like him, you thought.
You led him to the bedroom you’d so missed sharing with him. After getting ready for the evening, you both laid in bed, talking of lighter topics. Neither of you could keep your hands off the other, and constantly maintained some kind of contact. Loki hadn’t even realized how late it’d gotten until your sentences began to be punctuated by yawns. Though you would have rather continued the conversation, you acquiesced when he suggested getting some sleep.
“You know,” you said, cuddling up to him, already half asleep. “If you do want to go on the next mission, I won’t be mad, my love.”
“I know. But I want to be with you. Yet you keep telling me to go and...” he trailed off, absentmindedly rubbing your back. “We will talk another time. Just sleep for now, my sweet darling.”
“Alright,” you hummed against him. “Goodnight. I love you. I promise, I’ll never stop loving you.”
“And I promise the same. I love you too.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There was only a month left before Loki would leave again. If he left again. You were both still debating, though you had eased up a bit after he voiced his concerns.
“Really, you should go. I- What’s wrong?” you’d asked during one such argument when he frowned.
“You say you love me, but you try to send me away,” he replied, a few tears gathering in his eyes, threatening to spill. “Why?”
“Oh, Loki, I really do love you. I swear on my life.”
“I believe you,” he assured while you kissed his forehead, though with an unmistakable hint of doubt behind the words.
“It’s just you’re a god. And I’m a mortal. I don’t want to hold you back. Hold you here. I don’t really want you to leave either; home is lonely without you. So if you really want to be on Midgard, of course I’ll support that too. I just can’t imagine you wouldn’t rather be free to roam.”
“In all honesty, my darling,” Loki began, “I do quite enjoy space travel. The settling down is nice too, of course, but there is something about being out there that’s freeing. So no, it is not that I want to be on Midgard, but that I want to be with you. I need to be with you. I love you so, so much, and I cannot bear to go without you for so long again.”
“Well, that’s it then. I need you too because I love you too. And you don’t want to go without me, but what about with me? We’ve been so caught up in our argument, we didn’t even consider another option.”
“Bring you with me?”
You nodded nervously. Maybe he was going to tell you it was too dangerous. Maybe he was just being nice saying he wanted to stay with you. But no, he wouldn’t have been this stubborn if that was the case. Just as you were going to try to recant your suggestion, Loki surged forward and kissed you.
“Darling, you’re a genius!” he exclaimed, pulling away. “I cannot believe we did not think of it sooner. You can work on the ship to monitor the missions, just like you do here. And we will be together. It is perfect!”
“Is it ok if we bring Loki Jr. too?” you asked as the cat plopped himself in your lap.
“For you, my sweet darling? For you I would do anything, so of course it is,” he chuckled as he cupped your cheek and kissed you again.
When you broke apart again, you felt happier than you had in a long time, knowing you wouldn’t have to part again. After all, he was your home, and you were his. So as long as you were together, home could never be a lonely place.
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hwrryscherry · 4 years ago
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 The one where the reader meets Harry as Jack
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characters: HARRYxREADER!FEM
blurb: Harry is filming Don't Worry Darling in Palms Springs while Y/N is moving in in her new house in the neighbourhood where the movie is being filmed. Turns out the fate wanted to cross Harry and Y/N's way as a box full of books is very intriguing to Harry and Pride and Prejudice becomes Harry's new favorite.
word count: 2.7K
author's note: Heyy guys, it has been SO LONG and honestly I don’t think this is best work yet lol but anyway, I had the worst writer’s block of my life so it was so hard for me to write a single word. Honestly, I felt kinda pressured to write. I felt like I was pressuring myself for that so I had to take advantage of this block and take this idea out of my mind. I want to say something important too; I really want to say that the only story of mine that I’ll keep the face claim is HARRYxMODELY/N, just because I like to use the photos to make instagram posts sometimes. I will no longer describe types of hair as I used to say ‘’long strands of hair’’, it will be neutral for you to imagine yourself in the story. It’s all about you guys and how you can visualize the story and the character, if you want to imagine a face claim that’s cool but if you don’t want to it’s cool too. Feel free to read and visualize, it’s all about you. Thank you for the support on my account and my writing. I’m aware that I’m not the best lol, but I also think that I have so much to learn from you just as I have to teach. I’m so grateful for everyone who reads and like my stuff. Never forget that you’re unique, you’re loved, you’re so golden and treat people with kindness always.
   "Why is it so hot in here? It's fucking December!", you'd think to yourself as you drove your new car through the streets of Palm Springs. The thing is that after you moved from Columbia to reside so many years in New York while you were studying English Language and Literature in Yale, you just got so used with the usual colder weather from NY and it's just a different vibe from California. You had such a hard time to decide what you wanted to do after graduating, though. And after a few weeks and some long conversations with your family, you decided you would go to California. Palm Springs, to be more specific. You decided that because you remembered all the times you went there when you were a kid because your grandmother lived in there before she passed. You remember spending your summer vacation with her and how cool it was. It was in the early 2000′s and there was many kids on your age that lived on her street. You remember playing with them all day and then getting back into your grandma’s house and feeling that cinnamon scent that for some one only her house had. It wasn’t a usual cinnamon scent. It had something special in it. It made you feel so warm and welcomed. You remember helping her to bake the most delicious cookies, brownies and cakes in her kitchen. You remember the kitchen had a yellow counter, but the entire kitchen was white. All very pale and then the cheerful yellow in the kitchen that colored everything. You remember going to play bingo with her and how it made her happy to having you around. You both were so close and you had such a hard time when she passed, but the most important was she taught you so many things during your time together, and you’d never forget those things and her.
    As you drove, you’d remember those streets vaguely. You’d pass through the soccer court you typically used to go with the other kids and spent hours playing in there. You were vibing with the song in the stereo as you started getting closer to your new house’s street. It was Carolina by Harry Styles; you have to admit you’re not the biggest Harry Styles fan in the world, but you were definitely a One Direction fan when you were around 16, but you couldn't be considered a directioner either. You just listened to a few songs and thought it was good. But anyway, this specific song is one that you particularly like. It may have something to do with the fact that you’re from Carolina, of course. But it’s more about the vibe and the melody that by being animated it could actually cheer anyone up and the lyrics were undeniably good though, a little sexual, but good. It’s more about the vibe and the melody that by being animated it could actually cheer anyone up and the lyrics were really good though, a little sexual, but good.
    When you turned the right way into the street of your new home, you came across much more than you expected to see on your moving day. There were, as it seemed, paparazzi. Apparently they were shooting a movie right in your street, and it had also many people with many cameras and trailers that probably were dressing rooms. Naturally, you knew that thousands of films were shot in California, that’s obvious. But you didn't expect one to be shooting exactly on your moving day and specifically in your street, let alone that the street would be this crowded since the world is experiencing a global pandemic, ironic. You observed some of the people walking down the street, or should you call it a set? You don't know, but there were many people and many cars, at least they were all wearing masks. It had many classic cars, probably in the 40s or 50s style. They were colorful; vivid colors, though. Colors like yellow, blue and lilac was really present. To resume, the whole street looked like a movie from the 50s and for sure that was the intention because you could notice some extras walking around the set dressed up as 50s people used to.
    As you carefully drive through the street, you’d notice that from what seemed like a divine miracle, there was a vacant parking spot right in front of your house and you can’t help but smile when you see it. The first time you came here to see the house. You were with your family, and that was about four months ago. You just loved the house completely as it had such a different vibe from the place you used to live in New York, and honestly, just the thought of the house made your creativity activate as it had some really cool colored walls and you bought some colored mobile as well. Anyway, you stopped the car right in front of your house finishing the engine and grabbing your mask and putting it in your face as you'd use your hand to get rid of the seat belt and your other hand to open the car door and get out of the car.
    After closing the driver's seat door, you go around the car walking to the trunk where you use the car key to open it. When you open it, you are faced with two cardboard boxes. One was full of books. Books of all kinds, books of period novels, books of suspense, books of investigation and etc. Books that piqued your curiosity and made you want to finish reading it as quickly as possible. The other box was already full of clothes, those last clothes that you would finally be taking home. Your mother has done the biggest job in the moving issue; she was the one who was bringing the furniture and your things while you finished packing the rest of your things to leave New York. You try your hardest not to pay attention to the set of recordings and the people who walked back and forth, at the same time that you tried hard not to make any noise, because if you accidentally disturbed a scene, you would feel extremely embarrassed and would probably not even show up at the gate until the end of filming, but that was not the case. You removed the two boxes from the trunk just before closing it completely. You chose, perhaps, to enter the clothes box first. You bent down taking the box in your arms and walked to the door of the house where you used the key you received from the real-estate agent to unlock it before entering. You immediately noticed that some sunbeams reflected on the living room floor due to the white linen curtain that covered the glass windows. You observed the contrast of the sofa in such a light tone with the lilac wall just behind it. You walked with the box in hand by the door extension to the room where you placed the box on the small coffee table in front of the sofa. Returning out of the house, you can see the figure of a tall man dressed in a brown suit crouched in front of the box of your books. He had brown hair and properly cut. It didn't look like he was messing with your books, but he was definitely looking at them and it seemed like he was trying to read the covers of it for some reason. You slowly got closer to the man's body without making too much noise while you analyzed him, you crossed your arms upon your chest as you noticed the book cover he was looking at: Love is a mixtape by Rob Sheffield.
— This one is amazing! — You said, surprising the man that stand up fastly with the book in his hands connecting his green gaze with yours. He was tall, really tall by the way. His suit seemed perfect, just as his hair. He had a black mask on as a protection but the 16 year old teenager inside of you could never mistake those eyes. It was Harry fricking Styles. You considerated being quiet as you, yourself were pretty surprised now, but then you took your gaze to the book in his hand and then back at his face — It's like comparing love to a popular song that we usually search to define love. Just to find out that love is like oxygen, or love is a kind of drug, or a battlefield for some... — You said referring to the book with a tender smile on your face that Harry couldn't essentially see, but talking about a book that you loved caused this on you. And as you talked you didn't notice that Harry had a smile on his face as well. Maybe it was because you completely ignored the fact that he is Harry Styles and he was messing up your books as he's on the set filming a movie, or maybe it was the fact that he loved this book just as much as you did. He'd use to say this is probably one of the books that if he had to read just one book to the rest of his life, he'd chose this one and he usually had so much to talk about this book and so much to put on an argument about it but now he was completely speechless. He was just tongue tied. He was tongue tied about your reflection of one of his favorite books and how it looked so identical to his own personal reflection. He was tongue tied for the number of great books that he always wanted to read that was on that box. He was tongue tied at the owner of those books and her beauty, her intelligence of her voice and her voice as well so he just chuckled. A nervous chuckle as he leaned his head to look at the floor for a second before looking at you and holding out the book in his hands to you that calmly took it from his hands.
— I know! It's one of my favorite books! — Harry'd ultimately manage to say it as he observed you admiring the cover and running your fingers through it as a truly book lover would do — It's very interesting the interpretation you have of it.
— Don't you agree? — You'd interrupt him rising your head to examine at his face. He seemed paralyzed by some way, little did you know that Harry was mesmerized. He enjoyed the informal way you were speaking with him, and it genuinely felt like you already knew it each for years.
— That's the intriguing part. We have the same interpretation! — He'd say serenely, and then running his hand through his hair as he frown a little because of the sun that just hit on his glowing eyes.
— Well...Maybe you're just trying to imitate me to impress me! — You'd joke, with a mocking expression on your face making Harry giggle at your words and your face. It was the sense of humor to him.
— Oh really? And what makes you think I'm trying to impress you? — Harry'd say back with the same mocking tone that you formerly used. He'd observe your face go from playful to thoughtful in just as you to come up with a response.
— I mean...you were the one looking through my stuff, mister! — You say raising your eyebrows as you utilized one of your hands to take some strands of hair out of your face.
— Right... — Harry said with a defeated voice before as he compressed his lips together and moved his suit away from his shirt a little as he places his hands on his waist — I'm sorry about it, though. There was this box hanging here and I guess I was just intrigued! — He said shyly making you start walking towards the box walking closely to him causing him to feel a hot warm from your body as you passed. You'd bend over to grab the box but was stopped by Harry taking the heavy box from your hands — Let me help you with this! — Harry said as he held the box on his arms.
— There's no need for that. It'll ruin your splendid suit! — You'd say gently to him as he was standing up in front of you carefully holding the loaded box. Legitimately, he looked hot. He properly looked like a 50s husband helping with the moving with this outfit — And if you piss off your costume designer because of me I'll die! — You'd complement receiving a loud laugh from Harry's lips that shook his head while looking at you.
— She’ll be fine! — Harry'd argue back, then get a sigh from you before nodding at him as a statement.
— My house is right there! — You'd say using your right hand to point at your house, watching Harry turn his back to you and start walking towards it. You followed him through the door that was already open. Harry looked at the house immediately. It had a good vibe, and he wouldn't deny it. The choice of colors was exceptional, but he also noticed it was not very tidy, which would probably indicate that you were moving today.
— Where do I leave it? — Harry asked, referring to the box as he went farther into the living room.
— You can just leave it on the floor — You serenely said crossing your arms together and watching as he left the box on the floor and turned around to face you, but then deflecting his gaze to the ceiling before staring at your face again.
— It's a beautiful house! — Harry said as he moved his gaze through the room. He observed everything. He likes to observe. He likes to notice things that maybe other people didn't — Just like the owner, if I might say — Harry said cheekily and charming hearing your giggle invade his ears as you started walking towards the box of books that he previously set on the floor.
— The owner says thank you — You said bending down and starting to take the books out of the box and place it on the coffee table beside you as Harry watched your movements. You shyly looked at him thinking for a second and them smiling under your mask — For both compliments! — You said getting your attention back to the books. It's not that you don't want to give him your attention. It's that you genuinely think that he's just being nice, and he's probably not even interested in anything that you say.
— So... I have to go back to the film now but maybe you can give me your number so we can talk about your interpretation of my favorite book — Harry said shyly. His words took you by surprise actually but you couldn't hold back the smirk you had under your mask as you stand up again turning to face his green eyes. You noticed that he had his phone on his hand, hoping and waiting that you'd give him your number even though both of you knew that the book excuse was nothing more than an excuse as he was truly interested in knowing you.
— Well, it depends... — you said slowly as you took a deep breath before actually saying anything — If you agree to read my favorite books too, I'll give you my number!
— I'd be honored! — Harry chuckled after letting a sigh out feeling relief that you asked for something so simple that he'd love to do if that would make you happy — What's your name? — Harry said as he unblocked his phone screen and started to save your phone number.
— Save it as Elizabeth Bennet in there! — You said fastly with a proud smile on your face as Harry giggled and did as you ask and then looked at your face as he put his phone back on his pocket.
— Only if you save my name as Mr. Darcy when I call you! — Harry said knowing that after this, Pride and Prejudice would definitely become one of his favorite books ever.
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doiefy · 4 years ago
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blue // na jaemin
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“The winter has passed and the spring has come We have withered and our hearts are bruised from longing”
- blue, bigbang
In which one ceases to age until they find their soulmate, with whom they then grow old. In which everyone has moved on without you.
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genre: soulmate!au, fluff, angst, slow burn
pairings: jaemin x female reader (written with a female character in mind, but it can easily be gender neutral!), features relationships with other dream members, briefly mentions haechan x jeno
word count: 11.6 k
warnings: language, mentions of alcohol and smoking, mentions of war, mentions of death, discussions of Korea under Japanese occupation, some of the historical references may be inaccurate.
taglist (DM, comment or Ask to be added): @simplicitysbabe Big thank you to @neojaems​ for beta reading this for me !! <333
spotify playlist
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Your test comes back blue.
When you rip open the envelope containing your results, you find the little coloured square hidden between pages and pages of lab protocols, testing procedures and other nonsense you know no one actually has the time to read. Then there are the stupid pamphlets, the ones with overtly bright and bubbly messages reassuring people that they’ll find their “special someone” soon, slogans most likely written by people who found their soulmates before they even turned twenty. You scoff, shoving the useless papers back into the envelope and recalling the first time you tested back in 1945, right after the war. The receptionist wrote your results down on a piece of paper and nonchalantly told you to have your emotional breakdown outside.
Now you stare at the blue marking on your paper blankly. It simply means you haven’t aged biologically in ten years, but when you haven’t aged in decades, it means nothing. While the world progresses, you remain frozen in the same body, playing a cruel game with fate. And as with any game that one cannot win, you’ve slowly become bored with it, allowing it to take its course while you sit idle nearby. You feel only disappointed, and not even perplexed or surprised in the slightest. Something about meeting Jaemin just seemed too good to be true; after a lifetime of misfortune and failure, something about the bad news feels… expected. Inevitable. As if unconsciously, you knew he wasn’t the one.
Na Jaemin is not your soulmate. And you spend the walk home contemplating how you’ll tell him this.
When you unlock the door to your shared apartment, you know he’s already home, and earlier than usual: his shoes are placed meticulously on the rack by the door and his jacket is hung up next to the messenger bag he takes to work. The living room smells faintly of the pine and vanilla candle you bought last month, and you smell traces of shampoo and bodywash from the bathroom.
“I’m home!” you call out as you kick your shoes off and put them neatly next to Jaemin’s. There’s a muffled response of your name before the door to your room opens. Then his arms are around you, his face buried in the crook of your neck as he mumbles a tired greeting.
“Bad day?” You ask softly, pushing all your other thoughts to the back of your head. He looks exhausted. His hair is tucked messily under the hood of his navy sweater, still damp from the shower he took earlier. His eyes lack the usual brightness you often find yourself so immersed in, replaced with the fatigue and weariness he almost never brings home.
“I hate this company,” he sighs as you run your fingers through his hair. You feel him relax in your arms a bit. “My boss is a dick, everyone in my department hates each other and the coffee tastes like actual ass. Maybe I should just quit while I still can.”
You frown. “Jaem, you’ve been with them for literally a month. You can’t possibly be thinking about quitting already.”
“A month! A month in and I’m already having mental breakdowns under my desk at lunch. Imagine what will become of me if I spend a year there,” he scowls, but his expression softens when you kiss him reassuringly on the cheek. “Alright, alright, fine, maybe not quit, maybe I’ll just take a long, long, vacation and then retire… Move to the countryside with you…” He trails off dreamily and for a moment, you lose yourself in the fantasy he’s painted for you. The mental image of a quaint house by the ocean is quickly shattered when you remember the test results hidden in your bag. The sunflowers you envisioned surrounding the cottage are blown away in the wind, their bright yellow petals swallowed by the blueness of the sky.
“Oh, you wish,” you laugh, quickly pressing your lips to his in hopes that he won’t see your expression, that he won’t see the sadness and regret you’re fighting to suppress. “Maybe, baby, maybe one day we can do that.”
“Maybe,” he laughs, his face lighting up with the energy and liveliness that has been missing. “But enough about me. How was your day, love?”
“Mm. The same old,” you say, pulling out of his arms so you can finally take your jacket off. You crash into the couch where you fold up your scarf and toss it aside. “Stressful.”
He stares at you for a hard moment, visibly concerned as if he can tell there’s something troubling on your mind. “Is something the matter?” He asks carefully, sitting down next to you. He holds you at arm’s length so he can look at you properly. “Is this about the test?”
“What? Oh, no, not the test. I doubt the results will come in until sometime next week.” The lie slips out easier than it should, and you feel guilt slowly start to twist your insides. Just a white lie, you tell yourself. It can’t hurt anyone but yourself. He’s been through enough today. He’s tired. Not tonight. It can wait. “I’m just tired,” you shrug. “I need some dinner and a nap, then I’ll be all good again. Do we still have anything in the fridge or should we order takeout?”
“I already ordered chicken from Yong’s. I had a feeling that today would be a bad day for the both of us,” Jaemin grins. His smile is smug at first, then endearing when he sees your shock.
You practically pounce on him in excitement, and the two of you go crashing into the couch cushions until you have him pinned beneath you. “Oh my god, I fucking love you, you know that?”
Jaemin groans, curling into himself as he gives you a wounded look. “And that’s how you show your love? By trying to break my bones?”
“Besides the point,” you huff. “You aren’t going to say it back?”
