#it starts with a leaving party. they can leave.

[mischievousmoony]

𝚍𝚘𝚞𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚣𝚎𝚛𝚘

⟢ frat boy!james potter x fem!reader ⟢ a guy makes unwanted advances on you at a frat party, and the president comes to your aid ⊹ 3.0k ⟢ warnings/tags: alcohol, unwanted advances + touching and sexist comments from another character, james gets aggressive confronting said character, american!james hehehe (not that it's explicitly stated)

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By your third visit to the crowded, beer-scented kitchen, your features have set into a deep scowl. You groan, slumping against the wall—only to immediately push yourself off, unwilling to let the exposed skin of your back come into contact with any part of the frat house you're in. Was the wall sticky, or have you started sweating from the heat of all the drunk bodies around you? Either option makes you cringe.

Tonight was supposed to be fun. Frat parties weren’t exactly your ideal night out, but your best friend had dragged you to this one with the promise of a fun time. But your night has quickly turned into a wild goose chase after she disappeared with some guy.

"Are you okay?" a voice calls from your left, barely audible over the music that's starting to make your head pound. You realize that you had started pinching the bridge of your nose. When you lower your hand and turn your head, you find a pair of kind eyes staring down at you.

He introduces himself as Todd after you explain that you've been looking for your friend for half an hour to no avail. With a sympathetic smile, he offers to help, which you gratefully accept. Anything to find your friend and put this dreadful night to an end.

"Are you, like, one of the brothers?" you ask, noticing the letters on Todd's cap as you follow him through the house, but it's a little too dark to make them out. Not to mention, you don't really remember which fraternity your friend even brought you to tonight.

"Nah," Todd shouts over his shoulder. "Not here." He doesn't provide any more information than that as he changes the subject, suggesting the two of you search the backyard.

"I thought the yard was off limits,” you shout as you speed walk to catch up with him. He’s walking so fast that you barely have time to consider why he would think your friend would be outside.

Stepping into the cold, he explains, "Apparently their neighbors complained about the noise last weekend, so they're trying to keep the party inside. But a couple of quiet people shouldn't be an issue. It's nice to be away from all the noise, eh?"

You shudder when the night air hits you, hugging your arms around yourself tightly and attempting to smooth away the goosebumps already prickling on your skin.

"Maybe if it wasn't freezing."

You look around at the back yard, finding it completely empty except for a thin layer of fallen leaves and scattered beer bottles hidden in the uncut grass. Todd is leading you straight across the lawn, farther away from the house and any source of light. You’re starting to get a weird feeling about this—and Todd—so you slow to a stop while he continues to head deeper into the darkness.

"Hey, I don't think my friend is gonna be out here. I'm gonna keep looking inside–"

"What's the rush?" Todd's demeanor changes when he notices you’re falling behind. He quickly closes the distance between the two of you again in two strides.

You release a dry laugh, realizing that you've been too trusting, and your tone turns serious. "I should really find my friend."

"You said she was with a guy, right? C'mon just let her have her fun." Todd drops his voice an octave, trying to sound seductive, but it comes across embarrassingly forced. "Maybe we can have some fun too."

When he reaches to touch the side of your face, your mood starts to change from a little let down and slightly annoyed to seriously pissed off.

"Don't," you say coldly, jerking your head away from his touch.

"Aw, c'mon," he continues to try to coax you, still somehow thinking he has a chance at convincing you. When his fingers graze your sides, you shout at him to keep his hands off, but instead, he slides them to your waist, holding you firmly.

"Let go!" you demand, planting you hands firmly on his shoulders and pushing. He chuckles at your feeble attempts, making you angrier, so you switch tactics. You wrap your hands around his wrists and pry his hands off, applying a pressure to the inside of his wrists that makes him release you with a hiss.

There's an angry voice in the distance shouting "Hey!" presumably at the two of you. You hear the steady sound of footsteps growing louder—one of the brothers probably coming to yell at you for sneaking into their backyard. You're a little too busy to care as you stomp away from Todd.

Todd doesn’t seem to notice the newcomer either. Too absorbed in the sting of your rejection, he starts getting angry too.

"Don't be such a prude," he snaps. He catches your wrist and pulls you back to him with a swift tug, spinning you around to face him. You draw your free arm back, using the extra momentum from the spin to your advantage as you punch him squarely in the jaw.

The punch throws him off balance, sending him stumbling back. His foot catches on an empty beer bottle, twisting his ankle as he loses his footing and crashes onto the grass with a heavy thud.

You stand above him, a little stunned at your actions. Todd is whining pathetically about the pain from the punch to his face, and the pain from the fall to his ass.

Someone jogs up beside you, and you can feel their gaze darting back and forth between you and Todd.

"Nice punch," he says, a little out of breath.

