#is it too much if i make a playlist with a ridiculous name to send it to him

[kimjiwoong]

ok i need opinions. is it too much if i make this man a playlist? 

[wlntrsldler]

poisoned mercury | check yes, juliet

a/n: poisoned mercury is officially over halfway finished! i'll be posting poisoned mercury playlists soon! pls continue to send me songs that remind you of this series. i'm running out of songs to use as titles. thank u for all the love on this fic <3

series masterlist | previous | next

vi. check yes, juliet by we the kings

“where are we going?” 

“are you going to ask that every two seconds?” 

“you kidnapped me, castellan.” 

luke stopped in his tracks, raising an eyebrow at you. you were about a quarter mile away from camp now, and it seemed like every ten steps, you asked him the same question. if he didn’t find you so cute, he would turn around and walk straight back to camp. 

“i will throw you over my shoulder and carry you the rest of the way there, five star,” he grumbled, rolling his eyes teasingly. he wasn’t opposed to the idea, but by the look on your face, you certainly were. “don’t test me.” 

“and i will scream bloody murder if you do,” you narrowed your eyes at him in a challenging manner. 

“here i am, trying to do something nice for you and you accuse me of kidnapping you,” luke continued his steps, slowing down to let you catch up to him. he didn’t realize how much shorter you were than him. the top of your head just went past his shoulders, but your personality made up for the difference. “we’re almost there, keep up.” 

“not everyone has long legs, castellan,” you huffed, increasing your pace. “slow down.” 

“do you want to get there or not?” he asked, throwing you a teasing smile over his shoulder. you guys really needed to get there soon. the sun was beginning to set and he didn’t want you to have to walk in the dark, even if he was with you. your safety came first, above everything, and he wasn’t gonna put you in a potentially dangerous situation. 

you whined, tugging on the side of his t-shirt, “how much longer?” 

“that’s it,” luke declared, squatting down to throw you over his shoulder. you squealed, hitting his back with your balled up fists. he knew you didn’t do it to hurt him. he can feel you pulling your punches. 

you felt the vibrations from his laughter on his back. luke was enjoying this too much. he carried you over his shoulder like it was nothing. perhaps all those morning workouts were paying off. you twisted your neck to scold him, thankful that he couldn’t see the smile on your lips, “put me down, i swear to god.” 

“nope,” he replied, popping the ‘p.’ he tapped your calf with his fingers, “it’s just around the corner.” 

luke put you down in front of a building. there were five store fronts, three of which had faulty neon lights. you could barely make out the store names. the other two stores had signs up declaring vacancy. it was a little sketchy, but luke seemed to love it. he had his hands on his hips, staring up at the sign that seemed to say “achilles arcade.” 

“what is this place?” luke held the door open for you as you wandered inside the store. the place was dimly lit with old-school arcade games lining the walls. an old man was sitting on a stool behind the counter, reading the morning paper. 

“just wait,” luke grinned, pulling on your hand to lead you to get some tokens, “chiron! my man.” 

the man placed the newspaper on the surface, eyes lighting up at the sound of luke’s voice. he beamed, “luke castellan! i was afraid you weren’t gonna come back.” 

“you know i keep my promises,” luke let go of your hand, introducing you to chiron, “chiron, this is yn. she goes to camp with me.” 

“pleasure to meet you,” he tipped his head, reaching under the counter to dig out a bucket full of golden tokens. 

you took out your wallet, “how much do we owe you?” 

“on the house,” he waved off, “he donated a ridiculous sum of money to keep this place up and running. too generous, this one, so it wouldn’t be right for me to charge you when he’s keeping me in business.” 

luke shook his head, sliding a hundred across the counter anyway. he took your wallet and stuffed it in his back pocket, knowing that you’ll probably try to slip him some cash if he didn’t. you grumbled, but decided not to pick a fight. it didn’t seem like one you’d win. 

luke grabbed the bucket by the handle and turned to you, “where do you want to start, five star?” 

“you took me to an arcade?” 

“yeah,” luke said, sheepishly, “whenever i run out of cigs, i always go to an arcade to keep my mind off things. it’s childish, but it works. figured you could try it. plus, there’s a smoke shop across the street so we can go there when we’re done here.” 

“only one thing is better than the feeling of a new cherry ice vape,” you got close to him, nearly toe to toe. luke could smell the perfume on your skin, the scent of your shampoo, and his cologne that lingered on the hoodie of his that you wore. he reminded you that you always got cold and that you should bring a sweater, but you assured him that you wouldn’t. halfway to the arcade, you were shivering and luke knew that he made the right decision bringing his hoodie with him. 

you rolled your eyes, but accepted it. his hoodie stopped mid-thigh and engulfed you, but it looked better on you than it ever did on him. something about you wearing a hoodie that had his band name on it made his heart skip a beat. he had to listen to you make fun of him for tripping over air after he saw you in his clothes, but he didn’t expect anything less from you. 

he licked his lips, eyes darting to your own, “and what is that, five star?”

“beating your ass at galaga.” 

luke’s laughter echoed throughout the empty arcade as you ran from him with the tokens in your hand. you looked back at him with a mischievous smile on your face and he felt his heartstrings tug in his chest. you stuck your tongue out at him, starting the game as he stayed in his spot, admiring you. 

there weren’t many moments where he could be out in public like this, so when his mom reluctantly agreed to stop at this building on the way to camp due to a flat tire, luke and the boys were ecstatic to find that there was an empty arcade hidden in montauk. luke talked to chiron and learned his story while the boys played random games to kill the time. luke found out that the arcade wasn’t doing well financially with the increase in rent prices and that they would have to close down at the end of the summer if things don’t pick up again. chiron mentioned that he and his partner started this business twenty years ago, and he was sad to see it go. 

luke excused himself and snuck back into the tour bus to grab his checkbook. he wrote a check that covered rent and other expenses for the year and gave it to chiron. of course the man refused it, but luke wasn’t taking no for an answer, not after chiron shared that the arcade was the last living piece of his partner. luke castellan was a hopeless romantic, which not many people knew. he knew he was done for the minute he heard their love story. 

he stood there for a few moments, watching as you cheered, dodging the blasts of your enemies. you were so animated while you played, so expressive with your eyes and your voice. he’d only seen you like this a handful of times, talking to clarisse about god knows what, talking to the younger campers and asking them questions about their projects and interests, and when you asked him about his music. all of your monotoned replies and deadpan looks were all he got for the longest time, it seemed like your nonchalance was only for him, so it was nice to see you like this. it felt like you were warming up to him. 

he thought about the talk the two of you had in your room, how different you’d been then. after being iced out for weeks, luke was a little shocked at how soft you were with him earlier, playing with his rings, holding his hand, talking to him. it was a welcomed surprise, of course, but he expected you to kick him to the curb. he still didn’t understand what actually happened after the concert, but he figured you already had a tough day, so that conversation can wait. 

he made his way to you, leaning across the screen to slightly block your view, “you might be better than me at this game, but your ass is mine at guitar hero.” 

“not fair,” you were focused on the game, eyes glued on the screen in front of you. “you’re in a band. of course you’re gonna be better than me at that.” 

“life’s not fair, five star,” luke poked your side, making you squirm. you died in the game because of it. “my turn, yeah?” 

you shoved his chest, reluctantly moving over. “you cheated.” 

he looked over his shoulder, smirking, “how did i cheat?” 

“you distracted me!” 

“i did not!” he argued, chuckles escaping his lips. his tongue darted out the corner of his mouth. his concentration face was annoyingly attractive. 

“did too,” you mumbled, watching over his shoulder to see how he was doing. he was doing really well. damn teenage boys and their affinity for video games. your chin rested comfortably on his shoulder blade as you watched him play. 

luke’s breath hitched in his throat, suddenly too aware that you were so close to him. he could feel your breath against the nape of his neck, your lips dangerously close to where his tattoo was. he snuck a glance at you, noting how you were too focused on his score inching closer to your own. 

“ha!” you yelled, pulling away from him. you bumped his hip with yours, moving him out of the way, “my turn.” 

“okay, you cheated.” 

you hit pause on the game, placing your hands on your waist, “how?” 

“you were distracting me! putting your head on my shoulder and shit.” 

“awww,” you cooed, playfulness in your tone, “do i make you nervous?” 

luke’s face flushed. he shook his head, tilting his head down to hide the color on his face. he rubbed the back of his neck, “play your fucking game.” 

you said something about him being a sore loser and cheered loudly when you beat his score. when you both ran out of lives, luke led you to guitar hero and as expected, kicked your ass at the game. the two of you played in the arcade until there was one golden token left in the bottom of the bucket. as you wandered around the room, your eyes landed on a black and white photobooth tucked away in the corner. 

“let’s take some pictures,” you grabbed his hand, leading him over there before he could say no. you shoved him inside the photobooth, tapping his knee to make him stop manspreading on the small bench. 

it could barely fit two people so it was a tight squeeze. you were sitting so close to luke, thighs pressed together as you tapped on the small screen to begin the process. luke could feel the warmth of your skin against his and he was glad that there was no colored photos option because his cheeks were bright red. maybe he can blame the lights making him feel hot if you brought it up, but he wasn’t sure if his voice even worked enough to utter out his excuse. 

“you better smile, castellan,” you threatened, turning to look at him before you inserted the token in the slot. “not that little side smirk shit that you do in all your pictures.” 

“what side smirk?” 

“that thing you do in your pictures!” you shouted, “in every single instagram post, you always do it.” 

luke raised an eyebrow, a cocky smile appearing on his lips, “you’ve stalked my instagram?” 

“not the point,” you ducked, pretending to mess with the settings of the photobooth. luke can see your shy smile on the screen in front of him. “i’m just saying, smile normally.” 

“that’s how i smile, five star! what do you want me to do?” 

“that is not how you smile!” you argued. you took a deep breath, steadying yourself as you faced him. he was already looking at you, soft eyes and a hint of a smile on his features. a stray curl was out of place on his head and you couldn’t stop yourself from reaching over to put it back in place. luke held his breath as your fingers grazed the side of his face, taking much longer than you needed to fix his hair. your thumb subconsciously rubbed against the scar on his cheek. luke let his eyes close at the feeling. 

“there,” you whispered, pulling your hand back to your side. “that’s how you smile.” 

he tried his best to keep that same expression on his face to see what you were talking about. he glanced at the screen and found himself stunned at what he found. you were right. this is not how he looked in his instagram pictures. he almost didn’t recognize himself as he stared. he looked different like this. 

there were no creases between his eyebrows or on his forehead, like there was no stress on his shoulders. his eyes looked brighter somehow as if he was at peace, exactly where he needed to be at that moment. his lips were quirked up in a tender smile, parts of his teeth showing between the gap of his top lip and bottom lip. did he always look like this when he was with you? awe-struck and enraptured by your presence? 

he should feel pathetic, but he couldn’t bring himself to, not when you were looking at him like you enjoyed this clandestine look on his face, a look that he reserved only for you. he couldn’t feel pathetic when you were looking at him in the same way. a secret language between the two of you, that nobody else in the world could even begin to understand.

the countdown on the screen started and luke was pulled from his thoughts quickly when you pressed your cheek against his, grinning as the timer flashed across the screen. he let himself smile, teeth on full display before the flash went off. the second countdown began and luke watched you fumble around to pick the next pose. you settled on a silly pose, sticking your tongue out as you held up the ‘rock and roll’ sign with your hand. he followed your lead, letting a snicker leave his lips at how fitting the pose was. 

the final photo was uncoordinated. luke wasn’t ready for the flash to go off. you placed your hand on his shoulder, craning your neck to look up at him. if he leaned down an inch or two, his lips would touch yours. the realization had the wires in his brain crossed. when the machine took the picture, luke was staring lovingly into your eyes, a look of indecision on his face. his lips were curled into a bashful smile, the tip of his nose touching yours. 

“five star,” luke breathed out, his arm snaking around your waist. your leg was now placed on top of his own. 

you gulped, nudging his nose with yours, “luke…” 

he’d never heard his name leave your lips before other than when you were mocking the gossips you heard about him. he’d never heard your real voice call him by his name. now that he has, he was addicted to the sound of it. he never liked his name that much, but somehow, when you said it, it sounded like poetry. he never thought a single syllable could sound so beautiful, have his knees buckling at the utterance of it. but with you, he supposed there was always a first for everything. 

when the bright red words stating “your photos are ready!” illuminated the inside of the photobooth, the two of you jumped apart from each other, blushing wildly. luke took a moment for himself inside the photobooth, rubbing his face with his palms, as you walked out to retrieve the pictures. luke followed you after taking a few deep breaths. 

he saw you leaning against the wall, the two strips of pictures in your hand. you had a goofy grin on your face, admiring them. luke sauntered next to you, taking a look at the photos. 

he accepted the strip of photos you handed him, “we probably should’ve discussed our poses beforehand.” 

“i dunno,” you were still staring at the pictures, biting your bottom lip. “i like ‘em.”

luke hummed, taking out his wallet. he folded the strip in threes, slotting the last photo in the clear compartment of his wallet. it looked perfect against the black leather, like it was the last thing needed to make his wallet look complete. he slipped it back in his back pocket, taking yours out to return to you. 

“smoke shop?” he asked. 

“please,” you nodded, beginning to walk out of the arcade. you waved goodbye to chiron who moved onto doing the daily crossword. “bye chiron! great to meet you!” 

he bid the two of you goodbye, a knowing gaze on his face. you were already out the door when he sent luke a wink that had him shaking his head, face turning red at the man’s antics. luke shut the door behind him, ushering you over to the sidewalk towards the smoke shop, “i’m out of cigs too, so this is actually perfect timing.” 

you waited outside the smoke shop, sitting on the curb. luke had a fake id (for research purposes, of course. he was just curious to see what the kentucky ids looked like.) so he bought your vape and his cigarettes. when he emerged, he joined you on the curb, pulling out his phone to call an uber back to camp. 

the sun was long gone and he could hear the owls hooting in the distance. it was not a good idea to walk back to camp, even if it wasn’t even a mile away. he watched you unwrap your vape, taking a small hit from it. he lit his cigarette with the lighter he carried with him and smoked with you in silence. 

“uber is gonna take twenty minutes,” he said, placing his phone between the two of you, face up. “i’m guessing there’s not many people around here.” 

you glanced at his phone, giggling at his lockscreen. it was a picture of the entire band, wearing matching novelty sunglasses taken at a .5 angle. they looked ridiculously like the guys you’ve grown to adore. “i like your lockscreen.” 

luke tapped his phone to wake it up. he let out a laugh, “mom took it when we played vegas for the first time. we were too young to go out and we were too afraid to use our fakes so we went to m&m world and got wired on sugar.” 

“you guys are really close, huh?” 

“got to be,” luke shrugged, “we’re together 24/7, but even before that… these guys are my brothers. love ‘em, even when they’re a pain in my ass. what’s your lockscreen?” 

you pulled out your phone, showing him the picture of you, clarisse, and silena flipping off the camera. it was taken during one of your (failed) attempts at studying at the library. you were all in sweatpants and large hoodies with the stress of midterms evident on your faces. “that’s silena, my other best friend from unc. her boyfriend, charlie, took this picture because he said we looked absolutely miserable. and we do, but it makes me happy looking back at it. we were struggling together and we somehow made it out together.” 

“i do not miss school at all,” luke blew out the smoke in his mouth, “i was a shit student.” 

“but now look at you,” you teased, “mr. rockstar.” 

“yeah, yeah,” luke copied your voice, “can’t complain.” 

you hummed, tucking your vape in the pocket of luke’s hoodie, “you can, especially with me. i’m the number one hater, so i enjoy complaining quite a bit.” 

“oh, i know.” 

you smacked his arm, rolling your eyes as he stumbled in his seat, laughing. you cleared your throat, voice turning serious, “seriously. i owe you for today, so complain to me all you want.” 

“you don’t owe me shit, five star,” luke put out his cigarette, standing up as his phone alerted him that the uber was coming soon. he held out his hand to help you up. “but i will take you up on that offer. of course, i can only do that if you don’t ignore me for weeks again.” 

you slapped his hand away, shaking your head, smiling, “shut the fuck up.” 

luke flagged down the uber, placing a hand on your lower back to lead you into the backseat. you entered, making polite conversations with the lady in the driver’s seat. 

“for chase?” 

luke nodded, “yup, thanks so much.” 

as the car drove off in the direction of camp, you turned to luke, mouthing, “chase?” 

he took out his wallet and handed you his fake id: chase reed, brown eyes, brown hair, 5’11. 

luke safely tucked the id back in its slot when you tossed it back at him, giggling at his alter-ego. he didn’t say anything when you moved closer to him, sitting in the middle seat, and held his hand the rest of the way back to camp.

[yoimix]

genshin men + mutual pining

ft. childe, ayato

playlist. disaster - conan gray ; accidentally in love - counting crows ; love, or the lack thereof - isaac dunbar

note. this has been rotting in my drafts for too long i’m sorry anon :((

[ requested by anon! ; cw: suggestive, alcohol ]

✽ childe thinks of you far too highly to try his usual tactics. he’s known you for more than half his life now, and best friends aren’t exactly cutting it for him. you’re not children in snezhnaya anymore, holding a wedding ceremony for your snowmen or getting yelled at by your mothers to hold hands after a big fight. there are graver stakes now. and people change. when you disagree, childe can’t just laugh it off obnoxiously to see you steam from the ears. when you have a serious fight, he can’t just hold your hand and say sorry till you agree to talk to him. no, he’d get a glare and if he’s lucky, a punch to the gut instead. maybe you’ll even tell him to piss off. you give him no hint of affection, and he’s starving for it. despite the warmth of your skin, your gaze is cold and it sends him into overdrive. perhaps you too believe that romance is forbidden for vassals of the tsaritsa. or maybe he’s plain mistaken, and you’re not his after all. even so, you make his heart pump blood all the way to his fingertips, sparking with electricity. the rush is unmatched when you smile at him. the confession is overdue. spilling it with alcohol on his lips, however, was not his ideal plan.

“(name),” childe slurs, a blissful smile on his face. “just please look at me. oh my, you’re so pretty.”

“ugh, tsaritsa guide me. the stench of alcohol.” you pinch the bridge of your nose. “just because the wine was free didn’t mean you had to glug fifteen glasses of them! what will the qixing think?!”

“that i’m the pride of snezhnaya?” he laughs loudly. “okay, okay, don’t get mad at me. but did you see? i outdrank all of those old fools! ugh, the little lady seemed unimpressed but that hardly matters. who did she think she was anyway? the yuheng?”

“she was.”

“oh.”

he pauses to blink slowly, before turning to you with a boyish grin. it’s horrifying how it makes your heart flutter, and you might as well plunge into the chasm before you admit that. the rain outside the hotel gets louder, and you just want this night to be over with. when morning comes, you can pretend childe didn’t make it look like you’re on a honeymoon to the entire city of liyue and half your subordinates.

“well, at least the crowd loved me.”

“and you’re going to be throwing up all night,” you huff, pulling him up by his shirt before he leans too far and faceplants onto the ground. instead, he takes it as an invitation to wrap his arms around you, resting his chin on your shoulder. you’re not sure when, in the transition to adulthood, it started bothering you. he’s the last person you should be thinking about like that.

“ah, i love it when you hold me,” he grins with the glee of a kid watching fireworks. “this is so much more comfortable than my coat. how do you always have warm hands?”

“and how do you always manage to embarrass me in the most ridiculous ways?”

he furrows his brows, plush pink lips forming into a pout. “what did i do?”

“what, pretend to profess your love to me in public and crash a dinner party? i get that everyone was drunk and saying stupid shit but you didn’t have to rope me into it!”

“please, it was hardly a serious matter.” he waves his hand dismissively. “a little coworker outing, if you will. it’s a coincidence some qixing officials were having a dinner party.”

“it got so loud we were kicked out of the restaurant.” you might as well be steaming from the ears now. “what do you think the qixing will do if they see snezhnayan diplomats making trouble in liyue? you’re lucky i talked it out with the yuheng but goodness, you made us- you made us look so silly!”

you say it with so much distaste, childe flinches. the blood rushes to your face at the memory of him clinging to you the whole time you tried to explain to keqing that snezhnaya is in fact not up to weird schemes or trying to drown the harbor.

“aww, you had fun too. you were all cute and flustered talking to the qixing girl.”

“that’s because you made us look like a couple, stupid!”

“what’s so bad about that?” he asks quietly.

“oh my god, they think we’re dating.”

“we could be,” he responds softly, a longing sigh following. 

you turn to look at his face, flustered. you can feel his breath against your cheek, his ocean eyes trained on your own. when did he lean so close?

“you’re drunk,” you state bluntly. 

“but the truth is...” he pauses to giggle. “...is still that i love you.”

you gulp. “liar.”

he lets out a dry chuckle, running the pad of his thumb over your lower lip. “don’t say that. i’ll just keep falling.”