“Yes, of course. I love you too.”
Unsatisfied with his answer, you lower your face so your lips are hovering just inches above his. He looks up at you starry-eyed, his fingers ghosting over your cheeks; you can’t help but notice the way his gaze travels briefly to your lips.
Then you realize how dangerous this is. You know that he’s not the one. You know that you’ll eventually part ways with him when he finds out, no matter how reluctant you’ll feel. Every moment you spend with him like this will come back to haunt you when he’s gone. It will become another reminder of what you’re about to lose, yet here you are, falling deeper into his embrace, intoxicated by his scent and lost in the depth of his eyes. You are only tying more strings between the two of you, strings that will need to be stretched and snapped. You are only making it more painful for the both of you.
But for tonight, you don’t care.
“Say it like you mean it,” you whisper.
He holds your face gently, and those sparks you felt upon your first meeting with him are still there, igniting each time he looks at you, blazing into an open flame when he tells you, “I love you.”
You kiss him with more urgency this time, your lips meeting his in a clash of teeth and tongue. He puts his hands around your waist and pulls you impossibly closer to him. For just a moment, you’re focused on only him and his presence. For just a moment, you forget about everything; the sheet of test results is just another piece of paper in your bag, the blue mark just another colour. Because tonight, he is all that matters to you.
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You met Na Jaemin almost three years ago.
Though the details have faded with time, you remember your first conversation well. It began at a friend’s art show beneath the golden glow of the studio lights, the two of you surrounded by brilliant splashes of colour and bold strokes of texture. Renjun had insisted on introducing you to Jaemin before you even arrived at the gallery, and you couldn’t have possibly refused. Your friendship with Renjun goes way back to the 40s, and you often think he knows you better than you know yourself. “I think he could be good for you,” he told you quietly just before leaving to speak with his other guests.
At first, Jaemin seemed timeless. It was as if he didn’t belong to any particular time period, as if he had lived to see several generations rise and fall, but had never risen or fallen with any of them. Dressed elegantly in a fitted turtleneck and a wool coat, he appeared youthful and contemporary; yet the way he spoke hinted at a certain maturity, at wisdom and sagacity. There was something charming about him too, something about the way he recounted events of the past and drew you in with only his words.
Next to a breathtaking oil painting of the sea, you discovered your commonalities. He was almost two decades younger, but like you, had spent his entire life searching for a partner without much success. You were delighted to learn that he had also worked in teaching—though he mentioned changing careers frequently whenever things became too mundane. He was effortlessly intriguing, and every word he spoke was lively and animated. He infused your conversations with colours, painted everything in bright yellows and aquamarines that matched the swirling paint strokes of the artworks around you, left you wanting to know more without even trying.
You left the gallery that night with his number in your coat pocket. Needless to say, Renjun was thrilled.
Weeks passed before you saw him again. Your busy schedules always managed to get in the way of your plans, but the two of you still kept in touch, chatting late into the night and well into the early hours. As the months went by, you dared to hope that maybe he was the one.
You immediately scolded yourself for being naive. With all your past partners, you had been hopeful in the same way, only to be let down in the end. Your test when you were with Donghyuck came back blue, as did the one with Mark. Both have since moved on, found their soulmates and written their happy endings. Even if you still stay in touch and meet up for an occasional coffee, you know that you are only a distant memory to them in some way or another.
The prospect of the same thing happening with Jaemin had never occurred to you—you’d been so caught up in getting to know him, so blinded that you’d completely forgotten. And then you saw him differently. As if he were a flame that could be snuffed out in an instant, a feather that could be sent flying with the slightest breeze, the slightest breath. You mulled over it for weeks and always did so silently, until it finally came up in conversation.
Almost a year had passed since you’d met him. With the summer coming to an end, the two of you had driven down to the Han River where you sat in the open trunk of his car, sharing a can of cheap beer from the convenience store. There were no words, only the faint melody of an old pop song buzzing from your phone and his hand around yours.
“Move in with me,” he said at last, glancing at you expectantly, trying to gauge your reaction. It wasn’t completely out of the blue—you’d been searching for a new apartment for weeks—but it still took you by surprise. “Too fast?” He asked when he registered your shock.
“No, not at all,” you shook your head and squeezed his hand. “Don’t get me wrong Jaem, I’d love to. It’s just, I don’t know about any of this. About us. If we’re actually…”
He hummed a quiet response, his brows furrowing slightly in contemplation. “Soulmates,” he said with a melancholic sigh. “You don’t want to go any further before we know for certain. I understand.”  
You nodded. “It always hurts, you know? You think you’ve finally found them only to realize you’ve been completely wrong the whole time.”
“I know,” he said, and his empathy flooded you with warmth and reassurance. “You always think you’ll be prepared for the next time. You always think it will hurt less as time goes by. But it doesn’t.”
“Exactly.”
You tipped the last of the beer into your mouth; it tasted faintly sweet on your tongue before dissolving into a pleasant bitterness that hit the back of your throat. When you were finished, Jaemin took the empty can and fiddled with the tab, bending it back and forth until it snapped off.
“I want it to be you,” he told you after a few minutes of silence. “I want it to be us.”
“And if we aren’t?”
He kissed you, hard enough for you to see stars. It wasn’t desperate or longing, but it seemed to convey a hundred different thoughts all at once, a hundred different emotions for you to decipher. When he finally pulled away, his voice was thoughtful and he was seemingly lost in a pleasant daydream. “Oh, love, the universe has already cursed us to search eternally. We may as well spend eternity together.”
“Seriously, Jaemin, what if we aren’t?”
The tremor of your voice snapped him out of it. The glimmer of hope disappeared from his pupils and the dream slipped from his hands.
“We’ve been alive for so long,” you continued, trying to keep your voice steady. “I don’t think I can go on like this. What if we aren’t meant to be? What will we do?”
You didn’t regret your time with Donghyuck or Mark or Jungwoo or any of the people you were lucky enough to have met, but you’d watched all of them from afar, watched them grow while you stayed frozen in time. Each new generation that came along was only a reminder of your loneliness. You felt a certain emptiness each time you invited new people into your life, one that deepened when they eventually left you behind. Or worse, when they gave you their pity. You couldn’t stand it when people told you that it was unfair or that you deserved better, all while they lived comfortably with their soulmates. You weren’t jealous, nor could you ever be angry at them for something beyond their control. Your anger was directed at the invisible forces that toyed with the world, the mischievous hands spinning the universe in some strange direction that left only you disoriented.
His expression took on a faint sadness and when he spoke again, his voice was calm, barely a whisper. “Then so be it. If you need to move on, it would be selfish of me to stop you from doing so.” He stared out at the waters wistfully, at the yachts sailing downstream. “And besides, you’re right. Maybe it’s time we settle down… even if it’s not with each other.”
Your birthday came a few months after that night, but you held off on testing. The bus you took home from work passed by one of the labs, but you never got off at the stop, always watched the doors open and close from your seat. The test isn’t that accurate anyways, you told yourself; it could produce only an approximate biological age, so maybe the longer you waited, the better.
But in the end, it was simply an excuse to escape reality, to avoid your confrontation with fate itself.
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You moved in with him just before the end of the year.
New Year’s Eve wasn’t a big deal for you (you’d lived through too many for it to be exciting), but you spent the last minutes of the year with him, surrounded by cardboard boxes waiting to be unpacked. Jaemin had still made some sort of effort at festivities despite your indifference: pale pink and gold candles lit around the living room, golden champagne in delicate glasses set on the table.
You were almost asleep when the clock struck twelve, wrapped up in one of his oversized sweaters and a white throw blanket. The celebratory music blaring from the TV was muffled in your ears, a pleasant symphony that lulled you deeper into sleep until Jaemin awoke you with a kiss.
“Happy New Year, Y/N.”
“Happy New Year, Jaem,” you mumbled, a smile ghosting your lips as you focused on the comfort you felt in his arms; on the new year, on your new home, new hope.
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You know something’s wrong.
Jaemin doesn’t come out to greet you, even after you announce your arrival. He’s home—his shoes and coat are put away neatly like any other day—yet it’s deathly silent, terribly still. No music playing in the living room, no voice down the hallway. Only the occasional chirp from your broken smoke detector, which you’ve been meaning to fix for weeks. As you bend down to unlace your boots, you can’t help but worry.
You find him in your shared bedroom, sitting cross-legged on the comforter. The sun has almost set and the shadows stretch across the room, blanketing him in darkness and masking his expression with ambiguity. He doesn’t move when you turn on the lamp on the bedside table. He doesn’t move when you sit next to him.
There’s a familiar sheet of paper in his hands.
“Jaem, I…”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
It isn’t accusatory or hostile; his voice is laced with nothing but sadness, yet you feel so much guilt, guilt that closes around your throat and squeezes the air out of your lungs, leaving you breathless. You kept it from him for days, and now this is the way he must find out about it. From a piece of paper you were careless enough to leave where he might find it. From a piece of paper detailing the DNA extracted from a sample of your blood. You should have told him.
“I didn’t know how to,” you let out a shaky breath. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Are you serious?” There it is, the cold edge that begins creeping into his voice as he stares down at you. He flicks a finger in the direction of the date printed at the top of the paper. “It’s been a week, Y/N. You kept this from me for a week. Why?”
“I just couldn’t bring myself to tell you, okay?” It comes out sharper than you intended; you immediately begin to drown in guilt as soon as you see Jaemin’s expression fall. You didn’t mean to lash out, and now you make up for it by taking his hands in yours. They're ice cold. “Look, the day I found out, you were already tired from work. I didn’t want to bring it up and make everything worse—”
“So you lied. Said the results hadn’t come in yet,” he says flatly and you rush to defend yourself, only to realize that he’s right.
“I’m sorry.”
The rest of your words don’t come. With a tired exhale, you bury your head in your hands, too overwhelmed to say anything else. You can only hope that he’ll understand, that he’ll empathize and that he’ll forgive you, even if you don’t exactly believe you deserve any of it right now. You hold back the tears. Only when he pulls you into his arms do they fall. He takes your hands, gently pulling them away from your face so he can wipe your tears despite your protests. There’s no coldness in his expression now, only concern.
“I needed time to process everything,” you continue, but you choke on the words. “I couldn’t even accept it myself, I couldn’t—”
“I know, love,” he says quietly as his thumb brushes against your cheek. “I know. It’s alright.”
Your silent sniffles turn into unrestrained sobs as he pulls you into his embrace, your pent-up emotions finally released in the form of silvery streams on your cheeks. You aren’t sure how much time passes. The sun meets the horizon in a hazy line of faint pink and orange. The sky darkens. Outside, the city lights up in a multitude of hues, the amber light from the street below seeping into your room. The minutes go by, but Jaemin never lets go of you until your tears have run dry.
“Better?” He asks, albeit his voice is shaky, his gaze trembling when he looks up at you. You nod.
“We’ll figure this out,” his eyes seem to say. You can tell he’s just as terrified as you are, just as unsure and as lost. Though for now, you simply hold each other. You say nothing about the paper that lays discarded on the floor or what it entails, even if you both feel the need to address it, to face its implications. In this moment of brokenness, neither of you have the strength to do so.
You eventually collect yourselves. You make dinner and force yourselves to eat before passing a meaningless hour in front of the TV. You clean up, wash up. Sleep early in preparation for tomorrow. Jaemin never leaves your side.
“Where do we go from here?” You whisper into the darkness of your bedroom.
“Tomorrow, love,” you hear him say just before slipping into unconsciousness, into restless sleep.
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According to Lee Donghyuck, the chances of meeting your soulmate are 1 in 10 000. Or at least, scientifically. Theoretically. Donghyuck was a man of logic and reason, and had your lives not revolved around soulmates like the earth revolved around the sun, perhaps he wouldn’t have believed in fate at all.
“Remove fate from the equation,” Donghyuck mumbled to himself thoughtfully, jotting a few numbers down on a paper napkin. “And let’s assume your soulmate is around your age.”
“Can’t you rule that one out too?” You pointed out,  but he was too busy, already lost in his thoughts.
“If your soulmate is determined at birth and instantly recognizable at first sight… And they’re actually alive somewhere in the world…”
You watched the quick movements of his blue pen with intrigue. He spun the pen restlessly, allowing its barrel to cross over and under and between his fingers, at times so quickly that it became nothing but a blur of colour. Finally, he scribbled a final verdict and inked two definitive circles around it. “If fate hadn’t been so kind, the chances would have been one in ten thousand. One lifetime out of ten thousand.”
“That slim? Ten thousand lifetimes, that’s nearly impossible,” you said, skeptical but amused at his train of thought nonetheless. You took the napkin from him and looked over his calculations, though some of the numbers were too big for you to check without a calculator. You trusted that Donghyuck had done them correctly though. “You know, if you told that to someone who’d spent a century searching for their soulmate, they’d probably beat you up. You’re lucky I like you.”
He giggled. “We’re lucky it’s only hypothetical.” He took the napkin from you and crumpled it, smudging the neon blue ink on the tips on his fingers.
With Donghyuck, things were simpler. He was young, young enough to not be in a hurry, young enough to speak his thoughts so freely. He never pitied you or worried about offending you, and he never treated you as if you were out of place among the new generations. He offered you perspective. You knew that you weren’t meant for each other, but you were still content to spend your time with each other. To wait together.
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“So… I might have found a new place.”
You don’t miss the surprise on Jaemin’s face when you tell him over dinner. His eyes widen a bit in curiosity, his brows arching upwards and his mouth falling slightly agape. He sets his fork down against his plate, folding his hands together the way he does when he’s deep in thought.
“Already?” He inquires. Maybe you imagine a hint of disappointment in his voice, a slight dip in his tone. He looks at you with a sort of sadness, as if trying to imagine what it would be like with you gone, to come home to an empty apartment every night. “Seriously, Y/N, you’re welcome to stay if you need to. We said we would take the changes slowly.” His words aren’t just out of consideration for you.
More than a month has gone by silently, and within that time, the frigid cold of winter has finally given way to spring. Nothing has really changed when you think about it, as if your test results are meaningless. And you suppose that they have become just that, a meaningless scrap of paper at the bottom of the recycling bin in the kitchen. Jaemin still holds you the same way, though his touches are just a little bit more fleeting. Your conversations still extend late into the night, though they feel just slightly melancholic. You hang onto his every word even while telling yourself not to, that maybe there is no point in doing so when everything is already coming to an end.
“I don’t know if I’ll take it… at least not for sure. And even if I do, I won’t be moving in until April. I just thought I’d tell you ahead of time,” you tell him, reaching across the table to take his hand. “I mean this in the nicest way possible, but I think I need some time alone. So I can adjust to all of this.”
“No, I understand. It’s just a little jarring, you know? Don’t know what it’ll be like without you here.”
“It’s literally only a block away,” you giggle, and he smiles. “I’ll still be here.”
After the coolness of February comes grey skies and a drizzly March, heavy rainfall washing the white snow to grey slush. Eventually, the clouds part across the sky for the sun, allowing the brilliant blue of the sky to peek through. April comes sooner than expected, producing blooms of yellow and white in the flowery courtyards of your new apartment complex, bursts of bright colours along the cobblestone paths.
You stand surrounded by boxes in the middle of your new studio apartment, watching the people pass by on the streets below. The windows are cracked open for air and you can hear the bustle outside, the yells of the street vendors, an occasional shriek of a child’s laughter. The new bedframe and mattress you ordered stand leaning against the wall in the corner, waiting to be assembled. Jaemin stumbles through the door with another box and sets it down before dusting his hands off on his jeans.
“That’s the last one,” he says. He collapses on the couch that the previous owner left behind, out of breath. You sit down next to him, allowing him to rest his head on your lap. He finally looks around, then at you. “Everything you hoped for?”
You nod happily. “I’ll miss having you around though,” you chuckle, playing with the soft strands of his hair, freshly dyed—after losing a drunken bet to Renjun a week ago, he reluctantly let the latter bleach and tone his hair bright silver. But you think it suits him; it accentuates the darkness of his eyes and paleness of his skin, gives him a cold and chic edge offset by the gentleness of his smile.
“I’ll still be here,” he repeats your words from two months ago. “And you’ll be much closer to work, right? No more crazy subway routes and early mornings. At the cost of me being your personal alarm clock, of course.” He grins, and you smack him with a red throw pillow.
“I won’t miss that,” you roll your eyes teasingly.
“Whatever you say, love.” He lifts his head off your lap to press a kiss against your cheek.
You spend the rest of the afternoon with him, unpacking boxes, hanging up clothes, building the bedframe and fitting the mattress with clean sheets so that at least you’ll have somewhere to sleep tonight. When the sun sets, everything is lit in an ethereal glow, and you stare out the floor-length windows, admiring the sky. Jaemin joins you after a moment, wrapping his arms around you as the two of you rock back and forth to the steady rhythm of the music playing from his phone.
When he leaves in the evening, he gives you a final hug, jokingly telling you not to miss him too much. When he’s gone, you find yourself staring out the window once more, at the blocky silhouette of Jaemin’s building a few blocks away. He pointed it out earlier, thrilled that you could see so far from this high up.
You quickly learn that on cloudy days, it is nothing but a smudge of grey in the distance.
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While Donghyuck always tried to ease your worries with reason and strokes of pen ink on his skin, Mark took you on long drives around the city, hoping that the wind blowing through your hair would clear your mind.
On late nights when you couldn’t sleep, you often found yourself in the passenger seat of his 1975 Hyundai Pony, listening to static-laced 80s rock music while he drove you around the streets of Seoul. He would always roll the windows down in the summer and watch the contentment on your face, one hand around yours while the other guided the wheel.
Mark Lee was even older than you—and with all the wars and tragedies he’d lived through, he understood what it felt like to be kept awake by the nightmares. To be kept awake by thoughts of loved ones being blown to bits, to be haunted with memories of the past. With how long he’d been searching for the right person, he knew the urgency you felt and the longing to finally settle down with a soulmate. He understood.
The stories he told you were woven between puffs of cigarette smoke and gentle kisses on your forehead. He told you about Canada and the mountains that surrounded Vancouver, where he’d spent some time in the 40s. He told you about his family, about his brother’s grandchildren who looked older than he did. It was strange, he’d admitted with a small laugh and sadness in his smile.
The two of you often pointed out buildings along the side of the road, reminiscing what stood in their place before the bulldozers and big trucks rolled in. Just down the street from his apartment, the old drive-in cinema was being replaced by an upscale theatre. Next to it, a park was being cleared for a new shopping centre. Even the studio he’d rented out last summer had been demolished so a new entertainment agency could build its empire. Once in a while, he would drive by and stare ruefully at the construction site—the classical compositions he’d once recorded there were being replaced by a new type of music, with catchy beats and pretty pop stars dressed in shiny outfits.
His music had been drowned out by a new industry, and likewise, many of the things you remembered from your childhood have been lost to time. Talking about the past with him helped you remember. It was a sort of reassurance even as you moved on.
Mark eased a bit of your pain, staying out with you until the early hours of morning to make sure that you were alright. The next morning, he would almost always call to ask if you’d slept okay, unless there was an issue with the old landline phone in his office. All concept of time disappeared when you were with him, along with your memories and the demons haunting your dreams. But eventually, he would drop you off at home and bid you goodnight, leaving you to watch him drive away. Eventually, the night came to an end.
He couldn’t stay with you the whole night, nor could he stay with you forever.
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Your evenings are often interrupted by Jaemin’s messages asking you to come over. Sometimes he says that he misses you, or he wants to see you for dinner. Other times, he kisses you breathless against the closed door as soon as you’ve stepped inside, always with an unmatched fervour and urgency as if you might slip right through his grasp and disappear.
Tonight, however, it’s neither.
It’s half past midnight when your phone is set off in a series of quick vibrations. Wrapped in nothing but a towel with your hair still dripping, you type in a reply, hesitate, press send. You get changed, slipping into a pair of jeans and an oversized T-shirt before grabbing your keys.
Jaemin is uncharacteristically quiet when he opens the door for you, his gaze downcast so you can’t see his expression. He’s deteriorating; you can see it in the way he turns his back to you after locking the door, the way he walks inside with a halfhearted invitation for you to follow.
“What’s wrong?” You ask when you’ve sat down across from him.