"Thanks," you reply flatly, only now starting to process that you—with the help of a beer bottle—sent this man tumbling to the ground.

"Alright," the mystery man says like he's about to get to work. He steps into your line of sight, looming over Todd for a moment.

He has a mop of dark curls spilling out from under a red baseball cap sitting backwards on his head. The cap matches his letterman-style jacket, which clings to his broad frame, drawing attention to his muscular body. Under different circumstances, this is a view you’d appreciate.

He bends down and grabs Todd by the collar of his shirt, roughly pulling him to his feet. Even with both of them standing, he still towers over him.

"Hey, man. What's up?" he asks Todd, his casual words contrasting with his abrasive tone.

"That slut just punched me!" Todd shrieks.

You roll your eyes. How pathetic.

He tightens his grip on Todd's shirt collar, using it to shake him roughly. "Watch your fucking mouth or I'll be the next," he threatens, and Todd goes quiet.

Your eyes widen at his sudden sharpness. Almost involuntary, you shift your position, angling yourself to get a clear look at the boy’s face. Black rimmed glasses sit lazily on the bridge of his nose, under his furrowed brow as he glares daggers at Todd. His eyes are big and brown, almost seeming out of place against the hard scowl carved into his features.

"Here's what's gonna happen," he continues. "First, you’re blacklisted. You’re never stepping foot in my house again. And what's this?"

He plucks Todd's hat off his head, inspecting the letters with a scoff before tossing it to the ground. "Of course. I'm sure nationals will be happy to hear about how you've conducted yourself tonight."

Todd's eye twitches at the threat. "Let's not pretend I was doing anything she didn’t want. Look at the way she’s dressed—flaunting herself, just begging for attention."

"What did you just say?" he seethes.

"James, c'mon," Todd says, revealing the name of the taller boy. He speaks with a nonchalance that makes James' nostrils flare, angered by his dismissiveness of the situation.

You begin to wonder how they know each other when James sets him straight.

"Who the hell do you think you're talking to? My friends call me James, you don't get to call me shit. The fuck do you think this is, man? I catch you in my backyard putting your hands on a girl who clearly doesn't want anything to do with you and you think you can talk to me like we're friends? I don't even know who the hell you are."

Your eyes must be bulging out of your head by now. It feels like you’ve been dropped into a scene from a movie—an exposé on the dark side of greek life, or maybe the mafia. Not knowing much about either, it’s hard to say, but the backward hats and pounding music from the house quickly remind you of where you are.

James lowers his voice, his tone dipping into something almost menacing. "But I’ll find out from your brothers, and when I do, you’re finished here. Done. Now come on."

Todd flinches as one of James' hands clasps over the back of his neck with a sharp smack. There were some other guys you hadn't noticed before back near the house, to whom James hands Todd over.

Once James notices that you're still standing in the middle of the yard, he jogs back over. On his way, he takes off his hat, running his fingers through his hair to loosen his curls.

"Hey," he says in a soft voice, vastly different from the one he used on Todd. "Are you okay?"

The change in his demeanor catches you off guard. You exhale while you collect your thoughts, a steamy white cloud filling the space as your warm breath meets cool air.

"That was intense," you say. You don’t mean to dodge his question, but he did just switch from mafia boss levels of threatening to sunshine and rainbows.

James breathes out a laugh. "Sorry about that. Gotta be a hardass with some of these dicks, especially ones like that. Part of the job."

You raise an eyebrow, curiosity piqued, wondering what job he's talking about.

James reads your expression, and stands up a little straighter as he introduces himself. "President James, at your service." With an exaggerated wink, he tugs at the edge of his jacket, pulling it taut to show off the letters sewn over his chest.

You nod in understanding. "Well, thank you for stepping in, Mr. President," you say, a slight tease coloring your tone.

A smile like sunshine overtakes his lips. "No need to thank me, really. Anyway, you handled it pretty well before I got here. That was some punch—is your hand alright?"

You had forgotten about that. Splaying your fingers out in front of you, you inspect your knuckles. "Mhm. Fine. I don't think I can feel my limbs anyway." You wrap your arms back around yourself, the cold become almost unbearable in your tank top.

"Shit, yeah, it's cold out here, isn't it?" James holds his hat between his teeth, freeing his hands as he strips off his jacket. Your eyes linger on his toned arms for a moment too long, and suddenly his hat has made its way back onto his head and he's holding his jacket out for you.

"May I?" he asks.

As much as you want to say no, you truly are freezing, so you let yourself be draped in his warmth and the scent of his cologne. The fabric has an unexpected weight to it, almost offering a comfort similar to an embrace.

James rubs his hands up and down over newly blanketed arms to encourage some warmth into them. James studies your face with softened eyes, his tone taking on a more serious note.

