#in a way that's much easier and faster-paced to pick up than a game that requires narrative-as-you-go

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

okay! made another game, enjoying playtesting it so far. have gotten much better at keeping clean, streamlined notation anytime i adjust rules, fix flubs in play, etc.

this one seems to work best for me at about 20 in-game days per session (without added narrative) before i need to set it aside for a while, mainly because it's designed to be tightly strategic with a lot of two steps forward one step back and there is a point in each sitting where it starts to get Frustrating instead of just keeping you on your toes lmao

[yeeterthek33per]

Bittersweet Days (Charlie Grant x Reader)

A/n Requested

Warnings: a little bit of smut at the end. I've marked the section with a star so y'all can skip it if you so wish but marked the kind of end, so y'all could read the last bitty bit, so warning, teeny mention of nudity in the last of it.

Your chest is heaving as you grab one of the blue bottles from the drinks crate, squirting a stream of water into your mouth.

The subs along the line handing the current lineup their bottles during the injury check.

"I swear to fucking god, they're firing on all cylinders tonight, Asllani is on my ass like she's glued to it. I can't focus and I can't mark her either."

The game hadn't been going well. Sweden suddenly picked up the pace like they had fire lit under their asses and Sam was now down with a leg tweak after a challenge from Eriksson.

It didn't help the referee didn't do shit about it for a whole minute. Even Eriksson and Mušović were going the ref about her taking so long to call it.

Charlie hands you a sweat towel and takes the bottle from your hands when you offer it.

"Don't let her get in your head. She's just trying to pick apart the midfield. She's already gotten into it with Mini. Don't bite the bait. Stand your ground, but don't bother trying to chase her around. She's not the one you need to keep an eye on."

"Rolfö is being the biggest pain in the ass to mark. There's no way our backline can keep up with her. Hunty is the only one who can even block her from that side. Ellie's getting drawn out way too quickly, and I have to back track, and it's leaving Asllani open. It's like we're panicking."

You shake your head. What a way to celebrate your anniversary.

Charlie takes the towel from your hands as well and moves to hold your shoulders so you can sit still for a moment, ever eager to get back out on the pitch.

"Babe, you know how to keep the midfield locked, talk to Ellie, she needs you to keep her in line. If she goes, Clare covers, not you. You have to cover the top of the box, you know this." You nod, grabbing the bottle to take one last drink and Tony signals you over.

"Talk to Mini in that midfield. She can cover Asllani, but not while she's playing the way she is. She's getting pushy, and Mini is biting easier by the minute. I might have to pull Sam here, so I'm looking at Chids to replace her. She'll cover where you and Mini can't. Look for the lines, follow your lines, L/n, you got this." He claps you on the back, and you give him a tight nod.

As Sam gets walked off and you all return to the pitch, there's a higher tension in the air than before. Everything just stops functioning. It's like nobody listened, and Sweden is just blocking everything that gets sent in. Sam isn't coping, and she can't meet any headers despite insisting to Tony to let her go back on.

Alex is subbed on for Polky, but she isn't given the time or ability to get much done. Why would he push her there? Their backline won't allow for her style of play there.

In the end, it's just frustrating, and the exhaustion is setting in faster than every other match. Steph is trying to keep the backline in form, but running a full marathon at the World Cup isn't doing her legs any good either.

In the end, the moment the whistle blows at the end of the game. You all just collapse to the pitch. You'd all pushed for effort after effort, but nothing broke through. In the end, the Swedes emerge victorious.

Everything kind of just crumbles down. Sam collapses to the pitch, Steph is already on the ground by the technical lines where Tony is, who's still arguing with the ref. Lord knows why.

The man's patience when it came to terrible reffing ran about as deep as the hole you wanted to dig yourself into.

Everything hurt. Your heart, your head, your lungs, your legs. It all felt like a slap that your grandkids would feel. Like it made your father turn over in his grave.

You felt the pats on the back from some of your teammates and some from Sweden as well.

You push yourself up, legs shaky and muscles screaming at you. You go find Sam, giving her shoulder a quick pat as you kneel in front of her.

"Hey, c'mon cap, that's gotta be hurting your ass. Up we come." You pull her up and wrap your arms around her, and she just grunts and just about leans fully into you.

You walk her over to the bench, arm around her shoulder, and give her a few back pats and a shoulder squeeze, mumbling words of consolation to her.

She doesn't say much, and you leave her with a small kiss to the temple.

Charlie is the first to approach you, having spotted your hunched form and slow limping steps. You can tell she's holding back a lot more than she feels comfortable with. The tears peeking out of the corners of her eyes, and the red of her face make it obvious to you.

"Hey baby, I'm so proud of you."

You bury your nose into her neck the moment she has you wrapped up in her arms. Her hand sits at the back of your neck, squeezing at it slightly, and her other rubs circles into your shoulder blades.

You lean into her slightly, feeling your legs wanting to give out on you, and she quickly moves her arms around your waist to hold you.

You whimper, feeling your knee start to twinge more now that you aren't running on adrenaline. You'd done it in about six months ago, but the pain never fully went away, even after months of physio.

You just stubbornly chose to ignore it after not being able to play and worrying it would cost you your career.

"I know it hurts, sweetheart. It's just a little bit longer, and then we can go back and just stay in for as long as we like."

Charlie only knew because she caught you spraying the crap out of it one day with deepheat after a particularly bad training session, and the cold was starting to set in on it.

"Sorry, I know this isn't exactly the present you wanted for our fourth anniversary." You say half jokingly, and she just gives you a watery laugh, shaking her head.

"Honey, I got my present a month ago when we stepped onto the pitch together before the game in Sydney. That's all I've ever wanted."

Tears only pour harder. "We were so close, though. I could've played harder, I could've done something about that damned midfielder."

"She was just so much more physical than either of you or Mini were prepared for. There's nothing you could've done without injuring yourself or the other player."

"Me losing out on my knee would have been worth it if we had made history."

Her hands grab your face at that, bringing you to look her in the eye.

"No, it's not because we already did that. Because you already helped do that. You putting yourself out permanently should never happen for a piece of metal that will get covered in beer and put on a hook to get dusty inside a display cabinet. You are worth so much more than that. Don't ever put yourself or your career down for that."

"But-"

"No. You've worked so hard to get here. You put your knee on the line just to make the team. It's time to rest. It's okay to need a break. It's okay to say you've done everything you could. It's okay that you couldn’t force yourself to do the impossible. You gave everything, and that's what matters. Sometimes, stuff happens, and you end up outclassed."

You huff a sigh, sniffling lightly. Then slowly nod.

"Okay, okay, I see your point."

She caresses your face.

"Good. I love you."

You give what you can of a smile.

"I love you too."

----------------------

Upon return to the hotel, you're all invited for an afterparty and taking the opportunity to let off some steam, you all accept.

You half collapse on the bed in your room while waiting for the bathroom to empty so you can shower properly.

A thought comes to mind. Why hadn't you planned anything more for today?

Charlie woke you up with flowers and delivered (pre approved) breakfast. She snuck you extra coffee in the morning every day. She made sure you had your gear back clean and organised and folded while dealing with everything she needed to do as a player.

She'd made sure you both had the night together last night.

Hell, she made you laugh in one of the most heartbreaking settings a player can go through at a World Cup even though she barely got minutes on the field herself.

What had you done?

Given her a heart attack when you went down and played one game together, that and a terrible apology earlier after the game.

After chatting with Mini, Kyra, and Harper, though try as she might, little Harper wasn't as much help as the other two, you set up a roof top date, rented out one of the top suites in the hotel for the night and promised Tony more media duty for the next month than the whole team combined in exchange for the night off.

So that's where you decide you have to do something.

----------------------

You arranged a little food delivery, snuck out to drop by a few stores, and bought some last-minute flower arrangements and a few packets of rose petals.

You also stopped by a jewellery store to pick up a necklace you knew she'd been looking at while you were out on the team morning walk.

Now, you just had to convince Charlie to stay in with you without it being suspicious.

With it being about thirty minutes before the team was set to leave, you knock on the door to the room Charlie shared with Kyra, ignoring your muscles screaming at you after you'd told Charlie you'd still go with her to the afterparty.

She looked like she didn't quite believe you, and questioned your pain level but you insisted you were fine and that you were happy to go out, knowing she needed to have something to do other than the usual team stuff.

Kyra opens the door, but the moment she spots you, and you give her a nod, she turns back to Charlie. "Hey Cha Cha, your girl's here."

Charlie looks up, a smile gracing her lips but mild confusion joining it.

"I thought we were meeting down at the bus."

You shake your head, immediately having to go over the plan in your head again.

Everything was making you nervous at this point, but you had to fight for your life to not let any nervous tics show. Lord knows your girlfriend would spot them in a heartbeat.

"Actually, change of plans. I convinced Tony to let us skip and found a really nice place for us to go for dinner. I know we haven't had too much time together lately, aside from last night, which I wanted to thank you for."

Charlie's expression softens, and she hops up to come over to you, immediately pulling you in for a tight hug.

"Baby, you don't have to thank me for anything, I'm more than glad for any time we spend together. Saying that, I will take you up on that offer."

You grin and let your lips meet hers for a moment. Of course, you hear a gagging noise from Kyra.

"You two are so sweet, it's actually fucking gross."

Charlie rolls her eyes and turns back to you, arms still around you.

"Come back in about twenty and we can go?"

"Fifteen, I have to show you something first."

"Baby, c'mon, you know my makeup takes forever, twenty, please?"

She bats her eyelashes at you, and you roll your eyes lovingly and peck her lips.

"Fine, twenty."

"Whipped."

"Shut the fuck up, Kyra."

----------------------

"Okay, when you said you were showing me something, I didn't think you meant breaking onto the roof. Why are we coming up this way anyway? You're gonna get us both in trouble."

You seemingly don't hear her protests as you both walk down the hallway to the roof access.

"Seriously, I love you, but now is not the time to fulfil your 'sex under the stars' fantasy."

You roll your eyes and open the door, and start to ascend the steps. She's looking around nervously at the security cameras and nearly stops behind you.

"Y/n, seriously, you're gonna get us into shit with the hotel. We can't be up here. I love you, but why are you bringing me into this again?"

You stop suddenly and turn, grabbing her by the face and kiss her.

"Because you love me, and you follow me anywhere."

She groans, knowing full well she can't argue with you. As much as she vehemently denies it and gets teased for it, she'd follow you off a cliff or into outer space if she had to choose.

You continue up the steps, and when you reach the door to the roof, you step aside and gesture for her to go through first.

"Ladies first."

She huffs at you and moves around you to open the door.

"You're such a little shit, honestly."

Hand to your chest, you gasp softly.

"You wound me." It's said with a teasing smile.

The moment she opens the door, she freezes, tears coming to her eyes.

The roof is set out with an outdoor garden and a pergola with vines wrapping the wood. However, a white clothed table sat directly in the middle, a longer one off to the side with shared dishes that you both love and miss having now that you're away at the World Cup.

The ground and the tables are sprinkled with rose petals, and there's various vases of flowers around.

She realizes now why you'd been so insistent, and when she turns back to you, she can see only pure love and admiration radiating back at her.

The suit you were wearing was perfectly fitted, and it seems the moment she looked away, you'd clipped a small rose to your pocket.

Charlie has to tilt her head back slightly to avoid letting the tears ruin her makeup.

"Happy Anniversary, my love."

Her hand comes up to cover her mouth as she looks back at you, fighting off tears.

"Baby, did you really do all this?"

You give her a shy smile, running your hand through your hair.

"It was last minute, but lately, you've been doing so much for me, and for us as a couple, I had to do something. I love you and appreciate you so much, and I won't ever feel like I'm doing enough for what you deserve. I'd give you the world if I could."

She laughs and grabs you by the hands to pull you closer.

"God, I love you so much. You're doing so much more than you'll ever know. Happy anniversary. Thank you for doing this for us."

You smile widely and cup her cheek, giving her a quick kiss and gesture to the table.

"Hungry?"

She looks over at the food on the table set out for you and nods quickly.

"You got me my favourite comfort foods. Hell yes, I'm hungry."

You chuckle, and you both dish up from the transportable warmers.

You settle down to eat, chatting about the day and looking back on some fond memories from your early days.

"I can't believe I let you sign me up for a whole go-karting season. As fun as that was, you drive really weirdly dangerous compared to how you drive a regular car."

"Do not, I'm just free spirited when I'm in a mini race car, that's all."

"Baby, you intentionally sent someone off the track because they nudged me trying to go around me."

"That was a fair response. Thank you very much. He was an asshole and he was pretty much fine after anyway"

"The poor guy ended up with a broken arm."

You go silent for a second, and Charlie has an amused look on her face.

"But.. he tried to take you out, it was only fair." You pout.

"Yeah, but baby, you got us banned from that go-karting place for life. I'm 90 percent sure they blacklisted you, too."

"Look, I'm just saying Rich asshole wants to lay wheels on my girl. He ain't walking away without a few scars, okay? Plus, it's better than that time you got us kicked from Paintballing."

"They should've kept their dicks in their pants."

"Clearly, they had to, considering you shot all of them in the crotch."

"Their problem for not wearing the supplied crotch guards."

"Yes, and the instructor was clearly impressed with that effort."

"I did try to tell him they wouldn't stop flirting with you, so they needed a reality check. Plus, I did just say it wasn't intentionally aimed that way while we were fighting."

"They were your teammates. We were on opposite sides of the course."

Charlie pouts and moves around her food slightly.

"Still didn't stop them from trying to get your number at the end of it. I saw you giving something to them by the way."

You raise your hands slightly in mock surrender.

"I may or may not have given them the number to that radio station that broadcasts all the creepy voicemails and texts they get from guys who purposefully get given the wrong number."

Her eyes crinkle with laughter as tries to cover the sound, the melodious noise making your heart warm. You could listen to it all day, every day.

"Oh god, please tell me you've got the broadcast somewhere."

"Maybe. It requires payment for viewing though."

Charlie raises a brow at you. "Yeah?"

You tilt your head playfully. "Yeah, sorry baby, only acceptable payments are kisses."

She hums, nodding.

"Remind me later and I'll take you up on that offer."

"Aw, no fun." You pout softly.

"Baby, we're enjoying the night to ourselves. We have plenty of time for kissing."

"Speaking of, Tony knows we're not gonna be in our rooms tonight."

She tilts her head slightly.

"I may have booked us a room for the night separately."

Her heart absolutely melts at your words, and she wordlessly grabs your hand over the table.

You wiggle your eyebrows. "Wait 'til you see the room."

She giggles softly, shaking her head.

"God, I love you."

Your eyes water, heart beating faster.

"I love you too."

Should this be it? The moment you finally used that damn box that's been tucked under three layers of old socks and giving you a world of anxiety?

Not yet.

The velvet lined case was like lead in your pocket though, and if you didn't do it soon, she'd probably get sick of waiting and do it for you.

You knew she knew you were waiting to propose. She was only waiting for you to do it.

You hold it back and suck back tears before she sees them. You continue eating, and her laughter fills the air as you do everything you can to keep her laughing throughout the night.

Later on, under the caressing melody coming from a speaker you had set out beneath the table, you and Charlie sway together. The moonlight filtering through the vines of the pergola leaves a soft dappled glow across your skin and surrounds.

Your heart flutters as her hands trace the contours of your shoulders before moving back to settle on your neck.

A tender smile tugs at your lips, warmth spreading through you as you feel her fingers play with the hairs at the nape of it.

You can feel the squeeze of your fingers on her waist beneath them, holding her like you never want to let go. Your shared breath intermingles in the space between you, a bridge between your shared love making your heart race.

You take the moment to just ruminate. Your heart replays the moments that have brought you here.

The shared completion of your dreams, the laughter, the moments of disappointment, and the hard times you got stuck in that you had to work out how to navigate.

In all of it, one thing remained consistent.

Charlie.

Your rock. Your love. Your confidant. The person who stood by you at your worst and raised you up at your best. The woman you were so sure couldn't possibly return your feelings just four years ago.

And yet here you were, stood embraced under the moonlit glow of the night, just hours after a fourth place finish at the World Cup.

And yet here you were, holding the love of your life in your hands, her holding you like you'll slip away at a moments notice. That's when you know you're gonna marry this woman.

This beautiful, light, courageous, caring, kind human being was yours.

Her fingers in your hair send shivers down your spine and her lips murmuring sweet nothings to you course through your gut like your blood flows through your veins.

You live in the moment for as long you can before you can tell exhaustion is starting to set in a little between the both of you.

"Come on, love. I can tell you're tiring a bit there. Wanna head in for the night?"

Her lips meet yours softly in a brief but reassuring kiss. "I'm not done with you yet."

Your lips move to her neck with light ghostings across her skin.

"We've got time, baby, all night if you want."

Her sigh and slight head tilt urge you on.

"Lead the way then."

---------------------- **

Under the soft sheets of the bed, you lay propped up on your side, elbow holding your head above the blonde girl beside you, fingers gently tracing her stomach as the breathlessness relaxes into calm once again.

Charlie moves to turn onto her side to face you properly.

"Please tell we didn't let that food go to waste up there?"

Your laugh from there makes her pout slightly.

"I just gave you some of the best three orgasms you've had and your first thought is that?"

Your tone is teasing, and she whines, shoving you lightly.

"I just feel bad is all." You reassure her quickly.

"Don't worry, I made sure my assistants had the food wrapped up and put in storage for now."

"Assistants?" She cocks a brow and you move to straddle her bare waist.

"Yup, my assistants."

"Uhuh, also what makes you think these were the best three orgasms I've had."

You gawk slightly, hands now settling on her ribcage.

"Oh, you've had better have you?"

She braces, slightly hands settling against your wrists, knowing where this is going.

"Mhm, maybe."

Your gleam turns mischievous, and your fingers start to twitch at her sides.

"Is that so?"

Her laughter rings out as you tickle her, squealing slightly and trying to shove your hands away as you relentless torture the poor woman.

"Baby, please! I'm sorry, that was a lie! Please!"

"Oh, was it now? Who gave you the best, huh?"

"You did! you always do, nobody else!"

You slow your ministrations and lean down to take her lips with yours as she calms her breathing again.

"Damn right."

Her breathing turns to soft sighs as you trail your kisses down, resting at her abdomen, tracing the soft lines of her stomach.

It's like everything hits you all at once, the moment she's in your lap, rocking her hips into your hand, your lips trailing up her neck and she breathlessly whimpers your name when your fingers curl inside her.

The moment her legs start to shake and the high of her orgasm reaches, it's out of your lips before you can stop it.

"Marry me."

It catches her off guard, her eyes shooting open slightly as she cries out, clenching around you.

**(if you wanna read the proposal)**

Her breathing calms, and her head moves forward from having been lulled back.

"You wanna repeat that?" It's not said with anger, only a soft undertone of surprise.

Your cheeks turn red at that. You mutter it again.

"Please marry me?"

You don't expect the soft laugh that accompanies it.

"Baby, that was the most unorthodox way you could have proposed."

The tips of your ears are now burning too, and you turn your head slightly to avoid her gaze but she grabs your face and kisses you hard.

"God, yes, I'll marry you."

You grin hard and kiss her again.

You pull away, slipping out from under her to grab your discarded suit pants from the floor, digging out the box.

A soft sigh, leaving your lips as you, still naked, lower yourself to your good knee.

"I was planning on doing it after dinner, but I half chickened out, and now I'm doing this. I wanted to give you a proper proposal, one that you deserve and one that'll you'll remember for the rest of our lives. While the second half may be true, I'm disappointed for not doing it earlier."

She moves to the edge of the bed, tears starting to slip down her cheeks.

"I love you so much. You've been there for me when I wouldn't let anyone else in. You've been my rock, my whole world. You supported me when I was ready to give up. You've lifted me up when we've both been triumphant and you've given me every bit of your heart you could and I love you so much for it and I want, if you'll let me, to spend the rest of our lives repaying it by giving the same back to you."

You pop open the ring box.

"Charlotte Layne Grant. Will you do the honour of making the happiest woman in Brisbane, Australia, and marry me?"

Her laugh is choked up with soft sobs as she nods. "Of course I'll fucking marry you."

Her hands pull you up onto the bed again, kissing you hard and you catch yourself from falling onto her entirely, ringbox still in hand.

You pull away just enough, tears now streaming down your own face, too.

You show her the ring, and she finally gets a glimpse of it. It's a custom, rose gold ring with roses and a deep set diamond with two rubies set on either side at the top. There's also something engraved on the inside.

The moment she reads the inscription, she covers her mouth to stop her sobs.

You look at her worried.

"Is it okay? Are you okay? I didn't know if-"

She tackles you back onto the mattress, and you nearly fall off the bed entirely, just barely managing to catch yourselves.

"I love it, it's perfect."

On the inside, it says.

"To my love, my life, Charlotte Layne Grant-L/n"

"May you forever shine at your brightest, my superstar."

You help her slip the ring on, and her arms immediately wrap around your neck, and you bury your face in her hair, just sitting and holding her.

You finally did it.

You're marrying your superstar.

----------------------

[chouxsardine]

Hold Me (1)--- Jake Kiszka x reader

My fic for @seenoversundown 's Valentine's Day Writing Event! I choose the prompt: Play Truth or Dare

Summary: "hold me like you hold your Les Paul, have your way with me the way you play her.” || Your drunk slip-up leads to one of the best Valentine's Day gift you've ever got

Pairing: Jake Kiszka x reader

Word Count: 3547

Warnings (for this part): 18+! Minors DNI, sexual implications, cursing, alcohol, dom Jake/sub reader, guitar kink, bondage, scissors, inappropriate use of guitar strap, pickle slander

Author's note: Remember I said here about a series of improper guitar use fantasy? Well, here's another one! This idea has been circling in my mind for the longest time. Happy Valentine's Day, Enjoy!

🎧: Dirty Little Religion by Warren Zevon

“Come on, y/n, you have to play by the rules. That’s only fair.”

“Oh gosh, please don’t,” you groaned, banging your forehead on the table, regretting every possible decision you have made in the last two hours.

It was a Friday night, Jake and you were throwing your very own drinking party at home. It started out with some innocent cocktails but has somehow soon turned into chugging down straight tequila. To add to the fun, you proposed an impromptu and very informal round Truth or Dare, which, looking back now, was a very bad idea. Yes, your original intention was to fish out some funny anecdotes from Jake, but woe is you—how the tables have turned. Now, you were the one facing the difficult choice between spilling your dirtiest fantasy or drinking a shot of pickle juice.

That dare was definitely devilish, and Jake was setting it up for you to fail. He knew you absolutely can’t stand pickle juice, especially when it’s that bottom-of-the-jar “essence”— evilly green and murky with all the loosened pulp and seeds floating around. Simply one look at it made you sick.

“Pick your poison, darling,” Jake said, making no effort to hide his smirk.

You tentatively reached for the shot glass but immediately gave in as its smell reached your nose. Why trouble yourself? You’d be lying if you said there wasn’t an arousing tingle inside. Simply the way Jake said the word ‘fantasy’ sounds sexy. Talking about the chokehold this man has on you. It was clear that you were fighting a losing battle. To choose something so ghastly over a little spice in the uncharted territory is just straight-up stupid. Plus, you may or may not have had a bit too much to drink. You felt positive that one simple sip of that pickle juice would make you throw up before the alcohol does.

Sensing the silence, Jake’s demeanour changed. He was more than tipsy, yes, but not to the point that it stops him from being attentive to your feelings and reactions. It was a cute, hot little thing he came up with on the spur of the moment that he thought would be fun. It wasn’t meant to put you on the spot. To make you uncomfortable and ruining the moment is the last thing he wanted.

“Hey, it’s okay, you don’t have—”

“I’ve always—”

You opened your mouth simultaneously.

Jake took one look at you and shut up immediately. Your cheeks are flushed, your half-lidded eyes were fixed on him with a familiar look. Your left knee that was previously stretched out was now bent against your chest. Oh.

“Go on.” He whispered.

Fuck it.

“I’ve always felt jealous of your guitar, you know that? Especially when you are away on tour. The way you play it on stage, making all those girls scream for you…And that one time you fucking kissed it to make the vibration like that?” You let out a humourless laugh as your eyes narrowed, “it drives me mad.” The way you accentuate “mad” blurs its meaning, and it makes Jake wonder.

“Mad, huh? Which kind? Mad as in crazy, or mad as in angry?”

The drinking game long forgotten now that it has changed into your worship of Jake. You ignored his question completely as you continue. The words coming out much easier and at a faster pace.

“Or the way you slap it, the way you hold its neck and rock it,” all the images and videos you’ve seen are alive in your mind, overlaying with the sight of Jake right before your eyes, “the way you make her whine and scream.”

Jake’s heart skips a bit at the change of pronoun.

“Did you ever get hard while doing that?” You set down the glass on the table, got down on your hands and knees, crawling towards Jake until you were by his feet. “I bet you did. How can you not?” Jake beckoned and you straddled his lap in one swift motion, holding his face. Your eyes were glassy, your pupils dilated. “That’s when I get so jealous and….and insecure.” Jake frowned at that last word. He never thought of that.

“That’s when I wish I was there, waiting for you backstage. I want to kiss you and tell you how amazing you look up there because you deserve it,” with that, you studied Jake’s face intensely through your droopy eyes before defeatedly dropping your head onto his shoulder, your words muffled and slurred,“hell, you have no idea what I want to do to you.”

“I will if you tell me,” Jake tempted.

You pulled back, staring down at him. You caressed his cheek, your fanned breath tickling the loose strands of hair that frame his face. To Jake, you feel like a warm dessert soaked in bourbon; you looked…delicious. It was the same kind of primal desire that shares the same origin with hunger, the wild biological needs fuming. All your shame and self-consciousness unraveled by the alcohol, coming off like a corset with its ribbons pulled.

“I want you to tie me up with your guitar strap,” your eyes closed at how good it felt finally having those words freed from your mind, “I want you to hold me like you hold your Les Paul, have your way with me the way you play her.”

Jake’s jaw hung open. Damn, alcohol does makes people open up. He was not expecting you to say that and was also not expecting himself finding it so incredibly hot. Practically, whiskey dick, but mentally, he was so hard. Before he could come up with a decent response, your head dropped down again, this time with a heavier thud, and he could feel your breathing change.

“Y/n?”

No response.

He was so glad you finished that last sentence before passing out.

That was some weeks ago and you only had vague memories of the night. You knew that you must have spilled some crazy shit because since then, on several occasions, you have caught Jake staring at you. Well, it’s not like he can keep his eyes off you very often, but you can tell this is different. He would have his thumb and index fingers rubbing his chin, looking deep in thought as if composing a riff, except that his eyes are on you, and there is a predatory smugness that keeps you at your feet.

“For fucks sake, Jake. You’re doing it again! Why are you glaring at me like that?” You have tried fishing it out of him more than once.

“Secret” and a wry smile were the answers you got every time.

Luckily, he didn’t keep you waiting for too long; it was only a few days later when you finally get to find out about it.

Neither Jake nor you are the type of people who would go overboard on Valentine’s Day. In the past, it has always been a cute dinner date followed by a night that is both sweet and spicy. You could tell Jake is up to something this time. He’s been dropping subtle (or so he thought) hints throughout the day.

Evening was fast approaching. You opted for staying in and cooking. Jake made an amazing chicken piccata. (He even used heart-shaped pasta!) Dinner was quick and delicious, Warren Zevon’s record was playing in the background as you did the dishes. A pair of arms wraps around your waist as you turn off the faucet. Jake’s curls tickle your skin. He is humming to the song, and it takes you a second to realize that he was humming along with the record to the lyrics of Dirty Little Religion.

“I have a gift for you, sweetheart.”

You playfully rolled your eyes, as if his intentions couldn’t be clearer. But who says you aren’t equally (or perhaps more) excited?

“Oh love, you’ve been so good to me all day, how could I ask more from you?” You sound innocent, as if completely unaware of the implications.

