#im sorry this grew way beyond what it was supposed to be

[eee-lordy]

Hiiii! Can you write about jacob elordi x fem reader who is in charge of the makeup and outfits on saltburn or elvis?

Maybe there is a video going viral where he is looking at her (WITH THOSE PUPPY DOG EYES HAHSHAJDVDSJ IM GONNA EAT HIM) while she is doing his make up and she is clueless, yk those videos where the music is lana del rey and the caption is like "me when im literaly obsessed with her" or "when hes completely in love with u>>>>>"

And when that goes viral, the cast teases him and they go on a date?

Idk i think its cute :3

───※ ·❆· ※───

You were never one to get star struck. In the year and a half you'd been professionally applying makeup to the mugs of many stars, you'd been unfazed by celebrities captivating auras. You hardly blushed when Chris Pine tried asking you out as he sat in your makeup chair. You'd laughed in understandable assurance as Billie Eilish apologized for almost knocking your powder kit from your grasp; when her brother burst in the room to surprise her. You saw your clients as just that, people who trusted you to properly apply blush and fake scars.

But all the composure you'd been proud to claim went out the window when you'd been assigned to work with the cast of Sofia Coppola new film. You hadn't expected to lose your cool. In fact, you'd been rolling your eyes as the hair stylist that shared your caravan had droned on and on about this new Elordi fellow and how dreamy he was. Some of the other workers in the hair and makeup department parroted her yearning for the guy. But you were certain you'd remain calm and cool in this supposed deities presence.

And then he sat down in your chair. And he looked up to you with an intriguing set of droopy dark eyes. And you knew Jacob Elordi was about to be a real problem for you.

It wasn't his fame. You weren't swept up by his essence because of the collective crowd on the internet drooling over the guy. It wasn't even his magnetism. Because he did have a lot of that, you wavered it was necessary to survive fame. But it was more the way he would look up at you from that make up chair. With those dumb stupid big beautiful eyes.  And his smile that followed. And then the infuriating way he'd start conversations with you, those first few days on set.

"What'd you have for breakfast this morning?" Jacob would wonder, watching as you readied a sponge. You would answer and ask for his in return. He would mention stopping by a cafe earlier and go on to ask you where you grew up and if you liked it there and what the best book you've ever read was called. 

"You've got to stop chatting away, makes it hard to do your touch up's." You'd smile, reaching out to adjust Jacobs perfect fucking face so you could work on his brows. 

"Sorry." He breathed out, seemingly genuinely guilty. He went on explaining himself still, slowly as you continued to do your job. "Don't like awkward silence. Or bullshit small talk. Getting to know you seemed like the safest route. Since you'll be covering the dark circles under my eye's this whole shoot."

You laughed in understanding before announcing that you got it, and waved over the hairdresser on site today. 

"Wait, before you go, that book you mentioned..." Jacob pointed your way as you turned for closing up your kit of brushes. Then you watched as the guy wrestled his cellphone from his jacket pocket. "Here," Jacob said, extending the device your way. "Write the title in my notes app. I will forget, but I don't want too. It sounded properly readable."

"Oh." You turned your lips down in a twisted grin of surprise. As you took the device from Jacob's grasp, you felt a surge of gratification that the guy trusted you enough with his phone let alone wanted to read a book you mention not having read since uni. 

Not missing the way the hairdresser rolled her eyes, you grinned and found Jacobs notes app with ease, straining not to glance beyond your means. With the press of a few buttons you wrote down the title, and fought off the impulsive urge to include your very own phone number as well. That would be embarrassing, knowing full well this man would never call or text or probably even dare to glance your way beyond the makeup chair. 

///

The next few weeks went by the same. Jacob would yammer away until you almost had to hold his mouth shut to finish his makeup. And you would fill the silence by telling stories of your own, because he'd mentioned he wasn't fond of silence and you knew your job went beyond applying lip liner, it was also to keep celebrities happy as royalty.

And all the while you blinked away thoughts of how funny he was. How beautiful Jacob was. You wouldn't let yourself realize he was exactly your type. You wouldn't let yourself dream that you might be his. You simply relished the times you made him laugh. Once you made him laugh so hard he cried, tear tracks ruining the powder you'd only just applied. 

The hairdresser who was the leader of fawning over Jacob as soon as he left the room had taken to frowning in your direction most days. You reckoned it was because she'd never been able to make him laugh that hard, or at all, ever. And the stories she told him when he asked her to seemed to lose his interest halfway through every time. Try as Jacob might, you saw his eyes glaze over as the hairstylist droned on about her retirement plan or the grocery list she'd put together that day.

After acknowledging her sorry excuse for conversation Jacob would stop you from packing up and heading to lunch so he could ask you for more books to read, more films to watch, more stories from you. Then his assistant would interrupt, or he'd be called to set and you'd be left to head to the craft table with dangerous feelings of lust and intrigue to push away. You would not let this boy break you of your career long streak of professionalism, damn it.

///

One night, in the middle of a week break from set, you spent an evening scrolling mindlessly. When a tiktok with Jacob's name in the tags popped up, you scrolled away at the speed of light. You didn't let yourself linger too long on posts with him there, not wanting to know anything good bad or otherwise so long as you were assigned to work with him on this project. But it wasn't long before another tiktok popped up featuring the guy in a very familiar setting. He was too famous at this point. You watched as you saw leaked footage from behind the scenes of Priscilla, but weren't too shocked. The stars of the film were occasionally being interviewed by publicists between takes to document their experience, beginning to promote the film.

And maybe you let yourself keep watching out of a sense of entitlement, you'd been working on this set. You could watch a video of Jacob from work, right? You couldn't tear your eyes from him no matter how hard you tried now anyway. You watched as the person holding the camera zoomed in on the guy while he adjusted his suit jacket. You watched as he seemed to talk to the costars at his side. You watched as he looked up and smiled. And you couldn't help but melt a little at the sight, he seemed so happy, so at ease. And then you watched as Jacob's grin widened as he waved someone closer. And much to your horror, you saw yourself step into frame. 

You remembered that day, where you waited on the side lines to fix Cailee's eyeliner. While the director was storming up a new camera angle, Jacob waved you over to mention the last chapter of your favorite book he'd almost finished reading. He was laughing over a bit that you'd warned him about the week before. And you were laughing over how excited he was about it, finally having someone to gush over your favorite plot with.

Now, huddled beneath the blankets of your bed, you slammed your phone down at your side, bewildered to know someone had caught your interaction on camera. Raddled to have just seen Jacob lighting up at the sight of you. Angry at yourself for hopping you'd read his body language in a way that suggested he really liked you that much.

When you picked your phone back up, you watched the candid moment over and over, trying to debunk Jacob's smile. Trying to convince yourself he was only being friendly, only cared because he had to find someone to mingle with during down beats. 

And then you read the comments. 

"If Jacob smiled at me like that, I would die."

"Imagine making him laugh like that she's so lucky."

"Who is she??" One comment read. "Her last name will be Elordi if he hasn't married her already, calling it." Someone replied.

You shouldn't have read the comments.

///

When you were due back on set you swallowed away the excitement bubbling up in you at the prospect of seeing Jacob again. This was so unlike you, to be awaiting the arrival of your client with an embarrassing giddiness. As you reminded yourself that this was your job and Jacob was simply a guest in your makeup chair- the man himself eased into the caravan, ready to get ready for the day.

"Hey, you! I had a bunch of points earned up to get two free coffees so I brought you one. I remember you said you like almond milk so I asked for that." Jacob was all smiles as he extended a latte to you. Awe fuck. 

"Thank you, Jacob." You struggled not to sigh with angst as you accepted his very generous surprise. Luckily, he seemed none the wiser that you'd answered through gritted teeth. He just kept smiling as he headed to your chair.

"Oh, me first today lovie. Need to start your dye straight off, you're little makeup girlfriend will have to wait." The hairdresser announced, daring to grab Jacob by his sleeve, yanking him toward her end of the trailer. The other workers around rolled their eyes, sick of her endless commentary. You bit your tongue as you leaned against the counter, shaking your head when a coworker scoffed in the hairdresser's direction. Luckily, Cailee waltz in, ready for you before anyone else. You thanked God for the distraction, readying your brow pencil and chatted to the girl about her break from set. 

All the while, your least favorite coworkers voice demanded to be the loudest in the room. She made everyone listen to some boring ass story and practically whinnied when Jacob got up to trade Cailee places. 

"No offence, you're fine and all, just don't have hair as silky smooth as Jacob's." The hairdresser told Cailee but made sure her comment was loud enough for everyone to hear. "Oh wait, silly me," 

As Jacob settled in the makeup chair and began to ask if the drink he'd brought you was good, the hairdresser of your nightmares shoved her way between you and the person you were meant to be working on. 

"I left of a bobby pin, how'd I forget," She droned in an annoying pitch, nearly shoving you over in her attempt to get closer to Jacob. 

"Can you please get out of my space?" You called, annoyed that she was pushing you away from your station without a single polite excuse.

"Can you please stop being such a jealous bitch?" The hairdresser whipped to face you with a manic smile.

"Oh my God?" You almost laughed in shock at her comment when another coworker dared to reach out and pulled her away, and out of the trailer. Another hairdresser apologized to the room for the previous girl's behavior and stepped up to lead charge of Cailee's wig.

With no time to shake the rage that had been born in you, you pushed it down, biting your lip hard as you went about finding the right sponge for Jacob's foundation. 

"Are you okay?" He asked, seemingly worried. And that pissed you off too. Why'd he have to act like he cared so much? Why'd he have to be so damn wonderful?

"I'm fine. Thank you again for the coffee, it...is kind of bitter but it was a really sweet gesture, I swear. Close your eye's please." You responded as calm and cool as possible.

"Bitter... sweet..." Jacob winked, just for you to see. It was the best thing you'd ever witness. And the worst all the same. You were sure you blushed. You tilted his chin and struggling to suppress how much you'd miss when you didn't get to be this close to him. He stayed quiet as you finished his face, and so did you. When his makeup was done, almost everyone else had left the trailer. The last remaining beautician was walking out as you'd closed the case to your kit. 

"I thought you didn't like awkward silence." You dared to mention, as Jacob stood to leave. It wasn't like you'd thought to ask. It was just a thought that ended up blurted out. And then you were bold enough still to look up and right at the guy with those perfectly shaped eyes to find he'd already been staring right at you. 

"S'not so awkward with you."

You really wish he hadn't said that. You really wished you'd never prompted him too. You really wished he wasn't still standing there looking across the features of your face like he was waiting on you to respond. There was a knock on the door just in time, and a voice calling for Jacob to hurry to set. 

"I'll see you after lunch, right?" Jacob wondered as he moved toward the door. You muttered something like "Yeah sure," as you turned to start collecting your things. As far as Jacob knew you were headed to the craft table. But as your feet started marching out of the trailer, you found yourself headed toward the manager of the crew you'd been hired in with. You explained to her that you really thought it was best you turned in your resignation. 

You'd never dared yourself to tread the line during work. Never been so enamored with someone you were meant to be professional with. It wasn't in your best interest to see how far this went. And it wasn't in Jacobs best interest that you kept lingering around distracting him with stories and novel suggestions.

So, on a decided whim, you packed your things, swallowed frustrated tears, and headed home for good.

///

You let yourself be mad once your front door was shut and locked. You threw away the stupid coffee Jacob bought you. You turned the telly off and tossed the remote toward the hardwood when Euphoria came on. You muttered and cursed and slammed cabinets as you made a carb heavy comfort meal and called your best friend. 

The day went on and turned to night as you tried to stop feeling sorry for yourself. You began getting ready for bed, talking yourself into sleeping off all the weird feelings and events that had transpired today. Tomorrow, you'd find a new job and make sure to decline any with that one awful hairdressers name on the list of beauticians. 

As you sat on the edge of your bed and set a reminder for yourself to job hunt tomorrow afternoon, a notification interrupted your typing. 

Instagram was alerting you that one certain Jacob Elordi was sending you a fucking message. He'd followed you a couple weeks ago, when you handed him your phone to show him a picture of your beloved childhood pet. He scrolled away from it and found your handle to promptly pull up on his very own Instagram, following you with a smile.

Your eyes widened and your thumb worked faster than your brain, clicking the popup before you could talk yourself out of it. Oh, shit now he was going to know you opened his fucking stupid ass message. You really wished you hadn't met this boy. He wasn't even here and he was torturing your every thought. 

"You were NOT there after lunch as promised. Call me? xx"

Before your eyes displayed a row of numbers that if pressed would call Jacob Elordi's cell phone. You tried really hard to talk yourself out of it. But being away from him for the last ten hours had really done a number on your heart. It missed him more than your brain was afraid to admit. Your thumb clicked the numbers. Your phone started to ring. 

After one buzz he answered. 

"I got off set to hear you'd quit and left me to bear that horrid hairdresser without you? Was the coffee really that bad?" Jacob's voice crackled through the line, soft and saccharine. You chuckled morosely at his coffee joke before responding.

"No pleasant greeting. What if it wasn't me calling? What if it was some crazy fan girl?" You dared to venture. 

"Are you saying you're not a fan of mine?"

You wanted to assure him that you were probably his biggest, but sighed in place of a response, struggling to choose your words. 

"What happened? That hairdresser should be fired. You shouldn't've left." Jacob spoke, as you watched the traffic out your window and relished the sound of his voice in your ear. 

"It..." You couldn't help it. You couldn't hide it any longer. "It wasn't really her. I quit because of you, Jacob."

"Me? I- I'm sorry I thought we-" He sounded too worried, and you realized you'd spoken a little too cryptically.

"Not because you did anything wrong." You hurried to explain, interrupting his unnecessary apology. "It's me, not you." 

"Is this a break up? I never even got to ask you on a proper date." He laughed a humorless laugh.

"That's the thing." You said. "I like you way more than I should've ever let myself. It's too unprofessional for me to work with you and have these feelings. I'm sorry, I shouldn't even be telling you this. Everyone treats you like a piece of meat, I hate that I-"

"So... what I'm hearing..." Jacob's voice rose a bit as he interrupted you, catching your attention off guard. "Is that I can actually ask you on a proper date? And this doesn't have to be a break up at all."

"Oh! I- wait are you joking?" You blurted, shocked by the tone of his voice and the fact that it seemed like Jacob Elordi was asking you out. 

"I like you too, dummy. I've been doing my damnedest to make that clear. You know I don't just follow every wardrobe artist on Instagram and bring camera men cafe treats. I used my free coffee on you! I'm so sorry it was no good though." 

"It wasn't the worst coffee ever." You smiled, feeling a calm and hopeful buzz wash over you. 

"Well, let me take you on a proper date, for a proper cup of coffee, and talk you back on set." 

"I can date you, or be your makeup artist, but I will not allow myself to do both. I have a very strict moral compass as a working lady." 

"I'll choose the first option then by a long shot." You could hear Jacob's smile in the tone of his voice. You let him ramble a little longer about the day he'd had and how bad he felt that you'd been moved to quit. He asked you to meet him at the cafe across from the set during lunch tomorrow, and you promised you would in fact show up without a doubt this time. 

Fuck finding a new job tomorrow. You were going on an absolute dream date with Jacob. But you were most definitely ordering your own coffee.

[freakenomenon]

since you’ve already talked extensively about ted and ellens psychodramas + how they were displayed in the game, what do you think about other characters psychodramas like gorrister and benny?

sits back.

both of their psychodramas are confusing to me, but i prefer bennys over gorristers so ill talk about that first,,

i have like an EXTREME dislike for how they completely took away his entire character in the short story, especially with the erasure of his sexuality. but even beyond that. i just. Don't understand his character??? he was big and strong and handsome and hated the weak and. then what.

id understand if there was some kind of character motive beyond being perfect and not giving a damn point blank period. like if he was trying to prove something. to strive for perfection to the point of killing others because of SOMETHING. but they don't. i don't understand the point of completely reworking this characters already established and VERY WELL IMPLEMENTED backstory for anything other than censorship.

he refused to be weak in any way, but WHY.

it's not like with ellen ( sorry i cant resist ) where she grew up in a bad neighborhood where she was treated like nothing, so she decided to MAKE herself something.

which made it hard to cope with the fact she couldn't just rise above EVERYTHING.

or like with ted where he was forced to work for his family because of their poor financial situation, but then was pulled out of that by someone who was taking advantage of him.

which caused a giant rift in his identity.

benny has just. always been a cool big strong powerful man who didnt care about others!!@ and then when AM took him down he's not anymore boo hoo.

it's watering down what made bennys transformation from man to monkey so god damn horrifying. especially with the lack of compassion. yes sure he cares about nobody but himself BUT FUCKING. WHY? THEY DONT EVEN ELABORATE ON THIS IN THE MANUAL. FUCKING WHYYYYYY.

i like toto though, very fun little guy. very interesting character. he was like the only part of the psychodrama i could really,,, resonate? with.

now. gorristers psychodrama is.

what the hell is even going on

the only thing i could really gather from it is that instead of being an activist and a cautious "looker-aheader", gorrister was a truck driving alcoholic who had a bad marriage and an abusive mother in law who blamed him for driving his wife batshit crazy because he beat her. but. other than that i don't.

understand half of it. what do you mean edna killed gorrister. what do you mean Harry cut his heart out. jesse, what the fuck are you talking about.

i don't fully understand WHY we are supposed to sympathize with gorrister when he is. SOMEWHAT responsible for the mental descent of glynis. obviously edna and harry played a huge part in this, im not ignoring that at all. but the end of the psychodrama implying that gorrister should just forgive himself and bury the past because he wasn't FULLY at fault for punting wife into the looneybin. What.

once again, i don't understand the need for a complete flip of this characters original premis unless it's for CENSORSHIP purposes. alongside that at least the puzzles and the dialogue within bennys psychodrama make SENSE. gorristers just.

DONT?

it's not that the puzzles don't have ANY logic like a good one or two of ellens. THEY JUST. ARENT SOMETHING THAT A NORMAL PERSON WOULD DO OR BE ABLE TO FIGURE OUT WITHOUT JUST CLICKING SHIT ON RANDOM TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS. wait. Wait.

Okay. i know this is supposed to be a rant about their characters but. I just wanna say that a lot of the puzzles. Are things that RELATE to the characters and their stories and backgrounds. which adds to the enjoyment. WHEN YOU REMOVE THE ENJOYMENT OF THE PUZZLES. IT KIND OF MAKES ME. NOT LIKE GORRISTER SO MUCH.

if i kept going id just end up totally rewriting the characters as a whole and that's something for another tumblr rant to soothe my ever expanding rage.

im gonna go get a cheese stick

[natugood]

It’s so wild how the baselines for “normal” and “healthy” are so subjective and also how there is not really any way to like, compare? I used to tell people my grandpa was murdered when my dad was 17 as like, a fun fact about me, cause like I didn’t know the guy I didn’t have any emotional attachment to his death, but like, apparently that is not the standard for family history?? And like, I think about it with trauma especially cause how am I supposed to know if me and the people I’m surrounded by have suffered more, less, or about average levels of trauma compared to the *average* person??? And there’s so many different things that can fuck people up, so something that’s fucked up in my life and normal in someone else’s might also have an inverse where another thing is normal in my life and fucked in that same other person’s life, and we both experience trauma but it’s different??? How do you know what is fucked up and worthy of freaking out about vs something that’s fucked up but something other people just move beyond without much effort??? Like, I feel like I grew up in a place where everyone around me had trauma and pain and shit, and idk if that’s normal or not. Idk if that’s just the human experience or if that’s like, fucked up. Sorry all of us are either children of abuse or children of parents of we’re children of abuse. And since that’s all I know, idk if that’s EVERYONE or if that’s actually not standard???? Are there people who grow up trauma free with parents who are trauma free and friends who are trauma free??? Is that the reality of some people?? What is that like??? And then like, there’s all the weird intersections of trauma and privilege and culture and identity im not even gonna get started on here cause that’s a fucking dissertation right there but like. wtf. It’s wild and annoying cause I just wanna know if what I’m experiencing in my life is *normal* or whatever or if it’s like. Fucked up. Cause how can you tell??? You can’t!!! And I hate it!!!!

[morganmerylhodgepodge]

What do you do

When your closest friend is driving you crazy but there is nothing you can do to get away from them? When due to circumstance beyond your control, you are stuck with them?

What do you do when you feel guilty for being a selfish bad friend for always being frustrated that they seem to forget basic things about you? And seem to ignore your needs? Ignore your own declarations about how you will take care of your own body and decide they know what's best for you?

What if all you really have in the world is that person to talk to, but you're totally incompatible with each other and they are making you miserable? And making you feel like you're making THEM miserable as well?

Am I a selfish person for not considering their feelings, when their feelings are focused on a rule they've set around my physical appearance, meanwhile they dangle the possibility of my Healthcare over my head? Am I a bad person?

Am I a bad person for constantly thinking of killing myself even though I don't go through with it, because it seems like they just don't care about me as I am, and only want the hypothetical me they see in their head?

When they said I made them drink, was it just a joke? Or was it being jovial over circumstance? Or were they secretly serious? Do they really think that way? Or is it actually true? And what does it say that I could say the same thing, in all those different tones, in reverse?

How do I deal with this situation? Do I just give in and give this person what they want, even if it makes me uncomfortable? Because I need them to love me? Because I'm so miserable right now, maybe fake affection and the possibility of solving my problems is better than nothing at all?

Is it bad that I want to draw again?

That I keep asking to go to see a doctor over and over?

I must have become unbearably annoying at some point.

I don't want to shave. I'm not trans. Though Im a lesbian and consider myself an ally. I told them the reason I don't want to shave my beard is because it's natural. It just grew there without any intervention so why shave it off? But I keep cutting my head hair and thus the hypocrisy is easily revealed. The truth is I just like it. I like having a beard. But I'm supposed to be ashamed of that. I'm supposed to shave it off.

So many excuses. "For social connections" "No partner would want that" etc.

Next their telling me that somehow it's because I'm overweight I've grown excess facial hair. Pardon me but while I'm not a doctor I find that somewhat dubious. Of course, they aren't a doctor either but they are they expert in my own body.

And I guess I should feel responsible for the fact that me having facial hair means they can't go out for St Patrick's day because now they don't have anyone to go with.

AITA?

I'm tired. I just want to make things again. Work on projects and forget about all of this.

But I can't draw anymore. My arms are still inexplicably weak. I keep trying but nothing is working. Since I can't go to the doctor I'm desperate for some sort of home solution.

Maybe I don't deserve one. Maybe im just such a disgusting terrible person both inside and out that I deserve all of this? Maybe this is just how it's supposed to be.

I'm sorry

Bit of a rant. Not what you come to Tumblr for. Idk what I'm even doing anymore.

Unfollow if you must. I'll be sad, but I'm not surprised. If there is any a true statement it's that everyone deserves better than me.

[crocojagged]

This is a follow-up to my last post on Alyadrien. I ended up not rewatching Rocketear before the Hack-San English dub came out, but I think that worked out better for this.

If I remember correctly Alya never says point-blank that she doesn't like Chat Noir, so that will be interesting to look out for because there have been slight hints of her having a crush on him since all the way back in the Pharaoh episode of Season 1 (see this post).

Now that I have watched it I have some thoughts, so let's break it down.

"Are you insane?! I already have a boyfriend!"

We've got deflection and pulling the boyfriend card, but no actual denial of feelings.

"And FYI, with him it's not just [small heart], it's more like [big heart]."

So you do have small heart feelings for Chat Noir?

"Sorry, Chat Noir, but my Nino is a thousand times more irresistible than you."

So there is a baseline level of irresistible that Chat Noir is to you that Nino surpasses?

"Besides, I don't really know your real identity, and I could never fall for someone I didn't really know."

This immediately begs the question what would Alya think if she found out Chat Noir is Adrien? We are gonna put a pin in that for now.

The main things I find interesting from this convo are that Alya never actually denies having feelings for Chat Noir, and that she loves Nino way too much for her to act on whatever latent feelings that she may have. Both Adrien and Alya care wayyy too much about Nino to hurt him this way.

Here's where things get ... interesting. We know from Ephemeral that nobody is supposed to know both Chat Noir and Ladybug's identity because it is too dangerous, but Luka currently does. It seems plausible that Alya could find out Adrien is Chat Noir by the end of the season, since she already knows Marinette is Ladybug, and that would put her and Luka in a similar position of knowing both identities.

Luka very clearly still loves Marinette from what we have seen in Crocoduel, Wishmaker, and Ephemeral. We do not see this in Kagami's interactions with Adrien in Mr. Pigeon 72, Gabriel Agreste and Glaciator 2. She cares for Adrien's well-being, but she no longer has feelings for him.

So if they revisit love square rivals, as it has been hinted a bit with Lukanette and that one line from a recent interview, I think the other "rivalry" in question will be Alyadrien and not Adrigami. If that seems like a stretch let's consider some relevant events in the latter half of season 4 except we only call everyone by their real first name:

Glaciator 2: Adrien is fully rejected by Marinette and he stops flirting with her.