“stop it, ajax.” a pang of hurt shoots through your chest, a wistful weed blooming between your ribs. he only wants you when he’s drunk, does he? you should’ve expected no better from mr casual himself.

“i know you think you’re smooth, but you’re taking it too far now.” you take a deep breath, trying not to get too upset. he’s just drunk.

“how far do you think i can take it?” he breathes over your skin, leaned far enough to kiss you if he wanted to, if you wanted to. the flush of his cheeks rivals his oh-so-pink lips, but it’s the vulnerability in his eyes that throws you off. you always thought they were starry like the reflection of the night sky over the ocean. the others, however, describe stormy seas, with no guiding light for miles. 

the consequences to mistaking his feelings is just too catastrophic for you to bear.

“(name), stop.” he comes to a halt abruptly, twisting his wrist from your grip to grab yours instead. you’re suddenly pulled into his chest, a surprised yelp leaving your mouth.

“let’s go home, ajax,” you press, impatient. you didn’t mean to say that, especially when it doesn’t make sense so far from home. you’re just used to saying that when he’s being difficult.

“i am home.” he frowns, gloved hands holding onto both of your wrists. his eyes are pleading, but for what you don’t know. “and did you miss my entire i love you speech or did i imagine saying that?”

“you’re drunk out of your mind and just saying—”

“i’m not. i’ll say it to you in the morning, i’ll say to you tomorrow and the day after and i’ll keep saying it till you just look at me.”

you finally meet his eyes—the intense azure you’ve known all your life begging for you to see him the way he does you. there were better ways to go about this. what did you expect from this walking disaster?

you hold his face between your thumb and forefinger, his cheeks puffing up. he looks too adorable and it’s pissing you off. before you can have any second thoughts, you quickly press your lips against his in a featherlight kiss. pulling back, you can only hold it in for two seconds before the expression on his face makes you burst into laughter.

“do that again,” he mumbles, a dazed smile on his face.

you grant him a quick kiss.

“again.”

kiss.

“and again.”

“you used to say three is the lucky number.”

he pouts. why did you have to fall in love with this manchild?

sighing, you grant him one final kiss, a satisfied sigh parting from his lips. “happy now? it’s time to go to bed, ajax.”

“woah, (name), is that why you wouldn’t kiss me? because you had other plans in the bedroo—”

“no. you’re going straight to sleep.”

he hums, smiling. “i love you.”

“mhm. i can tolerate you.”

“hey.”

“i love you too.”

✽ ayato’s self-restraint is the bane of your existence. he will look at you with his sharp lilac gaze, glance at your lips even, but he will do nothing more than a light touch to your hand or a flick to your forehead on certain occasions. it’s as though he’s aware of the rapid beating of your heart—but he refuses to be anything more than a tease. lately, he’s taken to leaning in closer than before when he pretends to not hear you during your evening walks. is he not aware you can feel his breath? and sometimes, he will place his hand on the small of your back to guide you. does he not know his touches light your skin on fire? honest to god, you hate him beyond measure at this point. when young love grows old, it’s only natural to harbor resentment too. you resent that teasing smile, you resent those playful eyes, you resent the mole by his lips you want to kiss so bad. and just like that, your heart is another piece he’s captured in this game of chess. in a way, though, you understand his roundabout ways of doing things. a man in his position ought to behave. for instance, right now, he shouldn’t be taking your hand outside a social gathering of inazuman elites, and running away like a schoolboy skipping class.

“are you sure you can do this?!” you huff, trying to keep up with ayato. there’s an idle sense of joy to his pace, his posture still elegant.

you, on the other hand, look like you just survived a dumpster fire. disheveled from the running, you finally catch a break once he stops by the torii gates of chinju forest.

“well, wasn’t that fun?” he asks, a smug smile on his face. “archons, the blabbering these men do. half a night and all i heard were complaints about their wives and their boring, unambitious ideas for inazuma.”

you whistle. “i never know how you handle your meetings. each one sounds worse than the last.”

“yes, but i can’t brute force my job like some people do.” he gives you a pointed look. 

you glare at him. “well, some occupations don’t require being a crafty, meddling rascal. you wouldn’t know.”

“i like that about you,” he says, quieter. his gaze is soft, like a field of blooming hyacinths. it catches you off guard. 

“w-well- i- uh i- i have a lot more likeable traits than you give me credit for,” you defend, unable to return his gaze.

“so do i,” he responds, a sly smile playing on his lips. “a lot more than you give me credit for.”

“i never said i didn’t,” you mumble in defeat. 

a firefly beelines for ayato’s shoulder but he gives no care towards it. instead he finally takes out the cup of boba tea from the little bag you’ve been carrying. the proximity of his face when he reaches, however, makes you hold your breath longer than intended. it’s so unfair that he’s this pretty. he smiles when he meets your gaze, taking out the other cup for you.

“you’re so easy to talk to, (name),” he sighs. there goes your poor heart.

you hum, tearing your eyes away from him. you’re hardly thinking as you blabber on. “you- you too. i... i don’t say this often but you... you’re a good person, ayato. i wish i could be with you forever.”

realizing what you said within the next fraction of a second, you straighten up, eyes widened in panic. it’s not the first time you’ve been reduced to a stuttering mess in front of the yashiro commissioner. curse your reckless tongue.

“forever?”

“i- i mean, i want to fall for a guy like you someday,” you laugh awkwardly, smacking his arm. what on teyvat are you saying? you have fallen for a guy like him and it is him. 

ayato presses his lips into a thin smile, eye twitching in annoyance.

“wh-what i mean is, it- it would be nice to be with someone like you,” you try to save and miserably fail.

you might as well get a shovel and start digging your grave right here in the forest. maybe the tanuki will dance over your dead body for entertainment. anything to get out of this situation that you, all by yourself, got into.

slender fingers wrap around your wrist, pulling you closer to the source of your misery.

“boba?” 

ayato looks at you expectantly, pressing the straw to your lips.

you nod, fighting the heat growing on your face. he’s too pretty.

“you know, i like it when you say these things to me.”

he’s always been a rude rascal. his smile is cheeky, yet it relieves of you any uncomfortable thoughts like rain on a hot summer day. i want to protect that smile, you thought to yourself once. it’s so rare to see him like this, as just ayato—your friend ayato who taught you to play (and lose) shogi, who gave you his best onikabuto whenever you sulked about yours, who smiled knowingly while you screeched about his awful cooking and showed him the directions again. how many afternoons had you spent with him till he was lost to the rhythm of life? if there really is a god to hear you, you’d pray for ayato to smile like this all the time.

“what do you mean?” you ask softly.

“you said once,” he muses, “that you want me to find someone who likes me for me.”

“i did?” you clear your throat. “i mean, i’d like that too. i- like- isn’t that what everyone wants? to be with someone who likes them as a person?”

“i like you as a person.”

you breathe in too hard, the tapioca pearls caught in your throat as a result. an ugly cough follows till ayato’s patting your back in a concerned motion. you finally spit out the boba, which unfortunately lands in a bush nearby, spooking some foxes.

“oh.” he looks like he’s holding in a laugh. “come now, this is no place to litter.”

“shut up.” you glare at him. “if you didn’t say things so suddenly—erm.”

you’re not sure how to explain yourself. his statement could be taken the wrong way, and you don’t want to be the first one to reveal yourself. if this is a game of shogi after all, you intend to win at least one against him.

“hm? is that what gets you so flustered? a few words from me?”

“you wish,” you huff. 

you feel his warm chuckle against your ear, and the warmth spreads down your neck. you turn to face him, feeling a bit stupid for reacting this way.

“what is it you want to say to me? hm? be honest, now. we're far past playing games, aren't we?"

"i don't know what you're talking about." you feign ignorance, hiding behind your fan.

you take a deep breath, hoping his presence will help you calm yourself. he's such a handful and you know it, but he also makes you feel so alive.

"oh? we can keep playing this game then," he hums, smiling. "you haven't won once against me, you know?"

"th-there's been several times i've beaten you in shogi," you huff.

"by cheating."

"i never cheat!"

“that smile is foul play,” he whispers. there’s barely a gap between your lips and ayato looks like he might just close it.

you feel panic rising. quickly, you press your palm to his mouth, effectively stunning him. it’s honestly cute to see him make this expression.

“we’re friends!” you blurt. “r-right? but god, there are things we can’t do when we’re just friends and you- you just keep testing my patience, ayato!”

a muffled response follows. you take a deep breath and remove your hand.

“it’s like you were going to kiss me,” you complain quietly, embarrassed.

he blinks monotonously. “but i did want to kiss you.”

your face heats up at an alarming rate. “huh? are you supposed to say that out loud?!”

“how else am i supposed to know?”

“know what?”

“if you want to kiss me or not.”

“i always want to kiss y—”

you clasp your hands over your mouth, embarrassed beyond thought. there is no way you said that out loud. the spark in ayato’s eyes only brightens to a more mischievous look.

“you said it yourself,” he says casually, “there are things we can’t do if we’re just friends.”

he takes a step closer. “and i want to do them with you, (name).”

you open your mouth but no response forms.

“so will you please let me kiss you?” he completes, the frustration built over the years finally fizzing out.

“yes,” you say, without thinking, admiring the beauty mark by his lips.

after all, in a sighing forest of promises unkept, who’s to tell of a nobleman’s kisses?

[comfortless]

Call me Jesus, cause it took me almost three days to come back from the dead after you've killed me with that quote. The fact that it was in German too??? I got the book and I was looking through it before I'll start reading it in earnest, and I noticed how Kafka was signing his letters. He started nicely with his full name, and than it became shorter and shorter, just Franz or F, till he straight up switched it to Yours or YOUR F??!?! And then he was the audacity to write "now I'm even losing my name it was getting shorter and shorter all the time and is now: Yours." I can't do this anymore.

Imagining Konig doing something like this. He wouldn't disclose his name straight away but he would encourage you to just call him Konig, even explaining what it means and how he came up with it. You might roll your eyes cause calling himself Konig is a bit cocky and you'll be damned if you call any man king. He just laughs it off and tells you to just call him yours if you don't like his 'name'. (He's the rizzler guys.)

And then it got me thinking about Konig reading to his darling like? That's such a nice way to spend time with someone (+++ that scrumptious little bit that you wrote the other day about him relaxing after coming home.) Imagine making his man read something remotely romantic to you, especially in German. Must you do this to him? Don't you know saying things in your native language feels so much more intimate? >:( He would do it just because you batted your eyelashes and said his voice sounds so much nicer than any audio book available.

I knew I heard that song before but I didn't know where until I went into the comments and someone said it was in AHS!! The atmosphere that song creates🙏 Please accept my humble and slightly inaccurate Konig playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6zF7E91ynXnSIz8y4TQ2XG?si=cSk41EmNRriLsBQeG8Gqtg&pi=e-MIL8IEG8RpWL

To finish things nicely, I have a quote for you from Romanian poet Nichita Stănescu: "Spune-mi, dacă te-aș prinde-ntr-o zi și ți-aș săruta talpa piciorului, nu-i așa că ai șchiopăta puțin, după aceea, de teamă să nu-mi strivești sărutul?" Meaning: "Tell me, if I were to catch you one day And kiss your foot's sole, Isn't it so that you would limp slightly afterwards Out of fear of crushing my kiss?"

Yours 🕷️

that is my favorite part of the book! him giving away himself in the most subtle way: a name… aghh i could go on eternally about how special that is to me. how very König-coded it could be too, he doesn’t have a(n official) name, anyhow! Letters to Melina au where König is simply someone’s lovesick penpal or whatever…?!

of course when you agreed to correspond with this man, you never had any intention of more than bittersweet conversations. you never had any intent to meet, but each letter he sends becomes more heartfelt and heart-wrenching than the last… he regularly adds small words that hold weight: “I miss you”s and “I want to see you” between details of his work, his lonely life.

he’ll even tell you that there’s no one else has ever understood him the way that you seem to… he tells you of the small conversations he’s had with his peers, how they’ve only left him feeling empty. how he pines for you, even sends a sizable check with the hope that you might send a polaroid with your next letter. never mind the fact that when you do there’s a very apparent stain on his response.

he’s ridiculous, possibly even compares himself to Severin in Venus in Furs the way that he just worships you: his Venus. /:

and you have killed me with the thought of him curling up in bed with his love, begrudgingly reading to her in German. it’s not that you even want a translation for the words he speaks, it’s just the sound of his voice, the soft rasp as he drones out the words and the comfort of being tucked so closely to him. his hand lazily pets at your hair, glancing at you with a little grin each time he noticed the way your gaze grows shimmery and adoring… he’s stopped reading the book a long time ago, taking to only tell you in his mother tongue just how special you are to him, how he would kill and die for you. it’s not like you would know any better, anyway!

that playlist though?! Massive Attack, The Cure, Deftones, Type O, Haunt Me, etc…?! are you trying to kill me?! sooo many good songs here!! i actually have a lot of them on my own! <3 humbly offering you this and this!

also that poem?! the way you ended this message?! i am going to sob! little 🕷️, i adore you!

[emi-nova-music]

—*♪,» WELCOME ONE AND ALL ——•°.

hiii! i’m a 19yo college kid making magic however i can! i’m non-binary (they/nova pronouns), queer, neurodivergent, and i adore my strangely specific process and unique set of influences that lead to some cool ass shit! when i’m not jamming, i’m drawing, designing characters, building websites, and playing games 🫶 don’t hesitate to reach out

my main blog is @emerystellar as a general hub for all my creative stuff, and my crazy tumblr hermit spam all goes on @andromeda-absurdity !

—*♪,» LINKS ——•°.

Spotify || Bandcamp || Youtube || Apple Music

music carrd !! — main website !!

—*♪,» GENRE/INFLUENCES ——•°.

i’m pretty broad and experimental so it’s hard to narrow myself down, but i’d say i fall somewhere between jangle pop, psychedelic rock, shoegaze, and indie jazz! some of my biggest influences are louie zong, mild high club, miracle musical, buried beds, vince guaraldi, toby fox, koji kondo, the avalanches, and temporex :]

for extra reference, here’s my giant playlist of all the music i listen to, and a really big list of weirdly specific genres i like! you can also ask me about influences/inspirations for certain songs, associations you make, Anything, i’d love to hear and conversate about it!

—*♪,» RIGHTS AND USAGE ——•°.

feel free to use my music in any personal projects, youtube videos, animations, character playlists, anything, as long as you do two things:

1. credit me however applicable (link to the song, my website/bandcamp, just listing the song title and artist name, etc)

2. show me what you made!! i absolutely ADORE interacting with the creative works others make and i wanna see what ways you use my creations!! 🩵

the only other thing of note is that if you want to remix/make a cover of my song, keep it non-monetary (i.e. keep it to soundcloud and/or youtube)!

addendum that i’m not great at transcription but if you need stems of any songs/sheet music/garageband soundfont titles, etc, i’ll do my very very best to provide!

i’m very very open to collabs, but i am extremely bad with deadlines “- forcing inspiration never really works for me, but if you’re okay with my weird process and want to hmu, please do so!!

—*♪,» GENERAL FAQ ——•°.

• i use garageband on my phone to write most of the time (sometimes bandlab or acoustic instruments, usually various pianos or organs)

• i use distrokid for platform distribution and i seriously recommend it it’s ridiculously easy and super cheap too

• my process is usually pretty linear, starting with a melodic idea and moving from start to finish with the song, then going back and buffing it out making it meatier and tweaking things as i see fit! then i’ll usually adjust the pitch/speed at the end simply bc the analog sound is a lot more pleasing garageband can get a little sterile after listening to it for so long :]

• writing a single song will usually take me anywhere from 2-6 hours depending on the complexity, spanning however many days (i have drafts that have been sitting in my phone for MONTHS bc i’ll often switch between them so none of them get too stale) -> however, some of my live songs work a little differently, seeing as a lot of them (especially on what never left the nebula) are actually almost completely improvised… you'll never guess which ones >:)

• i’ve been playing piano and singing since i was a toddler, but i started formally making music and being serious about it in 2017! i’ve come a long long long way, don’t look for my old soundcloud /hj

—*♪,» THANK YOU!!! ——•°.

if you’ve got any other curiosities or comments please don’t hesitate to send an ask!! i love when ppl engage with my music so please please by all means feel free to :] thank you so much for sticking around this long and have a stellar day!!!

[anarchistbitch]

IIIIIIIIIIIII bloody hate tumblr, Ive been trying to get all the songs we've reced each other into a playlist but it is not showing me all our asks and the ones it does show me are not in order and i wanted it to be in order ugggghhh im stabbing the screen right now mentally,

anyway at work my team is making a playlist so we can listen to everyone's music taste and here's the link to it, add some in my name please and thankyou<333 https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4KeIWHO0lqkpDjXFPxWB7v?si=MToywKdbQM2JdiQWq1se6Q&pt=5d863cd3287ba2fae6b8184d7edce597

xhjdsflsdkf it's so always so funny and embarrassing remembering how this all started, all because i was too shy to take off the anon, but hey, here we are <3

and god yes, monaco is perfect for a roadtrip, it is also perfect for this one fic that i read back around 2019 or 2018, just yesterday i was talking about it with a friend bc it was HUGE fic in the fandom, to the point that there was discourse about the fic which is just fucking ridiculous but anyway, you see, idk if you heard about vld but that shit was huge here on tumblr and i was motherfucking obsessed and then the fandom grew very very large and it just kind of imploded but that's not important, the fic was a current time au where the characters were fake dating for a family reunion and the post breakup-bc-we-caught-feelings-but-we-think-the-other-didnt scene would be SO good with Monaco on the background, tasty 👌🏻

re:the job, yeap, ive been working since february bc i needed a break from uni and this way i justified it to myself and actually work has been so good for me for real, ive met a bunch of people that have become close friends, work has allowed me so much rest compared to mfucking architecture, it's also allowing me to pay for a psychologist which is great and yeah, overall a positive experience, the only problem is that now i dont wanna quit working but i know that i cant both work and continue with architecture, and it is making me question how much of my life i am willing to give to this career, bc i feel so much better now mentally, even my friends have told me how different i seem and how much better i seem to be doing right now that im not at uni and just *slowly slips down from the chair into the floor dramatically*

and you're right in both accounts lmao, it's hot as hell outside, especially since i just went home for the weekend and jesus christ the heat and humidity there are no fucking joke i tell you, on the plus side i came back by plane and that was so nice, right before take off i was SO nervous but after we did i really enjoyed it, it helps that it turned 8 hours in a cramped seat into half an hour in a slightly less cramped seat lol, some of the pics i took bc i couldnt help myself will follow this paragraph that just ran away from me literally but anyways, it's horribly hot outside but at work they always have the bloody aircon either too high or too low, no in between with those people

the edit also had me on sliding dramatically to the floor holy shit, the song fits Miles so well and im just 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹 it's so easy to have that part get stuck in your head btw, i halfway think about it and i have it stuck in my head for at least the next hour

song rec of the ask: heaven iowa by fall out boy, i fucking love fall out boy, they're my band for real

-M, aka Denisse, aka blue iconed mutual who wanted you to know bc they had a major crush on you but didnt want you to know bc she is shy as fuck aka just a silly goofy person who covers her eyes and groans when she thinks too much about the anon asking bc they get embarrassed easily jsfhjds byyye love you, take care, sending you tons of hugsssss

back to old traditions-> me answering every ask 3 weeks late😔

oooooh lemme search them up and make a playlist later :)) i mostly have them in my liked akshually

what if i added oli london huh. what if i added peppa pig🤨oink wsbdfjkerkjh idk if i had good song recs rn but ill try to add smth later :3

. . . . .

do i . a person whos been on tumblr for almost 8 ish years know about Voltron:Legendary Defenders - the ships from which top the tumblr ecosystem almost every year- the fandom from which i have trauma(not actually but i did cry at shiro's implied death and subsequent clonign lmaooo😭😭😭)

dm me the link bby🤙🏽🤙🏽[i stated on the side of. ahem . omegaverse/werewolves plus soulmate aus]

im glad that youre happy with ur job!!! im entirely unqualified to give any career advice [seriously though -my chosen career is like. its good but its also like 7 years of studying and idek know if i should pursue it rnnn] so honestly🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂

honestly im just real glad that ur doing good <3 being in college/uni is both good and bad but hey its not like you cant go back to it at anytime yk? you'd be doing incredible things anyway, it'll just have different terms

ahh the weather here is so shit it's always on the edge of raining and then its like nah😜

i actually like love airplane pics on insta , also the mountains!!!! my old flat used to be near a mountain and i miss it so much😭

i couldnt see atsv in theatres cause of so many things but i finally saw it and it was. like actually life changing . and also i have to fuck miguel o hara btw

OH MAN. i need to confess smth. me and my friends had , a file. like a plastic file with paper with lyrics to FOB songs that we used to write in our free periods and sing in the back of the class😭😭 i miss it so much [it being time. place, ppl. yk how it is]

so much for stardust ended up being one of my fav albums of their forever- after mania and save rock and roll

[but seriously the words 'scar-crossed lovers' brought back the 14yr old geek obsessed with fantasy books in me out again]

😳😳😳

omg well heres to my blue iconned mutual who i wouldve been dming a lot sooner had i been a lit bit more brave but am ultimately glad to have known even after a little longer

much love and many hugs 😚😚😚

[commanderquinn]

Good Space Chapter 3: Hey Gringo

! i dont! keep these posts! updated! like i do! ao3!

that means you're going to find typos and shit (and possibly minor detail changes) that don't match the ao3 version! that's because im not going to bother fixing the tumblr posts until i finish good space as a whole. im only uploading them here as a backup tbh

—

master list / ao3 chapter link

—

warnings: ayyy!! none this time!! unless you wanna count Highly Disrespectful Thoughts ❤️ tho!!! the flashbacks are shuri, heads up for anyone who is a big baby (like me) and still crying over WF. also (shocker) bucko angst/panic attacks

song: it KALEO time!! istg there are golden oldies and hippie classics on this intended playlist, we just havent gotten to them yet. this choice is mega self-indulgent on my end ngl, buuuuut thats the whole fic in general lbr (side note: every time i write Angy Ava, i want you to imagine the vocal intensity of jefferson airplane’s lead singer, grace slick)

the timing of this chapter could NOT have been better with the probably-russian hackers knocking out ao3 that long. i mean it dude, im pretty sure the universe had a good chuckle over this one bc i sure as shit had to sit here and go “youre pullin my leg bud”

also now feels like a good time to mention, for absolutely no reason in particular (definitely not bc of Bucky being a Huge Simp this chapter), that i hc bucky as a dom with service top leanings. i just didnt wanna give the impression that reader is dom for this and accidentally get anyones hopes up with no payoff. i try to avoid that as much as i can bc god knows i drop Big Honkers on y’all every damn chapter, id hate for you to get all the way to the end of this and not get your cookie, y’know? (i am, ofc, down to write mega sub bucky for smut-shot requests)

also remember when i mentioned giving ava a HANDFUL of physical details for writing fuel? 🌝 (ur gonna think im funny rlly soon, dw)

anyways if you dont have adhd, good luck and god speed with the idiots thinkin abt each other in this chapter ❤️ im so sorry in advance 🥺😔

—

Febuary 17th, 2015

"Good morning, Sh—"

"Have you left your worthless husband yet?" Shuri impatiently taps a finger against her elbow, where her arms are crossed over her chest. 