“I think I found them,” he mumbles and you notice how he averts your gaze. “My soulmate, I mean. I think I found her.”
“Wait, then why with the long face? Jaem, that’s great—”
He cuts you off with a sharp bark of emotionless laughter. His expression turns bitter when he pulls his sleeve up to reveal a mark along his wrist: two linear streaks of dark purple that twist together like the centre petals of a rose. He stares at it, almost with contempt. Apart from the standardized DNA tests, markings are the only other way to identify soulmates, though they almost never show. No one has any proper explanation for them and you have no explanation for why Jaemin has one now.
“Don’t get me wrong, I think she’s great. She’s smart. She’s funny. We have the same mark so I know it’s her,” he says shakily. “But god, I must have really fucked up in a past life to deserve this.”
You feel dread. It hits you all at once, because the way Jaemin speaks is so distant and unnerving, as if he’s lost himself in a trance and forgotten all about you. You’ve seen this dazed look before, only twice, when he was truly distressed and truly lost. This isn’t like him.
He found her. He should be happy. You should be happy for him. He should be happy.
“What is it?”
“I think I’m broken. Something’s wrong with me.”
“What do you mean?” You ask, and you try to keep the urgency out of your voice for his sake. He doesn’t say anything. “Jaemin?”
“I don’t feel anything when I’m with her. Nothing.”
You don’t register his words. They don’t make any sense to you. They are barely coherent. No, you think. That can’t be possible.
“Maybe we rejected each other in a past life and then both offed ourselves. Or maybe this is just the universe’s way of saying ‘fuck you.’ Maybe—”
“Stop that,” you tell him firmly. “Whatever this is, there has to be an explanation for it. Marks don’t just appear out of nowhere, right?” You pause to take a shaky breath, suddenly realizing that your words aren’t meant to comfort only him. “We can look into it. We can figure out what’s going on. This is the 21st Century, remember?”
“But what am I even supposed to tell her?” He demands, his tone exasperated and his brows furrowed together. “‘I know you’ve been looking for me for your whole life, but I can’t see you as anything more than a friend, sucks for you’? What do I do, spend the rest of my life drowning in guilt and self-pity because I couldn’t love her the way she wanted me to? Because I could only pretend?”
You have no answers for him. Perhaps he hasn’t felt anything for her because he hasn’t let go of you. Perhaps it really was a mistake, a freak accident in the cosmos that put the wrong marks on the wrong people, designating a pair that was never meant to be. Your thoughts run wild, but you can’t put anything into words for him. Even if you could, you don’t think you would have the strength to say anything aloud.
Instead, you hold him in your arms, wiping away the tears of frustration that have formed at the corners of his eyes, running your fingers through his hair. You can only hope that his soulmate will do the same for him some day, perhaps in some future where the cruel forces watching over you cease their endless games. Genuinely, you hope.  
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The tone goes off a third time. You glance at the clock across the room: 11 AM. He has to be up by now, you think to yourself as your fingers continue drumming a repetitive rhythm onto the kitchen counter.
“Hello?”
Just before the automated voice can tell you to leave a voicemail, he picks up. Donghyuck’s voice is groggy, as if he’s just woken up—or maybe he’s just about to go to bed. With his disaster of a sleep schedule, you can never be sure.
“Hi, it’s me.”
“Oh hey, you, I know you.” You hear him chuckle on the other end of the line. “How are you, Y/N? I haven’t heard from you in ages.”
“I’m alright, the usual, I guess. How about you? How’s Jeno?”
“Jeno adopted another cat because he’s fucking insane, so now we have three little furballs running around the house. But yeah, it’s going great! So great,” he drawls with a familiar bite of sarcasm. You smile to yourself. “If he brings home another one because ‘Oh Hyuck, look it’s so cute, can we keep it?’ I will literally choke him in his sleep. Anyways, what’s going on? You never call me.”
“You never pick up,” you huff, earning a small laugh from him. “Okay, I wanted to ask you something. What do you know about soulmate marks?”
Thoughtful silence. “Not much. I mean, I’ve got my theories, but nothing has really been proven. Why, did you get one?”
“No, not me. Jaemin.”
“Oh, Y/N… then that means…”
“It’s alright, don’t concern yourself with me, Donghyuck. I’m more worried about him, honestly.”
“Hm?”
“He found his soulmate recently, but it’s not exactly… it’s not going as expected, let's just say that. He said he feels almost nothing when he’s with her, and to make things worse, apparently now it’s mutual. God, Donghyuck, they’re so awkward with each other, it physically hurts me.”
Donghyuck is silent again, and you hear the faint clicking of his keyboard. You can almost see his contemplative gaze and the soft blue glow of his computer screen lighting his face. “Did they know each other at all before the marks appeared?”
“Yeah, they were coworkers.”
He hums. “Okay… that could be why. Marks have a tendency to appear if soulmates have been around each other for extended periods of time without realizing it. It’s like nature’s way of telling them that the person they’re looking for is right in front of them. As for why they haven’t felt anything for each other? I dunno… reincarnation can really fuck with people. Any previous sentiments for your soulmate stick with you as you pass on, even if you’re both reborn completely different people.”
I must have really fucked up in a past life to deserve this. Jaemin’s words echo in your head.
“Obviously, there’s still opportunity to fix things,” Donghyuck adds quickly before you can get too lost in your thoughts. “It just takes time. Honestly, I wouldn’t be too concerned”
“I know, I know,” you groan. “I’m just upset that after everything he’s gone through, this is the shit he has to deal with.”
“Yeah. I can’t even imagine.” He pauses. “You know, a lot of people would just run off if they were in the same situation. He’s lucky to have you.”
You give a breathless laugh and shrug. “I feel like it’s the least I can do.”
“You never give yourself enough credit,” Donghyuck says, a hint of melancholy to his voice. There’s a sudden noise in the distance that cuts him off, and he curses beneath his breath. “Shit, the new cat’s not trained yet and I think she’s doing something stupid in the kitchen. Jeno will kill me if anything happens to her.”
You suppress a giggle. “Go ahead. We can catch up some other time.”
“Of course. See you, Y/N.”
The line clicks.
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If Donghyuck taught you to be hopeful and Mark taught you to be strong, Jungwoo taught you to be brave.
Kim Jungwoo was your first love, and in many ways, you consider him to be irreplaceable. Perhaps it had simply been the result of young naivety back then, but you thought he was unlike any other person you’d ever met. In hindsight, he was different. A bright light dancing his way into your life when you were only a child in the 30s, a free-spirited boy who went where he pleased despite living under such an oppressive regime.
The Kims lived only a few doors down. You frequently saw the boys in their front yard kicking a beat-up soccer ball back and forth between them. Jungwoo was the middle child, and he sat right in front of you in class, his back always perfectly straight against his wooden chair so as to avoid the teachers’ chastisement. He was a quiet boy, and he never said a word unless it was to answer a question. But even then, his voice was small—not exactly shy or scared, just quiet. He quickly learned to raise his voice when the teacher hit him on the back of the hand with a ruler and demanded he speak up, when the wood scraped apart the skin of his knuckles.
At the time, when Japanese was all too foreign on your tongue and you struggled to understand anything taught in class, you thought he was a genius. He always had the right answers when he was called upon and there wasn’t a trace of an accent in either of his languages. Not that you heard him speak Korean much; you didn’t dare speak it unless you were hidden in your own homes, where your parents could discuss the uprisings without having to worry about the police roaming freely outside. Though, they still spoke in hushed voices as if anyone could hear them, as if terrified for what could happen if someone did hear.
The first time you spoke to Jungwoo properly was in middle school. After a humiliating incident at school that left you in tears, he ran to catch up with you on the way home and spoke to you in timid Korean, offering to help. You were still teary-eyed and beyond upset, but you let him guide you through your homework. He rambled to you about the Japanese grammar you couldn’t understand and explained the mistakes you’d made for your teacher to lash out at you the way she had. It didn’t stop you from making the same mistakes the next day, but at least he was patient, unlike the adults at school.
“You’re not stupid,” he told you one afternoon on the way home. Again, you were in tears.
“But the teachers think I am,” you grunted. “And I feel stupid. I can’t understand a word they say. I never have the right answers. Everything I say is wrong. If that’s not stupidity, I don’t know what it is.”
“Y/N, all we do at school is memorize meaningless facts that don’t really matter,” he replied with a shrug. “Just because you can’t shove all that information into your head doesn’t mean that you’re stupid. Look at Doyoung. He was failing school but he’s still one of the smartest people I know. He just… learns differently.”
“So? That doesn’t make me smart either. They still think—”
Jungwoo scoffed. “Who cares what they think? I think you’re wonderful, and they’re the real freaks. Miss Ito, especially.” He wrinkled his nose. “She smells funny.”
“Hey, be nice, Jungwoo,” you chided, but you were laughing. He was effortlessly funny and it was such a pleasant contrast to the way he acted at school. He was always so disciplined and perfect when the adults were watching, but he seemed to let loose around you. It made you feel… special, in a way. Validated, accepted. Something you never felt at school.
You walked home with him almost everyday from then on. You became inseparable, even when your school shut down and sent all the students to gender-segregated schools, even when your parents worried that you were spending too much of your time with him instead of studying. Even when war arrived.
The Second World War plunged your lives into darkness; Jungwoo quickly became the only light to guide you. He was there for you while your parents were away, while they laboured in the factories making helmets and guns and bullets so that they could at least put food on the table. He was there when the light at the end of the tunnel went dim, though he was miles away from home.
Jungwoo had never struck you as a fighter or rebel, even if he had the physique of a soldier. He had the drive and the courage and the steel to fight, but you only saw gentleness in his monthly letters to you. The last letter you received from him still sits in a drawer somewhere, the last words he wrote sealed in a plastic envelope so that they won’t fade away.
You took the test a few months after the war ended, only because he had pleaded with you to do so. Even if I don’t make it home, he wrote to you in the same curving script he’d used to teach you years ago. Promise me.
When the receptionist gave you a piece of paper with an X marked next to your name—there were no colour indicators back then, only X’s and hollow circles—a part of you felt relief that you couldn’t quite explain. Another part of you was disgusted, convinced that you were being selfish and apathetic. You thought that maybe you had no regard for him; that you only cared for yourself and a stranger you were still searching for. He’d risked his life to join the rebel army, fought on the frontlines with the Allies, and you repaid him with nothing.
It would take you years to come to the conclusion that your reaction was only natural. It would take you years to heal and start seeing other people. In due time, you would stop frequenting the church in your hometown and your fingers would cease to brush against the memorial stone in the yard, upon which his name was carved. Just one name among many.
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Jaemin’s hands are all over you: in your hair, around your throat, pushing you against the wall as he kisses you. His fingers tangle into your hair and he pulls on the strands, forcing your head back a bit so he can continue trailing his lips over your neck and collarbones.
“We can’t be doing this,” you tell him when you manage to pull away. His arms come around your waist anyways and he buries his head in the crook of your neck. You can smell the alcohol on his breath, and you glance behind him to see empty soju bottles on the kitchen counter.
“I’m not with Jieun,” he snarls. “Besides, like I said. I think we���re fucked. We aren’t meant to be.”
“Don’t say that,” you hiss, taken aback by his sudden coldness. “This isn’t fair to her.”
“It’s mutual, remember? I bet she’s out there doing the exact same thing with some other guy. She doesn’t need me.”
“Jaem—”
“We’re fucked. She told me she doesn’t need me, and I told her the same.”
You’re horrified. “You did what?”
“Hilarious, isn’t it? We had our first fight, and we aren’t even together yet.” He scoffs, pushing a hand through his hair in irritation. “Some type of soulmate.”
You’ve never heard him talk like this. He’s out of his mind. He’s lost it. “Fuck, Jaem, how much did you drink?”
“Not enough to feel better, clearly,” he snaps.
“Alcohol and whatever this is between the two of us isn’t going to make you feel any better. This isn’t going to fix your problems.”
“Then what do you want me to do?!” His words are sharp, his expression hard when he glares at you. “You tell me to move on and to give her a chance and to stop doing whatever—” he motions frantically. You’ve never seen him so wild, so out of control, and you’ve almost never seen him lash out at anyone like this. “—whatever the fuck this is, but do you even know how it feels? Do you even care?”
A sharp intake of breath, and then the world is crashing down around you.
The feelings you fought to suppress re-emerge, rising up to crush you and force you into relapse. Doubt. Regret. Guilt. The little voice in the back of your head is a raging monster now, and it shouts at you, screaming at you in a blind rage. Telling you that you’re heartless and self-absorbed and indifferent, everything you believed you were when Jungwoo died. Reinstating what you know isn’t true. You know he doesn’t mean it. You know that it’s just alcohol fueling the words spewing from his lips and nothing more, but they still bring back unpleasant memories, a sense of dread you can’t shake.
He realizes, albeit a bit too late. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
If you knew how much it hurts me to watch you do this to yourself. If you knew how much it hurts me knowing that there’s only so much I can do for you. “Don’t. I get it.”
For a few seconds, the room is silent, save the ticking of the clock behind you. It reminds you briefly of a memory that you can’t quite grasp, like a flash of deja vu before you spiral back down to the present reality where you stand in cold, frigid silence. The broken smoke detector chirps.
“I should go,” you say at last. You go to grab your keys from where you left them on the counter but he quickly stops you, his hand coming around yours. You look up at him in irritation, pulling away sharply.
“It’s late,” he says shakily, almost pleading. “You shouldn’t walk home at this hour. Not alone.”
“I’ll call a cab,” you shrug before slipping into your sweater and pulling on your shoes. You bid him goodnight and leave him dumbfounded in the living room.
You return home to a sleepless light and endless thoughts in a cold bedroom. A broken record replays his words in your head again and again, until you see Jungwoo’s face floating above you in the darkness. His features are faint, like wisps of smoke that loosely form sad eyes and lips pulled downwards in a frown. And then he’s the one asking, “Do you even care?”
You have no answer for the annoying voice in your head. You stare at the lines of light drifting across the expanse of the ceiling, wide awake as the sky brightens outside.
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“How long will you be gone?”
It was the 3rd of August 1995. You knew because the next day would mark 50 years since Jungwoo’s death. The next day, you would be going back to your hometown and laying flowers on the altar in the Kim family home, revisiting the memorial you’d left behind when you moved to Seoul.
You shrugged as Mark passed you his lighter. The old zippo produced a small spark between your fingers, and then the sting of smoke was filling your mouth and nose. You didn’t smoke regularly—you’d stopped years ago—but you sure as hell felt like you needed one tonight.
“I dunno,” you said, taking a long drag from the cigarette. “A couple more days after the ceremony? If I stay any longer, Doyoung might get upset.“
“Upset?”
“He doesn’t like seeing me. Said I bring back bad memories. I think I remind him of Jungwoo too much.”
Mark grimaced. “Well it’s scary, seeing a childhood friend who hasn’t aged in fifty something years… Must he like seeing a ghost.” He paused, tucking a stray piece of your hair behind your ear so that he could see your face. “My nephews feel the same way about me.”
“You remind them of something?” You asked.
“Their father, I guess,” he explained. “My brother… wasn’t the most understanding of them when they were younger. Whenever they see me, all they can think of is their childhood and his abusiveness.”
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
He took a moment of contemplative silence “No, not really. I mean, maybe it did at first. But it’s not like I go out of my way to avoid them just because of the memories they associate with me. That would be unfair for me.”
“It would be,” you agreed.
“So then why avoid Doyoung? What he thinks of you is beyond your control. If you remind him of painful memories, that isn’t exactly your fault.”
You sighed. “I don’t know. I just feel like staying out of his way might help him heal. Maybe it’ll help him move on from everything he’s trying to forget.”
“Oh, Y/N.” Mark took your hand with a breathless laugh. His smile was both sad and endearing, as if he were in awe of you—what for, you weren’t too sure until he murmured, “You’re too kind sometimes.” He paused to exhale, smoke escaping his lips and bleeding into the atmosphere, dispersing into the starry sky. He stared into the sky for a few moments, silent.
“But it’s not always up to you to heal their wounds. At some point, they have to learn to heal themselves.”
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“What the hell happened to him?”
Jaemin looks like a mess. His hair is disheveled and swept messily all over the place. His skin is unhealthily pale, unusually warm to the touch beneath your fingertips. You can tell he’s had a little too much to drink; he sits on the couch in a daze, his eyes fixated on an invisible point in front of him as if searching for something that is no longer there. He yelps in pain when you wipe at the cut on his lip.
“We bumped into a couple guys at the bar. One of them took a swing at him,” Renjun explains as he passes you the bottle of disinfectant. You carefully apply a drop to a cotton swab. “And it didn’t help that he was also drunk. Thank god Lucas was there to break up the fight.”
“I wasn’t drunk,” Jaemin groans in protest. “Just tipsy.”
“Tipsy? You couldn’t even tell me Y/N’s number.”
“I don’t remember anyone’s number.”
“Well, you couldn’t tell me your own name either. Got any excuse for that one, smartass?”
You ignore their bickering and continue cleaning the cut on Jaemin’s cheek, holding him firmly by the shoulder so he doesn’t move. The cotton quickly turns light pink between your fingers. You briefly examine the red marks along his jaw where he’d been hit, frowning. Jaemin has never been one to get into fights and especially not while under the influence, but the bruises on his cheek and his knuckles suggest otherwise. Hell, he rarely even gets drunk, but it’s becoming more and more frequent, to the point where Renjun makes sure to watch over him whenever they go out together. He’s derailing, you think to yourself as you brush his hair into some sort of order.
“Okay, let’s get you to bed.” You put his arm around your shoulder and help him up to his feet, nearly staggering beneath his weight. Renjun rushes over to help you move him into the bedroom.
“You should probably go home. It’s getting late,” you tell him when Jaemin has been settled in bed. You glance at the clock hanging in the kitchen as you clean up the first aid kit on the table: almost 2 AM. “I’ll stay with him… make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”
“I really tried to keep him away from the alcohol tonight. I swear I turned away for only a second to deal with Yangyang and he— Ugh, I’m so sorry,” Renjun apologizes again, shaking his head. “This whole soulmate ordeal is really getting to him. I’m worried, Y/N.”
“You know how he is. He always figures it out one way or another” you reassure him. “I’ll talk to him again though. Maybe he’ll actually… listen this time.”
“Well, call me if anything happens. I probably won’t be asleep anyways.”
“I will. Thanks, Jun,” you nod appreciatively.
By the time Renjun has gone home and you’ve finished cleaning up, Jaemin is already asleep. He stirs when you switch off the lamp and reaches out for you in the darkness, fingers intertwining with yours. “Stay,” he mumbles, pulling you a bit closer.
“I’m not going anywhere.” You say as you admire the way the moonlight filters in through the windows and draws pale lines across his cheeks. Despite the cuts marking his skin, he looks so much softer now, innocent, in a way. Again, you’re reminded of the Jaemin you met at the art gallery. He was none of this. None of this pent-up frustration released in empty beer bottles, none of these crimson bruises marking his otherwise smooth skin.
“You have to stop doing this to yourself,” you murmur. There’s no reply at first, and you wonder if he heard you at all.
“I’m sorry,” you finally hear his voice: small, feeble in the darkness. His words become more urgent as he keeps speaking, spilling from his lips uncontrollably. “I shouldn’t have said those things about you. I wasn’t thinking. You know I could never mean it.”
You hush him, wrapping him in the security of your arms. A single tear brushes against the back of your hand, then another. “It’s alright,” you assure him as you rub soothing circles against his back. “You were going through a lot. I understand, okay? It’s okay.”
He shakes his head frantically, his tears falling in steady streams now. You let out a low hiss when you see them stain pink with the blood from the wound on his cheek. “Still, that shouldn’t be an excuse. I’ve managed to fuck up everything since all of this started. I hurt Jieun, I hurt Renjun, I hurt you. I can’t even go to work and look at Jieun without feeling like such an idiot and getting mad at myself for being such a child. Without feeling like maybe I deserve this.”
Your heart drops, then shatters into a million pieces at the bottom of a dark abyss.