“M’not asking. I’m offering. My good girl deserves all my loving.” Jake replies slyly.

Jake calling you good girl will always make you knees go weak. You turn around in his embrace and willingly accept his affectionate kiss on the lips before pulling open the dishwasher. ‘Fine. I’ll just finish up here real quick, okay?”

“Of course, and when you do, come downstairs and find me.”

You quirk your eyebrows. “Downstairs, huh?” It looks like he does has some ideas.

“And you better hurry up, sugar.” He gives you a teasing smack on the butt before turning on his heels.

Downstairs means his studio. Your steps are a bit wobbly as you reach the bottom of the stairs and your fingers shiver as they come into contact with the cool metal of the doorknob. Calm down, y/n, you could be getting all riled up over nothing; knowing that couldn’t be further from the truth, your attempt to calm down sounds pathetic. Throughout your relationship with Jake, the last thing this man ever did was disappoint. And if your nose serves you right, you detect a faint smell of magnolia in the air—the scent that was only reserved for certain occasions. God, what has Jake been planning?

On a second thought, you retrieve your hand from the doorknob, choosing to gently knock three times. A gut feeling tells me that the man of the other side of the door would prefer some manners tonight.

“Come in.”

You push the door open. The room is warm and well-lit, looking the same as usual. Jake is sitting in his Corbusier-style leather chair in the corner, fingers steepling together.

“Hmmmm, a girl with courtesy I see. Very well.” Jake commends.

Bingo. You smile coyly. Your praise kink almost made you curtsy to him.

“Already so good, perhaps I have to find something else to reward you with on top of your gift,” Jake says thoughtfully as he approaches you and pulls you in for a kiss, “but first, my princess deserves to live out her fantasy.”

Fantasy? The way Jake says it gives the word a familiar twang that triggers something in your brain. Your mind is racing as it flips through memories from the past few weeks. Looking around you, most of Jake’s guitars are hanging on the wall instead of resting on the stand. A rather odd thing for him to do. And every guitar on the wall has the strap attached, hanging below them and casting snake-like shadows on the wall.

Then it kicks in. Memories of that Truth or Dare night rushes back to you. Your drunken words replay themselves in your mind, clear and loud: “I want you to tie me up with your guitar strap.”

“Oh, Jake, you didn’t—” Your hands fly up to cover your face in embarrassment.

“Oh, but I do,” Jake laughs, taking your hands in his and thumbing them in soothing circles, “no need to be shy, love. There’s nothing shameful about having desires; it’s a very human thing to do.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely. I’m so happy that you feel comfortable enough to share it with me,” Jake smile reassuringly, “and I find it hot beyond words.”

Your eyes shot up at him upon hearing it, and Jake’s gaze tells you that he is being honest. Seeing that you’ve relaxed, Jake leads you to stand right in front of his guitar display, his hands resting steadily on your shoulders.

“I’ll let you take your pick, doll. Whichever one that has the honour to have caught your eyes.”

You take a deep breath, feeling like a child in a candy store. This is not the time to get overwhelmed. Your eyes first travel greedily between the guitars, linger over their smooth curves, then you divert to the straps. Jake’s signature ’61 Les Paul SG is standing tall and proud in the middle, paired with the most often seen thin leather strap in back. Moving further right is his SG Classic with the Pinegrove brown padded strap from earlier days, and there’s the black one with the broader shoulder pad which was once used to hold a double-neck but now used on his Coodercaster. You picture them laying over Jake’s shoulder, the way they strain and slacken with his movement, the umbilical cord between his body and his creation. You also imagine the what they would look and feel when wrapped around your waist. The slightly nervous you is inching towards the brown strap—it looks so comforting with its suede texture and its wrinkled surface, and its also wider, therefore leaning towards a cuff rather than a rope when tied; however, the bolder voice obviously prefers the black one—classy, timeless, direct and succinct like a command. It’s thinner, so it might cut into your skin if you are squirming too much (which you definitely will), but isn’t that what you are after? Isn’t that the gist—pleasure mixed with pain?

Jake is being unexpectedly patient, giving you all the time you need to take it in as he resumes his previous position in the chair, admiring your predicament from afar.

“I want that one.” You blurt out finally, pointing at his black strap.

The look on Jake’s face made you suspect that he has known what you’d choose all along.

“Nice choice.” Jake comments, stepping forward to remove the strap from the guitar. You know it’s most likely in your head, but the strap looks different the second that it was detached from the instrument; now wrapped around Jake’s palm, it looks more powerful, it looks like it is determined to serve its intended purpose well for tonight.

“Now go upstairs.”

This time, the command is brusque.

Oh, so the studio is not the final destination. You feel like being on a scavenger’s hunt, following all the clues and getting more snd more excited and impatient by the second. You can’t tell if you are disappointed or relieved that you are not doing…well, whatever Jake intends to do with you…in his studio.

You hands are already touching the door when you heard him again:

“While you are up there, princess, do yourself a favour and strip down to your bra and panties.”

You gasp, but chose not to turn around.

“Yes,” you murmur just loudly enough for him to hear you, “Sir.”

Upstair in your shared bedroom, you do not know how to position your body. You are naked except for your underwear, but the room still seems too hot. You tried laying in bed in a sultry pose—too pretentious, for fuck’s sake, you’ re not shooting porn. You sat down but you kept hugging your knees to yourself—you don’t want Jake to mistake that as reluctance. You are just a bit jittery. God knows how long you’ve been fantasizing this. You tried sitting on the ottoman, but the leather kept sticking to your bum, and it wouldn’t take long before you start sweating and leaving a shame-filled imprint on the seat. You’ve always wanted this, and it’s Jake, there’s nothing to be nervous about, just do what feels best.

Alright, alright.

Following the voice in your heart, you find yourself dropping down to your knees, kneeling on the plush beige rug by the bed. You have your back against the bedroom door. You know it would be impossible for you not to look at Jake’s reaction the moment he see you in this pose, but you are also not sure if you are ready to take that reaction. To you, for now, kneeling feels the most right. For you and Jake, the dom/sub thing in bed is never explicit. Sure, he enjoys you calling him Daddy from time to time and you definitely have got him all whiny and teary for more than once, but this would be the first time that you will be trying restraints. You guess you have always had this fantasy—there’s just something about Jake and his guitar that makes your knees buckle. You are secretly thankful for your drunk slip-up, because you are not sure if you will have the courage to stare into his eyes and say those words sober, even though you know that Jake would never judge you.

The sound of the door opening interrupts your thought. The room is so quiet that you can hear a pin drop, and you are holding your breath. Therefore, even without looking, you are positive that Jake hitches his breath when he sees you. You regret a little for facing away from him. Now you want to see his expression.

“Don’t move.” As if reading your mind, Jake orders. You straighten your back. Jake approaches until he is standing right behind you.

“What a good girl.”

Something touches you. You quickly realize Jake is using the bended strap to trace random patterns on your back. You feel the looped end of the strap at your cervical spine before it circles around your scapula, from where it travels down along your spine all the way to your hipbone, dipping a little into the elastic band of your panties. Jake watches the involuntary contraction of your muscles as they react to the touch, feeling satisfied as he sees the fine hairs on the back of your neck slightly perk up.

You just breathed a sigh of relief when you feel the smooth leather again, this time reaching in front and tracing your clavicle. It stops at the little indentation between the bones, right beneath your throat and inches upwards to your chin, tilt it upward, then finding leverage on the left side of your jaw, Using it to turn your head back.

You run straightforward into Jake’s eyes, which are now the colour of melted chocolate. The dark, mesmerizing, 80% cocoa type.

Your pouty lips and puppy eyes are silently begging him for a kiss. Jake indulges, catching your bottom lip between his teeth slightly as his pulls away.

“Already tasting so sweet, angel.”

Aside from the praise, the tenderness in his tone is unvarnished. This is the voice he uses whenever he checks up on you. This is a sign that you are about to have the talk—the sweet conversation with a fraction of awkwardness before you two try out anything new that gives consent and sets up rules and boundaries.

“I…I really want this.” You pre-empt.

“That’s good to hear,” Jake chuckles. Now he has came around, sitting face to face with you. What looks like a wash bag laying beside his knees. What? He has gone and got a bag for this? You wonder what the hell he has got in there.

“I know it’s been a minute, but do you still remember our safe word?”

“Yes. It’s ‘soundcheck’.” You answer, peeling your eyes away from the bag. The safe word was something you two has settled early on in your relationship. Neither of you has been in a position that requires the use of it, but the simple fact that such a word exists and you are comfortable using it when the situations calls for is reassurance for both sides.

“Good. Use it if you need to. Since we are trying something new today, I suggest we add on to it a bit more,” Jake holds your gaze steadily as you nod, “we are going with colours. Green means all good and continue; yellow means pause, say it if you feel like it’s too much, we will take a break, check in, work things out, and you decide if you want to keep going; red is the big ‘no-no’, say it and everything, I mean everything, stops immediately, no question asked. Copy?”

“Yes, green to go, yellow to pause, and red to stop.” You repeat it back, knowing Jake always requires a clear response at this point. This is starting to sound like those naughty romance novels, although you have a secret feeling that what you’re about to experience is going to be so much better.

“Clever girl,” Jake unzips the bag and takes out a pair of scissors, showing them to you, “these are safety shears. I feel like they’re necessary if I am tying you up today. They are medical grade and they cut through everything. Whatever the reason you need out of the restraints, they get you the quick release. ”

He places the scissors in your hands. You hold on to it, finding its curved blade and matte handle consoling. “Now listen up, if it comes to that,” Jake speaks slowly, his index finger tapping your naked skin with each accentuated word, “I will cut the strap. I don’t care how long I’ve had it or how much it costs. They are nothing compared to your safety. Do you hear me, love?”

“Yes. Yes, I understand.” You heart melts at how serious he is taking this. You knew he must’ve done his research. The colour system and all. “Thank you, Jake.”

“No need to thank me for keeping you safe, doll,” Jake squeezes your hand gently, “now, are we ready?”

Part 2 out now

Yeah! you made it! Thank you SO MUCH for reading :))

any comments and feedbacks are greatly welcomed and deeply appreciated. I've never done a taglist before....does anyone want to be tagged for part 2?

my other works: Permission to Fall | Mariner's Complex | Ticked (all my boxes) | Love is a four-legged word | The Lucky Ones | Coming back to me | Warm Honey | He Would

[mania-sama]

also!! same anon. any kevneil hcs? 👀 what do u think there relationship would be like?

thanks for sending in another ask!!! i love answering!!!!

I have to really think about this because it's been a while since I've read the books. I needed to refresh my brain a bit!

Since they got together, everyone thinks that they'd push each other to unhealthy heights of Exy obsession. But, that's not the case. Slowly, they are able to coax more interests than Exy out of each other.

With Kevin, it's a lot easier. Neil already knows of Kevin's attempts at having other interests, despite having Exy shoved down his throat since he could talk. So, when the time comes, Neil encourages Kevin to spend time with the things that bring him joy. Such as watching the newest documentary about Ancient Egypt on the History Channel instead of a rerun of a UPenn Exy game, or attending his first Ren Faire dressed to the nines so nobody would recognize him.

Neil tries, too, of course. He picks up 'hobbies' at Kevin's subtle proding, but they always end up as competitions to see who can learn them quicker or better. Instead of being hobbies, they just end up as skills in his set. They learn how to knit together, and Neil is a thousand times better since his hand was never broken; his fingers are more nimble and move at a faster sustainable pace. Kevin sulks at this, obviously. So, when they learn chess, Kevin ensures he always has two wins over Neil.

Exy is still Neil's primary focus, his lifeblood. It's Kevin's, too, but Kevin allows himself a little more freedom. Neil doesn't find as much fun in Renaissance Faires or tours of Native American landscapes as Kevin does, but whatever makes Kevin happy makes Neil happy.

They argue very little at home. Whatever steam they have, they settle it on the Court, either in private sessions or in actual games. They do not hold back. When Neil makes a too-wide pass, Kevin shouts, "Josten! Fix your fucking aim or get off the court!" because he remembers that Neil sucks at putting the dishes in the dishwasher. Likewise, Neil bites back with, "Maybe I wouldn't have done that if you'd get off my ass every once in a while!" because Kevin is always insisting that Neil never does his chores correctly, and perhaps it pisses him off a little.

But, if anything happens to them on the Court, nothing else matters. It could be a good thing; perhaps Kevin made the game-saving goal, or Neil intercepted an important pass. They'll bump shoulders or, if it's appropriate timing, lift each other into the sweetest victory hug. It could be bad. It could be that Kevin's ankle rolls with a sickening crack. Neil drops his racket from whatever corner of the court he's in and rushes to Kevin like his heels are on fire. He pushes everyone away to pull Kevin into his arms, cradling his face as Kevin breaks down, memories of his broken hand crashing in on him. He whispers to Neil, the only person who could truly understand his situation and the only one willing to comfort him, that he's never going to play again. It's all over, he says, over and over again.

Neil tells him it's not true. It's a sprained ankle; it heals in six weeks. Kevin had a right to panic since their lives were reliant on their ability to play Exy, but Neil stayed right by his side the entire time. He shields Kevin from the press, having little patience for their prying questions. He spits out words that he knows Kevin would be horrified by (and so would the US Exy National PR Team). He sits down with Moriyama and explains the injuries and healing time. Moriyama leaves Kevin alone. Neil never lets Kevin get too far into his own head, and at the end of it all, Kevin thanks him in his own way.

Neil is on the receiving end of a lot of things; he finds brand-new running shoes waiting for him on the kitchen counter. There are his favorite protein bars ever from Germany stacked to the brim in the pantry. Kevin tells him, nonchalantly, that they have first-class tickets to watch the best professional Japanese team play in person in a month. It's hard for Kevin to say specific words, but Neil doesn't need them to understand.

But, sometimes, they do come out. At the end of their morning run on a rainy Tuesday, Kevin turns to Neil and says "I love you." Because perhaps that's when he needs to say it - when it's all clogged in his chest and nobody expects him to say it, least of all himself. And Neil will return the affection that night when the sun has set and the fear of nightmares has nestled into his skull. He fears that he has made a mistake letting Kevin so close to his heart, close enough that someone can hurt Neil by taking Kevin away. He turns to Kevin, grabs the nape of his neck, and says "I love you, too."

Because he knows that his fears are inane. That having someone to take care of his heart rather than letting it rot in its bone cage is the best decision he's ever made.

They sleep wrapped in the other's limbs and body. And when one starts shaking from a nightmare, they don't hesitate to pull each other closer. And that's all they need at the end of their long days. Having someone who will worldlessly, unquestioningly support them is enough.

[tauforged]

do you have any tips for someone who wants to get into warframe for the first time?

- don’t start with the duviri/drifter quest when given the option. it’s cool, don’t get me wrong, but it will be very confusing and you won’t revisit any of the stuff that’s touched upon until way way later in the game. start off in the origin system, the story progresses a lot more naturally from that start point. i don’t really know why they made this an option.

- you dont HAVE to buy platinum. they start you off with like 50 i think? it’s not necessary for anything aside from buying additional warframe/weapon slots. everything else is cosmetic or optional. you can get mroe plat later on by trading with other players (if you do want to buy plat for cosmetics or whatever, i recommend waiting until you get a discount as your daily login bonus. iirc they range from 25, 50, or 75% off. they’re pretty much entirely random though so don’t feel obligated to use one if you do get it and don’t need plat at the moment so it goes to waste. you’ll get another)

- even if you decide you don’t like a weapon you end up crafting, you’ll be better off if you level it up to the maximum rank (30) before selling it rather than trashing it outright, that way you won’t have to go back and get it again later on in the game in order to complete it. the more stuff you level in full, the faster you progress through mastery ranks, and some stuff is mastery rank locked so you’re gonna wanna pay attention to your progress.

- you’re gonna wanna join a clan as soon as possible. you can find some via the recruiting channel, or probably by asking around on social media, idk. i started my own (not recommended unless you’ve got a group of friends you can rally or feel like recruiting to fill out your ranks in order to actually get stuff done) so i don’t really know what the clan recruiting scene looks like. having access to a clan dojo makes life a lot easier (and can make finding people to play with less of a hassle too)

- the story itself doesn’t really pick up steam until you start the ‘natah’ quest. in between the start and there, you’ll mostly be doing a lot of running around trying to familiarize yourself with the setting and playing catch-up. don’t worry too much about all the stuff they throw at you all at once. almost all the quests are replayable through your codex if you ever want to refresh your memory, and for those that aren’t, the wiki is… usually a pretty decent source as far as summaries go. i’d take it with a grain of salt though.

- this one especially tripped my sister up so i’m gonna touch on it: you’re going to be required to do the ‘heart of deimos’ quest in order to progress past mars on the star chart. IMHO, this quest REALLY should not be mandatory so early on in the game — you aren’t going to be able to make heads or tails of anything anyone is telling you. don’t be afraid to breeze thru it w/o paying much attention and circle back around later in the game, preferably sometime after you finish the war within or at LEAST the second dream. i genuinely don’t know why they’re throwing baby tenno to the wolves on this one. just know it’ll all make sense later i prommy

- don’t worry too much about the open world areas like the orb vallis, the plains of eidolon, or the cambion drift at first. they’re very cool (and you’ll be introduced to them via their respective quests) but they can be overwhelming to new players and the difficulty spike might be frustrating, especially before you’ve unlocked a majority of the tools available to you.

- this game has been ongoing for over ten years at this point - there’s a LOT going on. take your time progressing at a comfortable pace. don’t be afraid to ask around for help if you’re stuck on something or getting frustrated trying to farm a specific part or material.

- if people try to talk down on you for being a lower mastery rank or w/e they’re literally just being an asshole. MR isn’t indicative of skill so much as it is a representation of how much gear you’ve leveled, which is basically just an indicator of how much time you’ve spent playing - a chimp smacking a keyboard can feasibly hit legendary after enough attempts. you’re fine. hell, i’ve been here since 2013 and i’m only MR 19 LMAO

- the ‘meta’ for this game is wildly subjective due to the vast customizability of builds. take everyone’s opinions with several grains of salt and don’t be afraid to experiment on your own to see what works for you

- dont read general chat. it’s not worth it. nobody in there is as funny as they think they are

- the most important part of being a tenno is having fun and being yourself :)

[rigelmejo]

5-2-2023 some updates since I haven't posted in a while

My Japanese progress is. Well it's going. I STILL just do not listen to glossika as much as I say I should. That said, I'm considering Watching sailor moon in japanese. Maybe that'll kick me up a level of understanding? Maybe???

There's a YouTube called Game Gengo, he's a fucking delight. I watched his Final Fantasy IX vocabulary learning video today and it just. He's such a good teacher I think. They remind me of being in a fast paced but genuinely fun in person class. He says how many vocabulary he'll teach at the start (which I find valuable as a student you can decide if it teaches ENOUGH to be worth watching for your time). He repeats words and reminds, so you get reinforcement of the words he's explained when they come up again continuously, which helps with remembering words. He moves quickly enough you don't get bored and feel it's too in depth. But it is in depth, just snappy, so you could rewatch to retain more. It uses games you enjoy so it's fun and the context helps with remembering. And he is a good presenter with a pleasant and clear English and Japanese voice. Just excellent videos, I should really watch them more than I do. They work excellent as a podcast too! You do NOT need to see the video to learn from them, you can learn with listening alone which is a plus for me. But the video has useful dictionary info listed and japanese spelling etc.

I've been watching some Japanese bl lately and it's so weird cause. Well Our Dining Table uses SO much basic vocabulary I could probably follow it perfectly fine without subs. Then The Pornographer is like half daily life language I'm very good at now, half That Sounds Familiar. And Miu414 (not bl) I also know at least half. I feel I should be forcing myself to watch more Japanese with Japanese subs, as I'm probably at a point where I'd pick up a lot. Japanese LISTENING skill seems significantly better than in the past. Still a LONG way to go, but fun.

I also still wanna try listening reading with a Japanese audio drama but.. I'm so lazy

Chinese progress? Absolutely Baffling

I've been listening to audio drama or audiobook of 默读 like every single day. The days I don't, I listen to Ice Fantasy condensed audio. I have made Enough to progress to be at the point where everything I don't understand is super annoying and noticeable to me. But also when I watch cdramas I realize I understood all the audio words and wonder why I'm even leaving rhe English subs on when they're so wrong sometimes (I've been watching Till The End of the Moon lol). I'm leaving the eng subs on cause I'm lazy. We know ToT. But my point is. I can DEFINITELY tell my listening skills are improving. But with novels the books are still SO HARD to listen to only and catch every detail.

It's so frustrating noticing just how much I do not know/understand. But at the same time, I do think my plan of "just listen MORE to audiobooks and they'll get easier and you'll learn more" is working. For one? I can tell I expect and predict certain word clauses when people speak or the narration is on a paragraph. And that word predicting makes my comprehension of what I DO know much faster. Then second? I do notice I'm gradually picking up more new words. Partly because I do now have a whole "frame" of support words to reliably understand now. When I hear a sentence now its like this "one could say, Guo changcheng was a X, he stayed up all night afraid of the phone" and I have a WAY easier time guessing that X. Whereas before it used to be a slow slog to recognize the words so I'd maybe recognize them After hearing a whole sentence as the next started, worsening my ability to comprehend the NEXT sentence etc. It used to be "Something? Guo changcheng was a X, something NIGHT scared of PHONE" Then as the next sentence audio would start id make a guess for the somethings and the X. But now the somethings i tend to recognize AS I hear them. Improving overall comprehension. I'm picking up BRAND new words at a slow pace but honestly not so big a deal. It's nice bringing listening skills closer to reading skills... cause my reading skills are STILL better.

Guardian audiobook is getting probably the EASIEST of the audiobooks i hear. In part cause I know what scenes to guess the context I hear places them in, making guessing unknown or "something vaguely familiar" words much easier

[birchtreecat]

OKAY something that helped me with patterns is playing hard songs that are higher level- Intense Voice/Disappearance of Hatsune Miku, YAMABARE, What’s Up Pop?, etc all have similar patterning to lower level fast experts.

if you have any favorite songs and have stubborn will like I do, try to full combo those first! I found after brute forcing the fc for songs like Venom, Vampire, Parasol Slider, Milk Crown, Vivid BAD DOGS, etc that other songs were easier for me in that I didn’t panic as much at equal/lower levels. If there’s a song you overplay often (for me it was Love Trials), that will help a lot, as you already know the song well.

SPEED IS A HUGE HELP!! Each player has their own speed and pace at which they found it, for me it took me about 1 1/2 out of my almost 3 years playing to get from notespeed 1.0 to 11.0. My friends irl play at around 10.5-10.8 and they’re around the same skill as me! It sounds kinda backwards, but faster notespeed makes songs like Tomendo-Wonderz, BUG, HIBANA:Reloaded, Children Record, Tenshi no Clover and Haikei Doppelgänger a LOT easier as the notes aren’t as close together at 10.0 + compared to 7.0-8.0 speeds. Find what you like after testing a few speeds out for a bit and see what works for you!

MVS SLOW YOU DOWN !! I stopped playing with the music videos on after a while in trying to fc on experts, as I found them distracting from the actual note patterns, which got more spammy or needed my attention more than hard songs did. Of course, people still learn with the MVS on, and it’s not impossible! For me it was just really frustrating, and I have huge respect for anyone who can do 24+ experts/masters with the MVs on 😭 if you like MVs and don’t mind taking your time improving, ignore this bit n do as you like!!!

RANKING IS HARD. Not in the way of “oh I have to be good at the game” but also in nerves- I used to get REALLY nervous when I was winning and that would cause me to fumble on a SHIT ton of rounds, leaving me to drop to beginner when I would be at silver 1 or bronze 3-4. What helps me is to calm myself down- take a quick breath before a match, be friendly with the opponent using stamps, and not being hard on myself if I *did* lose. Those nerves are definitely still there, but that combined with me having learned how most tricky note patterns work from forcing my way through a song’s fc has helped a lot in how my rank is affected. Being hard on yourself only makes the nerves worse- at least in my experience, and it’s best to take it as a “I’ll do better next time/I can practice this if I want to improve” rather than “how am I so ass at this game/ god that was embarrassing”

Don’t be afraid to take BREAKS too!! if you lose interest in project SEKAI, don’t be afraid to explore more interests! most of my years playing were spent on and off- I’d play for a week or two, get distracted by a different interest, then pick up roughly where I left off. Yeah, I got rusty over time, but for me it’s allowed me to fully enjoy pjsk without ruining it for myself with the fear of getting bad at it- it’s easy to get back where you left off, and its not like genshin where if you miss one day you’re screwed!

(also, noticed you might be getting into late game player rank wise, don’t be afraid to make an alt account if you need to satisfy the wants for a certain set. After rank 160 ish crystals get difficult to grind :’) as long as you have the age you set the account up with and your transfer ID you should be good to switch back and forth between alt and main)

was very tired when I wrote this so my yapping may not make a lot of sense, but again I wish you luck!!! may the sega gods bless you in the hell of this game <3

After 6 months of playing Proseka, I FINALLY unlocked Ranked Matches!!!!

[figgrrr0]

Could request ruining Tartaglia’s orgasm? I know he’s always written as a huge dom but like what I wouldn’t give to wipe that smug look off his face lol. I just think he’d be such a fun sub, yk he’d be so bratty and whiny. Afab reader with she/her it doesn’t real let matter if it’s foreplay or the main course-

No cause out of all the characters I could possibly think of, Tartaglia is the BIGGEST switch. He absolutely has the most versatility.

I did a headcanon/scenario type thing, but if you want an actual one-shot I'd be happy to try! I just did a bit of everything for you. (Also i didnt notice until it was finished but I didn't really mention the actual acts, so it turned out as GN)

I love this boy sm omg

Bratty Tartaglia headcanons

Reader: Dom!Gn // Genre: Smut

Cw: overstim, edging, bondage, ruined orgasms, dumbification, mentioned blowjob, almost dacryphilia

Tartaglia would be such a brat, almost at all times. He would have trouble picking up on when you just didn't want to deal with his attitude and attempts to fight back. Because of this, he'd get punishments so often that they just became your usual sex routine... it's a good thing he's a huge masochist.

Since I view him as a switch, he'd try to take control halfway during his sub sessions annoyingly often (it's rarely a serious effort, he just likes being put in his place by you). Bondage likely becomes a tactic that you have to rely on with Tartaglia for this exact reason.

If you're giving him a blowjob, he'll sneak his hand into your hair and try pushing you down at the pace he wants, which is usually faster than what is comfortable for your throat. If you're riding him, he'll flip you over as soon as either you or him cum, right when you least expect it... of course, you'd figure out his game after the first few times he does it, so tying his hands together or to the bedframe make keeping his behaviour in check so much easier. Leaving him completely open and at your mercy, no choice but to take anything you give him, and no way to chase the pleasure when you decide to take it away... it gives him goosebumps when he thinks about it, always slightly nervous when you pull out the ropes at the beginning of the night, never knowing what you have planned for him.

I don't think Tartaglia would have a preference between overstim and denial, but of course his reaction to each one is different, especially when ruined orgasms are brought into the play as well. He can take as much overstim or edging as you can dish out, rarely begging you to slow down or go easier on him (unless it's one of those times when he's in a softer mindset - when all he wants is to feel you against him, and to know that regardless of who is in charge in the moment, it will all stop the moment he needs it to). But, he can also go too far, overestimate himself and what he can take, to the point that he becomes completely dumb on you, begging for more even when he can't take it, when he can barely feel anything other than the pain anymore.

With edging, he's all groans and panting breaths. Lips bitten and bleeding, hands clenched, he chases the pleasure that was ripped away just as his torturous orgasm tears through him. His hips buck up sporadically into the air, even as your insistent hands try to keep him pinned down. His eyes are tightly shut as he lets out a choked, stuttered moan as the broken pleasure dissolves, cum pooling on his abdomen, before he lets out a huff of disappointment and his body relaxes into the bed.