Hack-San: Alya is Marinette's temporary replacement and fights alongside Adrien. She is in the role normally filled by the love of his life.

Rocketear: Alya and Adrien are paired together in a movie portraying them. Nino fears Alya is cheating on him with Adrien. Adrien checks on Alya to make sure she doesn't have feelings for him and later finds out that Alya is also a superhero that he has flirted with before.

Qilin: Alya maybe loses her miraculous??? This is based on what can be gleaned from the visuals of Dearest Family (no kwami pack) and Ephemeral (Trixx near the sewing box), so there's still a lot unclear, but this seems like it will be relevant.

The interactions these two have when it's laid out this way and not obscured by the identity shenanigans sure are something. Imagine how awkward they would feel if Alya found out his identity and Adrien found out she was also Scarabella.

The biggest point against something happening is Alya and Nino's relationship. It's hard to imagine them breaking up at all, and it's even harder to imagine anything happening between Alya and Adrien while they're still together. Maybe they break up because of Nino revealing her identity in Rocketear. Otherwise I have no clue as it would likely be from an episode we don't have yet.

But perhaps these aren't meant to be proper love rivalries at all. Maybe it's more about getting closer with someone in a kind of ambiguous but mostly friendship way. This would line up with what we have seen of Lukanette and Alyadrien interactions this season as well.

I could see Alya and Adrien getting closer if Alya finds out his identity, and I could see her being a really important support to him as Chat Noir. We see this in Hack-San when she tells Marinette to talk to him after the fight because she could tell from the insecurities he expressed in his anger that he needed it. People have said before that Adrien doesn't need the same kind of support in his civilian life that Marinette does, but he is struggling a lot with his role as Chat Noir this season. He thinks he's not needed on the team, he doubts whether Ladybug trusts him, and he wonders why she keeps information from him. Who better to help with this than Ladybug's current confidante?

[dazed--xx]

Hello, I Love You (2)

Member: Soft Yandere! Namjoon x Reader

Genre: Angst, smut, slow burn,  

Word Count: 1,522

Trigger Warning: therapy, age gap, crossing professional boundaries, stalking, voyeurism, accidental exhibitionism, masturbation.   

A/N: I am trash i am so sorry i work at TMobile and its cellphone season ill be able to upload more frequently after the christmas season. any way im gonna have a new series soon and i hope you guys enjoy this one requests are open rn.

Your eyes trailed over his plump lips. The crease of his eyebrows as he typed away on his desktop. Your bottom lip made its way between your teeth. Thighs tightening against each other, fuck he was angelic. Your fingers twirling away at your hair; You wondered what it would be like for him to eat you out on the desk separating you. You haven't felt him against you since that one-day you guys hugged. And if you were being honest with yourself you’d be beyond embarrassed at how soaked your panties were when you got home. Over a hug, A HUG, Your ex-whatever would have laughed at that. Yoongi’s stoic expression no longer on his face and probably die from laughter at how pathetic it was.  

Your eyes drifted to Namjoon's fingers typing on the keyboard. How would they feel inside of you? His tongue attacking your clit fingers deep inside of you. You can feel your breath growing heavy, your heart hosting the Daytona 500.  “Y/N?!” Namjoon snapped you out of your trance. “I-I’m sorry what did you say” You ask, your cheeks growing a bright scarlet. “Are you okay? You seemed really in thought, maybe you wanted to share something troubling you?” He questions without repeating his previous statement, your eyes grew wide, throat as dry as the Sahara. what in the fuck were you supposed to tell him? He raised his eyebrow at your expression. A knowing smirk grew on his face and was quickly wiped away.  

His gaze burning holes into you, your eyes meet for a second. He winks then resumes typing away on his computer. You sat there stunned. He pointed to the clock “Your appointment has been over for 5 minutes” He chuckles. “Oh! I am so sorry I didn’t realize. I spaced out pretty serious there.” You chuckled awkwardly. A sincere smile grew on his face, “Its no problem” “still I know you must have another appointment and I went over the time that’s not fair”

“Nope you’re the last one have a good day” He nods simply; eyes never leaving the monitor.  

A frown appears on your face-------have a good day? HAVE A GOOD DAY? You nod and race out of the room. Have a good day............you scoff as you enter the elevator. Maybe you misread the situation and he wasn’t interested in you.  

You trudged your way toward the bus stop outside the office building. Your eyes drifting back to the office building.  

Namjoon’s P.O.V

He watched your petite figure sit on the bench at the bus stop. You were fucking gorgeous, He noticed the small frown on your face as you left. He hated the sight, but he knew he needed you to be distracted. From the many things you told him, he got the sense you hated the idea of being rejected or ignored, it would eat you alive if anyone even him ignored you.  

Was it wrong?

Yes.

Did he care?

No.  

Why should he? It was your fault, You were too enticing. You were absolute perfection and he had to have you by any means necessary. And if he had to hurt you a little to make you beyond happy in the long run, then he was willing to do that if that’s what it took. He took note of the bus you disappeared into. Slowly, following behind it staring as each passenger exited, everyone except for you.  

Looking at the characters exiting the bus, he decides once you were together you would no longer participate in this. You could get hurt or worse. He wouldn’t let that happen, His eyes drifted to the familiar figure exiting the vehicle.  

You headed down the side walk. He parked in a nearby park, exiting his car. Eyes never leaving your obviously pouty demeanor. He noticed the way your head hang low as you trudged down the sidewalk. His heart ached, He longed to just run to you; take you in his arms and kiss you.  

But he pushed that down, he had a goal to meet.  

The moment he saw you walk up the path toward a small house. His heart soared, YES! He found it.  

Y/N P.O.V

Your eyes were full of tears, honestly, you don’t even know why you feel so sad. Its not like you had broken up. You hadn't even done anything besides hug, but you really thought he was interested. What made you come to that original conclusion you have no idea yet you thought you could feel the sexual tension maybe you were just over thinking his intentions.  

Walking into your kitchen your put a pot of tea on.

Maybe he was just a nice guy....

Namjoon’s P.O.V  

He LOVED your little apartment. It would be perfect for both of you. He stared longingly at your tear stained face. The pouty expression never left your face, he remembered the dejected way you walked out of his office. He’d make it up tenfold when he moved in. His eyes drifted to the quaint little apartment. His eyes only being able to take in the kitchen and part the living room through the door way.  

He imagined himself creeping up behind you lips pressing to your neck. A small whimper releasing from your lips as he sucked a love bite on the soft flesh. Your fingers tangling in his hair as he connected your lips. He imagined the way you would look as he pulled your panties down.

He bit his lip, slowly backing away from the window. Damn the meeting he had scheduled with his mother.  

Y/N P.O.V

The rest of the day past in a blur, your previous disappointment forgetting as you watched a drama.  

“Do you regret it?” The main character Park Jae-on asked rain drenching his black shirt “Do you regret what we did?”  

“Yes.” The female lead replied “I regret it”  

Your eyes watered as the scene continued. You could see the look of distraught on the main characters face as his romantic counterpart continued “You, this messed up relationship, and everything we did. But I won’t blame you I brought this on myself. ” the camera flashes back to the male leads sad expression.

“I knew there was no happy ending for us, But I was an idiot for getting my hopes up and thinking you could be sincere” she snapped.  

You felt your tears streaming down your face as the scene progressed. Your heart in your ass, “You told me I had the right to decide our relationship…….I don’t ever want to see you again”  

Your hand slammed your laptop closed. “What?! WHAT!?? NA-BI-AH what are you doing!?” you shout to yourself. Finally noticing how late it is you made your way over to your bedroom. Reaching in your nightstand, you pull out the cylindrical device. Pulling your shorts and panties off, you sit on the bed. Your fingers slowly gliding over your slit. Your pussy is wet, turning the device on you can feel the pulsing vibrations through your hand. Leaning back against your headrest, you glide the vibrator over your slit, a loud gasp releases from your lips.

Namjoon’s P.O.V

If there was a god, He would be his number one follower at the sight of you perched in your bed legs wide open vibrator between your folds. He felt his cock get rock hard at the sight. His eyes drift around him, no one insight. He unbuckled his belt and slid his cock out between his zipper. His hand gripped the tip slowly sliding it down to the base.  

He heard your beautiful moans coming out of your bedroom window.  

He pictured himself in place of the toy, he wondered how sweet you would taste on his tongue. The taste of your sweet sweet pussy. His hips stuttered in his grip “fuck....” he whispered.

Y/N’S P.O.V

You couldn’t help how your mind drifted back to Namjoon. The feeling on your clit making you writhe against your hand. “Fuck......” your eyes rolled to the back of your head.

You imagined how it felt for him to be fucking you into your mattress. The way his thick cock would stretch you apart, you could feel a knot in your stomach. You imagined his words while he fucked you “You like this cock huh baby?” You nod and answer no one “Yes” Your moans loud toes curling.  

Namjoon’s P.O.V

He could feel himself growing closer to cumming. Please baby cum for me he begged silently. He saw how your toes curled in your bed. He knew you wanted him to watch you. Why else would you be spread out, exposing your wet cunt to the window. He felt himself lose control in his hand; his cum launching onto the wall.  

The post orgasmic haze quickly leaving him. His eyes widened as he realized what he was doing. He yanked his pants up, blowing you a loving kiss; promising to see you like this again.  

His heart raced as he got back into his car. A sly smirk growing on his face as he smiled back toward your house.

[lantsovsupremacist]

nikolai lantsov: august

@wafflesandschemingfaces requested a piece inspired by august, and i am more than happy to push the august agenda. THIS TOOK WAY TOO LONG IM SO SORRY!!! i hope it’s okay that i worked this in as a part two of “mirrorball.”

happy AUGUST babes! this was originally going to end angsty but i was feeling generous so enjoy the happier ending :)))

he tasted like salt, which had been a rarity at home. with the prices spiking in the cities, the smaller markets in the countryside could not supply even the simplest spice. having reignited the placated desire, you were greedy for more of him.

over the last seven months, you took advantage of nearly every opportunity the volkvony offered. you strengthened your abilities at sea with the careful instruction of the two other tidemakers onboard. tamar’s twin brother, toyla, guided your interest in grisha literature and history.

certain adjustments proved more difficult than others. you were no stranger to early work or rising in a shared room. however, despite the bright flush from the use of your powers, your muscles ached under the strain of the new practice. you found your training to be an unfamiliar yet cherished consistency.

you struggled with feelings of inferiority at first. the other female tidemaker, yelena, was a stowaway from the little palace. disregarding her heavy contempt for the school there, her experience helped you immensely.

peter was also a comfort in his own way. another self-taught grisha himself, it only pained you to hear of his family’s acceptance and attempts to teach him. your family might not have thrown you to the fjerdans but they offered little to help you control the power.

time could not move backwards to prevent your wounds but it could move forward to heal them.

now, perched on the deck beside yelena, you were calmer and more confident than ever before. you watched sturmhond out of the corner of you eye, turning your head in the wind to guide a piece of hair back out of your face. his white shirt billowed in the wind, sleeves rolled up and hands in the air to help dictate one of his famous stories.

“you look at him as if he hung the stars in the sky himself,” yelena snorted, elegantly drawing up a rather powerful wave to hasten your journey south, “trust me, he’ll take the hint and never let it go.”

but for you, perhaps he had. a new constellation, at least. three stars shined brighter than before for you, now visible to the naked eye. freedom, purpose, and opportunity. his gracious offer extended to beyond the imaginable.

“i could never have dreamed of this,” you replied earnestly, lightly bumping into her hip with your own.

“kerch does not have blondes, no?” she teased, exaggerating her already thick ravkan accent.

you blushed, nonetheless, “you’re going to get us off task, yelena.”

she rolled her eyes, returning her attention to the sea with a grunt. you did not miss the small smile that barely touched her face after, however. you would have missed it if she had not adjusted your arm, lifting it higher to create a higher crest.

in truth, you did not mind. you enjoyed observing. from your station at one side of the hull, you had a suitable view of the surrounding activity on the deck. storytelling only happened to be one of the aforementioned pursuits by the crew.

—

the first time was an accident. you nearly ran into him one morning during your second week onboard. the sun had filtered through the cracks in your room, beckoning your rise. you chased the sunbeams up the staircase adjacent to the door and soaked in the warmth they graciously provided.

the sunrise was magnificent. too distracted by the beauty painted in front of you in the sky, your elbow caught the captain’s. your eyes immediately went wide, an apology poised on your tongue. growing up with seven siblings, you were accustomed to making yourself smaller to allot room for the others. what other habits would you lose during your time aboard the volkvony?

“that’s quite alright,” sturmhond replied, eyes twinkling at the pale pink flush of your cheeks, “i suppose the sunrise caught my attention, as well,” he turned his head back, “though, that might not be all that did.”

as the tempo of your heart approached a crescendo, you nodded with a nervous smile. your eldest sister’s experiences with boys were all you had to go off of. your parents were together, yes, but as you aged, you realized that the nature of their union simply secured stability for the both of them. love had been an after thought and a forgotten one at that.

“want to watch it with me?” his eyes were brighter than the sun, more vibrant than the various hues splattered across the sky.

sounding just as much of a child as did he, you responded, “i would love to.”

he waited for no counter, immediately taking your hand in his to nearly drag you up the stairs. his hand was surprisingly warm despite the slight chill in the morning air. your brain fought the feeling of his touch at first, recognizing the pressure of his fingers now intertwined with yours but refusing to reciprocate the gesture.

by the time the sun reached a pinnacle in the sky, shining it seemed for just the two of you, you had given him your hand and your heart.

you let him memorize your story, pausing when he could not remember the order of your siblings. you repeated it until he could. the mornings were filled with whispers and soft touches. you thought he was helping you write a new story—one where maybe, you could have your perspective at the forefront.

—

the pressure of his his knee shamelessly pressing into yours dominated your thoughts. you decided that it would be more disconcerting to slide away from him but each passing moment added fuel to the fire of his warmth. you did not know what to think about the way he made you feel.

“i’m not who you think i am,” the privateer spoke, deadly calm. his tone did not waver, nor did the contact his eyes maintained with the horizon.

you wanted to tease the boy beside you but one look at the frown overtaking his face gave you pause. you felt increasingly uncomfortable, which you never did with him, not even when he first introduced himself. it was all wrong.

“i’m not sure what you mean,” you whispered hesitantly, trailing your fingers in the dust of the deck before they grew too numb to control.

his jaw clenched. his eyes bore into the sea. you only heard the sound of his breath—strangled and uneven.

“sturmhond,” you tried, watching as the wind ruffled his tawny and unkept hair.

“no,” he strained, “nikolai.”

an unusual name but a beautiful name, you decided.

“i-i don’t understand,” you fought to get the words out—battling with breaths instead of bombs, syllables instead of swords.

you wanted to push it all aside for naive hope, content with your pocket of fool’s gold.

“do you remember when we sailed to the outskirts of ravka?” he questioned you, gaining control of the previous shake in his voice.

you hummed in reply, trying to put together the pieces of his puzzle before he realized you had not finished yet.

the blonde looked like he was in pain when he next spoke, “the prince,” he began with his eyes timidly locked on your own, “his name is nikolai.”

contrary to your lack of education, you were clever and thus, able to fill in the blanks for yourself.

“who else knows?” you might have hoped for something more but you were not innocent enough to believe the prince only shared his identity with the girl who had succumbed to his longing stares.

“the twins,” he began with a sigh too heavy for him to carry alone, “yelena. one or two others.”

yelena knew. for some reason, your stomach turned at that. you knew it was misplaced and unnecessary jealously but there it sat all the same, weighing you down like an unmovable stone. a similar pressure pulsed behind your eyes, forcing a collection of tears to your waterline.

he offered an apology with words, but it was his eyes that held the true sincerity, the way his fingers restlessly knotted in his lap, and that even though it was a fight, he had moved aside to give you space. you wanted to believe that everything would be okay despite the change, that it could be, at least.

your heart ached. you never wanted him further away from you. or closer. his body was too familiar now.

nikolai never belonged to you, not really. and even if ravka would inevitably melt his golden heart and carelessly mold it to their benefit, he belonged to the broken country. not to you. never to you—alone.

with that, of course, you could not belong to him, either. a farmer’s daughter who did not complete her primary studies. maybe you did have a claim to grisha power, but you knew enough about ravka to understand that you would be a soldier. you already felt like one, fighting an endless battle between your head and heart. diligence and desire.

“you let me—,” you swallowed thickly, “give myself to you. you made it so easy to be sure.” now, you were no longer as certain in your decisions.

he kicked his feet in the water, unable to carry your gaze lest he lose it much like your heart, “i hoped it could be different.”

you searched for anything to ground yourself in along the horizon, burning your eyes in the sinking sun, “you’ll have to go back, then.”

he nodded, his head bobbing more fitfully than the waves, “yes.”

your did not want to talk any longer because if you did, you were sure that you would cry. you decided that you had, in fact, been foolish. how could you live off of hope alone? your destiny belonged to the fields not the sea.

“okay.”

“okay?” nikolai repeated, voice dancing between disbelief and what might have been anger, unable to remember the next step, “that’s all that’s left?”

“i think so,” you replied airily, turning to brush a lock of his hair behind his ear, “because i understand. i might not want to. well, i certainly don’t want to but—,”

you were cut off and for the blonde boy beside you to do it, you knew he had good reason. he gave you a voice simply by listening, something few had done for you before. your words had been stolen by his lips in the end.

“i might not be able to give you nikolai,” his lips were down turned but now flushed with color, “but i can give you sturmhond. i can give you nik,” he brought your hand to his heart, “that is if you’ll have me?”

you did not belong to prince nikolai of ravka. he could not be a character in your story. but, you could write another chapter. you could change the plot for the better.

you kissed him with as much fervor as he had earlier. he twisted his fingers into your hair, winding a passage to the back of your neck. you curled into the warmth radiating from his side, fisting his shirt before slowly pulling away.

“i can’t believe you’re a prince.”

that earned you a laugh. the laugh you knew you could never live with losing. if you could not have him entirely, you would hold onto anything that could be yours. just yours. for now, the heat of the sun on your faces split wide with grins was enough.

grishaverse taglist: @just-a-human-witha-pen @ilovemarvelanne1 @story-scribbler @subjecta13-thefangirl

[1kook]

some way, some how

jeon jungkook x (f) reader

Summary: Maybe you don’t know Jungkook as well as you thought you did. Maybe he doesn’t know you. Warnings: emotional constipation, toxic ex, internalized misogyny, jk has bad experiences w/his ex’s dad, one scene where jk throws up, brief episode of panic, mentions of terminal cancer (minor); smut; fingering, praise kink, face fucking, spitting kink, cunnilingus, unprotected sex on top of a car im sorry Misc: autoshop owner!jk, businesswoman!oc, slice of life, childhood crushes, friends to lovers, ex gfs, pining, country bumpkin pjm w/crush on oblivious oc, ex-bf kth but it’s not real lol Wc: 19.4k (wow!!!)

the spirit of auto shop jk possessed me n next thing i knew i was 11k into a drabble. if ur curious: the 1975 corvette, car at the end, the tweed suitskirt (not actually chanel ☹️sowwyyy) also: this is the longest fic I've written!!!!! clap for me!!!!! i proofread the first few paragraphs n was like thats enough professionalism for the day

inspired by ain’t no mountain high enough one of my fave songs ever🥺 the title is a lyric from the song bc i love it so much enjoy !!

The garage is mostly dark when you enter, the faint hum of a radio quietly filtering through the stagnant room, its source coming from the back wall, where the only light is. It’s a rolling lamp, shining down an ugly yellow glow onto the figure of one man.

Jungkook’s sitting in that same rolling stool he always is, the metal one that’s rusted beyond repair, the cushion so uncomfortably flat. He’s caught up in whatever paint job he’s been tasked with this time around, a classic muscle car from what looks like the 80’s. He’s humming along to the radio, so caught up in stenciling out his design that he doesn’t notice you creep behind him until you’re very purposefully rattling the tool cart beside him, a teasing “boo!” making him jump.

“Fuck, you scared me,” he gasps, rubs over his chest as if to check if his heart is in fact still there. You grin, brandish your bag of takeout out for him before he can lecture you on the dangers of startling people who work around very complex machinery. Instead, all he says is, “you’re an angel.”

Once you’ve got the food carefully scattered across his work bench, your cherry cola tucked next to a canister of gasoline like that’s the safest practice, Jungkook wastes no time diving into all the details of his project, the 1975 Chevy Corvette behind him. The longer you look at it, the more you feel you’ve seen it somewhere. Probably a car show, you presume.

“Purrs like a kitten,” he sighs dreamily, completely ignoring the way half his toppings slide out from the opposite end of his cheeseburger. You don’t, and you swipe a fallen pickle from his tray before he can catch you.

“A kitten?” You ask, glance over at the car. It’s desperately in need of a paint job, and you only realize this now as you stare at it more in depthly. The niggling feeling that you know this car is still there, but you ignore it in favor of indulging your best friend. “Don’t people usually compare cars to bigger, better cats?”

There’s a taped stencil running alongside the car, a thick stripe followed by a thinner one, and you suppose Jungkook’s trying to spice her up, give her back the same youthfulness she probably had in her prime. What better way to do so than by adding some classic stripes alongside it.

Jungkook hums, gulps down his soda noisily. “Not this one. Never heard an engine as soft as hers.”

You roll your eyes. For a minute, the two of you quietly chew through your burgers, the radio filling in the gaps while you analyze the car. You know this car, but you can’t remember where. Jungkook coughs into his palm, probably from trying to inhale his fries too fast like he does every time you go to the diner you’re eating from today.

The diner.

A mouthful of braces. A pretty waitress. A strict dad.

“Holy shit, this is Sojin’s dad’s car,” you inhale, the memories from high school suddenly hitting you full force. Jungkook chokes, out of surprise this time, and furiously goes to deny your claims. “This is totally his car. The one he tried to run you over with when he caught you trying to put her on the back of your bike.”

“He didn’t try to run me over,” Jungkook whines, and the tips of his ears are red from your revelation.

You glare. “Why are you fixing that asshole’s car for him?” You interrogate, the last quarter of your burger forgotten in favor of squeezing the truth out of him. You’d had enough of that treacherous woman and her equally deranged father causing Jungkook trouble, and to catch him still helping her now, almost ten years later, was enough to make a brain vessel pop.

He shrugs, avoids your eyes as he picks through his fries. The radio is still on, some tune you recognize from those old days at the diner when Jungkook had become so unbelievably smitten with the part timer that served you milkshakes every Wednesday afternoon.

He had been in love with her the moment he saw her, and the look in his eyes was only magnified by those dorky glasses he wore pre-lasik. You'd been his friend long enough, recognized the jump of his scrawny thigh beneath the table. Like a bunny, thumping in excitement at the sight of her.

Sojin was... full of surprises.

She was nothing less than a supermodel, long legs carrying her around the diner as if it was her runway. She was nice too, so you hadn’t originally had an excuse to dislike her. She was nice, and so endeared with your best friend that it was inevitable when they began dating. Her presence consumed the end of your high school careers, overtook the time that should have been yours and Jungkook’s last year before being thrown into adulthood. He decided on studying at a technical school nearby—per your encouragement to save money—while you travelled five hours out for your degree in business. That last year, when you had finally come to terms with your feelings, had been so painfully ripped away by Sojin and her never-ending list of teenage drama, and by Sojin’s dad and his overbearing need to police her and Jungkook every chance he got.

Jungkook still hung out—“Sojin was busy, do you wanna do something?”—but more often than not those hang outs consisted of Jungkook telling you about her and her dad, about how hard he tried to get into his good graces.

The bike incident had only been one of many. Times where Jungkook would put his heart—and life—on the line for that girl only for it to be in vain every time she broke up with him over the simplest things. You’d heard stories from Jungkook, all told with a tight smile, of a handshake that would bruise, a man chasing him with a bat, of a car following him to school. All things he put up with for a girl who didn’t care for him. One day, after Jungkook had grudgingly sat through an hour long dinner with her family, the stare of her father piercing through him, she broke up with him because she didn’t like how long his hair had gotten.

(If anyone were to ask you, he was handsome with long hair. Dreamy even.)

He cut it that same day.

As her childishness grew, you quickly came to dislike her. She strung Jungkook around, you thought, and just when you thought she was finally done toying with him and making his life difficult in the sneakiest ways, the damn kid started hitting the gym. His growing frame, toned arms and now straightened teeth had turned him into a heartthrob, and Sojin was just as aware of this as you were. “Don’t we look perfect together?” She’d ask, twirl around him like they were on the cover of a magazine and not standing on his chipped front porch.  

Needless to say, by the time graduation had rolled around you despised the woman. You absolutely disliked how she treated Jungkook, how she let her father treat Jungkook without ever stepping up and defending him. Granted, you didn’t know exactly what went on in her household behind closed doors, you’d seen enough of her uncaring attitude to want to ram her and her dad’s head against the hood of the car.