"Hey, listen... I'm really sorry that happened to you. Everything he said, and did–"

"It's alright," you interrupt.

"It's not. That shouldn't be happening. Not at my house—not anywhere. I'm really sorry you had to deal with that creep. And if you wanted to take it to the school, I'd be more than willing to–"

"No, no. That's more trouble than he's worth."

James nods, respecting your decision. "For what it's worth, I'm gonna make sure he won't be allowed in any of the parties around here anymore. I doubt I can get him completely blackballed, but I'll do what I can."

You offer James a small smile in response. You're glad to hear that, really, but now that Todd's gone and that's all over, your main concern is finding your friend and getting the hell out of here.

"Why don't you let me give you a ride home?" he offers, almost like he can read your mind. His kind, brown eyes almost make you want to say yes. But after the night you've had, you owe it to yourself to be a little less trusting.

"I don't know." You bite the inside of your cheek while you decide if you should disclose your current dilemma. James does seem eager to help. Deciding to tell him, you say, "I was looking for my friend."

James is quick to offer his assistance. "Who's your friend? Maybe I can help."

You tell him your friends name and recount what she was doing when you saw her last. "She ran off with this guy. Long black hair, leather jacket, I think I heard his name but it was something... unique."

James sucks in a breath through his teeth. "Sounds like Sirius."

"Sirius, yes! That was his name." You're momentarily excited, thinking that James could actually help, but the look on his face squashes the feeling promptly.

"Yeah, uh," James scratches the back of his neck awkwardly, "Sirius left with a girl like an hour ago. About yay high," he holds his hand out to your friend's height. "Tan. Brown hair."

You sigh. Some best friend you have. Here you are, searching for her endlessly, and she's ditched you at the party she brought you to.

"She was your ride, I’m guessing?" The corner of James' lip quirks up in a sorry half-smile as you nod. "It really is no trouble for me to drive you home."

You tap your foot on the ground anxiously. You're really wanting to just accept his offer. He seems nice enough, but there's still a little voice in the back of your mind telling you to be careful.

"I just... I don't really know you."

"Understandable," James starts. "But... you kinda do. I'm pretty sure we have chem together."

"I don't think so." You think you’d remember a muscly, likely rambunctious, frat boy in your boring chem class.

"Okay, I was playing it cool,” James’ teeth graze his lower lip in a bashful manner. “I know we have Chem together—with Professor Brown? Tuesdays and Thursdays. You sit in the front row. Y/N, right?" James looks a little sheepish as he recalls your name.

You nod slowly, really looking at James for the first time, trying to place him. Then it hits you—you do remember him. He sits a few seats down from you in chem, always rigorously taking notes and asking questions you wouldn’t have thought of (but are glad to have the answers to). Seeing him like this, though, is such a contrast to the smart guy from class that you didn’t even recognize him at first.

You feel a heat creep up the back of your neck. You’ve only ever spared him a few glances, but you’ve always thought the smart guy from chem was pretty cute.

"Oh. Oh, right. I–I'm sorry I didn't recognize you. You're James Potter." You try the name on your lips, realizing the name didn't click because you had only ever heard your professor call him by his last name.

"That's me," he grins. "And don't worry about it."

You give him a nod, a bit awkwardly. He seems like a good guy, but you’re still not sure if you want to get in his car. "Well, James, I should probably just call an Uber or something anyway. I don't know if you've been drinking or anything so..."

"Oh!" James holds up a finger, stuffing his other hand into his pocket and pulling out a black rectangle. You mistake it for one of those big, clunky box vapes and almost want to roll your eyes. But then, James surprises you by blowing into it instead of breathing in.

The device beeps, and he shows you the little digital screen, previously hidden behind his hand, that reads "0.00" over a glowing green background.

"Haven't had a drop," he confirms. "I haven't smoked or anything else, either. Not my thing."

"Why do you own a breathalyzer?" you ask, a little dumbfounded.

"So I can breathalyze people," he shrugs, fiddling with the device—tossing it a few inches up in the air and catching it.

You raise your eyebrows at him, not satisfied with his non-answer.

“Sorry,” James chuckles at himself. "Uh, I have a lot of people leaving my parties trying to tell me they're sober enough to drive. I got loads of these ‘cause they can't argue with the numbers... as much as they might try to."

"Where did you even get that?" you ask. You can't imagine there's a very big market for personal breathalyzers.

"You can get almost anything with Prime delivery!" he says it like he's proud as he tucks it back into his pocket. "Hey, you want one? I've got a drawer full back in the house." He points with his thumb over his shoulder.

You laugh, shaking your head at his offer. James laughs along with you, his lips curling into a boyish grin.

Well, if you’re going to put your trust in anyone else tonight it, it might as well be the smart boy from chem who takes safety seriously enough to own multiple breathalyzers.