However, with overstimulation, he's loud and energetic. Squirming and shuddering, moaning and whimpering, he can't help but push himself further into your touch, even as his body stutters away from the overbearing pleasure. When he cums this time, you pull yourself away from his needy cock, all red and leaking in his desperation to feel more and more of you, even as his aching bones beg for a rest. He cries out when the heat of your body leaves, his eyes flying open with unshed tears blinding his vision in an attempt to seek you out, the cold air settling over his sweat-coated body making his orgasm all that much more uncomfortable and dissatisfying.

But no matter what state he's in by the end of it all, he'll still manage to somehow rake up enough energy to push out some teasing remarks. Even if you're tired and done for the night, ready to take care of him and show him the love you'd neglected him of for the past couple hours of "punishment", he'd rather complain and taunt you, implying that you weren't strong enough to hold out with him for longer. As if you were the one who needed the rest from your rough activities, and not him.

After pushing you and demeaning you for a couple of minutes, you really have no choice other than to start all over again. Putting him in his place and giving him exactly what he'd been demanding from you, even after it all becomes far too much for him to take. He'd wanted it in the first place, after all.

He just doesn't know when to quit.

Want to send a request/brainrot with me? Check my rules!

Thank you for reading! 🩷

[ghostaholics]

ᴄᴀᴛᴀʟʏsᴛ ( ᴘᴀʀᴛ ᴏɴᴇ )

SUMMARY: (au only mildly inspire by the original tv/game timeline since I started writing this before ep. 2 came out; honestly not very canon-compliant) After reaching Colorado – the Fireflies' former backdrop for failed vaccine trials – you and Joel get ambushed in the science lab by people who have since then, made their new home at the abandoned university; during the scuffle, one of the attackers stabs you with a syringe containing unknown contents. PAIRING: Joel Miller x fem!Reader WARNING(S) FOR LATER: pining (mutual) sex pollen; dub-con; p-in-v unprotected sex; use of a mouth gag and a rope during sex but it's for safety assurances not because Joel's a dark guy; still angst even though I left in 50% of it; religious references and lots of metaphors that don't make sense; unbeta'd - expect mistakes; characterization is based on second half of the game and I may have accidentally made him too soft oops idc, ooc for sure WORD COUNT: 2 k A/N: PT. 1; this is already over 10k words in my drafts and I still don't even have like half of it done yet but I'll put out this small part for now I guess

IT'S A GODDAMN SICKNESS – THIS FEELING, festering, like skin stripped raw and every nerve lit on fire. There’s nothing left of you – only flesh and bone knitted together by gnawing hunger.

He should put you out of your misery.

You would welcome death over this: it would be faster, easier, not each excruciating second prolonging your suffering as time bleeds, drawn-out, stretching at an unbearably sluggish pace. This won't pass over. It's only been getting worse the longer you try to ignore it, to let it snuff out on its own. The craving is bad. It surges through your veins, leaves your blood boiling as if it’s burning you alive from the inside-out. Insatiable need devours your body like an all-consuming disease; your mind is scrambled, thoughts as good as ash at this point aside from the surviving idea that you know that this will swallow you whole.

Here's how it happened.

HE'S A KILLER; The leftover carnage is a gut-wrenching testament to that – a breadcrumb trail of carcasses deserted along the westbound, beaten track to Colorado that’s rivaled only by the number of skeletons in his closet.

Not that he's had much choice. It's this very concept that every single media outlet had kept pushing, what had plagued the top headlines, breaking news, and morning segments leading up to Outbreak Day in a concerted effort to capitalize on a little something called sensationalism. The public had wolfed it down, too – had gorged themselves on the idea of it even after all the grocery stores had been raided bare and there'd been zero food left on the shelves; TVs as their place settings with radios emerging as their proxies not long after the power had gone out – because the drama of it all had been more satisfying than the shitty scraps they'd been getting by on: survival of the fittest, who'd get wiped out by the infection first? And Joel Miller is a living legacy that continues to push the limits of natural selection with every poor bastard that he manages to sink a shiny fucking bullet into.

Adaptation. The end of the world has chewed him up, teeth gnashing – razor-sharp incisors; no leftover bones, no remains like the majority of the people who’ve met a collective demise, but a man spit out in one intact piece (physically, anyways – mentally, that’s probably another story). Now, he’s a stone-cold terror. Cutthroat – all jagged edges and mistrust leaching into his pores. Someone who’s had to acclimatize, because the way he sees it, there’s a million different choices to make that only ever lead to two outcomes. And Joel always picks whichever option affords him the best opportunity to stay alive, but it’s the reason he’s got a ledger drowning in red.

Before, that had meant late mortgage payments and loan sharks hunting him down, risky wagers with shady figures to get Sarah new clothes in time for the upcoming school because she’d been outgrowing them every damn year, and also don’t forget the shady business ventures he’d invested in until he’d learnt his lesson the hard way and had decided to throw himself headfirst into work – day in and day out to save up for his own construction company, something stable and honest; maybe then he wouldn’t have to lie about forgetting to pick up the milk or the pancake mix because the reality had been that he was struggling to put food on the table, and maybe he’d get to spend more time with his daughter and pay the soccer club fees that he couldn’t afford so she could make more friends outside of him and the Adlers, and maybe his blood pressure would level out so his pockets wouldn’t dry up with the cost of his medicine because his insurance had been shit, and maybe he wouldn’t have to go to bed every night crunching numbers behind his eyelids to figure out if he had enough to get through the next month’s round of bills, and fuck, maybe things would finally start to look up for once in his life.

Then it had all stopped mattering in an instant.

So now, it means shooting someone dead without a second thought – a past full of necessary evils: ruthlessness, cynicism, and a death toll second to none. Anybody coming up against him? Shit out of luck. He’s never had a problem with having to pull the trigger, and being caught on the wrong end of his gun always promises a grim fate.

Except Columbus, Ohio.

It would’ve been another blight, another wicked deed buried underneath the growing mountain of awfulness that he's responsible for. There are a lot of things that keep Joel up at night, but as bad as it is to say, this definitely wouldn’t have been one of them.

And then, the impossible – first person to break the cycle: a scavenger combing through the tipped over stands of North Market, kneeling under the dusty Penny's Meats cleaver sign at a basket filled with plastic bags of twenty-year-old beef jerky. And Joel would kill (quite literally) for that if it meant securing his next meal; hell, the next week's worth of them. The only thing standing in between him and food security could be taken care of with an easy shot to the back of your skull at point blank range.

A target.

An inconvenience.

— but that's another story.

Since then, it’s been a road paved with affliction. Ohio. Indiana. Illinois. Iowa. (Nebraska's a sensitive topic.) Wyoming.

Joel grasps your hand firmly in his: dried blood over split knuckles and calluses that have stayed around forever because now he wields a gun 24/7 instead of a carpentry tool from his blue-collar days; he helps you navigate the terrain so you don't misstep – a sprained ankle can slow us down in more ways than one, he always says. Cautious, trigger-sensitive, because he needs to be. The action is meant to be practical, shepherding you over the terrain. So you opt to neglect how his fingers slotted between yours shoos the bitter cold from making a home out of your body and thaws the ice from the crevices chiseled in your bones.

The feeling is nice.

The thought is dangerous.

Because, Nebraska: a hellish nightmare in the flesh.

(Let's not talk about it).

(But circling around the topic doesn’t help. You don't bring it up, and yet it still takes center stage, occupying your mind. Always. How could it not?)

Hordes of cordyceps-ridden pieces-of-shit on your heels until you'd been driven into a corner, back against the wall – odds in the negative as infected after infected had zeroed in on your position and converged like a putrid swarm, a writhing mass of rotten bodies, all of them clambering over each other for their own share of pulpy, human meat to tear into; it'd reminded you of the same way people had been after the outbreak had reached critical mass.

Ravenous.

(This is what had been a difficult pill for you to swallow in the beginning – before you'd started sleeping with a machete along the edge of your bedroll, before the sound of a person choking on their own blood had gone from something that had cursed your hands with a 'round-the-clock tremor to nothing but fucking white noise, and before you'd learned everything there is to know about how to survive amongst societal collapse where 'every man for himself' has never been a more true statement than it is now: the hunger doesn't stop when you turn into one of them.)

As the two of you weave through dense foliage overrunning anything in its path and past man-sized slabs of concrete that form a serrated pattern of the very ground you're currently forced to scale, Joel rumbles a low, "Easy, now,"; you can see how in the dead of winter a plume of air leaves his mouth whenever he talks. He's nice to look at, better than your surroundings by a long shot. Boulder is just another wasteland that offers nothing new in your trek across the country because underneath the whalebone-white quilt of snow smothering everything, it's the same old shit that you saw when you'd cut through the never-ending stretch of land that used to be the Bible Belt to get out of the Atlanta Q.Z. It'd been ghost towns dotting the map between miles and miles of infestation: the walking dead had been piloted by the impulse to tear you apart alongside their living counterparts – the survivors with rootless hearts that stalked in the shadows like vultures waiting to pick your corpse clean of supplies.

But, for as on guard as you have to be, you'd rather focus your attention on Joel, because the snowflakes burying themselves in his beard are far more interesting than the decaying buildings and jigsaw-puzzled pavement that paint Colorado with an apocalyptic finish. He's a welcome distraction. Maybe, too good. The toe of your boot catches on the uneven landscape while you're lost in thought so you brace yourself to strike the ground as it gives out from under you, hands flying out in reflex. Instead, sturdy arms secure themselves around your waist before you can fall. You’re hauled flat against the solid wall of Joel's chest, something akin to an embrace that shouldn’t feel as nice as he is to look at. Even through layers of clothes, even through the frigid temperatures during this time of the year, his heat manages to bleed into you.

"Told you to watch your step there'," he murmurs in that long Texan drawl. Whiskey on his breath. Caramel. Ethanol. Burning alcohol-sweet, it greets you alongside the usual smoky and metallic smell of gunpowder and blood; the kind he'd pilfered from a liquor store back in Omaha – makin' sure it's good enough to the Molotov cocktails with, he'll comment before taking a swig. Brings it up like clockwork, as if it gets funnier the longer he keeps trying to wear the joke out even worse than the soles of his boots. It doesn’t. Just short of being a jack of all trades. Certainly no comedian.

Not a drunk, either – isn't stupid enough to put himself in jeopardy around these parts. You'd seen it before, once: cheeks flushed red and eyes glazed over; couldn't walk a straight line for five feet, much less aim a gun (September 26th, you remember). This isn't that. The whiskey's stronger now, though. You can tell when he stands nearby, face inches away.

(He's been drinking more lately. Not a lot, but the right amount to drown out the memory of... well, ever since—)

He's the closest thing to home that you know.

(—he almost lost you.)

You find yourself latched onto the sleeves of his jacket for stability, and even though you should push Joel away – a voice in your head that warns you to put distance between you and him – your fingers curl tighter into the coarse fabric to keep yourself upright as you regain your footing. “You see that thing? Swear it came outta nowhere."

He huffs out a small laugh, not one of those full-bodied ones that you’ve only heard probably twice since you met him (both of them at your expense and God, do you miss his smile), but it’s still a rich, little sound that comes off as something pleasant to your ears all the same – breaks up the monotony of the snow crunching under your heels and teeth chattering during the occasional bouts when you shiver. "Sure," he says, because he knows you can't lie for shit.

You untangle yourself from him with some reluctance. Homesick – a feeling that you attempt to shake off with more mindless conversation to make the time slip by faster. "Out of every place we've been to, Colorado definitely makes bottom three."

There's faint amusement coloring Joel's face. It makes him look years younger. "We haven't even gotten to UEC yet." He tilts his chin in the general direction that the two of you had already been heading towards. "Over there. Just across the way."

Skepticism stains your voice. "You know, something tells me that I won't have a change of heart."

ᴘᴀʀᴛ ᴛᴡᴏ - ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ᴡʀɪᴛᴛᴇɴ

[elysianslove]

i just want to be passed and railed by the inarizaki team 🥺

pls me too 🥺 okay guys!! let’s play a guessing game 

the first boy to have his hands on you leaves you trembling at what’s to come. his hands are rough, controlled, but they’re teasing. he knows what he’s doing when he sinks two of his fingers inside of you, stretching you open, but ever so slowly. he curls them just right, scissors them inside of you, presses his thumb against your clit and draws even circles. he has you cumming in no time, drenching his palm. it makes the slide inside of you easier. he’s thick, stretching you so much that his two fingers had been nothing in comparison. he takes his time with this too, his thumb remaining on your clit, messily rubbing and soothingly pinching the bundle of nerves as he starts to fuck you. he’s more attentive to your breasts than anything, and when he properly starts thrusting into you, picking up a steady pace, both his hands meet your breasts, large and harsh as they grope at them, as his fingers flick at your nipples, as he leans down to bite at the flesh, to tug at your hardened, aching nipples. he makes you cum another time before he chases his own high, and when he feels it approaching, he pulls out, opting to spill on your breasts, watching as you smear the cum all along your tits and over the ridges by your nipples, before you take your fingers, and dip them into your mouth while he grins at you, proudly, sinisterly, telling you just how perfect you are.

the second boy is more careful with you, but he’s less controlled in the sense that he wants to ease up on you, but can’t bring himself to. he pushes you onto your stomach, lifting up your lower body while keeping your face pressed down, and with one hand on your hip, the other on the small of your back, both steadying you, he sinks into you. he’s so big, splitting you open as he pushes deeper and deeper. he’d been all calming words and soothing strokes along your body, but now, his hips falter as he tries not to push in all at once, especially with the way you reach back and scrape your nails along his stomach, urging him to go slower, even slower than he already is, he wonders? he’ll shush you quietly as he bottoms out, telling you to take him like a good girl, you can take it, can’t you? pretty girl, of course you can. he loses himself in the feel of you around him, in the sounds he’s emitting from you, in the slap of his balls against your clit, in the the sound of your cunt sucking him in, in the way you look. when he’s close, he leans down, pressing his hips flush against yours and littering the back of your shoulders with infinite bruises as he praises you continuously for doing so well, for being such a big girl, and he makes you cum like this, before he pulls out, spilling over your ass messily. 

the third boy is so much more eager, grabbing your ankles and pulling you to the edge of the bed, twisting you around and flipping you onto your back. he has a mischievous smile on his face as he dives in between your legs, stuffing his face against your cunt, eagerly eating you out. he laps at your folds, pokes at your entrance with his tongue, sucks on your clit, and just as you’re about to cum, he pulls away, replacing his tongue with the angry red tip of his cock. he pushes inside of you so quickly that it has you arching up and away from him, but he keeps you where he wants you, his hands bruising on your hips. your cunt clamps down on him, since you were already so worked up and had been left hanging by him. he’ll be so teasing, so degrading, but in the most pleasant way. he’ll call you a pretty little slut, tell you no one can take a cock like you, how good you feel, how good you sound, the way you moan like a whore. when his fingers find your clit, and he pinches at it painfully, thrusting into you diligently, you cum, shaking and trembling and crying, pushing him towards his own high. although he wants to cum inside, he much prefers pulling out and cumming all over your cunt instead, watches as it clenches around nothing, as it flinches, as you flinch, while his cum coats your cunt and clit.

the fourth is so mean. he grabs your face as he sneers at you, calling you a whore, sinking his fingers in your cunt to taunt you, asking you how ever is he supposed to fuck a used cunt like this? he’ll fuck you anyways, you’re sure he will, he has to. you beg for his cock, pleading him, even if you’re so, so tired. he’ll pull his fingers out of you, covered in your arousal and the third boy’s cum, and press it to your lips, which you obediently part for him. as you suck on his fingers, so messily, he’ll align his cock to your entrance, pressing in all slowly. he continues sinking in, and in, and in until your breath is knocked out of your lungs. you’re no longer sucking on his fingers, your mouth falling open, eyes rolling back as he bottoms out, drool and spit and cum spilling from the corner of your mouth. he’s calculated in his thrusts, pulling out so slowly, before snapping his hips against yours. the entire time his fingers stay in your mouth, and when you babble that you’re going to cum, he snaps his hips harsher against yours, teasingly ordering you to cum, watching with satisfied eyes and a mocking gaze as you obey and freeze up, your orgasm rushing through you as you scream and you shake, legs swinging as he continues to fuck you through it, before he pulls out, and by your hair, he’ll pull you up, telling he wants to cum in your messy mouth. you’re still high off your orgasm, delirious, as he pulls you to his cock with your hair fisted in his hand, and cums down your throat. 

the fifth is has you cowering underneath his gaze, has you nodding mindlessly and mumbling, yes, yes, yes, whenever he asks you anything, whether that be if you’ll be a good girl for him, or if you want him, want his cock, want his cum. he’ll be slow, careful, kind, but the aura of dominance is rolling off of him in ways. he has you whimpering, clawing at his back as he fucks you missionary, his lips pressed to your neck, your chest, your nipples, your shoulders, your throat, your jaw. your legs eventually find their way to his waist, and he welcomes the position, until he wants more, more, more, so he grabs at the back of your thighs, before he’s bending you in half, pressing your legs to your chest as he fucks you faster than before. his cock is nearly hitting your cervix in this position, and he really has you fucked out stupid as he coos at you, telling you look so good like this, so stupid for him, for his cock. his grip on your legs to keep them steady is unrelenting, and before long, he has you cumming, spasming around him, legs shaking on his shoulders, your throat aching from your screams, and amidst it all, he spills inside of you, filling you to the brim with his cum, fucking you slowly as he rides out his high, and when he pulls out and watches the cum ooze out of your cunt, he’ll push his fingers in, trying to keep his cum inside. 

alright y’all who’s who!!! characters: suna, osamu, atsumu, aran and kita :)

[matwith1t]

A/N: Back with angst 👊 Fair warning, this fic is pure angst. All of it 🔪 It’s heavily inspired by Landslide by Fleetwood Mac, and it’s the fic where I project my fear of staying stagnant in life (oops). I have a somewhat working outline for a part 2, but I’d love to know your thoughts!! Also, this fic has a brief smut scene, so if you’re not 18+ hop on over to my masterlist for something else !

Summary: Your long-term relationship with Mat brought you more happiness than anything else in the world. But one day, something in your gut felt different, an emotion that you couldn’t quite place felt off. And maybe, that feeling was the catalyst for you wanting a change in life.

MASTERLIST | LET’S CHAT 🥂 | Mat Barzal x Reader

Warnings: Anxiety, Smut, Swearing // WC: 11.2K // Angst

The sun felt warm against your face and the grass beneath you tickled your ankles. With the month of May nearing its end, the sweet smell of spring could still be detected in the air during the seasonal transition to summer. From a distance, the soft sounds of children laughing while running through the park tugged your lips upward into a small smile.

A sense of ease flooded your body as you laid directly on the grass with your arms tucked behind your head. The vital force that came with being outside in the springtime energized your body to the point where you felt your body produce more natural endorphins. You treasured the outdoors––it would always remain a sacred place for you––but as you laid upon the grass, an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of your stomach clawed its way up at a deliberately slow, and unwarranted, pace.

It felt like a secret message your body was trying to communicate with you, but you didn’t have the tools on how to decode it.

The feeling came in and out, like ocean tides, but you did your best to push it aside when the uneasiness surfaced. So far, everything in your life had been smooth sailing––everything had been going according to plan––so you never paid that feeling any attention.

There wasn’t anything in your life that you wanted to change.

With a deep breath, you tried to inhale as much of the fresh spring air as possible.

“Hey, sleepy.”

With one eye squinted open, you brought a hand from behind your head to shield the sun rays from blinding your face. And when your vision adjusted to the sunlight, you saw your boyfriend at an upside down angle. In his arms he held a blanket as he waved down at you. A smile instantly graced your lips as you shut both of your eyes, before opening them slowly.

As Mat shook out the blanket before spreading it out on the grass, you sat up, and stuck your legs straight out, “You’re a bit late.”

Without looking at you, Mat rolled his eyes, “Practice ran late.”

When the blanket was laid out on the grass, Mat sat down and patted the spot next to him. With a smile, you made your way to sit next to him. Your smile widened when you saw he already had an arm raised for you to tuck yourself into his side.

“It was a morning practice,” you looked up at him through your eyelashes, “It’s nearly four in the afternoon.”

With adoration in his eyes shining just as bright as the spring sun, you felt yourself fall more in love with him. His hand dangled over your shoulder as he  lazily traced circles on your upper arm, “Tito wanted ice-cream.”

A laugh of amusement, mixed with disbelief, escaped your lips as you placed both hands on his chest to push him away, “You liar.”  

With your shove, Mat tightened his arm around your shoulder as the two of you fell backward on the blanket laughing. As you laid on your side, Mat readjusted his arm around you, with your head on his shoulder. His sweatshirt felt soft, and his chest continued to shake with laughter.

“Practice did run late,” Mat reiterated his first point, to which you only hummed in acknowledgement, “And then Tito said he wanted ice-cream, but he wanted to go to this specific shop.” Mat placed a kiss on your temple, “Would’ve told him to go alone if I knew how much time it’d take.”

Again, you hummed, as you rested a hand on his stomach, “Did you at least tell your boyfriend that your girlfriend said hi?”

Mat scoffed at your remark and poked your stomach in retaliation. You laughed at his childish behavior and moved a bit down the blanket so your head now rested just below his heart. He pulled you closer to him, and with your face nuzzled into his sweatshirt, you took a deep breath and savored how much his sweatshirt smelled like home to you.

He smelled almost as good as spring.

The hand that you had on his stomach rose up and down with his even breathing. And as you laid outside on the grass, surrounded by the spring air and the person you loved most in your life, you felt nothing but peace. Comfortable silence wasn’t uncommon in your relationship. While his voice soothed your most anxious thoughts… hearing the birds sing their melodies, listening in on the slight rustle of tree leaves whenever the wind blew, and the sound of steady breathing, paired with Mat’s slightly faster heartbeat, was more calming than anything.

“I can’t wait until that’s us.”

You peered up at Mat to see his vision locked in on something to his right. In order to see what he was referring to, you propped your chin up on his chest. It didn’t take you long to see that something was really a someone. And upon squinting to get a better look, that someone turned out to be a man, woman, and a child.

Your only response to him was a hum as you traced shapes on his stomach, hoping that your touch was strong enough to distract him from the conversation you knew he was about to bring up.

“I love you,” his words were strong, not faltering in the slightest, as he stared down at you with a promising look in his eyes. He picked up your hand––ultimately putting a stop to what you had hoped would distract him from this exact conversation––and pressed a delicate kiss to your knuckles, “So much.”

Mat gently placed your still connected hands on his stomach as you craned your neck up to press a kiss to his cheek, “I love you, too.”

He squeezed your hand twice, a look of amazement in his eyes as he stared up at the sky with a soft smile, “In a few months, It’ll be six years since we’ve been together.”

Your head softly fell back onto his chest as you nodded. Because while you’ll be celebrating six years of officially being in a relationship, the two of you had known each other much longer. He was the annoying kid at the end of the cul-de-sac who chased you around front yards and threatened to give you cooties. And you were the little girl who ran away from him, pretending to be disgusted whenever he got too close, but secretly loved his attention.

And that’s when your crush on him began.

From playing group games with other kids at neighborhood block parties, pairing up to sit next to each other on the bus in elementary school during field trips, to Mat asking you to the winter formal in eighth grade on a dare…Your infatuation towards him only grew.

By the time you were both eighteen, Mat realized his feelings, and asked you out on a date.

Playing games with other kids went to spending one-on-one time with Mat on dates. Sitting next to each other on the school bus as little kids went to Mat picking you up in his car as teenagers. And going to dances together was no longer the end product of a dare.

Even when Mat went to Seattle to play hockey, the two of you still kept the connection while you stayed in Canada. The four years of University were easier; with Mat playing for the New York Islanders, and your top choice for school was in New York City, it didn’t take more than a second thought to accept the offer.

As if Mat had the same memories playing on an endless loop in his head, he let out a relaxed breath, “I can’t wait until we buy a house, tell our kids how we met, and take them to this park.”

The uncomfortable familiar feeling you felt earlier in the afternoon creeped up your stomach, “You really have it all planned out.”

“I have our life,” he squeezed your hand as he made a point to emphasize a shared future between the two of you, “planned out.”

You were positive he could feel your heartbeat increase. And while the pounding of your heart could easily be mistaken for the heightened feelings you felt whenever you were near Mat, you knew something else was causing this distress. There was no one in the world you loved more than Mat. You loved your family because they were family, but you made a conscious decision to love him. And despite some hardships, he chose to love you as well.

But thinking about the future made you squirm.

A future with Mat was all you ever desired. You knew he was the one person in the universe made for you when you were halfway through university. And you were pretty sure Mat knew you were his person by the fourth date.

You still kept some of your notebooks that had doodles in the margin. The psychology notebook from junior year of high school had Mat Barzal, with hearts dotting around his name, in every blank space. And even in university, your senior year thesis notebook had script writing of your name paired with his last name, so you could practice a potential new signature for the future.

Since the seventh grade, this was everything you daydreamed about with Mat; a future together. Happiness always fogged up your mind whenever you thought about a lifetime together with him, you wanted this, but everything felt like it was approaching faster than anticipated. And the undisclosed feeling in the pit of your stomach wasn’t going away no matter how hard you tried to only think about a happy future with Mat.

Wanting to feel anything other than whatever made your stomach churn, you leaned up to press a lingering kiss to Mat’s jaw. Then you pressed another kiss to his neck, and another further down at the base of his throat. With each kiss you pressed to his skin, the feeling subsided more.

When you detached your lips from his skin and sat up, you heard him let out a discontent hum. With his eyes closed, he wasn’t aware of the adoration in your eyes as you looked down at him. You studied everything about his face; the slight pink coloring on his cheeks despite it almost being summertime, the downward curve on the bridge of his nose, and how he somehow still had a slight smile on his face when he wasn’t awake.

A satisfied silent sigh passed through your lips as your index finger trailed across his silver chain. The jewelry felt cold on your fingertips, but with the way Mat still had a hand holding onto yours, your whole body burned like a furnace. Unable to resist the pull you felt toward him any longer, you leaned down and pressed an innocent kiss to his lips. You lifted your head up, pulling your lips away from his, but Mat brought his free hand to gently lay on your cheek as he lifted his head up slightly to bring you back into a kiss.

It was soft, delicate, and reminded you of the first kiss you shared after your second date outside of his car when he dropped you off in front of your house.

With his thumb caressing your cheek, his fingers curled around your neck to bring your lips closer to his. And as you smiled into the kiss, he slowly lifted himself up until he was properly sitting. You pulled away from the kiss again, not wanting to get carried away while in public, but Mat followed your lips and kissed them one last time.

Your hand that was on his shoulder slowly inched toward the back of his neck where you played with the ends of his hair. He leaned his forehead against yours and whispered, “Wanna get pizza?”

You threw your head back in laughter and Mat dropped his head into the crook of your neck, wrapping an arm around your waist for a hug. Leaning into the hug, you continued to thread your fingers through his hair, “Yeah, pizza sounds good.”

“Good,” Mat pressed a featherlight kiss under your jaw as he unwound his arms from around you to stand up. He reached a hand out for you, and with a smile, you placed your hand in his as he pulled you up.  

Once on your feet, he tugged on your arm so that you were pressed flat against his chest, caught in another hug. Never one to deny any of his hugs, you wrapped your arms around his waist as he pressed a kiss to the top of your head. His arms were strong and his body felt warm. You melted into his touch like you had for the past five––almost six––years.

But then his stomach grumbled, and you leaned away from him with an amused smile on your face, “Pizza?”

Mat smiled back down at you and nodded, “Pizza,” he said matter of factly as he unwrapped his arms from you and began to fold up the blanket.

When he had the blanket draped over his arm, he reached his hand out again for you to take. Happily, you slid your hand into his, as the two of you began to walk through the park to a pizza place down the street.