Which is why seeing the old car, in Jungkook’s shop nonetheless, was rekindling a boiling hatred in your chest. “That man should rot in hell for all he put you through,” you huff, glare at the car like it holds some magical connection to him and he can feel the intensity of your stare.

“___,” Jungkook scolds, swirls his cup around to distract himself. “He was just trying to protect his only daughter,” he defends, quietly, like it’s what he tells himself to justify all those years of mistreatment. Even when he and Sojin had continued through college, it had never stopped. You, being five hours away, couldn’t do a damn thing. “Besides, the guy’s old as hell now.”

You snort, finally breaking your staring match with the car. Glancing at Jungkook, he’s got that same forlorn expression on his face, the one he started wearing when he first came to terms with the fact that her dad would never like him. There was a time it was stuck permanently on his face, the pressure and the discomfort that came from the father of the girl you’ve dated for five years looking at you like you were nothing more than a speck of dirt on the bottom of his shoe.

When you came back from school, educated and confident, you almost didn’t recognize your best friend. Tall and broad, tattoos splattered over his arm. Hair long like you loved it, but eyes still as round and wondrous as they’d been when you were kids. He had his own place now, he told you, and you vaguely remembered all the times he mentioned him and Sojin moving in together, mentally preparing yourself to see that wench for the first time in a while.

Much to your surprise, there was no Sojin in sight. No lingering artifacts of her presence. Nothing that showed she existed in this space besides an ugly orange mug she’d given him for his birthday one year, tucked into the very back of his cabinets. They’d broken up, he explained. Almost immediately after graduation.

After stringing him along for the better part of five years, she had decided this wasn’t what she wanted. No, what she wanted was a man ten years her senior with an abundance of cash to flow. Jungkook hadn’t cried. Hadn’t even looked the tiniest bit upset when you ordered pizza and drank some beer, watched your favorite episodes of The Simpsons like you were seventeen and avoiding your homework again.

You stayed the night, a little too tipsy to drive home. Besides, Jungkook had a spare bedroom. It was a room beside his, just a full bed with a chest of drawers. You liked it, liked the scent of him surrounding you after only seeing each other for a couple weeks in between months of distance. You liked it, because when he shifted in bed you realized the beds were pressed against the same wall, and you liked it until the shared wall spared you no secrets, and you listened to him quietly sob into his pillow.

“Old or not, he’s still the devil,” you murmur, snapping back to the present where Jungkook is wheeling himself closer to the car again. “Where did you find that thing anyway?”

He stays silent, quietly pretending like he still has something to do on the car besides paint it. Then, “I bumped into Sojin at the store.”

You sigh, drop your head between your shoulders. You can only imagine what whirlwind of a sob story she had to throw on him to win this favor.

“Kook,” you start, gauging his reaction only from his backside. His muscles ripple beneath his dark t-shirt, his usual red jumpsuit knitted around his waist. “What happened?”

Again, silence.

You say nothing, let him sort through the hurt on his own while you creep up behind him, sliding your hands over his shoulders and pressing down on the cricks behind his neck. He melts into your touch, head lolling forwards as a quiet sigh escapes him.

“She told me she was low on cash, and she needed the car to get to work,” he confesses, and from his ducked position, his voice trembles. You roll your eyes.

“And the paint job?”

A particularly rough press of your fingers has a whimper escaping him. God, this boy needed to see a chiropractor and a masseuse soon. All that hunching over and under these cars was doing a number on his back.

“I… I figured I might as well fix up the exterior too.” Of course he would, you think, Jungkook’s heart was stupidly big and easy to manipulate. He would get so swept up in it sometimes, trying to do the best he can for everyone’s benefit that he’d ignore himself.

You sit in his confession, fingers digging into his skin for a few minutes as you consider what to say.

The mature adult in you, the logical half of you, wants to hit him upside the head, scold him for letting that wench into his life again so easily. You were going on twenty-six now, all three of you, and you didn’t have time to be fixing him every time that childish woman decided to toy with him. Granted, it’s been four years since you last saw her, since you heard him muffle his cries on the other side of the wall, and you liked to think Jungkook was a respectful adult of society now. He didn’t have time to get dragged around by self-absorbed women with insane fathers.

The other part, the best friend since childhood, wants to run away. Wants to pack Jungkook into a suitcase and take him far away from here and from her. Unlike you, who now lived in the city, Jungkook had stayed in your small hometown, a quiet place just outside the bustling city. It was difficult to ensure his happiness when you were always forty-five minutes out of reach. It would be so much easier to just take him and fly to another province, maybe on the beach, Jungkook loved the beach.

“Listen,” he says, successfully pulling you out from your spiral. “I know what you’re gonna say and I just wanna tell you it’s not like that.”

You blink, hands stilling on his shoulders. Your lack of movement allows him to spin around on his chair, gaze up at you with the same shiny gaze he’s given you ever since you were kids. “I’m just doing her this tiny favor. She looked...” he trails off, face scrunching to find the words.

“Like shit?” You propose, and he smiles. “Like flaming dumpster shit behind a club?”

Jungkook laughs, loud and beautiful. You want to kiss the mole beneath his lip.

“She looked bad, okay?” He settles, reaches forward to take your palm in his. You’re standing between his thighs, and you wonder how he would have acted if you were Sojin. “Don’t think things worked out with that CEO she was dating. I’m just giving her a push.”

You sigh, try to push those crestfallen sobs to the back of your head. “Okay,” you agree, briefly glancing back at the damn car. “You fix her car, and that’s it,” you state. Jungkook nods, makes a little X over his heart. He knows how much you hate that woman. “No funny business.”

“No funny business,” he agrees, then reaches down for a white spray can. “You wanna spray some dicks on it before I paint it?”

“Please,” you laugh, taking the face mask he offers you with a grin.

—

One day your car starts making a weird noise as you pull out of the underground parking garage of your building. It’s somewhere between a pig squealing and metal scraping. You’ve been around Jungkook long enough to know this is probably something to do with your breaks, something about them being loose or old, one of the two. You have a short day at work today. There’s repairs being done to the office you work at, so everyone’s been spending more time working from home.

You leave work a little after two pm, head pounding from the hour long meeting you sat through, the mediocre business proposals your boss had asked you to look through and file. There’s a hefty load of emails waiting in your inbox, mostly the interns requesting you write them a recommendation letter. You’ll have to look through those later, pick out the good ones and write them each a unique piece kissing the ground they walk on.

The scent of freshly fried donuts hits your nose as you pull into your old town; the bakery down the road from Jungkook’s has their windows open. You can already taste the sweetness on the tip of your tongue, the iced coffee cooling your insides as you sit and watch Jungkook work on your car.

Jungkook’s shop is on the corner of the street, takes up a huge chunk with it’s massive garage and driveway; the office area is tiny compared to the sheer size of the actual work floor. There’s music blaring through the overhead speakers, and when you pull in you recognize it as Jimin’s playlist.

“Morning, Miss,” the country bumpkin says, leaning against your car door as you rifle through your purse. “What’re you in for?”

“Hi, Jimin,” you reply sweetly, take his hand as he helps you out the door. You very vaguely explain the noise your car had made that morning, glancing around the shop as Jimin gets to work inspecting it. “Where’s Jungkook?”

Jimin’s waving over some other employees, all greeting you in their matching red jumpsuits. “Kook’s in the office,” he tells you, and it’s almost sensual the way his hand glides over your palm for your keys. God, you needed to get laid. “Has some lady friend in there with him.”

You pause, the bustling of the crew behind you fading into the background. Something inside you snaps, and you whirl around the garage, before catching sight of a 1975 Chevy Corvette, almost unrecognizable from how you’d last seen it. It’s bright red now, a color you only briefly saw before you’d left the other night, with two, lightning bolt racing stripes decorating each side. It looks new, almost in mint condition, and the fact it’s still here has you storming through the garage.

Your heels clack loudly, the crew moving to the side as you torpedo straight into the offices. You barely remember to greet the receptionist before you’re stomping straight into the main office.

There’s no knock, no warning given, before you’re flinging the door open, seeing exactly what you’d expected. 

“___,” Jungkook stutters, jumping onto his feet from his position on the couch. He looks frantic, wide eyes flickering between you and the woman sitting in front of him, her back turned to you. But you’d recognize that silhouette anywhere.

“Did you say ___?” She says, and she’s still as tall and as beautiful as you remember her. Had it not been for the heels you wore, you don’t doubt she’d tower over you. She flashes you a killer smile, lips carefully painted red. It almost looks murderous. “My! ___, you haven’t changed a bit,” Sojin exclaims, rushing around the couch to pull you into a tight hug. You don’t return it.

You let her cling to you for a second, before pushing her away as gently as you can by the shoulders. As much as you’d like to rip her in half, tear her apart for all she did to Jungkook, you won’t. You’re older now, elegant in all the ways you weren’t before. It would be a huge disservice to your maturity if you shoved your heel up her ass right now.

“It’s lovely seeing you, Sojin,” you smile, taking her hand in yours.

Besides, being a woman in business meant you knew better, more creative ways to strike.

“And your boyfriend?” You ask, tilting your head in staged confusion. You even glance around the office, like you’ll find the geezer hiding behind the potted plant or Jungkook’s frozen figure. “The rich one with the huge company? Did he come with you today?”

Her smile tightens, red lips pursed as she gauges you with those cat eyes that haunt your nightmares every now and then. “My ex-boyfriend,” she corrects after a minute, pastes a forlorn expression onto her features. “We’ve separated, and you know how it is for women like us,” she jests. “We need a man to push us along—“

“Do we?” You ask, think back on all those years of school, of studying and working and pushing yourself, all the time you spent investing in yourself for yourself. “I don’t think so,” you contemplate. “It’s really embarrassing if you can’t care for yourself without the help of a man. Almost like you don’t trust in your own abilities, and ride other’s coattails instead.”

A beat of silence. Two completely different worlds, and Jungkook hovering awkwardly beside you.

Two palms grasp your shoulders from behind, and when you turn Jungkook is smiling at you, forced and stressed like he can’t stand to be in this uncomfortable situation any longer. “Well,” he announces, pushing you behind him as he guides Sojin towards the door. “There was an issue with her car, so I’ll just check on it real quick, okay?”

You nod, feel empty as he takes her by the wrist, and not you. He hands her her purse, palm on the small of her back as they exit the office. When the door clicks shut behind them, you throw your own handbag at the ground, barely stop yourself from stomping like a child.

Instead, you breathe in, hold it, and exhale, just like your Tuesday yoga instructor taught you. By the time you’ve collected yourself a few minutes have passed, so you kneel down to gather your fallen lipstick tubes and cellphone from the floor, scooping them back into your purse.

Tugging the door shut behind you, you mindlessly wander down the hall, until you reach the small receptionist area and nearly get jumped by Kim Taehyung. “Holy shit, you won’t believe this,” he gasps, takes you by the shoulders and nearly shakes you until your brain falls out through your ears. You would have slapped him, had this been any other man, but he’s quite possibly the only man besides Jungkook you’d let jostle you like this. “You’ll never guess who just left the office with J—wait,” he pales, suddenly connecting two and two, your exit from said offices definitely a key factor in whatever conclusion he’s drawn. “You were in the office with Hwang Sojin and you didn’t kill her?!”

You huff, let him shake you again until you’re nearly tripping in your heels. “Yes, I know,” you groan, finally slap his hands away when you begin to feel this morning’s breakfast bubbling from all the motion. “I’m surprised too.”

“Wow,” Taehyung marvels, leans back against the receptionist desk even though the poor girl has told him time and time again not to. He ignores her, something he can do as second best friend to the boss. “Remember when she showed up crying outside his mom’s house and you threw a potted plant at her? Oh how the great have fallen.”

Rolling your eyes, you drift over to the plexiglass window in the office that looks out across the entirety of the garage floor. In the corner, Jungkook’s got the hood of the Corvette open as he works away on something, Sojin tapping at her phone beside him. “Why are you here, Tae?”

He steps beside you, tuned into the same scene. “Can’t visit my ex-girlfriend every now and then?” He teases, you groan.

“We dated for three days, dude, let it go,” you whine, and watch with rapt attention as Jungkook motions for her to start the engine. She does, and it purrs to life, soft and silky just like Jungkook said it does. She squeals and claps, launches herself into his arms in thanks. You look away.

“Yuck,” Taehyung gags and you couldn’t agree more. “Can’t believe you ended the best 72 hours of my life for that pinhead and the hussy attached to his hip.”

He shrieks when you pinch his side, and you take great satisfaction in the judgemental stare half the crew sends him through the glass. After all, they weren’t soundproof. “You embarrassed me and my brand,” he huffs, crossing his arms as the two of you return to watching Jungkook and the hussy.

“He’s not a pinhead,” you softly retort, watch him wipe a bead of sweat off his forehead as he waves her off. Sojin sends him a brigade of air kisses, none of which he catches. A sick sense of glee consumes you at the sight, but then he’s turning to stare directly at you and Taehyung through the glass, and the both of you quickly whirl away.

“His ability to find you in less than a second is so weird,” Taehyung shivers, and you ignore it, taking the candy from the bowl on the receptionist desk. She doesn’t care, having heard these conversations more than enough times to get the general gist of what you and Taehyung gossip about. You’re surprised she’s never mentioned it to Jungkook before.

Regardless, you listen to Taehyung complain about his life for a few more minutes, before Jimin’s sweet voice pops into the room. His ash blonde hair is all ruffled, and there’s something dark smeared over his otherwise perfect skin as he tells you your car is fixed. Taehyung bids you goodbye, and Jimin walks you back to your car out on the garage floor.

“All set, miss,” Jimin grins, puts a hand against the car so you don’t hit your head as you go in. You thank him, and don’t miss the way he lingers by your window.

“Is something wrong?” You ask, tilt your head quizzically. Jimin’s cheeks flush, and he looks shyly at the ground.

“Actually, I was wondering if—“

“___,” Jungkook calls, jogging over beside Jimin, who looks almost ashamed to be caught doing...whatever it was he was gonna do. Jungkook glances at him, catches him in some weird staring contest before crouching down to your window. “You needed your car fixed? Why didn’t you tell me?”

You blink, don’t know how to politely tell him he was too busy kissing the ass of his toxic ex-girlfriend to help you out. “Jimin helped me,” you smile, the same practiced expression you’ve mastered since college. You usually get by, usually trick people with that look, but not with him. Jungkook knows you too well, knows that look, and knows you’re holding yourself back. “You were busy.”

His lips part in surprise, tugged downwards with the hint of a frown. “I,” he stutters, looks at Jimin, who doesn’t seem that impressed with him either. “I… I would’ve came if you called.”

You tug your sunglasses out from their little case, slide them over the bridge of your nose as you strap your seatbelt over yourself. “Would you though?” You ask, flash him another polite smile before shifting your car’s gears. Jimin walks off, clears the path for you to exit, and with just Jungkook standing there, you speak freely. “I would hate to distract you from something important.”

—

Some of the proposals end up being better than expected, and after carefully sifting through them, your boss asks you to sit through presentations for the next few days. Your time gets consumed in graphs and budgets. There’s a multitude of businesses you have to look into, some big and well-known, and others small and local. You drive around the city one day, visiting business after business, until your ankles hurt in your heels and your cheeks hurt from all the smiling. Your only comfort is the nice Chanel skirt suit you’re wearing that makes you feel like the most important person in the room wherever you go.

By the time the week’s over, there’s a thin cut forming on the back of your ankles from all the walking you’ve done in your heels. You slump against your front door, tossing your heels in the vague direction of the closet before padding through your house.

You nearly scream yourself sore at the figure in your kitchen, hunched over what looks to be a hastily made cake with a number three candle. “Oh my god,” you seethe, turning the overhead light on to illuminate Jungkook’s grinning figure, dirty and sweaty from work. You glance at the clock on the stove; it’s only been about an hour since his garage closed.

“Surprise!” He exclaims, and you’re not the slightest bit amused when he begins humming the happy birthday song on a day that is definitely not your birthday.

When he’s done, you don’t clap and his beaming smile doesn’t waver. “It is not my birthday,” you calmly state, placing your leather padfolio on the counter.

Jungkook blows the candle out for you. “It’s the birthday of when we first met,” he explains, and gets to cutting the cake. How he remembers such a day, you don’t know. You do know that this is his mom’s birthday cake recipe, and you love that. “Can you believe it? Friends for almost three decades.”

“Almost,” you repeat, dutifully sitting across from him and taking the plate he offers. He nods at you like a bobblehead. 

His eyes are sparkly and big, like he’s drunk, and it’s only then you notice the red wine on the table, bottle open and halfway done. You set your fork down, grasp the neck of the bottle in your hand. “Have you been drinking?” You ask, even though the answer stares you right in the face. You frown. “You hate drinking.”

Jungkook rolls his eyes, shovels more cake into his mouth to delay his response. “Needed it,” he offhandedly explains, nearly eats the candle but you jump forward to snatch it off his fork before he can.

“What do you mean?” You inquire. You’re not hungry anymore, too interested in whatever’s going on in his head to make him think he needs to be drunk around you.

Jungkook gulps, reaches forward for more wine but you cradle the bottle to your chest. You nearly gasp when he levels you with a real, stony glare, the expression out of place on his face. “Cuz you’re mad,” he huffs. “At me.”

There was a time you would coddle Jungkook’s every mistake, never let him think he was at fault for anything. You’d grown out of it shortly before high school, recognizing boys were stupid no matter how much you tried to prove otherwise. Since then, you’ve watched him get into trouble time and time again—Sojin being the prime example—and only intervened when absolutely necessary. Some part of you, the half that hates seeing him upset, wants to tell him you’re not. The mature part in you, however, doesn’t let that happen.

“I am,” you agree, watch his eyes widen almost comically at your admission. You set the wine bottle back on the table, leaning your chin on your palm as you level him with the most unimpressed gaze you can. “I’m furious, actually.”

He whimpers, actually whimpers like a kicked puppy, and you can almost see the metaphorical ears pressed against his head and the tail tucked between his legs. His lips are big and pouty, stained from the wine. You’d love to know what they feel like.

Jungkook’s vulnerability lasts all of three seconds, before he’s shaking himself out of whatever emotional pit his foggy brain has him in. “Well, it’s dumb,” he spits, and it’s your turn to sit in shock. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

“Excuse me?” You ask, incredulously, because this has never happened before. Are you overprotective and sometimes overbearing? Sure. Has Jungkook ever voiced discomfort with that before? Never. “I’m not telling you what to do,” you sneer, crossing your arms over your chest.

He rolls his eyes, pushes away from the table like a moody teen. You know it’s because he’s drunk, because he’s not himself, but you have to remind yourself that he obviously felt this way somewhere in his heart to voice it to you now. “You’re not my mom.”

You choke. “I’m not!” You angrily agree, pushing away from the table as well.

Jungkook snarls, “well you sure do love acting like her.” He picks up his plate, glances over at you with a look in his eyes that can only be likened to that of a sneaky cat, and then purposefully shoves the bread and frosting down the garbage disposal in the sink. You shriek, fly around the table and shove him away.

“What is wrong with you?” You seethe, push him away rudely with a hand on his face. Jungkook stumbles back, slips on the floor and nearly cracks his head on the corner of the counter. “Oh my god,” you exclaim, abandoning the sink in favor of watching the way his face twists up at the sudden motion, stomach contracting beneath his black t-shirt, cheeks puffing. “Oh god, oh god,” you stammer, tugging him to his feet with the strength only a panicked individual about to see an entire cake regurgitated onto their kitchen tile can have.

You’ve barely kicked the door to the bathroom open when Jungkook begins throwing up, gooey vomit spewing from his mouth and onto the floor. It touches your arm, and you shriek before shoving him in the general direction of the toilet.

“Ew, ew,” you freak, shoving your hand under the sink faucet to get that gross feeling away. You wanna vomit yourself, but you tell yourself there can only be one sick person at a time, and right now it’s Jungkook.

He’s got his head in the toilet, disgusting sounds echoing off the ceramic of it. By the time you’ve calmed down and washed your arm thrice, you move over to pull his bangs away from his face, letting him hurl in peace.

“I’m sorry,” he mopes, spews another round of birthday cake into the toilet.

You look away, blindly reach out to turn the bathroom fan on. “Mhm,” you nod, rubbing a hand over his back. Jungkook nods sadly against the toilet seat.

“‘M sorry,” he repeats, gags around nothing but the gross feeling left in his throat. “I-I know you just want…” a pause as he considers throwing up some more, “...want what’s best for me.”

“I do,” you agree, wipe a hand down the side of his face that he leans into. “Not trying to be your mom,” you assure him, and he snorts.

“Be a good mom,” he murmurs, so soft you don’t hear him. You hum, leaning closer and he repeats it. “You’d be… a good mom.”

Not knowing what to do with that information, you just pat his back until he falls asleep, cheek against the toilet seat.

—

“Woah, the sexual tension in this garage is off the charts,” Taehyung blurts from behind you, and you smack your clipboard against his chest. “Oof,” he grunts, rubbing his chest like it actually hurt. “You doing finances for him again?” He asks and you nod.

In an ideal world, Taehyung would leave upon finding out you’re busy. In this world, he simply leans into your personal space, nearly knocking you into an empty tool cart. “Oooh, an extensive list of all the money Jungkook’s stupidly blown this month. How much did he spend on neon signs this time?”

You relent, showing him the shop’s finances. Anywhere else, revealing a business’s finances without the consent of the owner would be a federal crime. Here, it’s the equivalent of showing Taehyung Jungkook’s browser history. “He spent how much on window tint?!”

“A lot,” you say.

There’s a whistle from across the garage, the shop’s resident country bumpkin Park Jimin standing at the huge garage doors with his hand on his hip. “No fraternizing, please.”

Taehyung rolls his eyes. “Boooo,” he shouts, peels himself away from you to flick an impolite finger Jimin’s way. “He’s just jealous,” he tells you, and you frown.

“Of what?” You ask, and Taehyung nearly loses his shit.

“My precious ___,” he sighs, leans his forehead on your shoulder. “So beautiful and smart, yet so slow.” You flick the side of his forehead just as Jungkook strolls by and, seeing your attack, slaps the back of Taehyung’s neck. “Why do you guys hate me!” Taehyung exclaims, jumping at least five feet away from you and Jungkook’s giggling forms.

“How’s it going?” Jungkook asks you, completely ignoring Taehyung’s soulful cries as he glances over your shoulder at the clipboard. You tilt it his way, but he stands close anyway, until you can feel his breath huffing against the back of your neck.

“Okay, but you’re spending a lot of money stockpiling on things that haven’t shown signs of running out yet,” you explain, pointing at the window tint that had astonished Taehyung only a moment ago.

Jungkook grimaces, pink tongue swiping across his lip as he looks at the total amount he’s spent the last three months. “Well, it’s a good thing I have my accountant,” he grins, throwing an arm over your shoulder.

“Not your accountant,” you correct, “just a friend who doesn’t wanna see you run your business to the ground from overspending.”

Jungkook waves you off, and Taehyung tries to sneak into the receptionist office behind you, but Jungkook catches him with his free hand. “This is the life,” he sighs, wistfully gazing over the garage floor. It reeks of motor oil and car paint.

“Count me out,” Taehyung snorts, voicing your disinterest toward such greasy and smelly work. He tries to wiggle out of Jungkook’s hold, but the muscle bunny only straps an arm around his neck, until Taehyung’s squirming and clawing for air against the red sleeve of his jumpsuit.

“My own successful business, a shitload of sexy cars, and of course,” he pauses, squeezes the two of you tighter until you’re both groaning. “My two best friends.” The sap has the gall to peck the top of your heads, and that seems to be the final straw for Taehyung who rips himself away.

“Have this lovefest somewhere else, man,” Taehyung says, flattening his rumpled clothing down. “You’re really putting a nail in my reputation around here.”

Jungkook cackles, mindlessly goes to wrap himself around you from behind. “Your reputation has been trash since that scream you let out the other day,” he informs him, swaying the two of you back and forth. Your heart thunders in your chest, and you just barely manage to avoid Taehyung’s pointed stare.

“Whatever, I’m outta here.” With Taehyung peaced out, you’re left in Jungkook’s arms, gazing over his business like two old lovers. It makes your chest tight, so you quickly go to shake him off.

“We’re okay?” Jungkook murmurs, so soft you almost don’t hear. He’s got his hand wrapped around your wrist, thumb massaging over the bone there like he’s afraid you’ll bolt the second he lets you go.

You nod, tuck the clipboard to your side. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

Those sad puppy eyes, pouty lips turned southward. You want to wipe that look off his face. He sighs, glances at where your skin meets and gives it a squeeze. “I’ve been an ass lately,” he settles on saying. “Said some mean things and ruined your bathroom rug—I’m sorry.”

You don’t know what to say.

Jungkook takes your silence as understanding, reaching down to hold both your hands in his slightly dirty ones. “It won’t happen again. I’d rather lose a million friends than lose you,” he confesses, and something about it feels too real, too raw. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

You nod, the constricting feeling in your throat only tightening when he smiles at you, those gentle eyes and plush lips for only you to see. You want to kiss him, swallow him whole. Right here on the garage floor so everyone knows he’s yours.