“Look at me,” you plead as you take his face in your hands. “Look at me, Jaem, please.” He finally lifts his head, his eyes meeting yours in the stillness. All you can see is brokenness, defeat and regret, a look you knew well. It’s an expression that once followed you around for years, appearing in every mirror and reflection you passed by. An innate, intimate part of you that you despised so much until you came to accept it. “Listen to me, Na Jaemin. You are one of the strongest, bravest and kindest people I’ve ever met, and nothing will ever change the way I see you. You don’t deserve any of this bullshit. You don’t deserve this.”
“If you knew what I told her, Y/N,” he lets out a shaky breath. “If you knew what we told each other when we found out neither of us had any feelings for each other… maybe you would think differently of me.”
“If that’s truly what you believe, fix what you broke,” you say firmly. “Apologize to her. Make things right between the two of you, unless you want to go through this all over again in another life. Things will only get worse if you don’t address them now.”
“And if I can’t?”
“If anyone can do it, it’s you, Jaem.” Trembling, you press your lips to his temple. “Whether or not you end up with her, whether or not you think you deserve this, I love you. And that will never fucking change.”
He leans forwards, his forehead touching yours, his nose brushing against yours and his lips just inches from meeting yours. But he never comes any closer, and you feel no urge to close the distance either. Perhaps it’s a sign that both of you are already starting to let go, to drift apart; this moment is nothing romantic or lustful, nothing more than comforting each other in your brokenness. Nothing more than trying to help each other numb the pain.
“I love you.” His voice trembles, but his words are steady, deep-rooted in sureness.
“Then promise me you’ll try, Jaem. You’ll try to set things right, for both our sake.”
“For you, love,” he murmurs, so quietly that you can barely hear him. His voice is lost to the faint rumbling of the air conditioning unit somewhere outside and the distant noises of traffic. “For you, I would do anything.”
You wonder if he’ll remember any of this in the morning. You wonder if he’ll take your words to heart, or if they’ll simply be enveloped in dreams fueled by drunkenness, reduced by sleep to nothing but a blur.
...it’s not always up to you to heal their wounds. At some point, they have to learn to heal themselves
You’ve done everything you can for him, you decide. Even if you continue to walk by his side, the rest is up to him.
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One Saturday morning, Jaemin shows up at your door dressed in black jeans and a button-down shirt, his hair swept up neatly. There’s a kind of brightness to him; it’s not necessarily hope or excitement, but certainly a change from what you’ve seen the last couple of weeks. He’s meeting Jieun for lunch, he tells you nervously. He wants to see you before he goes. You tell him you’re proud of him. That genuinely, you admire him.
The next time you see him, it’s at a floral shop. He’s in the middle of picking out flowers, and he flushes when he sees you. A single rose seemed too cliche, he tells you sheepishly, and asks your opinion. He thinks she’ll prefer something a bit more unique but equally tasteful, equally elegant. You recommend orchids or gerberas. They last longer than roses, but they convey the same message. When he’s gone, you buy a small vase of irises for your apartment; your living room needs a bit of colour.
Weeks later, you find a small package in the mail: a parting gift, you realize when you tear open the padded envelope. It’s nothing too special, nothing fancy or expensive—just a piece of blue glass wrapped in silver accents, attached to a delicate chain that you loop around your neck. When you hold the pendant up to the sun, its blue tint shatters into infinite colours, tossing specks of luminous yellow and orange all over your bedroom. More than just a singular colour, it reflects the other hues around you. And for just a brief moment, you think you see your own reflection.
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You watched Jaemin move on just as you’d watched Mark and Donghyuck: from afar, with reserve but at the same time, excitement. Close enough for him to know that you were still there for him, but allowing some sort of distance that grew as the days melded into weeks and then months.
For the most part, he seemed to be alright. His texts were always cheerful, covered in happy emoticons—he used them when he was too giddy with excitement to type actual words. “We figured things out,” was all he said one night, and it was all you needed to hear to know that they’d be okay.
You started to notice the fondness he’d developed for her; it was subtle at first, just a hint of affection in his voice when he told you about her over the phone. Though slowly, it developed into something more. It was just as Donghyuck said: time had forged a relationship out of nothing, out of empty words and empty emotions, growing a garden from a barren piece of wasteland.
The first time you spoke to Kim Jieun, it was over the phone during one of your calls with Jaemin. She’d chimed in on your conversation at some point to say hi, and the way she spoke almost reminded you of Donghyuck: bright, cheery, a little sarcastic in a playful manner. You quickly learned that she was easy-going though brutally honest at times, well-mannered yet well-humoured. Most importantly, she wasn’t judgemental, and she didn’t treat you any differently from Jaemin’s other friends just because you’d been with him previously.
Of course, there was still a sense of yearning, a bittersweetness whenever you saw the two of them together. Your fingers always danced fleetingly along the screen of your phone before pressing like on the photos he posted to his social media. You saw him less and less, only occasionally running into him at the bakery you used to frequent together or at a friend gathering. For the most part, you let the past stay in the past. He seemed happy. And honestly, you were happy for him.
“I told you he’d be fine,” Donghyuck murmured to you at one of Jeno’s rampant parties, once most of the guests had trickled out for the night. The two of you sat on the balcony, watching everyone stumble around in their drunken stupor: Jeno was passed out on the couch with two cats sitting perched on his chest. Renjun was trying to braid flowers into Jaemin’s hair, which he’d recently bleached yet another shade lighter to match Jieun’s platinum locks. Out of the corner of your eye, you watched Chenle and Jisung exchange a few bills and bicker over a bet—Chenle was still in denial that Jisung had won, apparently.
“I didn’t doubt you for a second, Hyuck.”
“But you were worried,” he grinned smugly.
“Why wouldn’t I be worried?” You sighed and knocked back the rest of your wine before motioning for him to pass you the bottle. You swiftly poured yourself another glass. “If I couldn’t have my happy ending, at least I wanted him to have his. As… cliche as that sounds.”
Donghyuck raised a brow at you. “What’s to say that you won’t get yours too? They can’t keep you waiting forever. The longest it ever took for someone to find their soulmate was 241 years.”
“Goddamn, are you trying to make me feel better or worse?”
“Better, of course! Okay, what I’m trying to say is that it’s rare for anyone to wait longer than two centuries. If everyone lived for up to three hundred years, we’d have a lot of dictators and other crazies running the world. The universe would spontaneously combust.”
“I know I’m barely even halfway there, but come back to me when I set a new world record,” you rolled your eyes, to which he responded with a small chuckle.
“So what now?” He glanced at Jaemin, who sat across the room with his eyes half-closed, an empty red solo cup in his hands. Jieun had her head on his shoulder, rambling drunkenly about something to Renjun. If you hadn’t known any better, you would have thought she’d been a part of the group all along; she fit in so seamlessly, and it warmed your heart to see her getting along with everyone.
“I don’t know,” you shrugged. “Nothing for now, I guess. Just waiting.”
“Whoever it is, I’m sure they’ll be worth it,” he hummed in reply.
“You think so?”
“People say that the longer you wait, the better. It’s all in your head, of course, but they have a point.”
You sighed, lifting your head to gaze at the stars hanging overhead. “I suppose they do. Maybe someday I get to find out.”
He patted you on the shoulder reassuringly. “You’ll figure it out. You always have.”
Donghyuck left a little later to get a drunk Jeno to bed, and then you had only the quietness of night to keep you company. Your mind drifted and you contemplated his words, repeating them silently to the wind. The night sky replied with nothing but a gentle breeze against your skin.
You could be patient, you thought as you watched the others inside. You fished the pendant out from beneath your shirt and stared at the reflection in the glass. It was as if you were grasping a piece of the night sky between your fingers: the stars and a crescent moon captured in a single, translucent oval. In the dark, the pendant appeared deep indigo, not too different in hue from the four coloured markings you’d acquired over the years.
But the sun would rise in due time, you thought to yourself mirthfully. Beneath the brightness of morning, you’d hold a different colour in your hands. You tucked the necklace back into the fabric of your shirt. You could wait.
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read the epilogue, yellow
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You already know how this one ends
Mob! Mikey x gender neutral reader
Warnings: Murder-spoken about in detail, alcohol mentions. Summery: It’s been such a lovely evening, your boyfriend has taken you out to the movies and dinner and now you’re having a lovely starlit stroll around the park. How could anything be better?
(Authors note: This is a very dark fic, like very dark. It involves a detailed description of someone dying, please read at your own discretion.)
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The breeze is cool as you walk arm in arm with Mikey around the park. It had rained earlier, while you were at dinner, and now the damp air is filled with the scent of freshly cut grass and wet concrete but, it wasn’t unpleasant. Looking around, the trees danced in the slight wind and stars could be seen between the few clouds that loomed over you, casting shadows from the almost full moon. It was quiet and serene, just you and him. You hugged your coat a little bit tighter. It was a beautiful one, not cheap either, that he had bought for you; made of alpaca wool, a caramel sort of brown and fluffy. It went down to almost your knees and you loved it very dearly. You called it your ‘teddy bear coat’.
He, Mikey, had taken you to see a movie and then out for dinner at the most lavish place you could imagine. “It’s a special evening” he’d told you but never given you a reason as to why. Now you were walking through a park only a few blocks away from the restaurant and he was pointing out constellations. It was marvellous when he was like this, attentive and sweet and lucid. He had a bad habit of getting locked up inside his own head and becoming distant and irrational. That warm feeling comes over you like a tide in how quickly it rises but less forceful, like air in how it fills you but more tangible. You love him and he loves you, he’s told you hundreds of times before. Maybe he’ll forgive you.
You have a secret, you’re not actually a part time pre-school teacher but, in fact, a detective in the NYPD and you’d been sent to observe him, find out everything you could. It had been thrilling at first, but as it always seems to happen in the movies, you fell for him and fell hard. He kept you out of business, said it was too “unsavoury” for a delicate thing such as yourself so you hadn’t really learned much about it. Of course you tried but, any questions were expertly side stepped or ignored all together. You had, however, spent a lot of time with him- retreats to the country side, trips to Paris or Italy, nights at the theatre and stunning parties at houses bigger than you could ever dream to afford. You had also spent many nights in his bed with him. You had no significant other to return home to so on that first night, the first time it had happened, when he took you in his arms for a passionate kiss and lead you by the hand to his bedroom, you had no objections. He was an excellent lover and you don’t regret a single moment you spent with him. 
Tonight was the night, however, that you had to come clean.
Mikey dropped your arm for a moment to reach into his pocket and pull out a flask and raise it to his lips to take a long swig of what you assumed was whiskey. He edged the flask in your direction as an indication that you should do the same. Your fingers brushed his as you took it from his grasp and the cool liquid stung as it travelled down your throat to heat your belly. You would need all the courage you could muster and liquid courage is as good as any. Handing the leather bound container back to him, he placed it securely in his breast pocket. You sighed. Would it still be like this after he knew the truth?
“And that one’s Orion’s belt. Good story that” he continued.
It had only just occurred to you that he’s been talking for a while now, you were too wrapped up in your own thoughts to listen.
“I haven’t heard that one, tell it to me” you said, now returned to reality and interested in the tale. He was always a good story teller.
“Well Orion was boasting one day to the goddess Artemis, she’s the god of the hunt, you know, and her mother Leto that he could kill any beast on this earth. “Bring it before me and I will lay it down!” he’d said. Very full of himself that guy. I suppose all the gods were, even though he was only like 3/4 god I suppose. So anyway, the earth goddess overheard and devised a plan. a test of sorts. She sent a scorpion to him and the scorpion stung him on the ankle and he died. That’s only one of the stories of it though. Everyone argues about how it actually happened- if he was saving Leto from the scorpion or trying to force himself on Artemis and she sent the little critter. Either way it doesn’t really matter, the outcome is the same. He gets stung and-”
“I need to tell you something!” You weren’t sure where it came from but the words erupted out of you. You couldn’t wait any longer.
“what is it? There’s nothing I don’t already know about you” he stopped walking now and turned to you, putting his hands on your shoulders as if you steady you. You had seemed quite distressed to burst out like that.
“I- well its....Look I love you. I really do” you began
“Well, I’m glad to hear it.“ he laughed. His smile put you at ease. Those perfect teeth and plump lips curving into a half moon shape towards his eyes- eyes that you could get lost in and often did. 
“Hey, just listen. You know I told you that I’m a part time teacher over at saint Johns? Well, that’s not exactly the truth. I’m. Well...”
“you’re a cop” He added
“Exactly! And I’d wanted to tell-. Wait. How did you know that?” you were taken aback. How could he have known? How long had he known? As if he had read your mind, he answered.
“I found out yesterday, talked to my brothers about it.” his voice was lower now, more sombre as if it brought him great sadness to even think about it.
“Where does that leave us?” you asked
There was a long pause, he didn’t look at you but instead behind your right shoulder, staring off into the distance. He seemed quite pensive. Another breeze rolled though the air making you shiver and a bird called out in a far off tree. You were suddenly all too aware that no one was around. It had occurred to you before, made the evening seem more romantic but, now that this information was out in the open it scared you a little. You could see the handle to Mikey’s gun peering out of the holster beneath his blazer. After what felt like minutes of silence, he finally spoke again.
“You already know how this ends” His tone was dire and it sent a chill through you.
Before you could respond and ask what the hell that even meant, a leg, Mikey’s leg, sweeps underneath you- knocking you to the ground. The force of your impact sends a huff of air out of you and the ground is cold and still wet from the earlier rain beneath your form. Before you have time to register what’s going on, he’s on top you you.
His hands go to your throat and tighten dramatically. Surely you think surely this isn’t really happening? He loves me, I know he does. This isn’t really happening. This thought it short lived, however, as your vision is already beginning to dot and you can feel your face reddening and growing hot from the lack of blood and oxygen. His face is contorted above you into a pitiful look and you feel something drip onto your face. Is he crying? You try your best to take a better look and it sent a second chill through you. He’s crying because he has to kill you. 
It may seem daft, lying on your back in an empty park with your lovers hands strangling you and it only just occurred to you, now, that you’re going to die, but everything had happened so quickly and you still loved him, even with his hands around your neck, so much that you didn’t immediately think of that. This sparks something wild in you. Your own hands go to his face, slapping and clawing at him as best you can with limited air and in this position- doing anything you can for another sweet, sweet breath of air. It’s all to no avail, spots are becoming bigger and more frequent in your vision, your arms are tired and your lungs burn from the deprivation of oxygen. Within a minute or so they fall to your sides, slapping his thighs on the way down and you look up at him one final time. 
“I’m sorry” you manage to strain and gargle out. Had you know this would be the last thing you’d say to him, or ever, you might have picked something better. Nonetheless, this was fitting. You were sorry. Sorry for lying, sorry for agreeing to the job and sorry for ever moving to New York in the first place. Somewhere in the back of your mind the image of a scorpion climbing onto a frogs back appears- an old fable your mother used to tell you before bed. They’re half way across the river when it stings and the water is dark and angry as they both get pulled under. “It is in my nature” was the scorpion’s response. This is how you felt about Mikey., you could not hate him for it, as much as that would be the easiest emotion to conjure up, as he was simply doing what he knows. What he does best. What’s in his nature.
Your vision slowly begins to vignette until only a pinprick of sight is left. He is still crying, still straining to choke the life from you as quickly as possible- you suppose that’s the only mercy he can give you right now. A quick death. With all that’s left of your vision, you look up. The stars are still beaming up above you and Orion’s belt is shining in all it’s glory. Of all the things you could notice right now, the stars were probably the best one. You blink slowly, a small wheezing sound escapes your lips and before you can think of anything else, the world goes dark.
________________
He stays like that for a few minutes after your eyes close, making sure every last string of life has been well and truly drained from you. He’s still crying as he does it. Eventually he will raise himself up, wipe the tears from his face and take a quick look around. The park is still empty, still dark and for the first time this evening he is alone. It does not feel good. He looks down at his hands. Hands that were toughed by work and age, hands that had done unspeakable things that he couldn’t admit to himself let alone to you.
Slowly he will walk home, close the front door behind him and lock it. “Is it done?” His brother will say to him, he forgets which one. “Yes” he will reply. They will say something else, but he isn’t listening. That night he will drink himself stupid, until there are no more thoughts of hands and throats and eyes looking into his that are lit up by the stars above. It’ll become a fever dream and nothing more.
Tomorrow a paper will be placed in front of him, the headline will say something about a dead NYPD officer. He will not read it.
The End.
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justreadingfics · 5 years ago
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It’s a Deal (Chapter 1)
Chapter Summary: The first encounter.  
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader
Words: 5.2k
Warnings:+18 only, smut, one night stand for now, fingering, oral sex (female receiving) sex deprived reader, multiple orgasms, boytoy!Bucky.
A/N: I can’t express how much I appreciate the awesome feedback the prologue received. I wasn’t able to reblog all the comments, but I do read them all and I can’t believe how kind you all are. I really hope I can keep up with your expectations. The link to my masterlist is on my description. Feedback is highly appreciated. @lesqui​ I love you.
Prologue Here. 
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 “Bucky Barnes?” you squeal after the air got caught in your throat, “You mean The Bucky Barnes?” Leaning forward and lowering your voice, you check if you’ve heard correctly, “Are you out of your freaking mind?”
“You’ve talked to him before, right?” Natasha frowns as if she’s trying to collect the information from her memory.
“Yeah, I mean, I usually see him at the Tower when I go see you and in almost all of Tony’s parties and all. He talked with Eddie and I once, he seemed pretty interested in our work with technology,” you say, remembering the occasion and all the enthusiastic questions he had made, right before disappearing from the party with a beautiful brunette on his arm. It had caught your attention how the super soldier seemed such a tech geek, but that’s the closest interaction you had with him.  
“I don’t think your extensive knowledge was his only interest, though.” The smile twisting Nat’s lips can only be described as cheeky.
You side eye her, identifying her suggestions but not quite buying it. She must be going bananas to suggest Bucky Barnes could be the guy to help you with your… situation. You barely know the guy outside sharing the same space a few occasions and what you’ve heard of his public figure. Not to mention that, the times you’d seen him on social events he always had a couple of women on his neck.  
“He’s an attractive man, you can’t deny that.” Natasha declares , rolling some pasta on her fork.
“Are you kidding me?” you scoff, “He’s hot as fuck, you can hear the sound of pants dropping when he passes by our department, he just loses to Thor- you should see what happens there when people just hear he’s around.” Your eyes go bigger for a second, making Nat chuckle, “Yeah, Bucky Barnes is  fucking hot and that’s why he’s way out of my league.”
“Hmm,” Nat tightens her lips and grabs her glass of water as she leans back on her seat, “That’s not what I heard in his voice when he asked about you this morning.” She peeks at you from under her eyelashes as she drinks from her water.
“What?”
“Well.” She grabs the knapping to pat it over her lips, “I said I was having lunch with you and he asked if you were still dating Eddie… in a very not he’s out of your league way.” She mockingly mimics your voice before smirking at you. 
You can feel the rush of heat creeping up from your chest to your neck, but you shake your hand, dismissing the suggestion on her comment, “I’m sure that means nothing and besides, no matter how horny I am, I’m not ready to get romantically involved with anyone else right now, that’s not I want.”
A loud and nearly hysterical laugh bursts out of Natasha’s lips. Placing both her hands on her belly her head falls back. Not finding what you could have said that was so funny you just lift a brown, staring at her.
“Honey,” she says when she finally stops laughing, keeping a huge smile on her lips, “You’re safe with him, I swear.” She raises a hand in a promising gesture, “Romancing you is the last thing on his mind. And if it’s not what you want either, if you’re looking for a no strings attached thing, Bucky will be more than happy to be your boytoy.”
The heat which started on your chest rushes to your cheeks when you let out an embarrassed giggle at her word choice, “Jesus, Nat…”
“That’s the truth,” she assures, “Let me put it this way,” Nat adds, leaning closer and gesturing for you to do the same, “If it’s a good fuck you’re in need of, he’s quite… let’s say…” she purses her lips , searching for the word, “Suitable… for the mission.” She bites her lower lip and winks. “I can guarantee you that.”
Your jaw drops at the confession, “Shut up.” A guttural tone comes out in your voice.  