The pace of your walk was slow. Normally you wouldn’t mind a slow pace, but it was making the unknown and unwelcome feeling creep back up in your stomach. The feeling seeped through every crevice of your body as Mat recounted a story of how he almost got hit in the face with a puck at practice. And the feeling wedged itself deeper and deeper into the middle of your chest until you arrived at the pizza place.

“Your eyes look pretty today,” Mat offhandedly said as the two of you slid into a table after ordering.

You tilted your head, shoulders instantly relaxing at the sound of his voice, as a soft smile slowly made its way onto your face that was brighter than the sun the two of you just sat under.

You propped your elbows up on the table, resting your chin on your hands, as you looked at the love of your life with nothing but fascination, “Your eyes always look pretty.”

Mat reciprocated your beaming smile.

And the unknown feeling vanished.

–––

The spring air dwindled away and the crisp air of autumn slowly began to replace the weather associated with new beginnings. Even though the seasons changed, the heaviness in your chest you felt in May was still present in September. No matter what you did, or who you spent time with, the feeling continued to grow until it latched onto your deepest insecurities. And it wasn’t until you had an honest conversation with your best friend that she told you the feeling was anxiety.

Anxiety.

What did you have to be anxious about? What was so terrible in your life that made you nauseous in the mornings, kept you up until the late hours of the night, and had you constantly bouncing your leg up and down while sitting? Your life had been going exactly according to plan––exactly how you thought you wanted it to go. All you wanted was for it to disappear, but you couldn’t pinpoint what made you anxious. Which made it hard to try and control the feeling.

But there was one thing you did that proved successful in making the anxiety subside.

With your bare chest pressed up against Mat’s, his fingertips slightly digging into the skin of your hips, you rested your head in the crook of his neck as you inhaled a sharp breath. You had just experienced a shuddering orgasm on his lap, but he wasn’t quite finished.

Mat wrapped an arm around your body and flipped you over. You opened your eyes briefly to see him crawling up your body, adjusting himself in this new position. With raised eyebrows, he offered you a soft smile. And after you gave him verbal confirmation you wanted him again, he nudged your legs apart and guided himself in. You hadn’t fully recovered from the previous act of shared intimacy, but that didn’t matter to you.

The only thing that mattered was getting rid of the tortuous feeling that consumed you.

But when your hips met, and you heard Mat inhale a sharp breath, the feeling lessened.

You always looked forward to that––Mat’s breathless smile when your pelvic bones first connected in a deep thrust. There were other things, too. You knew things about Mat that nobody else knew. Like how Mat always crinkled his nose when he first became aroused. How his biceps were especially ticklish if you dragged your fingertips across them. How it drove him crazy when you would wrap your legs around him, hooking him in to pull him closer. Or how Mat would press a lingering kiss to your cheek when he was perilously close to the edge.

And it was that last movement that brought you out of your head––Mat pressing a lingering kiss to your cheek.

With a ragged breath, you trailed a hand up his arm––skipping his biceps––and curled an arm around his neck. Your fingers delicately moved up his neck as you weaved your fingers through his hair, and then slowly let your hand drag to the side of his face; cupping his cheek. And with a series of quick, deep thrusts with Mat on top, was all it took for your walls to clench around him as you lost your breath momentarily.

As you rode out the high of your orgasm, Mat was close behind. With a few more thrusts, you knew he released when his movements slowed down with a few snaps of his hips. After he inhaled a deep breath and released it through his nose, Mat rested his forehead against yours and then opened his eyes.

“I love you,” he whispered unintelligibly while trying to catch his breath.

You rubbed your thumb over his cheek, “I love you, too.”

He closed his eyes for a few seconds, nuzzling his head into the palm of your hand, before a shy smile broke through. With a gentle peck to your lips, Mat rolled off you and quickly disposed of the condom before rolling back into bed.

When Mat was back at your side, he propped himself up with his elbow and stared down at you. Shuffling a bit down the pillow, you pulled the sheets up to your neck and peered up at him. With his free hand, he took one of your hands and lazily played with your fingers. He went from slowly moving his fingers between yours, to his fingertips leisurely moving from the bottom of your palm to the tips of your fingers. And when he had done that for a few moments, he started tracing the lines on the inside of your palm.

The only sound in the room was the two of you silently breathing; basking in each other's presence after a few moments of shared intimacy. Even in the silence, all you heard was him whispering I love you on repeat in your mind.

Every time he said those words to you felt like the first time. And even hearing the echo of them from your memory caused a scintillating smile to unashamedly grow on your face. You diverted your gaze from him playing with your hand to look at him.

Mat’s eyes were already focused on you.

His eyes were the first thing you fell in love with. You didn’t know if you fell in love with him when you were twelve years old; when his wide, nervous eyes offered you a stick and asked if you’d to join his team for street hockey. Or when you were nineteen; when his earnest eyes were bloodshot as he confided in you that he was scared of losing the connection of your relationship when he went to Seattle. No matter what emotion he held in his eyes, you always loved them.

And even now, his eyes were soft. His eyes were so full of love, but there was another emotion swimming around in his eyes that you had only seen before he asked you out; longing.

You didn’t know what he was longing for as he stared at you. A creased formed in between his eyes as he scrunched his eyebrows together. Removing the arm you had under the pillow, you raised your hand and rubbed the crease until his eyebrows relaxed. He offered you a small smile, but this smile was more one of concern rather than happiness.

Like you did earlier when Mat was on top of you, you trailed your fingers down his cheek until you cupped the side of his face with your palm. Slowly, you caressed his cheek with your thumb.

“Are you alright?” Mat whispered.

It was your turn for your eyebrows to scrunch together and a crease to form between them. And while you momentarily retracted your hand from his face, you snapped out of your shock, and moved your hand up to brush a piece of loose hair out of his face. The piece of hair didn’t stay in its place, so you pushed it back once more, as you tried to distract yourself from the growing feeling of anxiety bubbling up in your stomach.  

The piece of hair continued to fall in front of his forehead, so you focused all of your concentration on making sure it stayed away, “Of course I am, why?”

Mat shrugged his shoulders. And he took your hand that pushed his hair back and intertwined your fingers together, “You seem a little…off.”

You snorted, “We just had sex twice,” your facial expression held a serious look, but your tone of voice was teasing, “Are you complaining?”

Mat let out a breathy laugh as he squeezed your hand, “That’s not––That was incredible––Really really good––definitely not complaining,” he smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes, “I feel like I can say I know you better than anyone else, and…I don’t know.” His eyes dropped to your intertwined hands, and he tried his hardest to force a smile before looking back at you, “It feels like something’s been up the past few days.”

Few months, you wanted to correct him.

You shook your head, trying to ease both of your nerves, “I uh––I’m thinking of looking at grad schools?” you let the little white lie easily slip, “But I’m not seriously looking, it was just a thought.”

Mat playfully rolled his eyes, “Knew something was up,” he brought your connected hands up to his lips to press a reassuring kiss to the top of your hand, “If you do seriously consider grad school, you’re probably the most well off person to apply.” At his confidence in you, you tucked your chin into your chest.

“It’s just…” you inhaled a shaky breath, wanting to come clean about your unknowing anxiety, but something held you back, “I don’t know.”

Mat dropped your hand and slowly stroked the side of your face with the back of his hand, “It’s a lot to think about. But there are plenty of great schools in New York,” when his lips turned upward in a smile, you felt your stomach drop, “Whatever you want, we’ll figure it out together.” Mat pressed a kiss to your cheek, “We have all the time in the world.”

His voice, full of optimism, matched the hopefulness behind his eyes, and his smile finally met his eyes. And the longer you stared into his eyes, you saw a glint of something you had never seen before; devotion.

You don’t know when it happened, but you accepted the fact that you would marry Mat––spend the rest of your life with him. There was no lengthy discussion, but there seemed to be mutual acceptance. Mat always spoke so passionately about starting a family with you when he saw a toddler run around the park. And whenever you drove past a house you liked, you always made a passing comment about how nice it would be to raise a family with him.

You wondered when you started to feel so uncomfortable with the feeling of security.

–––

The month of September was slightly better, but not by much. The anxiety was still present and you kept Mat in the dark about everything. But it was difficult to confide in him when you didn’t even know the root of the problem. You couldn’t pinpoint the cause of anxiety, and you thought the feeling would disappear in June.

But it was now October and your anxiety had escalated to suffocation.

Suffocation.

It felt like there was a bag of twenty-pound rocks tied to your ankles and you were drowning. When you didn’t feel like you were drowning, you felt as if someone was smothering you with a pillow. And when you finally felt free from the smothering, it felt as though someone had cut off your air supply. But there was one thing that temporarily relieved the feeling of suffocation.

And it came with an acceptance email from Georgetown University in Washington D.C.

When you applied to a handful of universities to continue your education, you thought your anxiety was based around a fear of not excelling to your full potential. So, with that in mind, you took the little white lie you told Mat a few months ago and applied exclusively applied to grad schools only in New York City. But a program at Georgetown caught your eye and it was the only school outside of New York you applied to. You hoped for the best, but deep down you had a gut feeling the prestigious school in D.C. would reject you.

But when you received a fairly large envelope in the post, one that was not the size of a rejection letter, you felt a brief moment of freedom.

It is with great pleasure that we offer you admission…

You had read the opening line of the letter ten times before skimming the rest of the offer letter. The amount of confidence and pride you felt swell up in your chest was short lived. Because your new friend, suffocation, quickly swallowed up those feelings.

You had never considered moving out of New York––never considered moving away from Mat––but here you were, internally debating with yourself on whether you should take this offer seriously.

There was too much going on in your head––too much going on in the city––as you walked down the sidewalk. Every step you took toward your home felt like walking on a tightrope.

You had a university acceptance offer…Step one…The university was nearly 300 miles away from Mat…Step two…You had other university acceptance offers for school’s in New York…Step three…But the anxiety only grew when you received acceptance letters from schools in New York…Step four…And all of the anxiety went away with the D.C. offer…Step five…Does Mat have something to do with your anxiety––

You didn’t let yourself finish the last thought.

Mat was your person. There was not a chance the universe would play such a cruel trick on you. Life wasn’t fair, but life wouldn’t rip you away from Mat.

Right before you entered your apartment building, you dug out your phone and called your best friend. Once she picked up, you begged to spend the night at her place, saying you needed to get out of the city. She agreed, but you heard the curiosity behind her voice.

Knowing that mat would be waiting in your apartment, you hurriedly hung up before entering the elevator. The ride up was daunting, and the lights that blinked whenever you rose to a new floor felt as if they taunted you. They were yellow and bright, something you had not felt in quite some time, but the lights didn’t care as they flashed in your face.

When the doors parted open to your floor, you scurried out and opened the door to your apartment. You breezed right in before you changed your and decided to drive straight to Newark.

As expected, Mat sat slumped against the couch cushions as he pointed the remote at the television. He couldn’t seem to pick a channel that held his interest. When he heard the door open, he turned his head and you offered him a small wave as you set your bag on the floor.

“Good day?”

You shrugged your shoulders and walked over to sit next to Mat on the couch, “Average,” you leaned your head on his shoulder, “How was your day?”

Mat mimicked your shrug, “Just practice. Uneventful.”

You let out a snort, “What thrilling lives we live.”

That earned a loud laugh from Mat, “Exhilarating,” he leaned over and kissed your forehead, “So, for dinner? We have stuff to cook, but there’s this new place a few blocks over I thought we could try––”

Lifting your head up from his shoulder, you moved away from him slightly as you brought your legs up to your chest, quickly cutting him off, “I’m actually––I’m going to Newark tonight.”

A few awkward beats of silence passed before Mat spoke with a cracked voice, “Oh?”

Nodding, you leaned your chin on your knees, “Haven’t seen Melanie in a while,” you mentioned your best friend, “Just need to get out of the city for the night.”

“Everything alright?”

Mat’s voice was laced with hesitance, as if he didn’t know if he wanted an answer to his question.

You gulped and hugged your legs closer to your chest, “Yeah I––It’s a girl’s night. We just need to clear our heads.”

Mat nodded in understanding. He pinched his bottom lip between his thumb and pointer finger, “Clear your head,” he repeated cautiously as if he sensed there was an ulterior motive. He closed his eyes, and after a few more beats of silence, he opened them. And you felt your heartstrings tug in your chest when you saw the amount of yearning behind his stare.

“That’s…” he cleared his throat, and nodded his head slowly, as he looked at the television, “good.”

He didn’t phrase his words as a question, but they weren’t a statement either. It was Mat convincing himself that you leaving the city was fine…That you were fine…That the relationship was fine.

To ease his doubts––because there was nothing in your life that you were more certain of than your love for him––you took his hand, “It’s just for one night.” Your voice didn’t waver, and you spoke with double the confidence, hoping to transfer some of it to the boy who sat across from you.

“No, yeah that’s fine,” Mat bit the inside of his cheek, “Time with your friends is good.”

Mat never verbally recognized the small rift forming between you two, but in this moment, you knew he could feel it more than ever. And when you felt him pull his hand away from yours, you panicked and squeezed his hand twice. It caught his attention, and you smiled at him, “We’ll try out the new place tomorrow night for dinner.”

There was a far off look in his eyes, but he nodded in agreement.

Mat only using the bare minimum to communicate with you drove you up a wall. You didn’t like how he avoided conversation, and you didn’t like the feeling in your stomach that came with it. He’s disappointed in you, a voice in your head spoke up, you’re leaving him alone when you know he doesn’t feel confident about your relationship––

In order to silence the voice in your head, you did the only thing that you knew would keep it quiet.

You leaned forward, gently placing both of your hands on Mat’s cheeks, and kissed him. At first when he didn’t kiss back, you feared that you wouldn’t be lucky this time around to quiet your insecurities. The toxic coping mechanism you fell into every time wasn’t working. Panic rose through your body fast, and just when you were about to give up hope, he kissed you back.

A sigh escaped your lips as Mat pressed a hand firmly to your lower back to pull you closer.

You needed to be closer.

His hands carefully held your waist as your hands traveled from the sides of his face to the nape of his neck.

You needed to feel closer.

He kissed you harder, hands creeping up your shirt as he was always one to crave skin-to-skin contact. You let your hands delicately move down his neck to his shoulders––lifting your touch on his skin to avoid his biceps––and let your hands fall onto his chest.

Closer.

You needed to physically feel as close as possible to Mat; because emotionally, you felt as far away from him as ever.

–––

The forty-five minute drive from Long Island to Newark was filled with songs from the shared Spotify playlist you had with Mat. 

He created it when he first went off to play hockey in Seattle claiming it would be a fun way to stay updated with each other's lives. The playlist was full of songs that reminded either of you of each other, upbeat heavy rock songs that Mat listened to before a hockey game, or more mellow songs you heard in a coffee shop while studying.

Since Mat had started the tradition of creating a shared playlist each year, there was a new playlist for almost the entirety of your relationship. And on your lonesome drive to Newark, you pressed play on the playlist from 2015.

You left your apartment after a silent cuddle with Mat that lasted a few hours; legs tangled together, synchronized breathing, and featherlight touches. There was a moment where Mat removed his arms from your waist––he said he was cold––and asked if you had a sweatshirt he could borrow. Reluctantly, you got up and trudged to your room to look for a sweatshirt of his you once stole.

A black sweatshirt caught your eyes and you picked it up. The Seattle Thunderbirds logo printed on the front, you toyed with the hoodie strings, debating on if you wanted to give him his sweatshirt back. It was one of the first ones you sneakily stole from him in the beginning of your relationship. And as much as the sweatshirt was rightfully his, it had made a home in your drawer over the years.

Missing the way his arms felt wrapped around you, you walked back to the couch––Thunderbirds sweatshirt in hand––and offered it up to him. Mat quickly tugged it over his head, ruffling his hand through his already messed-up hair, and then pulled you down to lay next to him.

He left your apartment wearing the sweatshirt.

After replaying the memory of Mat walking out of your place with his sweatshirt, you found yourself at your best friend’s townhouse sooner than expected. She ushered you into her kitchen saying she was almost done boiling the kettle for tea.

The only words exchanged between the two of you so far was a greeting and barely there small talk. She didn’t push you as to why you frantically called her and begged for a night away from New York. But she anticipated that the conversation would come later in the night.

Once the teas were made to both of your likings, Melanie led you upstairs to her rooftop deck. A fond smile crossed your face as flashbacks from all the times the two of you had spent up here. The two of you had met in university, but she was a few years older than you, so she moved out of New York sooner than you.

Most of your deep conversations about Mat took place on this rooftop. From realizing you loved him on this rooftop to coming to terms that there was no one else you’d rather spend the rest of your life with… This rooftop held the realizations of multiple monumental moments of your relationship with Mat.

Next to the sectional couch the two of you sat on, Melanie lifted the lid of the wicker basket and plucked out two blankets. You quickly wrapped the blanket around your shoulders, bracing your body against the frigid air.

As Melanie adjusted the blanket over her shoulders, she spoke up, “Everything alright?”

You took a sip of tea, keeping your vision set straight ahead, “Yeah, I’m alright––it’s just…” you glanced over at her to see she had her eyes raised, silently telling you to rethink your answer, “I don’t know.”

Shoulders slumped over in defeat, you took another sip of tea.

“I think you’re far from fine,” Melanie chuckled, “Got a call from my best friend panicking about how she had to get away,” her voice waned off amusement and turned more serious, “You worried me.”

You nodded in understanding, “Sorry, I didn’t think––Sorry––It’s just everything…” you nervously itched your collarbone and let out a sigh, “Sorry.”

Melanie placed a comforting hand on your shoulder, “Never apologize for what you’re feeling,” her eyes were soft, and full of concern, as she weakly smiled and headed carefully with her words, “Even if you don’t…know what you’re feeling.”

“I got accepted to Georgetown,” you blurted out as you kept your eyes trained on the ground.

Her eyes widened, and a genuine smile spread across her face, “That’s––Shit, congratulations! That’s so exciting! D.C.…Wow.”

With a slow nod of your head, you took a sip of your tea, “D.C.”

A brief silence in conversation revealed everything Melanie needed to know about why you suddenly had to escape from the city.

“Mat doesn’t know?”

You repeated her question as a statement, “Mat doesn’t know,” breaking eye contact with her again, you swallowed down your insecurities, “While like––I don’t know––That’s not why I’m…upset.” Melanie nodded and waited for you to continue your explanation, “Things have been…off.”

“Off? As in recently?” Melanie questioned as you stayed silent. With a deep sigh, she whispered, “How long have things felt off?”

You gulped, “May.”

Melanie’s eyes widened again, but not in the joyous sense like they had when you told her about your graduate school acceptance. Her eyebrows were raised high and her mouth slightly dropped open, “Shit, Y/N, it’s November.’

Again, you nodded and took another sip of tea, “It is November.”

“You’re going to have to do more talking than repeat the last words of every sentence I say.”

The words weren’t meant to be harsh, but her tone of voice still caused you to flinch. Her sentence was the truth, and you didn’t come here to be coddled. You needed someone to be brutally honest with you to help bring you to a conclusion. And you knew you had to offer up more information, or else your little one-night escape away from the city would be pointless.

“I feel stuck,” you breathed out, the last word barely a whisper, as you felt your throat close up, “I feel stuck and I’ve felt this way since May. I don’t know why I feel like this and I really don’t know what to fucking do, Mel. I––I’m so scared.”

Melanie scooted closer to you, “Stressed about potentially going back to school?”

You shook your head immediately. The thought of going back to school was the only thing keeping you sane at the moment. You couldn’t wait to expand upon another area of study that interested you. And you had been feeling this way long before you entertained the idea of going back to school.

“Everything is going so so well with Mat and…I don’t know…I’m happy with how things are now, but––“

“You’re obviously not happy if you can’t talk to him about this,” Melanie cut you off sharply before she inhaled a deep breath, “Maybe you need some change.”

You quirked an eyebrow up and tilted your head, “Change?”

She nodded and offered you a regretful smile; one that people had tucked away for when they had to break not so pleasant news to people they cared about, “Change from…how your life has been going.”

You continued to blankly stare at her as the dots didn’t connect in your mind. Melanie took your silence as a way to continue on with her explanation.

“Maybe D.C. is a great opportunity to start over.”

Suddenly, the crickets that chirped on her rooftop blared like alarms, the blanket you had on felt itchy, and the bitter autumn air smelt stale.

“Start…Over?” You shook your head no as Melanie nodded her head yes, “I have a life built around Mat and a––I have a future with him––That’s not––I can’t––“

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Melanie,” you pleaded with your best friend as the scratchiness behind your throat became uncomfortable, “I can’t do that to him––“

She held up a hand for you to stop talking, “You’ve been with mat since you were like twenty––“

“Eighteen,” you corrected her.

She shot you a glare and pretended like she wasn’t interrupted, “You were children when your relationship started,” she waved her free hand in the air, “There’s no denying that you’ve had a great relationship with him. The two of you have grown so much together, but sometimes things get stuck in a routine and people need a change.” You felt a lone tear trickle down your cheek, “Maybe you need a change.”

You carefully set your tea down on the glass patio table as all of the negative thoughts and feelings ventured out of their hiding places. One by one, they creeped out of every corner––no crevice too small––of your mind, as your subconscious tortured you with the lethal words they created.

With the heel of your palm, you wiped away more silent tears that couldn’t stop falling from your eyes.

Change was something you didn’t handle well. Change was something you’ve never liked. Your heart was saying that this kind of change––a change from Mat was bad––but your heart was screaming. Your heart was screaming about how exhausted it always felt suffocated. Your heart was telling you that there was another way. That you didn’t have to feel like this all the time––how you shouldn’t feel like this all the time.

You wanted to ignore how your heart felt and listen to your head. You wanted to ignore the heartbreaking gaze Melanie sent your way. And most of all, you wanted to ignore how your best friend had a very valid opinion.

You craved Mat’s presence now more than ever.

–––

November ended painfully slow and December came without a care for your feelings.

In the midst of juggling your job, figuring out technicalities that potentially came with continuing your education down in D.C., and keeping up with Mat’s hockey schedule…You were also trying to stabilize a relationship that you desperately clung on to.

Ever since your roof top conversation with Melanie, you felt the relationship crumbling on your end. And only a couple weeks later, Mat seemed hesitant around you. Every touch he gave you held doubt. Every night you went to bed, he shifted further to the other side. And every I love you was said with caution.

He was there physically, but emotionally, he was pulling away right before your eyes.

You loathed the situation that you had created for yourself and Mat. You absolutely hated how you no longer synced up. You wanted to go back to the way things were before the summer hit. You craved the smell of the spring air that was synonymous to the safety you felt in Mat’s presence.

Although, you don’t know how possible that was now.

Change.

Melanie nonchalantly brought up the topic of change whenever you called or saw her in person. She reassured you that she would support your decision––whenever you came to one––but she still favored the decision of change for you. She had your best interest at heart, and while you appreciated that, your best interest was entangled with Mat.

And you knew that the decision she wanted you to make was not in his best interest.

But there was one day in the past seven months that felt normal.

At work, you were offered a promotion. And that same night, the Islanders had their seventh straight win, with Mat scoring a hat trick. You walked out of your director’s office with a smile on your face, and you snuck down to the lobby to call Mat with the good news. He sounded ecstatic for you over the phone, and he asked if you wanted to go to the game tonight so he could see you right after.

Eagerly, you accepted his offer, and you felt butterflies churn in your stomach as if it was the first time he asked you to attend one of his games.

You rushed to get all of your work done as fast as possible, and a few minutes before the clock struck five, you dashed out of the office and made your way to the arena. The game felt electric, Mat played with a sense of newfound desire, and you were ecstatic for him to be playing so well. And when the game was over, and Mat walked out in his game day suit––jacket folded over his arm and tie loosely done––you barreled into him.

Mat hugged you back just as tight, if not tighter, and his reassuring touch reestablished a sense of purpose in your life.

“I’m so proud of you,” Mat whispered in your ear, congratulating you on your promotion, “I’ll love you forever.”

That day filled you with hope.

That day made you smile wider than you had in the last few months. It was a light finally shining through the dreary storm clouds. And that day helped you gain clarity as to what sort of change you needed in your life.

You decided that change was needed if you wanted to keep sane. And you had come to the compromise that you could have a change and still keep Mat. All you needed was a change of scenery. You didn’t know why you thought you needed an ultimatum between the two, and it eased your troubles a little bit, but not nearly as much as you thought it would.

The day after your promotion and Mat’s hat trick, you woke up with your legs tangled with Mat’s, his arm thrown over your waist, and his face facing yours for the first time in months. It was so domestic, something you took for granted early on in your relationship, but once you had it back in your grasp, you never wanted to let go.

But the moment you woke up, his arm around your waist felt like an anchor aiding in your drowning. While it felt as if you were drowning, you also felt safe in Mat’s arms, as if he lent you a hand for rescue. Mat always made you feel safe.

Unfortunately, that was a week ago. And you hadn’t woken up in his arms since then.

Ironically, even though both of you knew something was wrong, Mat had been spending more time at your apartment than his. But the dynamic between you two had shifted: Mat no longer came up to hug you from behind when you cooked at the stove. You no longer pinched Mat’s hips as he walked past you. And the two of you blushed profusely and looked the other way whenever you saw the other in a towel after a shower.

Things had been off emotionally for quite some time. But now physical aspects of your relationship were changing, and a piece fo your heart broke off every time you noticed it.

You wanted change, but not like this.

You were at the small table in your kitchen, waiting for Mat to come back to you. He mumbled about heading to the gym with Tito when the two of you were sitting next to each other on the couch. He tied his laces up, and it looked like he was about to walk toward the door before he turned back around and stood in front of you.

Like every time you stared up at Mat, you fell in love with him all over again.

He offered you the smallest of smiles before bending down to your height. Carefully, he cupped your face with his hand, and you immediately leaned into his touch. A peaceful sigh escaped your lips and your eyes closed.

What caught you off guard the most was when Mat leaned in and pressed a chaste kiss to your lips. And just when your eyes opened, he broke away from the kiss. When his eyes finally opened, they were pleading with you. His eyes begged for an answer you could not give him. His eyes urgently wanted for you to tell him what had flipped your entire world upside down.

But his eyes were also full of love and hope; unconditional love for his high school sweetheart and hope that the two of you could make it over this bump.

“I love you,” he whispered just as soft as the first time he said those words to you, “I won’t be long.”

Desperate for more physical contact from him, you weaved your fingers through his brown hair. You knew how much he loved when you massaged his scalp and ran your fingers through his hair. Instantaneously, his eyes closed, and he leaned forward to brush his nose against yours.

You didn’t want him to go to the gym with Tito.

And like the first day you repeated those important three words back to him, your voice was filled with the same enchantment for the man in front of you, “I love you, too.”

With a sigh, Mat opened his eyes. With the way his eyebrows pinched together, you could tell he was intently debating something in his mind. But before you could pry, he seemed to go against his better judgement and pressed another kiss to your lips. While the kiss wasn’t anything special, he lingered longer than his first kiss.

“I’ll be back soon,” he breathed out softly.

He left before you could open your eyes.

Part of you didn’t want to open your eyes because the last thing you saw––that would be ingrained in your brain forever––was the person you appreciated and cared for most in the world, telling you he loved you. There was no better high in the world than that, especially when you had felt deprived from his love for so long.

But that was six hours ago.

You hoped he would only be gone for two or three hours, but your hope dwindled away with every hour that passed.

You were messing around with your laptop when you heard a key in the door handle. And when you heard the creak of your door open, you held your breath. You felt the inside of your stomach fall and the anxiety crawl up.

Once you looked up from your keyboard, you saw Mat already staring at you.

His cheeks were rosy, lips parted ever so slightly as he heavily breathed, and his forehead glistened with sweat. He held the water bottle in his hands as he stared through you. The way he looked at you was unnerving, and you wish you were able to read his mind.