But you can’t because he’s not.

You settle on swinging your arms between you. “Just don’t do anything stupid,” you warn him, narrowing your eyes playfully. There’s a heavy feeling in your heart, something akin to anguish, but you could never voice it out loud.

“I won’t,” Jungkook promises.

—

Jungkook visits again on a weekday, and you nearly send him straight home when he brandishes another bottle of wine in your face. “It’s nonalcoholic!” He exclaims before you can shut the door on him, foot lodged against the frame. You give in.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” You ask, curling up on the couch in just your shorts and huge t-shirt. Jungkook pops the bottle open, pouring the wine into two limited edition Shrek 2 cups you pulled out from the depths of your cabinet.

“Can’t hang with my bestie?” He throws back at you, snatching the remote from your hands before you can click on another episode of that dumb housewives show. You end up watching National Geographic, some documentary about the role of bioluminescent shrimp in the sea.

“Aw look, they’re kissing,” he cooes at a pair of seahorses that wander across the screen halfway through a shot of some school of shrimp. “How romantic.”

“Wonder what that’s like,” you comment, not thinking too much on the meaning behind your words until you can feel Jungkook’s stare pierce your cranium. “What?”

“You’ve never been kissed?” He blurts, and you choke on your wine.

“You were my first kiss,” you remind him, flush at the memory of the two of you sitting criss-cross applesauce on his bed, knees knocking in what was probably the worst first kiss in the history of first kisses.

Jungkook blinks. “Oh yeah,” he laughs. “With the Tony Hawk poster behind my bed, right?”

“The one and only.”

Jungkook hums, and the two of you melt back into the silence. Nice aquatic sounds fill the room, the camera panning over more colorful fish that Jungkook oohs at appreciatively. You don’t really pay attention, more interested in the way the wine swirls in your cup and the way you can feel Jungkook’s thigh pressed against your knee, like when you were thirteen and trying something new.

You know it doesn’t mean a lot to him. Just another silly childhood memory of you. Not like you have hundreds, thousands of them with each other. By the way he’d blurted the question, you doubt he even remembered it most days. But you did.

It plagued your mind all the time, the soft feel of his mouth and the trembling hand that had held yours. You wonder if he kisses the same still, lips gently puckered. He’s had years to learn, half a decade to get creative with Sojin, and the past four years of being a bachelor to explore more.

You’ve kissed too, plenty of guys who had no meaning and ones you thought would replace him. But it’d been a long time since you’ve let anyone into your bed, more content to please yourself without the overbearing weight of feelings and emotions to wrap around your throat.

Jungkook coughs, and you shake yourself from your thoughts.

He’s looking at you inquisitively, like he can’t get his usual read on you and would rather just ask what’s wrong. “You don’t,” a pause, “hang out with guys?”

It’s devastatingly cute, the way he asks if you’re fucking, and you want to pinch his cheeks. Instead you shake your head, try to hide the grin on your face from his inquisitive expression. “Just you and Taehyung,” you admit.

Jungkook nods. “Do you and Tae…?”

You shake your head furiously. “No! God no, we don’t do anything like that,” you clarify, the thought of Taehyung in your bed enough to make you want to gag.

Jungkook says nothing, just turns back to the documentary to watch more Nemos and Dorys flit across the screen. You polish off your cup of wine, leaning forward to settle it back on the coffee table. As you settle back into the couch cushions, Jungkook speaks again. “So you take care of yourself?”

You freeze.

“Yeah,” you admit after one complete meltdown in your head. Where was this coming from? Why did he want to know? You and Jungkook were close, but you never did this. You never divulged the details of your sex life, never bragged about who you slept with or how many there were. What was going on?

Jungkook doesn’t say anything after that, just turns his attention back to the tv screen, where you’re almost certain the sea horses from before are fucking. Not that you know what it looks like, but you hope at least someone in this room was enjoying themselves and not drowning in the mortification of having their life long crush ask them if they masturbate.

“So, do you use your hands or a toy?”

You choke, slap your chest to ease the pounding of your heart at Jungkook asking such a question. “E-Excuse me?” You ask, scandalized that Jungkook, your sweet and caring childhood friend turned Fabio, could ask you such a bold question about your personal affairs.

“What?” Jungkook says, like he truly doesn’t see the inappropriateness of the situation. He even raises his eyebrows at you, as if urging you to answer the question.

You sigh, fight the flush of your cheeks and stare idly at the cups on the table. “A toy. Hands don’t feel good,” you curtly reply, crossing your arms over your chest and straightening your legs off the couch, hoping that’s the end of his curiosity. This was enough to fuel your 3am anxiety meltdowns for the next five years.

Jungkook nods, and you can feel his penetrating gaze on the side of your face again. A great white shark swims across the screen. Jungkook strikes. “My hands feel good.”

“Jungkook!” You exclaim in horror (and excitement, but you’ll pretend it wasn’t there). “What has gotten into you?”

“What!” Jungkook defends, Bambi eyes looking at you like you’re the unreasonable one here. “We’re having a civil conversation in which I’m trying to open up your worldview.”

You’re flabbergasted. “This is not a civil conversation, what are you even talking about?” You scold, tug your arms around yourself like it’ll actually protect you from the words that don’t seem to be filtering out of his mouth properly. “Why are you so concerned about that?” You interrogate, hope your forceful tone will scare him away.

It doesn’t. Jungkook shrugs, some noncommittal i dont know sound. “I can’t be interested in what you get up to? What my best friend gets up to?” It’s the obvious emphasis on best friend that makes you step down.

“No,” you sigh, rub a hand down your face. “You can be interested,” you tell him gingerly. “We just never really… talked about... those kinds of things,” you rush out, turn away from him as the narrator on screen dives into the intricacies of bioluminescent shrimp in the animal food chain.

As if sensing your discomfort, Jungkook softens, scooting closer to you. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, too close and too warm. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” he says, places a palm on your knee.

“I’m not!” You rush to assure him, facing him head on again. His eyes are big and implorative still, and you wonder why he became stuck on that of all things today. “It just surprised me.”

His lips quirk to the side, an unsure grin that has you leaning into his shoulder. You sit in silence, the rise and fall of his body with every breath lulling you into a sense of comfort.

A false one that Jungkook zeroes in on.

The documentary’s wrapping up, soothing ocean sounds and wind instruments playing as the credits roll across the screen, when the hand that had been laying so comfortably on your thigh inches up. At first, you don’t notice it, writing it off as Jungkook just shifting around. You tell yourself it’s just that, until his pinky makes contact with the end of your shorts.

Slowly, you turn towards him, catch his mocha irises lustfully lidded as he toys with the hem. “Kook?” You murmur, so soft, barely there.

“Hm?” He replies, continuing to play with the edge of your shorts, until he gets brave and his fingers slip beneath, index finger just barely grazing the panties underneath. You gasp. “This okay?”

Stuck between your arousal and your common sense, you flounder for a response. He’s so close, and smells so good, curls brushing against your temple the closer he gets. You want him so bad, want him to find his place between your thighs and put those pouty lips to use. But you know it’ll make things different, change whatever it is you’ve had for the past almost thirty years, and you’ll never bounce back. Another brush against your panties, pointer finger wiggling it’s way beneath the fabric, and you’re choking out a “yes.”

“Good girl,” he murmurs, and something in your core tingles at the name, thighs clenching together. “Uh uh,” he chides, nudges them open. “Stay still for me,” he commands, and you do, for all of ten seconds, but then he’s pressing his finger on your clit, panties and shorts muting the sensation. Still, it makes you squirm, fingers clutching the couch cushion beneath you as you struggle to keep them open. “Too much?” He asks, and you shake your head no.

“I-It’s fine,” you whisper, and Jungkook smiles.

He pets you, almost wondrously, for a few beats, watches the way the muscles in your thighs twitch with every press against your mound. Eventually, he decides it’s enough. “Hands don’t feel good for you?” He inquires, your words from earlier obviously having left their mark on him. Slowly, you shake your head. He glances down at the fist you have on the couch, composed features sliding up your face. “Well, yours are so small, princess. Of course they don’t feel good.”

He manhandles you around, tugs you onto the couch until you’re laying down, legs sprawled on either side of him. Pleased with the arrangement, Jungkook glances back down to your bottoms. “These have to go,” he tells you, hooks his fingers in the waistband and abruptly yanks down, leaving you just in your t-shirt.

You go to shy away, but Jungkook stops you, palms resting on the insides of your thighs, thumbs pressing into the skin soothingly. “My fingers are long, see?” He says, raising a hand to wiggle his fingers at you. You nod, heartbeat thundering in your ears. “They’ll feel nice inside.”

You know they will.

You can tell he knows his way around a woman’s body just from the way his hands glide over yours, carefully like he’s mapping you out. Ever so slowly, one hand grows closer, until his thumb is gently circling your clit, and you inhale sharply.

“So wet,” Jungkook hums, his other hand traveling further down, until he’s spreading your pussy lips with two fingers, trailing them through the arousal that gathers there.

You’ve never been so attentively cared for, never had a man zero in on your cunt like it was his first meal in ages. Jungkook’s eyes are clouded with lust, tongue peeking out from between his lips as he watches your pussy lips flutter at his touch.

He swirls his hand over your clit, pressing down. The first sound escapes you, a soft whimper that has you clamping your hand over your mouth in embarrassment. Jungkook grins down at you, shifts closer to press a kiss to the knuckles over your mouth.“Don’t hide from me,” he purrs, pulling away and pressing a kiss to your neck.

You cry out when he gets back to it, massaging your pussy with gentle hands and a thumb against your clit to placate you. “Jungkook,” you choke out, and he beams at his name, takes it as a sign to finally slip two fingers inside. “A-ah,” you whine, arching beneath him.

He basks in your noises, leans close again to press a kiss beneath your ear, against your jaw. “This okay?” He murmurs, curling the fingers inside of you. You mewl, throwing your arms around him as he begins working you open. “How does it feel, baby?”

“G-good,” you pant, turn your head until you can bury your nose in his hair, drown even more in his all-consuming aura.

Another kiss to your neck, before he’s suctioning his lips right below your ear, nipping and sucking at the skin to brand you his. “You like my hands?” He husks, and the patch of saliva he leaves on your neck feels cold without his mouth there. You nod, and Jungkook rewards you with a soft smooch over the hickey he’s left.

His fingers inside you curl and scissor, brush against every inch of your walls until you’re quivering beneath him, gasping his name out. You could melt if his fingers weren’t holding you together. “So tight,” he groans, curling his fingers. The movement touches upon something sensitive within you, and you moan his name loudly.

“O-Oh,” you pant, wiggling beneath him as you try to feel that again. Jungkook lets you, watches you desperately rut into his hands. He drifts away, lets his tongue mouth over your breasts, licking until there’s a damp spot on your t-shirt, the flimsy house bra you’d worn and the t-shirt combined not enough to hide your pebbled nipples.

The drag of his hands against your pussy isn’t enough, the motions not quick enough. Jungkook glances at your twisted features, your quivering pussy, and then, ever so gently, ducks over you, puckered lips letting one, long glob of saliva touch down on your pussy, trickling around his knuckles.

“Fuck,” you choke, watch his tongue swipe over his lip to break the thin bridge that connects you too. Suddenly, everything is smoother, the combined lubrication of your arousal and his spit making the glide of his fingers sinfully slick.

Frantic for release, you lose yourself in him, ready to free fall into your pleasure so long as Jungkook is there to catch you. “That’s it,” he encourages, picks up the pace of his fingers inside you. “Come on, beautiful, let me see that gorgeous face of yours when you come.”

“K-Kook,” you sob, and he smiles against your neck. His fingers work fast, until your muscles are all pulled tight, waiting for that final push to unravel. You make the mistake of glancing down, only to be caught by that pearly smile and adoring gaze. You’re in heaven, you know you are.

There’s no other explanation for this—the way Jungkook holds you like you’re his, hands so gently caressing your most intimate parts. You’re almost convinced you’re having a fever dream, a sick, too realistic dream, but then Jungkook’s biting down on your shoulder through your t-shirt, subtly rutting against your thigh.

“Cum for me,” he purrs against your neck, and you do, sobbing as your orgasm rolls over you, the heavy weight of his cock against your thigh. “Jungkook,” you cry, so pitifully, it has him lunging forward, a kiss pressed to the corner of your mouth.

You feel sweaty and gross, unbelievably tired from the gentle way he opened you up. Blindly, you reach down, feel the hardness of his cock beneath his sweatpants, but Jungkook nudges you away. You huff. “Let me,” you whimper, reach for him again even though you can see the slowness in your movement. “Need your cock in my mouth,” you drawl, almost sleepily. 

“Shh,” he soothes, lips pressed against your neck, where he’s still licking and sucking over every inch of you. You whine. “You don’t have to do a thing, gorgeous,” he assures you, “just wanted to make you feel good.”

—

Work gets stressful shortly after. There’s a new batch of interns coming in this season, new faces who will mess up your coffee orders and jam the printers for a good few weeks. There’s normally a team of employees who train them, a mix of relatively older people from different departments who show them around; a girl in the finance department, the one who usually trains them, is on maternity leave. With no one else to fall back on, the head of the department pushes the duties off on you, claiming your flexibility and work ethic make you the perfect candidate for such a role.

Normally you’d thrive at the praise, eat up every single word like it sustained you. In a way, it did. It was nice to be appreciated and recognized for your hard work, to be thought of so highly, especially in a male-dominated company. However, this time, you know it’s out of convenience that the head kisses up to you, and you end up begrudgingly taking the role.

The gaps in your schedule you’d normally spend relaxing or catching up on other projects are filled with bumbling interns, calling for help every chance they get. It’s like they’ve never done anything on their own, this group, always asking you the correct way to do this, the right way to do that. You haven’t mentored interns in a while, so you spend the first day breezing over old powerpoints and print outs you made years ago. You remember why you’re not fit for mentoring when one of them asks you how to navigate Excel. You nearly rip their head off.

There’s so much going on, you barely get time to see Jungkook, let alone text him. You saw him once the morning after, stack of pancakes on your kitchen table as he rushed you off to work. The shop didn’t open for another hour. He was sweet, kissed your forehead as you left, but he’s always done that. You didn’t have time to talk about whatever the night before was, or what that made the two of you now.

On Friday night, one week into your nightmarish role, you pull into the shop. You'd like to convince yourself it was routine, visiting the shop, but that’s a lie. You desperately miss Jungkook. 

 Most of the garage doors that are usually pulled open during the day are shut, save for one. The last of Jungkook’s employees are leaving, bidding you adieu as you step out of your car. Park Jimin is there, repairing some rickety car in the back corner.

“Boo,” you call playfully, and Jimin doesn’t flinch, merely pulls his head from out of the hood to flash you an easygoing smile.

He whistles at the sight of you. “You look like you’ve been through one of helluva week,” he says, and you, despite your strong personality, feel yourself blush at his comment. Jeez, did you look that bad? Jimin doesn’t elaborate, just pulls out a stool for you to sit on beside where he’s working. “Penny for your thoughts?”

You glance at the plexiglass, the offices hiding down the hall. Jungkook could wait, you presume, settling down beside him. Your skirt tugs up as you settle onto the pleather seat, so you cover your legs meekly with your purse. “Work’s been crazy,” you explain, and Jimin laughs at the obvious.

“You’re telling me,” He hums, and you roll your eyes playfully. “What’s going on at work?”

What hasn’t been going on, you think to yourself, before launching into a full retelling of your new horrendous position, of all the interns with their clueless eyes and useless notebooks. Jimin chuckles, indulges you in a few comments here and there that only fuel you on. He’s just about done with whatever he’s doing to the car at the same time your story wraps up, explaining how you found yourself here, desperate for Jungkook to whisk you off to that arcade you loved as kids. “Jungkook?” He asks, and you nod. “He left a while ago.”

You freeze. “Huh?” You say, dumbly. You almost want to laugh at your own impulsiveness, for showing up without sending him a text or a warning to let him know you were coming. You almost do laugh, but then you remember you and Jungkook never did that anyway. Hell, he showed up at your house a few weeks ago unannounced and drunk. The two of you were hardly the type to plan ahead, so it was weird for him to not be here. He’s been at the shop almost every night since it’s opened, the days he’s not usually a holiday.

“Jimin…” you begin, glancing at the receptionist window once more. “Where’s Jungkook?”

Jimin shuts his tool box, kicking a cart off to the side. “He left with that lady,” he tells you, doesn’t hear the way your heart rips straight out of your chest. No way. “Tall, pretty. Had that nice Corvette he fixed up a while ago.”

“Sojin,” you mumble, and Jimin nods.

“Think that was her name.” As if sensing your tumultuous thoughts, he steps closer, one hand reaching out to steady you. “You alright?”

“God,” you exhale, pushing yourself away from Jimin and the garage and the window. The stool rolls away, almost hits the side of another car but Jimin catches it. He rushes over towards you, watching you wobble in your heels.

“Honey,” Jimin says, steady and warm beside you. “Sit down for me, yeah?” He guides you to a row of seats against the wall, nailed into the floor so you can’t push them away and make even more of a mess. Not that that’s your concern, your mind and heart too preoccupied with thoughts of Jungkook lying to you, going out with that woman again, despite your obvious hatred for her and his promise to you.

Jimin disappears, rushes over to the other side of the garage before returning with a water bottle for you. He cracks it open, presses it into your hands, and then against your lips when you don’t move. “Drink,” he encourages, watching you with worried eyes that only grow more and more concerned the deeper you fall into your thoughts.

You want to cry and beat Jungkook up at the same time. You want to scream at him for lying to you after treating you so nicely, holding you so warmly. Instead, you gasp for breath, clutching your face in your hands like it’s the only thing that grounds you.

There’s a beep outside, chirpy and cute in the way only older models are, and you whip your head up, the headlights of the Corvette painting you in shades of yellow as it rolls to a stop, the tears you hadn’t felt glistening under the light.

Jungkook flings himself out of the driver’s seat, and a sob catches in your throat when Sojin steps out of the passenger seat. Jungkook shoves everything in his path to the side, carts flying into the few automobiles on the floor, tools clanging loudly onto the cement, and just as those arms you love so much are reaching out for you, there’s a hand on his chest stopping him.

“What did you do to her?” Jungkook snarls, pushing Jimin roughly to the side. Jimin, smaller but not weaker, holds his ground, clutching Jungkook by the material of his jumpsuit a second time. “Let— go!” Jungkook shouts, finally worming away from his employee.

He nearly trips before you, stumbling to his knees as he takes your quivering hands in his. “What’s wrong,” he asks, throwing a nasty glare back at Jimin who watches silently from the side. Sojin is still by her car, leaning across the driver’s side now. “What did he do, what did he say?”

You shake your head, dropping your head to tuck your chin against your chest. You hate this. Hate letting him or Jimin or Sojin see you cry. It’s not the person you are, not the self-made woman you claim to be as you cry over the same man who is unknowingly defending you from himself.

“Let go,” you whisper, hoarse and choked. You shake your arms, but he doesn’t let up.

“Tell me what's wrong,” Jungkook pleads, inching closer to you. His breath is warm and he smells like oil, just like he always does. He also smells sweet and floral in a way only a woman could. He smells like Sojin.

You sob, rip your hands away from and scurry blindly towards Jimin, who catches you in his arms despite the shock that paints his face.

Jungkook watches with an expression of hurt, watches you snuggle into the arms of another man over an issue you won’t tell him about. Jimin says nothing, just rubs his palm over your back. He gestures towards the red corvette, the woman standing by it and Jungkook takes the hint.

You hear the kitten-like purr as it pulls off, the silence that follows afterwards. You don’t know where Jungkook is, if he’s here or if he left with her, and you don’t want to. “Tell me he’s gone,” you beg Jimin, quiet gasps against his neck.

He nods, slowly lets you untangle yourself from his arms as the two of you stare over the empty garage. The Corvette is gone, and so is Jungkook. Before Jimin can tell you where he is, you’re wiping a hand over your face, embarrassed at the moisture it comes back with. 

“I take it he’s not supposed to be with her?” Jimin tries to joke. 

Neither of you laugh. 

You sniffle, process what just happened, how you acted. You’ve never felt that way before, never experienced such brutal heartbreak. 

You don’t know what you expected from Jungkook. In your heart, you convinced yourself what happened in your apartment was the start of something new between the two of you, a natural result of your long friendship. Realistically, you know you should’ve waited until the two of you spoke, discussed whatever happens next. But you’d spent the past week comforted by the fact you’d finally gotten to experience something like that with him, daydreaming about him every chance you got. 

Somewhere in your mind, you had convinced yourself your involvement with him would finally be what broke his connection with Sojin, the final nail that would make him forget about her. It’s painfully funny how such wasn’t the case. 

Jimin breaks you out of your thoughts. “You okay to drive home?” He gently inquires, and you turn your gaze over toward your car. 

Did you trust yourself to make it home without shedding a single tear? Absolutely not. But between Sojin and Jimin, you had let enough strangers see you fall apart over a man tonight. 

“Perfectly okay,” you tell him. 

—

The interns pick up on your sour attitude the week that follows. They don’t ask dumb questions, and don’t mess up your order. You talk them through a presentation, show them how to properly organize finance charts. There’s a slide that has clip art, a goofy dollar sign with a smile and shoes. Jungkook put it there when you first made the PowerPoint. After the little lesson, you go to the bathroom and try not to cry.

A week later, and the interns don’t need you anymore. They do well, and your boss praises you for being such a good mentor. You thank him and he lets you go home early.

Home is empty. Jungkook doesn’t show up unannounced, mostly because you’ve changed the number lock on the door. You want to eat salad today, for some reason, but don’t have any of the ingredients for it, so you walk to the supermarket a few blocks away.

The supermarket feels the same as it always does at night. That ghostly feeling of being watched in an empty aisle, the scratchy tune of whatever Top 50 radio station they settled on today. You get there and decide you don’t want salad anymore, so you buy ingredients for a stew instead, all of which you probably had at home.

When you step outside, the air around your bare thighs is cold. Summer was ending, which meant Jungkook’s birthday was coming up. You ball the receipt in your hand and fling it at the trash. You miss, so you hobble over to pick it up.

The trash is beside a red Corvette with two racing stripes.

“Hey,” Sojin says, arms crossed over her chest as she walks up behind you, sizing up your crouched form beside her car. “What’re you doing to my car?”

You breathe in, shake the crumpled up receipt at her, before stuffing it in the garbage. She says nothing as you stalk by her, and you’re back on the main road when she pulls up next to you, window rolled down to speak to you. “Get in,” she gestures, “it’s gonna rain.”

“No,” you say, and a fat raindrop falls right on your nose.

The door unlocks and you climb in, plastic bags crowded by your feet.

The drive is silent. You only live a few minutes from the store, and you point out an empty spot by the sidewalk for her to pull up to. A dry thanks is on the tip of your tongue, but you never get to say it.

“My dad has cancer,” Sojin says.

“That sucks,” you respond, feel bad right away and say, “I’m sorry.”

Sojin doesn’t seem bothered by it, shifting the Corvette out of drive and cutting the engine. “He’s probably not gonna see Christmas,” she adds, and you don’t know what to say. You don’t care about her or her crazy father.  “I wanted to do something nice for him before he, y’know.”

“Died,” you fill, and at that she glares.

“Yeah,” she huffs. “Before he died. So I fixed up his car. But the place I took it to didn’t know how to fix an engine so old, and ended up fucking it up even more.” You nod, she continues. “Then I bumped into Jungkook and—“

“Took advantage of his kindness,” you finish, remembering the twinkle in his eyes when he’d told you about their encounter, that day in the empty garage that seemed lightyears away. “Well congrats. Hope your dad liked it,” you sigh, push open the door and get soaked to the bone immediately.

“Wait!” Sojin calls, hopping out after you. She’s still as beautiful as she was when you were seventeen, even with rain soaking her entire being. “I didn’t ask him to repaint it, but that’s what my dad loved the most.”

You want to go inside, make your stew, and cry in it.

Sojin doesn’t seem bothered by the bangs that stick to her forehead or the water that washes down her spine. “When I told him Jungkook did it… he wanted to see him. Apologize and stuff.”

You snort. “Apologize,” you repeat, tightening your grip on your shoppings bags. “For what, Sojin? For almost killing him with this car or for treating him like shit for five years?” She says nothing, stares at the hood of the car like she doesn’t know what you’re talking about. “He was crazy for you, you know that? He would have done anything for you and not once did you stand up to your dad for him. You let that man call him worthless, stupid, a waste of space. And for what? For you to break up with him for some rich asshole who would never treat you half as good as Jungkook did?” You sneer.

The rain feels cold and your groceries feel heavier, so you whirl on your heel and make for your building entrance.

“He never liked me,” Sojin calls out, and you wonder if she even heard the second half of your emotional outburst. You turn to face her with fire in your eyes, and are only a little surprised at the sadness that paints hers. “He never liked me the way he said he did.” You could knock her teeth out.