You start walking towards the house. When you don’t hear a set of footsteps following behind, you call over your shoulder, "Come on."

James catches up quickly, happy to be invited to join you. "Where are we going?"

"To your car so you can give me a ride home."

From the corner of your eye, you watch his face break out into a wide grin. And from there on out, there's an extra pep in his step as he leads you to his car.

When you're safe and sound, back in the comfort of your own room, you flop onto your bed with a dreamy look on your face. You hug the jacket closer to your body, thankful for the excuse to talk to him in chem on Tuesday. Little did you know, he let you keep the jacket so that you'd have one.

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

[levanterhaze]

GAMEBOY — BANGCHAN

♡  ― 󠀬󠀬 fratboy!bangchan x f!reader this one is just pure angst and drama, no smut, just teasing each other like two idiots.

♡ synopsis ― Bangchan is the campus playboy—charming, cocky, and infuriatingly irresistible. One reckless, drunken night leads to a secret you swore you'd never have. Now, hating him is harder than keeping him your dirty little secret.

[ 5.7k words ]♡― i had to continue this fic in a 2nd part, i felt necessary. maybe i'll continue it in a few more chapters (PLEASE DON'T GIVE UP ON ME) and thank you thank you thank you to everyone who has commented and appreciated this piece. it means a lot to a person who is non-native english wrt. without further ado, have a good read, loves!

♡― THE PLAYLIST.

♡ [part one]

you’re so indecisive of what I’m saying tryna catch the beat, make up your heart don't know if you're happy or complaining don't want for us to end, where do I start?

The pounding in your head was a testament to last night’s choices. Aspirin was non-negotiable. You could hear Eunji and Sohee's voices from the living room and were surprised that both of them were already awake after their all-nighter.

After leaving the room with Bangchan—because, of course, that happened—you ducked into the bathroom, shot off a text about vomiting and existential regret, and decided to make a graceful exit. Well, as graceful as one could manage after wild sex with the person you’d sworn to hate forever. Pride was nowhere in the equation, but who cared?

As soon as your eyes saw daylight, Eunji and Sohee looked at you judgmentally. You froze in your tracks, still wearing pink Hello Kitty jammies like a monument to your shame. Their judgment was immediate, sharp as a blade. Your heart sped up.

“You’re alive,” Sohee deadpanned, taking a bite of a cinnamon roll. “And looking like shit.”

“Appreciate it,” you shot back, throwing yourself into a chair. “Really warms the soul.”

Eunji’s smoothie slurp was unnecessarily loud, drilling straight into your skull. “We thought about waking you for breakfast but figured you’d need the recovery time.”

You dismissed the idea with a hand wave. "That's okay. Wouldn’t have gotten up anyway.”

"We can have lunch together, if you like. I really need a detox after last night." Sohee curled her lips into a grimace and you almost smiled. Detox advice from Sohee was peak irony.

But then Eunji, ever the chaos-bringer, dropped the bomb. “Oh my God, you guys, I heard the craziest thing last night! Jiwoon—my lit classmate—said he walked in on someone having super loud sex at the party. Guess who it was? Bangchan!”

Your heart plummeted straight into your stomach.

Silence remained and Sohee raised her eyebrows at Eunji.

“Apparently, the guy is a structural hazard,” Sohee chimed in, amused. “Minho said he once broke a floorboard. Who even does that?” Your red-haired friend says giggling.

Eunji giggled. “The girl’s lucky. If Bangchan wrecked me, I’d consider it an honor.”

You summoned your most convincing disdain, rolling your eyes with the energy of someone deeply unimpressed. “Honestly, can we not make him sound like some sort of deity?”

But guilt clung to you like a second skin, mingling with vivid flashes of last night—the furniture banging against the wall, Bangchan’s muscles taut as he tried to steady it. The memory burned, searing and humiliating, until Eunji’s voice yanked you back to reality.

The memory faded like mist when Eunji said it again. "Anyway, the girl’s lucky. I wish I was knocked down by Bangchan."

Lucky. That’s what they’d call you if they knew. Lucky—and a traitor to everything you’d loudly professed about hating him. They didn’t know it was you, and you intended to keep it that way.

From the tone of the chat, Jiwoon didn't see who was in the room with Bangchan, which means he didn't know you were the girl. Trying to ignore the talking and the sweat growing on your hands, you got up and declared that you were going to take a shower and maybe run some laps around the athletics track, because you really needed some fresh air.

The dorm felt claustrophobic. Eunji and Sohee were your best friends and you felt awful for not telling them the truth.

These were your best friends, but the truth felt like a grenade you couldn’t risk dropping. For months, you’d built your personality around despising Bangchan, and now? One night had unraveled it all.