“I love you, Y/N.”

His voice held conviction as he refocused his gaze to look at you instead of through you.

Slowly, you closed your laptop as Mat walked toward you. He placed the water bottle on the table and looked down at your doe eyed, questioning gaze, “I love you, but I need to know what’s wrong.”

“What––“

“I know you feel it too,” the determination and confidence behind his voice fell, “It’s been a few months and I can’t––we can’t––this?” his voice cracked, “We need to figure it out.”

You sniffled and started to nervously pick at a loose piece of skin by your thumb. Your eyes fell to your lap, not wanting to see the utter heartbreak in his eyes, “Let’s––Yeah. Let’s talk, okay.”

Mat crouched down in front of you, and took one of your fidgety hands in his, “Hey,” he used his other hand to tilt your chin up to look at him, “It’s just me…The guy who accidentally shattered your car window junior year when shooting a puck because I wanted to impress you,” he let out a sad chuckle, “Just…Me.”

You sucked in a deep breath, vigorously nodding your head, in hopes to delay your tears, “I know––And I––That’s what makes this so…” You let out a hiccup and squeezed your eyes shut just as hard as Mat squeezed your hand in reassurance, “Hard.”

Before a sob wracked through your chest, Mat was fast to stand up and pull you up with him, wrapping his arms around you. You fell into his chest and he held you close, running a soothing hand up and down your spine. He whispered that everything would be alright, but your arms only tightened around his neck as your sobs increased with his careful words.

After a few moments when your cries slowly started to calm down, Mat slightly leaned back, but made sure to keep his arms securely wrapped around you. He lazily traced patterns with his thumb on your lower back, which caused you to look up at him.

With all your heart, you wished you didn’t look into his eyes. Because seeing his red eyes and heart-rending smile caused you more pain than the last seven months.

He brought a hand up to your face, wiping the tears from under your eyes with his thumb, “There’s my pretty girl,” he sniffled and failed at forcing a smile, “So pretty.”

You felt your bottom lip tremble, another wave of fresh tears waiting to be seen. And when Mat loosened his grasp around your waist, you looked up at him in panic. You didn’t want to be separated from him, but he shushed you, and wrapped an arm around your shoulder to keep you close as he guided you over to the couch.

Much like earlier in the day, the two of you sat on the couch together. But instead of laying together on the couch, he sat next to you.

With your thighs touching, Mat grasped your hand in his, “Talk to me,” his grip was so tight, it felt like he was afraid you would slip away right in front of him, “Please.”

You nodded your head again, but no words came out.

How were you supposed to start off this kind of conversation?

Mat squeezed your hand in reassurance, and before you began to overthink about the best way to phrase your feelings, you said the first thing that came to mind.

“I feel anxious,” you let out a shaky breath.

Mat slowly nodded, squeezing your hand again as a silent way to encourage you to continue.

And with a deep breath, you shut your eyes tight, “I feel anxious and stuck––Almost like––I feel like I have no control over anything and it––I think––I need, uh, a change.”

Your words strung together in one rushed out sentence. And as your rambling continued on, your words grew softer and softer until your voice barely carried above a whisper. But the last word––change––echoed loudly in the room. The word was deafeningly loud, and Mat didn’t miss a beat.

“Change…”

The one syllable word sounded foreign coming from his lips. He repeated the word for a second time to make sure he heard you right.

Change.

In a sense, change was ever present in your relationship. There was change when you and Mat first grew out of being friends to more…Change when Mat left for Seattle to play hockey…and change again when Mat got drafted by the Islanders.

Change was almost a constant in your relationship; but the change was always prompted from Mat’s end. There had never been any expressed desire for change on your side.

“What do you want a change from?” Mat’s tone was daring, almost as if he wanted you to make his worst nightmare a reality.

“I––There’s this whole––“

“What,” he didn’t mask the viciousness in his voice, “do you want a change from.”

His voice was demanding, and not at all like the sweet sound that comforted you moments ago. You knew him well enough to know he was growing irritated at you, and you knew it would only get worse.

“I got into a masters program––in D.C.,” you rushed out, and in hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best response to reassure his insecurities, but you needed to get that information out there, “And it’s––it sounds so great, Mat. Like really great, and––“

He removed his hand from yours in a swift motion, as if he touched fire, “You’re leaving?”

“That’s not–––“

“Why is this the first time I’m hearing about this?” His eyes shined with hurt and disappointment, but most of all, you could hear the distrust behind his voice, “D.C.?”

You sighed, “I never seriously considered it until last month.”

Mat closed his eyes, no doubt in frustration that you didn’t confide your feelings in him earlier, “You’ve been feeling like you need a change for the past month?” Your silence caused him to flare his nostrils, and edged him on to ask another question, “Since when––Why––How long have you felt this way?”

You gulped, averting your eyes to look at his knees, “I don’t want anything between us to change, Mat,” you spoke carefully, “I was thinking––“

“How long?”

“May.”

You screwed your eyes tight to the point where you felt a stunning sensation in your forehead. You couldn’t bring yourself to look in his eyes, that no doubt would be filled to the brim with pain. And you avoided his stare that bored you for as long as you could.

But when you felt the couch cushion next to you feel lighter, you snapped your eyes open and up to look at Mat.

Mat backed away from the couch, and there was nothing you could have done to prepare yourself for the look of betrayal in his eyes, “May?” Gnawing at your bottom lip, you nodded. He ran a hand through his hair and shook his head in disbelief, “How could you not tell me––Christ, seven months?” Y/N…” his voice cracked as he said your name.

It killed you to see his jaw clenched and eyes rimmed with redness; and seeing his eyes overflow with heartbreak caused you to shoot up from your seat to comfort him. But what killed you even more was how he flinched away from your touch. Nothing in the world could prepare you for that sting.

All you wanted was to comfort him.

“Mat––“

He inhaled a deep breath and sniffled, “Please, don’t…” he brought both hands up to face, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms, “You want to leave?”

He couldn’t even look at you.

Unfair to you, his question held two sides. He was asking for clarification about wanting to leave New York, but also asking if you wanted to leave him. To Mat, leaving New York meant leaving him.

Your arms hung limp at your sides, mouth wide open in shock. You understood his confusion about wanting to leave New York because you had never mentioned it before. But your despair quickly turned into irritation as he verbalized his doubt of your love for him.

“You know I’d never leave you,” you said with a deep breath, trying your best to keep your anger at bay.

He ripped his hands away from his face, “Do I?” He sent you a glare that had you stumbling back, “Because we had this whole plan for us. And now you don't want that with me.”

“I still want that with you!” You threw your hands up in the air in exasperation, “Grad school goes faster than undergrad. We’ve done long distance before, and my job said they could transfer me––“

“You already have a job here!” Mat raised his voice, “There are places to go to grad school here! You have a place here! You have friends here––“

You raised your voice over his, “That’s not the point, please just––“

“You have me here!” His voice cracked, “We had a plan––“

“Plans change!”

Mat had his mouth open, ready to shout over you more, but once your ambiguous statement traveled from the confines of your thoughts and slipped out of your lips, he had no response. You could feel the anger radiating off him as the ringing in your ears grew louder…and louder…and louder…

“Plans don’t just change like that,” he venomously spat out. His words hit you like icicles, cold and sharp before his tone momentarily softened, “I had my life built around you…We––I wanted to marry you. Start a family with you.”

He spoke as if all of those desires he had with you were now a far off fantasy.

You pinched the bridge of your nose to stop a new wave of tears from falling. But these tears weren’t of fear for his reaction to your thoughts about change, he made those feelings loud and clear.

These were tears of mourning.

“Mat,” you spoke his name with a strained voice, “Let’s talk about this rationally––“

He ran a hand through his and narrowed his eyes at you, “Don’t…” he raised his forearm to wipe more tears away from his face, “I can’t believe––I really thought we had it all from the beginning. But who would have actually thought two teenagers would make it this far?”

He let out a soft, maniacal chuckle that made you more nauseous than any amount of anxiety.

“We were just children back then,” he pinched the bridge of his nose, “What did we know about life.”

His anger morphed into a cynical tone that sent shivers down your spine. It frightened you when he let out that small laugh, one that was usually saved for comical moments between the two of you.

“But here we are now,” he let out another self-deprecating laugh, “Time’s a funny thing…It seemed like nothing back then––It felt as if we had the rest of our lives together.”

As much as you didn’t want to hear Mat break down everything about your relationship, you knew he was spiraling, and you wanted to help him. Because despite what he may think, you still loved him.

Carefully, you tiptoed forward as Mat continued on with his rambling about how idiotic he was as a kid to think that this would last forever. With each step forward, your heart shattered into the tiniest of shards as Mat portrayed your relationship as childish with no chance of reconciliation.

“You just took my love,” his voice decreased in volume and cynicism, and was replaced with a tone that ripped your heart out of your chest. He pointed an accusatory finger at you that made you stop in your tracks, “You took my love––you took it and have no remorse whatsoever––“

You shook your head and picked up the pace of your walking to reach him, “I still love you, Mat. That will never change.”

He stared down at you, and for a moment, you saw the Mat you fell in love with. You saw the bright-eyed eighteen-year-old boy who took his time in teaching you how to shoot a perfect slapshot in his driveway. He looked like he was on the verge of forgiveness, but once you slightly ghosted your fingers against his hand, he snapped out of whatever trance he fell under.

“I don’t know how to love anyone else,” his shoulders slumped forward as he bit his bottom lip.

Without caring that he pulled his hand away from yours seconds ago, you swiftly took his hand in his and gripped it as if you were hanging off a cliff and he was your only lifeline. You didn’t know if it was a moment of bravery, or a moment of desperation. Because there was a nagging thought in the back of your mind that screamed about how this could be the last time you touched him.

“You don’t have to love anyone else,” you pleaded with him, your voice catching in your throat as tears welled up in your eyes, “I don’t want you to love anyone else.”

“Time’s a funny thing,” Mat let out a humorous chuckle, not believing that the two of you found yourself desperately clinging onto the past.

When he finally made eye contact with you, he slightly tilted his head as a single tear rolled down his cheek. Even when he was crying, his dark eyes still captivated you like no one else had. And the longer you stared into his longing eyes, they were filled with one emotion you weren’t familiar with; regret.

“Mat,” you whispered his name cautiously, petrified of what his next move was, “We can work through this…”

He slowly shook his head, causing your heart to plummet, “May…From what I’ve gathered, you hadn’t applied to grad schools then––Didn’t have an excuse for change,” he stalled back more of his tears, “But you wanted a change. You still want that change.”

“I want a change of scenery,” you tried your hardest to make him understand your feelings, “Not a change from you.”

“The only thing back then you could’ve wanted a change from was me,” it was the first time his voice didn’t falter. He was confident in his theory that you didn’t want him anymore.

You squeezed his hand, “Are you even listening to yourself––“

“You’re the love of my life,” his voice was full of pain, and when he softly smiled, it didn’t reach his eyes. With one hand still clutching onto yours, he brought his other hand up––a trembling hand––and tucked a piece of stray hair behind your ear, “I just wish I was yours.”

With a shakey inhale, and one last strong sniffle to conceal his sobs, Mat pressed a firm kiss to your forehead. And when released your hand one last time, he escaped out the door.

You had felt many sensations throughout the past seven months: drowning, feeling weighed down, and suffocation. But what you felt right now, the devastation that encased your whole body, was far worse than any of those emotions.

Because now, it felt as if you were falling.

Mat, your only lifeline, let go of your hand.

He knew he held the power to pull you up and save you, but he decided to let you go. When he released your grip, it felt as if he was releasing it finger by finger, desperately wanting to hold onto what you both had; wanting to hold onto the life both of you had created around one another. But in the end, it didn’t survive.

And as he released your hand, you fell.

You fell over the edge, stomach performing backflips as the sensation became worse with each passing second. The sensation of falling was never ending, as if you were falling down the rabbit hole to Wonderland; terrified of what waited for you at the bottom.

The December air felt frigid. The December air made one seek comfort in hot chocolate, or another menial item, because winter wasn’t strong enough to provide comfort. The December air felt nothing like the spring air that offered you solace without asking for anything in return.

Oh, how you wished to smell that spring air once more.

[seijohsbabe]

Hellloo Can I request where the MSBY boys (Saku, Atsu, Hina,Bo) trains their naive little manager? and now she's their fully fledge cum dumpster and their girl 🥴 like the others thought that she's still innocent by the way she act but the boys knew that you are slut in front of them tysm!!!!!!

a/n: Hell yes! I always wanted to write something about them c: Hope You will like it :)

Pairing: Black Jackals x Reader

Tw: dubcon, anal, overstimulation, cum overload, fivesome, double penetration

Wordcount: 2,6k

You wouldn't take your job as manager of the Black Jackals lightly. The guys could be really exhausting at times, but you still enjoyed watching them, cheering them on, helping them everywhere you could. Four of them seemed to be particularly interested in you, but you didn't think anything special about it, after all, they just want to be nice. Atsumu, who always liked to give you a little tweak in your butt, and was all in all very touchy. Bokuto, who hugged you tightly once a day, while his hand always wandered a little deeper. Hinata, who always picked you up after every game in bridal style and pressed you against him while he was cheering, the hand that held you, was tight on your butt what made you blushing mess. And of course Sakusa. He didn't really like human contact at all, but with you he was somehow different, he liked to talk to you, even sometimes hugging you after a win, but you couldn't see his dirty grin, when he felt your breasts pressing firmly against his chest.

They knew how naive you were and shamelessly took advantage of it to satisfy their craving for you.

But when Bokuto saw you on a free noon with a boy who was pretty close to you, of course he immediately told the others about it and they all agreed they had to make something clear to you.

Sakusa wrote to you late at night. You were a little confused about what Sakusa wanted from you so late.

"Hey y/n-chan, im sorry to bother you at this time but I've left my keys in the lockeroom. Could you maybe come and unlock the door for me?“

You immediately typed that you would be there in 10 minutes, wondering why he didn't just ask the captain. With quick steps you went to the door, where Sakusa was standing alone, and already had you in his sight. "I'm sorry that you had to come here that late.“ He said to you while you tried to unlock the door, but it was already open. With a questioning look, you looked back at Sakusa, who was now standing very close behind you, and pushed you into the lockeroom, and Kick the door shut with his foot.

The lights went on and right in front of you were Atsumu, Hinata and Bokuto, with a big grin. Now you were completely confused. The door was open all the time? And why are the three here? "G-guys? What's going on?", your voice let out your discomfort as you looked back and forth between the four. Atsumu was the first to speak. "Actually you should know why you're here manager-chan." Your question mark in your head got bigger and bigger, just like your eyebrow which got higher and higher. "Did I do something wrong? I'm sorry.“

Sakusa was the next to speak. "Oh yeah you did, but no problem we accept your apology, but we expect a little more than a simple apology." His arms crossed over each other on his chest while he leaned against the wall. "Sure uhm- I'll invite you to an ice cream?" You answered with a questioning undertone, still unsure what you did wrong. "I'm thinking of something better, right?“ Atsumu asked around and everyone nodded.

Now Bokuto came up to you with wide arms to pull you with him and to place you on his lap on a bench while he roamed his hands over your figure and pushed your sweater up, exposing your bra. His hands were warm on the skin, it was comfortable, but the whole thing happened so irrationally. You let it just happen, the hands that you felt on your skin were too pleasant. They were joined by two more on your legs that they spread and put everything that covered you off. It was Hinata's hands that pulled your thighs apart and ran over them once. A voice penetrated your ear. "Ya know, you were a bad manager, we thought you belonged to us. This all."

Bokuto made it clear while he grabbed your tits. "Suddenly I see you with such a stupid schoolboy who probably can't even protect you as we can." His hands were everywhere, one brushed the hair from your face, the other kneaded your chest, which made you wince slightly. As Hinata let his hands get closer and closer to your cunt you had to twitch briefly. "W-what? I don’t know what you mean“, you stuttered while their hands continued to slide over your flesh. The other two men watched with a satisfied smile, lazily touching their cocks trough their sweatpants. "Oh you know what i mean Angel" now he tilted your face and looked deep into your eyes before he pulled you into a lovely kiss. It felt as intimate as a warm summer night. Hinata had meanwhile arrived at your cunt and stretched your lips with two fingers apart to lick between it. It made you moan into the kiss. But Hinata didn’t stop, on the contrary, he became faster and more energetic. You broke away from the kiss to put your head on Bokuto's shoulder and claw your finger in Hinata’s orange hair.

"Mmhm, you like that don't you? Keep going Shoyo, she likes it!"

Bokuto exclaimed. The addressed man lifted his head once to look up and grin. "She tastes so good Bokuto-san!" Shortly afterwards he sank back between your thighs while Bokuto played with your nipples. Your moans could not be held back so you put your hand over your mouth to hide them, but your hand was quickly pulled away. "Let us hear you Princess." Bokuto mumbled. And while the two kept going you noticed how your climax was getting closer and closer, it only needed a little push. This push came when the man behind you now attacked your neck and sucked tight. Your body hunched up, your hands clenched in Hinata's hair.

Atsumu couldn't take his eyes off you during the whole process, caught in your noises and movements. Your breathing had quickened and your senses were slowly coming back. Hinata slowly got up to take off his shirt. Your gaze slid over him. His built wasn’t that bad. Your hands clenched behind you around the neck of Bokuto who now slowly sat you down on the floor.

"I think it's our turn isn't it?" Atsumu now came into it. You totally forgot about him and Sakusa. Bokuto pouted as he had just taken off his boxers and his hard cock bumped against his stomach. Your mouth watered. Now Sakusa was in front of you and blocked your view. What you didn't notice, he was already naked just like Atsumu. This time your gaze wandered down and back up to Sakusa‘s face. He smiled a little bit.

"Come on, be a good girl and get on my cock," said the black-haired now while he sat down on the floor. You nodded lightly and crawled over him. His hand led his penis to your entrance, and slowly rubbed it against your cunt, back and forth.

"Please fill me up Sakusa!" you moanded, too desperate to be filled up.

"You sure?" he answered with a raised brow. You nodded to him, and he sank into you in one motion which let your eyes cramp together and your hands drawn together on his chest. He let out a loud, almost bestial moan. You didn't notice that suddenly behind you was Atsumu until he put a hand on your back and pushed you down to Sakusa.

"I need a place too baby.“ He smiled at your questioning face. But when he slowely rubbed his dick an the same entrance you and Sakusa were connected, you shook your head immediately. "No there's no place for you Ats-"

but he already sank in you right beside Sakusa's cock. He had too groan because of the friction of Atsumu's cock. It burned really bad, it was just too much filled up right now. Just not that there were two in you at the same time, they weren't really that small, which didn't made the whole thing easier. Fortunately, Atsumu gave you a little time to get used to the new feeling until he built a slow pace, while Atsumu’s hand caressed your shoulder blades. "Fuck- so tight." Sakusa hissed while his hands were grabbing on to your hips.

"Oh baby, how long we dreamed about that, to make you out lil 'slut just for us. Well-fuck, we have to learn a lot but your doing great right now." the blonde setter behind you groaned while he picked up the pace and perfectly kissed your cervix every time. Your brain could not process the information, it was too absorbed to notice the two cocks in you. Also Sakusa tried to generate a few thrusts, and your body jolted on instant. Your face was suddenly turned to one side by pulling your hair to see Hinata looking down at you while his cock glistened with pre-cum right in front of your face. "Take it." he only commented while he buried his hand in your hair a little tighter. Your mouth opened to let him in, and he took advantage of it by picking up a quick pace right away. He used your mouth like you were just a doll. You had to spit, and cough while he was totally abusing your throat. Your hand was suddenly put around another penis, which declared itself to be Bokuto, who looked at you with a pout. He probably feels left out. So your hand picked up a pace as best it could and slid up and down his thick length.

Your tongue rolled the length of Hianata‘s cock back and forth over the tip, sometimes having to let out a moan, which made your mouth vibrate. Hinata's head was in his neck and his hand tightened in your hair. "So your pretty mouth can be used for more," groaned Hinata. Your last final lick made him groan, while he spilled is cum in your throat. You had to cough, a little bit spilled out of your mouth, while the other half went down your throat. His hand released your hair, and he sat down, to relax.

Atsumu's thrusts became more and more precise and hard, which brought you closer to your second orgasm. Your hand was still around Bokuto, who had to howl loudly as your hand was getting faster and faster. And when he turned your chin in his direction, his cum went in your face and upper body. It dripped all over your body and Bokuto looked at you with a satisfied grin. But now you felt your climax approaching, especially when Sakusa's hand suddenly came to your breasts.

Your eyes rolled back, your hands clenched in the bicep of Sakusa and with another sharp thrust came another wave of euphoria. Your walls tightened around the two as your strength slowly left your body. As you were about to fall forward, a hand held you around your neck. It was Atsumu who now held you up and pushed himself further into you. Sakusa who thrust into you again came all of a sudden, and fucked his whole load into you. "Fuuuuck- so tight." He hissed while he made sure to fuck all his load in you. Atsumu who felt everything, had to groan as well, while he looked down where you two are connected. Sakusa‘s cum dripped from you onto his cock. However, everything was getting too much for you, you howled softly, you were too sensitive at the moment after two orgasms. "Dont worry, I hurry up." Atsumu groaned, and in fact after the next thrust he came into you too. Both now pulled out, and the two loads of cum just dripped out of you. The sudden emptiness let you groan. Your body was gently passed on, but you didn't notice that, your senses were blown away.

Bokuto was suddenly in front of you and looked at you with a shimmering and excited face. You only now noticed that you were on his lap, his length lying tense against you. How could he have had so much stamina?

He picked you up by your waist to lower you on top of his member. Your hands automatically slid to his shoulders to give you a little strength. He had to groan, "Fuck you are still so tight even though you only had two cocks in you." He groaned while his hands cramped on your hips. "I want her too Bokuto-san" Hinata pouted behind you, his length in his hand. "Take her Ass." Bokuto only commented. Your thoughts said you should say something about it but nothing came out of your mouth. And then his tip was already on the tight muscle ring, and penetrated without any preparation. It made you howl. "Shhh, baby come on be a good girl, alright." Bokuto whispered softly in your ear while his hand ran soothingly over your back. But it got tighter as Hinata pushed further and further, until you noticed that he was completely inside. It was an uncomfortable but kinda satisfying feeling, even if you had already two orgasms behind you. Now Bokuto raised you again to get you on the two cocks up and down. At the beginning slower, but after he saw your face to make sure your okay he was going faster. When Hinata‘s hand clapped on your ass cheek you had to groan loudly, out of nowhere you were completely horny again.

"Your doing Great." Bokuto groaned, he sank in and out of you, while his tip kissed your point perfect. His balls slapped against your skin, and Hinata groaned behind you while he held your butt open to see where you two are connected. ,,She‘s so perfect, our little manager.“ he moaned, while he thrusted into you. You were a moaning mess, full of cum and no strength in you anymore. It was humiliating and you never imagined that, this would ever happen.

His pace became faster and more hectic, so that you couldn't hold out for long until you reached the climax for the third time and just let yourself go. It was liberating to finally untie the knot. Your walls cramped around the two, you kind of sucked them into you. Bokuto seemed to be getting too much and load his cum into your cunt. His hips stuttered, while his hands were still on your hips. you would very likely have red marks tomorrow. Now only Hinata was left who did not wait long and came on your ass and back. You felt dirty, used, you just wanted to wash yourself and lie in your bed, but what you didn't know, this was not the last round, because Atsumu came up to you again with a big grin. The night went on for a few more laps, they persuaded you to be hers, their own little cum garbage to discharge. Until you couldn't say anything, not even your own name. Now after a week, they had you perfectly under their control, their own little manager slut. They knew what you wanted to do every time you accidentally let something fall and tried to pick it up from the floor and your skirt slipped up higher than necessary, how you accidentally brushed them across their crouch when you walked past them. You became her own little slut, and whether you would ever get out of there remains to be doubted.

[sinner-as-saint]

All For Love.

Cherry!seb/Mob!seb x Reader AU

Run-through: Your father is an influential and prominent figure in the business world. Naturally, you have guards around all the time. Which means that you’re not allowed to leave the house and go out whenever or wherever you want, despite being a grown woman; therefore your boyfriend frequently has to sneak in and out of your heavily guarded home when he wants to see you. It would have been much easier if he wasn’t a mob boss, or if your father didn’t hate him so much. The mob boss knows it’s risky, but he’s willing to risk it all, for love. 

Themes: smut, fluff, cherry!seb, daddy kink

a/n: just a quick little fic because I missed cherry!seb too. 

“I’m just gonna be gone for two hours, dad. Just two hours.” 

You whined on the phone. You hated how your father made you feel like a rebel teen; confined inside your own home. Then again, you knew he was doing it for your own safety. 

“Absolutely not.” He used his typical dad voice. “I told you, it’s not safe out there right now. And I need to keep you safe so please just listen to me, stay home safe.” You had heard that sentence a thousand times. “I’ve spoken to your guards, you are in safe hands.” 

You sighed, knowing this was a losing game. “Where are you going? When are you coming home?” you asked. 

He chuckled. “Oh that’s for me to know.” 

You scoffed, trying to figure out where he could be going since he left in such a hurry, without informing you. “What, you don’t trust me?” 

“No, I trust you. It’s that good for nothing boyfriend of yours that I don’t trust.�� Oh there we go again. “Seriously, you can do better than him.” 

“Dad, I love him. You just have to accept it.” 

“No. Never.” 

You sighed. “Whatever, bye dad. I love you. Come home soon.” 

You ended the call as soon as he said bye and you were about to call someone else but you gasped when you felt strong arms wrap around your waist; pulling you into a muscular chest. 

You smiled as his scent wrapped around you. “How long have you been here?” You turned your head to the side to find your boyfriend smiling down at you. You still had no idea how he managed to sneak into your home whenever your father left. And no matter how many times you asked him, he always answered saying: ‘I have my ways.’ 

“Couple of minutes.” He mumbled, pushing his face into the crook of your neck. “Your old man still hates me, I see.” He noted, nibbling on your skin. His hands found their way under your shirt and he gently fondled with your breasts. 

You closed your eyes, relishing his touch. “I’m sure he’ll come around soon enough. He didn’t even tell me where he’s going.” 

Seb chuckled. “Europe. On a business trip. He’ll be gone for a week.” He answered, baffling you with the information. 

You gently stepped out of his embrace, making him groan as you stepped further from him. “How do you know all that? Dad wouldn’t even tell me anything.” 

He gave you his signature smirk. “I have my ways.” He stepped forward and grabbed you by the arm, pulling you close again. “Come here,” he leaned in and kissed your lips gently, “Daddy missed you.” His kiss was passionate. He was eager. 

He walked the two of you backwards as he nibbled on your lower lip before letting it go; pushing his tongue into your mouth. His kiss had you breathless before you even made it to your bed. You ran your fingers through his hair, gently massaging his scalp; making him moan through the kiss as he managed to slip his hand under your oversized shirt. He dragged your underwear down your legs in no time, throwing it somewhere on your bedroom floor. His hand found its way in between your legs quickly, and he touched you like he was starved. 

“I’ve missed you too…” you whispered against his lips. He moaned against your lips in response as his fingers slipped past your entrance with ease, and he stroked your walls slowly at first, then picking up his pace as he went. And he had you whimpering and moaning in no time. 

“Always so wet for me, aren’t you babygirl?” he whispered against your skin as he kissed down your throat. 

You whimpered as he removed his fingers from you, from in between your legs and shamelessly pushed his two fingers into his mouth, closing his eyes and moaning as he tasted you. 

“So sweet,” he mumbled as he kissed his way down your body until he was on his knees in front of you. He looked up at you with a feral look in his pretty blue eyes; his lips swollen. 