“You’re stupid,” you spit, and she rounds the car at an insane speed until she’s glaring down at you over her perfectly sculpted nose.

“He never liked me,” Sojin repeats angrily. “He was always busy looking at you—for approval, for attention, I don’t fucking know. He would hold me and touch me but it never felt real. It always felt like practice for him…” she sniffles and your breath hitches in your throat. “We dated all through college,” she says like you don’t know, like you didn’t stress about it for years. “Everyday closer to graduation felt like a ticking bomb. Like he was just waiting for you to come back. To come home.”

You remember it.

The excited texts he’d send you everyday, the plans he made for you. Jungkook was more excited than your parents about you coming home. The five hours had done a number on him, and after four years all he wanted was to have you close again. You remember the hug in his driveway, the way his mom had told you he’d waited all day for you. It’s weird hearing it from Sojin.

Too overwhelmed, you decide to deflect. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” you murmur, and you’re surprised she hears it over the pouring rain.

A loud scoff. “You’re stupid,” she repeats back, jabbing a finger at your chest. You glare, and so does she. Like two animals in a cage you size each other up. “You’re stupid and ugly and I hate you,” she spits, and you drop your shopping bags to lunge at her.

You don’t swing, just grab her by the shirt and move to slam her against the wall, but she’s tall and a little strong, bony fingers wrapping around your wrists like spiders. “Why can’t you see how much he likes you?” She screams, like it hurts to admit it. “He’s been in love with you since forever, and all you’ve ever done is run away!”

“I never—“ you gasp, pushing her away from you. Sojin stumbles, but she doesn’t fall. “I’ve never run away,” you defend, heart beating in your chest too fast to be normal. “Some of us have careers and lives we want to live—I don’t want to depend on a man for the rest of my life!”

She growls, tugs at her wet hair like you’re giving her a headache. Stomping up to you once more, she pushes you hard with both hands, and you barely catch yourself in time. “He would have followed you to that fucking fancy school, but you told him it was better to save money here! Told him to not waste his time and just settle there! You did this to us—to all of us!”

You choke. Lightning flashes behind her, and for a moment all you can see is your gentle prodding, sitting behind him as he filled out applications, big wannabe business brain telling him the easiest way to save money for his auto shop was by going straight into technical school. The small frown on his face that day you’d packed for college, and the way he’d stood in your parent’s driveway until you couldn’t see him anymore, a little spec in your rearview mirror.

Sojin, sensing she’s made her point, says nothing. She scoops up your fallen grocery bags and shoves them into your trembling hands, stomping back to her car and pulling off with a roar, loud and ferocious, and nothing like a kitten.

The groceries in your bag end up in the trash.

—

Taehyung invites you to lunch one day, and you go. You’re starving and desperate to get away from work, where you’re paranoid everyone knows there’s something wrong with you. You meet up at a cute little bistro, and he smiles and hugs you when you arrive. You sit in comfort for all of two seconds before he jumps into his interrogation.

“What’s going on with you and Kook?” He asks, casually flipping through the menu. Your hand stills around your glass of water, and you eventually set it down without ever taking a drink. Your mind instinctively maps out a lie, but Taehyung has known you a while now, knows the quirk of your lips when you’re about to lie your ass off. “Don’t lie to me. I haven’t seen you at the shop in almost a month. And he doesn’t go out,” he mentions. “I think he spent four nights at the shop before I made him go home.”

You deflate.

Too embarrassed to explain, you flip through your own menu, and when the waitress comes you order the first words your eyes focus on. Taehyung doesn’t push you, just patiently gazes out over the bustling street.

Finally, you break. “We… did a thing.”

“Uh huh,” he nods, reading some ad on the side of a bus that passes by. “Need you to elaborate, babe.”

You squirm. “We… fooled around,” you say for lack of more appropriate wording. There’s a family sitting beside you, and you’d rather die than let some nooby pre-teen listen to the details of yours and Jungkook’s night.

“You fucked?” You choke, make a loud sputtering noise like it’ll drown out Taehyung’s voice to the other patrons. “What’s wrong with that? We all knew it’d happen sooner or later,” he shrugs.

“No,” you seethe. “We didn—I didn’t.” Taehyung rolls his eyes, the same way Sojin did that day on the sidewalk. You almost throw your glass of water at him. “We…” you sigh. “We did a thing, and then the week after he went out with Sojin.”

Taehyung scowls at the mere mention of her, so the glass of water is returned to its coaster. “Really? He went out with her right away? He’s cancelled.”

You nod, rubbing your hands over your face. “He… her dad has cancer and is literally on his deathbed so she wanted to fix up his car for memories sake, which he loved, so he wanted to apologize to Kook and thank him for fixing up his car,” you rush out, and now Taehyung chokes, water spewing out of his nose. You shriek, drawing everyone’s attention as you pat down your soaked blouse. “Tae!”

“I’m sorry,” he cries, wiping at the sting in his nose. “He-she, what?!” You ignore him, focus on battling the damp spot on your blazer. “God, that’s crazy,” Taehyung snorts, winces at the feeling in his nose.

After the two of you have settled, the manager kicks you out for your inappropriate conversations and childish behavior. You leave with your tails tucked between your legs. Taehyung holds your hand as he walks you back to your workplace, you quietly fill him in on all the other details surrounding yours and Jungkook’s fallout, from your breakdown in the garage to your weirdly dramatic confrontation with Sojin. “Well,” he claps, slamming a hand down on the traffic light button, even though both of you know it doesn’t work. “That explains a lot of things.”

“Yeah,” you agree, pushing down the crosswalk when the light finally changes of its own accord. “Do you,” you pause, feet glued to the sidewalk. “Do you think she was right?”

Taehyung glances back at you, so small and unsure in the midst of a bustling crowd. He smiles, sweet and soft. Rare coming from him. His free hand ruffles the top of your head, and he brings you into his chest. “Babe, the hottest guy in your grade was intimidated by scrawny, pre-muscle bunny Jungkook. I’m pretty sure he feels some type of way towards you.”

Your lip wobbles dangerously, and you bite down on it to stop. Taehyung pats your head, barks at some old guy when he yells at the two of you for standing in the middle of the sidewalk.

When you’re outside your office, you speak again. “You were not the hottest guy in our grade, by the way.”

Taehyung snorts. “I totally was.”

—

You hideout for the rest of the week.

On Friday night, you finally have the balls to show yourself again, and you hop on the highway leading out of the city before you can overthink it. The buildings slowly melt away, replaced with cozier homes, tinier shops, and by the time you’re pulling up the street, you’re deep in doubt again.

It’s not that late yet, only a little past sunset, but the garage doors, usually open to the street, are all shut. You frown, pull around the block, reverse into a spot across the street. Locking your car, a gust of wind nearly trips you as you cross the street. The front office is dark, metal shutters pulled over the entrance.

Eventually, you stumble around until you find the tiny backdoor squeezed beside some dumpsters, grateful for the key Jungkook had given you so long ago.

Just as Taehyung predicted, a pair of red jumpsuit clad feet stick out from beneath a car. A nice car, an even older Corvette than Sojin’s dad’s, still shiny despite the model it is. It looks like a show car with the way it glints at you, black paint almost glossy. The only light in the entire garage is a lamp, positioned over the area where the legs are working, and a flashlight that occasionally beams at you when the holder loses his grip. No music today, just the hum of a rotating fan. You creep over.

Jungkook’s humming a song when you get to him, foot tapping idly on the ground. You suck in a deep breath and nudge his foot with the tip of your heel. You have exactly two seconds to jump away when he abruptly rolls out from beneath the car, concentrated features scanning quickly around until they land on you.

The garage is still, until Jungkook jumps into action. “___,” he stammers, stumbling to his feet. The rolling board drifts away, bumping into the corner of the metal table beside you. “Hi, um,” he flounders, brushing his fingers through his hair, palms wiping over the front of his pants. Finally, “hi.”

The bad bitch Chanel skirt-suit you’d worn today fails you for the first time in a long time. Your hands feel sweaty, so you clutch them behind your back. “Hi, Jungkook,” you exhale, and all the emotions you’d swallowed for so long, the feelings that tightened around your chest and throat like boa constrictors, come oozing out, until all you can see is his puckered mouth and twinkling gaze.

He coughs, tries to casually lean against the car, but greatly miscalculates the distance. “What, um, what brings you here?” He asks, foot tapping nervously against the ground.

There’s a box of takeout on the floor he tries to subtly kick beneath the car, and a plastic bottle of soda that makes a loud noise when he tries that too. You twist your lips, watching the anxious shuffling of his feet. You breeze over his question, plaster a tight smile into your face, and ask your own question; “how long have you been here?” Tentatively, you lower yourself onto a rolling stool. “It’s late,” you state the obvious.

Jungkook’s leg bounces, and he pats his hand over it nervously. “Um, an hour? Just working on something,” he answers, cheeks warm as his eyes flicker everywhere but you. “What brings you here?” He repeats, and you know you can’t deflect it this time.

Shrugging half heartedly, you wait for him to finally look at you. When he does, he almost looks away but the glint in your eye stops him from doing so. “We need to talk,” you finally say. Jungkook visibly deflates, lips pulling into a thin line. You contemplate letting him relieve his thoughts first, but you came here with a point to make, for questions that needed answering, and you’re scared one word from him will wash them all away.

“Listen,” you start, smoothing your hand over the edge of your skirt. “I know something weird happened between us, and then I kinda freaked out on you, but… I need you to tell me the truth.”

Jungkook doesn’t hesitate. “Always.”

You swallow, try to push back the frustration that builds in his throat. “Did you ever even like Sojin?”

Jungkook blinks. “Huh?” A snort. “You’re joking,” he snickers, wipes at faux tears in the corner of his eyes, before your unsmiling face registers and he’s schooling his features. “___, I did like her. I dated her for five years. How could I not like her?”He says seriously, like he can’t believe you would ever question such a thing. 

You exhale, pick at your fingernails. “I met her,” you admit, and Jungkook’s face twists in confusion. “At the supermarket last week. She said you never liked her.”

Jungkook rolls his eyes. “Of course she’ll think that—we’re exes. I doubt she remembers all our best memories,” he sighs, turning back to organize his tool cart like he’s done with this conversation.

Raising to your feet you call his name again, and he hums absentmindedly. “Sojin said you never liked her because you were always chasing after me,” you accuse, laying all your cards out on the table. Your claim startles him, and you watch as he jostles half the tool cart with his surprise.

“She, what?” He huffs, cheeks as red as his jumpsuit. He forces out a laugh, airy and tight like you’re starring in your elementary school play again and the nerves are eating him up. “I-I don’t know why she’d say that.”

He’s flustered, obviously so, as he scoops the metal tools back onto the cart, bumping into three other things before settling back down on the floor to roll under the car. He pushes himself under, and you sternly call out, “Jungkook.” He freezes.

You strut over, brush your hands behind your skirt as you crouch beside him. “Always,” you quietly remind him. Jungkook says nothing. For a moment, you wonder if you’ve grossly misread the situation, if this was just another one of her schemes to drive the two of you apart.

Slowly, Jungkook appears from under the car. There’s a new stain on his cheekbone, brown and slick. He sits up, wide eyes tracing over your features likes he’s trying to seal them in his memory. “Yeah,” he admits, lips twisting as he watches the surprise take your features, before he’s lolling his head back to stare at the ceiling, leaving you to stare at the column of his neck.

“I do,” Jungkook admits, pushing through his emotions. It’s hard for him to confess, you realize, watching the way his Adam’s apples contracts and his jaw twitches from having to say so. “I like you so much it hurts.”

His confession leaves you feeling weird. On one hand, you want nothing more than to spring yourself on him and kiss his face until the stray oil marks are gone and replaced with the outline of your lipstick prints. You want to smother him and hold him, let him know he’s yours, always has been.

On the other hand… it’s sad. Going on thirty years and never did the two of you guess your feelings for each other. You doubt either of you are good at hiding them, with the way everyone seems to have known except you two. Maybe you don’t know Jungkook as well as you thought you did. Maybe he doesn’t know you.

A hand touches your knee, and you return your attention to his downtrodden appearance, chin tucked against his chest. “Please,” he murmurs. “Say something.”

You say nothing.

Tentatively, you reach a hand out, run it along the side of his head, through his mane, chocolate waves touching his cheekbones. He almost looks like when you guys were kids, round eyes watching your every move. Your hand continues down the back of his head, cupping the nape of his neck comfortingly. Jungkook leans into the touch, even though his shoulders are tense. You soothe your fingers over the tight muscles in his neck.

“Since when?” You inquire.

Jungkook blinks, lets your palm trace along his jawline and cup his cheek. “Since you dated Taehyung when we were sixteen.”

Mentally, you curse every deity in existence for putting Kim Taehyung in your life. “God,” you groan, burrowing your hands in your palms. Jungkook, surprised by your reaction, rolls closer, moves around until you’re crouched between his long legs. “Since me and that pinhead dated for twenty minutes?” You repeat.

Jungkook shifts closer, rubs your back. “It was 65 hours, actually,” he corrects, and the exact duration of your relationship makes you cringe. “I… counted.”

Small and shy, almost embarrassed. You glance back up at him. “Why?” You prod, and Jungkook’s cheek flush, palm stilling.

“Uh,” he starts. “I was nervous? That you two were in it for the long run. And I, I don’t know. It was easier to just count,” he lamely finishes, and his dangly earring whips around with him when he avidly avoids your gaze.

You sigh, catch his hand in yours. “Tae and I would have never lasted,” you tell him, remembering all the times the guy made you pick him up from one night stands in the last few years. “He wasn’t who I wanted.”

His foot jumps, toe tapping against the wheel of the car next to you. He wants to ask, you know he does, but Jungkook was quite possibly the only other person on this planet who could overthink something more than you.

Deciding to ease his worries, you give his hand a squeeze. “It was you,” you confess, feel like an elephant lands straight on your chest. “It is you,” you correct.

His forehead knocks against yours, hard, and you hiss at the bump that probably forms. “What the fu—“

“Tell me it’s not temporary,” Jungkook pleads, eyes crinkled in worry. You’re going cross eyed from trying to look at him like this, so you flit your eyes off somewhere to the side. His hand is heavy in yours. “Tell me you’re not just doing this for closure, or because you want to see what it would have been like, please,” he begs, “that would be so fucked up, because I’m so in love with you I actually think I might die.”

The dramatic confession makes you painfully warm. You nod, your lower lip trembling at the way he looks at you, like you single-handedly controlled this entire world with a flick of your wrist. “I-I love you too,” you parrot back, the first time you’ve ever said it, the millionth time you’ve ever thought it.

Jungkook visibly relaxes, pulls away from you to drop his head on your shoulder instead. Your legs are starting to cramp from the tight crouching position, ankles wobbly in your heels. His hair smells good still, despite the hours he’s probably spent beneath a car, and you gingerly pat the back of his head.

“I love you,” he murmurs, and you repeat it. “I love you,” he says again, and you repeat it. “I lov—“

“Me, yes, I’ve heard,” you cut him off, smile at the snort he releases, and when he turns his head, his lips brush against your neck. You’re instantly thrown back a few weeks, to that night on the couch with the limited edition Shrek 2 cups and the wine; the gentle touches that left you trembling for weeks. You inhale quickly, grabbing him by the shoulders and pushing him away.

His eyes are too soft, face too relaxed as he stares at you. “My legs hurt,” you tell him, quickly getting up. You whirl around, facing the car and digging through your purse like you suddenly have something to do.

“Oh,” you gasp, watch two arms wind around your waist, the dirty red jumpsuit contrasting against the tweed material of your high-end Chanel jacket. Jungkook sighs lovingly by your ear, snuggles his face into your neck. “W-we should go out,” you blurt, nerves jumping when he squeezes tighter, burrows closer. “To celebrate!”

Jungkook hums. “Yeah?” His voice is too low. You’re in trouble. “Celebrate what?”

You squirm, breath catching in your throat when he presses you closer against the hood of the car. “Um,” you shakily exhale, hands splaying out over the sleek surface of the black hood to steady yourself. It’s so shiny you can almost see your reflection. “U-Us!” You finally manage to exclaim.

A kiss against the side of your neck, and your spirit just about exits your body. Your knees feel weak, and you're just about ready to throw another mediocre excuse his way, when something warm and wet traces up the column of your neck. “Kook!” You gasp.

“Shh,” he murmurs, deep voice instantly soothing over your nerves. His hips nudge against your behind, and you jump at the bulge that presses against your lower back. One hand unwraps from around you, gliding down your arm sensually until he’s trapping your fingers on the hood of the car with his own. A swift kiss against your ear. “You owe me, remember?”

You flush, remember the filthy promises your list-addled brain has spewed that night at your house, the almost erratic development of your thoughts as you became consumed in the thought of him. Reminisce on the prod of his fingers against your cunt, his hot breath against your ear.

Suddenly, Jungkook whirls you around, traps you with his gaze as two hands flutter to rest on the small of your back. He’s looking down at you with those lovesick eyes, hooded with lust as they trace over the dip of your Cupid’s bow. “You’ll do that for me, won’t you?” A soft brush of his mouth against yours, pouty lips guiding you through a kiss, until you’re sighing against him, and he’s pulling away.

Numbly, you nod, almost hypnotized by the soft smirk that overtakes his features as he pushes you down, watches you sink to your knees before him. The concrete feels cold and hard beneath your knees. His jumpsuit is knotted around his waist, and you shakily unravel it, the elastic waistband staring you in the face afterwards.

“Take your time,” Jungkook croons, hand coming to rest on the side of your face, knuckles brushing over your skin delicately.

You tug it down, and one flash of that underwear band has your nerves flying out the window. You shove his t-shirt out of the way, let your hands trail over the ridges of his abdomen in your haste. He helps you by tugging it over his head. With that gone, his black boxers stare you in the face, and you yank those down with no hesitation.

“Jesus, baby,” Jungkook chuckles, though it’s choked off when you grasp his engorged cock in his hand. You should be surprised, marveling at the sight, considering it’s the first time you’ve ever seen him like this. But you brain is working overtime, too immersed in the vein that runs alongside it and the tip that throbs back at you. Later you can worship it, you think. Right now, you needed it down your throat.

The tip is flaming and swollen, his cock still growing plump in your hold, your hands slowly dragging up and down the length. You lean forward, press a gentle kiss below the mushroom head, trail kisses down the length until you're meeting your knuckles, and trail them back again. Jungkook sucks in a tight breath, leans to rest his palms on the car behind you, as he watches you on him.

A head of precum escapes, and you lunge for it, swirl your tongue in and around the slit on his cock, until his entire body tenses up. “Fuck,” he grunts, watches you ease his cock into your mouth. You groan at the stretch, the drag against the corners of your lips making your eyes roll backwards. “___, baby, a little more?” He asks, voice hoarse as he watches you sink down further on his cock.

You comply, close your eyes and focus on relaxing your throat. There’s a hand on the back of your head, impatiently pushing you down his length. “Shit,” he cries, unconsciously ruts against you. You gag, and he shushes you with a caress against your cheek. “Sorry,” he huffs, “just a little more for me, okay?”

Eyes squeezed shut tightly, you let him push you down until his cock hits the back of your throat and you can’t take anymore. The prod against your throat has tears springing to your eyes. “Gonna move now,” Jungkook announces, thumb brushing away the tears that collect in the corners. “Be good.”

He drags himself out, your saliva coating every inch of him, and when just the tip is resting on your tongue, he shoves back in. You whimper, palms digging into his thighs. Jungkook brushes a hand down your hair, soothes you for all of two seconds before he’s pulling out and doing it all over again. He picks up the pace, loses himself in the feeling of your hot mouth around him, tongue dragging over his cock.

The feeling in your throat burns, each thrust of his hips against your mouth making your jaw more and more sore. But god, it feels good to have him so close, his scent swarming your sense, groans like music to your ears. You want to please him, want him to feel as good as you did at your place. You want it even more now that you know how he feels, know he’s probably thought about this before.

A brutal thrust has you gagging, throat contracting around his length. “Shh,” Jungkook sighs, the fingers buried in your hair flattening out to run over your head. “Doing so good for me, beautiful.”

You bask in the praise, let a hand flutter down to the apex of your thighs, pressing down to relieve some of the pressure. Jungkook groans, rolls his hips against you and keeps you there for a second. Your throat spasms, his dick pressed hotly against it, and you feel your panties grow embarrassingly sticky. Eventually, he draws back out.

“You like this?” He hums, rutting against you faster now, nose brushing against the sparse hairs on his pelvis with every slam of his hips. You nod around a gag, eyes clouding with tears, lips slippery with saliva and precum. One particular thrust is so hard, it nearly sends you knocking back into the car, Jungkook’s hand on the back of your head barely saving you. “Fucking hell,” he spits, “look so pretty with my cock shoved down your throat, princess.”

You moan around him, feel a subtle twitch against your tongue before he’s pulling himself out. “Shit,” he cursed, pushing you away as he goes to grab his own dick in his hand, tugging at it like a madman. “Wh-Where?” He asks, and you stare dumbly at the sight of him playing with himself, almost don’t realize he’s asking you a question.

You take too long, scramble for words too long, and even if you did have one your throat is far too sensitive yo answer. Jungkook grows impatient. Pulling you closer by the collar of your Chanel suit jacket, tugging it open until the flimsy buttons snap, and the tank top you wore beneath comes into view. He aims the tip of his cock towards your sternum, and a few jacks later, he’s coming, cum spurting against your chest. You watch the cum trail down between the valley of your breasts, until the feeling comes to rest against the inside wire of your bra, sticky and gross, sliding along the underside of your boobs. “Shit,” Jungkook repeats, eyes furrowed over you.

Your knees ache, and you nearly trip when you stand up, steadying yourself against the side of the car. Jungkook seems to regain his sense by then, hand trailing around your waist. You meet his eye, and almost immediately turn away, the blood in your face rapidly rising.

Jungkook laughs. “Don’t get shy on me now,” he teases, gets too close and your noses bump. “Sorry,” he smiles, too shiny and bright for the sinful acts you just committed in an auto shop.

“Put your dick away,” you huff, let him nuzzle closer to you, and when he doesn’t move to tuck himself into his pants, you go do it for him.

Jungkook frowns, swats your hand away. “This dick has places to be,” he informs you, and you scoff.

“Refractory period,” you remind him, and he rolls his eyes.

“Well I’m not exactly gonna stick it in you this instant,” he drawls. “Gotta stretch you out first.”

You go to complain, tell him he doesn’t have to over exert himself. Truthfully, with Jungkook you feel like one good session was enough to sustain you for weeks. After last time, your skin had flowed for an entire week. But then his hand is slithering up your backside, sneaking under your skirt to grab a handful of your ass.

There’s quickly drying drool collecting at the corners of your mouth, saliva from when he’d fucked your throat just a few moments prior, that he kisses away. His mouth slots over yours, and your heart and pussy both flutter at the kiss.

It’s gentle and sweet for all of ten seconds, his mouth moving against yours until you feel the wet press of his tongue against your bottom lip, tracing along until you open your mouth. He wastes no time shoving his tongue past your lips, letting it dance with yours as he pulls you closer, hands gripping the globes of your ass. You let him lick his way into your mouth, more and more saliva catching in the corners of your mouth until he’s pulling away with a wet pop.

He pulls away, doesn’t stray too far, proud smirk crossing his features at the sight of your slicked lips. “You liked that, didn’t you?”

“Huh?” You ask dumbly, tongue mindlessly swiping over your lips.

Jungkook’s eyes track the movement. “The saliva,” he clarifies. “The spit. You liked it at your place too,” he reminisces, moving in on you again. “Liked watching me slobber and spit all over your body. Isn’t that right, baby?”

You blush, discreetly rub your thighs together. “I-I do,” you admit, willing the warmth of your face away because at this distance he must certainly feel it.

Jungkook nods, doesn’t say anything else as he captures your lips a second time. He doesn’t bother with the gentle prodding anymore, jumping straight into tongue right away. He’s messier, letting his saliva coat your lips and drip down your mouth, and as messy as it is, you love it. You whimper when he pulls away, but gasp when his hand tugs at the hair by the nape of your neck, pulling you back until you’re looking up at him.

“Open,” he murmurs, and you do, tongue pressing against your bottom lip.

It should be disgusting, the rev of his throat, the sound of his saliva collecting, and the way his jaw shifts when he’s got enough. It should be filthy, the way he shoots it down your open lips, the way it splatters against the back of your throat. It should be gross, but god do you love it. “Swallow,” Jungkook commands, and you do, feel his spit drip down your throat like it’s your own, whimpering at the feeling. A quirk of his lips. “Good girl.”

You have to bite down the pride that grows in your chest.

Jungkook’s hands continue their mapping out of your behind, eventually ending with a hard squeeze that has you squealing. Automatically, your back arches in surprise, breasts pressing against Jungkook’s chest. He smirks down at you.

“Bet you taste good,” he says, pressing a kiss against your cheek. “Let me taste?”