There’s nothing but smugness on her demeanor as she leans back, “A few months ago, he and I needed a distraction after a mission…” She shrugs, “Listen, don’t ever tell him I said that but the guy knows what he’s doing. That sinful tongue of his? Ugh, should be illegal…the best goddamn orgasm I’ve ever had in my life. And he was never weird or anything about it later, I gotta give him that.”
You can’t believe you don’t see a single trace of pink on Nat’s face as she tells you all of that…and you? You have no dignity. No self-control, anymore. You sure hope Nat doesn’t notice as you can’t help but brushing your thighs together. You were a lost cause when she mentioned the illegality of his tongue. That was a particularly  hard no of Eddie and so help you God if you’re not turned on as hell right now by just thinking of the possibilities. You’re not blind or stupid. Bucky Barnes would be a dream guy to have in your bed, and if Nat says he might be interested and is on the same page as you are... 
“How could we arrange that?” Your voice comes out a little too breathless.
Nat lets out a knowing chuckle, “Leave it to me.”
~~~
When Natasha asked where you wanted to first meet him you mentioned one of your favorite restaurants. You figured a public and neutral place would be fitting in case you decided to flee out of the situation for any given reason. After all, it would be your first encounter with another man other than Eddie after ten years and you thought going slow and gentle with yourself would be the right move.
That’s what you thought…
Now, having the guy in front of you across the table, his attention apparently focused on the menu on his hands looking like a goddamn God of sex… a public place is the last place you wanted to be.
You’re not sure if he notices you staring from above your menu as his eyes casually roam through his, but you don’t even care. You had seen him up close before and you always knew how hot he was, but now…  with the prospect of what may happen tonight, it seems like all your senses are enhanced when it comes to him.  
He had arrived a bit later than the scheduled time but you let that one go once you got glimpses of a disconcerting wide smile adorned by the five o’clock shadow on his face, which seemed especially designed to make women – and men- swoon. He’s wearing dark jeans and a blue t-shirt and you wonder how he can make the simple outfit so damn sexy. His fairly long hair is tied back in a low bun and you had to hold back the impulse to pull it back and grab a handful of his locks.
When he shook your hand you swallowed back a whine at the feel of his strength, wondering how it would be the feeling of his broad arms around you… by the tiniest of smirks on his lips maybe you’re not sure whether you succeeded in disguising  that one.
He’s been a gentleman so far. Making conversation – with the sexiest voice you’ve ever heard- in such a natural and spontaneous way. You’re not sure what Natasha had told him beforehand exactly, but not for a minute he’s made you feel embarrassed by any chance and the scratch inside you only grew… desperate for his touch.  
“Hmmm,” The sound coming out of his lips purrs into your ears and it hits straight to your core as he keeps his eyes on the menu. You sulk in a breath, “So many delicious treats…Can’t figure out what I want…” He slowly lifts his gaze to meet yours and you don’t know if it’s your horniness speaking but all you see there is a mischievous dark shade, “What do you want?” He darts his tongue out to wet his lips and that’s it.
“I want to get the hell out of here.” The honest answer comes out without giving you the chance to even think about it.
His eyes grow even darker and he immediately shuts the menu, dropping it on the table, “Your place or mine?”
~~~
The very moment you step into your living room, the boldness which had started to mold your attitude seems to lessen. You’re still horny as ever and still wish nothing but to be completely ruined by him, but the fact that you just brought him to the condo you bought with Eddie – the place where you had planned to live the rest of your life with him -  starts to weigh on your shoulders. Besides you’ve never been intimate with anyone else, you don’t even know where to start, what to do or say.
Gulping down the anxiety, you hold the door opened for him and he walks inside. The uber ride to your place had been just like the little time you spent together at the restaurant. Small talk, him being respectful and nice and that’s it. He still feels like a complete stranger to you, which he really is, and you’re not sure how to feel about it yet.
“Uh, do you want something to drink?” you ask passing by him towards the center table to drop your purse, trying not to show your nervousness into your voice, “A glass of wine, maybe?”
Your breath hitches as the heat of his body hovers your back, “Is that what you really want now?” His warm breath tickles your ear and goosebumps rush over your skin.  
“Ahm, D-did Natasha tell you about-” The rest of what you were about to say is swallowed by a sigh when you register the touch of his both hands on your hips. A light and simple touch and you can feel yourself already turning into jelly.
“She told me the situation, yeah.” Like he’s testing the waters, he circles his flesh arm around you, pulling you closer to his broad chest when you offer no resistance, “I wouldn’t be here otherwise.” Nuzzling into the crook of your neck he breathes in your scent.
Your head falls backwards into him and your legs shake. You’re incredibly turned on right now, just by the touch and proximity of him, you’re absolutely sure you won’t survive the night.  
“Are you nervous?” he asks gently.
“A-A bit yeah.” Your breathing accelerates as his lips graze upon your pulsing point and his hand plays with the fabric of your loose skirt right over your lower belly.  
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No,” you answer a little too quickly and a little too loudly, “No…” you repeat yourself, making sure to sound a bit more confident as you place a hand over his and drag it down to the end of your skirt above your thigh. “I don’t want you to stop, Bucky,” you whisper, as you slide his hand under the fabric, bunching it on your way while you guide him to where you’re aching for whatever this night will bring.
Accepting your lead and your assurance, he hooks his hand under the lace of your underwear, coaxing out a gasp out of you as his touch eases between your folds, “Goddammit,” he breathes, softly moving his finger back and forth, “You’re wet already, beautiful. Is it all for me? Damn,” he curses under his breath, “You’re turning me fucking on.”
You answer him with a wanton moan as your eyes flutter shut, letting yourself drown in the expert movements between your legs.
“Try to not overthink anything… I know what you want…” As his finger teases over your clit, he whispers in your ear, “I want it, too.” When he kisses your neck down to your shoulder, you’re thankful for the metal grip on your waist or else you’ll be putty on the floor.
“Shit…” You bite your lip and while one of your hands reach behind to the nape of his neck, the other grabs the pulse of his hand which is leisurely playing with your pussy. Not to stop him, but to find some extra support to keep yourself up.
His chuckle reverberates through the skin of your neck, “Right now here’s what we’re going to do.” He drags his lips to your ear again, “I’m gonna make you cum, sweetheart.” Bucky shows his intention by sliding a finger inside you, holding you tightly when your knees buckle, “I’m gonna take the edge off and make you come on my fingers and then we see what comes next for us tonight.” He pulls you to him, pressing your ass to his hardness, “We don’t need to worry or plan anything… we’ll just let it happen, ok? Can you feel how much I want you tonight, sweetheart? Do you want me, too? Do you want me to make you come?” He punctuates every line by dragging his lips over your skin.
His words make you dizzy with a powerful and overwhelming desire burning you up from inside out… you let yourself sink into the pleasure building up inside your body and your answer is to circle your hips against him, in pace with the move of his finger inside you while his thumb plays with your clit.
“Hmm, that’s right… say it, sweetie, I wanna hear you…” He presses his thumb a little harder against your clit.
“Yes, fuck yes.” you cry, between hard breaths, “I want you to make me come… I want it so bad, please...”
He responds to your plea by quickening his strokes. The disappointment when he removes his middle finger from inside quickly vanishes when he focuses on your clit, working on the sensitive nub with the sole mission to make you come. Your core tightens and tightens and you’re a moaning mess in his hold, his hot breath on your neck making you lightheaded. You’re not gonna last long, and you’re torn between the desperate need to come and trying to focus and hold yourself back because it feels so goddamn good you don’t want it to end just yet. The heat of his body crowds you, making the whole world spin around you. As you moan and breathe out your pleasure, his hold and touch ruling your mind and body, the squelching sounds coming from the move of his fingers on your impossibly wet pussy invades your senses. 
“Fuck…listen to you, you’re so damn sexy.” He sucks on your pulsing point before brushing his soft tongue over the tender spot, “Come, sweetie, let go… I wanna feel you soaking my fingers even more.”
It all becomes delightfully too much, and a few more expert circles on your clit joined to the sensation of his teeth grasping your earlobe drive you to the edge. Like a puppet on his strings, you come. You’re not quiet when it happens and your whole body shakes with the shocks of pleasure, your thighs shutting on their own will around his hand. Once again he catches you when your body goes limp against his, whispering praising words to your ear. It’s a head to toe orgasm and it’s heaven inside your body. You realize you needed this even more than you knew…
But you need more and you want much more.
As soon as you feel the strength coming back to your legs, you tap his hand off of your underwear and turn around capturing his mouth in a searing kiss. You’ve been thinking about kissing those beautiful lips ever since you first laid your eyes on him that night and he doesn’t disappoint by kissing you back right away just as fiercely, while his hands roam through your body and his tongue seeks yours.
He starts walking you backwards and you take a hand off his neck to point the direction to your bedroom, to where he follows. He groans when you capture his lower lips between your teeth and grabs a handful of your ass. Dying to wrap your legs around him, you jump and he promptly catches you from under your thighs. It’s hard to think about parting your lips from his alluring ones and you don’t stop kissing him until you’re inside your bedroom and he parts from you, throwing you on your bed.
You yelp at the leap, which is far from delicate, and prop yourself on your elbows, watching as he takes off his shirt and tosses it to the side. It’s already a struggle to breathe but your situation worsens when you see his exposed abs and shoulders and arms and fucking muscular chest… You silently thank the heavens for your friendship with Natasha Romanoff. You can’t help but notice the scars by the metal arm, but he doesn’t seem worry in the slightest by having them exposed and fuck you if the attitude doesn’t turn you on even more.
He doesn’t wait long before jumping back on you. Having your skirt bunched up your hips you gladly welcome him between your legs kissing him with the same force from before and wrapping your arms around his broad shoulders. He groans when his tongue brushes against yours and you sigh through his lips as he starts rocking his hips against yours. Even through the fabric of his jeans and the lace of your underwear the touch brings sparks to your core as you feel the evident bulge grinding against you.
The cold of his metal hand hikes under the hem of your top, making the little hairs in your body rise on his way. You part from his lips just to pull up your top and throw it aside. You’re not sure how it happens but in a bat of an eye he reaches behind you and with an expert pull, he unfastens your bra. The piece of underwear is all of a sudden out of you, baring your chest for him.
You gasp in awe for his skills and he smirks, “I really needed to see those titties,” he smiles. When his eyes drop to your chest, he inhales sharply, “Fucking gorgeous.”
You’re sure you had something to say back to him, but the room soon fills up only with sounds of your hard breathing as he wraps his warm mouth around a breast sucking on it harshly. While his tongue curls around your nipple his metal hand gives your other breast some attention, massaging it with the perfect amount of roughness.
Your hips buck into his hips, seeking more friction, to release you from the coiling ache in your core. You do what you’ve been wanting to do all night, pulling the tie from his hair and grabbing a handful of his locks as he ravishes your chest.
After taking his time on your breasts, having his fill of sucking, nibbling and grabbing them, he drags his lips up your neck till it stops on your ear, “What do you want? I’ll do whatever you want...” He offers.  
You’re still quite a bit distracted by the rock of his hips against yours to fully register what he’s so sultry whispering in your ear, grazing your hands down the burly muscles on his back. He feels so big, so strong in your arms…
“Tell me, sweetheart, tell me what you want.” he purrs into your ear.
When he offers again, his sinful tongue doing wonders on your neck, a thought sweeps into your mind… By experience, you know men don’t enjoy that very much, but Bucky seems willing to please and odds are you won’t see him again after tonight… Yeah, why the hell not… “I-I want you to-to eat me out.” It blurts out of your lips before any kind of self-consciousness strikes your resolve.
The grinding of his hips halts and you’re already bracing yourself to see his disgusted expression when he moves his lips away from your jaw and leans back to stare down at you. But what you see instead makes your stomach flip in the most delicious way. His blue eyes are impossibly dark and his tongue darts out to lick his lips, like he’s about to eat a delicious treat.
After placing his lips on yours briefly, he makes his descent, showering your chest and stomach with warm and wet opened mouth kisses. Your heart beats fast when an up till now unknown sensation invades your chest, making it tingle with excitement and anticipation. He brushes his nose over the lace of the underwear you’ve specially bought for the occasion, right above your mound. Your breath catches in your throat when he places a long and chaste kiss upon it.
He didn’t really seem to care about your brand new underwear as he’s quick to drag it down. You raise your legs to help him out before he tosses it aside, keeping his eyes on your exposed pussy as he gets down from the bed. You gasp when he pulls your legs bringing you close to edge of the mattress as he sinks on his knees on the floor, hooded eyes on your spread pussy right before his face. This is definitely the most exposed you’ve ever been to a man – your boyfriend of ten years included- and it turns you on even more than it should.   
You’re aware of how wet you are, and the smell of your arousal is strong enough to fill your own nostrils... You should be embarrassed, you know you should and definitely thought you would be, to be in a situation like that with a man you barely know, but that’s definitely not the case as enticing, aching sparks twirl inside you.
As you fist the sheets on each side of you, the time seems to freeze as you long for what’s to come. He, on the other hand, doesn’t seem worried about time, as he ghosts his fingers on both your inner thighs. The light touches- one cold the other warm- makes you shudder and… ticklish. You bite back a laugh but it doesn’t slip from his attention.
“Tickles, sweetheart?” He chuckles against the soft skin of our inner thigh, causing his voice to reverberate through your skin, not to mention the light scratch of his stubble and you just can’t hold back anymore.
You cover your mouth with both hands as the giggles slip out unbidden. It seems to amuse him while he keeps sliding his fingers and his lips over the little spots, a sweet torment that makes you laugh harder and squirm your legs. 
“Plea- Oh, fuck.” Your voice – and the giggles- die in a gasp and your back arches as he engulfs your whole pussy with his mouth with no warning.
The warm sensation is new and overwhelming and your first reflex is to try and pull away from it but he’s faster, wrapping his arms around your thighs, holding you still to his face. He delves his tongue in caressing your most sensitive parts and it feels soft and wet and silky. It tingles and you struggle to breathe as he meticulously swirls his tongue all over your pussy, spreading your juices around you and himself.
“Holy motherfucker,” you cry out and your eyes flutter shut and you once again arch your body because an intense and new pleasure covers every fiber of your pussy and rushes up your spine. Your fists twist the sheets harder as he swiftly laps at you.
“Hummm,” the vibration makes your whole body tremble before Bucky tilts his head to nibble softly at your inner tigh, “You taste fucking amazing,” he adds, placing your legs over his shoulders.
The praise alone is enough to make you clench around nothing and if you thought it was good so far, after he dives in again it’s with a renewed hunger. He sucks and nibbles and properly fucks you with his tongue and lips, keeping you securely attached to his hold. You’re a mess. Your whole body reacts to the sensations, and you’re loud as you moan and gasp and he keeps your hips steady to his hold.
He swirls his tongue around your clit and you’re there. You’re almost there… your head sinks into the mattress and you dig your fingers into your hair, your ribs moving fast unashamedly grinding on his face at the rhythm of your breathing and you’re fucking there-
“What the-?” you groan, propping yourself on your elbows to look down. You see Bucky staring up at you, your arousal glistening on his jaw as he puts on a malicious smirk.
You’re about to protest about the lack of action but your mouth shuts when he sucks his fingers and brings them to tease your entrance before inserting them at once. The sudden intrusion makes your head fall back as you shout out a moan.  You prop your feet – or rather your heels which you still have on- on the mattress, letting your knees up as he curls his fingers inside, as if looking for something.
“Oh, shit,” you curse between harsh breaths when he finds the spot he’s been looking for. The sheet bunches in your fists and your head snaps up at him.
He keeps lustful blue eyes on you as he fucks you harshly and fast with his hand, making sure to brush his fingers right on the spot that makes you scream. Your moans fill up the room, mixing up with the squelching sounds of his hand in your pussy. Your eyes shut when it’s there again, that tight knot twisting your insides, the desperate need of release, to soak his hand once again.
“Oh, shit, I’m gonna cum- No!” you shout when he pulls back his hand. You shoot a look that you’re sure is nothing but pitiful at him, but he doesn’t deprive you for long as his lips are on your pussy again, humming at your taste once more.
His skilled tongue goes back on doing wonders coaxing shocks of pleasure in your core, his face deep into your pussy moving up and down, side to side. You can’t take your eyes off of him as he grabs one of your thighs with his metal hand and you grind your hips against his face, trying so desperately to hush your release.
But he’s in the mood to torture you. A sweet and maddening torment as he brings you to the edge and stops, alternating from fucking you with his fingers and then his tongue. At some point, when you’re already surrendered to his power, with his tongue flickering over your throbbing clit, he brings his flesh hand down his body. Since he’s kneeling by the edge of the bed, you have no vision of it, but you listen to the sound of him unbuckling his belt. His tongue doesn’t stop as he brings his finger to your cunt, coating it in your juices before bringing his hand down again.  
Your skin burns and all the air isn’t enough to fill up your lungs as you realize by the movements of his arm that he’s touching himself. He’s getting himself off while eating your pussy and you’re sure you’ve never seen or felt anything so hot in your whole life. You just wish you could get a glimpse of his cock.
With everything he’s doing to you and the fact you’ve been on the edge for a while, the addition of the thought of his cock in his hand is more than you can take and this time it comes unannounced. Incoherent sounds you never knew you were able to produce slip out of you as strong spirals of pleasure burst from your pussy, rushing up your spine and down your legs, curling your toes and turning you into a trembling loud mess, completely at mercy of the buzzing ecstasy invading all of your senses.  
“Holy fuck!” Your body jerks up with aftershocks of your climax but he’s not having it and keeps you steady to his hold, licking up your sensitive pussy and rushing up his hand on him, “Oh, shit, oh fuck, shit, shit, shit.” Your mind blacks out and you scream unashamedly and your body collapses to the mattress as he drives you to yet another powerful orgasm with his tongue.
From your blurry vision, you spot his arm jerking even faster and he rests his head on your thigh. With eyes closed and biting his sinful lips- coated in your pleasure- he grunts his own release.
You both stay like that for awhile. You sprawled on your bed relishing in your own little paradise while he rests against your thigh, both trying to calm down your breathing. You’re completely spent, the pant up energy in you being drained by the three outstanding orgasms he had given you that night.
You feel your eyes fluttering, fighting against sleep, and in a blur, you see Bucky getting up and moving around, you don’t fully register what he’s doing but you know he gets in and out of the bathroom a few times, seems to clean the floor with toilet paper and fumbles with his clothes. You roll your numb and contented body to the side, seeking a comfort position to enjoy the full state of bliss you’re in.
“Are you alright?” He gets closer to you, bending over the side of your bed he reaches to cup your cheek and hands you a glass of water. You hadn’t even seen when he went to the kitchen. “Did you have fun?”
A lazy but fulfilled smile spreads in your face as you incline yourself just enough to drink from the water, gulping it down to the last drop, “Oh, yeah…I’m fabulous.” Your heavy eyes drop to his jeans to see it fully clothed and his jeans zipped up. You realize you’re incredibly satisfied and didn’t even get to see his cock or actually do anything per se, “Ahm, do you want to-”
“Shhh, don’t worry...I had an amazing time, tonight,” His voice is gentle and soft, grinning back at you. 
To be honest, you’re kinda relieved by his answer. You’re so damn relaxed right now you’re not sure you would have the energy to do anything else, no matter how enticing the thought sounds. 
“Do you need anything else?” he asks, taking the empty glass from your hand. 
You shake your head, still smiling at him. 
“Alright, sweetheart...I’m gonna go then. You rest now and whenever you need me, will you call me?”
“Fuck yeah.” You breathe out, collapsing on the bed again, trying to keep your eyes opened.
He chuckles at your quick answer, “It’s a deal?” He leans over your earlobe and bites softly on it, making you shrug and let out a small giggle.
“It’s a deal.” you murmur back, nodding slowly before dozing off with the lazy smile still on your face. 
~~~
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cosmiclatte28 · 4 years ago
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RING (renjun x you)
a/n : I had to make this after seeing Renjun’s long hair... bless all of your saturday with this short imagine and long hair renjun 🥺👌
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enjoy!! injeolmi, we are winning big this week!
“It’s gotten a bit too long,” you hear someone huff from the bathroom. Though you know that sound comes from your boyfriend, you still feel curious about what he meant.