His hands held you at each side of your hips and your hands found their way into his hair. He inched his face closer to your core. You let out a quiet moan once you felt his tongue diving into your folds. He wasted no time in sinking two of his fingers into your entrance and curling them each time they pumped in and out of you while he teased your clit with the tip of his tongue. 

You tugged on his hair as he devoured you to satiate both your hunger. You looked down and bit your lip at the sinful sight. Him kneeling at your feet, half of his face buried into your core; his eyes closed as he occasionally moaned at your taste on his tongue. The sounds he made drove you wild. 

You felt the pressure building up again at your core with each stroke of his fingers and each lick of his tongue; circling the skin around your throbbing clit. Your body squirmed under his. 

“Cum for me, baby.” He mumbled, flicking his tongue faster, teasing your clit and pumping his fingers in and out of you until you gushed out all over his mouth and fingers. You came, hard; moaning, whimpering and tugging at his hair. 

He pulled away and smirked as he kissed his way up your trembling body. He leaned in and kissed your lips again; feverishly. You both managed to get each other undressed, while still being unable to keep your mouths off each other. 

He hovered over your bare body in no time, grabbing both your wrists and pinning them above your head. “I love you,” he whispered and leaned down to kiss your swollen lips. 

You mumbled against his lips, “I love you more.” 

He pressed his forehead down onto yours gently, while he pushed his erected cock past your tight entrance. You moaned out loud as he did. He grunted once he filled you up entirely. You shuddered as you felt all of him. His lips found yours again, trying to get you to stay quiet while he rolled his hips against yours.

He removed himself and pushed himself back into you. You heard him panting and swearing under his breath as he rocked into you. Your nails sank into his skin, around his shoulders; which you held onto for dear life as he pounded into you. “Fuck..” he moaned into your ear as he fucked you relentlessly. 

You whined, throwing your head back and moaning at how good he felt. He growled right in your ear as your walls clenched around him. 

He reached up and grabbed your jaw, forcing you to look at him. “You feel so good, babygirl…” he whispered. His blue eyes were wild and fierce; staring deep into your soul. His gaze made you shiver. You liked it when he looked down at you, like he owned you.

You whined again. “Daddy… please, I-,” 

The sound of your phone vibrating on the bedside table cut you off. For a brief moment, you saw panic on Seb’s face. He froze, as did you. 

He stayed still for a moment, his cock still buried deep inside you as he reached out to grab your phone for you. The slight friction made you moan again but you panicked as he turned the phone screen towards. It was your dad calling. 

Shit. 

“You think he-,”

Seb cut you off, with a mischievous smirk on his face. “Pick it up.” He simply said and you felt your heart skip a beat. 

“What?” You frowned in confusion and tried to sit up but he pushed you back down on the bed, and shut you up with a deep kiss for a brief moment. 

“I said, pick it up.” He whispered against your parted lips. 

The phone kept buzzing in his hand, right beside your head on the pillow. “No, you-,” He sighed and cut you off by answering the call and tapping on the speaker icon. Your eyes widened in panic. ‘What are you doing?’ you mouthed at him before speaking up. “Hello?” 

“What took you so long to pick up the call?” your father sounded a little irritated. 

You tried to ignore the way Seb bit your neck and kissed down your throat, making you shiver. 

“I was, uh, downstairs.” You answered, trying your hardest to maintain your calm and composure. 

Seb pulled away and stared down at you. ‘Liar,’ he mouthed as he hovered above you, pulling out of you just a little before pushing back in. You bit down on your lip to avoid making any sound. 

“I wanted to let you know that I won’t be home until next week. But mind you, that useless boyfriend of yours is not to be seen anywhere near you or the house while I’m away, you understand?” 

Your dad’s words made little sense at this point as Seb slow fucked you; kissing the shell of your ear and moaning quietly just for you to hear as his cock stroked your walls gently. You tried your hardest to keep quiet but Seb let out a soft, breathy chuckle upon hearing what your father just said. 

“Oops.” Seb whispered in your ear as his long, warm fingers wrapped gently around your throat. 

Your teeth released your bottom lip and you answered, “I understand.” You panicked just a little as you sounded quite breathless, courtesy of your boyfriend, but luckily your father didn’t notice. 

“I will also be sending another security team to…” 

You could no longer focus on what your dad was saying as Seb pulled out of you and kissed his way down your body again; realizing that he wasn’t teasing you well enough. 

You almost moaned out loud as he settled in between your legs again, and spread them even further; sticking his tongue out and teasing your entrance slowly while he looked up at you. His tongue poked around at your entrance and you felt like you were just about to lose it. 

“...are you even listening to me?” You heard your father’s irritation on the other side of the call. 

Shit. What did he say again? “Yeah, yeah. Uh, I agree, yeah.” 

Seb lazily circled his tongue around your clit, flicking the little bud with the tip of his tongue. And you bit on your bottom lip, careful as to not accidentally let out a moan.

“Oh,” your father sounded surprised. “Well good then, also I was thinking that maybe we should open another…”

And yet again, you couldn’t keep up with what he was saying because you were busy trying to hold back a moan as Seb slipped one finger through your entrance. He smirked and kissed the glistening skin along your wet folds. You tried scooting away from him but his grip around you was very firm. 

You supported yourself up on your elbows and bit your lip as you looked down at him. You could barely hear the voice on the phone anymore. Seb was the only thing you could focus on. He stared deep into your eyes, kissing along your inner thighs as he slowly finger-fucked you. 

You almost let out a whine, but caught yourself just as you were about to. Brows furrowed at his own inability to make you lose control, he placed his mouth over your clit again, stroking your walls with his fingers at the same time. He applied just the slightest bit of suction on your sensitive bud and you bit down hard on your lip; turning your face as far away as you possible could from the phone.

“...what do you say?” you heard your father ask. Oh this was a mess. 

You cleared your throat, “Uh, yeah dad. Sure. We’ll discuss it further when you get home.” He agreed and ended the call. 

Seb looked up at you, his mouth submerged completely in between your legs. He lifted his mouth off you and hovered above your squirming body. Slowly, he removed his fingers from you and pushed them through your already parted lips, placing them on your tongue. 

He pumped his fingers in and out of your mouth. His lips trailed along your jaw and finally kissed underneath your ear. “You bad, bad girl.” He spoke as he slowly pushed his fingers further into your mouth. “Lying to your father like you’re doing no wrong.” He whispered, kissing down your neck and nibbling along the skin at your collar bone. “When in reality,” he nipped at your skin, making you whine, “here you are, being such a perfect little slut for daddy’s cock, huh?” 

You moaned at his voice alone, your own voice muffled by his fingers in your mouth. He eventually pulled them out, leaving you wanting more and panting. 

“Please…” you whispered, unable to take it anymore. You needed him. Bad. 

He smirked, tracing your mouth with his thumb slowly, taking his time. “Please what, baby?” 

“Please fuck me… I need you. Please, please daddy…” 

He smirked wider. “Well since you’re asking so nicely,” he leaned in to kiss your swollen lips again, then pulled away from your lips, and pressed his forehead on yours gently, while he pushed his erected cock past your tight entrance again, pulling your legs up to wrap them around his waist. 

You moaned out loud as he pushed into you. He let out a grunt once he filled you up entirely. He then grabbed both your hands, laced your fingers together with his and pinned your interlaced hands down on the bed, above your head. 

His lips found yours again, as he rolled his hips against yours. He pulled out and pushed himself back into you. He lowered his face, and leaned into your ear; growling and moaning and panting as he fucked you, finally. “So good for daddy…” 

At some point he let go of your hands to hold your body. He gripped your waist and pushed deeper into you. You heard him moan and swear under his breath as he rocked into you. Your nails sank into his skin, around his shoulders; which you held onto for dear life as he pounded into you mercilessly. 

You moaned out loud; wantonly, as he pushed deeper and deeper into you each time.

He bit your lips as he kissed your open mouth; shoving his tongue into your mouth like he owned it while he rammed into you; and you never once complained. Your legs trembled around his waist, he thrust deeper into you, mumbling how good you felt.

“Fuck…” his voice cracked as he moaned. The sound of his moans and grunts sent tingles dancing down your spine. Your back arched off the bed as you felt a familiar warmth washing over you. He growled and bit down on your shoulder to keep himself from making any loud noises while he fucked you. He was relentless. And you loved it, as always. 

His hand wrapped around your throat again, and he very gently squeezed the side of your throat. But enough to make you lose your mind. You could only moan and whimper in response while he kept pounding into you incessantly. 

“Come on baby, cum for daddy…” 

You felt the sweet pressure grow in between your hips as you tightened around him, feeling the burning hot need to cum grow hotter and hotter inside you until it exploded. You came with a loud moan, gushing all around him. Seb came right after you; buried deep within you – growling and mumbling swear words under his breath. His warm cum shoot at your walls and trickled out of you when he carefully removed his length from your entrance. 

He collapsed right beside you in your bed, pulling your naked body closer to his and wrapping his arm around you while you both caught your breaths. 

“My dad will kill us both if he even finds out you sneak into my room all the time.” You whispered, kissing his damp chest before laying your cheek upon it. You smiled as you heard the steady beats of his heart. 

He chuckled, tightening his grip around you. “I know. But that’s the risk I’m willing to take for you.” Cheesy as always. 

Then you remembered. “Dad said he’s sending another security team over.” You sounded a little sad because that meant that Seb wouldn’t be able to stay much longer. 

“So?” He sounded so cocky, one of the main reasons why you fell for him in the first place. 

You giggled. “So, that means you have to go before they get here and catch you.” 

He smirked. “They’re my guys. They would never.” 

You shot up in a sitting position, grabbing the sheet and wrapping it around you. Your brows furrowed in confusion, again. “What?” 

He had that mischievous smirk on his face. “Your dad keeps hiring the best security teams for you, without realizing that they’re all my guys.” 

Your jaw dropped. “So the guys downstairs guarding the house, they-,”

“Work for me.” 

“Seb!” you couldn’t believe it meanwhile he laughed at the face you made, reaching out and stroking your hair lovingly. 

“What?” he grabbed your hand and brought it to his lips, kissing your knuckles as he watched you process the information. “I had to trick your dad because I couldn’t possibly sneak into your house so many times had they been other guards. But hey, this way I know you’re always safe. Even when I’m away.” 

You shook your head, smiling. “You’re insane.” 

Seb pulled you back on top of his chest, kissing the top of your head as you laid on top of him lazily, without a care in the world. “A little, yes.” He ran a soothing hand down your back. “I love you.” 

“I love you too, you crazy man.” 

He chuckled. “Well, now that we have the following week all to ourselves, what do you wanna do?” He asked. 

“You.”

[ateezfanficthingies]

ATEEZ AS MURDERERS PART 2: 6/8 MINGI

TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of depression, self harm, attempted suicide and bullying.

Word count: 1725

Kind of a part 2 to "ATEEZ as Murderers" maybe I'll make a part (or "part") 3. To make it easier and funnier for me; the victim's name is Victor (get it? Cuz they sound similar.) Mori (cuz death. And also; Memento Mori.)

Obviously this is going to be rather gruesome so please read at your own risk.

The triggers are briefly mentioned in the actual story, are only in a single paragraph, there's a trigger warning above said paragraph and you can skip it without missing any important information.

I DON'T OWN THIS IMAGE/THESE IMAGES. I EITHER GOT THEM FROM TUMBLR OR GOOGLE.

This is purely a work of fiction and is not meant to represent nor slander ATEEZ in any way. This is for entertainment purposes only.

——————————————————————

MINGI

——————————————————————

Victor's POV:

"Fucking Uber…"

My limo driver was sick so I had to resort to an Uber, and that shit had just cancelled on me.

I guess I'm walking then.

I left the parking lot, briefcase in my left hand, phone in the other. It was kind of chilly but I honestly didn't mind. I enjoyed the odd burn in my throat and lungs when one breathes in a lot of cold air when walking or running.

10 minutes of walking and scrolling through my emails it was getting really cold and so I decided to pick up the pace. But as I was about to walk faster a strong punch landed on my jaw and I was knocked down to the ground. I heard footsteps and heavy breathing come closer, emerging from the alleyway.

My vision was blurry and slowly refocusing. An angry hand grabbed my shirt collar and pulled me up to face an angrier man. He looked so familiar.

"M…" I blinked a few times, my eyes almost fully refocused. "M-Mingi..?".

"Glad to see you fucking remember me Vic." Another punch sent my head flying to the right and I grunted in pain.

"Mi-Mingi why are you doi-" again. And again. And again. He got up, dragging me with him, and backhanded me simultaneously letting go and I fell on my left side. Coughing in front of him on the ground, spit and blood leaking from the corners of my mouth. What does this guy want?!

"Mingi we can solve this peacefully! What's wr-" a sharp kick to my stomach and I groaned out in agonizing pain.

"Sstop…" his seething hatred slurring his words ever so slightly.

"Stop saying that name… stop saying MY NAME! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO ADDRESS ME LIKE EVERYTHING'S FINE!" he screamed. Surely everyone in their homes could hear this?

"Wai- wha..? What do you mean?!" The whine in my voice accidentally showing but maybe it'll help my case. Mingi was always a very emotional and empathetic person… Emphasis on the pathetic…

"What do you think!?" I managed to lift my head to look at his glossy, crazed eyes. The moon bright enough for me to see him rather perfectly this late at night. He was beautiful, but he was towering over me and was much… MUCH stronger than I remembered.

"How can you not remember your little high school toy, Vic? The slumber parties…" Kick.

"The grade camps…" Kick.

"The BATHROOM…" Kick.

"Your entire goal in high school was to make me look like a FUCKING joke! Hey?? That's all I was to you guys! Just a big FUCKING JOKE!!"

He squatted down and grabbed a fistful of my hair forcing me to look up at him.

(Trigger warning)

"Well it wasn't so funny when I was left crying in the stalls you guys tormented me in. It wasn't so funny when every second was just a waiting game - waiting for one of you fucks to pop out and pull me deeper into the darkness… It wasn't so funny when my mom had to talk me off the balcony. It wasn't so funny when I discovered what a box cutter can do…".

His grip was crazy, his eyes were crazier. Every part of his body was trembling and tears spilled from his wide eyes that bore into my very being. Through his shaking a smile slowly appeared. If he didn't look crazy before, he definitely did now.

"But then I realised what a box cutter… can REALLY do…" his smile spread across his whole face as he pulled a massive box cutter from his jacket pocket. He pushed out the blade a bit and dragged it along my jawline making me tremble even more. He clearly enjoyed the sight of my fear.

He quickly raised the knife, pretending like he was about to stab me and let out a hysterical giggle at my screech… He was taunting me the way we always taunted him. I lowered my arm that I had raised in defense to shakily hold his open jacket as I spoke.

"Mi-Mingi I-I-"

"I said… don't… SAY THAT NAME!!!" he roared out as he raised the knife once more. The blade sunk into my shoulder and he twisted the thin metal around forcing a blood curdling scream out my throat.

I couldn't get a single word out. Both because of the fear and the interruptions. And now the added introduction of unimaginable pain was thrown into the mix.

"What's wrong PUSSY BOY!?" he stabbed another part of my arm. "IT'S ONLY A LITTLE KNIFE!" he stabbed my arm in a new spot after every sentence.

"Pussy boy"?

"If a BOX can take it, SO CAN YOU!"

"Why are you screaming so much? It's not that bad!"

"...not that bad"?

I desperately tried to grab his stabbing hand and he looked at me.

"Oh, do you want more?!"

"NO..! NO PLEASE-!"

"WOAH BOYS, LOOKS LIKE HE WANTS MORE~!" and with that he stabbed my hip.

"Boys"?

The hand that held my hair raised me up a bit before slamming my face into the concrete. He moved me so that I was completely on my back and he sat on my upper thighs. Switching the knife to his now free hand, he placed his left hand on my chest, leaning on it so it held me down as he stabbed my side. For a split second taking in the way I writhed underneath him.

He continued, only on my left side.

"PLEASE STOP! IT HURTS SO MUCH!!!" I begged, sobbing my eyes out, throat raw from screaming so much.

"OH! IT HURTS!? WELL MAYBE YOU SHOULD SUCK IT UP… SOUND FAMILIAR AT ALL!?"

He plunged the knife deep into my chest, piercing just next to my sternum and going through my right lung. My screams were endless and for a brief second of clarity I realised why he was saying what he was saying.

They're all lines I repeatedly said to him.

"And guess what??" He leaned down. With a wide smile.

"The good guys aren't here to save you now…" I always said that in reference to the teachers. I guess here he meant it by the police and anyone with ears.

With a death metal-worthy scream he twisted the knife and ripped it from my chest and went absolutely ballistic. He plunged the thin metal into my writhing body over and over again. I had lost the ability to scream and all I heard was the rhythmic tearing of my flesh playing alongside his grunts and sobs filled with pain.

Pain that I had caused him.

Mingi's POV:

Minutes had passed after he stopped breathing, but I couldn't stop. I was so angry. No… angry doesn't even begin to describe it. I was pissed. I was LIVID. Enraged. I can't describe it. It was like a demon of rage had possessed my body and went ham on this guy.

I caught a whiff of reality and stabbed one last time. I sobbed loudly into the back of my hands that still gripped the blood-drenched box cutter. After a while I managed to pull myself together enough to get off of his disgusting body. I roughly grabbed the knife as I slinked off of him and I looked down at what I had created. What I had done.

I couldn't tell where the stab wounds were anymore. There was so much blood. His eyes were wide open but they looked dead. The blood pooled under him. So much blood. I just stood and watched his life leak out of him and stain the road.

As I stared at his corpse my breathing increased rapidly again and for a second I couldn't tell if it was a panic attack or not. Realising it was just me getting overwhelmed by my emotions I gave in, fell back against the brick wall and slid down crying.

"Stop that… just stop…" I whined. Begging for him to shut up.

"I was just so fucking angry… he caused me so much pain… and anger… you're just BEING A DICK!" I yelled.

I let my legs relax a bit. My left leg and arm lay flat and my right stayed up so I could rest my elbow on it. I slowly turned my wrist side to side as I stared at the blood droplets that slowly slipped off of the blade I held.

"..now what? And don't say 'next target' again you stupid fuck." I was so tired. I was so drained. After a bit I got up to my feet (with great difficulty).

"What do you-? NO! I NEVER WANTED TO DO THIS!" I grabbed my skull with clenched fists, shaking my head, squeezing my eyes shut and feeling them sting with fresh tears that threatened to spill. "I NEVER WANTED TO KILL ANYBODY! YOU MADE ME..!" my voice trailed off and relaxed my body. "...you fucking made me…"

My back hit the wall once more as I desperately tried to hold back tears.

I looked down at the scene once more, the exhaustion settling into my muscles.

"No… I'm not moving the body. Not this ti- no SHUT UP! It's late. And I'm tired… exhausted. And I just wanna go home… I wanna go away from all of this…"

I stared at his dead face one last time.

"Although as usual they did have it coming I guess… I tend to hyperfixate on these kills and worry if it was worth it… if I'll caught… but he's one I won't fixate on. He deserved it all. Every last bit… I hope he's burning in hell right now…"

I slowly made my way back to my broken down house. My home. I went to the bathroom to take a shower but looked at myself in the mirror out of habit; blood splattered on my jaw - some on my cheek and in my hair, my red and puffy eyes and the tear tracks that you could only see if you were looking for them. I was a mess. I killed someone again… AGAIN…

I broke down crying into my sink.

"Yeah, you're right." I struggled to giggle properly because of how blocked my nose was. "I should just burn these clothes. There's no point in trying to wash them."

[quokkacore]

with great power I [lee jeno]

summary: there are two things jeno loves most about his life. one being spiderman, the other being you, his best friend. there’s just one issue: after your father’s death, you decide you hate both spiderman and yourself.

pairing: lee jeno x reader

genre: superhero au, high school au, coming of age, best friends to strangers(ish) to lovers, fluff, ANGST, minor crack

warnings (for this chapter): language, violence, gun violence, the mafia, parental death, police presence, sexual references, bullying (ily san im sorry), the dreamies being dicks to each other, police corruption, towards the end jeno experiences something similar to sensory overload, americanized names, pop culture references, VERY jeno centric

song rec: we go up - nct dream // any song - zico // 21 questions - waterparks // talk (remix feat. megan thee stallion & yo gotti) - khalid // sunrise - ateez // i really like you - carly rae jepsen // dare - gorillaz // stray kids - the tortoise and the hare

word count: 10.5k

a/n: this is so late...... i blame attack on titan. but hey!! better late than never :] a huge thanks to @doderyscoffee​ for beta reading <3

main masterlist // story masterlist

chapter one: jeno and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week

Jeno despised Tuesdays. He was pretty sure that Tuesdays despised Jeno as well because all of his worst days just so happen to be Tuesdays. He was 96% sure that, if there was a god, his day off was on Tuesdays, or that the planets aligned in such a manner on Tuesdays that it caused universal despair and misery. If he was to take Donghyuck's word for it, his chakra attracted negative energy the most on Tuesdays.

When Jeno was 5, his goldfish Pippin had died on a Tuesday. When he had his ass handed to him on the playground by San Choi in the third grade, it was a Tuesday. And in the seventh grade, he'd failed his Spanish test, missed his bus and walked home in the rain only to find out that his Aunt Sunny was at work, he'd left his keys in his locker and that had to wait an hour before she got home to unlock it for him, all on a Tuesday. 

And wouldn't you know it, here he was, late for the first day of senior year, which was, of all days, a godforsaken Tuesday.

In his eternal wisdom, he'd stayed up gaming with Renjun until two in the morning, and because of it, slept through his three alarms, one set at six-thirty, the other at 6:45, the last one at 7:00. 

He'd woken up at 7:17, to the sound of his elderly neighbor's pet chihuahua barking at a pigeon, checked the time, immediately panicked, sped into the shower, gotten dressed in a haste, grabbed a few granola bars from the pantry, and ran out the door while trying to jam his backpack closed, and managed to catch the train at 7:40, which took about twenty minutes to get to his stop, plus a ten-minute walk to school, and class started at 8:10. Not to mention he’d have to stop by the office and pick up his schedule. At best, he’d be five minutes late to his first class. But tardies were tardies, regardless, and the last thing he needed was to lose his perfect attendance streak. 

He fished out his phone while standing on the train, waiting for his stop, scrolling through Instagram, and liking random pictures. A ping! from his phone caught his attention, then two, then a third. He smiled softly when your name popped up on his screen.

[7:48 AM]

y/n: pssst

y/n: shithead

y/n: where r u ????

[7:49 AM] 

y/n: i can sEE u online on ig u know

jeno: …… i'm on the train

jeno: woke up late

y/n: YOURE GONNA BE LATR

y/n: LATE*

y/n: ON THE FIRST DAY OF SENIOR YEAR

[7:50]

jeno: probably, yeah

jeno: it's the school district's fault, why would they make the first day of school on a fkn TUESDAY 

y/n: ohhh yeahh its terrible tuesday

y/n: [sent an attachment!]

[7:51 AM]

jeno: SHUT UP

jeno: you're not funny >:(

jeno: how dare you laugh at my misfortune

y/n: au contraire im hilarious

jeno: meanie :(

jeno: im gonna be late i hate it here

jeno: it'll end up on my permanent record and i'm not gonna get into college and then i'm gonna die,,,

[7:52 AM] 

y/n: sometimes ur worse than hyuck i swear 

y/n: FIRST OF ALL permanent records dont even exist !!!!!! its propaganda duh

y/n: also ur literally never late 

y/n: im sure o n e tardy wont do anything chill

y/n: dont be stupid youll be fine

Don’t be stupid. Too little, too late, he thought, already having got off the train at a previous stop. Now, he was looking for an unoccupied street or alleyway, which, for once, was easy, taking a deep breath before he did the exact opposite of what you’d told him not to do. Don’t be stupid. 

The buildings are low, he thought to himself, it’ll be easier to see me. 

Don’t be stupid.

Too late!

Thwip!

Jeno didn’t hesitate to use the web fluid to pull himself up onto the wall, climbing in a haste, before running and jumping onto the next building. He quickly built up a quick pace, using the web fluid occasionally to swing onto a building slightly out of jumping range. 

Signs in English, Chinese, Korean, and Spanish flew past him as he seemingly flew over the Queens traffic, leaving Flushing behind and crossing quickly into College Point quicker than he would if he took the train. He glanced to his left and caught a view of the bay, and far across it, the LaGuardia airport watchtower.

Jeno had lived in New York City his entire life. He knew Queens like the back of his hand, knew every dingy alleyway, every sketchy street, which restaurants to avoid if you didn’t want to get food poisoning, which convenience store aunties were the nicest and didn’t pinch his cheeks too hard. It was his home, and most likely would be for the rest of his life. 

But seeing it like this, flying past him below as he glided with ease from building to building would never cease to be a sight to him. It was like watching from the perspective of an outsider, seeing people in their cars, walking along the street gave him a brand new perspective. A Jeno’s eye view, he called it, since he was pretty sure he was the only one in New York City.

Another noise from his phone brought him back to reality. He shook his head, stopping briefly to catch his breath and fish out his phone briefly. 

[7:57 AM] 

y/n: let me know when u get here !!!

No time to respond, he put away the phone and continued his trek to school. He had less than ten minutes to get there. But he knew he was already at least five minutes away, much quicker than he would be if he had decided to stick to the train. He smiled a bit to himself, feeling ever so slightly smug.

The hustle and bustle of the city definitely proved challenging to find a place to land without many eyes, but he figured it out eventually, landing behind a dumpster in an alleyway behind a restaurant that he knew was about three or four blocks from the school. He figured it would be a lot better to take it on foot from here. The notebooks he was carrying in his backpack bounced up and down with every step he took. 

After what seemed like forever, the gates to the school appeared in his view, and Jeno felt a joy in his heaving chest, something he would have never thought would happen upon seeing the absolute hellhole that was Samuel Morse High School. 

[8:06 AM]

jeno: just did >:D

Picking up his schedule was both quick and insanely long. He couldn’t stop himself from tapping his left foot while the secretary found his schedule and handed it to him. “Kibum, please hurry,” He muttered, and Kibum raised an eyebrow at him, but his gaze was teasing. “That’s Mr. Kim to you, in school at least.” 

He handed Jeno his schedule a few seconds later. “Tell your Aunt to come pick up her casserole dish, by the way. She left it at my house after my last viewing party.”

“The Bachelor?”

“Please. We’re too classy for that. Drag Race.”

“Ah. I see.”

“Jeno,” Kibum said, staring up at him from his desk, his gaze now much more serious, “Get to class. Happy first day of senior year.”

“Thanks, Mr. Kim.”

He managed to make it to chemistry class at 8:09 with seconds to spare. His eyes quickly scanned the room upon entering, hoping his friends were in the class with him. He caught a few familiar faces, most of which, like San Choi's, he wished to avoid. No one paid him any mind. Everyone was still speaking to the people next to them, no doubt exchanging stories of summer vacation. 

  A hand shot up towards the back, waving at him. A smile stretched across his face as he registered your face, feet not hesitating to carry him towards the empty seat next to you. His heart skipped a beat at seeing your smile, and he tried his best to ignore it.

“Hey,” You greeted, “That was fast. I thought you said you were gonna be late.”

Jeno shrugged, eyes landing on the dark shade of the lab table. “The train was a lot faster than I expected, apparently.”

You wrinkled your nose. “Why do you smell so bad?”

“I, uh… ran a little.” 

You grimaced, and Jeno tried to casually sniff at his slightly sweaty clothes. It’s not that bad. “I still don’t understand why you won’t let me drive you to school. You’re literally next door.”

“I don’t know,” He answered, rolling his eyes, “Maybe it’s because when it comes to that truck, you are absolutely insane. You won’t even let me drink water in that thing.”

The truck in question, a faded red 1998 Chevrolet S-10, had been your gift to yourself for your 17th birthday. You’d spent two summers saving up to buy yourself a truck, and that was what you were able to get for what you had. To say it was a huge piece of junk on wheels was an understatement. 