She watches Ava sigh on the other end of the vidcall. The woman looks too tired. She needs rest. Shuri wants to stab Alec all over again. She's going to make a new, self-lacing, possibly electrified dagger just for the occasion. "I know you're just trying to—"

"We can come to get you. I will send T'Challa. You must promise me that you will have him get me something from Washington." Shuri raises a stern finger, pointing it directly at the camera. "Do not let him pick it out himself—"

"Shuri, honey, I love you with all my heart, but please—"

"I want you to pick it. The furniture in your office is ridiculous; I want something like that."

A smile far too small pulls at the corners of Ava's lips. Her smile used to move freely, and it will do so again if Shuri has any say in the matter. Which she does. "Well, thank you, I work very hard to keep it ridiculous. Now—"

"It will make me think of you whenever you are not around to make fun of my brother with me. My mother will get the lawyers you need to start your divorce—"

"I—sweetheart, please, it's been a very long night—"

"It is the afternoon where you are. You have not even had breakfast, have you? Of course not. You are busy doing the work while Alec—"

"Shuri!" Ava puts a hand over her eyes and takes an unsteady breath in. "I'm sorry. This is—it's been a long night. I didn't mean to yell at you—"

"You need to start yelling much more, Ava. Aim it at your worthless husband while you tell him you are leaving," Shuri argues, entirely fed up with how the doctor allows the spineless dickhead to make her miserable. "T'challa will remove him for you while you stay here with us."

Alec—she refuses to call him Ryder; the man does not deserve to have taken the doctor's name—leans into the camera view, his expression bored. Dismissive. Shuri wants to smash his wrinkling, greasy face in with her fist. "While I appreciate the offer, your majesty, my wife and I can handle our private life alone."

Shuri glares back at him, one of her eyebrows hiked as far up as she can comfortably get it. "Do you really think being aware of your presence on this call will deter me from reminding my friend that you are a demon?" She looks pointedly at Ava, who's still covering her eyes. "He is a demon. A pasty, rude demon."

"Alec is going to shut the fuck up now, I promise." The fingers over Ava's eyes pull in until she's pinching the bridge of her nose tightly. She looks as if she's fighting off a migraine. She probably is. And it is Alec's fault. "That way, we can get this over with, and I can finally get some sleep—"

"Which you need and are not getting enough of." The words slip out before Shuri can stop them. 

Ava's shoulders deflate slightly. Her hand drops, and she attempts another smile that doesn't reach her eyes, making Shuri feel a pang of guilt. "No, I'm not. But I will, just as soon as we finish the basic adaptation matrix. I promise."

Ava always encourages her to speak her mind, no matter what. Sometimes it gets her into trouble. She is not looking to berate her favorite Canadian; she loves leaving the vidcomm between their labs on. The open connection is a comforting window into the outside, one that lets Shrui indulge in any question or raving that passes through her mind. 

Alec is a poison in her friend's life, and Shuri will not back down from reminding her of that. But mother and Nakia have sat with her over this, explaining that sometimes, an abused heart will cling to what hurts it. They have to be supportive while Ava works through this. She's getting there. Just not nearly fast enough for Shuri's patience.

Father has been reminding them all that Alec is a risk, given what he knows. Trusting Ava means trusting her for the duration, and they can't go back now. If she says she is handling the issue of separating the man from her work, they have to allow her room to do that. But T'Challa has been ordered to keep close, or at the very least, ready to go.

As much as she despises Alec, Shuri does not wish to see Ava hurt in this. Not any more than necessary. She is also not interested in trying to control her friend the way her mother sometimes tries to control her. It is infuriating. 

So, taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, she lets some of the fight leave her. For the sake of Ava, not the pasty demon. "I have the latest build ready for transfer." 

"You're sure you've secured the connection on your end?" Alec has the audacity to question, even outside of the frame. "I'm not interested in spending my week chasing traces of this—"

"Do I look as if I will hesitate to strike you, colonizer?!"

—

"I'm just saying, Humpty Dumpty."

"Fuck off," Bucky wheezes at the billionaire, compressing the towel he grabbed from his new medkit against his ribs. Why he expected to make it through his first mission back without having to crack it open, he's not entirely sure now that he's sitting in the hindsight. Getting shot today was, if he's honest with himself, entirely predictable. It's his luck, after all. 

"We let you out of the house again for five minutes, and you've already broken yourself." Tony shakes his head as he tsk's, making Bucky roll his eyes lazily. "What's Ryder going to think? If you keep this up, you'll give the woman a complex about draining your mojo."

"She's going to think I throw myself in front of armor-piercing rounds for idiots that don't notice when they're being shot at." The mention of Ava brings the doctor's smiling face to the forefront of his mind. Bucky leans back against the Quinjet's co-pilot seat, letting his eyes fall closed. 

He could take care of this latest injury himself. That's what he usually does. Thanks to the serum, all he has to do is keep the wound clean for a few hours while his body stitches itself back together. Nothing's broken, and he'd be in much more pain if anything were punctured. Hell, he'd probably be dead already. The fix for this is so easy it'll practically handle itself.

"You always get so cranky after you've played the hero." He hears Tony kick his feet up on the Quinjet's main controls. "Take a breather. Maybe a bow or two. Believe it or not, it's possible to accept a compliment now and then."

"Grandstand more often, got it."

Ava's probably going to hear about today's incident now that Bucky thinks about it. If anything, Steve's going to make sure of it. He doubts she'd guilt him for not being comfortable with an optional trip to medical. They've been having more conversations about boundaries and comfort, and she's been unwaveringly supportive of him moving at his own pace. 

"You don't have to grandstand, you gigantic baby," Natasha chides from between the chairs. Her hand smacks against his shoulder, making Bucky grunt softly. "A whole new world is going to open up for you when you relearn to accept praise."

Tony snorts, long and loud. "Has he reached that stage of modern education yet?"

"I reached that stage of education before you were born, Stark." Bucky's not territorial over his reputation anymore; those days are long since passed. The grand majority of his mojo got left in the 40s. He's just tired of Tony's shit. That's all it is.

He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Ava might feel bad that he didn't come to her for something like this. He doesn't... want that. He doesn't want her thinking that he doesn't welcome her help or that he doesn't trust it. He... he does. He doesn't just appreciate having the option; he enjoys it. The new routine is a breeze, and his neck feels better than it ever has. At least that he can remember.

"I'm confused," Tony mumbles around a mouthful of snacks. The man never stops eating. "Are we talking about your no-no years, or did you and Rogers hit up underground bars before Germany?"

"I know all his secrets from the vanilla days; they never went to any of the fun ones," Natasha confirms. It's not like Bucky was going to take the verbal bait anyways. Steve still falls for it regularly. 

"I like how you don't deny having the rest of the answer; I feel like it tells me all I can tolerate about the icicles when it comes to this. That's my favorite part about you, Romanoff. You know when I don't need to know, you know?"

His dumbass friends might as well be background noise with Bucky's mind this firmly in the memory of Ava's office. She's been so good to him, especially over this last week while she pushed through all the red tape for him. He'd been expecting it to take an eternity of hounding Steve all by his lonesome, but she got him back in the field in under two weeks. His best friend had actually been kind of pissy about it behind closed doors. For Bucky, it was like getting sprinkles on top of his cake. 

He's been thinking about getting flowers delivered to her lab for the trouble. It feels like too much whenever his thumb hovers over the confirmation button. He's reached the part of staring at the order details four times.

"I'm pretty sure your country doesn't appreciate it as much as you do. They tend to fight cold wars over it."

"Well, yeah, but our country—you see what I did there? That was a pretty funny communism joke. And it works as a reminder for both of us that you're actually an American citizen these days; isn't that wild? Back to the point here, our country fights wars over stuff we do ourselves all the time, so that doesn't feel like a fair reason to dismiss our friendship."

The doctor's forcing him to expand his music library. Her taste there is as scattered as her taste in movies, but she's got some leading themes he's been able to pin down. The 60s and 70s are huge for her, expectedly, and she's got a lot of nostalgia over the 90s. Paige keeps her versed in all things pop, folk, and country, according to her. 

"If I start referring to the US as my country, you people will expect me to do things like register to vote. Or put up wallpaper."

"I don't think anyone's expecting you to be legally allowed to do that. The voting thing, not the wallpaper. In most states. For multiple reasons. Although, the wallpaper might be a good call."

Ava invited him to their absurdly large archive of playlists during his second session. The ones Paige curates are nothing but insanity. Not one of them makes a lick of sense. Bucky decided that he should have expected that, given her Energizer Bunny reputation. Ava's are less scattered; more organized. Soothing for his mind to digest. He's been using them as workout music ever since. And driving music. And general background noise. 

"I don't think I'd know where to start buying wallpaper. Do you even want me putting that shit on your expensive building?"

"Not really, but the idea of walking in on you rolling paste on the living room walls is worth anything it could take to fix them later."

God, she's funny, too. He could listen to the woman's awful, soul-crushing puns and subsequent cackling for hours. He'll never say that to her face, not for as long as he lives, but they've made him feel lighter every morning that he's gone to let her work him over. He's already stolen two of them to torture Sam with. Another thing he's not going to tell her.

"Maybe I should start smaller. Bruce keeps suggesting a car that has legal registration."

"Heeey, that could work. You'll be signing up for mailing lists and bitching about state tax in no time. You know what?" He hears Tony snap his fingers. "We should get you a houseplant. Work you up to having a fish or something."

Alright. Maybe he'll go to Ava. He doesn't want her to think he's trying to blow off her expertise again. Or that he's avoiding her. He's not; he really does like hanging out in her office. Even if it's technically a medical appointment. He's a lot more eager to visit her than his therapists, that's for sure.

"I am not paying taxes," Natasha scoffs. "If you think I'm tying a legal address to my name, you're out of your fucking mind. Moreso than usual."

"You don't think you'd enjoy having a cave to lurk in?"

"What makes you think I don't have one already?"

"I'm talking about a real house, not a safe house."

This injury isn't related to his cybernetics. It's his ribs, well below any of his implants. He's not entirely out of the loop when it comes to what doctors have to do to get their licenses. She no doubt had to pull a lot of hard hours during her residency. Maybe she doesn't want to patch up the tower's notorious grouch every time he takes a hit. But he doubts she'd ever be impolite enough to refuse him walking in.

"I have my space here: bathroom, laundry room, small kitchen. If I haven't bothered decorating that, what makes you think I'll want to do it for an entire house?"

"Aww, come on. Look at Ryder! She's having all kinds of fun making her place as obnoxious as possible. That could be you after a few online shopping sprees."

Bucky's eyes open slowly, his brows drawing in when the second verbal mention of Ava pulls parts of his attention back to the conversation. 

Fuck, not going to medical still leaves the option of her taking offense. Okay. Alright. So, he'll split the difference and go to emergency intake. He's pretty sure she's listed as his surgical contact in the tower now—he can't stomach looking at his own medical file, not even the written records. Any injury this big will get flagged for trauma support, and she'll be notified. Then it's up to her what she wants to do. That feels like a good compromise.

"She's doing that to reclaim it from Alec; that's different. I don't have the same motivation. For me, it's just going to be extra work.

"Who's Alec?" Bucky asks without thinking. If the universe doesn't hate him today, Natasha's just going to assume he's being his usual kind of paranoid.

"She hasn't mentioned him?" Tony sounds surprised. "Alec's her ex-husband."

Ex-husband? She was married? And she's not anymore, meaning she might be—

He shuts down that train of thought immediately. 

Reclaiming the space of her house implies they lived in it long enough to form some heavy memories. She hasn't mentioned having a kid, and she strikes him as the type to bring up something like that pretty fast. So it was just the two of them, most likely.

"People usually don't like talking about the egocentric sack of shit they used to coexist with," Natasha points out. Of course, she already knows about the doctor's history. It's her.

"Bad divorce?" he prods, trying not to sound overly invested in the answer. These assholes will take it as an invitation.

"Oh, the worst," Tony confirms. "Shithead tried fighting her on it tooth and nail. She had to borrow my legal team just to get the guy to fuck off and leave her alone. He even kept her surname after the divorce; can you believe that?"

An uneasy feeling starts to rise in his gut, making Bucky look over at him. Then up at Natasha. "What kind of won't leave her alone are we talking about?"

"Down, fido, my lawyers took care of it. There's no need to start tailing him. Aside from being a self-absorbed asshole that insists they'll," Tony's voice turns scornful as his fingers form air quotes, "work things out with time, he's toothless." 

"She's got concealed carry permits she earned properly if that makes you feel better," Natasha offers up. The thought does help ease the tension building in him. 

He won't read Ava's file, no matter how bad the buzzing gets. But he might check in with JARVIS about her home security. He's noticed her name on the system logs. She, or at least her house, is linked to SHIELD's network despite her general distrust of the organization. He understands the opposing priorities completely.

He caved and read Wyatt's file two nights ago. The buzzing had been building since Ava mentioned him wanting an autograph, and it finally got to be too much. Nothing's lurking there aside from an impressive list of historians from all the fuck over Georgia and Alabama. The kid's got more family than some towns have population. 

Bucky leans forward with a muted groan to change the autopilot's intended LZ of the Avenger's balcony to the entrance hanger for medical. If he's going to grit his teeth through the antiseptic over a couple small holes, he's damn sure not going to haul his ass through half the tower while his ribs leak. His patience has limits, and that's pretty fucking far over the starting line. 

Tony looks over at him with a deep, suspicious frown. Bucky frowns at him right back with the same level of scrutiny. He can feel Natasha staring a hole into the side of his head, even if he can't catch her in his peripherals. He hates both of them with a passion at the moment. He knows what's about to happen—

"Did you just… prioritize your own health," Tony questions like he's baffled by the very idea. His whole upper body turns in the seat as he looks up at Natasha excitedly. "Oh my god. He's doing it. All by himself." He raises a hand to his chest and looks back at Bucky. "They grow up so fast."

It's good that the autopilot is on. If it weren't, Bucky would be tempted to crash them out of spite, mostly because he's sure he'd survive it. "Very funny."

"All it took was a hippie that gives him candy," Natash adds, her voice dripping with smugness. "Who knew."

"Both of you can fuck off." Bucky doesn't like how close she just got to his primary motivation on the first try. Old habits die hard, et cetera. And he hates that he can't tell if she was trying to guess. If he's lucky, which he isn't, she was just making fun of him.

Natasha knows about his visits to the florist's website; he's fucking convinced of it now. He doesn't know how, and he can't outright call her on it. If he does, he could fuck up and make himself right. There is nothing worse than having the Black Widow as metaphorical family. Not even Steve's hovering.

She and Tony harass him for the remainder of the flight. It's not long, mercifully, and he's starting to regret not grabbing something for the doctor. They were in Montreal, of all places, so it would have been fitting. He figures she'll understand once he shows her his side. The train of thought makes him wonder what part of Canada she's originally from. She hasn't brought it up.

His foot is already bouncing by the time he reaches the elevator. He's still got the surgical towel shoved tightly against his ribs. He hopes she gets there fast if she ends up taking the call. The last thing he wants to do right now is sit around in the burn of antiseptic and bleach while he fights off the urge to bolt. 

This is good, Bucky reminds himself as he takes his first few steps into medical. He's sat through plenty of trips to emergency intake. He can handle walking into his first optional one. It's a non-issue. Completely.

When JARVIS informs him that his file and general vital scan have been submitted for intake, the buzzing gets so intense that he almost leaves. The pace of his sergeant walk, as Sam likes to designate it, slows to a crawl. Then he thinks about a doctor with concealed carry permits. One that lets her house be monitored by a government organization she's actively pushing herself to trust. All in an effort to contribute something good to the world. The buzzing eases, and he picks up his pace, headed for the solo observation room JARVIS listed for him.

There's no moment of standing involuntarily from nerves this time. He doesn't have to force himself to sit back down and wait, even though the room smells wrong. His skin is crawling, and he wants nothing more than to put a throwing knife in his hand like a goddamn security blanket. But he doesn't panic. He doesn't try leaving.

Baby steps.

When the door opens, it's devastating. There's no diminutive hippie with UFO-sized glasses smiling at him on the other side of it. It's a guy in a plain white lab coat without artistic stitching, one that Bucky's never met before in his life. He's already squinting down at a tablet, meaning this will be his doctor for the duration.

This was the worst plan he could have possibly conceived. The universe is humbling him for thinking he could get away with something like this without some kind of suffering. He just wanted to make up for being dismissive of her help initially. Now he gets to sit through this. How fucking grand.

"Barnes?" The doctor that's not Bucky's doctor looks up, his heart rate elevating by a few notches. He's putting in a lot of effort to look confident. It's not exactly working. "I'm Dr. Erickson. I'm guessing you're here for the bullet wounds JARVIS detected?"

"Yup." Bucky's not about to volunteer for small talk at the moment. It's a miracle he hasn't jumped off the biobed yet. "Where's Ryder?"

"Your primary is in a staff meeting at the moment." Erickson puts his tablet down on the supply cabinet's main counter. He's already starting to gather what he needs, leaving Bucky to figure out real quick if he's actually willing to do this. "Don't worry; I'll get you sewn up and on your way in no time."

He doesn't want it getting back to Ava that he bailed the moment she couldn't show up. He doesn't want to leave her with the impression that he's only going to take on medical care if it's her; that's not anywhere near fair. The woman is a brain surgeon, not his private physician. He can grow the fuck up and accept help from people that haven't gone through his gauntlet of verification.

"Great," he pushes out, lifting the side of his undershirt to offer an unobstructed view.

It's not great; it's fucking horrendous. The first touch of the new doctor makes the overly physical memory of the buzzing build so high, he can feel it in his teeth. They're not actually rattling in his jaw the way they did back then, he knows that, but it doesn't matter because his body is screaming at him that it's happening.

The first stitch going through his skin makes him want to put his fingers through the doctor's eye sockets. His mind goes over all the ways he can violently put at least ten feet between them without having to get up. Looking back, it's probably good he didn't reach for the throwing knives. He's not unhinged enough to stab someone unprovoked; he's better than that. But they'd have been distracting to his impulse control, that's for sure.

Dr. Handsy is pulling the first suture in tight when the door to the observation room opens again. Bucky doesn't look up, his eyes locked on a random point on the far wall while he focuses on his breathing. He only looks over when a billowing, maroon pant leg enters his peripheral.