You bring your step carefully to the bathroom, peeking from the opened door just to see Renjun in his semi dry hair state looking at his reflection in the mirror.
“What is it?” you raise your brow looking at his reflection in the mirror.
Renjun gives you a little smile and shrugs his shoulder “My hair is long now.” He runs his finger here and there trying to find the perfect style for this current length.
“Should I cut it?” he asks unsure of what to feel about seeing his reflection.
You quickly shake your head “No way! You should not cut it, well at least if you ask me … I like it.” You walk into the bathroom and stand beside him.
Gently you turn his torso to face you and as you stand on the tip of your toes you brush his hair away from the centre of his forehead and with your agile fingers you style them to part to the side.
“Do I look okay?” he feels insecure about his looks.
You smile “Just okay? This is more than okay Jun-ie,” you look around your room to reach for your hair dryer.
“Do you trust me?” you shake your hair dryer softly giving a test on the temperature.
Renjun nods “What could go wrong right?” he chuckles and picks you up to sit on the sink facing him.
You laugh, this is better than standing on your toes and having a cramp.
The hair dryer helps the hair turns semi stiff but fluffy and you reach out for the comb and a hair gel. With full concentration, you take your time and energy to style your boyfriend’s new long hair.
“You’re acting like you know what you’re doing.” Renjun peeks from his long hair and teases you a little for you sometimes look baffled with that to do.
“Shut up, I can make this worse.” You threaten him
Renjun places his hand firmer on your waist, resting them there to secure you from falling down.
“Stop tickling me, I am holding a scissor right now,” you elbow his hand naughty fingers away as you were cutting some of the fringes to tidy up his look.
“Where do you wanna go now that I am looking good?” Renjun asks before he even sees how he looks like.
You smile “I don’t know, I am not ready to go… I still look messy.” You bite your lips when you do the final touch and take a lean back to examine his face.
“God Renjun, you look sexy.” You drop the tools down and clap your hands.
“Oh do I?” he smirks and steps aside to look at his reflection. His hand satisfiedly play with his hair and a smile grows on his face.
“I like this,” his pure satisfied look is enough to pay your hard work, “You’re better than I thought.”
“Whatever, go do something with it.” You push his shoulder away from you and close the door. You’re taking a bath now for you sweat so much styling his hair.
Mostly because you were so close to him and you can feel his hands on your body and your heart is beating super fast.
--
Your body is refreshed and you slowly exit the bathroom with a towel on your damp hair, there you hear some noise in the dining room. You know better to not directly jump into the room incase he was doing something with the fans.
You put your ears on guard and notice he is doing a live with his fans. You don’t need him to shoo you as you quietly make your way to the room without much noise.
You tune into his live, smiling at how proud you are to read the comments flooded with fans loving Renjun’s hair.
“Ah yes, this ring is a wedding ring.” He proceeds to tell the story of how he gets all the seven members a matching wedding ring.
You giggle when you remember Renjun telling you the story of how he went to look for rings with Jeno and he liked that ring. Renjun sent the picture to the group and despite the members having questions why he was even looking for a ring with jeno, they just thank him when their rings came.
Come to think of it. You were laughing too hard that night and forgot to ask Renjun why he was looking for a ring with Jeno that day? Though you know the fans are now wilding over the fact of dream having 7 wedding rings, and Renjun Jeno shipper are all over the galaxy… you still find yourself zoning off finding the answer why is he looking for a ring.
--
His live ended and you’re still hiding in your room, waiting for Renjun to come and say you’re good to come out already. He takes a longer time, maybe uploading his bubble or something…
You just toss and turn on your bed, hugging your favorite fox plushies and just scrolling through the web which is already flooded with Renjun’s ring story.
“I’m done with the live, sorry if it takes a long time.” Renjun appears in your bed, his hair is already messy but that makes it look more neutral and attractive.
“So, how did the shop owner look like when you ordered 7 rings?” you asked jokingly
Renjun’s eyes widen and he laughs “Actually, seven is odd they will be questioning who wears one alone.”
Your breath hitches are you thinking of the right thing.
“So?”
“So, I bought eight! And actually the first ring was mine and the second was yours.” He picks out a small velvet box from his pocket and jumps on the bed next to you.
“Will you take my promise ring? I’m not getting down on one knee, it’s too cliché.” He grins.
Your eyes are still glued at the perfect ring shining shimmering displayed in front of you.
You cup your cheeks and nod eagerly “Hell yes Renjun! I will.” Your eyes are teary when sudden memories of dating Renjun for 2 years pass by you.
“It’s been two years and I think it’s a good time to give you my promise ring. This way we both can remember our goal and our commitment, right?” he grabs your hand and slips the ring nicely to your finger.
“Fits perfect!” he kisses your knuckle and you hug him with all your might as if afraid he might lose in a blink of an eye and you wake up from a fragment of your imagination.
“I love you Renjun, is this a dream?” you look into his eyes to find lies or just a prank or anything else that may show you this isn’t real life.
“Ouch!” you yelp and wipe your red forehead
“The flick hurts, it’s real life.” He opens his arm “Come hug me, you won’t be able to touch me if I am just a fragment of your imagination.”
You dive into his embrace without a doubt and when his hand touches your back, your nose filled with his musky scent and your hand can play with his long hair, you know Renjun is not a piece of your imagination and this is the real life you’re blessed with.
“I love you most (y/n), thank you for always being by my side. Let’s walk with each other side by side longer okay?” he plants a deep kiss to your forehead, and you close your eyes to melt into his presence.
“I’ll be with you Renjun, to infinity and beyond.”
 end
oh dang that hair and this scenario lives free in my head :)))
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rodeoxqueen · 4 years ago
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Of Lacking Spectacle(s)-Vergil/Reader
Summary: Vergil is a lot of things. Vergil is the Dark Slayer, The Alpha and The Omega, and the eldest son of Sparda. Vergil is also….in need of glasses?
Tags/Warnings: Suggestive Ending, Gender-Neutral Reader, Dante Read The Lord Of The Flies, Inspired By Vergil’s Buddy Holly Glasses Mod
Read It On AO3
Thank you @drusoona​ for sending me the pictures of Vergil that inspired this. The title is a reference to Gus Dapperton’s song Of Lacking Spectacle.
-Rodeo
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(Picture Credits: @drusoona​) 
Vergil was always so precise and capable, sensing demons from distances away and predicting attacks with pinpoint accuracy. 
He was intense, his eyes purely focused on the task ahead of himself. A man of pure drive and prowess. And he was your man. 
It came gradually, something he tried to ignore. A few sentences of blurred lines would quickly flicker back to clarity. A small pain that flashed behind his eyes after reading in a room too dark. 
It didn’t look obvious to anyone. Even to his ever-doting beloved. He was the son of Sparda, a demon that surpassed Death multiple times. There was no way he could have failing vision. Impossible, he would scoff to himself as he rubbed his eyes. 
This statement soon turned from ignorance to denial of a very real problem Vergil avoided showing. His always narrowed stare hid it quite well. 
An anthill turned into a mountain he could no longer stamp down. And his beloved had already watched it build up for some time, waiting for the stubborn devil to say something about it. 
Which he didn’t. 
So when you were cooking some mac and cheese from a recipe you found from a friend who knew a friend who knew a friend who asked her son for the recipe, you decided to strike up the question. 
“Vergil.” 
“That is my name, yes,” Vergil said from the couch, enraptured in a new book you bought him. You rolled your eyes at him. 
“Are you having vision problems?” 
“Of course not.” Hand on your hip, you pointed your rue-covered spatula at him. 
“Then why is your nose literally in that book?” Vergil used to always be found with his book at arms-length as he would silently recite the words. 
He stilled. He quickly readjusted himself and coughed. 
Jackpot. 
“I haven’t a clue what you mean.” 
“Don’t lie to me in front of my macaroni.” You threaten, stirring the pot. He sighs. 
“My vision is just fine.” Vergil insists, squinting at the blurred words. 
“Vergil, I think you have vision problems.” 
“That’s foolishness.” 
“Why so?” 
“My father was a powerful demon, bad vision should not run in our family-” 
“Didn’t your dad wear a monocle?” 
His mouth dries and his eyes widen in realization. Oh god it was genetic. You have won the tirade and you puff your chest out. 
“How about I take you to the eye doctor? I can call later and set up an appointment.” Vergil has closed the book and chosen instead to look at you. 
The macaroni is boiling, a u-shaped pasta you are rather fond of. Your apron is speckled with flour and you twiddle the spoon in your hand. 
“Come on, it’ll be super quick. Just read some letters off a wall.” You say as you add burrata into the cheese blend. Vergil always liked that kind of cheese. 
When you went grocery shopping, he really thought you wouldn’t notice him taking more than three samples of it when no one was looking before walking off like a successful sample thief. 
Upon the sound of a bag of his favorite cheese opening, Vergil got up. You smile. You go to offer him a bit before quickly snatching it away from his hand. He tuts at you. 
“You can have some if you agree.” 
“Agree to what?” You sigh. 
“Eye doctor.” 
“No need. I am fine.” 
You turn to stir the pot of delicious pasta before going back to lecturing this stubborn devil. 
“I’ve noticed you’ve been squinting more and having headaches.” You state. Vergil scolds himself, thinking he was much more hidden about his new problem. 
He is quiet as he stares off into the pot of macaroni. 
“Please? I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.” You put your other hand on his cheek. He looks at you finally, ice-blue glaciers warming at your loving and concerned expression. 
God, his mate was so soft. He pulls your non-occupied hand to his other cheek-
And snatches the bit of burrata out of your fingers with his mouth. You make an offended noise at his trickery. 
“Very well.” He muses. 
You call up a local eye doctor after a hearty bowl of mac and cheese.  
Taking Vergil to the doctor was like taking a cat to the vet. He sat in the waiting room with his arms crossed and eyes intensely out-alphaing everyone in his general proximity.  
When they finally call your names, the ice was broken and people finally felt safe to breathe in his absence. 
The eye doctor guides Vergil to the examination room. Vergil does not like it already. Why would you do this to him? 
He waits at the door, waiting for you to come in with him. 
“Sir, this is more of a personal test.” You shrug and blow him a kiss as he is ushered into the room
“How long has it been since you’ve had an eye test?” The doctor asks, Vergil taking a seat with a strange contraption before him. 
“I have never had an eye test.” Vergil declares. The doctor laughs and swings the phoropter down. Vergil flinches slightly. 
“Whoa now. Just set your chin here and look into the eye holes. This isn’t some medieval torture device.” He growls at the humiliation before doing so. 
A series of lenses swiping through and the repeating question “which one looks clearer” later, Vergil is liberated from the examination room. He is greeted to you sitting and waiting for him. 
“It wasn’t too bad, right?” You ask. Vergil nods. You turn to the doctor. 
“So how is his vision?” The doctor flips through a few notes. 
“Well, the letter Z was on the board and I asked him what he saw and he said triangle.” The doctor flips through a few notes. 
“Your husband is in dire need of glasses.” Vergil raises an eyebrow at that statement. 
Your husband, he likes that. You don’t even correct him. 
Luckily, this clinic also sold frames and Vergil is able to pick out a few while you do the paperwork. 
You remember Vergil has no taste and quickly go to help him. 
“No, no, well maybe, no, ew.” You respond as Vergil swaps various frames about. 
“My love, I simply need the lenses. These materials mean nothing.” He argues as you deny the tenth pair of frames. 
“Well, you’re very handsome and I’d like you to get a nice pair that matches.” You say. You go to make a smug face at him when you realize he has finally walked away to pick out his own. 
You immediately drop the frames you were holding when Vergil places a certain pair of thick black-colored glasses upon his nose. 
“We’ll take them.” 
Several weeks later, Vergil is bestowed his new reading glasses. He finds his problem vanishes quickly and he can now read at a decent distance away. You seem to greatly appreciate them. Strange. On jobs, he usually takes them off and stores them in the little case he was given. 
He thought of it as weakness. If his own body was failing to maintain 20/20 vision, he should be ashamed. In the demon world, any bit of weakness meant imminent death. 
Yet, he told himself he wasn’t in Hell anymore. He was having breakfast with his beloved and he was safe. And he was privileged to be allowed for his body to take a break and age as it should have, his vision waning as a normal man would have at his age. 
You kiss him goodbye for another day of work and you push his glasses up as they tip slightly down. His nose does the little scrunch you love so much. So much, you kiss him on the bridge of the nose. He purrs and promptly cuts a portal to work. 
He walks into Devil May Cry to work with his brother. Dante is upstairs, the sounds of a shower happening. 
Vergil takes to the paperwork his brother has ditched doing once more, typing on a clunky keyboard. You had insisted to pay extra for blue-light protection and he finds it is so much easier to see the computer screen. 
Finally, the water is shut off. His idiot brother is done wasting work hours. Well, when is he not? 
Vergil continues looking through yellowed documents as Dante passes by, smelling like strawberry soap marketed for children. 
Dante walks forward but then puts himself in reverse to see Vergil with glasses on again. 
“Yes?” Vergil grits his teeth. 
“Those are glasses.” Dante starts. 
“Yes, yes they are.” 
Dante snorts and points at him. 
“Buddy Holly looking ass bitch.” Vergil stops and glares at his brother.  
“I don’t even know who that is.” 
 Dante wheezes at he keeps looking at Vergil. 
“Of course you don’t, you bag of bones! You look like a college RA.” 
“Dante, get to work-”
“What are you going to do? Tell the dean on me? Is that why you were gone a couple weeks ago?” 
“I had an appointment-”
“I hAd aN aPpOiNtMeNt.” Dante mocks. 
“That’s rich coming from someone without insurance coverage-” 
His spectacles are snatched from his face. Dante puts them on. 
“How do you see with these on? Damn, you’re legally blind.” 
“That’s why they’re mine-hand them over!” 
“You sound like Piggy from Lord of the Flies. My specs! My specs!” Dante mocks in a terrible English accent. 
Vergil growls in anger. 
When Vergil comes home with his glasses off, you wonder why. The blue devil comes behind you while you make some soup, hands on your waist and breathing in the scent of your shampoo. 
He’s quiet and in a way that is not his usual silence. He seems to have something on his mind. This time, you choose not to push it and let him be. 
It isn’t until you’re both in bed, the lamp on as Vergil goes to take out a new novel. He hesitates when he reaches for his black glasses. 
“My love?” 
“Yes, Vergil?” 
“Who’s Buddy Holly?” 
Weird question but okay. 
You search up the name on your phone and show him a picture. He puts on his glasses. 
“Why would Dante think I look like that?” He asks himself with a frown. Upon realization, you put your hand on your mouth and fight back a laugh. 
“Did Dante say that?” Vergil rolls his eyes. 
“Of course he did, amongst other things.” 
“Well, I think you look very nice. Like a very sexy college professor.” Vergil smugly looks at your bedroom eyes. The novel is long abandoned on the table. 
 Before he can pounce on you, he goes to take off his spectacles. You snatch them and place them back on his face. 
“Keep them on this time.” You bite your bottom lip teasingly. 
Vergil purrs. 
He might get used to this. 
[More Photos Of Vergil’s Mod-Credited To @drusoona​]
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holylulusworld · 4 years ago
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New discoveries
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Summary: The tables have turned to your advantage but new problems lie ahead...
Pairing: Mobster!Bucky x Reader x Mobster!Steve
Characters: Peter Parker, Peggy Carter, Dottie Underwood, Tony Stark
Warnings: angst, language, mentions of death of a loved one (drowning), pregnant reader, sassy reader, sweet Peter, tension, fingering, a hint of fluff
Credits: Divider by @firefly-graphics​
<< Part 3
Ours to keep masterlist
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“Doll, please,” Bucky grunts, pressing his erection into your ass. “I didn’t get off in two months. I have this sexy pregnant girl around and she won’t let me have her.”
“Whose fault is that?” You smile to yourself when Steve scoots closer to rub your belly. “If you wouldn’t be such assholes, we could have an awesome sex life. I liked you both.”
“God, does she make you as hard as me,” Steve looks at Bucky, not hiding his painfully throbbing cock. “This is torture.”
“This is Sparta if I want it to be,” you retort, glaring at Steve. “You know, the women didn’t take shit from their husbands either. Did you see the movie? Leonidas, the king, looked at his wife for confirmation first.”
“We are not in Sparta, doll. Now be good and at least tell us who will become a father. We were good, weren’t we?” Steve whines, looking at your belly. “Please, baby.”
“I can look at you for confirmation too if you tell us about the babies. Please let us know. We allowed Peter to only do legal stuff and be around of you all the time,” Bucky husks against your pulse point, a smirk on his lips when you squirm in his embrace. “Doll…”
“Fine, I’ll tell you but I have conditions you must fulfill first,” the dark grin on your lips let Steve’s features darken but he agreed to ‘play nice’. Bucky and he made a pact to at least try to be good ‘boyfriends’, even though, you refuse to let them call you their girlfriend. “I want to work again. You will tell Peggy and Dot you are the fathers of my babies and that you are in love with me.”
“You’re such an evil mastermind,” Bucky grinds his cock into your ass, groaning as you push back onto him. “I’ll do it if you are a good girl and let me slip my hand into your panties,” you shiver, even feel your core ache but you decided to let them suffer a little longer.
“No sideline, Barnes. Take the deal or leave it,” Steve’s eyes roam your body, and you swear, he just undressed you with his blue orbs. “This goes for you too, Rogers.”
“You will take Peter with you, no discussion. If we tell anyone you are expecting our heir, you’re in danger, doll. It would be wiser to not tell anyone,” Steve places one large hand onto your belly, slowly rubbing it again.
“They always made fun of me,” you whine, sounding like an angry toddler. “I want them to see I can have what they didn’t get. Not even a taste,” Bucky’s face buries into your neck. He’s nibbling at your skin whilst his hand creeps toward your panties.
“Let me make you cum and we’ll do anything you want us to do,” Steve doesn’t like his friend’s plan, but he nods, eager to at least watch Bucky pleasure you. “Just a bit.”
“Deal,” you gasp feeling Bucky’s hand slip into your panties to toy with your swollen nub. You swear you can feel the smirk against your pulse point when he feels wetness coat his fingers.
“Our girl is so wet for us, Stevie,” Steve smirks before he dips his hand into your panties too. “True, Buck. Now let’s decide who slips his fingers inside and who will play with her pearl,” your eyes roll back feeling two thick fingers slip inside…
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“Ah, the infamous pregnant girl returns,” Dot snickers, watching you and Peter walk into the library. “Look, Pegs’ she brought her bodyguard.”
“This is Peter, he’s a good friend and, you got that part right, my bodyguard,” your voice confident, you snap your fingers to watch Dot’s face fall when Steve and Bucky walk into the library. “You already know Steve and Bucky, my boyfriends and fathers of my babies.”
“Fathers?” Peggy looks at Steve who places his hand onto your belly, confirming he’s the father. “You’ve got to be kidding me! Does she pay you for that brilliant lie?”
Dot’s laugher dies when Bucky wraps one hand around her throat to slam her into one of the shelves.
“Listen, hussy. That girl is ours. We made her our girl, filled her with our heir, and if she agrees, we’ll marry her one day,” Bucky grunts, pressing his thumb against Dot’s windpipe. “I want you to be very nice to Y/N from now on. If she or Peter tell me otherwise, I’ll be back.”
“Let me warn you, sweet cheeks, you don’t want Bucky to come back,” Steve smirks, seeing the fear in Dot’s eyes. “We went on a date with you to get information about our girl. Buck and I, we said something stupid and it ended in a fight with Y/N.”
“Now be good, do your job and shut up close to my girl,” Dot coughs when Bucky finally let go of her throat. She looks at the mobster, fear is still written all over her face.
“Peter, our girl is your responsibility now. Pietro and Clint are only one call away,” Steve whispers into Peter’s ear. “If anything happens, even if only a moth coughs, call them. Nothing can happen to Y/N.”
“Got it, boss. Nothing will happen to Y/N on my watch,” Peter nods at Bucky who still doesn’t like the idea of leaving you alone.
“Tonight, we want to know, Y/N,” Bucky points toward your belly, narrowing his eyes. “Or they will be no orgasms for you in the future…”
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Only a two hours are left when Bucky strolls back into the library, carrying a huge bag with food.