“Please,” you beg, nearly losing your shit when he lifts you up onto the car, the cool metal making you jump, heel on your foot nearly kicking the side view mirror clean off. “Wait, Jungkook,” you sputter, glancing down at the sleek metal. “This is someone’s car.”

Jungkook ignores you, pushes your legs apart to slot himself between them. His palms run up your legs, over your thighs, until they’re toying with the hem of your skirt. Mocha eyes glance up at you, as if daring you to question him again, so you promptly zip your lips shut. The skirt goes, ever so slowly, over your thighs, bunches up at your waist until he’s staring at your lace panties.

He presses a kiss against the inside of your thigh, nose faintly brushing against your skin. The kisses trail over your skin, until he’s hovering over your panties, and he’s staring like a man starved. He gives no warning, suddenly leaning down to press his mouth over your party-clad folds, nose flush against your clit. “Kook!” You squeak, hands flying to clutch at his hair.

Jungkook mouths at you, drags his tongue against your panties until they’re soaked in both your essence and his saliva, just how you like. A hand slithers around your leg, wrapping around until he’s got a firm grip on it that he uses to hold it open.

“J-Just take them off,” you gasp, squirm when his mouth moves towards your clit, lapping against you. “Please,” you cry.

He doesn’t.

Jungkook tortures you with those kitten licks, muted through your panties, until you’re begging him to stop, to take them off and do it right. He loves it, you can tell, dazzling smile peeking up at you every time you tug against his hair, until finally, he’s had enough.

The underwear comes off, dangling uselessly by your ankle, and then the show really begins.

“Wait,” you choke, head falling back against the hood of the car when he finally gets his mouth on you, suctioning his lips around your swollen clit. The niggling reminder that this is some stranger’s car he’s eating you out on rings in your brain, and perhaps that’s what makes it more exciting.

His mouth is warm, tongue flicking over your sensitive bud like it’s candy and he needs the sugar. The sounds are so loud and wet, the squelching of your pussy every time he pulls off a pop that resounds throughout the garage. He pampers your clit for what seems like hours, switching the movements of his tongue every time he gets the chance until you’re quivering.

When you think he’s done, he’s not.

Fingers slide up your thigh, featherlight, as they reach your drenched cunt. They drag over your lips, and you mewl, feeling the muscles jump and tighten at his touches. “Jungkook, please,” you moan, rolling your hips against him, but it’s hard and everytime you move, you feel the sweat on your skin weigh you down, glued to the metal beneath you.

The first finger breaches you, just the tip of his index slowly wiggling inside. You muffle a moan in your palm, and Jungkook pulls away with a huff. “No hiding,” he warns, slowly lowering back to your cunt with a stern glare. You nod, but can’t help it when his second finger pushes its way in and you bite down on your knuckles.

“Oh,” You sob, body quivering as he begins scissoring his two fingers inside you. With your attention focused on the digits sheathed inside you, he pulls away from your clit, bestowing one final kiss against it that has your foot kicking out wildly. “Th-there.” His other hand catches your palm in his, presses it against the metal by your head.

Jungkook smiles, curls his fingers around until he finds the soft spot inside you that turns you to jelly. “There we go, beautiful,” he purrs, pushing himself to his full height, leaning over your trembling form. “So sweet for me,” he sighs, licks his lips like he’s remembering your taste.

“I'm gonna,” you choke, become hypnotized by the dark cloud in his gaze, the arrogant smirk on his lips. He curls his fingers, palm brushing against your abandoned clit. The touch makes you jump, nerves tingling.

“Cum for me,” he encourages, silky tone swarming your head as your pleasure slowly washes over you. It’s probably the most relaxed orgasm you’ve had in your entire life, his low voice and delighted eyes guiding you through it, until your entire body clenches, dissolving in a puddle of contentment. Your arousal surges around his fingers, trickling down onto the metal.

“Oh, Jungkook,” you pant, overwhelmed from the touches and the kisses. Jungkook’s smile gets swallowed by your greedy mouth, desperate for more kisses now that he’s made you feel like this.

The kisses only placate him for so long, and when he presses his body against yours, there’s an awfully hard cock that slides against your dripping cunt. “Think you can go again, gorgeous?” He murmurs against your jaw, nipping at the skin on the way down. You nod, eyes falling shut at the warmth you feel in your bones.

Jungkook kisses your neck one last time, before leaning back once more to line himself up.

This was a scene straight from your teenage fantasies, a dripping, shirtless Jungkook at full mast between your thighs, looking at you so lovingly. It makes your heart thunder, imagining how long you could have been doing this if you weren’t both so stupid. As if reading your thoughts, Jungkook rubs a palm over your thigh, eyebrow quirked. You nod his concern away, squirm closer until the tip of his cock nudges against your hole.

“Fuck,” Jungkook sighs, moving his hands to your hips as he slowly pushes in. His fingers, bless their intentions, could have never prepared you for the size of Jungkook’s cock, thick and veiny as it pushes inside. You whimper, clawing at the hands on your waist that stop you from impaling yourself on it fully. “Waited so long for this.”

“Then fucking do it,” you beg, nearly pass out when he shoves in harshly at your tone. “J-Jung—“

“I got you, baby,” he assures you, jostles you until you’re flush against his cock, clit brushing against his pelvis. Your back arches, and Jungkook slips his arm around you, the other lingering on your waist.

Every subtle shift has him brushing along your swollen clit, and you sob at the sensation, begging him to move. He complies, changes his stance to make it easier, and finally begins thrusting into your throbbing pussy.

“So good,” he huffs, eyes zeroed in on where the two of you meet. You would have looked too, if your body hadn’t felt so completely boneless beneath him, the grinding of his cock sending shocks of pleasure up your spine. “So pretty and mine.”

“Yours,” you choke, heart swelling in your chest at his words. It’s almost animalistic, the way he ducks down to bite at your neck, like some animal staking its claim, and you like it. You like it because it’s all you ever dreamed of for so long. “Faster, Kook,” you urge, wrapping your arms around him.

He does as you say, slow and careful thrusts transitioning into a fast piston that would have had you bouncing out of his reach if he wasn’t holding you so tightly. “Fuck,” he chokes, lost in the way you clench around him, lips dragging against his cock with each thrust. “Baby,” he grunts, sweat trailing down his temple, eyes furrowed shut. Eventually, his head falls into the crook of your neck, his weight pressing down on you uncomfortably, subtle ridges on the hood making you ache. At this point, you’re too far gone to care. “All I ever wanted,” he gasps.

You could cry, right now and he’d pull out right away, big heart fretting over your emotional well-being. Which is exactly why you hold your emotions in, let yourself get fully immersed in the feeling of Jungkook pounding you against some stranger’s car and not the inevitable emotional crash you’ll have later.

He fucks like he’s waited all his life for this, and you guess he sort of has if what he’s saying is true. You have no doubt it is, and when his lips suck a mark against your neck, you feel like you’re in heaven. “Almost,” you pant, legs wrapping around his waist tightly. Jungkook nods, his hair tickling your jaw and neck, as he picks up the pace. Your cunt swallows him up every single time, suctions him in until he’s shaking, and so are you.

It can only last for so long, your heart and body eventually reaching their peak, and you unravel. His arms are there to catch you, to pick up the pieces and hold you together. You want to cry, you really do, and when the coil in your stomach snaps, you finally do. “I love you,” you sob, and Jungkook shudders, glances at your tear-struck face to push himself off.

“Love you too,” he mumbles, grinds his cock against your spasming folds one last time, and comes mid-thrust, cum spurting inside you. He holds you, just like you knew he would, as you come down from your highs, hot breath fanning across your skin.

You feel warm, loved, and in love, body trembling in sensitivity afterwards. He’s pulled out since, soothingly rubbing a hand against your side. You’d like to say you wouldn’t be anywhere else, but one shift reminds you of where you are.

“Shit,” you groan, taking in your surroundings before letting your head fall back against the hood. Jungkook hums, round eyes looking your way. “We really just confessed and had sex on some stranger’s car.”

Jungkook snorts, leans away just the slightest to look you in the eye. He’s lost in thought, chocolate irises swirling as they drink you in. “Say thanks to Taehyung,” he finally says.

You roll your eyes, and when you shift beneath him, your sweaty skin sticks uncomfortably against the metal hood. “Yeah, let me thank Taehyung for dating me for three days and awakening your crush,” you huff sarcastically, resigning yourself to your new life stuck against the hood of some classic automobile from the 50s. Jungkook laughs, tucks himself back into his underwear. “Thanks Taehyung, for your noble sacrifice ten years ago that allowed me to fuck Jungkook on some stranger’s car—“

Jungkook hums, snuggles closer to you. “Tae’s car.”

“—after confessing our—Taehyung’s car?” You shriek, sitting up with the strength of three football players, Jungkook toppling off you. “Oh my god. No.” Jungkook rubs his elbow where he knocked it against the hood, looks at you with solemn eyes. Slowly, a smirk crawls over his features. “No,” you gasp, mortification crawling up your spine. “We didn’t.”

He tugs you off the car, tugs your skirt down when you wobble on unsteady heels. “Yup,” he says, pops the end of the word like a child. “Say hello to Taehyung’s new car!” He exclaims, patting the hood you just defiled. “Straight from the car auction he went to this morning,” he beams.

“Oh my god,” you groan, covering your face with your hands when you finally spot the puddles of... something on the black hood. “This is terrible.”

Jungkook ignores you, wipes up the mess with some napkins from his takeout bag, but there’s already some that's dried, only fueling your mortification. “Not like he’ll find out,” he shrugs, then narrows his eyes at you. “Or will he?”

“No!” You stutter, carefully rounding the car as if inspecting it for any more signs of the treacherous things you and Jungkook did on or around it. “I-I won’t tell him.”

“Uh huh,” Jungkook teases, settles on that rolling stool and pushes himself towards you. There’s a hand easing itself around your waist, tugging you between open legs. Still in shock, your hands flutter around his neck, muscle memory causing you to immediately begin massaging the skin there.

Jungkook sighs into the touch, eyes falling shut. “Too bad Jimin’s not here,” he sighs, and you visibly see his nose grow in arrogance. 

“What? Why should Jimin be here?” You ask, pushing your fingers against the knots in his neck. 

Jungkook levels you with an unimpressed, one-eyed glare. He scoffs, “maybe you are as dumb ad Taehyung says.” And then, “hey!” when you tug his ear. He isn’t upset, just tugs you closer until his face is buried against your stomach. “You know country folk like him marry on the spot right?”

“What are you even saying,” you huff, burying your hands in the hair at the nape of his neck, tugging his head back to properly look at him. “Why do you care who Jimin marries?” He doesn’t bother answering. 

Instead, Jungkook sighs into the touch, an easygoing smile thrown your way, and for a moment you forget about the trauma Taehyung will have when he inevitably learns about this. “This is the life.”

[nevertheless-moving]

Suicidal Misunderstanding XVI

Part I - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Part XIII - - - - Part XIV - - - - Part XV

Star Wars Time Travel AU #27

Masters Aerdo, Koon and Nu lurched forward in distress as Obi-Wan unceremoniously slammed his mental walls into place.

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” He reassured them, smiling weakly and rubbing his temples.

“Cutting yourself off so abruptly from the force after a meditation that deep is dangerous,” Master Aerdo said, alarmed. “Please endeavor to be more gentle with yourself, Master Kenobi.”

“Of course, I simply thought it would be be best to allow for some, ah, uncertainty with my retreat to counteract my... necessary indiscretion.”

“Uncertainty!” Plo scolded. “If I hadn’t been in same room as you I might have thought you were dead!”

“Well, yes, that’s rather-”

Vokara Che burst through the door, followed closely by Bant Eerin.

“PLO KOON! WHAT IN THE GALACTIC CORE HAVE YOU DONE TO MY PATIENT!”

Master Koon took a step back, “Vokara, please-”

“I’m perfectly alright, Master Che,” Obi-Wan interjected, “Master Koon has helped me beyond what I can ever repay. I- Oh dear. You all have.” Obi-Wan looked around, guilt creeping into his voice. “Oh. OH. I am so sorry for what I must have put you all through. I- I assure you, it wasn’t what it looked like. Thank you so much for all you’ve done to save me from...well, my own foolishness, I suppose. Oh that must have been- I deeply apologize for the inconvenience I’ve caused.”

Master Che took a deep breath. “Your good health is repayment enough for whatever debt you feel you might owe. May I take your recent...reaching out to mean that you have begun to regain your sense of where and when you are and no longer feel the need for more...drastic means of escape? Alarming raising of shields notwithstanding?”

Obi-Wan winced. “I am...still confused on a number of points, I admit. But I’ve cleared up most of my important doubts. Its... 7957 by the Centralized Republic Calendar. I’m in the temple Halls of Healing on Couracant. Everyone in this room is a fellow member of Jedi Order.” Obi-Wan hastily wiped away a few tears forming in the corners of his eyes. 

He cleared his throat as the five onlookers watched with a mixture of sympathy and confusion. “It’s going to be difficult, but I owe you all an explanation. Actually I need to explain a few things quite urgently, but first-”

His train of thought was interrupted by the roiling force presence that proceeded Mace Windu’s entrance. Mace paused at the foot of the bed, eyeing Obi-Wan critically as everyone else shuffled slightly out of the way to the edges of the increasingly crowded room. 

“Master Kenobi. You’re looking better.” He finally said.

“I’m feeling better. You really can’t imagine. I’m sure you have questions, but first I must insist- ow!” Obi-Wan jerked back, startled by the sudden rap of a gimer stick on the side of his head.

“Master Yoda!” Che and Aerdo scolded as the Grandmaster suddenly appeared on the nightstand to get a better look at his troublesome great-grand padawan.

 Vokara actually grabbed the wizened elder with both hands, lifting him by the armpits and chastising him like a misbehaving youngling. “That is not an appropriate greeting for any of my patients. Shame on you.”

“Patients, hmm? Shame, shame indeed.” Yoda muttered, dangling in the air. “Gone, my patience is. For making us think he had joined the force too early, shame indeed on Obi-Wan.” 

Obi-Wan bowed his head. “My apologies, grandmaster. I had strong reason to believe that I was trapped in a hallucination. I will explain everything but first we really need to comm-”

“Your suicide attempt, I was not referring to, no. Do such a thing in your right mind, I know you would never. Concerned, we were, of course. Halfway fake your own death, the first thing you did was, after all this! The reason I am hitting you, that is! Too old for this, I am!” 

“I understand, and I had reason for retreating so suddenly. Which I will be happy to explain. But first we really need to do damage control and contact-”

- - - - -

“ANAKIN! Anakin, what’s wrong!” Padme shook her husband’s shoulders as he knelt, collapsed on the floor.

“It’s- Obi-Wan” he choked out. “He was here! He was awake and alive and then he just- stopped.” 

“Oh force. You don’t mean he’s-”

“I don’t know. I can’t sense him. I don’t know.”

“Go. And when you find him, please comm me to let me know if-”

But Anakin was already gone.

- - - - -

"Oh...hm.” Master Tiin shuddered slightly.

“Sir? Is everything alright?” Captain Rex asked.

“Does this have something to do with General Kenobi’s illness?” Boil called out anxiously. A low murmur rippled through the mixed meeting of high-level strategic and logistical officers. 

“His- force presence grew rather strong for a moment. I would have to contact the temple to-”

“He’s dead.”

“Master Krell!” Saesee Tiin chided as the room recoiled in horror. “We don’t know that.”

General Tiin addressed the anxious room, “His force presence did cut out abruptly, but there are a number of explanations for such a thing, and jumping to the worst case scenario prematurely does us no favors.”

“Perhaps we should pause the briefing while you contact the Temple, sir.” Commander Cody offered stiffly.

“Out of line, Clone.” General Krell said, sneering. “Regardless of the status of your former General, we depart at 22:00 hours this evening. This briefing will continue. Interrupt with such a meaningless and insubordinate suggestion again and I will have you put on review for decommissioning.”

“Yes, sir.” Cody replied.

“That’s enough, Master Krell. I realize tensions are running high but please control yourself.” Tiin sighed. “We do need to finish this planning session. I apologize for the disruption, everyone. Now if you will all turn your attention back to map 3a of the Ghost Nebula...”

Command training included modules on compartmentalizing unhelpful emotional responses in order to focus on tactical information, so that’s what Cody did.

- - - - -

“If you have some Sith-related intel to divulge, I think it might be more appropriate to contact the rest of the council first, Master Kenobi,” Mundi said, discarded fluid drip awkwardly jabbing him in the side . 

“I agree, but trust me, first, someone really needs to tell Anakin I’m not dead. If you don’t want to do it, I will,” Obi-Wan announced, trying to get up. 

“You’re not going anywhere,” Bant snapped, pushing him back into bed.

“I- Oh Bant, It’s- some things are fuzzy, but you were one of the medi staff who came to my quarters after I...”

Bant glared in answer. 

“I am so sorry, again I-” 

“Obi-Wan, try not to worry too much about apologies right now. The important thing is you have people who care about you and we are all pleased by your renewed vigor for life.” Healer Aerdo interrupted, maintaining a death grip on Yoda while Che fussed over Obi-Wan’s vital readings. 

“I’ve commed Skywalker but if he’s acting as I suspect, he’s not checking messages” Master Windu said from his place in the corner.

- - - - - 

A Chiss Padawan leaned over to whisper to her Master as the mental flow halted unceremoniously. “Master, you don’t think...”

“Is something wrong, young one?” Chancellor Palpatine called out, smiling warmly at the young apprentice and drawing all eyes in the sub-committee meeting to the cloaked pair standing watch at the door.

“Ah, no, Supreme Chancellor, thank you for your concern. We simply observed a minor disruption in the force,” Her Tholothian Master replied smoothly as the padawan attempted not to fidget. “I’m sure the Council will contact us if it’s anything worth reporting to the Senate.” 

The meeting continued but more than a few senators spent the remainder of the session discretely swapping messages speculating on what could have ruffled the usually silent and stoic guardians. 

- - - - -

Shouted curses and wailing speeder horns followed Anakin as he raced to the temple. 

I swear to all the gods if he’s alive i’ll never kill anyone ever again I should have been there was no warning in the force please help me if he’s dead i’m going to kill everyone on this planet except Padme and then im going to kill Dooku and Grevious and then

- - - - -

“Master Fisto!” Ashoka said, turning anxiously to the Natuolan Master as Obi-Wan’s presence evaporated. “Do you think Master Kenobi is alright?”

“We’re quite a distance away,” Kit replied soothingly. “There’s a very good chance he simply had to withdraw because he was overreaching himself to say hello.” 

Ashoka frowned. “Can we contact the temple to make sure? Please?”

“I’ll send a comm, but we might not get a reply right away. We’re only a few hours out from the planet, so you’ll be able to check in on him yourself soon, alright?”

“Yes, Master.”

- - - - -

“Ah...perhaps we should shift into another room? This one is a little small for the...full Jedi Council. And I wouldn’t mind the opportunity to change out of these patients robes and into something a little more appropriate”

“You’re not going anywhere or changing into anything until I clear you.” Che snapped, elbowing Koth out of the way to jab Obi-Wan with another device.

“If one of the high council is unable to leave this room, than the high council is more than willing to meet here.” Master Gallia said calmly from her perch at the foot of the bed.  

“Well I’m not leaving.” Master Nu announced. “I still haven’t gotten the full explanation Plo promised.”

“As a healer-”

- - - - -

Klicks apart from one another, Sith Assassin Ventress and Knight Vos unknowingly shared identical frowns as Quinlan softly gave voice to what they were both thinking,

“What the fuck, Kenobi.”

- - - - - 

“WATCH OUT!”

“Kriff!”

“...Was that Anakin Skywalker? Did The Hero With No Fear just cut us off?”

“Must be some serious business for him to be flying like that.”

- - - - - 

Count Dooku redirected the Invisible Hand; his plans for Kiros would simply have to wait. Sidious might prefer the Umbaran seige to be a long, protracted affair rather than a decisive win one way or another, but if Tyrannus’s suspicions were correct, than the time for kowtowing to the Sith Master might be near its end. Sidious had long underestimated his Grandpadawan. He suspected that whatever play was going on was less the act of a new player and more the opening move of an experience one now shifting his attention to another arena. 

The ‘attack’ was likely a deliberate ruse to allow Kenobi to slip into the shadows and finally begin addressing the hint he had provided on Genosis long ago. Now, more than ever, Dooku needed to manage Separatist affairs strategically. Kenobi’s search into the force and subsequent rapid withdraw was too deliberate to be anything but the first steps of a larger plot. 

- - - - -

“Ah, Master Mundi?” A young apprentice healer asked the Cerean Master guarding the entranceway to the wing. “There’s a small crowd gathering outside. All very orderly, of course. But they want to know Master Kenobi’s Status. What should I tell them?”

Mundi Sighed. “If they ask, tell them Master Kenobi’s wellbeing is protected under healer client confidentiality and the highest security clearance.” 

Ki-Adi paused. “If Anakin Skywalker, arrives, just- send him this way, as you would a Council Member, understood? Don’t try and stop him.” he added begrudgingly.

“I see.” the padawan replied with impressive professional calm, "Thank you, Master Mundi” She bowed and returned to the front.

- - - - -

Maul staggered out of his cave. Kenobi was taunting him now. Kenobi would pay. Kenobi would see. Kenobi couldn’t die before Maul killed him.

- - - - -

A gap opened in the somber crowd as Anakin sprinted through, heart in his throat.

He should have been here there was no warning he should have been there

“Skywalker!” Mundi barked. “Calm yourself!”

Anakin stared at him with wild eyes and the High Master faltered, frightened for a moment. Before Anakin could say or do anything to the council member, Master Windu appeared. “Over here.”

Anakin blurred past him, mind tormenting him with images of nooses and blood and broken bodies and incomplete-

“Hello there, Anakin.” Obi-Wan sat upright in bed, smiling at him and surrounded by far too many Master’s for anyone’s comfort. Least of all the Masters, now that Mundi and Windu were forcing their back in. 

Anakin took in a strangled gasp, “Obi-Wan- you- i thought you were dead.”

Obi-Wan’s welcoming smile faltered. “Oh Anakin, I’ve really put you through a terrible ordeal the last few days, haven’t I? I am so, so sorry- I- I promise I didn’t intend to leave you like that. Come here, I’ll- its going to sound quite impossible but I can explain everything. There’s so much I have to tell everyone-”

Anakin threw himself forward, ignoring Jedi dignity and who he was knocking over.

He heard a tut of disapproval behind him as he embraced his Master. 

“Oh be quiet” Master Koon chided someone. “Honestly, he’s padawan age, have some compassion.”

Anakin decided to ignore that in favor of crying over Obi-Wan for the fourth time in as many days, utterly exhausted. 

Obi-Wan hesitated for a bare moment before wrapping his arms around his brother and friend for the first time in years (at least for the first time where he was aware that it was real and oh force he was really going to have to meditate to fully understand what he had said and done and what everyone had said in response).

“Perhaps we should give them a moment to collect themselves.” Master Aerdo offered diplomatically. Having largely reached their threshold for open displays of emotion, the Council non-verbally came to an agreement.

“You two have five minutes to pull yourselves together,” Master Windu said severely. 

“Of course, Master Windu. Thank you.” Obi-Wan rasped.

The group shuffled out with remarkable good grace, considering the number of inhabitants in the room, or rather remarkable bad grace, considering they were all supposed to be Jedi Masters.

Plo Koon patted them both on the shoulders before filing out. Master Yoda leapt nimbly out of Bant’s arms to land on the nightstand. He rapped them each lightly on the head before darting out with a chuckle. The door clicked shut.

“Master- I- never do that again.”

“I’m sorry Anakin, I promise, I wasn’t trying to die, I have far, far too much to live for. I’m never going to leave you again, I don’t care what else happens but- I’m not going to abandon you ever again, do you understand. Even if I die, I’ll come back and haunt you for the rest of your life, you’ll barely notice the difference, I swear.”

“...Thank you, but please stop talking now”

“Right, of course. I’m sorry. I’m so, so-”

“I love you, Obi-Wan.”

“...I love you too, Anakin.”

Part XVII

[oikawaplssteponme]

original request: @bakugousmymassa Hi willow🥺❤️❤️ ok so this has been on my mind for so long and I hope it makes sense. Ok so bakugou x fem reader and like yk she’s simping for him through manga/anime little does she know he’s doing the same thing is his world. And like they start thinking about each other and it comes through in the manga/anime and like they somehow find a way to communicate through it and like their love/simping becomes so strong that she randomly pops up in the common room and the bakusquad/class 1a is like 👁👄👁 and like they kiss or whatever Ik it’s long and weird but like omg I can’t get it out my mind sorryyy😭😭

pairing: Katsuki Bakugou x fem! reader

warnings: some swear words

genre: fluff, a bit angsty

a/n: thank you so much for the request bb! i added my own twist to it so i hope you like it!!

finally done with all my inbox requests!! 99% of them were bakugou in which i had zero complaints. i am here for all your bakugou needs 🤩i got a bit carried away with writing this so that’s why im letting it have it’s own moment☺️ i loved writing this and i would love to hear your thoughts on it (reblogs are greatly appreciated too🧡) enjoy xx

•

It was your favorite bookstore. It was where you bought your first manga. It was where you found a love for all these complex characters and incredible storylines. This bookstore seemed to satisfy every craving you had in regards to a 2D boy to fawn over. So there was no surprise that when you strolled into the bookstore, you headed straight to where the My Hero Academia mangas were.