Thanks to a bunch of dead Nazi scientists that used to hide out in the mountains of Russia, Bucky Barnes has a trigger in his brain that is entirely out of his control. One that, when activated by his own interest, lets him process his surroundings in a sliver of the time that it should for a human mind. It is exceptionally helpful in the field. 

Watching Ava Ryder walk in, wearing a suede jumpsuit that mercilessly frames her curves, proves to him that having it in the 30s would have gotten him shot by someone's father. Definitely before he left Brooklyn. Or before he got chased out by several fathers banding together with baseball bats. In the time it takes her hand to come off the door handle and make its way to her hip, his mind goes on one hell of a fucking journey.

He already had more than a vague idea of the shape of her before now; he can't help it. Comes with the territory of doing threat assessment for a living. God knows his eyes have slipped down to her chest on a shameful amount of occasions. Her tits are being held up and pushed together fucking beautifully at the moment. Typically, that would hold all of his attention.

But this is the first unobstructed view of her that he's gotten, thanks to the lab coat being nowhere in sight, and good fucking god. Holy fucking shit. Godfuckingdamn.

She's half turned from him at this angle, so he's only getting a side view. That's more than enough to show off an obscenely rounded ass and the cushy thighs it rests on that are going to haunt his fucking dreams. It's bigger than his hands by a margin that's outright glorious. The mental image of his fingers digging into it, of how it would make her skin dip under the pressure, makes his blood race.

He can't spot the outline of any underwear at first. Then her hand makes contact with the jumpsuit, and his eyes pick up on it. Right there, above the top of her finger, pulled up high over her hipbone. There's a thin band leaving an impression in the fabric. An extraordinarily thin band. There is nothing else in sight.

Pulled between Ava's legs, right at this very moment in time, is a strip of fabric that Bucky's tongue would fit against perfectly. Right under that is a taste he's been catching himself wondering about for two weeks now. One good, long drag of his nose. That's all it would take to push in whatever she's picked out for the day and soak it with that taste. He could get it back out from between her lips with his tongue, pull it to the side with his teeth to give himself room to feast—

Bucky tries to shift his weight as nonchalantly as possible while his brain slows back down. The comeback from tactical analysis is always jarring, with this one being especially so. 

He's the worst kind of bastard. An awful, selfish, perverted sonofabitch. There's not shit he can do to change that. How unfortunate.

"David," Ava greets, the name coming out as tense as the closed smile plastered on her face. "You can put that down."

The other doctor doesn't look up from the work his hands are doing. "That you, Ava? I heard you were—"

"Now."

Bucky's back straightens up as David looks at her nervously, taken aback. Bucky doesn't blame him; he didn't know her voice could get that forceful.

David sort of laughs, which feels like the worst possible choice to Bucky. But, hey, not his call. "What, do you want me to just—"

"I want your hands off my patient right now. I'm not asking." She watches with unwavering intensity as the other doctor lets the needle and thread drop from his hands. She visibly bristles at the patronizing expression on David's face, her head tilting aggressively. Bucky kind of wants to watch her hit him. "I'll be back in less than a minute, sergeant. I need a word outside with Dr. Erikson."

"Take your time," Bucky assures, the tension bleeding out of him already. His ribs are leaking, and there's a piece of doctor floss looped through his skin that he's going to have to cut out of himself tomorrow morning. The immoral evaluation of her outfit that his head threw at him is going to eat him alive. Forever. Especially when he's trying to fall asleep for the foreseeable future. 

All things considered, though, he feels fan-fucking-tastic.

David still looks somewhat shell-shocked, and there's real insult starting to creep into his posture, but the guy doesn't argue. He follows Ava back out of the room, not bothering with a goodbye in Bucky's direction. When the door closes behind them, his super hearing picks up on Ava reaming David about prioritizing patients before ego. She goes into detail about the deep shit he'll be in with her if he keeps ignoring her written orders, long before it ever gets him fired. She tacks on why her anger should scare him a hell of a lot more than the idea of that. Then she instructs him to keep his damn hands off her patients and get back to the intake desk. 

The protective streak makes Bucky's chest feel warm, a half-smile pulling at his lips. She's a handful, alright. One he'd give anything to be brave enough to send flowers to.

Ava is calm, cool, and collected when she leans back in through the doorframe, hanging off it with a soft smile. "Hiya, stranger. I hear you picked a fight in my motherland today."

"I hear it has an arms dealer problem. I wanted to see if I could help." He gestures down at the needle swinging from his ribs without looking at it. "Not all Canadians are as welcoming as you, turns out."

"Eh?" she fires back, hamming up the accent. "Wellll, I'm not about to let a few cranky arms dealers tarnish our reputation. What do you say you push that bandage against your new bragging rights, and we head for my office?"

Licking his bottom lip nervously, he tries to give her a confident smile. "You were busy with something."

"Not too busy for my favorite popsicle." One eyebrow raises sternly. "You are not allowed to tell Steve I'm playing favorites." God, she's cute when she tries to deflect. It's never worked. At least not on him.

"That's—" Shit, where to even find the fucking words for her. "You don't have to do this. Go out of your way like this. I don't mind getting patched up by random medics. Comes with the job."

Her smile turns impish. "That's cool and all, but I mind when people ignore basic ethics just to have a story about stitching up an Avenger. If you need to tell yourself I'm using you as fuel for a workplace pissing contest, go for it. Whatever gets you off that biobed." She leans back, leaving the door open wide behind her. "Come on; I can't stand the way they organize these damn shelves. I wouldn't patch you up in here even if you did pay me. Next time, head for my office first."

Bucky does as she ordered, pushing the surgical towel she packed for him against his side, not minding the sting in the least. He swallows down the point that, by every definition there is, he's not an Avenger. "I'll follow you, doc."

—

"Alright," Wyatt plops his hands down on the glass of the holo, his expression determined. His tight curls bounce with the motion, making their resident gumdrop look adorable, even through the discomfort. "Let's get to dissectin' this cacophony. All in one go, preferably, so I don't feel like yackin' up my lunch two days runnin'."

Ava's head tilts sympathetically. "Oh, honey, tell me you didn't—"

His hand comes up, with his index finger pointed to the ceiling. "Nope. But I got close a couple'a times thinkin' about this." He mutters several things under his breath about creepy Nazi bastards while he pulls up the raw data from Bucky's implants. "All the more reason to get it the hell over with."

"A whole day of digging through coded war crimes," Hannah deadpans quietly, raising a steaming mug to her lips. "I'm glad we get the fun assignments."

"You'd ditch us if we didn't," Ava jokes. She scrolls through the sergeant's file absentmindedly on her tablet, reviewing the vitals added just a few hours ago. He actually came to medical. For something as minor as a field injury. Of his own volition.

"Mmm. I don't know. It's pretty fun watching a brain move like Jell-O. You might have been able to convince me to stick around just for that."

SHIELD's primary system makes a blaring noise of disagreement as Wyatt loads the main file structure. He frowns, looking over at Ava with concern. "Its askin' for administrative override."

"Heeey, that's that thing Tony says I'm not supposed to abuse. That's probably not a good sign." Ava pushes her glasses further up the bridge of her nose and leans over to get a look at the error. "JAR, I'd like some reassurance we're not about to trigger an ancient LoJack if you wouldn't mind advising here."

"There are safeguards in place for importing code with an unknown source," JARVIS reports in. The warning on the screen is dismissed, presumably by him, and a new window comes up. A log of the programming in Bucky's cybernetics going through digital quarantine loads rapidly, with line after line being highlighted in red and labeled HYDRA Suspected. "I will process them for you. One moment."

"We have to clean the Nazi code before we can beat it to death," Hannah mumbles against the rim of her mug. "I think I kind of like that."

"Please, Hannie, I'm hangin' on by the skin'a my teeth here." Scrubbing his hands over his face, Wyatt groans exhaustedly. He drags them down slowly, giving Hannah a pleading look over the tops of his fingers. "You know I'm always here for supportin' you—"

"I'm aware." The ex-marine's clipped tone makes Ava snort and look back down at her tablet. They both know stopping him now isn't going to cut off the word vomit.

Wyatt's hands thunk back down onto the glass. "I'm so proud'a ya, y'know that—" And there's the thickening of the accent.

"I know."

Ava's eyes skim over the list of everything detected in Bucky's wound, locking on the word leather in particular. Today was her first look at his work gear—she's got a feeling he doesn't call it a uniform—in person. It was hard to keep professional in front of six and a half feet of Hi, how are ya? wrapped up in that much heavy black. The sounds that his vest made when he dropped it on the coffee table— Jesus. He's got to be packing enough in there to arm a small country. 

"All's I'm sayin' is that if I have to hear about murder right now, I might actually upchu—"

"Please don't."

Ava's too scared to ask what's in the sergeant's pants for a multitude of reasons. Professionalism is lower on the list than it probably should be. It's a shame, too. He's downright hilarious when he lets himself talk. There's not a doubt in her mind that he'd come up with something unbearably good—and unwaveringly dry—in response to the loaded question.

"A'right then. We're in agreement. No bad thoughts today. We go in like—like excavators, right? With our helmets and our 'lil pickaxes, and we get what we need so we can—" The way he cuts himself off makes Ava look back up in concern. She finds the most horrified expression on Wyatt's face. "That—ah shit, that didn't come out all that right. That was mean, wannit? Insensitive. I'm not tryin' to belittle what the sergeant's been through."

"You weren't belittling anything," Ava assures, reaching out to rub his arm. "I think he'd be the first one to race you to a fossil joke about this."

"You'll tell 'im I'm takin' this serious, won't ya—"

A small chuckle escapes before she can stop it. "Wyatt, sweetheart, it's not like he heard you—"

"You take your pills today, Combs?" Hannah's calm question makes the gumdrop freeze in place. She blows on her coffee, taking a small sip. "If you say you don't remember, I'm going to—"

Wyatt snaps his fingers, his expression shifting to relief. "I didn't, and I remember why, too." He rolls his chair back with a sudden push, aiming for his desk. He reaches out before the chair finishes the trip to grab his patch-covered messenger bag. "One'a the cats got int'a my coat closet; dumbass got stuck on a shelf for reasons I'm still not real clear on." He pops open his medication bottle, tossing a pill into his mouth with a level of dexterity that makes her jealous. "The hollerin' was s'damn loud, I thought the landlord was gonna come knockin'."

"Which one was it?" Ava asks. "Not the new kitten?"

"No, no—Juno's been'a dream. It was Galileo again. I love that furry little bastard, but sometimes he can drive me nutty ." He pauses to take a swig from another glossy vacation mug. Today's is advertising a campground Ava's never heard of that's the best in the Rockies, according to the swirling font. "I got new pictures of Juno if you want 'em, though."

"Yes, please," Ava confirms happily. Holding the teacup-sized ball of fur made her whole month when he last brought Juno in. Hannah ended up hogging most of the cuddle time, but the sound of little meows filling the day had been enough to make up for it.

Wyatt pulls his phone from his back pocket and brings it around to hook up to the holo. The system dings with the sound of a successful transfer after a moment. He loads a collection of new photos, zeroing in on one of Juno clawing her way up a window curtain—

The power to the lab shuts off with a loud, electric click. Everything plunges into darkness with the privacy setting on the glass walls keeping the sun out. It comes back on before Ava can react, the building's primary system switching to the emergency power grid. She and Wyatt lock eyes in panic.

"Oooh man, boss, did I just—"

"I'm sure you didn't," Ava comforts, trying to push down her own panic. It helps that she's heard Tony rambling about the work he's put into making this place indestructible. "JAR?" 

There's no response from the AI. She trades another nervous glace with Wyatt.

"I know it was probably the Nazi shit, but I'm hoping it was the cats," Hannah says, sounding sincere. "I feel like that'll make a much better story."

"Oh my god, did I break JAR?" Wyatt looks between them frantically. "How often does he back up his servers? Did I kill'a piece'a JAR?!"

"I have not been murdered," the AI confirms after nearly a minute of being gone. "The safeguards reported a false positive regarding the programming of Sergeant Barnes' cybernetics. It has been handled."

Ava gives the hologram wall of code a warry look. "Handled by you?" There's a suspicion building in her gut around his phrasing, one that she's not planning on letting out of her teeth. 

"Mr. Stark has a protocol in place that cuts off my servers in the event of any irregular activity. Given the nature of the programming's origin, the system is designed to er on the side of caution."

"That's a really fancy way of dancing around the point, JAR." She's trying to stay civil about this. It's not an easy venture, and she's pretty sure it's not translating at all. Even she can hear the frustration in her voice. "How about we cut the shit, and you tell me what the false positive was."

"There are automated routines running for Sergeant Barnes' implants. They are not harmful; I've taken the liberty of checking them personally now that they've been cleared through quarantine. I am creating a stable update to forward to—"

"How long have they not been harmful, JARVIS?"

Hannah sits up from her relaxed position at the avoidance of their favorite nickname for the AI. Wyatt's brows pull in nervously, his eyes never leaving Ava. They both know exactly what she's digging at.

There's a long hesitation from JARVIS. Short by normal social standards but an eternity for a sentience with quantum processors. "There is not currently a risk posed within the Sergeant's—"

Ava's out of her chair and halfway to the door before he even finishes the omission. Fueled by some of the most intense rage she's ever felt in her life, she marches out on swift feet. She's going to kill him. She's going to string him up—maybe hang him off the side of the tower.

America's fucking Sweetheart, her ass. America's Doomed Liar is a lot more like it.

"Where is he," Ava nearly growls, still stalking down the halls, leaving the medical wing in a hurry. "JARVIS, I know you're still listening; you tell me where that puffed-up, hypocritical—oooh , you tell me where Rogers is right the fuck now. And then you tell me where Stark is—"

"Dr. Ryder, I know you're not inclined to believe this at the moment, but I assure you—"

"You're right; I'm not inclined to do that at all." She takes a deep breath as she passes through the front entrance, slowing herself to a stop. With genuine effort, she pushes down her anger. "I don't want to keep yelling at you. I don't like doing it in the first place. If you don't want to tell me where they are, I'll find them myself."

Ava heads for the elevator to do just that. She's not expecting a response as she pounds the side of her fist against the button for the Datacrux's floor. It's likely to be her best bet to find any of them. There's not a chance in hell that she's letting her team dedicate any more time to this until she gets some fucking explanations.

Halfway along the ride up, the light around the button goes dim. A flash of anger rises in her until she sees the one for the executive level illuminate. 

"Mr. Stark is not currently in the tower, but you will find Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes debriefing in the Situation Room," JARVIS informs her over the elevator's intercom, making the SHEILD agents around her pretend not to look over. She's tempted to ask them if it's the outfit.

"Thank you, JAR," she offers as an olive branch. Regardless of what's truly going on here, she doubts the AI is all that comfortable with the subject.

"You're welcome, Ava."

She's only been to this part of the tower once before. Tony dragged her up to the Avenger's balcony for a party after her divorce was first finalized. That's about the extent of her experience with this section. It's not hard to find her way with everything denoted like it is in the rest of the building.

The palm of her hand smacks against the door marked Situation Room, and she shoves it open aggressively. Both super soldiers, the Falcon, Black Widow, and a scattered group of SHIELD agents stare back at her in surprise. It doesn't slow her down any.

Ava points an irate finger at Steve in the uneasy silence of the room. "Unless New York just caught fire, you and I are about to have a very blunt conversation, captain."

"Hiya, doc." Bucky, unsurprisingly, is the only one in the room smiling at her while she glares daggers at Captain America. He's still in his not-uniform. There's still blood on it. The charm he's throwing her way reminds her that they won't want an audience. 

"I'm going to ask the rest of you to leave," she continues, but her eyes stay on the sergeant as her finger lowers. "I don't think you'll want to be here for this, Bucky."

"What makes you think I don't wanna watch you beat up my best friend?" He leans back in his chair, his hands coming up to rest on his stomach as his smile deepens.

"Can I stay?" Sam asks, his voice eager. It's a damn shame this is how she gets to meet him. She doubts the Falcon has any clue about unethical research.

"Come on," Natasha insists with a serene nod in Ava's direction, grabbing Sam's shirt to drag him up from his chair. "You heard her."

"I—hey!" Steve looks so insulted as he watches his friends and various coworkers abandon him with zero hesitation. "You're just gonna—I don't even know what I did!"

"Neither do I, but I am very ready to hear about it," Bucky assures Ava, not an increasingly distressed Steve.

Ava taps her foot impatiently as the room clears out, leaving her alone with the super soldiers. She ignores the nerves radiating off of one of them and focuses on the one that looks delighted. "I'm serious. This is about your case. Specifically, the work HYDRA was trying to finish."

The mirth leaves Bucky almost entirely. His posture doesn't adjust from its reclined position. "Alright. Tell me what's got you livid about it."

"Steve here made me a promise that was broken in my lab a few minutes ago."

Steve's eyebrows pull in with confusion. "Which promise? Wait—a few minutes ago—Is this about that blackout? Ava, catch me up here; what the hell is—"

"You swore to me that the intention of HYDRA—at least where Bucky's case is concerned—was to make an army of super soldiers, nothing more." She's letting him process this one step at a time. It'll make yelling at him for lying a lot easier. That, and she's honestly worried the technophobe doesn't understand the gravity of the situation.

"I—" Steve hesitates, and she watches the switch to tactical assessment come over him. It's startling to see it directed at her from a face that isn't Bucky's. "As far as I know, that was the intention."

"Yeah? You're sure about that? You're sure you're not omitting something pretty fucking important to my job, Steven?"

"JARVIS, what was the blackout?" Bucky questions at half the volume he started at when she first came in.

Ava points at the sergeant insistently. "See? I'm guessing he doesn't even know, but he's sure as hell already on the right track."

"There was an incident regarding the coding found in your implants, Sergeant Barnes. It has been handled. I have prepared an update to their systems whenever you're ready to undergo a transfer."

"As your doctor, I'm ordering it. We can go back to my office after I'm finished ripping your friend a new asshole for lying to my face." Her eyebrows lower at Bucky in indignation. She's doing this for him, but that doesn't mean she's going to let him off the hook if he knew. "We should probably figure out if I need to do the same to you before we get there."

"Hey, hang on now." Steve raises one hand, likely to try to calm her, but changes his mind and puts it back under the table. She's guessing someone's finally clued in the out-of-time man about that practice making women want to throw something. At his head. "We might not always be able to talk about classified information—something you agreed to, I might add—but I've never lied about HYDRA's intent as far as I comprehend it. I've been very careful to hold up that end of our deal."

"Let me tell you how I know, for a fact, that someone involved in this case is doing a piss-poor job of lying to me about it. Since you haven't quite figured out modern tech, I'm going to try to keep it simple." Ava points a far less aggressive, more instructing finger at Bucky's arm. "In order for that hunk of metal to work, it needs to be programmed. The hardware needs software that can tell it how to read brain signals. A few decades ago, some Nazis sat in a room and wrote a bunch of code for that software. That's what was supposed to be in Bucky's implants. That's all that was supposed to be in Bucky's implants."

"Wait—what the hell else is in them?" The flicker of fear that creeps into Bucky's expression breaks her heart. There's not a doubt in her mind that he could sell her on any lie he wants to with his mind set on it. That's the point of infiltrators like him. 

But Ava's willing to bet everything she's got in this world that the fear in him at the moment is genuine. He doesn't know. And it makes her feel awful.

"Given the size of your implants, I'm guessing not much," she tries to reassure. "We can always purge whatever is there later. However, if the code were as simple as 'read this signal, do this thing,' it wouldn't have been flagged as untouchable by Tony's security measures. The ones put in specifically to prevent JARVIS from being corrupted." She crosses her arms over her chest in exasperation, her eyes moving to one of the small security cameras on the ceiling. "Would you like to explain to the captain what kind of code it would take to accomplish that, JARVIS?"

There's another human-length moment of hesitation from the AI in response. "It would take adapting code."

"The part he's holding back—definitely because he's under orders not to break SHIELD protocol—is that something has to be driving the adaptation. There is such a thing as self-adapting code; that would absolutely explain it. If we weren't talking about something made in the 40s when HYDRA needed entire warehouses just to house a few terabytes of data." She glances over at Bucky. "While I'm sure the agents you scare the piss out of would disagree, your head isn't actually big enough to hold that much."

"You flirtin' with me to stop the panic or to apologize for not being Canadian for a minute?"

Ava blinks in surprise, the slightest hint of heat coming up the sides of her neck. That—she hadn't been—well. Steve's head turns to him, his eyebrows raising in mild shock.

Bucky clears his throat, then tries for a quiet chuckle, his eyes floating between her and the table. "Sorry—it's this damn room. Puts me in sergeant mode, makes me—let's get back to yelling at Steve."