“Delivery for my hungry girl,” the mobster smirks, placing the paper bag onto your desk. “We have your favorite roasted chicken, salad, bread, pudding, fruit salad, and something for Peter Parker.”
You nod, while you suppress a smile. Bucky bought all your favorite food and did not forget to bring something for Peter too. Engrossed in checking on the food Bucky get’s out of the bag you hear the door open once again.
“Bucky,” Steve grunts, walking into the library, a bag with food in his arms. “I thought we agreed it’s my turn to bring her food. I even bought something for Parker!”
“I’m hungry too, let’s just share what you bought,” Bucky smirks when your eyes drift toward the food Steve unpacks.
“Uh-he got unhealthy stuff. Look at this Buck,” you squeal, grasping for a Twinkie. “I hate and love that disgusting stuff at the same time.”
“I know my girl,” humming Steve watches you stuff the Twinkie into your mouth, rather choking on it than chewing. “Slow down, doll. I got more than enough.”
“Give me that peanut butter monstrosity,” grumbling Bucky stuff a Twinkie into his mouth only to retch. “That's too sweet…eek,” mumbling the mobster scrunches up his nose.
“It’s not that bad, Barnes,” you scold, inhaling the scent of your roasted chicken deeply. “I always loved to eat something sweet before lunch. Odd, I know. Most of the people eat the sweets after lunch or dinner.”
“You’re crazy, I like it,” Steve steals a mouthful chicken, grinning when you glare up at him. “Bucky said we will share.” He defends he stole food from you.
“Your stuff, not my roasted chicken. Keep your hands off my food or your son will kick your ass,” you gasp, acting as if you did not just drop one of your babies is Steve’s.
“Doll, is the other mine?” Bucky scoots closer, poking your belly with his finger. “Please tell me, Y/N.”
“Fine,” you throw your hands up in surrender, sighing deeply. “Both of you are going to be a father. Don’t ask me why, but the doctor said it’s possible.”
Bucky grins, looking at your baby bump again. His chest puffs and you swear, he looks like a peacock when he gets a cigar out of his jacket to hand one to Peter and another to Steve.
“I knew that my boys made it,” Bucky snickers, ignoring you throw a Twinkie at him. “They can swim.”
“Mine too,” Steve wants to light the cigar when Peter clears his throat. “Sir, not at a library and not close to a pregnant woman.”
“You should learn some manners, Rogers,” lips pursed you point toward the cigar. “Maybe Peter will give you lessons…”
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“Finally, out of the house,” you groan, resting your head onto your desk. “I swear since they know both are going to be a father, they do not let me out of sight. I couldn’t go to the toilette on my own, Peter.”
“I know they seem to be overprotective, but their profession is not the safest. I can assure you; Mr. Rogers wants to keep your safe,” Peter gives you a soft smile, warming your heart for him even more. “I would never let anything happen to you, promised.”
Peter must’ve seen the worry in your eyes when you looked at him. You never thought much about Bucky and Steve’s kind of business. It’s not as if you didn’t know that they do illegal stuff, but you never thought it would affect your or your babies’ life.
“I know Peter,” you smile, still fear is creeping into your thoughts. “I don’t want to sound paranoid but there is that guy again, right next to the shelf with books about modern art. He comes to the library almost daily but never stays longer than a few minutes.”
Peter nods, taking a book from your desk to act as if he thumbs through the pages. His eyes drift toward the man and his blood freezes. “Why did I never see him before?”
“He always comes here when your shift is over. Before Pietro arrives, the man is gone. I don’t know why he’s still here today,” you whisper. “Do you know that man?”
“Unfortunately, yes. That’s…,” gasping you must watch the man stalk toward you and Peter. At the same time as you begin to panic, Peter remains stoic. He dialed Pietro’s number minutes ago, knows Clint and the others are on their way.
“I guess the cats out,” the man smirks, eyes roaming your body. “Name’s Stark, Tony Stark,” his eyes never leave your belly when he holds out his hand. “I must admit, I never thought Barnes and Rogers had it in them to keep a girl.”
“Sir, I must ask you to stay away from Ms. Y/L/N. This is a neutral zone,” Peter’s voice is strong, but his heart pounds in his chest. “I know you want to get to know the girl in Mr. Barnes's life, but this is not the time nor the place for it.”
“Peter Parker, all grown and tough now,” Tony smirks, glancing at his hand which you never shook. “Shame you didn’t agree to work for me back then. How are you?”
“I’m fine, thanks for asking. Just like my aunt,” Peters teeth grit and you wonder what happened back then. “I will ask you one last time to leave, Mr. Stark.”
“Or what, boy?” Tony’s smirk vanishes when the door flings open, revealing two angry mobsters and their men. “Guess times up, sweetie. We will see each other again. I hope to get to know you even better.”
Tony waltzes out of the library, tapping his hat before he snickers. “Have a great day, Ms. Y/L/N.” Your legs are about to give in when Steve rounds your desk to catch you.
“I’m sorry, Sir. I didn’t know he was here over the last days. Y/N said he sneaked in when Pietro came to take over his shift. It’s my fault he got that close to her,” Peter sighs.
“No, no…you protected me,” you gasp holding tight onto Steve when he picks you up in bridal style. “Steve, he protected me.”
“I know, doll. He did everything he could to keep you safe. We are here now, you are unharmed. Nothing else matters,” Bucky strokes your cheek, giving you a once over.
“No more working here. Stark knows who you are to us,” there is no room for arguments when two mobsters hold your life in their hands. “Clint, Pietro, pack Y/N’s belongings. Peter, Sam, you will come with us,” you lean your head against Steve’s chest, for once giving in to his commands.
“We’ll bring you somewhere safe, Y/N,” concerned Bucky pecks your lips, places his hand onto your belly before he looks you all over again. “No one hurts our girl.”
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“She’s holding that odd picture to her chest for almost an hour,” Steve whispers, watching you press the photo Clint got from the library for you to your chest. “What shall we do?”
“Sir, if I’m allowed to give you advice,” Peter clears his throat, pointing toward the picture in your hands. “The photo, it’s important to her as it’s the last one her mother took of her brother. They were at a lake, vacation and all…” Steve nods, glancing at you. “Her brother liked to scare people, to make bad jokes, and well, catch a frog to watch his mother scream.”
Bucky chuckles, smirking at Peter’s words. “I guess that guy was a great little brother. I wish we had the opportunity to meet.”
“Y/N, she told me that her mother screamed and dropped the camera. She wanted to take the picture after she calmed but Y/N’s brother opened his hand only to reveal the frog once again,” Peter chuckles, wiping a tear off his cheek. “Their mother got so mad as he scared her twice using the frog but Y/N, she defended him.”
“A good big sister,” you kiss the picture before you place it onto the nightstand, a soft smile on your lips at the memory of your brother. “What happened later?”
“As I said, their mother got mad and insisted they must drive home that night. If not, the boy might be still alive. The next night he sneaked out of the house to put the frog into the pool. Y/N always assumed he wanted to scare their mother again.”
“We know the rest,” Bucky sighs, shaking his head. “I bet, Y/N’s mother felt guilty for cutting their vacation short and blamed Y/N instead.”
“According to the coroner, Y/N’s brother must’ve slipped. He hit his head at the edge of the pool and drowned.” Peter swallows thickly, hoping his bosses finally see you need someone to care for you, not own you.
“Stevie, we should check on her. Natasha and Clint keep an eye on Stark. Tonight, we can’t strike back…”
>> Part 4
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eivorsjawline · 4 years ago
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Chapter 8: Clean and Cut
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Tw: Food, consumption of alcohol, and scarring.
You and Eivor go shopping for some more fitting clothes. After a succesful shopping spree, you head back home to relax and watch a movie with your lover. Unfortunately, you fall asleep halfway through the movie and Eivor decides she has some exploring to do. In the morning, you wake up and cook some breakfast. The chapter ends with a warm shower together.
Eivor’s POV
The reflection in the mirror stared back at me. I lifted my shirt and stared at the bandaged wound on my abdomen, every scar and pore on my body visible. I couldn’t help but feel insecure, never having seen myself from this close before. They were not pleasing to the eye but I always wore them with honor, each imperfection on my body from the large one across my cheek to the ones all over my torso. I lifted my shirt over my head, pulling the sleeves down to my elbows for a look at the ones on my back and stopped for a moment. A knock on the door startled me and I quickly readjusted myself and fixed my shirt. My hand held the door knob and slowly opened. Behind the door revealed Y/n giving me a small smile, she then asked me how I was feeling and if I found everything okay. I nodded and we walked over to her bedroom. The light peaked through the curtains and the room was tidy and kept.
“Eivor, Lay with me.”
Laying down in the large bed, I started to sink inwards. My body had never touched anything so plush and soft before. The bedding was pure white and the sheets soft. I imagine this is what resting on a cloud feels like. I turned towards Y/n and rubbed my hand across her arms, she rested in my chest and ran her fingers through my locks. She seemed to have an infatuation with my hair, I think it might be one of her favorite parts of me. When we embraced one another I never felt uncomfortable, she brought me peace. It pained me to think I almost threw everything we had away due to my selflessness, but she forgave me. Whatever feelings she held for me were always unconditional, even with my faults. Our lips met with a soft kiss, my hand holding onto the back of her neck. The kiss was short but intense until she pulled away and suggested we find some better clothes for me to wear.
Reader’s POV
I waited patiently next to the changing rooms for Eivor to reveal the outfits we picked out together, until I tapped on the door to check to see what was taking so long. When I opened the door she was almost fully dressed but needed a few tweaks from my magic touch. I grinned and helped adjust her pant zipper, which I could tell completely discombobulated her. She wore a slightly oversized gray shirt with a red flannel over it, the jeans were dark almost black and we picked out a good jacket to keep her warm. I fixed the collar of the jacket after helping her arms through the sleeve holes. Lots of pockets lined the sides reminding me that such a thing never existed in the Viking era. To finish the look, a black pair of 1460 Dr. Martens combat boots. She placed her hands in the pockets of her coat before giving a turn in the mirror, already feeling more confident. The shaved part of her head looked cut and clean from the haircut she just got, her Nordic braids falling just over her shoulder. The tattoo that covered her scar peeked through and when I stepped closer, the faint smell of a musky cologne radiated from her body. She was pleased with her new look, almost as much as I.
“Wait… I have a surprise.”
“Eivor, what are you doing?”
She had a small grin on her face when she pulled me outside and made me sit in a chair by the changing rooms. The door closed and I waited for her, “surprise”. We ended up picking a variety of sweaters, jeans, sweatpants, shoes and other fundamentals to start her new life. I noticed she stuck to darker and neutral colors, perhaps they reminded her of her armor. Time continued to pass as I heard Eivor shuffling in the dressing room in front of me. I started to count how many panels were on the floor beneath me until the door flung open and Eivor in a nice black suit stood in front of me. Her hands fiddled with her pockets as she looked down at the clean pair of dress shoes she had on. The sleeves hugged her biceps and thighs just enough and the low collar teased the skin on her chest. She looked up at me and did the cheeky smirk she always does, as if she knew just how good she looked.
“What do you think? Worthy of one of those things you call a “selfie”? I asked what I should wear if I wanted to impress someone. ”
My jaw dropped at the confident woman in front of me, whatever words I wanted to say were completely wiped from my mind. I gulped and stood in awe of her power before finally telling her how beautiful she looked. My mind just began to process that she, Eivor, asked for a selfie with me. Trying to control my laughter, I pulled out the camera on my phone. She pulled me closer and wrapped her hand around my waist, ready for the picture. The moment was so bizarre, taking a picture with a viking in real time. I snapped the photo and let her analyze it, she made a shrug before boasting about how good we looked. Suddenly, I was ready to go home and take off all the clothes we bought today.
“Alright, enough fun. Let's get out of here.”
When we arrived home, the day turned into night and I decided it was time to get comfy. I opened up a bottle of fine wine for me and Eivor, then pouring a glass for the both of us. Eivor made herself at home on the sofa while I popped in a Quentin Tarantino movie to watch. Some snacks laid on the coffee table and the smell of a lavender scented candle filled the room. Eivor opened up her arms for me to snuggle up to her chest. She wore a loose cut off tank top that exposed some of her chest. Our legs intertwined as my fingers ran over the tattooed skin on her arms and the movie began to play.
Eivor’s POV
I peeked underneath me to see Y/n eyes had closed. The film intrigued me so much I hadn’t noticed my lover fell asleep. I took a moment to think about how grateful I was that she remained in my life and admired the sleeping beauty atop of me. After readjusting myself, I placed two arms beneath her and cradled her body before lifting her up with ease. She rested her head on my shoulder and threw an arm over me, tired sounds escaping her. The door to her bedroom remained open and I pressed my back to widen the entrance. I threw the corners of her comforter to the side and laid her down gently in bed before covering her up so she wouldn’t be cold. My lips met her forehead with a soft kiss.
For an odd reason, sleep was the last thing on my mind. I closed the door behind me and made my way to the living room. She had a few books laid on the table in the middle of the room. Dozens in a bookcase nearby, some even collecting dust. Curiosity got the best of me and I turned the page open in one of her many journals. A feeling of sadness overcame me when I read the captivating yet melancholic words on the paper.
“November, 2nd 2020
The house is quiet as always. Perhaps, one day someone will find me worthy to occupy it with me. A woman to warm my bed on chilly nights like this. Suppression has only caused the deep sadness within me to grow and spread. I'm not sure what I’m doing with my life at this point, or what the purpose of this all even is. I don't believe I’ll ever be truly happy in my life at this pace. Maybe, the universe will send me an angel to guide me.
To love me…”
I rested my hand on my chin, as I read over the words repeatedly. She never told me she felt this way and I can't help but feel as if I read something I wasn’t supposed to. If she needed to speak to me about anything I know she would. I placed the journal back where it belonged and slouched on the sofa. My hand reached for the bottle of wine to pour another glass, meanwhile the window remained open and the tall lit up buildings could be seen even from afar. Mankind touched the heavens and my lips touched the brim of the wine glass. Cars raced below me and the bustling city never seemed to quiet. I began to understand how this overpopulated world is filled with so many lonely people.
I poured yet another glass of wine after finishing what I had lost count of. I flickered the light on in the bathroom before placing my hands on the sides of the sink and taking a good look at myself. Turning the faucet on, I then splashed some cold water over my face. Perhaps, it was an attempt to check if all that I’m experiencing is reality. My body let out a yawn and I made way to join my time-crossed lover in bed. I dropped the clothes I had on and laid underneath the covers. When I placed my hands over Y/n’s waist she shifted as If she woke up for a moment and shortly drifted off again. A kiss was placed on her bare shoulder before I felt my eyes begin to close.
Reader’s POV
The sunlight that peered through the window awoke me and I noticed Eivor was still sound asleep. Carefully, I stood up from the bed and tiptoed out the door. My cat meowed and pawed at the bowl on the floor next to her table. After refilling her bowl and checking her water, I started to rummage through the fridge for breakfast. After pulling out a couple skillets, I slapped a few slabs of bacon on the pan and started to cook them slowly. I gathered a bowl and started to beat an egg, adding some vanilla and cinnamon before dipping some bread in the mixture. The butter in the hot skillet started to melt and once the bread started to cook, the familiar smell of french toast filled the air. I flipped the bacon and pulled out some fresh strawberries to put on top of the toast.
Sure enough, Eivor stood by the hallway and let out a big yawn and stretch. She walked up from behind me and gave an embrace, placing kisses on the side of my neck and cheek. Eivor was always quick to run at the smell of food. She sat in a chair by the table with a silly grin on her face as I fixed a plate for her. Her eyes lit up when I placed the plate in front of her, even if it was a simple gesture. She started to scarf down her food as I sat in front of her stirring some sugar into my coffee. I passed some maple syrup towards her, a necessity in my opinion.
“Can't forget this.”
I chuckled and held my hand out across the table for hers to meet mine. The heat from the sun shined through the window and though I was unsure of how much time I had left with her, I enjoyed every second. Once we finished eating, Eivor stretched her legs out and jokingly rubbed her belly from how full she was. She had two platefuls after all. She was beautiful, even if she had just woken up and was yet to comb through her hair. Her deep and intense eyes held a certain ambiance, every scar on her body has become mesmerising to me. I stood up from my seat and onto her lap, straddling my legs around her as her tattooed hands grazed my backside. She looked up at me, a loving expression residing on her face. My eyes wandered to her right arm, examining the ancient tattoos. She held her forearm upwards, her fingers bending for me to get a closer look.
“This one here,” She pointed at the dated symbol and swallowed.
“Is in remembrance of my parents. I lost them when I was very young.”
I listened as she explained the story of her parents death, her situation became more clear to me. Though it was an old wound and whether she showed it or not, the impact was obvious in her now soft voice. Holding her arm out to the side now revealing a stitched symbol, she explained to me the meaning of the, “Aegishjalmur” symbol. Her people swore it granted protection and power to those who wield it. I listened patiently as Eivor guided me through every work of art on her body and she enjoyed telling me. My fingers ruffled her hair and I insisted on a nice hot shower, afterwards explaining how showers are better than baths.
When we entered the bathroom, Eivor pinned me in between her against the wall and we shared a passionate slow kiss. The nature of the kiss was purely romantic, rather than lustful. We undressed one another, her lifting my shirt and I hers. I undid the tie on her sweatpants and her body assisted me as they pulled down. I was only in underwear and those dropped shortly afterwards. I ran the water and adjusted the temperature to how I like it. Her hand played with the water running from the shower head, still puzzled by the small things from this time. Upon entering, the strong warrior had to jump back for a second from the water.
“How can you handle water this hot?” She exclaimed.
We laughed and I apologized before readjusting the temperature again. She let out a sigh of relief and let the water hit her naked body completely. My sinful eyes watched in pleasure as she applied soap over her body. From her broad shoulders, the muscles that poked out on them. To the water that fell upon her chest, the two hardened lumps that occupied her breasts. Finally, all the way down to the hairs on the middle of her pelvis. I applied some more soap to her body as for assistance, but I was truly worshipping the goddess in front of me.
“Turn around.”
“What?” She hesitated.
I nodded my head and gave a look as if I was demanding. Slowly, she obeyed and the deep cuts on her back from battle were exposed. It was always obvious to me that Eivor was insecure about her scars. The water fell down on her back washing the suds away, I placed my hand on her shoulder and she turned her head to the side with a concerned look. Eivor’s facial expressions relaxed when I started to place kisses from the back of her neck to the start of her waist. The mood changed completely when I pressed the front of my body to the back of hers, my arms wrapped around her sturdy abdomen.
“Eivor, you’re the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on. Don't you ever forget that.”
She turned around in one of the most vulnerable states I had seen her in, my words triggering something within her.
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sichengtual · 4 years ago
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meeting taeil under the falling snow was your one long-standing traditions, tending to your feelings until they, like flowers, were ready to bloom in full.
— pairing: moon taeil x reader.
— au: soulmates.
— genre: fluff.
— word count: 1767.
— playlist: more than words — extreme; on the snow — exo.
for @seodami​, from your @neoculturechristmas​’s secret santa! i had a lot of fun writing this for you, and i hope you’ve been enjoying enjoying your holidays! here’s a little something for you 💓
You had always known both you and Taeil were creatures of habit. 
It had been clear, since the very beginnings of your relationship, that part of the reason you understood each other so well was because you functioned so similarly in the first place. You had met in between previously set scenes, noticed each other purely because of the way you blended yourselves right into each other’s lives so naturally, it was hard for you to tell when you had started to blend into one cohesive picture to begin with. 
He felt like a childhood friend and a mysterious stranger all at the same time: with the sense of familiarity that could only belong to a bond that has been created in the course of a lifetime, and the excitement behind getting to meet him almost once again every time he showed you a new side of himself. You had always known it was special, how he could make you feel known yet undiscovered with a single look, with something in his eyes letting you see the exact point where both outlooks intertwined. You had always felt it was unique, with the calmness behind his smile and the thrill behind his voice — and you had always been sure he had felt it too. 