Worst of all? You couldn’t stop replaying every second of it—and how much you’d loved it.

Sex had always been an exercise in mediocrity. Your exes? Predictably average, hitting the bare minimum on their way to their own finish line. As for finding the clitoris? Let’s just say they navigated like someone using a map upside down—an unsurprising disappointment every single time.

Now, though, Bangchan was something else entirely. A campus legend with a reputation as vast as it was unshakable. Everyone knew about his conquests—more women than you had fingers to count. Every rumor you’d rolled your eyes at turned out to be painfully, thrillingly true. He was better than anything you could have imagined.

Even after a long shower, his touch lingered, like phantom fingerprints etched into your skin. You could still feel him, every moment replaying in a maddening loop. No one had ever made you come twice in one night. No one. That fact alone made him unforgettable—and insufferably smug, no doubt.

Pulling on comfortable clothes, you grabbed a bag, stuffed in some essentials, and checked your phone. The group chat was overflowing with photos and messages from last night’s chaos, but you scrolled past all of it. There was only one person you needed right now.

You: Up for a morning run?

The reply came in under two minutes.

Hyunjin: It’s two in the afternoon. You: Morning for me. Hyunjin: Fine. Be there in five.

You tossed your phone into your bag and took a deep breath. A run was exactly what you needed—to burn off this restless energy and, hopefully, forget how guilty you felt.

You found Hyunjin on the running track near the outdoor field, surrounded by lush greenery and bursts of flowers the campus meticulously maintained. He looked effortlessly good, of course—baggy clothes hanging just right, dark hair falling over his face like it had been styled by the gods.

You started running side by side, silence settling between you. It was comfortable but heavy, like a bubble that needed popping. The kiss was the unspoken elephant on the track, but Hyunjin, ever observant, didn’t push. Not yet.

The day was crisp, the kind of weather that made you feel invincible. You poured your focus into your pace, and before you knew it, you’d pulled ahead. “Okay, okay—hold up,” Hyunjin called, his voice carrying just enough humor to make you smirk.

You stopped a few strides ahead, spinning on your heel to face him. He sauntered toward you, not even winded, like running was merely a mild inconvenience.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” he said, his tone playful but probing.

“There’s nothing to tell,” you countered, already feeling your resolve falter.

“Uh-huh.” He stopped in front of you, his gaze narrowing. “Then why, exactly, did you ask me to kiss you last night?”

Well. There it was. No escaping now.

You shrugged, trying to play it cool as you grabbed the water bottle from your bag. “I was... needy, I guess.”

Hyunjin raised a brow, crossing his arms like he wasn’t buying it. “Needy, huh?”

“Look,” you said, exhaling sharply, “I’m sorry if it made things weird. You’re my best friend, and the last thing I want is for that to get messed up.”

“Relax,” he said, grinning as he ran a hand through his hair. “A kiss isn’t going to scare me off. You’re stuck with me.”

His easy laugh melted some of your tension, but before you could respond, he clapped his hands together with mock seriousness. “Tell you what—first one to the other side of campus owes the winner a banana milk.”

The sudden challenge caught you off guard, and you raised a brow. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” he said, already turning on his heel to start jogging backward. “Unless you’re too scared.”

You couldn’t help but laugh as you bolted after him. “You’re so on.”

You lost the run, but of course, Hyunjin still paid for the drink. That summed him up as a friend.

After he dashed off to rehearse with Felix—because apparently, everyone else was rehearsing but you—a thought hit you like a lightbulb flickering to life. Rumors? Easy to spread. But if you wanted to get ahead of them, you had to go straight to the source.

With a mission in mind, you swaggered toward the gym where the basketball team was practicing. It wasn’t exactly classified info—every girl on campus could probably tell you when and where their training sessions were. You zipped your jacket up to your chin like it was some sort of emotional armor, grabbed your water bottle for moral support, and marched down the corridors. The door to the gym was already cracked open, and as you pushed it, everything seemed to slow down in the most dramatic way.

The guys were running drills, their shoes squeaking on the court like a broken record. The noise grated on your nerves, but you weren’t here for the sound; you were here for the spectacle. The stands were dotted with girls, some wrapped up in their player-boyfriend fantasies, while others... Well, who knows what they were thinking. You didn’t care. You had your eyes on the real prize today.

There he was, standing out like a sore thumb. His black and white uniform somehow looked too good on him. Focus, girl. You hid behind the staircase, crouched like a sneaky little spy, waiting for the game to wrap up.

It took nearly ten minutes, but eventually, the whistle blew. You adjusted your posture, trying to act casual, though you were definitely still paying attention to how the sweat trickled down Bangchan's forehead. It brought you war flashbacks. When the players scattered to grab towels and water, you took your cue to appear from behind the bleachers, giving a quick, awkward wave before ducking back again.