"Thanks, asshole, I appreciate—"

"What makes you think I won't yell at you just because I'm Canadian?" Ava counters, finally recovering. "You trying to stereotype me, Barnes?"

The relief that comes off of Bucky is palpable. "I'd go for the hippie thing first if I was trying to do that."

"Didn't you sleep through the McCarthy era?"

"HYDRA gave me the long and short of it between naps."

Her hand flies up to her face to block a loud snort. Damn him, this is serious. But she's not about to begrudge him the gallows humor. She lowers it again while he smirks at her. "Do you mind? I'm trying to make an angry but valid point here."

"About a bunch of code that my head isn't big enough for," he continues for her dryly, one hand coming off his stomach to gesture up at it.

Ava sighs, the amusement from getting sidetracked by the Brooklyn heartstopper fading fast. "Not big enough by the standards of the 40s. By today's standards?" Her head tilts to the side sadly, readying herself to watch that fear in him get more substantial. "You tell me, Buck. Did the Nazis work in the mindset of single projects, or did they work in the mindset of generations that would lead a global empire?"

The words are the last piece to complete the puzzle in Bucky's mind; Ava can see it happen in his eyes. The expression of horror it yanks out of him will haunt her for the rest of her days. "Zola." 

It's said in a whisper, and Ava's not even sure what the word is. 

It takes Steve longer to reach whatever conclusion Buckys come to, and he looks resistant to the idea at first. "No, that's... no—Buck, you've been to what's left. You know what it took—"

"That's the point she's making, stupid. Look at how small everything's gotten." He stops, and Ava doesn't miss the sight of a hard swallow. "It makes sense. Think about it. It makes sense. They took care of the car until they could find an engine that fit. I was the prototype. Or—was going to be, at least."

The comparison—the one he's using on himself—is revolting. Accurate, but astoundingly revolting. She pushes past it, leaning down to tap a condescending nail on the table. "Hi, there. Still here. Still looking for some answers. What the hell is Zola?"

With Steve watching him like a hawk, Bucky breathes a long, tired sigh. "Not what. Who." 

"I can fill her in," Steve offers to him quickly. "You don't have to do this."

"Oh, I'm not doing shit. She's going to do it all." Bucky locks eyes with Ava, his expression passive. Having the Winter Soldier himself that focused in on her makes her breath catch involuntarily. "How's your Russian, doc?"

"I don't speak a word of it. Do I need to for this?"

"No, I'm sure you've got plenty of ways to translate anything you feel like reading. You should look up doveryai, no proveryai while you're at it." He leans forward, resting his arms on the table. His eyes never once move away from hers. "JARVIS, transfer a copy of my archive access to Dr. Ryder. Full permissions. And the next time she asks you a hard question, you don't have to bullshit her. Tell her to call me."

—

April 6th, 2015

"I want you to bring me with you next time."

"No."

"Is that a no because you do not agree or because you are afraid of mother?"

"Both."

Shuri frowns at the security feed, ignoring the quiet laughter she can hear coming from Nakia on the other end. "Coward."

The camera mounted on T'Challa's dashboard shakes as he turns it back to his face, his expression annoyed. "Say that to my—"

"Coward."

T'Challa rolls his eyes and turns the camera back around as Nakia laughs harder. He will be mopey now, for sure. "I am not taking you to stare at a soldier's office with us."

"Why not?"

"To start with, I refuse to be trapped in a car with you for that amount of time."

"You should be so lucky! Now, what is the real reason."

"What part of royal family do you not—"

"You get to go to these things."

"And when you leave your lab long enough to learn to use the spears of your foremothers, that privilege can extend to you."

"Okoye is always ready to teach you, Shuri," Nakia offers up diplomatically. 

"I do not need a spear to sit in a car annoying my brother," Shuri argues. They always do this to her. She is tired of it.

"You do not need to sit in a car annoying your bother at all." The moping has already started. She can hear it in T'Challa's voice.

"Fine. I will go to Ava's house and stay there while—"

"No."

Shuri slams her hands down on her desk, making the various instruments on it rattle precariously. "She is my family, too!"

There's silence on the other end in the wake of her anger. Then the camera turns again, this time by Nakia's hand. She doesn't stop the spin until it's pointed to show her and T'Challa. He does not look as annoyed anymore. He looks guilty.

Nakia gives her a sympathetic smile. "No one is trying to take that from you. We are only trying to keep you safe. We do not know how far Alec is willing to take things."

"And I am not willing to present the man with more temptations of power," T'Challa adds, the guilt on his face shifting to resignation. "It is not simply because I am afraid of our mother. I agree with her. And with our father. Alec Harlow is a man that is losing everything. That is a powerful motivator, Shuri."

"I am not afraid of that spineless demon," Shuri insists angrily. "I could handle him myself, thank you very much."

"Half the school children in Wakanda could," Nakia mocks under her breath.

She gets a stern look from T'Challa before he focuses it on Shuri. "It is not his strength we are concerned with. It is the allies he can call upon at any time. Men with strength and resources that we do not wish to deal with."

Some of the fight leaves her. Not much, but it does ebb. Her brother might be an idiot, but he is right about this. Ava would not be this afraid for no reason. She has been trying to disguise it when Nakia brings her for visits, which is how Shuri knows it is serious.

"I hate that man, brother." The word is far too inadequate. The contempt she holds for the worm who put fear in the heart of her favorite mad scientist feels immeasurable.

"As do I. As do we all." T'Challa smiles at her finally, his face softening. "I promise to bring you to hit him if he is ever arrested. That is when I will deem it safe enough."

"How many times?" she chases after quickly. "Can I bring a weapon?"

"You can bring exactly one weapon. Can you guess what it is?" The smile turns sarcastic as he reaches out and turns the camera back around to face Alec's office window. 

"I do not need a spear to break that man."

"No, you need it so I can stop being lectured by Okoye for enabling your avoidance of tradition."

"That will not help. She wishes for me to sit through her lessons. I would just bring the spear to hit him over the head with."

Nakia laughs, the sound light and soothing. "I am surprised you did not go straight for the idea of skewering him."

Tilting her head down at her desk, Shuri hesitates. She picks up the ridiculous coffee mug Ava got her, spinning it around in her hands with somber movements. 

Ava's last visit had been especially hard to stomach. The woman had looked so... empty as she talked about the start of the divorce. There had been no vengeful joy in her as she told Shuri's father she understood the gravity of the situation. No hard-won victory in her posture. There had only been grief and shame.

Shuri sighs, turning away from the screen to head for her lab's kitchen. She is going to fill the mug with one of the teas that Ava brings her. It will be a nice change from the energy drinks she has been binging. "No. I... I do not wish the man dead. I only wish to see him locked away somewhere he can never smile again."

—author end notes—

there’s one sentence in this chapter that is 14 words long (including contractions) that is the entire foundation of their incoming dom/sub and oh my g o d when i tell you that shit was cathartic to write 😫🤌 some day when this is finished, im gonna write a whole goddamn dissertation on that one sentence and all the narrative shit that tied into it in this fic so help me (YOURE ALLOWED TO GUESS BTW)

anyways, everyone is alive in wakanda bc i said so. and nakia and t’challa are really stupid uber mega important to ava’s backstory

i feel like we’ve all, as a species, Been Through Enough. you can talk my ear off abt anything, but dont talk to me abt the opening of wakanda forever i will Literally Die, i havent cried that hard over the first watch of a movie in so fucking long and i dont think im strong enough for a second. all i ever need for binging is winter soldier and black panther anyhow (FATWS is still growing on me and i only like it so far bc im a sambucky shipper. and a stucky shipper. and a 3 musketeer shipper. and a—i like making buckaroo be in love a lot. lets just. leave it at that). we can stop with the big owies thanks. let me escape to the fictional world where everyone is alive and Nothing Hurts, t h a n k s.

well. okay. some things are gonna hurt in this. probably really super bad too and youre gonna be really really mad at me when it hits. but like. theyre set up for comfort pay off so does it even really count??? i didnt think so, ty for agreeing 😌

ily 💖 tyty for reading 💞 and tyty in advance for yelling at me when i eventually hurt u ❤️🥰 i will understand, its okay, u are entitled to the emotional compensation on that one

[jakekgs]

DATING JAKE SIM,

gonna do this with all of the members to get me out of my writing slump!! i’m opening a permanent taglist! send an ask if you want to be added! tw: mentions of ‘not eating’ briefly.

took him a while to even ask you out, he needed the entirety of his friend group supporting him before he could approach you.

he was so happy when you agreed to that first date that he hugged you, right then and there. it was quite possibly the best hug of your life, the way his arms wrapped around your waist and he buried his face into your shoulder:(

he hugs you lots now, he claims its making up for all the times he’d see you in the cafe beside the hybe building and wanted to hug you but he hadn’t known you then.

kisses you a lot, not just on the mouth but everywhere, your face, cheeks and forehead are his favourite spots. every time he does, he claims he cant stop because ‘you’re just too beautiful, and you’re all mine!’

watches kdramas with you so that you have someone to talk to abt them, and winds up enjoying them more than he’d care to admit. he really just loves watching sad ones with you so that you hold on to the sleeves of his jumper and cry in to his embrace.

lots of pda!!! he’s not the type to be embarrassed about showing you so much affection publicly bc thats truly how he feels about you, he’s so in love that he would want everyone to see it- members included.

often pulls you into him by your waist when you walk past him, just to see you get flustered and end up a giggling mess on his lap.

hands in jean pockets!!

pulling you closer by the belt loop on your jeans!!

he’s an emotional person, so he’ll go to you for comfort, as you do for him. he makes you feel so safe and will sit, wiping your tears and running his hands through your hair, listening to you spill your emotions to him before he’ll try to come up with a solution.

he does the same with you, there are telltale signs to jake being upset, he’s far too quiet, he keeps his hood up, his head down, he won’t eat properly etc. it doesnt typically escalate to the latter unless you’re out for the day, when he’s upset you’re the first person he’ll go to. joining you in bed in silence, hugging you until you feel his tears dampen your shirt.

loves taking photos of you, prefers when they’re candid but you two have some of the cutest selca’s to date. a few hundred of them are both of you pretending to bite on another cheeks, or just squishing the other’s face.

needs you, you calm him down completely and when you run your hands through his hair, his nervous jitters dissipate. gets a little mire upset than he’d care to admit when you cant come to certain performances or shows, but doesn’t think any less of you.

definitely has an instagram account which only fellow artists and friends from home follow, posts about you all the time.

loves seeing you interact with his family:( he almost cried when he found out that you had his mothers number and regularly spoke to her on the phone, as well as her allowing you to facetime layla through her phone.

when you eventually meet layla, he takes a ridiculous amount of pictures, it becomes his lock screen, home screen, laptop background… “my favourite girls:(“ under a picture of you, his mum and layla </3

lots of pet names, angel, princess and baby are his favourites!

makes you a lot of playlists, ‘cooking with my girl’ etc etc

you have matching jewellery, probably rings since jake seems to wear a lot of them! although i can see him having subtle matching necklaces too!

if your hairs long enough, he would either watch tutorials or ask sunoo (sobs) on how to braid/plait it because he knows after a long day there’s nothing more relaxing than having someone play with your hair:(

all in all, he loves you; inside n out, will never have a problem showing you off/bragging about your accomplishments etc, he’s your number one fan!!!

masterlist, requests.

[nevarrhoe]

mea culpa (m.m) - two

SUMMARY: "mea culpa" (exclamation - noun/legal term)

used as an acknowledgement of one's fault or error.

↪ in which matt murdock accidentally falls in love with the district attorney's daughter. (masterlist + playlist)

warnings: afab reader/fem pronouns, age gap, smut, p in v, choking, unprotected sex, semi-public sex. and also swearing, naturally.

MINORS DNI - this has been clearly marked as having explicit content and with these clear warnings in place, you are reading this whilst being aware of said content and i bare no responsibility for what you to choose to consume. with that in mind, if someone who a) does not have their age in their bio or b) does so and is a minor, you will be blocked.

thank you so much for such a positive response to this series so far!! it really means the world to me and if you would like to be tagged, please let me know <3

-jazz (@dameronology)

It was a little hard to stop thinking about Matthew Murdock over the next few days. 

Nevermind the fact he’d left hickeys all over your neck - it was the fact he was texting you every few hours with absolutely indescribable fantasies that made it difficult to think about anything else. Your blood would run cold every time your phone buzzed, just on the off chance that one of your friends, or god forbid your father, see your phone screen. It put you on edge in the best way. This entire thing was already beyond fucked up for more than one reason and yet, you wanted more. So much more. 

Can’t wait to taste you again. 

Can’t wait to hear you scream my name again. 

Hope you haven’t been thinking about anyone else. 

And it was funny, really, because Matt was a perfectly respectable man from the outside. Quiet, unassuming, a dry sense of humour - you never would have taken him of all people to be the one to make you feel so fucking alive. It wasn’t just how good he was in bed, but rather the thrill of it all. Nothing got your motor running like a situation’s potential to disappoint your father but hey. That was for your therapist to deal with. 

Of course, your father had asked several questions about where you’d disappeared too after the gala on Friday. He was more concerned about it had looked for him, and to have his daughter run out on a big charity event. Your mother had been less worried about that part, and more about her vintage Chanel suit. You’d settled both their worries by a) telling your father you’d had stomach problems (because who was gonna ask about that?) and b) promising to send the Chanel off to a dry cleaner. 

It was on a slow Monday afternoon - exactly three days after you’d met him - that Matt sent you a not so dirty text. It was so casual, in fact, that it caught you more off guard than any of the filth he’d sent you over the weekend. 

Wanna grab lunch? 

“Are you okay, honey?”

You blinked, eyes shooting up to your best friend. Okay, maybe not a best friend - those were hard to come by in high-society. She was your most tolerable friend. It had been her idea to get martinis for lunch. Your idea of fun wasn’t exactly sitting around with five rich girls and their daddy’s credit cards but it wasn’t like you had work to do, right? 

Part of you so badly wanted to tell them about the escapade over the weekend - about how much better an older guy was than all their ridiculous, frat-house boyfriends, and how good he’d made you feel. But did you trust them? Not with your damn life. And for risk of being cut out of your father’s will, you figured it was something to keep to yourself. 

“Yeah,” you cleared your throat. “I gotta ditch. My dad needs me to get something from his office.”

Grabbing your jacket - a tan Chanel parka, naturally - you slid out of the booth and straight out of the restaurant. Matt’s number was dialed into your phone before you even hit the street. 

“Matthew, hi!” you greeted him. “I’m down for lunch.”

“Perfect,” you could hear the smile in his voice. “Wanna come by my office?”

“Sure. Want me to grab takeout?”

“It’s okay. I already have lunch here.”

“Okay. Text me the address.”

–

The Nelson & Murdock office wasn’t too far from where you’d been. Hell’s Kitchen wasn’t exactly your stomping ground but your Uber had dropped you off right outside, and you had a taser in your bag. Not to mention the years of Krav Maga and karate that you’d done in high school and college. You could have been a damn vigilante if you wanted to. 

It was the shorter, Nelson half of Nelson and Murdock that saw you first. He seemed taken aback at first - maybe by your expensive appearance, but also maybe because every other person in the room was a middle-aged man there for free legal advice. By the looks of your Chanel bag and red-soled shoes, he figured you probably didn’t need any legal advice for free. Especially not from him. It seemed much more apparent that you had the likes of Jeri Hogarth in your pocket should you need any legal assistance. 

“Hello. Hi.” Foggy greeted you with wide eyes. “Do you have an appointment?”

“Uh, no,” you turned around to face him, sticking out your hand. “You’re Nelson, right?”

“I am Nelson,” he replied, shocked look still not faltering. “How do you know my name?”

“I’m a friend of Matt’s,” you explained. “I don’t suppose he’s around?”

Speak of the devil. Your conversation was cut short by Murdock’s entrance. He looked hot in a suave sort of way; tie loosened around his neck, top button undone and sleeves rolled up. It was the first time you’d seen him since you’d left his apartment early on Saturday morning and frankly, you didn’t know how to act. Most of the men you slept with didn’t invite you to their offices for lunch - hell, most of them didn’t have offices. 

“Hey, Murdock,” you gave him a small wave.

“Hey - come in,” Matt shot you a grin, ushering over to his own office in the corner. 

It was neater than you’d thought it would be; there was a laptop perched on his desk, with a braille translator and a stack of legal files. They were probably the same legal files your dad had, just..the other side of the story. After all, Nelson and Murdock were known for looking out for the little guy. That was much more admirable than daddy dearest and his famously corrupt evidence. 

“Your shirt fits better today,” you commented, shrugging off your jacket. “That’s a real shame.”

“Is that a comment about my arms or the way I dress?”

“I think you know that it’s about your arms.”

You pushed aside the files, hopping up onto Matt’s desk. He had you caged in within a second, broad hands gripping your hips and guiding you up into a kiss. It was a little softer than the ones you’d shared on Friday night - there was less heat; a causal air to it. You didn’t think it was possible to miss the lips of a man you’d fucked exactly once. 

“So,” you murmured against him. “You said you had lunch here.”

“I do,” Matt gave you a shit-eating grin. “You.”

“Matthew!” you hissed, hitting his shoulder. “Did you seriously invite me over here just for a fuck?”

“Not exactly!” he quickly replied, raising his hands in surrender. “I wanted to check in with you and see how you were.”

“Oh, okay,” you raised an eyebrow, pleasantly surprised. “I’m not too bad. I was having lunch with some of my friends when you texted-”

Matt suddenly attached his lips to your neck, teeth gently nipping on the same mark he’d left a few days ago. You didn’t mean to let out a moan, but how could you not? 

“Matthew!” you exclaimed again. 

“No, go on!” he stopped for a second. “I’m listening. You were having lunch with your friends and…”

“And you texted and I was bored, so I left and - Jesus fucking Christ, that feels so good.”

Matt raised an eyebrow. “You left your friends to see me?”

“I would leave my dying Aunt Betty’s bedside to see you,” you said. Without a second thought, you grabbed him by the tie and pulled him back towards you. “Enough catching up. I’m good to have lunch now.”

He gave you a grin and a few moments later, his hands found your way under your ass. Matt shoved aside the pile of legal papers and moved you further onto the desk, lips back on your neck and working a thousand times harder than they had before. Instinctively, you tangled a hand in his hair and just let him have at it. 

The build-up wasn’t as tense as it had been the first time you fucked, but that was because Matt knew you better now. He pretty much had you memorised; the ticklish spot on your neck, the most sensitive spot on your hips, the way you liked his nails to dig into your back just enough to hurt. That was just a testament to him. Who else would remember that? Who else would take the time to learn what you liked after just once? 

“Not that I don’t enjoy this,” Matt paused for a second. “But my lunch break isn’t that long. If we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna have to be quick.”

“You’re real cheap, Matthew Murdock,” you scowled. “Do you invite all girls over here for a fuck disguised as lunch and then rush them?”

“No, not all of them,” he shot back. “Some are more breakfast kinda gals-”

“- oh shut the fuck up.”

Wrapping your arms around his neck, you pulled him back into a kiss. Matt couldn’t help but smile against you - at how badly you wanted him, how you chastised him but still didn’t stop him. 

It was in that moment that you thanked every deity there was that you’d chosen to wear a skirt that day. But frankly, you wouldn’t have given a fuck if Matt had ripped your Versace mini-skirt to shreds. He would have been okay with that too, especially if it meant you have to borrow a shirt of his to leave in. 

Still, Matthew Murdock was nothing if not respectable - at least enough so not to destroy your designer clothes. Instead, he simply pushed it up, large hands making their way to your ass cheeks and giving one of them a light slap. You froze when he did - how many clients were out there in the waiting room right now? Even with the blinds closed and the door shut, how many of them could hear what was going on? 

“Problem?” Matt paused. 

“There are people out there who could hear us-”

“- not with the air conditioning on. Foggy always has it going. Don’t worry.”

You scowled. “How do you know that?”

“Just do.”

Matt wasted no time in resuming his activities. Grabbing you by the hips again, he lifted you with ease and spun you around so that he was the one on the desk, and you were in his lap. The friction of his hard-on in his trousers against your core was almost unbearable and he could tell you were desperate by the way your grip on him suddenly tightened. 

“Look at you,” he grinned. There was something about the way his voice dropped four octaves every time he was about to fuck you. “You’re calling me sloppy but you’re gagging for it, aren’t you?”

You let out a small grumble, shaking your head. “I thought you didn’t have time to tease?”

“You’re lucky that I don’t have time to do a lot of the things I want to do to you, sweetheart,” he said. “Everyone out there would be able to hear me fucking you if I didn’t have to be back in twenty minutes.”

“Matthew,” you growled. “I don’t care how long you have - if you’re not inside me in the next thirty seconds, I’m going somewhere else.”

“I didn’t think there would be many men around at this time willing.”