Despite the brief four years of knowing each other, in a way, it almost felt like he had always been there. Like he had always belonged in your life just like you had always belonged in his, your meeting being the final piece of a puzzle that had been many years in the making, the finishing touches of a life’s work masterpiece. Him being in your life, somehow, made sense. 
And, as such, it became hard to imagine what it would have been like if he wasn’t. Looking back, there were so many things in your life you could connect back to Taeil, even when at a simple glance, none of them had really anything to do with him. He was just there, sunk so deep in the back of your mind that he was the sole protagonist of your thoughts and dreams even when he’s miles away.
The two of you held mirroring tattoos in the exact same way you had mirroring souls, each one of the lines drawn on your skin signaling the other that you were there.
But as much as Taeil lived inside of you as you lived inside of him, accepting the soulmate bond meant having to live life as two instead of one. It required commitment, and even though the two of you already knew you were gonna end up together, you agreed that feelings, just like flowers, can’t be pressured into blooming.
Taeil always met you at the Winter Carnival at exactly 7 p.m, as if on clockwork. He always waited next to the tallest lightpost, a bag of toasted chestnuts you’d share as you walked along the hundreds of small, fairy lights clad tents. Taeil would often stop and look at the little trinkets that were offered in the small shops, not buying anything unless you liked it.
“I just like doing it,” Taeil would always say. “It’s not that it’s anything big, it’s just something for you to think of me.”
You were sure he bought them to remember you, too. To look back and think of the colorful little trinkets he had purchased, recalling the memory of your hands brushing together as you walked side by side just as night started to fall. 
It was just you and him, meeting each other once a year before it got dark. In a sense, it was a sort of sign, reminding you of each other right before the new year rolled around. It gave you something to hope for, a sort of beacon at the end of the way. 
Just like that, just as time passed, you had started to fall in love with Taeil in the way people were expected to fall in love with their soulmates: completely and whole-heartedly. It almost felt like diving head first straight into the ocean, breaking through the icy waters in the promise of finding something so precious on the other end of the shore it gave you a rhythm to follow, a path to swim by. 
And you finally decided to tell him. 
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Snow has just started falling when you leave the house.
It’s no different from every other carnival day: cool gusts of wind, warm spiced scents, bright flickering lights. People pass by you as you make your way into the fair, barely even brushing shoulders before they go back to being just a part of the background, holding no more significance than a brief locking of sights. Noises mix in together like an intricate score, voices and melodies composing an accompanying piece that set the beat not only to your steps, but to the scene as a whole. 
You’re surprised by how different it makes it feel; feeling happier with laughter and more neutral with the lack of it, occasionally setting your attention in the background accompaniments such as the soft ring of a bell or the muted honk of a horn. In complete honesty, it’s a picture perfect rendition of a scene only seen in movies, and it doesn’t help feeling like both you and Taeil could set its entire course with only a change in conversation. 
He’s waiting for you, holding a small white paper bag, like he always does. He’s dressed in warm, layered clothes, a smile on his lips only growing with each and every step you took in his direction. Small, almost translucent snowflakes are beginning to fall over his head, adorning the strands of hair that fell over his forehead, and you couldn’t help but think of just how much the current scene resembled one straight of a frame belonging in the Louvre. 
“It’s nice to see you again,” are the first words he says when looking at you. They carry a weight behind them, an actual sense of longing produced by the cruel passing of the time in which you were apart. 
His voice feels warm. 
“You got a haircut.” 
“Yeah,” he smiles. “Do you think it suits me?” 
“I think you’re absolutely rocking it.”
It’s not unusual for Taeil to grow shy. Even after the years and years you’d known him, he still blushes at your compliments, no matter how hard you try to convince him your words spoke nothing but the truth. He knew that, though, because your voice made everything sound like something he’s always been aware of. 
“Here, have some,” Taeil offers you a sheepish smile before he extends the paper bag in your direction. “They’re still warm.” 
Still looking at him, you take one of the chestnuts from the bag and propped it into your mouth, the salty top layer in the snack immediately melting in your mouth. Moving closer to him, you let your hand brush against Taeil’s free one, immediately following his steps as he starts walking. 
And, in all honesty, the atmosphere never stopped surprising you. Out of the corner of your eye you can see the light reflect upon Taeil, illuminating his face in an ensemble of warm, combining colors. You can only imagine the effect it must have on his eyes, bringing out their own natural glow in the exact same way it painted them in a kaleidoscope of different shades of Christmas. 
It’s funny when you recall this is the most magical night of the year. You think of having felt just that in Taeil’s embrace, having heard magic in his voice. You’re sure that his presence in your life is exactly what makes it magical, and get to feel just that when he takes your hand in his. 
“I’ve been thinking a lot about us,” Taeil says, his voice bringing you back from your haze. “About what we’re gonna do from now on.”
You nod, trying to get him to continue. You want to tell him you’ve been doing the exact same thing, thinking about moving forward, finally taking a step. But you wait until after he speaks, wanting to know what his stance is in the matter, getting to know both sides before pulling together a story. 
You can’t really make out what it is, but there’s something about Taeil’s voice that gives you hope. You keep walking through the growing crowd, having to move closer together to walk next to together next to the waves of people. Somewhere in there, Taeil finally laces your fingers together, feeling your heart growing warm.
“I know we decided to wait before we finally accepted what we are, and what it means for us,” he says. “We took what fate gave us and let it grow on its own accord, and now it doesn’t really feel like it was something made for us. It feels as if we’ve the ones that made it, growing closer because we wanted to, and not because it was simply imposed on us.” 
Taeil gives your hand a squeeze. 
“I’ve fallen in love with you the way it should be. It feels like I’ve been dreaming, somehow being happier in a dream that I’ve ever been while awake. And all this time, I was only dreaming of you.” 
You’ve reached the middle of the fair, coming to a stop next to your bench, right in front of the brightly lit carrousel. There’s a live band playing somewhere near, music reaching your ears right as you stop walking, and a strong scent of warm cider coming from somewhere in the tents. You turn to look at Taeil, looking at all the snow that has gathered on top of his head, and the slight blush on his cheeks that you can’t tell if it’s a product of his words or simply a reaction from the cold. 
You decide you don’t have to know.
“I’m in love with you too,” you say. “And not because of fate, but because of you. Fate only helped us find each other, but the rest grew from here. From us.” 
Taking a step in your direction, Taeil finally kissed you under a thousand flickering fairy lights. It was a change in the routine, a new tradition only but growing from an already existing one. Maybe the meetings under the snow were coming to an end, but you’d take a thousand sunny days by Taeil’s side over standing alone under the rain. 
Right there, with snow falling right on top of your head, you had never felt so warm.
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milkybonya · 4 years ago
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running away means coming back
Anon: Moonbin x reader where reader is Jinjin’s younger sibling. Reader and Moonbin were dating behind Jinjin’s back, and when Jinjin finds out, he doesn’t approve of them so Moonbin and reader run away until years later when they return and Jinjin isn’t mad anymore.
*i slightly changed this request in order to make it gender neutral :)
Warnings: verbal fighting, a lil angsty at times, mentions of death and food
Word count: 2.7k
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In your bedroom, you quickly reach for your phone since you heard it vibrate. Noticing Moonbin’s name on the screen, you sprawl out on your bed and hurriedly open the message.
i’m coming over today ! with the rest of the boys so they can keep Jinwoo distracted ;)
You hear a knock on the door, so you quickly toss your phone away before Jinjin steps into your room.
“Hey, [y/n], my friends are coming over today so don’t be too annoying, okay?” he says, a serious look on his face. You know he’s joking, though.
“I know!” you say, burying your head in your pillow.
“You knew that my friends were coming or you knew to not be annoying?” Jinjin asks, teasing you.
You groan in response.
“Anyway, just thought I should let you know,” he says, closing your door behind him as he leaves.
An hour later, the doorbell rings, and you jump out of bed but immediately stop yourself. If you run to the front door now, Jinjin will definitely get suspicious. You’ve been dating his friend, Moonbin, in secret for a few months now. Jinjin will definitely not approve, so you’ve had to hide it.
You tap your feet, trying so hard to hold back from rushing to see your boyfriend.
You text Moonbin:
Binnie, when will I be able to see you T-T will u come to my room?
i can’t come there right away, or else Jinwoo will know :(( i’ll be there soon, my dear, just wait <3
You can hear the boys entering the living room. Their shouts and yells echo through the house. To keep yourself distracted, you put on some earphones and watch something on your phone instead.
Downstairs, Moonbin is ready to execute his plan. 
“I’m just going to go to the washroom, okay?” Moonbin says, getting up from the couch.
“Yeah, yeah,” Jinjin says, focused on the game he’s playing with Sanha.
Moonbin quietly runs upstairs and Jinjin is too distracted to ask him why he isn’t using the washroom downstairs.
Your earphones are so loud that you don’t hear Moonbin knock, so he quietly enters your room anyway. You don’t notice his presence until he leans down and kisses the top of your head.
“I’m here!” he whispers, grinning and stretching out his arms.
You pull out your earphones and smile back at him, pulling him into a hug.
“You don’t even understand how much I missed you. Jinwoo is so overprotective and I’m so bad at lying, so every time we try to meet up outside he asks me who I’m meeting and I can’t say it’s you but I also can’t lie-”
Moonbin presses his lips against yours.
“It’s okay,” he says after he pulls away, pressing his forehead against yours. He gently strokes your hair.
“I’m just glad to see you. What have you been up to these days?” Moonbin gets up from the chair that he was sitting on to sit next to you on the bed. He tightly holds your hand as you begin to speak.
Downstairs, Jinjin beat Sanha in the game they were playing. He pumps his fist in the air, yelling happily.
“You cheated!” Sanha says, hitting Jinjin with a pillow.
“You were the one who was cheating and I still won!” Jinjin says, also hitting Sanha with a pillow.
After they calm down, Jinjin notices that someone is missing.
“Where did Moonbin go?” he asks.
The rest of the boys try to hide their panicked faces. They’re aware of the fact that you’re dating Moonbin, so they know that he went upstairs to see you.
“The washroom, remember?” MJ says.
“It’s been fifteen minutes, is he constipated or something?” Jinjin laughs. “Maybe we should check on him.”
He gets up to walk to the washroom, but MJ stops him.
“Hey, let’s not. We don’t wanna embarrass him,” MJ says.
“What do you mean ‘embarrass’? We’re all friends here...”
Behind them, Eunwoo is frantically texting Moonbin.
Come downstairs, now!
Something vibrates by his foot and he picks it up. Moonbin’s phone. He left it behind.
“Hey, can I go upstairs? I wanna see your room,” Eunwoo says, making up an excuse so he can drag Moonbin back downstairs.
“That’s a good idea, let’s all go! There’s something new I bought and I want to show you-”
“No, just bring it downstairs!” MJ shouts.
“Why are you yelling?” Jinjin asks, laughing. “It’s too heavy for me to bring it downstairs, let’s go.”
As he starts to walk up, the rest of the boys are forced to follow him. Sanha tries to go to your room to he can warn you, but Jinjin makes sure everyone is in his room first before he himself enters.
There’s no escape.
Back in your room, Moonbin is making you laugh so hard you feel like your lungs are about to burst. He imitated the way Jinwoo always scolds you.
“You’re so right, Jinwoo always does that!” you laugh, clutching your side.
“Why is [y/n] laughing so loud?” Jinjin asks from his own room. It’s right across from yours down the hallway.
“They must be watching some funny videos or something,” Rocky says, nervously laughing.
“No, they never laugh that hard from a video. Let me go check-”
“No, I’ll go check!” Sanha says, holding Jinjin back.
“Why are you all being suspicious today? Just let me go!” Jinjin pushes Sanha aside and storms towards your room. The boys all run after him, but it’s too late.
He’s opened your door.
And there you are, cuddling against Moonbin’s chest while his lips are pressed to your temple.
“Moon...bin? [y/n]? What... what are you guys doing?” Jinjin asks, flustered.
Everyone tries to think of an excuse, but there’s no way they can cover this up.
“You’re... you two are dating?” Jinjin asks, the pitch of his voice rising. He’s angry.
“Moonbin, what the hell? What are you doing with my sibling? I thought I trusted you!” He runs towards Moonbin, but you throw yourself on top of your boyfriend, leaving no room for Jinjin to hurt him.
“Jinwoo, stop! It’s not a big deal!” you say.
“Not a big deal? Are you kidding me right now? How long has this been going on?”
Eunwoo and Rocky pull Jinjin out of the room, and Moonbin gets up to leave.
“Where are you going?” you ask him.
“I think your brother is really mad at me right now. I shouldn’t stay here any longer.”
“Wait!” you say, holding onto his arm. “I’ll come with you.”
The two of you end up in Moonbin’s red car, driving away.
“I don’t think I can ever face my brother again,” you say.
“Me neither,” Moonbin responds, tightly gripping the steering wheel. “Maybe it’s best if we just don’t see him for a few days.”
You nod.
Somehow, that was the start of you running away with Moonbin, not for just a few days, but for three whole years. The two of you drove silently without any specific direction and found yourselves in a quiet village. That was the place that you decided to call home.
A short, creaky metal gate opens up to a small field of grass and overflowing trees, plants and flowers. Past the green mess stands a small, grey home.
Your home.
You spent three years in that place with Moonbin, selling to the market whatever your small plot of land could grow. The two of you were known as the mysterious, young couple, and no one knew where you had came from.
You never told them.
To this day, you’re still scared of going back. Jinjin’s face on the day you left, the anger, it all scared you. He’s your brother and you love him. You don’t ever want him to be mad at you.
Sometimes, you ask Moonbin if he regrets running away. Each time you ask him, he takes your hands in his, pressing his lips to the back of your hands one by one before saying, “this was all meant to happen for a reason. I’m living my best life here with you.”
Yet you can’t help but notice the times he’s cried at night, sobbing silently. You can’t help but notice him talk in his sleep, murmuring his friends’ names.
Running from Jinjin meant that you had to cut ties with his friends, too, and that was the hardest on Moonbin. Yet he always smiles brightly at you and hugs you. He tells you that he’s okay, that he doesn’t need to go back.
He would always work in the shed behind your house, making something. He never told you what it was, so you never asked, but one day when you stepped inside to clean up, you noticed that amidst the tools, there was a shiny ring.
“What are you doing in here?” Moonbin asked, giving you a back hug.
“Cleaning up. What’s that ring for?”
“You’ll see one day.” Moonbin pressed a kiss to your cheek.
Despite how much you’ve enjoyed being in Moonbin’s presence for every hour of every day, cooking and eating meals together, walking to the market together, spending hours on end doing nothing but burying your face in his chest and smelling his natural scent, it’s time to go back, now. You need to come back to reality.
Moonbin has sacrificed so much for you, and you think that three years is enough for Jinjin to have forgotten about his anger.
So finally, you and Moonbin pack up. 
A few friends from the village help the two of you.
“So will you finally tell us where you’re from and where you’re going?” one of them asks.
Moonbin chuckles, and it’s enough to make your spine tingle and your stomach do backflips from the butterflies.
“I think it’s best if we just stay as we are,” he says.
Once most of the packing is done, your friends leave, and it’s just you and Moonbin again. He pulls you into a hug, resting his chin on your shoulder.
“These three years felt like a dream,” he says. “I felt like I was in a movie... running away with the person of my dreams? This only happens in movies.”
“But now we’re gonna go back and you can see your friends!” you say, feeling excited.
Suddenly, Moonbin pulls away from you. His hands rest on your shoulders and he looks into your eyes.
“Are you sure you’re ready to go back?” he asks you, his eyebrows knitted together. The white shirt he’s wearing sticks to his arms and chest, showing his defined muscles.
“I’m sure,” you say, and Moonbin hugs you once again.
“I’ll be with you, okay? I’ll do anything I have to do to get Jinjin to agree-”
“Don’t worry,” you say. “He’s my brother. I know how to get him on my side. Maybe I should have just talked to him back then, but things turned out like this. We should go back now, sooner than later.”
Moonbin smiles and nods. He’s proud of your growth.
You used to be afraid of Jinjin, despite how close the two of you were. Because of how overprotective he was, you were always afraid of crossing the line. Moonbin showed you that no lines ever even existed. He showed you that Jinjin wasn’t always right, and that you should be free to do what makes you happy.
Even just two years ago, you were still scared of your brother. But now, you were ready to face him, and instead of apologizing, you were ready to just have a conversation with him.
Deciding that you wanted to move out in the early morning, you and Moonbin went to bed early. He held you close to him for the entire night, his hands rubbing circles on your back.
“[y/n],” he whispered into your ear. “I love you.”
The next morning, you put your few belongings into the same red car that Moonbin still has and drive down the same dirt road, onto the highway towards your hometown. The sky is blue without a single cloud, and you take it to be a sign of good luck.
The bright sun leaks in through your window at some point, and you close your eyes so you can soak it up and feel it on your skin.
Moonbin’s free hand reaches out for yours, and when he finds it, he tightly holds it.
“We’re going hoooome!” he sings softly. You roll down the window and yell the same words he said out into the wind. Moonbin laughs and squeezes your hand tightly.
-
Your heart races as Moonbin enters the driveway of your home, parking behind your parents’ car. He turns off the engine and looks at you with warm eyes.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asks.
When you nod, he quickly leans forward to give you a kiss, but it feels more like he’s passing on his courage and strength to you. The brushing of his soft lips against yours is enough to make you feel ten times better.
You both climb out of the car at the same time, planting your feet onto the gravel of the driveway. Moonbin quickly scurries over to you and holds your hand before you both walk up to the front door.
Taking a deep breath, you ring the doorbell.
Waiting for a few moments, you wonder if Jinjin is home.
The door swings open, and speak of the devil: there he is. His hair is tousled and he’s got one hand in a bag of chips.
The chips drop to the ground.
“[y/n]?” Jinjin’s jaw drops.
He reaches out to touch your face, trying to make sure you’re real. Then he gives in and just hugs you. He squeezes you so tightly that you feel like you’re about to burst.
“[y/n] it’s really you? Where have you been?”
He pulls away and holds your face in his hands.
“You look okay, have you been eating well? What have you been up to? Why didn’t you answer my calls? Why were you gone for three years?”
Suddenly, the poor boy starts to tear up, and you reach out to hug him again.
“Why would you just leave like that? Do you know what we went through? The boys didn’t let me report you as missing, so I thought you were dead...”
“Jinwoo I’m so sorry,” you say.
You should have came back sooner. You wish you had came back sooner, but you’re glad you didn’t come any later.
You decide to address another important issue.
“Jinwoo, Binnie is here too,” you say, softly. Jinjin immediately pulls away from your embrace and stares coldly to your left, where Moonbin stands. Then, he starts crying again and hugs Moonbin.
“Bin, I can’t believe you just left me too! Without a single word, how could you? Do you know how much I missed you? Do you know how worried I was? What the hell were the two of you even up to?”
“I’m sorry, hyung. It was hard to come back. We tried, but it was hard.”
“It was harder for me,” Jinjin says.
He lets the two of you in, and you awkwardly sit side by side on the couch.
Does this mean Jinjin isn’t mad at me for dating Moonbin?
Jinjin brings you both water before he also sits down.
“You know, you didn’t need to run away that day. I was never mad at you,” Jinjin explains.
“What?!” you exclaim. It’s shocking to you, to think that Jinjin, the overprotective brother, was never mad at you.
“It was shocking, yes. It was weird, absolutely. But I just needed time to process things, that’s all. Of course I wasn’t going to be glad that my brother was dating my sibling, but that doesn’t mean I hated the two of you. I needed time, but not three years! A few days would have been fine.”
“Well with that said,” Moonbin says, getting off the couch and sitting on the ground, one knee raised and one pressed to the ground.
You look at Jinjin who gives you a smile.
Moonbin pulls something out of his pocket and presents it to you. It’s a ring, the same ring you saw him working on in the shed every day for the past three years.
“Do you wanna marry me then, [y/n]? We have your brother’s approval,” he says, smiling brightly like a puppy.
Lost for words, all you can do is hug him.
“Okay, okay, we get it!”Jinjin whines as both of you start to tear up.
But he also makes sure to say “congratulations” before he lets the two of you be.
69 notes · View notes