Bangchan's eyes scanned the area, and when they landed on you, his brows shot up in surprise.  In the meantime, he did the inevitable: he took off his shirt and used it to get dry. Great. Just great.

"Did you come to watch?" He smirked, that cocky grin of his. "Didn't know you were into basketball."

You rolled your eyes. His ability to flirt in every situation was almost impressive.

"Ha-ha. No." You sucked in a breath, desperately trying to obey your brain's commands. Don't look down. Don’t you dare look down. "Actually, I came to ask for a favor."

He leaned against the wall, eyebrow quirked, looking amused. "Okay...?"

“Right. I want what happened yesterday to stay a secret.”

Bangchan's eyebrow arched higher, an expression of entertained disbelief crossing his face. He crossed his arms, flexing those muscles in a way that made the mission of not looking at them impossible.

“'You think I'm going around saying we fucked?"

You roll your eyes, frustration building up, and clench your hand into a fist. Sure, say it louder, let the world know.

“Isn't that exactly what you do? Brag about your sexual life?”

The boy nodded, puffing out his chest, he shot back. "Ever heard me brag about it?"

“I don't need to hear it from you. The campus does it for you.” It was infuriating how this worked out. Everyone thought Bangchan was the type of guy, praising his victories and glorifying him every time he got between some girl's pants. 

Meanwhile, girls were severely censured for even kissing a guy at a party.

"Right. So you're just going off what people say about me?" His tone was challenging, like he couldn’t care less.

In a long drawn-out sigh, you fidgeted with your hands, intending to put the matter to one side. "Can you just keep this between us? I don't want anyone to know."

"Whatever, it's no big deal," he replied nonchalantly, shrugging. "If it's that important to you."

The words stung more than they should have. It wasn’t just the lack of care, it was the way he made it sound like it didn’t matter. No big deal. It hurt your pride, even if you didn’t mean it to. But that was Bangchan, wasn’t it? Haughty and self-righteous. Yeah, he was great in bed, but his attitude? Utterly shitty.

“Thanks.” You said it briefly, biting down your pride and leaving the scene as fast as you could. Speaking to him seemed like a fool's errand, but you couldn't risk it.

Behind you, Bangchan pursed his lips into a thin line, watching you go. To him, you were hopeless—always on guard, never letting your walls down. He knew he was right, even if it was a thin line. Sure, it was fun to rile you up, but it was maddening that you hated him for things he hadn’t even done.

Getting you to change your mind, though? That was the challenge. But if that’s what it took, he was more than willing to play the long game.

Early next week. Only Tuesday, and auditions loomed just a day away. You’d been agonizing over the perfect solo—one that wouldn’t just get you a role but the role. Monday was a blur of brainstorming with Hyunjin and Seungmin, your trusted theater comrades. Between swapping notes, debating song choices, and plenty of eye rolls, you managed to help each other refine your audition pieces. It was productive. Chaotic, but productive.

Your last hour of the day belonged to the theater, and it was sacred. The stage wasn’t just a place; it was a state of mind. The second the music hit, the world faded. Bills, homework, exes who ghosted you—it all melted away. Up there, you weren’t just alive; you were electric. It wasn’t just a hobby; it was instinct.

Your mom used to say you were born for the stage. She loved telling the story of how, as a kid, you’d belt out The Little Mermaid soundtrack so often the neighbors probably debated filing a noise complaint. Singing “Part of Your World” at the top of your lungs? A daily ritual. But the first time you sang for real—no plastic microphone, no stuffed animal audience—it clicked.

This was more than a passion. It was home.

Since high school, your hunger for the stage—and the spotlight—was insatiable. If there was a club, you wanted in. University was no different. People noticed you, not just for your knack for hitting sharp, glass-shattering high notes, but for your versatility. You could slip from sweet soprano to soulful belter faster than a drama major running late to class. On stage, you were magnetic.

Everyone gathered on stage, and Mrs. Baek appeared a few moments later with her round glasses and wavy hair around her face. Her figure was solid and powerful, as was her voice and knowledge.

But today, something was off. The crease on her forehead gave her away before she said a word. It was like a ripple of unease spread across the stage, and you didn’t miss a beat. You were already bracing for the bad news.

Then, a slim figure in a long skirt and boots strode into the center of the circle, sighing like she’d just carried the weight of the world—and maybe she had. “Okay, kids. Listen up.” Every pair of eyes locked onto her as if she were delivering the prophecy of doom. “We’re postponing the auditions. Indefinitely.”

Her announcement hit like a gut punch, and the stage erupted into chaos. Whispers turned to complaints, and complaints turned to full-blown outrage. Seungmin cast a skeptical glance at Mrs. Baek, then at you and Hyunjin, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

What the hell was going on?