You let out a derivative snort, acrylic nails dragging down his neck and hand settling ever so gently on his throat. “You think I don’t have plenty of offers? You’re not the only man who can make me scream.”

It was almost like your words awakened something in Matt. In a flash, he’d pulled you off the desk and positioned you against it; there was the sound of his belt and a second later, his dick was inside you. Rock hard and beautiful, and the perfect length to have you clenching around him in mere fucking seconds. 

He wasted no time in pounding into you from behind, one hand tangling his fingers with yours on the desk and the other wrapped around your throat. You had complete and utter trust in him and maybe that was why you placed your own hand over his and encouraged him to squeeze harder. 

Matt’s movements were rapid and consistent: time was of the essence after all, and there was no way in hell he was going back to work until you came. 

It didn’t take much, to be honest. Not when you had his gruff voice muttering things in your ear. It was hard not to make noise then - Matt moved his hand from your throat accordingly, clutching it over your mouth in an attempt to muffle your moans. What an ass. Not to mention that it only made you even fucking louder. 

“Do they make you feel this good?” he teased. “Do they?”

He managed to hit the right spot over and over and it wasn’t long before you felt that knot in your stomach. It was a plunge; like a plane falling out of the sky, anything that caused a sharp drop in your gut. The room was practically spinning around you as you came undone, red acrylics digging into the skin of Matt’s arm for some kind of relief. 

“There we go, sweetheart,” Matt murmured. He softened his pace, slowing down for a minute to revel in his own high. “Good girl.”

He released his hand from your mouth, chest heaving against your back for a minute as you both came down from your respective orgasms. A broad arm wrapped around your waist, steadying you. Matthew Murdock was a gentleman, even when he was rearranging your guts. 

You slowly turned around to face him, pulling him into another desperate kiss. 

“Are you free tomorrow night?” Matt softly asked. 

“Yeah, I am,” you ran a hand down his chest, faltering for a second. “Why? You gonna take me out for dinner?”

“Yeah, but an actual meal. It’s not a euphemism, I promise,” he gave you a grin. 

You returned the gesture for a minute, a wide smile on your face - but then it faltered. “Matthew, I would love for you to take me on a date, and I adore spending time with you but…”

“But what?”

“My dad,” you groaned, dropping your head into his shoulder. “If anyone catches me with you, I’m done for - as hot as that is.”

Matt couldn’t help but chuckle. “Okay, fine. What if we just hang out at my apartment and get take out? You can dress like a slob and no-one will see us.”

“Yeah, that sounds great,” your smile quickly returned. “But I am not dressing like a slob. I wear Chanel or I wear nothing.”

“I would much prefer if you wore nothing.”

tags: @walkintheprk @lunarxeclipse

[pinkchanelbag]

ooo what about tooru oikawa’s love language!!

strangely specific love languages - oikawa, iwaizumi, matsukawa, hanamaki.

OIKAWA TŌRU — cheek pinching. coming up behind you and gently pulling all your hair away from your face, holding it back while he bends forward to kiss your face. telling his friends everything about you to a point where they know your favorite meal and movie without you having told them. staring at you when you're not looking, and when you do look, grinning at you just how he knows takes your breath away. paying for your nails. showing up to your games/shows, etc. religiously and as inconspicuously as possible so none of the attention is on him. completely subconscious murmurs of “pretty” whenever you’re talking to him. tucking you into his hoodie while he watches games on his laptop and you nap on him. “hiding” you into him when he clocks a girl looking at him too hard in public (not to actually hide you, but to show you’re securely with him). aside from gushing about you, having actual serious talks about you with iwazumi for advice or planning his future with you. paying for your hair. paying for everything, whether it has anything to do with him or not. smiling gently into the camera before serving, and you know that it’s for you. 

IWAIZUMI HAJIME — playing with your fingers. driving you everywhere. the “girlfriend voice,” as his friends call it, that he uses with you: soft and slow. shutting you up with kisses. pulling off your shoes for you when you shlump onto the couch as soon as you get home. feeling a part of his soul turn to dust (in a good way) every time you hang off his arm instead of hold his hand. patiently explaining every last volleyball term to you just so he can see you sitting all pretty in the stands watching him play. thumb wrestling (especially in public, as a way to be close to you without the pda). not letting you carry so much as a wallet yourself. taking his shirt off when you cuddle purely because the feeling of your little scratches on his chest and tummy make him feel safe.

MATSUKAWA ISSEI — picking you up in the most incapacitating way he can whenever he wants to annoy you. feeding you so much that you joke about his fattening you up to eat you. kissing your hands absentmindedly. “did you see what i just saw?” eye contact from across the room. car sessions where you share your recent playlists. laying his open hand on any given part of your body (your waist, your calf, your face) to see how small you are in comparison. unceremoniously pushing your head onto his shoulder or down into his lap when you’re clearly sleepy—and letting his eyes rest on your dozing form as he drifts off himself. 

HANAMAKI TAKAHIRŌ — ridiculous pet names after random objects (”my little blueberry pancake...my venus fly trap...my screwdriver”). random super tight hugs every time he feels <3 :) towards you (which is at least once a day). taking pictures of you, but not just casually—likes to visit new places just so he can find cool shots that always include you and sometimes end up on his instagram. keeping an arm around your shoulder in public that’s almost like a chokehold with the way he folds you into him whenever he wants you closer. sending you random posts related to the future, like some couple with their newborn or new apartment, etc., without a word; just a silent gesture as if to say “that’ll be us.”

[movnts]

𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐬

affectionate lovers, the both of you sharing physical touch as your love languages

constant hand holding, his palm pressed against the small of your back 24/7, pinky fingers interlocked at every chance you both got. no matter where you were, or who you were with, there was always some type of physical touch being shared

stealing his clothes whenever you get the opportunity

hoodies, football shirts, shorts - anything that looked good on him would gradually make it's way into your side of the wardrobe

his eyebrows knitting together in confusion when he can't find one of his jumpers, swearing to you that he definitely put it in the washing basket and that clothes can't just disappear

evenings when he comes back from training, his eyes all tired and voice husky, asking whether you wanted to watch some new show that had been put on netflix

and you'd be lying in between his legs, his fingers gently brushing through your hair and you'd feel his touch soften and the sound of the television lulled him to sleep

him always managing to be the little spoon whenever you're cuddling

the back of his head pressed against your chest as he'd play with your fingers, brushing his thumb over the back of your hand as he'd mumble about you being the best hugger ever

forehead kisses, temple kisses, corner of the mouth kisses

random spurts of energy in the middle of the night when neither of you can sleep, huffing dramatically when he dragged you to go make a hot drink downstairs

ending up dancing in the kitchen, the steady stream of moonlight illuminating the tiles as your giggles would turn into yawns, both of you content with just moving with no sincere rhyme or rhythm

"your eyes look pretty in the moonlight... i mean they look pretty all the time but especially now" being mumbled between gasps of laughter as he'd step too much to the left, both of your bodies jolting as you struggled to stay on your feet

really missing him whenever he was away, his scent being left on everything you owned not being enough as you'd try not to cry when he'd call you before he went to sleep

so he'd send random bouquets of flowers to the house, always looking forward to the frantic calls you'd make, words at a loss as you'd profusely tell him how much you miss him and how lovely the flowers were

declan becoming one of your closest friends as well, treating him more like your brother as you'd confide in him with secrets and how mason's habit of leaving his dirty socks everywhere was starting to become insanely annoying

mason always calling you by nicknames rather than your name, the way he called you sweetheart, darling, baby and lover sounding like music to your ears whenever he was around

him always asking you if you want to get married and although you know it's a joke your cheeks would burn up and you'd get a sparkle in your eyes

going to as many chelsea games as possible in his shirt, screaming and clapping along as you join in with the crowd, the sight of mason doing his thing hypnotising you

mason begging you to stay in bed for five more minutes, enjoying the way your body fitted against him, the warmth of you causing him to grumble as you'd strip the covers from him

meeting him after training and he'd instantly be all over you, head in the crook of your neck as his lips would ghost your skin, grumbling about wanting to go home and be with you

"can we get a dog? please can we get a dog?"

stressful holiday packing with him during the break before pre-season, his mouth trying to hide the smile as he'd slip several more pairs of sunglasses between your pile of sundresses because obviously one pair wasn't enough

date nights to the cinema or your favourite small restaurant, making sure you know how good you look and how badly in love with you he is

you always trying to scare him by hiding behind doors or creeping up at him when he doesn't know you're around

yet he never seems to jump in the same way you do, mouth always curled into a satisfied grin as your dramatic yell of terror doesn't even make him flinch

but he always feels bad after scaring you, big doe eyes pleading for forgiveness after he sneaks up behind you

mason always taking charge when tagging along on the weekly food shop, insisting that you needed all flavours of that certain ice-cream brand because they all taste amazing

then he'd proceed to leave the bag that had the ice-cream in in the back of the car whilst unpacking, his reddened cheeks popping around the door as he'd hum about the car being covered in melted cookie dough and chocolate fudge

him cutting out the little articles about astrology in the back of the newspapers when he is away because he knows you've been trying to get into it recently

and he'd be so supportive of every little hobby that you did, or any interest that you had, always encouraging you to do things that you were once embarrassed to do

random karaoke sessions when driving, both of your voices strained ridiculously as you'd jiggle around to the driving playlist you'd both made one night, head hung back as you'd strum your air guitar

"can't believe i got this lucky"

[yoimix]

haikyuu!! as types of best friends.

➼ ft. hinata, sugawara, bokuto, osamu+atsumu.

➼ playlist. talk too much - coin, higher - banks, romanticism - mrs green apple, me and my friends - james vincent mcmorrow

➼ a/n. these have light bff2l undertones hhn i love that trope, pls forgive me. </3 + there’s some timeskip spoilers for atsumu & osamu’s part.

❀ hinata :-

i wish the childhood best friends trope a very good evening.

no one’s better than hinata at making friends, even if you met after he spiked a ball into your face. you’re childhood best friends too !! so imagine being a child and having to pick up this goofball by the scruff, who has the audacity to ask you to play with him after giving you a scratched up forehead and teary eyes from a ball to the face. but, like, you were the one who said yes so it’s on you :-)

sometimes you bicker but it’s ok bc he would literally go to the ends of the earth for you if you asked. no kidding. he hates sitting still anyway so he’ll just gravitate towards where you are like you’re the sun. also gets you taiyaki in the evenings but climbs in through your window instead of using the front door like a normal person. (he has too much energy </3) if you hear someone yelling your name outside your window and ranting about volleyball games, you know who it is.

ok when he makes you mad with his bullheadedness, you'll be complaining with kageyama (who agrees vehemently) and hinata gets pissy bc you get along a little too well when you're throwing insults about him. (he's not jealous, no, of course not.) but.. how long can you stay mad at this sunshine child anyway?? you'll be pretending you never got mad at all within a few hours and go back to joking around.

he gets distracted if you're watching a match sometimes (bokuto somehow got it into his head that he needs to show off in front of you) so you got banned from watching. he overcomes it later on so you can cheer him on in his jersey too <3

gives you ALL his attention when you talk or even complain about your life. he reacts a lot to whatever you have to say so you have to pretend there aren’t people behind you glaring at hinata for having the same decibel sound level as a jet engine.

you have matching keychains you bought at a local fair !!! (you got a pochacco one for hinata but it’s super worn out by now so he keeps it in his wallet instead.) 

he has not won a single multiplayer video game against you (*cough cough* mario kart *cough*) and you don’t even have to be good at it. if you call him a loser, he’ll lose even harder. gets unnecessarily mad at just dance and you have to calm him down.

... you’ve probably kissed bc the two of you (mostly him) were too eager for a first kiss and you got fed up with his pubescent ramblings and ended up kissing him. and then had an early mid-life crisis bc you guys are definitely just friends. (unless.. unless he doesn’t think that way.. surprise surprise 😳) also he's.. kind of bad for make out practice... it’s like kissing a month old puppy.. sorry :/. if you happen to make a lot of offhand comments and tease him about his kissing skills, he WILL turn tomato red and argue in gibberish. only do that in private bc the rest of the world thinks you’re sickeningly cute together >:(

overall, your best friend is a ball of sunshine (who occasionally pisses you off) and your #1 motivation to get out of bed. it's mostly bc he's somehow there to get you out of bed though you've repeatedly told him to not climb in through your window. at least the sun is smiling upon you every day <3

❀ sugawara :-

being best friends with him is such a secure relation !! 

he’s your soft place to fall but also would provide gentle (not so gentle) reminders for your wellbeing (STUDY!!! WATER!!!! BREAKFAST!!). doesn’t get mad when you say you skipped breakfast but gives you this look of disappointment which is 100x more effective. still gets a granola bar for you though. also he literally carries bandaids for u and he’s been doing that since second grade bc you fell off the swing ONCE. you know, just in case. if you’re an accident-prone hazard to society, you’re in luck. 

BEST HUGS especially if you had a rough day and want to sob into his shoulder. if u damage his $85 hoodie tho, he will make u do his laundry and also buy snacks for him. but like he is so soft (his skin is SUPER soft bc he actually follows a skincare routine now) and cuddly like a teddy bear, it's a small price to pay for salvation.

he will hype you up for anything you do !!!! new outfit? offers to be your personal photographer. scored an A+? will treat u to your fav ice-cream. new job? will tell everyone just how proud he is. 

ALWAYS shares the last bite with you and smiles to himself when you eat it so contented. also!!! hanging out at cafes and taking cute pictures is a must <3 even though you’re not dating, you’ll have photos together that make you look a real couple which ensue teasing from daichi and asahi and admiration/jealousy from noya and tanaka. also he gets weirdly protective of you around the team (i’m looking at the moron quartet) and you have to pull the “koushi you’re not my mom” card. it really strikes a chord with him when you say that out loud.

will egg your ex's house with you if you say the word. somehow gets more pissed than you at your ex (if they're a shitty one). it's kind of scary when he's mad too so.... good luck calming him down. he's also really good at sarcastic trash talk so if you happen to meet your ex on the street... send prayers for their self-esteem.

you don't really fight often but if you happen to disagree, he'll go about it in a pretty mature way and talk it out. if you pick a fight on purpose, he'll catch on to it and either tickle you (excessively) or flick your forehead as punishment for trying to rile him up. it’s impossible to prank him!!!!! it’s like he’s got a sixth sense or something so you might as well give up on anything of the sort. 

you said you want to get a dog (or cat) with him in the near future and he somehow equated that to having children. turned bright red and started saying it’s too soon to be thinking of that while you had daichi stop you from smacking some sense into your overly imaginative best friend. (i mean, you do need to live together if you want to raise a pet sooo)

his lockscreen is a picture of the two of you so a lot of people who try to hit on him take the hint quick. he says it’s unintentional but you know he can be terribly scheming at times. if you say something like “why don’t you date me for real, coward” he will malfunction and not be able to look you in the eye. (“don’t joke around, y/n” “what if i’m not” “it kind of feels illegal to date you” “what do you mean?!💢”)

anyway you are one lucky mf if you have sugawara koushi as your best friend even if there are both ups and downs (mostly ups). having someone care for you so blatantly certainly makes the question of romance arise but you’re content with the most loving best friend ever.

❀ bokuto :-

you guys are the “two best friends in a room, we might kiss” “yes we will” “what” type of best friends PLS

it doesn’t matter what stage of life you met him, it’ll feel like you’ve been best friends since the beginning of time.

it’s just so easy to make friends with this airhead and by god’s gift, you cannot physically get annoyed at this man. sometimes his friends will complain about him being forgetful or blunt but you’re just there like. yeah. that’s bokuto. love him for it. (you seem to have a lot of patience.)

he probably gets into trouble with authority unwittingly, so save your weekends to sweet talk his way out after accidentally implying the coach has a weak mindset. afterwards, you go get ice cream or something and hang out at the dog park to forget it happened. (the amount of second hand embarrassment bokuto has given you though... you need some hard drugs to forget all of it.) 

you probably make a lot of friends through him in high school/college but at the end of the day, it’s just you and him and sometimes akaashi making sure you guys are alive. if you guys are alone together on a friday night, you’ll still be having fun!! very often, it takes shape as karaoke :-) bokuto thinks he’s really great at rapping for some reason (he’s not) so cue you screaming the lyrics in an attempt to ruin your part of the song equally. also he always sets the key wrong??? although you sing the same songs each time?? sometimes he picks a song neither of you have ever heard and the both of you try to guess the melody. he’s terrible at it but at least he’s funny. there’s not a single song he hasn’t had a voice crack in.

if you go clubbing/partying with him, get prepared to be introduced as the friend of “the guy who did four keg stands in a row before proceeding to do a cartwheel unprompted and somehow not throw up”. is on first name basis with the bartenders/hosts and gets you free drinks. also gets hit on often but is oblivious unless they’re being very straightforward. if he’s not into them... you have to pull the s/o card and save his ass. oh also he barks at anyone that gets near your drink.

will always exaggerate when introducing you to new people. “y/n and i met when i saved them from drowning a terrible death.” “it was the children’s pool and you were the one that was screaming.” “and then y/n didn’t really thank me but it’s not like heroes need thanks to do the right thing.” “kou, i will push you into a pool right now, let’s see how well you swim.” (he learned swimming to impress you so joke’s on you.)

he likes to watch you do stuff at the end of the day, so if you see him go o_o at you doing homework, you can just put your earphones on and focus on your work. even if he’s making.. a strangely.. adorable expression. also LOVES to listen to you talk about your day when he’s tired, he says it helps him sleep better (so expect a lot of nighttime calls). moreover, if you say you had a bad dream, he’ll comfort you with his ridiculously confident tone of voice (unless the dream was about something bad happening to him, then he’ll freak out and you’ll have to comfort him instead </3)

ok one thing that’s annoying about him is that he probably leaves food crumbs over your stuff like laptop, bed sheet, etc. you clean it up but bokuto.. is a bit... distracted to notice the mess he’s making. it’s usually pretty difficult to get him to be more aware, but like your glare is enough to make him at least try to be careful from the next time. (either that or he’s become sensitive to your change in mood/emotions bc you know... you’re best friends after all.)

i’m not gonna lie, he probably catches feelings for you at some point. he wants to, like, keep it lowkey bc akaashi told him to take your feelings into consideration too but?? it’s so hard?? you’re literally so pretty?? everything you say is like music to him??? he reacts reflexively to all the firecracker feelings u give him. he probably says he likes you all the time but you dismiss it with “as a friend right :-)”. there’s no climbing up from that one, sorry bokuto.

to summarize, if a moody golden retriever was your human best friend.exe

❀ miya twins :-

they feel like a set. it would be strange to have one of the twins as a bff and not have the other one around whoops 🤷‍♀️ 

either you and osamu bully atsumu in your free time, or you and atsumu annoy osamu for fun (or both) <3. it’s always a good idea to team up with osamu and prank atsumu for fun btw. (put wasabi in his breakfast pancakes and you’ll get a very pissed off but weirdly cute tsumtsum. you can blame it on osamu if you don’t want to face his wrath.) your alternative is to embarrass osamu in front of strangers with atsumu, have fun with that. (second hand embarrassment also works.)

when you were younger, you pretended to not be able to distinguish the twins bc it would visibly rile atsumu up and then you’d go “ok you’re atsumu”... which would further rile him up. osamu got used to your shenanigans though it ticked him off the first time too LOL. call them the wrong name on purpose and they’ll start a riot; be careful when you’re playing with fire pls.

you guys played a lot of knight and prince/princess/royal when you were a kid and atsumu would always try to make osamu the evil dragon holding you captive. in the end, you were somehow the knight, osamu the prince to be rescued and atsumu the big, bad dragon. (it’s kind of funny in hindsight. your parents have photographs of the three of you fighting like no tomorrow.) also speaking of which, your parents are also friends and have bets on which twin you’ll marry (or if you will at all). it’s tearing your parents’ friendship apart.

these two have DEFINITELY fought over whose jersey number you’re going to wear to the games ( “oi, ‘samu, stop brainwashing my best friend into wearing your stupid double digit number” “you know i’m the best friend, ‘tsumu. they clearly like me better over yer ratty ass.” “what did ya say?!?!? if anything, you’re the one that looks like ratatouille.”) you wore kita's jersey number to games.

imagine sunday picnics with the boys !!! by that, i specifically mean osamu and his perfect bento boxes <3 sometimes the two of you will cook together before your outings while a sulking atsumu stands outside bc you didn’t let him. (let him in, you monsters.) he says he can cook too but the last time the twins’ bickering almost burnt the whole kitchen down. the picnics continue well into adulthood and you get to diss your boss to the twins who will always support your rants. (sometimes atsumu will tell you it’s your fault but you can smack him off. we only need supportive besties here 🙄)

if someone hurts u.... they’re going to need divine intervention to be safe... you have two well-built, physically adept best friends ready to beat the shit out of anyone who deliberately breaks ur heart. 

when the twins get into a physical fight...... oh boy. it kinda pisses you off that they’re spewing profanity at each other and you’re the one getting glares. but at the same time, you don’t really want to step into a fight that has nothing to do with you. people should solve their interpersonal issues on their own. they have never fought over you, this isn’t twilight <3 

but the question did come up once on which twin you like better; it’s not something to seriously fight over though. if you chose osamu, atsumu will complain for six days straight and you’ll start to regret ever answering the question. if you say atsumu, osamu won’t feed you his onigiri anymore for a few days which is just as bad. the safest choice is to say neither bc it will both be funny and you won’t suffer too many consequences. if you say you love the both of them for being your best friends all this time and go all mushy, there’s a slight chance they’ll go soft too. god help you from the bone crushing hug you’re about to receive 🙏

you make sure to not miss any of atsumu’s official games !! sometimes he’ll wave at you and make the reporters give you hell bc he’s a little shit. just push osamu to them and run away if it gets that bad. (he gets free advertising for his shop, he should be grateful.)

osamu is super good at cheering you up!!! whether it’s with food or with pleasant talk, you’ll be feeling much better with a full stomach and a calmer state of mind. as for atsumu, he’s really good at you cheering you up by distracting you. he’ll talk about his team or this new serve he learnt and the world will seem a lot brighter bc he seems so happy about it. whichever twin you go to, it’s win-win. 

in return, the twins take up a good chunk of your time. sometimes atsumu will crash at your place after a game though you’ve told him to not lead the damn reporters here. osamu makes you taste test his experimental onigiri... which are not always good..... no seriously, why’d he put honey and tuna in there ?? but still, your life is ridiculously colorful with them around.

anyway, what can i say except what’s better than one best friend?? two best friends !!!