You had read them all, even watched the anime. For some reason, you just kept coming back. You couldn’t get enough.

Something on the bookshelf had caught your attention. Among the original mangas, there was one lone book, different from the rest. You stared at the cover. It had your favorite character on it, keeping you intrigued. You had never seen this one before. Was it a side story? Was it a new release? If so, why would there only be one? Out of your own curiosity, you decided to buy it.

You handed the bookstore cashier the manga and your money. They looked at you, simply smiling.

“Is Katsuki Bakugou your favorite?” they asked.

“Yeah, he is,” you smiled. They handed you the book.

“Unfortunately there are no returns on this special edition. I guess you’ll be stuck with him,” they said. You chuckled, taking their comment as a joke.

“I’m okay with that.”

~

Once you were home, you sat down on your couch and pulled out the book, opening it up.

“What the…”

The pages were blank. The entire book had nothing in it. No words, no drawings, just plain white paper.

“How can you sell an empty book?” you groaned. You thought you had wasted your money on this. You set the book down, staring at the blank page angrily.

Suddenly, one spot of ink appeared on the page. Then more. Your eyes grew as the pages created their own drawing in the corner.

“This isn’t happening…”

You stared at the drawing, stunned.

“What kind of idiot buys a book before opening it first,” read the text bumble. On the page was a drawing of Katsuki Bakugou, his arms crossed with his classic smirk.

“H-How did you just…”

Another drawing began to appear next to the original.

“What? Never seen a self-drawing manga before? Come on dumbass, keep up with me here.”

You couldn’t believe your eyes. Bakugou was talking to you, through a manga.

“B-But you’re not real… you’re just a drawing…”

“Sure I’m a drawing right now, just as you are a drawing on my end. Doesn’t make me or you any less real.”

“Why are you talking to me… how did you find me?”

“Well, how did you find out about me?”

“I read about you in my mangas and I watch your show…”

“Then there is your answer gorgeous. I do the same.”

“I’M A CHARACTER IN A MANGA?” Your brain couldn’t seem to process everything that was happening.

“Of course you are. Damn, you aren’t the brightest…”

“B-But then how did I get your book? Anyone could have bought it.”

“Well me and Shitty Hair figured out a way to leave something behind for you. So that’s how you can talk to me through the book,” explained Bakugou.

“This isn’t happening...this is a lot to process right now. You’re like my dream guy but you’re supposed to be fictional and I’m not entirely sure what to do with all this new information,” you sighed.

“I can explain better in person.”

“I’m sorry, what-”

“Go grab a pen.”

“Bakugou-”

“Go grab a pen Y/N.”

You did as you were told, grabbing the nearest pen.

“Okay now what?”

“Go to a new page and draw yourself, like how I am,” Bakugou instructed. You were skeptical but did it anyway. You created a small box and drew yourself, resembling a manga panel.

“Now write your location as ‘in the common area’.”

“This has to be some kind of fever dream…”

“Just do it dumbass.”

You carefully wrote your desired location.

“Okay now what?”

“I’ll see you later dumbass,” smirked Bakugou. Your eyes grew.

“What- no you can’t just leave-”

“Bye nerd.”

No new panel appeared. You sighed, still in shock.

“There’s no way that was real…”

You set the manga down and laid on your back. You felt a wave of exhaustion come over you. You yawned, slowly falling asleep.

~

“Be quiet, you’re gonna wake her up!”

“How did she even get here?”

“Do you think Bakugou would be mad if I asked her out?”

“It’s not like she would say yes…”

“HEY-”

“Shit I think she’s awake....”

You felt groggy. As if you had been sleeping for days. You slowly started to open your eyes. People-like figures hovered around you.

“Back up, give her some space…”

You sat up, rubbing your eyes. The room was bright. The yellow-tinted walls and green floor caught your attention.

“Where am I…”

“UA High! A prestigious academy made for creating the world’s best Heroes!”

“Wait… Iida?”

“Correct!”

You soon realized what had happened. You looked around to all the familiar faces.

“Iida, Deku, Jirou, Kaminari, Momo, Mina, Kirishima, Todoroki…”

“Damn you’re good!” smiled Denki. You couldn’t believe it. You had some how made your way into your favorite story.

“Am I in the anime?”

“What anime?” asked Todoroki.

“Our anime! Or manga whichever you prefer!” smiled Deku.

“This has to be a dream, right?”

“How? You just woke up?”

“Todoroki it was a rhetorical question…”

“Oh…”

“Um where is Bakugou?” You asked. Everyone smiled.

“He’s waiting outside. You can go meet him,” explained Kirishima. You gulped. It’s not every day you get to come face to face with your fictional crush. Well, not so fictional now.

“Uh okay…” You stood up from the couch, beginning to make your way out the door. Taking a deep breath, you opened the door.

Bakugou was sitting on the steps of the dorms. His heart was beating out of his chest, though he wouldn’t admit it. He twiddled his thumbs as he waited for you to show up.

“H-Hey…” you whispered. Bakugou perked up, immediately standing up and turning around to face you. He looked at you with widened eyes. The both of you just stared at each other for a bit, fathoming the idea that you were really there. Seeing him on a screen or on a page was nothing compared to seeing him in real life.

“Damn…” he mumbled.

“What?”

“You’re beautiful.”

Even though this was technically your first meeting, the two of you weren’t strangers. You knew everything about each other. The endless admiration through pages seemed to have led you here. Exactly where you were supposed to be.

“How is this even real?” You questioned. Bakugou chuckled.

“You do realize your world isn’t the only one out there. So I had to take you to mine.”

“So I’m like a character you read about?”

“Yeah, just as I am that to you. I read your story just as you read mine. It’s not that complicated.”

“Why me though?”

Bakugou took a step towards you. He smiled, taking your hand.

“Why wouldn’t I take the opportunity to meet someone I’ve always dreamed about?”

Your face got hot as you tried to hold back your smile. You squeezed his hand.

“I’m glad you did.”

“Then let’s go dumbass,” he said. You raised a brow.

“What?”

“Well we have to write the rest of the book, don’t we? Come on, I’ve only got you for 300 more pages,” He explained.

“Wait there’s a limit on this?”

“Don’t worry about that now. Now come on, we’ve got shit to do.”

~

You and Bakugou spent the entire day together. He showed you around Musutafu, introducing you to all his favorite places. He showed you his favorite places to train, his favorite restaurant, where he likes to buy his mangas, and even where he found the book that brought you here.

You couldn’t help but take mental notes while you were with him. His hair was a lot softer than you imagined, and he actually did smell of sweet caramel. His red eyes weren’t intimidating at all, actually, you found them adorable. Bakugou had little patience, which you figured correctly. As you held his hand, he would mumble soft ‘sorry’s’, afraid that his hands were getting sweaty. You reassured him that he was fine. That caused his cheeks to blush.

The two of you sat at a park bench, enjoying the view of the city before you. Your head was rested on his shoulder as you held onto his arm. You couldn’t believe this was real. The boy you spent ages crushing over through a screen actually felt exactly the same. It was better than words.

“I wish there were fireworks,” you said. Bakugou chuckled. He removed his arm from your grip.

“Here. How’s this?”

Bakugou started to create mini-explosions in the palms of his hands, resembling fireworks. You stared at the beautiful sparks. Your smile was contagious. You looked up at him but he was already looking at you. You felt your face turn hot.

“So how many more pages until I’m allowed to kiss you?” blurted out Bakugou. You flinched. The burning in your cheeks grew stronger. You smiled.

“None.”

You grabbed the collar of Bakugou’s shirt and pulled him towards you. You crashed your lips together. He gently cupped your face as he held you close. The way he kissed you was beyond anything you could have ever imagined. His heart was beating out of his chest too. He was looking forward to seeing you in person just as much as you were, maybe more.

You looked at Bakugou. His face flushed pink, a cheeky smile from ear to ear. He wrapped his arm around you.

“Wait I have something for you,” you remembered, “I don’t really know how these work but I thought you could use it too.”

You had handed Bakugou a book, similar to the one he had left for you.

“I just think we deserve another volume,” you grinned. Bakugou kissed the top of your head, taking the book.

“I think so too.”

~

You woke up to the sound of your phone ringing. You stretched and rubbed your eyes. Then you remembered.

“Was I really there?” you mumbled. You tried to orient yourself, still slowly waking up. You reached for the manga that sat on the other side of your couch. You took a deep breath opening it up.

The pages were no longer blank. They instead were filled with perfectly detailed drawings of you and Katsuki Bakugou, following the storyline you had just experienced. You wiped the stray tear from your eye and brought the book to your chest.

“Until next time, Katsuki Bakugou.”

•

[general taglist (form in masterlist) : @lealofsblog @iwaisa @bakugousmymassa @roesaurus @evivn1 @astrooliver @tetsoleil @bokutory @vangoghmusings @moonlightaangel @complimentaryhugsgirl ]

[deep-sea-trashpile]

My Reactions to Above and Beyond

Wow kids are gonna grow up with this huh 🥲 (we're gonna ignore my childhood slipping away bc british animals make brain go brrr)

Paani reminds me of the "I am under the water, please help me" tiktok sound and i cant unhear it

The amount of times they say water jesus christ

Sending ur only doctor out into the desert may not be the best move yall

Okay Peso and Dashi girlbossing their way to the volcano

Where we droppin' boys

How- how does Peso's wrist band stay on?

127 hours reindeer edition

THEY DONT HAVE OXYGEN TANKS

Im sorry this might be an unpopular opinion but i dont like paani i just-

NO

NO THIS SONG IS NOT IT

STOP

Kwazii episode!!!

Calico jack my beloved 🥺

YAY! He's so happy to see his granddad!!

Peepaw to the rescue

NO! Not spiders :(((

Calico Jack is such a supportive peepaw i love him so much

Orange cat behavior

Did Kwazii try to give himself an ear piercing to be like Calico Jack but like- rip it out on accident? (I will just quietly add that to my headcanons)

So far this spinoff series has not been nice to my misophonia

M-m-milf spider???

Hes proud of him 🥺🥺🥺

NO

STOP DONT SEND KWAZII AWAY HES THE GLUE HOLDING THIS SPINOFF TOGETHER

STOP THE SONG AGAIN PLEASE IM BEGGING YOU

Natquik my king

All of these episodes feel like the specials from the main series

Peso my beloved

(I cried the other day because i was scared they werent gonna dub peso im so sorry but i hate the british version i grew up with hispanic peso and i cant handle anything else)

Its been 3 minutes and i miss Kwazii

The animation is SMOOTH smooth huh

THE ROLLER COASTER SEATBELTS

Peso rlly hanging out with the lesbians this series huh

I THOUGHT HE SAID F*CK

HES BACK

More orange cat behavior

Tweak, Peso, and Dashi = Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss and Shellington, Barnacles, and Kwazii = Mansplain, Manipulate, Malewife

In that order ^

Okay that angle doe i appriciate the cinematography kwazii

I hate tornadoes so much this is 👁👄👁

Yes save the himbo and peepaw

NO DONT LEAVE

What animal was I supposed to be learning about?

NO GOD THE SONG

THIS SONG IS A HATECRIME

INKLING IN THE BOWTIE SUIT

PEEPAW PT. 2

... i am under the water... please help me

Inkling i love you so much

Gatekeep and Girlboss to the rescue!!

Peso finally embracing his roots and going naked in the siberian wilderness

Grampie in his suit

Hes so cute i cant

GRAMPIE BACKPACK

... are we gonna be learning abt global warming again? (Im not gonna think abt our world slowly melting bc of giant corporations)

Is that deer supposed to be... Russian?

Paani must feel real good being the tallest one rn

YES SURFING EPISODE CALLBACK

THATS ONE OF MY FAVORITE EPISODES

Did Peso suddenly forget how to surf or...?

Me too salamander me too

STOP TALKING ABT UR STICK PAANI

I cannot express the sheer amount of love I have for these round little animals

Yall its okay Inkling is an aquatic animal

YES PESO I LOVE YOU

YOU STILL DONT HAVE AN OXYGEN TANK BUT ITS FINE I GUESS

Why- even put on the helmet then cant you hold ur breath for 20 minutes

Finally putting those great penguin race skills to use

Peso move ur gonna get hit by the stick

Paani rlly dont care abt them living or dying huh

NO THE SONG GOD

Okay its like 3 am i only watched the first 5 episodes but uhh... not impressed so far. Living for the Peso and Dashi solidarity. And the Peepaw moments. Surprising lack of Captain Barnacles that idk how to feel about. But overall it feels super disconnected like they dont feel like a family anymore I guess. Also the marine biology obsessed child within me is screaming rn, but its not super bad. I'm more excited for season 5 whenever that's coming.

[planetsano]

kiss and make up

summary: It's your 21st birthday and you throw a big party. The night is supposed to be filled with drinks, dancing and your favorite cake but you get into a fight with your boyfriend, Bakuguo, prompting you to make him jealous.

pairing: bakugou katsuki x reader, slight!todoroki x reader

warnings: alcohol, arguments, cursing, aged up

a/n: hi! this is my first time writing for this fandom. im new so pls be nice, i really hope you all like it!

"Don't fucking walk away from me, (Name)!"

Bakugou yelled behind her as she stormed out of her bedroom and back into the party. The music from downstairs suddenly flooded the room as she opened the door leaving him sitting on her bed alone with nothing but his anger and sadness bubbling inside him.

Usually (Name) was the only one who could genuinely handle Bakugou’s brass personality and slick tongue because she knew their connection was beyond surface level. But today of all days he seemed to be more irritable than usual. Making rude remarks and just generally being an asshole throughout the day up to the party. (Name) didn't think it was too crazy to pull her boyfriend to the side and ask him to be a little more nicer so she could enjoy the rest of the night but boy was she wrong when he practically blew up in her face and told her she was being too sensitive. Needless to say, Bakugou took his girlfriend’s wishes the wrong way.

(Name) stormed downstairs trying her best not to bump into any of the guests socializing with red cups in their hands, most likely filled with some form of alcoholic beverage. She could barely hear the music blaring through the house from her anger. There were only two things on her mind right now: getting drunk and having a good time. (Name) refused to let her idiot boyfriend ruin her night.

All (Name) wanted was a good time on her birthday, not just any birthday but her 21st. With the help from her friends, they planned the party for the exciting occasion and the turnout wasn't surprising, but it still shocked (Name) to see just how many of her peers wanted to celebrate her birthday with her. So many hugs, presents and happy birthday wishes warmed her heart despite Bakugou being a jerk.

She entered the kitchen while politely excusing herself through the guests to get to the island counter. Her eyes lit up at the various glass bottles in varying sizes and colors all set on the counter. She didn't know where to start.

“(Name)! I've been looking for you everywhere!” (Name) heard a happy voice behind her. She turned to see one of her good friends, Mina, standing there with a cheerful smile and open arms signaling a hug. (Name) returned the smile and hugged her friend tightly, thanking her in the ear for coming. They pulled away from the embrace but held each other's hands. Mina frowned a bit and tilted her head looking at her friend.

“What is it?” (Name) asked with a concerned voice. She thought maybe she had something on her face.

“Where's Bakugou? It's weird seeing you without him.” Mina giggled.

“He's been insufferable all day, I needed a break from him.” She answered and rolled her eyes.

As if on cue Bakugou entered the kitchen, grabbing both the girls’ attention. Mina leaned in and whispered to (Name).

“We’ll talk about this later,” She pulled away and gave her a reassuring smile. “But for now, let's party!” Mina grabbed two shot glasses from the counter.

Bakugou watched the two throw back at least 5 shots in a row of god knows what. He was beyond bitter watching his girlfriend act like he wasn't even in the room, all he could do was down a bottle of beer hoping to calm down but it didn't seem to be working. It didn't help that she looked absolutely amazing tonight either. All Bakugou wanted to do was fucking kiss her but his pride was in the way. Mina practically dragged (Name) to the crowd of people formed in the rather large living room to dance.

(Name) was now a little more than tipsy. She couldn't recall just how many shots she threw back, but the mixture of the music making its course through her body as she swayed her hips and the confidence her tiny black dress was giving her was awakening something within her. It was time for a bit of payback. She could feel Bakugou staring daggers into her ever since he came back downstairs but she pretended like he wasn't even there. Of course she was still upset but she did her best to bury her negative emotions and focus on the positive ones. But, there was always room to be petty. She knew he was watching.

(Name) smiled upon seeing a certain two toned haired boy leaning against the wall, keeping to himself and looking into the cup he held in hand. She walked up to him making sure to sway her hips a little bit more since she had an audience.

“Hey, Todoroki..” She stood in front of the taller man with an warm smile on her glossed lips.

“Happy birthday, (Name).” He gave her a small but inviting smile.

“If I didn't know any better I’d think you're running away from me.” Her voice was playful and he lightly chuckled feeling her manicured finger poke his chest.

“Never.” Todoroki replied.

“Do you like my outfit?” She asked playfully and did a little turn.

“You look very nice tonight.” He smiled once more.

From across the room Bakugou was staring daggers at the two in the middle of the crowd as he leaned against the kitchen island taking swigs of the beer clutched in his hand. He could have sworn if he held the bottle a pinch tighter, it would shatter. He had half a mind to walk right up to her and icy hot to give them a piece of his fucking mind. Who the hell does Todoroki think he is chatting up his girl? Bakugou could admit that maybe he was being a little bit of a dick today but when was he not? (Name) always sets him straight.. but it is her birthday today and all she wanted was to have fun.. He sighed as the feeling of guilt bubbled up inside him accompanied with his anger.

He watched (Name) lean to Todoroki’s ear and whisper something. Her body pressed up against Todoroki too close to comfort for Bakugou’s taste. At first Todoroki looked unsure but (Name) clasped her hands in front of her chest and pulled one of her infamous pouty faces that almost always worked on Bakugou, but he'd never admit that.

‘She only does that for me...’ Bakugou thought.

(Name) managed to get Todoroki to dance with her but he was so awkward. It was cute but she had to take matters into her own hands. She grabbed Todoroki’s wrists placing his hands on her waist as she worked and grinded her hips to the music and onto his.

Bakugou saw red. He was livid. He didn't care about who was in his way, all he cared about was stopping his girlfriend from shaking her ass on another guy. He stormed up to the two and without a word her grabbed (Name) by her hand pulling her away from Todoroki and practically dragging her outside into the cool air. Once they got far enough away from eavesdropping ears he confronted her.

“What the fuck is your problem?” His voice was full of venom as looked down at her shorter frame.

“My problem?” She asked incredulously. “My problem is you've been acting like a dickwad the entire day! Today of all days!” She poked his chest hard but it didn't do much. She wondered if he even felt it.

“So that means you can grind on icy hot in this short ass dress?!” Bakugou pulled her dress strap making the elastic snap back onto her shoulder.

“Do that again and I'll fucking strangle you.” (Name) snapped at the blonde in front of her. Bakugou couldn’t help himself anymore, he had to kiss her. She was just so hot when she snapped at him like that.

Bakugou’s large hands were placed on the sides of (Name)’s face and his lips crashed onto hers. The kiss was sloppy and wet, something they both had been craving the entire night. (Name) wanted to slap herself for giving in so quickly but she couldn't stay mad at him for long. Maybe next time he tries her she'll really make him squirm. Bakugou pulled away, his hands not leaving her face. He noticed her lip gloss was gone, and probably all over his lips.

“‘m sorry.. for bein’ an asshole..” He trailed off and looked to the side with his eyebrows furrowed. A small smile grew on  (Name)’s lips.

“It’s okay, Katsuki.” Her hands found their way to his hips, gripping at the sides of his shirt. Bakugou felt a wave of relief wash over him upon hearing her words. It was quiet for a minute before he spoke up again.

“I got you somethin’..” He shifted and dug his hand into his pocket, pulling out a pretty silver ring with his and hers birthstones intertwined together. He watched her eyes light up like fireworks and he presented the ring to her.

“Happy birthday, brat.” He said blandly.

“Katsuki..” (Name) couldn't stop looking at the jewelry he held between his thumb and finger, it was so pretty.

“You like it or not?” He was always so brash, she looked up at him and rolled her eyes playfully.

“Relax, I love it.” She smiled.

Bakugou slid the ring onto her finger with ease, he felt triumphant at the perfect fit.

“It's so pretty..” (Name) said. Bakugou watched her admire the gift not realizing he was smiling.

“Like you.” His words came out mindlessly and before he could process what he said (Name) was already teasing him, jumping up and down to try to give him kisses on the cheek.

“Since when were you a big softie! Come here you're so cute!”

“Shut the fuck up! Get off of me!”

[witchcraft-in-wonderland]

Hunchback of Notre Dame (One-Shot)

-------------------------

It's a lesson as old as time itself really, never judge a book by its cover, never judge a beast by its claws, thousands of iterations all equal to the very same principle.

But there are people who refuse to take such principles to heart, and would in fact rather spread principles in direct opposition.

Werecreatures have never had a very good reputation, from the animal-like designs to the depictions of their kind as unkind and ruthless. So trying to find a place to stay was much more difficult than it should have been.

"Four travelers for safe passage into the mindscape," a voice shrouded by a cloak muttered, waving down another werecreature, this one holding a bundle in its arms.

The bundle was crying, as though aware of the horrific events that would occur just beyond that gate.

"We've been tricked!"

"Judge Doyle!"

The werecreature holding the bundled skittered away on the eight spindly appendages protruding from it's back, paying no mind to the sound of footsteps against stone rapidly gaining in it.

Until it hit the ground with a sickening crack, and went stock still, the bundle falling to the ground like a rock.

Doyle had always been a cruel man. He'd trained his own son, Patton, to fear him, and to in turn fear that which opposed him.

And it was Doyle who had found the spider's body.

It was Doyle who took the bundle from the still and cold arms of its mother.

And it was Doyle who attempted to drown the eight-eyed and multi-limbed child that resided within.

"STOP!" Doyle only gave momentary pause at his son's call.

"What are you doing?." Patton said as he reached the bottom of the steps.

"Sending this creature to the dark side, right where it belongs," Doyle said coldly.

"You've killed an innocent person, and you believe the best course of action is to add the blood of a child to your crimes? What would Thomas think. . ." Patton said.

That had struck a nerve, the bundle was moved from the well.

"And what do you suggest I do?." Doyle snapped, thinking he'd stumped the man in front of him.

"Care for it, you've raised one son, what's another?" Patton said, raising an eyebrow.

"Me? Saddled with this- this-" Doyle paused for a few moments.

"Very well, we'll keep him in the old bell tower, by your village," Doyle said.

And he christened the child Virgil.

Virgil grew up lonely, terrified of even the slightest idea of leaving his tower.

His tower covered with bells and cobwebs and a table at the center with wooden constructs of the other denizens of the mindscape.

He grew up with no memory of his family other than those fed to him by Doyle. False memories of betrayal.

He grew up looking into the mirror and seeing eight eyes staring him back, each a cruel and sharp reminder of his inability to exist outside of that tower.

Patton had tried his best to undo such conditioning, but rarely was Patton allowed into the tower.

Today was a day Virgil remembered well, a festival of delight and chaos.

The Feast of Fools.

Patton had tried desperately to convince Virgil to attend, but Virgil was firmly locked under Doyle's heel, the spider caught in it's own web.

That is, for a moment.

One conversation at the dinner table, a recitation of the alphabet punctuated by far to many hisses and clicks, and Virgil was ready to flee.

He stitched up his own cloak, pulled it over his head, and ran out.

It was terrifying. His ears rang and his eyes burned like ash.

And then it all seemed to stop as he fell through cloth, instead punctuated by a gasp.

And then he was face to face with the most beautiful man he'd ever seen in his life. Eyes of golden yellow, hair of a deep brown, and scales of emerald. He was gorgeous, and he was holding Virgil's face as though it were a priceless glass treasure.

"I-Im sorry I-" Virgil stammered.

"Nonono, it's alright, you poor thing, you dont look very adept to sunlight do you?" He spoke softly, almost as if he though Virgil might flee if he were to loud.

Virgil shook his head slightly.

"Itll be fun, you should join the crowd, the light's much less likely to hit you there," and Virgil felt a soft kiss on his forehead before he rejoined the festivities.

And then came the main festival, someone he didnt recognize talked upstage and sang. Dark blue and purple hair like a galaxy bouncing around their face.

"Come one! Come all! Make an entrance to entrance- see the mystery and romance~" they purred as they backed toward the curtains.

"Come one! Come all! Hurry hurry heres your chance- see the finest man in France, dance Janus dance!" And then they were gone, replaced by the man Virgil had met before, now dressed in yellow and black cloth, his hair hidden under a hat.