“All right, settle down,” Mrs. Baek said, slipping her glasses off and pinching the bridge of her nose with that practiced mix of authority and exhaustion only she could pull off. “Jun-ho, our sound engineer, has officially dropped out of college. And to make matters worse, the university has decided to cut funding for the theater department in favor of... sports.”

“You're shitting me.” Nahee’s voice sliced through the commotion like a whip. She quickly caught herself, mumbling, “Sorry... but seriously—”

“That’s so unfair!” another voice chimed in from the back, frustration rippling through the group like a shockwave. “Basketball and soccer aren’t the only things this university has going for it.”

“I get it, kids. Believe me, I tried.” Mrs. Baek’s tone softened, but her words were anything but comforting. “I went to the administration, pleaded our case... But unless we can find enough volunteers and funding, I’m afraid auditions are canceled. Indefinitely.”

It felt like a cruel joke. The theater had always been your sanctuary, the one place where you could shed your armor and just be. And now? It was slipping through your fingers.

When Mrs. Baek dismissed the group, some students stormed out in anger, others lingered, trying to process what had just happened. For you, Hyunjin, and Seungmin, the next logical step was the canteen. Food couldn’t fix this, but it was something.

“This is absurd. Now we're all supposed to close our eyes and applaud this nonsense?” Seungmin boomed as the three of you walked to the canteen. It was packed every day, regardless of the time of the day.

At a table outside, you spotted Sohee and Minho. Eunji, Changbin, Felix and Bangchan.

Just when you thought your day couldn't get any worse...

“Tell me about it, I'm so pissed off!” Everyone looked at you, hearing loud and clear about your discontent. All three of you pulled up a chair and you sat down facing Changbin.

“Someone's jumpy.” Sohee leaned across the table. “What's wrong? You three look like shit.”

“It turns out the university cut the theater’s funding in favor of sports.” Your voice was sharp, and your glare shot directly at Bangchan, who was busy texting like the world wasn’t crumbling around him. He looked up, one eyebrow raised in confusion, as if you’d just accused him of single-handedly ruining the arts.

You looked away, rage bubbling in your veins.

“That sucks.” Felix shot back with a supportive smile. “I know how important the theater is to you guys.”

“Everyone’s been working so hard,” Seungmin muttered, sinking into his chair like the weight of the news had finally crushed him. “It’s just... unfair.”

A heavy silence settled over the table, broken only by the sound of Bangchan’s nails tapping on his phone screen. You glanced his way, the sight of him completely disengaged making your blood boil.

“Is there nothing we can do?” Eunji twisted her lips, hopeful.

“Car wash?” Changbin suggested with a mischievous grin. “Classic fundraiser, right?”

“Sure,” you shot back, deadpan, “let’s exploit women for the sake of art.” Your glare could’ve leveled him then and there. Changbin leaned back in his chair, raising his hands in mock surrender.

“Okay, fine. What about food?” Sohee jumped in, glancing at Minho for support. “Muffins, cupcakes, something simple. People love that stuff.”

Hyunjin's face lights up like a light bulb. “Felix makes brownies. Amazing brownies.���

Felix smirked, shrugging like it was no big deal. “I don’t wanna brag, but they’re basically legendary.”

“Alright, then.” Changbin grinned, pointing a finger gun between Felix and you. “You two make the brownies. And we,” he motioned to himself and Bangchan, “sell them.”

You and Bangchan exchange glances for a millisecond.

“I’ve got the perfect idea,”  he says, a wicked smile slipping from his lips.

You raise an eyebrow, laughing. “What? Are you going to sell brownies naked around campus?”

The grin widened, and that’s when you knew you should’ve kept your mouth shut.

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

Felix had assured you he could handle everything, but your stubbornness wouldn’t let you sit this one out. If it was for the theater, you were all in. He handed over his famous brownie recipe like it was a national secret.

So, on Thursday, you got hands-on. Literally.

Eunji had come through with the shopping, and soon your dorm looked like a war zone—chocolate smudges on the counters, flour dusting the floor, and batter splattered in places you couldn’t quite explain. You only had a cramped space and a big dream of pulling this off.

You were just pouring the batter into a pan when a sharp knock at the door startled you. Wiping your hands on your skirt, you swung it open, expecting maybe Eunji or Hyunjin. Instead, there stood Bangchan, leaning casually against the door frame like he had nowhere else to be.

“Uh… hello?” You blinked, your brow furrowing. “What are you doing here?”

Bangchan stood back for a second, observing how exceptionally good you looked.

“So… newsflash,” he started, a smirk tugging at his lips. “You might wanna double that recipe.”

Confusion flashed across your eyes. “What do you mean?”

He straightened up, clearly enjoying your puzzled reaction. “I may have the entire basketball team to help out with the sale.”