[obwjam]

“I watched you from the walls for years, you really can’t embarrass yourself further in front of me.” With Scott Lang please :)

“I watched you from the walls for years, you really can’t embarrass yourself further in front of me.”

yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes A THOUSAND TIMES YES

from this post

———————————————————————

Times were tough at the Lang residence. Scott wasn’t allowed to leave the house, his daughter was only allowed to visit on weekends, and worst of all, he worried about his future. How could an ex-con like him find work again? How could he possibly put behind everything he had been through in Germany? Often times, he sat on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, TV off, staring blankly at the wall.

Other times, he danced.

He wasn’t very good at it, but hey, who was watching? Scott would rev up his ever-growing 80s playlist, crank his speakers up to ten and let his arms flail and his legs go wild. For an hour and forty-six minutes, he would dance and sing and act out fight scenes he had choreographed in his head until he was just about ready to pass out.

Today was an especially stressful day. Cassie was sick and didn’t want to come, so for the first Saturday afternoon in a while, Scott was alone. There really wasn’t anything good on TV, and he had a nightmare the night before. If the good vibes wouldn’t come to him, he would make them himself.

He was maybe an hour into the playlist when he closed his eyes, spun around on one socked foot, struck a pose, and opened his eyes to the most confusing sight he had ever seen.

You were, in a word, fascinated with this human. For whatever reason, he never left the house anymore, which made borrowing close to impossible, but he was boisterous and goofy and just the right amount of weird. Eating cereal and crying at black and white Spanish movies at 10 p.m. was not normal human behavior, but it was normal for this one.

The dancing was especially entertaining. It was like a free show every day. The music was catchy and you had learned the words. Sometimes, you even danced with him. You discovered this crack in the old wood that allowed you to sit in its threshold and observe the human.

You were so caught up in the music that when Scott’s eyes landed on you, it took you a few seconds to realize what was going on.

Though Scott was staring right at you, he still couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. A tiny person? In his house? He squinted — no, it wasn’t Hank or Hope. They didn’t appear to be wearing a suit, either. Just some makeshift clothing. Was this a new Avenger with shrinking powers, sent to spy on him? Was it the government?

For some reason, you weren’t very scared. Years of watching the human from afar told you that he was a very relaxed person. He wasn’t overly excitable and didn’t seem to have a malicious bone in his body. You certainly didn’t mean to be seen, but it also didn’t seem like the worst possible thing that could have happened. It almost felt inevitable.

Scott stared at you, mouth agape and a thousand thoughts swirling around his mind like a hurricane. He realized he was still stuck in a ridiculous pose, so he put his arms back to his side and straightened himself. He should have figured there were real-life tiny people. Why else would Hank want to build shrinking technology?

You were staring back, mouth also agape and equally fascinated by what was in front of you. But Scott didn’t think you’d break the ice, so it was up to him.

“Um... hi,” Scott said, awkwardly giving a small wave. “What are you doing in my house?”

You tilted your head. For a human, he didn’t seem to be very surprised at what he was seeing. You lifted your arm and grabbed onto the wood for support as you spoke up. “Uh... I live here.”

“You live here? Last time I checked, I live here. Oh, no, they didn’t take my house away, did they?”

“What?” you blurted. “Who’s they?”

“Woo didn’t send you here, did he?”

“Woo? Woo who?”

“Jeez, you don’t need to act so excited about it.”

“Hold up!” you yelled, throwing your hands up. Scott pressed his lips together. “What... what are you talking about?”

“You’re government, aren’t you? Here to keep tabs on me, make sure I’m not breaking the Accords?”

“Government?” You blinked in disbelief. “You think I work for the government?”

“Well...” Scott started to attempt an explanation, but couldn’t really find one. “Why else would you be here?”

“I told you. I live here.”

“...so you’re not government.”

“Oh brother,” you mumbled to yourself, taking an exasperated seat. “Um. No?”

“...You wouldn’t happen to be an Avenger, would you?”

“An Avenger? Am I missing something here?”

“Well excuse me for trying to come up with an explanation as to why there’s someone sitting on my wall who’s two inches tall!”

“Hey, I’m four inches, thank you very much,” you scoffed.

Scott ran a hand through his hair. This wasn’t going very well at all. You sighed and took a breath. You could understand why he’d be so flustered.

“No, I’m not government. Or an Avenger. I’m just... a regular borrower.”

Scott stared at you blankly, trying to piece together what a borrower could be, before it dawned on him and his eyes went wide. “Oh wow. You’re really just that small!”

“I didn’t think that was even in question.”

“Gosh, sorry, that’s really embarrassing of me.” He let out a laugh. “An Avenger. What was I thinking?”

His laugh made you laugh. “I watched you from the walls for years, you really can’t embarrass yourself further in front of me.”

“Oh, trust me, I’ve done a lot of embarrassing things in my life. Being put in a maximum security prison’s definitely up there. I’m used to small jails, you know?”

You gave him a quizzical stare.

“This ankle monitor is pretty bad, too, though I— wait a second. Did you say you’ve been watching me for years? ”

You gulped. You thought he either didn’t hear that part or didn’t care.

“I—um, I mean, I was just — I was speaking metaphorically—”

Scott’s expression immediately softened. “Woah, hey, I’m not mad!” He realized he was gazing down at you, and he lowered himself ever so slightly to be at your eye level. Now, he could see the way you gripped the wall protectively. “I’m just... confused. What do you mean you’ve watched me from the walls?”

“It means I live in your walls!” you cried, not realizing how shaky your voice had gotten. You steadied your breathing before continuing. “That’s what borrowers do. We live in the walls of houses.”

“Like mice?”

You sniffed a laugh. “Yes, like mice. Which I help keep away from here, mind you. When was the last time you saw a mouse around here?”

“Oh, gosh, I can’t even remember. Years ago.” You smirked and raised your eyebrow, and once it clicked, Scott’s eyes lit up.

“That’s so cool!” Scott smiled. You knew he was a quirky human, but even you were a bit surprised at how nonchalant he was being. “Do you use those little toothpicks that look like a sword?”

“There are toothpicks that look like swords?”

“Oh yeah!” Scott grinned. “They��d be perfectly your size, actually.”

“Huh. Y’know, that might actually be helpful to shoo away beetles and spiders.”

Scott grimaced. He had gotten used to ants, but spiders is where he drew the line. “Oh, gross.”

“It’s just a part of the job,” you shrugged. There was an awkward pause before you spoke again. “I, um. I’m sorry for startling you.”

“No, no,” Scott shook his head, “I’m sorry for making you listen to the same music all the time!”

“No, it’s fine, I... I actually kinda like it,” you blushed. “Usually, borrowers keep themselves hidden. Most humans aren’t as... entertaining as you.”

Scott smiled, not even realizing that maybe that wasn’t a compliment. It felt exhilarating just to have a face-to-face conversation with someone who wasn’t his family or was legally obligated to talk to him.

“You wanna come to the living room?” he asked suddenly. You furrowed your brow. “It’ll be more comfortable than sitting on that ledge.”

“Well, I can’t exactly sit on the couch,” you said slowly, meekly gesturing at yourself with your head.

“You can sit on the table, it’s fine! I’ve got snacks.”

“Snacks...” you repeated. Even though this went against every single borrower code you knew of, it felt stupid to pass up this offer. If the human wasn’t going to hurt you, then why not make him your ally?

“Sure, why not,” you said finally, standing up. Scott couldn’t help but stare at you in awe.

“Here,” he said, standing back up to his full height and sticking his hand out in front of you. “I can carry you there!”

“Oh...” you said, staring at the hand hesitantly. “I can just walk, you know—”

“Psh! That’ll take too long. Trust me.” You didn’t know why he would know anything about that, but frankly, his weird choice of words was the last thing on your mind. Scott took notice. “Oh, you’re... sorry, I didn’t mean to assume. It’s just right across the hall, we don’t have to go far at all. It’ll be fine.”

You gave him a skeptical look, but at this point, you didn’t have much of a choice. This is what you wanted, anyway.

“I guess this is the one drawback,” you muttered, keeping a firm grip on the wall as you lowered yourself onto his palm. “Humans can’t take no for an answer.”

“What was that?”

“Oh, uh, I—I said. Quite the view from up here.”

“Hah, yeah, I know!”

There it is again, you thought. That weird choice of words.

The trip to the living room was, as promised, short. You were only in his hand for about 15 seconds before you hopped off onto the familiar sight of the coffee table. The bowl of peanuts and candy was filled to the brim, as usual, but you supposed you should act like you’ve never been here before.

“So,” Scott said, reaching into the bowl and popping some M&M’s into his mouth before flopping onto the couch. “What’s your name? I bet you already know mine.”

“I’m (Y/n),” you said, eyeing the bowl. “Can I...”

“Oh, go ahead!” Scott smiled. He watched in delight as you grabbed a peanut that was larger than a football. You bit into it like an apple, and Scott could hardly suppress his grin.

“This is amusing for you?” you asked with a smirk. Scott immediately shook his head, but the smile was still present. “Yeah, I guess I probably look hilariously small to you.”

“Well... only a little.” Scott leaned back into the couch cushion. “So you’ve really been inside my walls this whole time and I had no idea?”

“Yup,” you said with a mouthful of peanut. “Been here for a long time.”

“How do you even live? Eat? Bathe?!”

You turned your gaze to the table. “You won’t like the answer.”

Scott thought about it for a moment, but it didn’t take long for him to connect the dots. “Oh. Oh.”

“Yeah,” you blushed. “But it’s either take crumbs off your counter or starve, so. I choose not to starve.”

“Well, you’re welcome to have dinner with me from now on. I cook just for myself anyway, it’ll be nice to have some company.”

“About that... why are you here all the time? You used to only be here at night.”

Scott sighed deeply. “It’s a long story.”

He seemed uncharacteristically upset about that, so you cleared your throat and pivoted back to what he was saying before. “You’d really let me eat with you?”

“Sure, why not?” Scott seemed genuinely surprised that you would even ask.

“I mean, this has gotta seem a little... weird to you, does it not? In fact, I — well, there are a lot of stories about humans discovering borrowers, and they’re not often pleasant. You... you don’t really seem to care.”

Scott pursed his lips. “That’s another long story.”

“Oh.” Jeez, what is up with this guy?

“I mean, if you’ve really been... in my walls all this time...” He shuddered before continuing. “Then you know how lonely it’s been around here. Heck, it probably gets really lonely all by yourself in the walls, too.”

You nodded.

“Well, I’ve got a lot of questions for you, and I know you’ve got a lot for me... I won’t force you to stay if you don’t want to, but I think — it might be nice to get to know each other, right?”

You gave Scott an almost incredulous look. Maybe all those human tales were just old folk stories of days past, meant to scare children into staying close to home. You were hardly nervous that Scott had any malicious intent. You just almost couldn’t believe this was happening.

“What about your daughter? Isn’t she supposed to be coming this weekend? I’d rather her, uh, not see me.”

Scott sat up a bit. “You know about Cassie?”

“Um. Lived here for years, remember?”

“Right, right. Uh, n-no, no, she’s sick, she’s not coming. Huh.” Scott shook his head. “Wow. You must know, like, everything about me, then.”

Your face flushed red. “I mean, yes and no. I don’t just sit and stare at you to pass the time. It’s-it’s actually pretty strange for me too. We’re not supposed to talk to humans. It’s kind of the big number one rule.”

“What normally happens?”

“Well.” You paused, looking up at Scott’s expectant face. It was hard to hold eye contact, and your gaze flickered back to the table. “It’s a long story.”

Scott huffed a laugh. “I get it. Looks like we both have our own baggage.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Look, if you wanna... go back into that hole in the wall, you can. I told you, I won’t make you stay. But the offer is always there. I’m probably just gonna order a pizza tonight. You ever had pizza?”

You pursed your lips. Should you really be telling him all the things you’ve stolen from right under his nose?

Scott sighed. Maybe this wasn’t the weirdest thing for him, but he knew he couldn’t say the same for you. Your sideways glances had grown increasingly nervous ever since he brought you to the living room. You carried yourself well, but it was clear you were uneasy about all of this.

Wordlessly, Scott placed his hand down in front of you. He frowned when you winced at it.

“It’s quicker if I just bring you back,” he said sheepishly.

You picked your half-eaten peanut off the table and cleared your throat. “I-I’m sorry. I think I underestimated how odd this would feel. You... you’re just, really different than the human I lived with growing up. In a good way.”

Scott smiled weakly. “Just wait ‘til you get to know me.”

You laughed as you climbed onto his hand. You sat down for balance as he stood up, unable to take his eyes off you. You stared straight ahead as he took the short journey back, and in a few moments, you were right back where you started.

Staring at each other.

“Well (Y/n), it was nice—”

“You know,” you said, raising your voice to cut him off. “I have had pizza before. But I’ve never tried ice cream.”

Scott gasped. “Never had ice cream?! Lucky for you, I’ve got some chocolate in the freezer— oh. Oh! You... you want to have some dessert later?”

You smiled amusingly. “You catch on quick.”

“Yeah, it’s a specialty of mine,” Scott said, stretching his arms in the air. “Gosh, it’s already 7:30. How about ice cream at 9?”

“I, uh, don’t have a clock with me,” you admitted. “Why don’t you just... knock when you’re ready?”

Scott chuckled. “Knocking on the walls to my own house? People’ll start to think I’m crazy.”

You blinked at Scott, Scott blinked at you, and you both burst out laughing. For a moment, you forgot that Scott was a hundred feet tall and he forgot you could fit in his palm. It shouldn’t have been that funny, but it was. It all was.

Scott wiped a tear from his eye and sighed. “Oh, man. Okay. I should order before they close. See you soon?”

You smiled. In between the bad jokes, the awkward silences and the fits of laugher, you decided all this weirdness was worth it.

“Yeah. See you soon, Scott.”

[lost-inthedream]

SF9 as husbands

☆★ Requested for the writing party

This is pure fluff ^^

➹ Youngbin:

Married life with Binnie includes:

Making your own dinner or ordering it to eat at home in a random Friday when you both just want to chill. I can see you two drinking after the meal is finished and standing by the window while having little talks. Sometimes you get emotional, because the wine hits and brings back some memories. Binnie can keep quite detailed memories of the day you first kissed.

He being overprotective with you and forgetting to take care of himself. As a result, at some point, he catches a terrible cold and you take care of him like a baby.

Also watching too many dramas, having grave conversations about the characters and the shit they are doing, but often falling asleep into each other arms when you watch it in your bed

➹ Inseong:

Married life with Seongie includes:

Planning trips with so many details that it would be impossible to any human or non human being to execute it perfectly (you probably plan everything out from a brainstorming). Anyways the plans are only for the fun of being surprised.

He complaining about his designated household chores, insisting that yours are better than his. Just to the two of you swap tasks and he eventually notice that keeping the house organized will not get magicaly easier.

Having so many inside jokes related to your life together that sometimes people do not even understand what you are talking about. Sometimes you look a chaotic couple but it is only because you are not ashamed of looking dorks.

➹Jaeyoon:

Married life with Jae includes:

Having some exercise routine together, preferentially outside, so you can see the nature, the birds, other people. Sometimes you look more like buddies than a married couple, because you are so giggly and playful on the streets. Maybe the two of you have a puppy that you walk on Saturday mornings as well.

He being naturally seductive to the supermarket cashier without noticing, and you consequently getting jealous. In the second you tell him that you are jealous, he looks into your eyes with the most sincere eyes and you know you are his one and only.

Throwing a party at your place to celebrate your first anniversary plus gifting your cherish guests with homemade souvenirs.

➹ Dawon:

Married life with Sanghyuk includes:

Him doing impersonations of you while doing the household chores. He swears to God that you hold the broom in a weird specific way and it is so ridiculous. You do not feel annoyed for real but definitely slaps him softly on the shoulders. He does not mind keeping your house organized though.

If you ever leave the house without kissing him or saying “I love you” he gets insecure. You have to pay attention repeat it a lot of times when you come back!!

Him sending you so many messages just to ask you where you have put his belongs. However, he always take those chances to say how much he misses you. “Come back fast!”

➹ Rowoon:

Married life with Seokwoo includes:

Him bringing home piles of script paper to study, spending hours with them. Then he shows up out of the blue to tell you a random line of his current drama. You look at him blank faced (because I feel like he would do it millions of times) still, he bursts into laugh every time, swearing that you are so funny.

Him panicking when you sneeze more the two times in a roll. "I’m taking a day off to take care of you, babe. Don’t worry. Do you think I should stay home tomorrow too, because mayb-"

Seokwoo stealing your food from your dish when you look to the side. You're so tired of your work day but still manage to smile at his cute face.

➹ Zuho:

Married life with Ju includes:

You dealing with all the bugs or little animals that show up in your house. He swears to God that it is a terrible invasion. Maybe he calls you one or two times locked inside a room because there is a spider in the living room.

Him having a studio in your house. Sometimes he works late in the night and every time you fall asleep in the couch there, mysteriously you find yourself tugged in your shared bed a few hours later.

Juho offering to carry you and pick you up everywhere. Also you having a lot off car rides just for the sake of being together and talk. These rides are the best moments to announce news and ideas that came to mind during the weekdays.

➹ Yoo Taeyang:

Married life with Yangie includes:

Decorating your house with cute little plants he manifests the most pure love for. Also he often comes back home with new orchides saying they are gifts for you when you know that, in fact, they are for himself. You pretend that you do not suspect. I feel like he would enjoy living in a place full of freshness. A collection of good scents to spray in the rooms and in your sheets is a must.

Having a large room so you could dance together on the weekend. Your playlist would be quite diversified, but mainly fulfilled with romantic hits (new and old ones).

Him being so clumsy that it makes you afraid of letting him alone in the kitchen. Do not worry, he becomes a trustful human with the time.

➹ Hwiyoung

Married life with Kyun includes:

The two of you being in the same room but giving attention to your own hobbies. Sometimes he just gets distracted as he looks at you and you are so pretty, mesmerizing. You notice him looking and send kisses through the air.

Long serious conversations about every step you have to take in your careers. He often asks if you are okay with some decision of him and he likes when you do the same. Nevertheless, he rarely desagree at something you want to do.

The two of you can have your time alone at any moment you need. You propably had a hard time, before you settled such accord, because he suddenly stayed so silent without explaing you anything. However, once you two have an agreement, you shower him in kisses everytimes he comes out of his cave back to you.

➹ Chani:

Married life with Chani includes:

His name is already cute, I can’t make it cuter!

Everybody thinking he is cold because he is not that into PDA, but he is actually the ultimate caring husband, he often offers you some help or just make something for you. He loves when you thank him with smooches! You get him smiling like a baby

Him pretending that he forgot your first anniversary. You are so sure that he really did, because the dude does not even know his members birthdays. But in the end he has planned the most intimate thing based on your own thoughts of a perfect day.

You guys needing two blankets (one for each of you) because you noticed that you have been waking up cold every night.

[thefanficmonster]

You Never Notice

Sykkuno x Reader (Female)

Warnings: None

Genre: Fluff

Summary: The center of someone’s world is never aware of their importance even when everyone else is in the know. People are hard to understand, no denying, but if we all spilled our truth like how Y/N admitted her feelings to Sykkuno, mutual understanding would be achieved a lot more easily. JK, she needed an eternity and maybe a thousand pushes. What’s important is the result though, right?