Virgil flinched as Janus got closer and closer to where Doyle was watching the stage, wrapping a golden scarf around his neck as though Janus planned to choke him.

And then Virgil lost track of what was happening, until he was on stage, and he heard gasping.

He froze, he could almost feel Doyle's gaze from the other end of the stage.

And then the screams and gasping stopped, to be replaced with laughter. A crown was placed on Virgil's head, a cape fitted over the spindly legs sticking out from his back.

He smiled, the first genuine smile he'd had in decades.

Squelch

Virgil wasnt sure where the tomato had come from. Only that more were following, and suddenly ropes were tugging at his limbs,he tried to fight them off, tried calling for his father.

But Doyle only smiled and looked away. His guardsman, a man dressed in white and gold armor, green eyes wide with shock, made a single move toward Virgil, but was held back.

And then everything stopped, he felt hands against the ropes, heard Doyle call for someone to get down.

And then he was once again face to face with Janus.

"I'm so sorry. . . No one deserves this. . ." Janus said quietly before standing up, a hand firmly around Virgil's arm as he regained his own balance.

"You mistreat this poor man the same way you mistreat us all! You would call him a son and yet what freedom has he known! Compared to your only other son! What justice has been served as their spirits are crushed under the heels of men like you!." Janus snarled. Virgil saw a slight movement from the bell tower, likely Patton hiding behind a pillar before Doyle could catch his eyes.

"Silence." Was Doyle's only response.

"JUSTICE!" Janus called. Doyle pointed toward his guards, then toward Janus.

"Oh dear. . . Well let's see theres-" Janus pointed to each of the advancing guards and muttered under his breath "-ten of you, and one of me, oh what's a poor snake to do?" Janus pulled a yellow cloth from his dress and began to cry into it, before sneezing. . . And disappearing off stage.

Vitgil watched with intrigue as Janus led the guards throughout the square before disappearing into the building that made up the lower half of his bell tower.

Doyle beckoned for his head guard to follow him, before turning his eyes to Virgil.

And thus began Virgil's tearful walk back to the top of the tower.

His chest ached, he thought of Janus' hands caressing his face, of those eyes and scales and the way his lips quirked in a fashion that couldve been read as a sneer, were it not for the fact that his eyes looked as though they'd witnessed a miracle.

Virgil heard singing from the lower level of the tower, and upon further investigation, discovered that Janus had even more talents than Virgil had first thought.

So finally, he resolved to help him.

"Theres guards at every entrance, how exactly do you expect us to do this?" Janus said, raising an eyebrow.

"No one said we had to use a door," Virgil said with a sly grin.

"Hold on," he said, he felt Janus' arms around his waist, it was awkward, Janus had to have been almost two feet taller than he was.

Virgil reached one of his webs, pulled, and jumped off of the tower, Janus tried his best not to scream as they fell.

They said their goodbyes and Virgil pushed the necklace Janus had given him under his hoodie, he couldnt have it discovered, he'd rather die than be the reason Janus got hurt.

Which was why he'd decided to pin Roman to a wall when he came up the stairs.

"Woah woah woah- hey- I'm not here for him I promise! I helped him declare sanctuary!" Roman whisper-yelled.

"Then why are you here now." Virgil snarled.

"Just- tell him I'm sorry, and tell him I hope he's safe," Roman said.

Virgil paused for a moment before letting Roman down.

"You know. . . Janus is lucky to have you. . ." Roman said as he trodded down the stairs.

Things only seemed to get worse from there, Virgil could hardly breath as smoke rose from the ground, the crackling of fire mixing with the screams of the were-creatures who refused to give away Janus' location.

Until Janus showed up at Virgil's tower himself, this time carrying Roman's body in his arms.

"He was shot. . . Almost through the heart. . ." Janus said quietly. Virgil nodded and gathered up cobwebs to make bandages. He wished he couldve made fresh ones, but it had been many years since he'd stopped being able to use that ability.

"He can stay with me- you need to run, fast," Virgil said, shooing Janus away. Janus pressed one last kiss on Roman's lips before fleeing.

And soon Roman himself was on the run alongside Virgil. Both on a mission to keep Janus and his people from a gruesome death at Doyle's hands.

Virgil wasn't exactly sure what he'd been expecting from the Court of Miracles, but it certainly wasnt the same galaxy-haired catboy from the stage prancing around in front of a set of gallows gleefully calling out the supposed misdeeds of Virgil and Roman, before declaring their imminent deaths on the charge of complete innocence.

"Stop! These arent enemies! They're our friends!" And then came Janus from the crowd.

Everything happened all to quickly after that. Screaming and racing around trying to escape as their plans came crashing at Doyle's feet.

And then Virgil found himself chained to a tower.

And watching Janus standing on a pyre, straw littering his feet, flames kicking up around him.

And Virgil only felt one emotion, rage.

Chains were pointless. Chains were stifling and unnecessary and Virgil wanted nothing to do with them. He only wanted Janus safe and in his arms.

So it was quite the disappointment when he discovered Janus' lack of breath.

"You killed him. . ." Virgil muttered as he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"I had to. . . I only wish it had happened before he'd done such damage to you. . ." Doyle muttered. Virgil noticed a knife being brought towards him in the shadows on the walls.

That blade wouldve looked so much better in Doyle's heart. But fire worked quite well to.

Virgil had been afraid if the sun for quite some time, afraid of anything to do with the outside. But it was much easier to get through when he had his hands intertwined with both Janus and Roman's, and when he wasnt stifled by a fear of his own face.

----------------------------------------------

Tag list:

@thefivecalls

@willowaudreykeyes

@pricklyfish777

@the-sad-strawberry

@itsnithbabey

@private-snippers

@0exterc0

@rich-flower-17

@theonetruebeepboop

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@teamplutoforlife

@melodiread

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@frawkeye

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@nerosdayinhell

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@frog-candy-bee

@shadowylemon

[bubblybubbubs]

midnight swim

draco x reader

summary - basically draco is whipped for you but he hasn’t accepted it yet ;)

part 1/?

warning - none i think

a/n - initially this was part of another fic but it was getting way to long and i didnt like the beginning so i cut it in half and so basically this is the second half , wasnt going to post it but people said i should post some of my stored fics so here it is! feedback appreciated

“I need some fresh air.” Pansy said standing up . You and your friends had been sitting in the common room for hours you had tried to study but Blaise and Theo were messing around making it very hard to focus.

“It’s late were not supposed to be out of our common rooms.” Daphne said

“Are you forgetting that Draco and I are prefects, we basically have free range.” You said standing up finally closing your potions book and grabbing your robe.

The six of you headed outside and laid in the grass by the great lake laughing as you stared at the sky.

“Can I tell you a secret y/n?”Blaise said whispering to you.

“sure.” you said

“Draco hasnt stopped staring at you all night.” He stated, you whipped around to face Blaise

”You’re such a liar Blaise.” You said trying to hide the fact that you were blushing

“Am I really? Plus I’ve seen the way you look at him too.” You sat up

“You’re losing your mind. And I’m done with the conversation.” You said standing up as you made your way down closer to the lake.

“If you get any closer you might fall in.” Draco said as he stood next to you. Gosh he looked so goregous, the way the moonlight shined on his face. Not that you would ever tell him that.

“Lets go for a swim.” You blurted out Draco looked at you like you were insane.

“You’re not serious, its freezing!”

“It’ll be fun!” You said as you waved your friends down

Before they could even reach the lake you stripped down and jumped in off the rocks.

While Dracos stood there watching you the rest of your friends followed and jumped in yelling as the cold water hit them.

Draco was right it was freezing, probably not the best idea to go on a swim in september. But you all ignored it too busy enjoying yourselves.

“Are you gonna come in? we’re thinking of swimming to the more shallow water and playing chicken and I need a partner.” You asked Draco

“As much as I’d love that, I like not freezing even more.” He said

“Help me out then, come give me a hand.” He looked at you and laughed

“As if im falling for that.”

“I’m not that childish.” You said as he sighed in defeat stretching out his arm for you.

“I swear if you pull me in-“

Once you got the chance you pulled his arm making him fall in. Once he rose he was red, how he managed that even though the water was freezing was beyond you.

“You’ll what Draco.” You said getting close to him. Your faces were so close mere inches a part. He grunted moving away from you and out of the water.

“You’re already wet why get out.”

“Because I dont fancy the idea of getting hypothermia unlike the lot of you.” He said motioning to his friends who were still splashing each other.

“STUDENTS WHAT ARE YOU DOING.” You saw a very angry McGonogal making her way towards you. Draco quickly pulled out his wand doing a charm that dried his robes.

The others stopped splashing

“Get out now.” She said still absolutely fuming.

The 5 of you climbed up onto the rock with help of McGonogall and Draco and stood awkwardly in your undergarments.

“Get dressed immediately.” She said pointing to all your robes sprawled in the grass. Draco tried not to laugh as you scrambled to get dressed.

“All of you come with me, I’m sure Professor Snape would love to hear what you were doing at the lake at this time of night.”

She walked extremely fast especially considering her age and you almost slipped trying to catch up with her. She mumbled all sorts of statements no doubt about you, all the way down to Snape’s office.

“Severus, I caught your students swimming in the lake!” She said , Snape always looked upset but now he looked as if he might just off all of you.

“Leave them to me Minerva, I’ll handle it.” He said as Ms.McGonagall left.

“Well is anyone going to explain what you were doing out swimming so late.” He asked

“We needed some fresh air.” You said after no one said anything . The moment you said it you knew how dumb it sounded.

“Of course.” Snape didnt look impressed what so ever

“Go to your beds. You all have detention for the next month. Dont let me catch you out of your beds at night again.”

“Of course professor.” You all mumbled as you made your way out of his office.

“Sorry I got us detention.” You said as you all walked to the common room

“Its no big deal, plus it’s not your fault we jumped in cause we wanted to.” Daphne said

“Its okay Y/N. I know you did it on purpose to get me to spend more time with you. Its understable Im devishly handsome, I seem to have that affect on many girls.” Draco said teasingly and wrapped an arm around you. You couldnt help the blush that grew on your face. Both Pansy and Blaise wiggled your eyes at you suggestively.

“As if.” You said as you got away from him and held the door open to the common rooms for your friends, they all went in but Draco waited.

“How you hurt me love.” He said getting closer to you, god you wanted to kiss him so bad. Not that you would, Draco was your friend and it was better to just leave it that way . You smiled ar Draco and went up to your room leaving him at the door.

“You should’ve kissed her. It’s obvious you like her.” Theo said as they walked up to their dorm

“No I don’t, we’re just joking around.” Draco stammered

“Right.” Blaise said, he was tired of this endless pining they seemed to have. At first it was amusing but it was sad at this point.

“Im going to sleep so leave me alone both of you.” Draco said before turning off his lamp. He couldn’t get you out of his mind. You two had always joked around like that, but he didn’t want it to be a joke anymore he wanted you.

[simptasia]

Sorry I'm a bit late, but here's some Lost nonsense from my brain:

If Jacob's & MIB's adopted mum didn't adopt them, then a whole lot of mess could have been avoided.

Also.

Why didn't John's dad just say he was moving after he stole his kidney and see him like once a year? (That way if you need to borrow a lung later down the line the option is is there.)

Also.

If I knew my past self was gonna kill my son I won't let that happen. Screw the time space continuum, I'm doctor who-ing this nonsense.

And on top of that.

How come no one really tried to mess about with time in the 70s? I know there was a bit of "ahh don't effect the future" but like, if I was stuck in the past I'd have a go at screwing around with time. I'd be like suck it universe, there's no Internet and I've got people in the present I care about. I know alot of the Lost people had reasons not to, like Jin's trying to keep his family safe and Sawyer doesn't really have anyone outside of the island. But Julie's sister? Kate needing to find Claire? WHY WASNT THERE A DANIEL FOCUSED EPISODE ABOUT HIM TRYING TO CHANGE THE FUTURE AND SAVE CHARLOTTE THAT JUST MADE THE FUTURE HAPPEN MORE SO THAT THEN WHEN SAYID SHOT CHILD BEN I COULD HAVE BEEN ALL LIKE nah bro thats no gonna help, when instead I thought there was gonna be some funky timeline nonsense that I'm always here for AND THEN THERE WASNT. Also more Daniel.

Last thought (sorry I can't shut up)

Now I'm thinking about it, why was everyone's reaction to Sayid shooting child Ben as a bland "this is bad" ?? Im not trying to say it was good, but its like the whole 'go back in time and kill Hitler as a kid' argument? I thought characters would at least have thoughts? Like no one even talked about it beyond face value?? Or even had an emotion?? Everyone was just like: "this is bad, but let's leave him with his abusive dad" ???????????????

Epilogue Thought: i genuinely thought when Kate handed child Ben over to the Others she was doing to say something to him along the lines of what adult Ben said to her at the beginning of series 3 when they had breakfast together. (My memory is so bad, but it's something like "I wanted you to have a nice memory to cling onto because a lot of bad is going to happen.") And then it was gonna be like a weird time loop thing of who really said it first, like Ben doesn't remember them properly or anything (but it might help why he didn't just ask Jack for surgery help when they first crashed.)

lost spoilers ahead

Okay, first of all, how the fuck did you send a message this long. Whenever I send messages, I'm given a character limit???

If Jacob's & MIB's adopted mum didn't adopt them, then a whole lot of mess could have been avoided.

"Adopted", yes that the's word for it. And yeah... yeah. The entire plot of LOST, down the drain. Isn't it ironic, this show is known for so much daddy issues and all of this fuss was caused by mommy issues

Why didn't John's dad just say he was moving after he stole his kidney and see him like once a year? (That way if you need to borrow a lung later down the line the option is is there.)

Short answer: Because Anthony Cooper is a cunt

Longer answer: it's pooossible that anthony genuinely didn't wanna spend any time with locke at all. as you pointed out, this isn't pragmatic on his part. but he's a dick. he also has a history of not sticking around the people he's conned

If I knew my past self was gonna kill my son I won't let that happen. Screw the time space continuum, I'm doctor who-ing this nonsense.

I've had this same thought. Offense to Eloise, but I'm different.

like, yeah, even if it turns out to not be possible, there's merit in fucking trying to prevent this. like, morally, emotionally, i'd respect eloise if she'd fucking TRIED to not kill her baby boy :(((

legit, same, if i knew i was destined to kill my boy, i'd be like "no"

and at the very fucking least, i'd give the best life possible! which, paradox or no, is what a parent is SUPPOSED to do, eloise!!

not only does eloise not even try to not do this, what makes it so much worse is that she didn't allow him the life he wanted. you know he's gonna die young, bitch, let him have love and piano!

HES NOT EVEN ASKING FOR MUCH. free will??? please???

i Cannot talk about eloise without going on this rant, it seems

and the rest of ur message, i won't copy paste, but what ur saying about time travel. i'm kinda indifferent to a possiblity of them trying to change more but thinking about it, it's odd that they didn't Try more. however this can chalked up to like, not enough run time. but yes i'm all in favour of the characters ties to other characters mattering more. and charlotte mattering more. grrrr

oh boy the ben thing. well, i don't blame them for the This Is Bad thing. because it is. it's very bad to shoot a child. i wanna say, sayid is so fucking out of character when he does this. the writers mishandled sayid pretty bad in seasons 5 and 6, sigh. personally i don't believe its anywhere near okay to try to kill somebody because they're gonna be a bad person One Day. but yeah i am surprised there wasn't more of a debate about this in canon. we have people of different morals here... plus, it's a debate in real life. i'm in the "punish the people who have actually done something wrong" camp

it's fucked that he has to stay with roger though. i don't put that on our losties tho, overall i blame the others. because they could have accepted ben into the others way sooner and they really should have. richard could see this kid was suffering and they let him stay with his abusive dad. that's awful. then again, charles was in charge during this time period so that makes THAT make more sense but ugh

and finally. inch resting... i always saw kate's sympathy for little ben as 1. he's only a child, he's Not big ben. and 2. she grew up in an abusive home too so she sees a kindred spirit

regarding ben's memory, it annoys me how the writers felt the need to erase some of little ben's memories to supposedly Make It Make Sense but i felt that was unneeded. i think it's perfectly viable for ben to remember all the stuff that went down in season 5 but he never mentioned it because why the fuck would he. for one thing, he was henry gale at first, he's hardly gonna be like "oh hey are you the guy who shot me when i was a kid??" no, he'd keep his memories to himself. i think ben keeps a lot of things to himself for tactical reasons so i think the lost writers employed a get outta jail free card when they really didn't need to

[itsthesinbin]

Insert Title Here (Obey Me Fic)

i dont have a title yet.

im still getting characterization down and im also not even halfway thru the game so forgive me if i fuck things up DSFKGDSFKDG

the mc is one of the species ive made- chimeras. for ppl who have been here a long time, u shld remember them. for newbies, i wont spoil what they are if this DOES become an actual thing

please reblog and/or leave a comment in the notes if you like this! i need feedback to be sure people would actually enjoy the fic!

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Hm.

“I don’t think I summoned the right person.” Diavolo looked down at the file he had in his hand, examining the picture attached to the front of the folder. A normal young woman stared back at him- blonde hair, pale blue eyes, glasses perched on her nose. The demon prince looked back down at the… creature… on the ground.

Passed out, he couldn’t see her eyes, but the wild blonde hair was almost a perfect match. Lucifer was currently draping his coat over her, as she had shown up naked. Ram-like horns sat on her head, and a tail twitched behind her in her sleep. Tan skin shifted into scales along their arms- and their stomach, from the little Diavolo saw before he averted his eyes. Her legs were much like a cat’s, her fingers and toes webbed and holding wicked looking claws.

“You think,” Satan asked, coming over to his eldest brother’s side to examine the summoned creature. Diavolo crouched down, getting a closer look at her face. Her soul. Asmodeus spoke up while Diavolo did his small investigation.

“What the fuck is it?” Asmodeus leaned over the table, his question earning a stern glare from Lucifer. Asmodeus simply shrugged, sitting back down next to a very confused- and very hungry- Beelzebub.

“... They are… definitely human-” Diavolo announced- “Maybe a… genetic relative?” Diavolo looked through the file again, seeing if he missed a note on any children or family. Asmodeus finally spoke up.

“Why didn’t the original human show?” Lucifer looked to Diavolo, who was just as confused. Before the prince could answer, the creature on the ground began to stir. The three surrounding them moved back, allowing her to wake up without being crowded.

Pale blue eyes appeared before them, unfocused and hazy. They snapped open a moment later, pupils turning to slits. The creature before the demons jumped up, knocking the coat off with a furious hiss. Satan in particular reeled back, feeling her fury harder than the others in the room.

She scrambled back into a corner, staring at the demons with wide, wild eyes. Much too wide for a normal human, if Solomon was any reference point. Dark blue scales glittered on her heaving chest, a rattling noise coming from her tail. Her pointed ears were pinned back against her head in anger.

“We… understand you must be confused, and scared,” Diavolo started, hands raised in a nonthreatening manner. He took a single step closer, and the woman let out a screech that made the three younger demons hold their ears. Lucifer and Diavolo cringed slightly, exchanging a look as she stopped screaming.

“We won’t come any closer. We just wish to talk.” Diavolo was tempted to send her back, but he’d need to get her back in the circle for that. And he doubts she’d simply follow his request to move.

“... What is your name?” She stayed quiet, the rattle on her tail slowly stopping. Her eyes scraped over everyone in the room, daring any of them to move. No one did. Slowly, she sat down on the ground, much like a cat ready to pounce.

“... My name is Diavolo, I am the ruler of all demons, and all here know of me. And someday soon, I will be crowned king of the Devildom.” There was a beat of silence where she just stared at the prince.

“Fuck you.” Everyone reeled back at that, before Satan put a hand over his mouth to keep himself from laughing. He was starting to like this creature.

Lucifer was about to speak up, but Diavolo held a hand up to silence him. Clearly, she was scared and angry. Diavolo wasn’t going to take it personally. Luke was, while not as vulgar, very angry when he arrived as well.

“Why I here?” Lucifer cleared his throat, making her head snap to where he was. Diavolo placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“This is Lucifer- a demon, and the Avatar of Pride. He’s also the vice president of the student council and my right-hand man. Beyond that, he’s my most trusted friend,” the prince laughed, ignoring the glare from the human(?) in the corner. Lucifer sighed slightly, subtly shrugging Diavolo’s hand off of his shoulder.

“Welcome to our academy, even if your appearance here is… surprising, to everyone.” The woman hissed, baring her fangs at Lucifer. A bold move, if she were a demon.

“WHY I HERE?” Lucifer looked her over, crossing his arms.

“She certainly is different from Solomon,” he muttered, before starting his rehearsed speech on the reasoning for the exchange program. Satan could feel her rage build, the longer Lucifer talked. Yeah. He understood the feeling.

“You are our new exchange student, it seems, miss…?” Lucifer hoped he would get a name out of her. They needed to confirm if she was, somehow, the woman they originally intended to summon from the human world. When she didn’t answer, he continued with a sigh.

“Your period of stay is one year. You will have to work on the tasks that you receive from RAD. After one year, you will write a paper about your exchange here in the Devildom.” The woman snarled.

“I- I’m- LET ME GO!” The fury in her words was betrayed by the wobble in her voice. She pressed further back against the wall, claws digging at the stone behind her. She was terrified. Trapped.

“I’m sorry, but there’s no going back.” Right now, anyway. “For one year, you are under our care and you will be attending RAD. Do you understand?”

The woman’s chest heaved, breathing picking up again to near hyperventilation levels. Her eyes were focused on Lucifer, but she was looking right through him. Satan bristled slightly, feeling himself grow a bit lightheaded at how strong her anger was. He had to keep himself calm.

The woman darted forward, toward Lucifer and Diavolo.

Quick as a flash, Lucifer grabbed her and pinned her to the floor. The woman thrashed and screeched under Lucifer’s grip, trying to reach back to swipe him with her claws. Her tail slammed into his side shockingly hard. Not that it really hurt him, but it was much stronger than he thought a human would be. If… humans had tails, that was.

She suddenly grew slack, eyes rolling back as she went unconscious. Barbatos, who had been off to the side, put his hand down when she was out. He had to put a stop to that before someone got hurt- human or demon.

Slowly, Lucifer released his grip on her. He didn’t get up from his straddle over her, in case she suddenly woke up, looking up at Diavolo for an order or suggestion.

The prince was at a loss for words, for once. On top of not knowing exactly what this woman was- sure her soul was human but she clearly wasn’t fully- he didn’t expect to just be attacked.

“... Take her to the House of Lamentation, Lucifer, and… maybe try to talk some sense into her there. Barbatos and I will… try to figure out who she even is.” Lucifer felt the migraine coming on. Sometimes he despised his job.

“Of course.” He grabbed his coat again, wrapping her up as Barbatos explained the spell would wear off in three hours. With a nod, Lucifer scooped her up and made his way over to his brothers. Asmodeus immediately cringed away, while Beelzebub just kind of… stared. Lucifer was pretty sure he was in shock.

He turned to Satan, who was still calming down from the intense rage he felt second-hand. Lucifer frowned.

“Satan? Are you alright?” The fourth eldest cleared his throat, flushing slightly in embarrassment.

“Yes. It… She was very angry- the sudden wave of it threw me for a loop, so to speak.” He had expected some anger, sure, but that? It was like expecting a drizzle and walking into a tsunami.

It was kind of funny.

Lucifer hummed slightly, before motioning for his brothers to follow.

“Let’s get her home, then. Satan, call Mammon and let him know he’ll be in charge of her.” Satan paused at that.

“... I’d love to see Mammon get his backside handed to him as much as the next demon, but don’t you think that’s a bad idea?” Lucifer growled slightly. Satan sighed, opening his D.D.D before Lucifer started one of his “are you disobeying an order” tirades.

“Fine. Don’t blame me when Mammon comes back missing a few fingers, though.” Actually. That sounded kinda funny. Maybe Lucifer had the right idea, not that Satan would admit it.

While the fourth argued with the second about his new position as… animal sitter, Beelzebub and Asmodeus fell into step next to their eldest brother.

“Are you sure this is a good idea? Can’t we pick someone else and send her back while she’s asleep,” Beelzebub asked, holding his hands over his stomach nervously. Lucifer glanced down at the sleeping creature, who was still trembling even while unconscious.

“... If it becomes too much of a hassle, I’ll talk to Diavolo. For now, we have to give it a try. It would take too long to find a new applicant. That being said… let’s find a reinforced room for her.” Lucifer didn’t want her busting out in the middle of the night.

“Maybe soundproof, too,” Asmodeus mumbled, wrapping his arms around himself in sheer discomfort. They were supposed to be taking care of this thing? Maybe he could get out of it if he avoided her. 

Lucifer shot him a look, but didn’t say anything. That screech definitely caught everyone off guard. His ears were still ringing. Which was only being made worse because he could hear Mammon yelling over Satan’s phone. The eldest sighed heavily.

Lucifer knew he had a long, long year ahead of him.