The thing smelled like mothballs no matter how many air fresheners you bought it, the engine sounded like an old man having a coughing fit, and there was a very suspicious stain in the backseat that wouldn’t go away no matter how many times you scrubbed it. But for some reason, you treated it like it was your own baby. The amount of times you’d yelled at Jaemin for trying to put his feet on the dashboard was too high to count.

You mirrored his movement, eyes rolling as you sighed. “At least let me drive you home after school today. Maybe you can stay and we can finally watch Blade Runner.”

You’d been trying to get him to watch the film for almost a month now, begging and pleading because you insisted that he’d love it. He offered an awkward stare, before opening his backpack and pulling out a notebook. “Can’t,” He mumbled, “I’m headed into Manhattan. I have my internship afterwards.”

“Oh, yeah,” You said nonchalantly, eyebrows shooting up as you remembered, “Park Industries.” 

He was about to reply when Mrs. Baker, the chemistry teacher, finally entered. She’d been working at SMHS for 30 years and had never, apparently, been nice, if his Aunt Sunny’s stories were anything to go by. However, she had apparently always spoken as if she smoked two packs a day. She was rambling about the importance of making the most of senior year academically, adult responsibilities, college, and whatnot. You and Jeno exchanged glances often throughout the monologue, hoping it would end soon. 

“Enough of that,” She said after what seemed like an eternity, “Everyone quiet down, I’m going to call roll.”

Names were quickly called, and Jeno was ready to pull out a pencil and start working with you until Mrs Baker demanded a switch in seats, beginning to call on random names in an effort to deter everyone from speaking. 

"Please not with Choi, please not with Choi," Jeno muttered under his breath, glancing warily at San, who was staring ahead, looking bored. 

San had had it out for Jeno ever since day one, in first grade. For some reason, everything Jeno did seemed to annoy the other boy. He wasn't funny enough, or too nerdy, or too quiet. Jeno was always too much or too little for him. 

You touched his forearm, and he looked towards you. 

“You’ll be fine,” You said softly, trying not to alert the teacher, “You’re not gonna get paired up with him, and you can take it to the office if you need to.” “Yeah, because I’m sure Coach Peralta would be thrilled if someone tried to get his precious midfielder in trouble.”

“Choi, San,” Mrs Baker’s voice rang throughout the room, and Jeno braced himself for the worst, eyebrows furrowing with worry. 

“You’ll be sitting with… L/N, Y/N.” 

Jeno’s shoulders slumped, but your face remained impassive. You picked up your stuff, and pouted silently at Jeno in apology, before making your way to the front. 

“Lee, Jeno,” Mrs Baker called a few minutes later, “You’ll be sitting with Jang, Yeeun.”

He breathed out a sigh of relief. Yeeun is nice, Jeno thought to himself, I could sit with Yeeun. She wasn’t part of his main friend group, but he had tutored her in math during sophomore year in exchange for her helping him with Spanish, and they’d been pretty friendly ever since. 

“Hey,” Yeeun greeted as Jeno sat down, and Jeno smiled at her. 

“Remember, these will be your assigned lab partners for the rest of the semester. No changes, no exceptions.” Mrs. Baker sat down at her desk, before beginning to talk about something Jeno didn’t really pay attention to.

You exchanged glances with Jeno, and he gave you a look of sympathy as you gestured at San with your eyes. San was talking to you about something—probably bragging about some soccer achievement—but you weren’t paying him much attention. Jeno swallowed something growing in his throat as he looked at how your hair looked today. 

It was nothing relatively new, the same hairstyle you used on most days. But still, there was a bit of a shine to it. He wondered vaguely if you had changed your shampoo, the other day you’d been complaining about how itchy your normal shampoo made your scalp—

“You still haven’t told her about how you feel?” Yeeun asked quietly, and Jeno’s head snapped back to look at her, eyes wide.

“W-what? Me. Like Y/N…” He laughed nervously, trying to keep his voice down. He scratched the back of his head, avoiding Yeeun’s accusatory stare. “You’re hilarious, Yeeun. Tell another one.”

Yeeun shook her head. “You’d better hurry before someone else snatches her up, Jen. She’s not gonna wait around for you forever.”

 “I don’t like her, Yeeun.” 

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“Hey! Jeno Lee!”

“Hey! Jaemin Na! What do you want!” Jeno answered as he sat down, mimicking Jaemin’s tone next to him.

“Well, for starters, a million dollars, and second, a date with Yiren Wang, but I doubt you can help me with either of those, so...”

Jeno glanced at the rest of the table. Along with Jaemin, Mark,  Renjun, Donghyuck, and you were watching the interaction between the pair. “Where are the munchkins?” Jeno asked, noticing Chenle and Jisung’s absence. No one could really call them munchkins anymore. That nickname dated back to middle school, before the two underclassmen had gone through growth spurts.

“Eh, they should be here soon,” Renjun said, chewing on a french fry, “How’s your day been?”

“Pretty good so far, I guess. I got AP Calc with Mr. Washington later, though. That man wants me dead.”

You rolled your eyes. “He doesn’t want you dead. I’m telling you, you and Hyuck have been spending way too much time together. You’re being more dramatic than usual and Hyuck’s being more… weird than usual.”

“And just what is so weird about being enthusiastic about senior year, Y/N?” Donghyuck asked, shaking his head, “It’s our last year in this hellhole, I’m excited that we’re finally getting out of here. And besides—”

“Please don’t bring up the fact that you’re abandoning us next year.” Chenle seemingly appeared out of nowhere, sitting next to Renjun, Jisung following quickly behind him.

“Hi, Sungie,” You said with a smile, and Jisung smiled back. “Hi, Y/N.”

“What were you saying, Hyuck?” Jaemin looked at Donghyuck, who had taken the quick interaction as an opportunity to take a bite of his sandwich. His wide eyes darted to the slim boy, cheeks stuffed with chicken. 

“Oh,” He replied after swallowing, “This is gonna be my year. I’m getting male lead for the winter musical and no one is gonna stop me.”

“Do you even know what musical you guys are doing yet?” Mark asked, “What if it’s like… Shrek?”

Jisung made a face. “There’s a Shrek musical?”

Mark nodded, and Renjun laughed.

“I don’t know about male lead, if it’s Shrek. You should try out for Donkey,” The Chinese boy joked, “With those front teeth, you’re a shoo-in.”

The entire table was silent for a moment, before snorts and chortles started pouring out from everyone except Donghyuck.

“Fuck you, Huang.” 

Renjun flashed the friendliest smile he could muster. “Not if you paid me a million dollars.”

The subject remained on extracurriculars, everyone in your group except for Chenle and Jisung now wary of college applications. Donghyuck had been in theater ever since middle school, Renjun was in the robotics club and the debate team with Jaemin, who was also in the student council. Mark was on the math team with Jeno, and you had founded the film club. 

"You're not gonna believe who asked to sign up for film," You huffed, looking kind of confused. The rest of the table looked at you expectantly, and you pursed your lips, almost as if you were trying not to laugh.

"San Choi."

Renjun scoffed. Jaemin raised his eyebrows before letting out a single, humorless laugh. Jeno made a face, poking his plastic fork at you. 

"What is San Choi doing asking to sign up for film?"

"Fuck if I know. He said he needed one more extracurricular if he wanted to get into some college in Florida and he liked going to the movies, so he wanted to try out film."

Mark rolled his eyes. "I swear there's nothing in that guy's head but hot gas. It blows my mind."

"He's a dick," Chenle grumbled, "I'm still not over how he and Wooyoung taped Jisung to the flagpole last year."

Jisung scowled. "I thought we agreed to never bring that up again."

“Do you think they’ll finally calm the fuck down this year?” Jaemin wondered, looking wistful.

You took a sip of your coke and shook your head. “Doubt it. They’re not the hateful eight for a reason.”

The mood at the table turned tense, until Jaemin frowned at his french fries, before sighing and clapping his hands together dramatically. “I would like to hear,” He mused, “About the nuance that theatre gives the cinematic masterpiece that is Shrek when converted into musical form.”

Donghyuck beamed. “Oh, it’s amazing. You see…”

If it was difficult to get Donghyuck to stop talking in general, it was impossible when it was about theater.

The conversation continued on until the bell rang, and the eight of you had to go your separate ways. Jaemin and Jeno had the same class, so they both walked together down a relatively calm hallway. Jaemin looked both ways, before finally lowering his voice. 

“So, you’re going to see Mr. Park today?”

Jeno nodded, looking down at his shoes. “He said he wanted to give me an assignment. Says there’s something big going on.”

Jaemin’s eyes lit up with curiosity. “Did he say what kind of something?” 

Jeno shook his head, pouting slightly. “I’ll let you know tomorrow.” 

Once school was out, Jeno was getting ready to get onto the subway once again, this time heading towards Midtown. It was only day one and, as Jeno had predicted, Mr. Washington probably was out to get him, because he’d swamped the class with homework.

As he left the school, he spotted you in the parking lot, leaning against your car door, texting someone. He glanced at his phone. He still had plenty of time, he figured. He walked over to you, and when you looked up, you smiled. 

“Hey!” Your voice had that signature tone of enthusiasm to it, and Jeno smiled back immediately. 

“Hello,” He sing-songed. “So, I was thinking… are you free on Friday night?”

You looked somewhere above his head, furrowing your eyebrows before you perked up again and nodded. “Yep! Why?”

“I’m free after nine. Maybe then I could come over to your house? So I can finally get you to stop harassing me about Blade Runner.”

You grinned, pumping your fists enthusiastically. “Hell yes,” You answered, “Do you want me to get like, some frozen pizzas or something?” 

“Pizza sounds good,” He said. “Who are you even waiting for?” 

You made a face that made it seem as if you’d just gotten a whiff of rotten milk. “Well—”

Your response was interrupted when the school doors slammed open, and eight figures poured out, carrying themselves with confidence Jeno both envied and despised. He frowned, trying not to react at their loud whooping and laughing. The Hateful Eight.

“Oh.” Jeno averted his gaze, meeting your eyes again.

“Yeah. If you don’t hear from me later it’s because I jumped out of my truck because I don’t wanna work with—”

“Well, hello, gorgeous!” San’s voice filled the parking lot, and Jeno took a deep breath. Your mouth stretched into a tight-lipped smile at the unwanted ‘compliment’. 

“Hey, San.” Your friendly passive aggressive tone almost made Jeno smile. “I’ve been waiting here for like, fifteen minutes. You could have just given me your number and asked me to send you pictures of my notes, you know.”

He shrugged, turning his body so that his back was turned to Jeno. “Sorry, babe. Coach wanted to talk to us about the upcoming season. When he gets going, it’s hard to get him to stop. And besides, where’s the fun in just asking for pictures when I could come here, talk to you, and take the pictures myself?”

You didn’t respond, but rather pulled out your backpack and began digging through it. When you pulled out your notebook, you handed it to San, who flashed a wink at you. You barely held back a gag. 

“Thanks, Y/N. I’ll just be a minute.” 

He walked over to the hood of your truck, and just as you were about to continue your conversation, two figures slung their arms around both of Jeno’s shoulders, causing him to flinch. 

Out of the fifteen soccer players on the team, San and his best friends—seven of them, to be precise—were the worst. The others were pretty nice. But right now, seeing two of those seven surround your best friend made you uneasy. 

Wooyoung was loud. He was also a temperamental brat. His dad owned three used car dealerships over in Brooklyn, so naturally, he thought he owned the entire world. He wasn’t someone who would get too physical in fights, like San, or Jongho, or Yeosang. But when he was angry, he could easily get you to jump into the stratosphere by yelling at you once. Over the years, he’d made several teaching assistants and substitute teachers cry, only getting let off with a slap on the wrist every time. 

 Yunho was terrifying for completely different reasons. He was friendly, but a little too friendly to the people he wanted to control. He could read people like books and could easily manipulate whoever he wanted. But he wasn’t afraid of getting physical either, especially not when he was built like a goddamn Power Rangers Megazord. 

All in all, they definitely weren't anyone you wanted near you, near your friends. Especially considering how much they had it out for your friends. 

"Hey, buddy," Yunho said, looking down at Jeno with a wide smile. "How was summer vacation?"

Jeno gnawed on the side of his cheek as he considered his answer. "Um, it was okay." He looked at you to catch your eyes darting between San, Yunho and Wooyoung, like you were analyzing the situation. "I kinda stayed in and played video games most of the t—"

"Cool, cool," Yunho answered, carding his free hand through his bleach blond hair. "What about you, Woo?"

"Oh, dude, it was so cool," He bragged, "I went to Brazil for like, a month. I went clubbing with Instagram models and shit, it was wild."

You stared at him as he patted Jeno on the back rather aggressively. "Where did you go? Have you ever even left New York?" 

You knew the answer. Only a few times when the debate team went to compete in different states. Jeno spoke up again. "Well, yeah a few t—"

"Doubt it," Yunho scoffed. He craned his head back. "San, you done yet?"

"Almost!" San answered. Yunho turned to face you, and for some reason his smile seemed genuinely kind. “What about you, Y/N?”

You never understood why it was that the soccer team hated your entire friend group, but seemed to tolerate you. It made no sense.

So you shrugged. “Not a lot, I guess. Did my summer reading. Hung out with my friends.” You flashed a reassuring smile at Jeno. “Right, Jen?”

Immediately, he relaxed a little bit. “Yeah.”

San appeared from behind Yunho, Jeno and Wooyoung. “Thanks, Y/N. I owe you one.”

You waved your hand, wanting them to get rid of them quickly. “Don’t mention it. But next time, just text me for my notes. I have to get to work, so…”

“Oh! My bad,” He answered with fake remorse, before unlocking his phone and handing it over to you. “Here. For next time.”

You stifled a deep sigh, punching in the numbers hesitantly. “Just for homework, got it?”

San took his phone back, holding a hand over his heart and raised his head. “On a gentleman's honor,” He declared, and you bit back a laugh. Jeno looked like he was going to hurl.

“San!” The team captain—Hongjoong—called from a few feet away, “Are you guys done yet or what?”

“Coming!” San yelled back.

“Alright, we’ll let you go,” Wooyoung said, patting Jeno on the back again, a bit too harsh for comfort. “Bye, Y/N! See you around.”

 The three of them stalked off, leaving you and a very frazzled Jeno. “Dicks,” You muttered once they were out of earshot. “You good?”

Jeno shook his head, waving his hand dismissively. “I’ll be fine.”

You tilted your head, frowning. “Jeno—”

“I gotta go,” He said quickly. “I’ll see you later?”

You nodded, offering a lopsided smile. “Yeah. Be careful!” 

Jeno offered a deep bow, fluttering his eyelashes. “On a gentleman’s honor,” He sighed, adding a very bad British accent to it. You burst out laughing, eyes squeezing shut.

You didn’t catch the way Jeno’s shoulders relaxed at the sound.

I want you to know now

Baby, it could go down

I don’t wanna talk about it

Baby, let’s just go now

The train ride into Midtown didn’t take too long. He spent it digging through his backpack for his Park Industries lanyard, listening to music and thinking about you.

When you talk right to me 

You gon’ have to do me

Every time you think you’re leaving 

You running back to me

You’d met Jeno when you were six. Truth be told, he didn’t really remember. For him it was like you weren’t there at one point and by the time you were, you were thicker than thieves. It was a difficult time for him. He had just lost both of his parents, and was moving in with his Aunt Sunny and his Uncle Jinki, who were barely out of college at the time. He’d had to move to a new school and basically restart his entire life. You were the first sense of stability in his life for months. 

Your mom lived next to his aunt and uncle. So naturally, you went to the same school and went on the same bus. And somewhere along the way, you two clicked. You’d introduced him to Renjun, Jaemin and Donghyuck. You were there to comfort him whenever he got pushed off the slide by San or Wooyoung. 

He was there for you when your stepdad and stepbrother moved in when you were nine and you weren’t sure how to deal with it. He was there when your mom died when you were thirteen. He’d introduced you and your friends to Mark, Chenle and Jisung. 

And you were there when his Uncle Jinki got killed when he was fifteen. And because fate had an especially cruel sense of irony, it had happened on a Tuesday. You didn’t know, but at the time, he had just gotten his powers. Your comfort and words unknowingly had a secondary effect: he made the decision to use them for good, and… well. The rest was history. 

Can we just talk? Can we just talk?

Talk about where we're goin'

Before we get lost, lend me your thoughts

Can't get what we want without knowin'

Just like when he met you, he didn’t recall an exact moment where he realized he’d fallen in love with you. He knew there was a world where he loved you, but wasn’t in love with you. And he knew that there was a world here he’d fallen in love with you—he was living in that world now. He realized he was living in that world maybe when he was sixteen, and had been stuck in it ever since. 

You were it for him. He’d had crushes before. But never something like this, where he was so aware of your presence around him. It wasn’t the way he was hyper aware of someone like San, or like Yunho or Jongho. It wasn’t out of anxiety or fear, where a shift in mood activated his fight or flight. He was aware of you in a way that only people who truly know each other do, where he could pick up on subtle changes in your behavior, but not out of fear. Rather, out of a desire to take care of you and to not have you worry about anything. 

I've never felt like this before

I apologize if I'm movin' too far

Can we just talk? Can we just talk?

Figure out where we're goin'...

As the train rolled into the station that was a fifteen minute walk from Park Tower, Jeno put away his headphones and took a deep breath.

The “Jeno Tingle” as his Aunt Sunny called it—Jeno hated the term—had taken him a few years to gain control of. And while he could never truly turn it off, he could at least tune it out enough to be more at ease. The only time he did so was at school or when he was studying, just because he wanted to feel normal, and because being aware of everything going on around him really messed with his concentration. 

Jaemin didn’t understand. “If I was able to tell whenever Seonghwa was behind me because he wanted to scare me into doing his chemistry homework, I’d never turn that shit off,” He’d said once. But truthfully, Jeno didn’t really care. Because while yes, he was still slightly scared of the “hateful eight”, he knew damn well that if things got to be too much, he could kick their asses if he wanted to. 

It was his friends he worried about. He couldn’t be around them 24/7. You, not so much. He knew you knew how to fight. Even worse, he knew that San had the hots for you so you were off limits to the rest of them, be it bullying or flirting. But for everyone else… Well. He couldn’t hover over them like some guardian angel. 

Now that the “Jeno Tingle” was on, it allowed him to sense everyone within a certain range around him. He could zero in on certain sounds with ease, and his reflexes became heightened. Halfway on his walk up Park Avenue, he jumped away from a chihuahua on its leash a second before it started barking at him.

When he entered the first floor lobby of the Park Building, he scoured the crowd of employees and visitors until he landed on one familiar face. 

He'd met Doyoung about a year after his dad started dating your mom. Things between your parents were starting to get serious, and Doyoung was four years older than you were. When they moved into your house, Doyoung as your new stepbrother became the de facto chaperone and babysitter. If you wanted to go to the mall with Jeno, he had to take you. Every time you dragged Jeno to the movies, Doyoung had to go also. 

To an extent, it wasn't that bad. Doyoung was cool, and he was smart—he was the one who got Jeno interested in computers and chemistry. He graduated high school at 16, and finished his bachelor's degree at 19. He'd also interned at Park Industries, and secured a job there almost immediately after college. 

To an extent, he was the whole reason Mr. Park knew who he was, because of one incident. It was relatively soon after he started the whole vigilante thing. Jeno, still figuring out how to maneuver on the webs that shot out of his wrists, had accidentally crashed into your backyard late at night, when only Doyoung was awake. He was standing in the back door while he was waiting for his dog to finish peeing. 

Initially, the older boy had freaked out, thinking that it was a burglar or something. When he yelled out that his dad was a cop and was asleep in the house, Jeno panicked, and pulled off his mask, holding up his hands.

“Woah, woahwoahwoah! Doyoung! It’s me, it’s me!” 

Doyoung’s eyes had widened to the size of saucers, paying no mind to the dog as it sauntered up to Jeno, before turning onto its back in a request for belly rubs.

"You're the spider guy everyone's been talking about!?"

"Spider man," Jeno had answered, voice cracking as he dusted himself off. He cringed at the sound of his voice. "...and yes."

Of course, his cover was blown, and he'd begged Doyoung not to tell anyone, especially not you. And while Doyoung had promised not to tell you, it didn't stop him from telling his boss. 

That had been almost three years ago now. The rest was history, and after that Jeno didn’t have to run around in bright red sweatpants and dollar store swimming goggles. Now, he had a nanotech suit that allowed him to activate protocols of the suit through voice commands using something top-secret Mr. Park called D.R.E.A.M technology. Direct Response Engaged As Machine—yeah, Jeno didn’t get it either. 

Doyoung offered Jeno a smile as he escorted Jeno past security, showing them his employee clearance pass. "Hey. How have you been?"

Jeno shrugged, recounting his day in minor detail as he was led into an elevator labeled authorized personnel only. 

This elevator only went up to the 35th floor, seeing as everything past that was only cleared for a certain list of people approved by Mr. Park and his security team, and everything past the 90th floor were Mr. Park's private living quarters. 

Now, as Doyoung led him to another elevator to head up to the 85th floor, which was always where Jeno got to meet with Mr. Park—which wasn't often, maybe once or twice a year—he wondered where he would be if he hadn’t surprised Doyoung that night. He would probably still be using those ugly red sweatpants as part of his disguise.

"How's Y/N?" Doyoung asked. 

"Oh, she seems okay. That guy who hates me keeps coming onto her though. He's a huge douchebag."

Doyoung frowned. "He's not harassing her, is he? Because if he is—"

"He just won't stop flirting, even though she clearly isn't interested," Jeno said bitterly, "He isn't physical or anything. Trust me, it wouldn't end well for him if he was."

Doyoung wasn't quite sure how to respond to the younger boy's dark tone. He looked down, clearing his throat awkwardly.

“So… how’s the apartment?” Jeno asked. Doyoung perked up instantly.

“Oh, now that Taeyong’s moved in and did his interior design thing, it looks great. He’s really done a great job at it.”

“When am I gonna meet this guy? He sounds cool.”

“He’s really cool,” Doyoung hummed, cheeks heating up. “Things are getting really serious.”

Jeno smiled at how flustered Doyoung, who was normally so level headed and calm, became at the mention of his boyfriend.

“You guys sound like a really good couple,” He said. Doyoung chuckled, waving his hand. “Oh, well—” 

 The elevator dinged, and Doyoung sighed. “I’ll tell you later. C’mon.”

The hallway it opened up to was lined with pictures of the company's history, starting from pictures of black and white of people in vintage clothing, to pictures in sepia tones to finally pictures of the current CEO at locations around the world: Chanyeol Park.

Jeno walked behind Doyoung as he led him down the hallway, before stopping in front of a door, and a friendly looking man in a suit. 

Junmyeon was a part of Chanyeol’s Security and Intelligence team, and often sat in on these meetings with Jeno. The chain of contact also included him. If Jeno couldn’t contact Doyoung (which rarely happened), he’d contact Junmyeon. And if he couldn’t contact either of them, or it was an emergency, only then could he contact Chanyeol. So far, that had only happened once.

"Hey, Junmyeon," Doyoung said, "Mr. Park's 4:30 is here." 

Junmyeon nodded, before smiling at Jeno and giving him a wave. "Hey, kid."

Jeno offered an awkward grin. "Hi, Mr. Kim."

Junmyeon rolled his eyes sarcastically. "Kid, you're making me feel ancient. I've told you a million times, just call me Junmyeon."

Jeno shuffled awkwardly, before nodding at the older man, watching as he pressed a button on his earpiece. "Hey, Yeol. Jeno's here."

The muffled response was barely heard, but Jeno automatically understood what Mr. Park said. Junmyeon turned to open the door, and let the pair inside. The “office”—if it could even be called that—opened up to more of a lounge, than anything. A wall of glass overlooked the Manhattan skyline, but Jeno knew that from the outside it looked only like a wall, due to camouflage technology developed by Mr. Park himself. As Doyoung and Junmyeon stayed back, closer to the door, Jeno took a few steps toward the man in question.

Chanyeol was standing a few feet in front of the glass window, working on a holographic model of a new piece of tech. His face was turned downward in a concentrated frown. He barely spared the teenager a glance as he said fondly, “Hey, kid.”

Jeno was used to this. Chanyeol wasn’t cold per se, but he wasn’t warm at all. He knew that Chanyeol cared about him, even if he didn’t really show it in a conventional way. Chanyeol was a very… eccentric man, so he had his own way of saying and doing things. 

“Hi, Mr. Park. Um… you wanted to talk to me?”

“Yep! Needed some help from the friendly neighborhood Spiderman… A little birdie told me about something going on in Queens.”

“Queens?” Jeno asked, gripping the straps of his backpack. “You mean, other than the usual stuff?”

“Other than the usual stuff,” Chanyeol repeated, nodding. With a wave of his hand, the hologram disappeared, and another one appeared in its place. This time, instead of a 3D model, a few pictures and another, smaller 3D model appeared. Chanyeol turned to face him, frown deepening. He pointed at the model—a long, shiny oval-shaped purple stone. It reminded Jeno of an amethyst, but instead of turning white at the base, it turned to an iridescent jade tone. “You know what this is, right?”

Jeno nodded, remembering seeing the rocks all over the news when he was a kid. “That’s… that’s a Chitauri stone. From the invasion a few years back.”

Chanyeol nodded, standing up straight. “These stones have the potential to power weapons with no need to recharge, or change them out. They’re an infinite, extremely strong power source, Jeno, and in the wrong hands can be very dangerous.”

Jeno took a deep breath, feeling his stomach sink slowly. Chanyeol sighed. “Cleanup of the city after the invasion was long, and difficult, and obviously the government and the company weren’t able to get everything. It caused a black market to pop up. Now, the NYPD has been investigating it for years, but they have their limits… that’s where you come in.”

“M-me, Mr. Park?”

Chanyeol gave him a crooked, reassuring smile. He pointed at one of the pictures, which was of a man who most likely didn’t know he was photographed. He was walking somewhere, face looking angry and stern.

“You don’t know who this is, right?”

Jeno shook his head, and Chanyeol turned his head to nod at Junmyeon. “You’re up, tough guy.”

Junmyeon huffed, before walking up to Jeno. He put his hand on Jeno’s shoulder as if he could tell that he was growing anxious. 

“Jeno, that’s Henry Duke. From what we understand on the intel team, he’s one of the cornerstones of the alien tech black market. He’s one of the top dogs. From what we understand, he likes to be present for all major negotiations that his group makes. A source of ours told us that there’s going to be a negotiation on Friday night not too far away from LaGuardia. We want you to go out there and just get a feel of what’s going on.”

“Just watch them, right?” Jeno looked at Junmyeon, who patted his back reassuringly. “Just watch. Don’t engage unless you absolutely have to.”

“You can do that, right?” Chanyeol said quietly, crossing his arms. “Because if not, then it’s totally—”

“Yeah, of course I can! Friday—shit, Friday. At what time are they supposed to be meeting up?”

Junmyeon furrowed his eyebrows, before answering, “Around eight or nine.”

Jeno bit his lip, thinking about the promise he’d made to you. It would just have to wait, he supposed. Chanyeol rarely asked anything this big of him.

“Alright,” Jeno agreed, “I’ll do it.”

Chanyeol grinned, clapping his hands together. 

“Perfect.” 

They discussed logistics briefly after. Doyoung would be on call with Jeno, his custom made suit allowing them to communicate, letting Doyoung see everything Jeno was seeing via a video feed coming from the ultra thin lenses placed in the white eye sockets of the mask. Doyoung would then report to Junmyeon, who would report to Chanyeol, who would probably report to the FBI. Jeno was only to engage if absolutely necessary.

After that, he set out on patrol. He usually found some discreet place to hide his backpack, and then went all over Queens looking for trouble, quite literally. Around five thirty, he stopped a robbery in Murray Hill. Then, around seven, he stopped a man from stealing a woman’s purse in Elmhurst. Nothing too much.