Requested by Anon. You are my first Sykkuno request and I wish I could thank you with a tag. Instead, I’m gonna thank you with a fic in which I put my all. Thank you for the request, hope the final product doesn’t let you down. 🥰

Here we go again. Sykkuno’s love life is brought up. This time it’s more frustrating cause I can’t shout how wrong he is about himself and the effect he has on the people around him. He has no room to speak, he hasn’t experienced what I have - one of your best friends living in your head rent-free because you’re just that whipped by them. That’s right kids, some of us never grow past the middle school crushes - they are a constant for some. That can be a good or a bad thing, it completely depends on how you view it.

Currently, him and Rae are addressing some dating rumors that started spreading about them earlier this week while Felix, Sean and I are kicking each other’s butts in Party Animals. We’re not all playing together, actually, we were all playing different games when we hopped into the call and just grouped together after playing solo got boring. Rae and Sykkuno are playing Among Us on a random server, her being the only person who’s streaming right now. She said she just wanted to clear up the dating rumors cause they were annoying to see popping up on her feed on every social media platform she’s active on.

“It’s ridiculous, really. People just look for online personalities to put in imaginary relationships. Are they that bored? I know quarantine is getting to everyone, but damn“ Rae says, laughing a bit to take the edge off her words but I know she’s bothered by this ordeal more than she’s letting on. I know how much it bothers her when people ship random youtubers and streamers together, even when she’s not involved. 

And I agree. Ever since I started streaming I’ve been shipped with my friends left and right. First Corpse, then Dave, Joel...you name them. It gets kinda gross cause these people are legit like siblings to me. Unlike Rae, though, I don’t waste my breath trying to clear those ‘talks of the net’ up. I don’t know if it’s for better of for worse that I remain silent on the issue when I’m involved but am willing to stand up for my friends when they find themselves in a similar situation. Some people think the reason I don’t share my thoughts is because the rumors are true, but the hint is most often taken, resulting in the ship ending. Well, that ship ending, there’s always a new one popping up. As Rae said, it’s ridiculous.

“Why does everyone think I am ever dating anyone? I’ve already commented on this: no one would date me.“ Sykkuno says through a sigh-like laugh.

“Why are you so sure?“ I blurt out without as much as a second thought

My eyes widen just a bit, just a bit. I’m not too surprised with myself. I am slowly losing control of my raging emotions and I’m afraid of what I’ll turn into when all my restraints snap. A mess, that’s the most likely answer.

“Well....“ Sykkuno trails off, clearly more than a little nervous, “I don’t have a girlfriend right now, and I haven’t had one in a while...Nor has a girl shown any interest to be more than friends with me in what feels like forever.“

“I’m sure you just don’t notice the hints girls drop. We can be pretty subtle.“ I try to sound as nonchalant as possible while I’m still in my panicked animal mode. And by animal I mean a cub. A scared cub that is now showing confidence but will run and hide right afterwards. I silently thank the universe that I’m not streaming right now. I can feel the heat on my neck and cheeks which is pure embarrassment and would have been more than evident on-camera.

“Yeah Y/N’s right, Sykkuno. Girls can be very subtle, but they will always let you know if they like you, even through the smallest of gestures. You gotta keep your eyes open.“ Rae backs me up reassuringly.

“Guys never notice anything.“ I say, rolling my eyes. I feel the pressure lessen thanks to Rae’s involvement in the conversation.

“That’s not true.“ Sean protests, “We pay close attention, especially to girls we are attracted to.“

“Yeah!“ Sykkuno pipes in again, “I’m pretty sure I would notice if a girl was dropping signals that she likes me.“

Now that stings. That legit makes me wince and cringe as though his voice delivered an actual physical hit to my chest and stomach. It’s really unpleasant, painful even.

“You never notice.“ There’s something about this triple opportunity - proving him wrong that he’d catch onto a girl’s signals; proving him wrong that girls aren’t attracted to him; coming clean about the biggest emotional struggle I’ve experienced in recent years; - that snaps my last emotional restraints. I will totally regret this later, but after the regret comes the relief which is 100% worth it. 

“What?“ He sounds very puzzled. I can just about imagine him frowning as he tries to wrap his brain around something even I can’t wrap mine around.

“You say you’d notice a girl’s hints of attraction. OK.“ I nonchalantly throw Felix off the submarine in Party Animals while I keep talking, “Would you notice if a girl purposely doesn’t kill you in Among Us when she’s impostor? Or would you notice that a girl always sends you links to videos she finds funny? Or that she always shares music and movie recommendations with you and you only?“ 

Dead silence ensues. I feel like they have all glitched, considering Sean didn’t even try to put up a fight when I lifted him and threw him in the ocean as I previously did with Felix’s avatar.

Maybe I was a tad too specific and made the whole situation hit a little too close to home for me. 

Sykkuno and I have become really close friends and we chat and play games regularly. As I mentioned, I give him movie and music recommendations and I only recently started acknowledging the fact that I’ve never killed him in Among Us. Natural instinct I guess. In fact, I feel the need for vengeance when he’s killed. I refuse to even vote for him unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Now that I think about it, it’s not his fault he has no clue. I just don’t know how to properly drop hints.  

“Um...I mean, I guess I would notice but I’d never think they are that type of hints.“ He finally replies.

On point there, dear. On damn point.

“What does it take for you to be convinced that a girl is into you?“ Who cares that a bunch of people are about to witness this outpour? It’ll make it more real, yes, but it will also help me believe that it happened so I don’t try to crawl back to the point where return is an option. No return now. You’ve already passed two thirds of the way. The last one will set you and your mind free. 

“The only way I can be sure is if she tells me, really.“ He sounds so nervous and shy, like he’s trying to draw as little attention as possible.

He doesn’t have to worry. I’m about to pull all the attention on me.

“Well in that case....you leave me no other choice.“ My screen displays me as the winner of this round of Party Animals - an easy one considering my friends are glitched in real life. “I like you, Sykkuno. I like you a lot. And I know you will see it from every context except the one its meant to be in so I’ll be even more head-on - I’ve liked you, as more than a friend for quite some time now, but buddy, you can be sooo oblivious sometimes. Anyway...“ Here’s that regret I was talking about, it’s already creeping in. “Don’t feel the need to say it back. I don’t wanna hear it if you don’t mean it. And Rae,“ I can’t help but laugh at the thought, “Sorry for making your chat go crazy. Peace!“

And I disconnect from the Discord call.

“See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?“ I say out loud, staring at my desktop. “The cat’s out of the bag and you can move on now.“

I push myself to get some work done in order to get my mind off the mess I’ve created. I’m afraid of thinking about it, I know I’ll get too upset to do anything with the rest of my day if I do.

Suddenly, just as I’m about to open my email, my phone chimes. My brain doesn’t bother to stop my arm from automatically reaching out and checking the notification. A message.

From Sykkuno.

~ I knew you didn’t suggest me ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ for no reason

Me ~ So...?

~ So, I’m not the only oblivious one here, Y/N

Me ~ Wait WHAT?

~ ‘Nick And Norah’s Infinite Playlist’?

Me ~ Oooohhhh...I see

It takes him a few seconds to reply, the bubble with the three bouncing dots popping up and disappearing a few times now. I just now feel my heart banging against the inside of my ribcage, my pulse echoing in my ears.

He did seem a little too eager for me to watch that movie...

~ So, movie date?

I laugh, wholeheartedly and honestly. Genuine joy running through my veins.

Me ~ So it is.

The grin that is now decorating my features promises to stay there for the rest of the day. I bite my bottom lip at the thought that pops into my head.

Me ~ Phew, I can stop sparing you in Among Us from now on

He sends me three cry-laughing emojis in return, but I don’t need those. I can just imagine him laughing as he usually does with one hand covering his mouth. And here I thought my grin couldn’t grow wider.

 Imagining him happy makes me smile. His happiness makes me happy. He makes me happy.

Even better...

I think the feeling’s mutual.

[thisnoodlewritesao3]

Untitled | Iwaizumi Hajime/Reader

Characters: Iwaizumi Hajime, Reader, Oikawa Tooru

Pairing: Iwaizumi Hajime/Reader

Word Count:  2571

Summary: "At first, he thought you sent him those videos (by mistake) as a prank. And he got annoyed. But as started to text you, he realised how sweet you are, how kind and lovely. And he fell, hard." This was the prompt, tho I didn't follow it completely

A/N: This is very much so self-indulgent, so no judging me. This is based off of a matchup I got from @forgetou that I absolutely adored, and just had to write. Thank you for giving me permission to use it, absolutely angel

-------

It wasn’t that Iwaizumi had anything against you - he didn’t really have any feelings one way or the other - although if he had to choose, he definitely wouldn’t keep you in his life for long. He didn’t even know much about you other than that you were smart (being in the same class as him told him that), but your personality was a bit… much? Extremely immature? Carefree? Naive? A lot of things. Definitely not his cup of tea - he already had enough trouble coping with Oikawa - but at least him and Oikawa had things in common.

From what he could see, you felt the exact same way, never offering him a second glance when he entered the classroom.

So, why had you sent him a video?

The only reason he had your number to begin with was because of a project you’d been forced to work on last year with him; you hadn’t messaged him since, and neither had he.

He hesitated before opening the video; you were smiling so brightly, awkwardly looking around your room for some sort of escape from whatever you were about to say, “okay, okay, you finally convinced me!” You cheered, squeezing your eyes shut and smiling brighter. “This is for all my lovely friends-” Oh, so it’s just a prank. He huffed at his own thoughts; the idea that you were just pulling a prank on him pissed him off “-since you guys say that my singing makes you happy? I don’t get it… especially since I can’t sing,” you rubbed the back of your neck. “I- I guess I’ll just get this over with.”

You reached over to the side, grabbing a pair of headphones, they were ridiculously too big for your head, but you didn’t seem to care. A large intake of breath before you pushed away from your desk; your hand shook as you turned on the music, it was a split second before you started singing.

You’ve been such a jerk

since you left last week

You were staring at something off camera, eyes dancing over, what he could only assume to be, the lyrics as you sang. He had to admit you were right, you couldn’t hit a single note, making it almost painful just to listen. Then your smile slowly brightened again, shining within your eyes.

You’re careful with your words

but I’m pulling teeth 

you said this wouldn’t hurt

Bobbing your head and swaying, finally letting any anxiety and ease wash over you. Right now he was more concerned that he could hear each lyric blasting through the headphones, like you were trying to drown yourself out - surely you were going to damage your ears.

Give me cavities

And all of your apologies are only empty calories

You smiled brightly, squeezing your eyes shut but facing the camera. You put your hand on your chest; the impact made him wince, but you didn’t falter in your words.

After all this time

I start asking why I’m staying

were you ever mine?

You pointed at the camera, quirking up one brow as if it were an actual question. The more you wriggled and danced the more your hair flew around; such a pure enthusiasm in every movement. There it was. The childish nature he was used to seeing from you. The one that pissed him off so much.

Are we something that’s worth saving?

every conversation puts me back on medication sometimes

sorry’s just another word you’re saying

He must have been going crazy when he saw some actual sadness twinkle into your eyes; he decided that he was just reading far too into it.

Do I look like her

Does she talk like me?

Your brows furrowed together, staring off camera again. As you sang (read: yelled) the lyrics, there was something more to them. Something more fiery. Maybe you just related to the lyrics. He couldn’t know.

Been feeling insecure

Codependency is hard to break

You wrapped your arms around your body, that sadness trickled in again, there was no questioning it this time. Not even a second passed before you smiled brightly again, acting like there was nothing to be seen. Acting like that was all for show.

When you never make it easy

Reconstructive surgery can’t fix my anxiety

You squished your cheeks together, mumbling the words. He watched you intently as you repeated the chorus. Pumping your fist and spinning around lightly in your chair - a strange mixture of emotions erupted on your face when the wire to your headphones wrapped around something out of his vision, forcing them off of your head. The music blasted freely as you broke out into a fit of laughter, snorting and cackling like a hyena.

You turned back towards the camera when you finally stopped laughing, “so that happened, um, thank you for listening! I love you guys so much.” You winked at the camera, lazily blowing a kiss before the video ended.

Iwaizumi was almost in shock - though that was quickly brushed away by the anger from the obvious prank. You couldn’t really think he was that stupid, could you? He pondered the idea of shooting you a text, telling you that this was ridiculously childish behaviour; that was probably exactly what you wanted, so he chose not to give you a reaction at all.

That wasn’t the last time you sent him a video of you singing.

In fact, you sent one every single day for a few weeks. He listened to each one of them - definitely not feeling more positive and self-assured after each one. There was a theme; they were all mostly upbeat, something you could easily jam and bob your head to, something that gave you a lot of energy. Sometimes you were out of breath after it.

Still, after that wave of happiness came the storm of anger because, despite the fact he hadn’t given you a reaction to his prank, you were still trying to prank him.

Yet there was something so endearing as you cheered and smiled - sure, you were childish, but maybe he could see why people liked you after all. Something so pure about your reactions. Something so unfiltered and contagious (he’d never admit it, but he had started making a playlist of the songs you sang).

Eventually, he stopped seeing them as a prank and started looking forward to them. It was weird; he’d be in the middle of studying and suddenly remember that you’d probably send a video soon, his heart would flutter.

Nothing about your in person relationship changed; you rarely looked in his direction, too occupied with your own head space to even realise he was there. He couldn’t help but feel jealous as you laughed with classmates, brushing their arms, patting them on the head, comparing hand sizes - it was strange.

Even Oikawa seemed to notice the way he flickered his eyes over to you, often teasing him - until Iwaizumi smacked him over the head - that was always enough to stop the setter.

Slowly, he realised that maybe you weren’t as childish as he thought. Sure, innocence was a big part of your act, but there was so much more underneath the surface that he hadn’t realised. You took notes like your life depended on it; you’d nibble at your nails when you were deep in thought; sometimes that concentration led to your tongue poking out between your lips, very cat-like. You had horrible balance but a love for climbing things - that was how you’d ended up with a lot of injuries. You weren’t too good at sports, when they’d played volleyball in gym you fumbled through receives, failed at sets, serves were just as worse, not even talking about your spikes - they were laughable. Even when you face-planted roughly, earning worried cries from friends, you still got back up and asked to try again. He was worried, and intrigued, you had a lot of energy and he admired it.

For two months, you sent a video every single day.

Until one day you stopped.

Maybe you finally realised that the prank wasn’t going to work; or maybe it was something else. Any excitement Iwaizumi had felt for them quickly faded.

You seemed to act differently, too, still smiling sweetly to anyone who greeted you, but past that… everything seemed unnatural. He wanted to ask you what was wrong, to figure out what was going on in your mind; one day, he expressed those worries to Oikawa, “I thought you hated her.” The setter hummed running his hand through his hair.

Iwaizumi shrugged, “I- maybe I judged her wrong, I don’t know.” He glanced back over at you, noticing how you absentmindedly traced the back of your hand. “She… when she gets really happy, it’s… cute. And seeing her like this?” He didn’t like how much he cared about her, it was frustrating. It felt like how he felt for Oikawa, but more intense - like he wanted to protect her from something, but he didn’t even know what it was.

He wasn’t paying much attention, not until Oikawa started walking in your direction, looking over his shoulder and tossing the spiker a wink. He listened intently, “hey, L/N, right?” Oikawa mused, looking around nonchalantly.

A wave of indifference flashed over your eyes before you smiled brightly, sitting up straight, “yep. What can I do for you…? Sorry, what’s your name?” Suddenly, everyone gaped at you - Iwaizumi had to physically stop himself from bursting out laughing - it only got harder when Oikawa looked like you had crushed his whole world.

“Y/N! That’s Oikawa Tooru,” your friend called out. You turned to look at her, then back at him, “you know, the volleyball team's captain?” You raised a brow again, still confused. “How have you not heard of him?”

“This school is massive, you can’t expect me to know every student’s name,” you huffed and rolled your eyes, “what can I do for you, Oizawa?”

That was another low blow; you could have heard a pin drop in the silence, people were still staring at you, “...kawa.”

“Hmm?”

“It’s… Oikawa.”

“Okay, but that still doesn’t answer my question,” even though your face was cheery, the indifference had worked its way into your tone.

“My friend, you probably haven’t heard of him,” he turned and looked back at Iwaizumi - the spiker didn’t think he’d ever seen Oikawa so defeated, “that’s-”

“Iwaizumi Hajime?” You locked eyes with the brunette, smiling slightly, “why wouldn’t I have heard of him?”

Your friend smacked your arm, “Y/N!”

“What? He’s literally in my class and I did a project with him last year. I don’t get what the confusion is.” You pointed out, waving an enthusiastic arm at him - you really knew how to crush Oikawa’s ego - the setter almost looked offended, but also relieved.

“He wants to talk to you.” Oikawa sighed, turning away.

“He couldn’t say that himself?” You laughed, standing up and walking with Oikawa over to Iwaizumi. “What is it?” You asked when you reached him, fingers interlocked in front of you.

“Um… Can I- in private?” This was more unusual, the fact he couldn’t find the words to say to you.

The smile reached up into your eyes, not fully taking over, but enough to show your own intrigue. You nodded, letting him lead the way - your friends were gawking at you, but you simply waved them off.

He led you through the maze of halls until he reached the roof - he was right to think it would be quiet this time of day - only one other person sat up here, and even they were on the complete opposite end. When he stopped walking, you chimed, “well, I’m listening.” You looked so expectant, watching with such intensity as he pulled out his phone, getting up your contact.

“Are you okay?” He asked, trying to find the right moment to turn around his phone.

“Yep,” you cheered, “now, did you really bring me up here just to ask that?” You rolled your eyes but the action was counteracted by the playful smile on your lips.

“I just… it’s- you stopped sending videos.” He passed you his phone, giving you a chance to examine his screen. Your eyes opened wide, confusion and shock danced in your expression. “I was just worried, because you always looked so happy during them but-”

“You were worried about me?” Your voice was soft, almost unsure.

“Well, yeah, I mean,” he awkwardly chuckled, “I thought it was a prank at first.”

“Why would I prank you?” You looked up at him quickly.

“When we did our project together, you seemed like you didn’t like me…” he admitted. “And you reminded me of Oikawa, and it sort of pissed me off.”

“You were pissed off at me for acting like Oizawa?”

“Oikawa.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” you waved him off.

“Then you sent me the videos and- I just realised that I was wrong… about you! And I really looked forward to seeing them.” He was uncharacteristically awkward, his heart fluttering slightly when you smiled. Warmth rose to your cheeks, eyes sparkling at the idea of him getting excited to see you sing.

“I… I never actually meant to send them to you, but you never complained, so… I just kept doing it.” You admitted, rubbing the back of your neck nervously, passing him back his phone. “And!” You called out, eyes wide again with an overwhelming passion, “I never hated you, or whatever it was you said. I thought you hated me so I just… I guess… kept away?”

That news hit Iwaizumi like a truck. The reason you avoided him was because you thought he hated you? He certainly never hated you, though he would admit he hadn’t always been the nicest. It all made sense, why you never gave him a second glance, why you didn’t greet him like everyone else. He had never felt more stupid in his life.

“That and I really liked you before so I was super nervous,” you avoided his eyes, a rush of confidence had overtaken you before you could even think about the words.

He blinked at you. Once. Twice. Three times. Mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. “What?” That came out a lot quieter than he wanted, but you heard it nonetheless.

“I liked you.” You nodded, punctuating the sentence with a hefty ‘hmpf’ while crossing your arms under your chest.

Again, shocking news to Iwaizumi. By the time you two did the project together, Oikawa had already had the heart’s of every girl around him stolen. Yet he could never see the way you blushed at him, the second glances you took (though those were all before the project). Damn, you didn’t even know who Oikawa was, not even now when his name was in the mouths of every girl - every girl except you.

“I… I still like you.” You stepped away, running the pads of your fingers over your knuckles.

You could have sworn he short-circuited right there.

It took him a few minutes to get his composure, you just stared at him awkwardly, humming occasionally to try and ease the awkward silence.

“I… like you, too.” He muttered, covering his mouth with his hand. Of course you heard it. That soft smile was enough to make his heart thunder in his chest.

----

Y/N eventually asks Iwaizumi on a date to a volleyball game (because even if she knows nothing, she wants to see him happy)

When Iwaizumi gets to take her on a date, it’s obviously to a karaoke place, because despite her inability to hit any notes, he’d do anything to hear her sing again

Y/N still refuses to call Oikawa by his name (Oizawa all the way)

She starts sending him singing videos again, under the pretence that he sends them back

He complies

Oikawa started to send him singing videos, but Iwa just blocked him for a week

Because how dare he

----

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