Around eight, he finally headed home, this time dressed normally, using the train and not web fluid. He walked home, tired, knowing that he’d immediately have to do that cursed AP calc homework. When he got home, he opened his backpack pocket to look for his keys, rummaging between his notebooks and other things. 

Shuffling through his stuff, he furrowed his eyebrows as he couldn’t find them. Thinking back, he remembered this morning, when he’d left in a rush… and had very obviously left his keys on his desk.

“Shit,” He muttered to himself. He rubbed his eyes tiredly, remembering that Aunt Sunny had said she’d be working overtime tonight. He could very easily sneak in through his window, but he was pretty sure he’d locked it the night before, and it was too early. People’s lights were still on—anyone could see him if they just looked up, and then he would be screwed. 

Huffing and zipping his backpack up, he marched up to your house, before ringing the doorbell. He shifted his weight back and forth, from his heels to the balls of his feet, until the door opened up. A familiar man with a face just like Doyoung's, but older, with graying hair and arms scarred and muscled from years of working on the police force stood in the doorway.

“Jeno?” Your dad offered him a warm smile. “Hey, kiddo, what’s up?”

“Hi, Mr. Kim,” Jeno said, smiling back. He shifted nervously. “I, um… I left my keys in my room this morning, and my aunt’s working late, so… could I… maybe wait here? Y/N’s home, right?” 

The man nodded. “Of course, of course. Come in!” 

Your dad had always been super friendly, even from the day Jeno had first met him. You'd told Jeno once that he was the only real father figure you'd ever had. Once everything settled after him and your mom got married, you started calling him dad altogether. And since you and Jeno were practically glued at the hip, he got along with your dad almost as well as you did.

“Okay.” Jeno stepped in and set down his backpack at the base of the coat rack next to the door, as he’d done a million times before. Jeno stepped into the living room, and sat down on the couch. He folded his hands in his lap and looked up at your dad.

"I think Y/N's in the shower, but she should be done soon. You can just wait here if you want… have you eaten anything yet?”

“Uh, I had a granola bar on the train, but that’s it.”

“We have some leftover pasta here, if you want—”

“Thanks, Mr. Kim, really! I’m fine.”

Your dad nodded, sitting down on his recliner. “So, have you started your college list, yet? Y/N said you wanted to stay here in New York.”

Jeno nodded, pushing some hair out of his face. “Well, yeah. It would make things a lot easier, I think. I might want to apply to NYU, but I think I’ll just go to community college, or something.”

Your dad shook his head. “You’re a pretty smart kid, Jeno. I think you could get into Columbia if you set out to. Plus, Chanyeol Park doesn’t give out internships to anybody. That’s your secret weapon.”

Jeno smiled. “Well, you’ve got a point.” 

Your dad gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder. “Come on, trying won’t hurt!” Your dad made a face, and then rubbed his knuckles. “Have you been working out? Those muscles weren’t there the last time I did that.”

Jeno laughed, trying to think of an excuse. “Oh, a little bit? The house needed some fixing up over the summer, and I wanted to help Aunt Sunny, so…”

“Jeno?” 

He turned immediately, eyes landing on you at the base of the staircase. You’d changed into an old t-shirt and pajama pants. Your hair was slightly damp. “What are you doing here?” You asked, with a curious smile.

His shoulders slumped, and he grinned sheepishly. “Terrible Tuesday strikes again. I forgot my keys.”

You grimaced. “Brutal, dude. You wanna come up?” Your eyes moved to your dad. “Or am I interrupting guy time?”

“Oh, definitely,” Jeno answered, playing along. He took a cocky tone as he rested his hands on the back of his neck. “Your dad was just telling me about how much the NYPD needs me.” 

You stifled a laugh. You dad seemed to be holding back a laugh too. "Hey, you're joking, but if you keep working out like that, and if by some impossible chance, the college thing doesn't work out… We might just be able to catch Spiderman if we finally got some brain cells on the force."

"Ugh, dad," You groaned, unaware of Jeno's gut twisting, "Not again."

"Yeah, Mr. Kim," Jeno said, scratching the back of his head, "He's not that bad."

Your dad shook his head. "Look, I don't hate the guy. In all honesty, crime rates have dropped since he started doing his thing. But he thinks he's above the law, and his methods can be a bit… unorthodox sometimes. He’s been undermining us for years and his tech is state of the art. Makes me wonder about what we should do to modernize the force."

Jeno looked downward, wondering what would happen if your dad knew the truth.

"Well, I guess we may just never find out. Jeno'd make a horrible cop. He couldn't hurt a fly if you paid him a million dollars."

But you came to the rescue as you grabbed his backpack, and soon enough he was up the stairs with you, heading into your bedroom, laughing to yourselves when you heard your dad jokingly call out, "Fifteen inch distance, you two! Door stays open!"

He sat on your desk chair while you lay on your bed, limbs splaying out. 

"So you left your keys."

Jeno groaned. "Don't remind me. I was in such a rush to leave, that I… I forgot. I'm so stupid."

You rolled your eyes, rolling over onto your stomach to look at him. "You're not stupid, Jen. You made an honest mistake because you were in a hurry." 

Standing up, you walked over to him and leaned against the desk. "Seriously, Jeno. What's gotten into you, lately? You freak out about every little thing. It's starting to worry me." 

Jeno shook his head. "I don't know," He admitted. "I think I'm just scared about how after this year, everything changes. Renjun’s headed upstate. Jaemin’s going to Boston. You want to go to LA. I think Hyuck and I are the only ones who want to stay here. I just… I don't want things to change." 

Your expression turned sad as he continued. "Everyone is expecting great things from me. You're smart, Jeno. You can get into an Ivy. Or, you have a Park internship, you'll be fine. What if I don't want things to be fine? What if I want them to just stay the same?"

You stayed silent for a few moments, trying to think of what to say. Jeno was relatively level headed for someone your age, but even he had moments of doubt and panic. It made moments like these difficult.  You sighed before grabbing him by the hand. Wordlessly, you tugged him over to the bed, sitting him down and leaning your head on his shoulder. He could feel the dampness in your hair seeping slowly into his shirt.

"I guess I understand what you mean," You mumbled, trying to reason with him, "But come on. You wouldn't really want everything to stay the same. You can't tell me you want to keep getting AP calc homework. And I definitely doubt that you'd want to have your ass kicked by San for the rest of your life."

Jeno looked at the floor. "You're right. But you know that's not what I mean—"

"I know," You huffed, "I'm just saying. Change… it's inevitable. The longer you fight it, the harder it is."

Jeno nodded. "This sucks."

"It does," You agreed, taking his hand in yours. "But at least we have each other's backs, y'know?"

Something of a smile appeared on his face. You were so close to him, leaning on him, stroking his knuckles with your thumb. He hoped you couldn't hear his heart pounding in his chest. 

"We really do, huh?" His voice turned quiet, with a bit of a sleepy lull to it. He allowed his head to rest on yours. "You're so comfortable. Can I like, use you as a pillow for the rest of my life?"

You giggled. "I'll consider it on two conditions."

"Oh, you'll consider. How generous of you."

"Yes, I'll consider. Now, do you wanna hear my terms or not?" 

Jeno raised an eyebrow. "Go ahead," He said, before putting on his best Marlon Brando voice, "Make me an offer I can't refuse."

Snorting, you lifted your head off of his. "Okay. One, you finish your calculus homework here before Sunny gets home."

He pursed his lips. "Okay, I could probably do that. What's the other one?"

"Let me drive you to school for the rest of the year." 

Jeno stared at you, and you nodded, eyes wide. "Trust me, Jen. You wouldn't need to wake up so early! And plus, you can't text the guy manning the subway asking him to give you five minutes because you need to find your keys."

Jeno gnawed on the inside of his cheek. You did have a point, and to be honest, he could probably refrain from putting his feet up on your dashboard.

"Deal." 

You grinned. "Awesome," You answered, before nodding towards his backpack. "Now get to work, Einstein."

The rest of the week wasn't that bad. Yes, you were absolutely batshit insane about your truck in the morning, but he soon realized he didn't really mind. Not when it allowed you both to spend some twenty extra minutes together in the mornings, and they were spent joking around and listening to your extremely varied playlist. 

On the other hand, he was saddled with more and more homework, greater and greater expectations. The looming threat of Friday's mission rolled around, and it made Jeno feel like time was passing much too slowly but also way too quickly. There was so much on his mind. He had chemistry with you on Thursdays in the afternoon, which also meant that San was there. Which also meant that sometimes, his heightened senses would pick up on San dropping a tacky pick up line which made Jeno want to punch him in the jaw.

Finally, finally, Friday afternoon rolled around. As he bid you goodbye and promised to see you later, he tried to ignore the feeling in his stomach. The feeling that something was about to go very, very wrong. He went out on patrol, ready for Doyoung to set up the call and tell him where he needed to go. It didn’t help that there wasn’t a lot for him to do that day. Crime had seemed to slow down altogether. 

When the time finally came, and the sun was beginning to set, Doyoung rang in at about 7, telling him the location. An old warehouse near LaGuardia airport, hidden from prying eyes. Jeno made his way to the place, avoiding security cameras Doyoung warned him about, and found a place to hide. There was a hole in the warehouse roof, which allowed him to peer right into the building without being seen. It was about thirty feet from the ground.

“Why is it always old, abandoned warehouses?” Jeno grumbled. He heard Doyoung laugh quietly. 

“Beats me,” Doyoung sighed. 

And so they waited. Jeno wondered vaguely if you were still working. He wasn’t sure. They made time talking quietly, until a black SUV rolled into the warehouse. “Woah, Doyoung,” He murmured, “Hold up.”

Jeno leaned forward, but quickly realized he probably wouldn’t be able to hear what was being said. “D.R.E.A.M, activate Heightened Intelligence Protocol.”

Activating Heightened Intelligence Protocol.

The protocol allowed Jeno to use the lenses over his eyes to zoom in on specific targets, as well as use a microphone embedded in the suit to pick up audio from far away and feed it directly into his ears.

He watched as three figures got out of the car, a fourth remaining in the driver’s seat. The trio stood in front of the car, and Jeno recognized the man in the middle as the man Junmyeon had been talking about.

“Alright, there’s Henry Duke,” He said, “The one in the middle.”

 “Got it,” Doyoung replied, sounding satisfied. “Now all we have to do is wait for the other party.”

“Did Junmyeon’s sources say anything about who it would be?”

“No. They weren’t able to find that out. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Jeno’s eyes never left the man. “Do you think it’s something international?”

Doyoung sighed. “I’m not sure. If it is international, then you need to be even more careful.”

“Got it. I think—Wait, here they come.” 

A second vehicle, this one another black SUV, rolled up not too far away from the first car. The lights turned off and the engine sputtered to a stop, and four men stepped out of the vehicle.

Jeno’s stomach dropped, and of its own accord, his mouth let loose a quiet, “What the fuck,” as he registered the person leading them. 

“What?” Doyoung asked, before realizing what—who—he was looking at. “...Is that my dad?”

“I think it is,” Jeno whispered, fingertips suddenly numb. Who was he kidding? They both knew who it was. 

“So,” One of the men next to your dad said, “You show us yours, we’ll show you ours?”

Henry Duke clapped his hands together with an impish grin. “I suppose. Reagan, get the case.”

One of the two men standing beside him started off toward the trunk of the car. “It caught me off guard when I heard that the force wanted to purchase these. Almost made me wonder if this was your attempt at a sting operation.”

“What made you change your mind?” Your dad asked. Jeno swallowed at how cold he sounded. This wasn’t your dad, and it didn’t seem like Officer Kim either. This was someone Jeno had never met before. 

“Honestly, Kim?” Duke raised an eyebrow, shrugging. “It was you. Your cooperativeness and willing to feed us information, as well as your… insurance agreement. And besides, you made a very interesting point when you said that the Avengers Initiative and Park’s alum Spiderman is ruining the way the law operates around here. That type of bitterness… hard to fake.”

Your dad huffed. “We’re fucking tired of it.”

The man leaning against the car your dad had stepped out of scoffed. “If this helps us catch the little asshole, then so be it.”

Jeno frowned. “I’m not little—”

“Jeno, shut up!” Doyoung snapped. 

“—Alright, then.” The man holding the briefcase—Reagan—clicked it open, as if it were a prize reveal on The Price is Right. Five guns, all modified to hold glowing Chitauri stones were placed carefully together side by side.

“You know the basics. No radiation. Keep it away from security scanners and x-rays. They will blow up. And second of all, these are at half the price, along with the promise from the chief of police that my business won’t be touched, and will only be distributed to officers in on the operation and have agreed to turn off their body cameras when they decide to use these weapons. Should this not be a sting operation, we’ll be back here to negotiate.”

Jeno leaned forward, watching anxiously.

“Yes, sir,” Your dad answered, nodding. “We have the money here.”

“Hand it over, then.”

That was when Jeno made his mistake. He leaned forward too much, and proceeded to fall right through the hole, bringing down some scraps of the roof with him. As he tumbled through the air, the zoom on his lenses caused him to grow dizzy as he had no idea what he was looking at. He caught himself before he could fall, clumsily commanding D.R.E.A.M to go back to turn off the current protocol. His vision returned to normal, and he swung up onto a rafter holding the warehouse up.

“So, we have company.” Duke didn’t sound as amused as he had before. His face turned into a sneer. “Get him.”

In less than a second, before Jeno could say anything, five guns were pointed directly at him. He managed to swing away before any bullets could hit him. 

“Jeno, get out of there now,” Doyoung ordered. 

“What about the guns?” Jeno asked, swinging to another rafter. “They know I’m here, I might as well get them before I go—”

“No! Jeno, listen to what I’m telling you. You’ve done more than enough, and you need to let it g—”

Your dad aimed, and a bullet fired right at Jeno’s chest. For a second, he forgot that the chest area of the suit was lined with bulletproof material. While it didn’t shoot into his chest, it ricocheted right off him, and since he was in motion, it somehow caused the bullet to bounce back in the direction in which it came. 

The wind was knocked out of Jeno, but it was nothing compared to watching the bullet land in the middle of your father’s chest. On the other line, he heard Doyoung yell, followed by the sound of something falling. And then, as he made his way back towards the hole he’d fallen out of, he couldn’t rip his eyes away from the body as it crumpled to the ground. 

The others around him scrambled to get back into their respective cars. Jeno was back on the roof now, trying not to hyperventilate. “I’m sorry,” He gasped, “Do—Doyoung, I-I’m sorry, I didn’t want to—”

“Jeno, you need to get out of there, now,” Doyoung said, voice raspy. “GO!” 

So he did, and Doyoung cut off the call once he was out of the vicinity. Jeno didn’t blame him. He swung across buildings, feeling numb as he looked for the apartment complex roof where he’d decided to hide his backpack.

When he finally did, he changed in a hurry, before slumping against the wall and forcing himself to take deep breaths. 

Doyoung’s dad—your dad—was dead. And it was all his fault. 

He cried on the way down the staircase. He cried on his way to the subway. The entire time, he ignored people’s stares. Suddenly everything was too loud, and if he met someone in the eyes he’d just about break down in the middle of the station. 

As he got onto the train, Jeno thought about all of the things your dad had done for you, and for Jeno. All the times he'd taken you both to Coney Island in the summer when you were younger. The year Pokemon Go came out he took the both of you driving around in his car so you and Jeno could catch as many Pokemon as you could. 

He’d formally adopted you when you were thirteen. You were his daughter in nearly every sense of the word, regardless of blood. And now he was dead, because of a stupid mistake that Jeno had made.

What would you say if you knew? He didn’t want to know. Checking the time on his phone, he saw he’d gotten a message from you just three minutes ago.

[8:36 PM]

y/n: lemme know when ur outside!! :)

“Fuck,” He murmured, wiping his eyes. He knew he needed to stop crying before he got to your house, and he had about ten minutes before he got to his stop, and then another five minute walk to the neighborhood. He focused on taking deep breaths and taking long swigs from his water bottle in the meantime, trying to tune out the sound of other people talking and the sound of the train on the rails.

The walk was the longest five minute walk he’d ever taken. The flashing lights of convenience stores did nothing to calm him down. As the stores in his peripheral vision began transitioning into suburban homes, he felt his heart speed up again. The constant movement as he walked meant he missed his phone vibrating in his backpack as you rang his number.

After what seemed like an eternity, two familiar houses came into his line of vision, and his shoulders slumped as he spotted you on your porch, looking small and teary, curled up into a little ball. In one hand, you were clutching your phone.

His stomach twisted as he put on a confused tone, even though he knew damn well that you knew. “...Y/N?”

You stood up, running to him and burying yourself into his chest, crumpling into his arms. You would have fell over if Jeno hadn’t held both of you up. 

“Jeno,” You sobbed, “You’re n-not go-onna believe it.”

He brought a hand up to caress your hair, holding back tears of his own as he asked a question he already knew the answer to.

“Y/N, what happened?”

taglist: @decembermoonskz @itsapapisongo @lenaluvs​ @crescentjen​

[softluci]

talking to myself

[to begin, i wanna give a TW for mentions of m/rder, as well as s/icide and s/icidal jokes and thoughts; i know that i personally make a lot of jokes like these and so do a lot of my friends and people in general, but i also know that this can be really triggering for a lot of people, so if you are one of those people, this is not the post for you. take care of yourselves.] 

i’m, like, 100% sure that this is something associated with younger people, but in case it isn’t, i’ll just talk about myself. so, i talk to myself a lot. like, a lot. even more than i used to now that i’m alone a lot of the time. and the things that i say (and my friends also say), while they have no basis in reality, they are thoroughly unhinged. and i know that. but! i also find it incredibly funny and i wanted to do a set of headcanons for an mc who talks to themselves like that. some examples of things i say, some of which are things i picked up from my friends, include: 

“you’re sick” (/neg) “this is deranged” “the derangement” “i am insane” “i can’t take it anymore” [sobbing] “this is getting annoying, i need a fucking gun.” “i’m gonna kill myself and ruin everyone’s day.” “and it’s like, why, you know?”  “i’m gonna start killing people” “oh my god, i’m totally buggin” “get the FUCK—” “every day, i am provoked to rage” [unprovoked, uncontrollable laughter] “this reality...it wants me to be a murderer.” “i will kill.” “i don’t wanna” “it’s an illness that you have” “i would kill myself in front of you and permanently alter the trajectory of your life.” “it is time for the immense power of violence.” “don’t make me get violent~” “okay so just die then.” “i’m gonna rip you apart with my teeth.” “i’ll just die, that’s fine.”  and so on, and so forth. 

this is kinda long, but whatever, mc is gn, let’s have fun.

lucifer 

lucifer liked to think that he’d gotten used to you and your tendency to speak with little to no thought. he didn’t love this about you, but he certainly learned to expect it as the days went by. what he didn’t know, however, was that you talked to yourself. his guess was that you’d been refraining from doing so around him, as there was literally no other explanation for what had just happened to his state of being.

he was on his way to the kitchen, just to get some coffee before heading back to his office, when he heard something hit the floor. it didn’t sound like anything broke, so he wasn’t too concerned, but, nevertheless, he quickened his pace. 

he was not prepared for what you said, nor the venom you said it with, as he heard—

“this reality...it wants me to be a murderer, an instrument of evil...fine.”

you definitely weren’t expecting him to approach you as quickly as he did and grab your chin the way he did, but he was making sure you weren’t possessed. upon finding out that, no, you weren’t possessed, you’d just dropped a spoon, he took about seventeen points of psychic damage. 

mc, he is old and tired and he’s not used to this new flavor of humans who like to say the most deranged things they can think of whenever they’re slightly inconvenienced. you are shaving decades off of his life. he can’t tell you to refrain from doing that because you have been, so he is going to take it upon himself to try and make your life easier whenever he can. hopefully it’ll work, and you won’t be moved to unhinge yourself from your sanity the next time you make a small mistake. 

mammon

mammon is around you often enough to know that you talk to yourself every now and again. nothing too out of the ordinary, maybe some comments about the homework you were working on or whatever you were doing on your d.d.d. he was also around you often enough to know that the things you said weren’t always well thought-out, or thought-out at all. he wasn’t judging, he had no place to, he knew that, but—you know, he can’t say he was prepared for this. 

he was on his way to your room, as per usual, when, as he got to your doorway, you were overcome by something vile and you said, “i will kill.”

he has never burst into your room faster. he’s in your face, he’s yelling, his hands are on your shoulders, he’s this close to thrashing you around in hopes that whatever evil crawled inside of you while he wasn’t looking will come flying out—

what...did you say? you made a mistake on your homework? you made a mistake on your homework and your next course of action was to make anyone in a 300 foot radius think you’re possessed? you’re more boneheaded than he thought, and you should feel ashamed at this moment because this is the resident bonehead speaking. moving on, though. 

how can he make you into a happier person overall so that this doesn’t happen? if you don’t know, he’ll just attach himself to your hip so he can find out. congratulations, he’s never leaving you alone.

levi

levi is no stranger to saying things he doesn’t mean in moments of stress—this is just what happens when a person spends a lot of time playing games online. he’s said some pretty off-color things during matches, strings of curses, and the like, but he has never said, nor heard anything like what just left your mouth.

“i’m gonna start killing people.”

at first, he didn’t really react, giving you a quick glance and asking, “in the game, right?”

upon being met with silence, he looked to see you gripping your controller too tightly to actually use it, and asked again, “in the game, right?”

you blinked, apparently freed from whatever rage induced trance you slipped into, and turned towards him, “did you say something?”

he blinked at you once, twice, like the gears in his head were turning, and then—hysteria. 

he has you pinned to the floor with your wrists above your head, horns protruding from his scalp, and he is screaming—who are you, what have you done with mc, tell him your name before he summons lotan, leave his friend alone, and so on and so forth. he was interrogating you before you could even process the situation enough to feel fear. 

once he got over the bulk of his panic, he heard you screaming back at him, telling him it was you, you weren’t possessed, just talking to yourself, and let go of your wrists before he breaks them—he understood, kind of. he has no idea why you’d choose a phrase like that for when you’re annoyed, but at least you weren’t possessed! his henry was safe after all ^_^

he was so relieved that it took him a few seconds to realize he was still…pinning you down…and straddling you…so, naturally, more hysteria.

satan 

he’d actually grown fond of you and your tendency to speak with no thought or regard for the consequences of your actions—mainly because it stressed lucifer out, but he was fond of it nonetheless. it made you all the more interesting, more fun to talk to, and it helped him read you better. he liked to pick you apart by way of conversation, and he liked to do it as often as possible. 

presently, he was on his way to the library to meet you. the two of you were set to talk about a series you decided to read together. as he approached the doorway, he heard your voice, but no one else’s. he smiled in place of a laugh. were you talking to yourself? how cute—

“every day...i am provoked to rage unimaginable. why?” 

before you could even finish exhaling, he was above you, holding your face in his hands. from the glow of his eyes, you could tell he was barely keeping it together, but you had no idea what was wrong. did he hear what you said?

he said your name carefully, swiping his thumbs under your eyes. “have we been spending too much time together?” 

he was rubbing off on you, in the worst possible way. how could he have allowed this to happen? what has he done to you? where did this anger of yours come from? it has to be because of him. it would hurt, but he would distance himself from you at once, if that’s what—

“ah, did you hear what i said? i talk to myself like this all the time, satan, i’ve been doing it since before we even met. sorry if i frightened you.” 

he blinked, hands dropping to your shoulders. he was relieved, but so, so confused. 

“well,” he started, “then let’s talk about that instead.” 

asmo 

if you’d been refraining from talking to yourself around lucifer, you definitely did it for asmo too. there was no one in this house who wanted to see you angry less than he did. anger was such an ugly emotion, wasn’t it? he much preferred sadness; it was easier to manage, both in himself and others. 

of course, he could never think about being angry or sad when he was with you! how could he, when he’s with one of his favorite people? presently, he was on his way to your room to pick you up for one of your weekly outings. oh, you left the door open for him and everything! he was about to call out to you, but then he heard you talking to someone—he had no idea who it possibly could’ve been because he had no idea you could even sound like that when speaking to a sentient being. 

“i will rip you apart with my fucking teeth.” 

he had his arms around you before you even knew he was in your room. it seemed like a hug, and in a way, it was! the intent was to keep you in place so you couldn’t run away, rather than to comfort you, but it’s not like you could tell; his arms were around you all the time anyway.

“mc, light of my life, apple of my eye, who are you talking to?”

you twisted in his hold to face him, “i talk to myself all the time, asmo, you can ask anyone.”

he hummed, staring at you for a while before changing his hold on you into an actual hug. 

“you had me worried for a minute, darling~”

he didn’t really believe you, but he figured he would know if you were lying, and he could definitely handle whatever vile thing wormed its way into you while nobody was looking. best case scenario, he really didn’t have anything to worry about, and worst case scenario, you started speaking in tongues in the middle of majolish. if the latter happened to occur, he was strong enough to purge a lower demon from your body. it might hurt a lot a little , but at least you’d be safe!

beel 

for the most part, beel didn’t feel any particular way about your inclination to say words with no thought behind them. it was just something you did, like anything else was; he accepted it the same way he accepted everything else about you because that’s what friends do for each other. however—he would be lying if he said you didn’t upset him at times. 

like today—he was set to do his homework with you, on his way to the living room with an armful of snacks, when he heard something like the tip of a pencil breaking. it didn’t bother him, but it seemed to bother you. a lot. 

“i—i’ve had it, i’m gonna kill myself and ruin everyone’s goddamn day.” 

all of his snacks scattered across the floor when he dropped them to get to you. his hands were on your shoulders, but he wasn’t grabbing you. fortunately (or, unfortunately), belphie did this around him all the time, so he knew what to do, albeit it wasn’t much. 

slowly, he pulled you into a hug. not a crushing one, but enough to keep you from going anywhere. 

you started to explain yourself, telling him you do this all the time, that you didn’t mean it, that you were fine. it did nothing to reassure him because those were all of belphie’s usual phrases, but he appreciated the sentiment. 

“i know,” he started, pulling away from you. “i’m just making sure you don’t go anywhere. i like having you around. that’s all.”

belphie 

alright, this house isn’t big enough for the two of you. he is the vocally unwell person around these parts, he is the one who everyone is concerned about at all times, thank you very much. he was the one who made the jokes about death. he was the one with the concerning one-liners. that was all him. he wasn’t proud of it, he didn’t like the fact that things were this way, but it was what it was. he didn’t want you to be like him, and yet, there you were doing exactly that—even if you didn’t know. 

he was in your room, in your bed, actually— unbeknownst to you—because he was having trouble sleeping. you were somewhere in the house, on your way there, and once you arrived, it seemed like you were stressed. he didn’t know for sure, but he had a hunch that something was just eating away at you because as soon as you came in the door, you threw your bag on the ground and said—

well, you didn’t say anything, at first. the first thing you did was laugh. it was unrestrained, loud, and completely void of joy. and then, you said, “i can’t—i can’t fucking do this, i’ll just die, that’s fine, that’s okay.” 

he sat up faster than he has in the last century, deciding to be merciful and overlook how hard you gasped when you saw he was there. 

“belphie? why are you in my room?” 

he stood up, approaching you at a snail’s pace, “i couldn’t sleep, i was waiting for you, next question—why did you say what you just said?” 

before you could even start your usual explanation—you do this all the time, it’s fine, you’re fine—he was speaking again. 

“and don’t—don’t even try that, ‘it’s fine, ask anyone,’ shit with me, that’s my go-to, so you’re gonna have to come up with something new.” 

he looked at you expectantly, reaching behind you to close the door, locking it soon after. 

“belphie—”

he pulled you to your bed, falling onto it with you and holding you in place. 

“i have been doing this for much longer than you, and i will be doing it for a long time after you. i’d like to postpone the latter for as long as possible, so i would appreciate it if you talked to me.”