Your jaw dropped as his words sank in. “You what?”

His grin widened at your disbelief. “You heard me. More hands, more sales. I figured we could use the hype.”

It was insane. But it was also brilliant. A rush of excitement shot through you, lighting up your face. “That’s… that’s fantastic!” you blurted, beaming before instinctively biting your lip to rein in your enthusiasm.

Bangchan tilted his head, his smirk softening into something almost genuine. “Thought you’d like that.”

“Oh, shit. I'll tell Felix, we're going to need an extra oven.” You walked over to the coffee table, where your phone was.

Before you could dial, Bangchan’s voice cut through your focus. “You shouldn’t go there.” He was still standing in the doorway, arms crossed, his expression surprisingly earnest. “It’s a mess. Like, biohazard-level chaos.” You lose heart, trying to think of another alternative. “You can use my dorm. If you want.” He quickly adds the last sentence.

Your stomach dropped at the suggestion. The idea of stepping into Bangchan’s dorm felt like walking into enemy territory. Risky. Dangerous. Not worth the potential fallout. “It’s fine,” you said, waving him off. “I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry about it.”

But Bangchan leaned against the doorframe, his smirk resurfacing. “You sure? There are a lot of brownies to bake, and I don’t think you’ve got all night.”

As much as you hated to admit it, he wasn’t wrong. Time was slipping through your fingers like sand, and with the entire basketball team now involved, efficiency was critical. “Fine,” you muttered, hating the way the word tasted in your mouth. “But only if you help.”

“You don't have to ask twice.”

It turned out Bangchan’s “help” involved more than just offering his kitchen. He insisted on carrying every utensil, baking sheet, and ingredient across campus himself, as though showing off how capable he was. By the time you arrived at his so-called dorm, you’d pieced together another puzzle about him.

Rich, but not obnoxiously so. Still, his “dorm” was more like a chic little apartment, complete with a full kitchen, two bedrooms, and sleek decor that screamed privilege. The space was annoyingly Bangchan—polished, put together, and just distant enough to be intriguing.

“Cool place.” You muttered after he closed the door behind you. Scanning the room and trying not to sound impressed.

“Thanks.” he gave you a smile. “So, this is the kitchen.” He motioned to a modern setup that looked like it belonged in a Food Network show. Top class stuff. “Make yourself at home.”

“Thanks,” you replied, slipping your hands into your pockets. “Not just for the space but… you know, for helping.”

It was obvious that he was making this effort because the theater was important to his friends Seungmin and Hyunjin. Why else would he do all this? Still, you appreciated it.

His lips twitched into a grin. “Wow. Didn’t think I’d ever hear you say that.” 

You rolled your eyes, biting back the retort bubbling at your tongue. Play nice. He’s helping. 

“Relax,” he added, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “Just kidding. There’s booze in the fridge, by the way. Help yourself.”

“I’m fine, thanks,” you said, sidestepping the offer.

“I’ve gotta sort something out with the coach,” he said, grabbing his phone. “I’ll be back in 20. Think you’ll survive here alone?”

Honestly, being in his apartment without him sounded like the best possible scenario. You gave a small nod. “Yeah, no worries.”

With that, he left, and the door clicked shut behind him. You exhaled, a long breath that carried the weight of the past few days. Now you were in enemy territory, surrounded by his world, and somehow, that felt far more personal than it should.

How had this become your life? Baking brownies in Bangchan’s kitchen? It was almost as absurd as sleeping with him—a mistake you’d promised yourself you’d never make. But here you were, crossing one forbidden line after another.

You weren’t exactly a disaster in the kitchen, but you weren’t a pro either. Somehow, though, in thirty minutes flat, four trays of brownies were baking away in Bangchan’s fancy oven. The rest of the kitchen, however, looked like a war zone. Eggshells piled in the sink. Flour scattered across the floor. Chocolate batter smeared on your shirt. Your skirt? A masterpiece of handprints from raw dough. But hey, it was all for the sake of art—and funding.

While you whisked and poured, you couldn’t resist turning on your favorite song, What Is This Feeling from Wicked. Singing along word for word, you hit every high note with a grin. That song had landed you the role of Glinda in high school, and the nostalgia hit you square in the chest. Those were good times. Simpler times.

The chorus was still ringing in your ears as you crouched to scrub a stubborn chocolate stain on the floor. That’s when the door swung open, and Bangchan walked in, freezing mid-step as he surveyed the chaos.

“Holy shit. Are you all right?” he asked, his tone somewhere between amusement and genuine concern.

Your heart nearly leaped out of your chest as you scrambled to turn off the music. In your rush, your phone slipped from your flour-dusted hands and landed on the counter with a soft thud. You straightened, cheeks flushing. “I’m fine,” you said quickly, brushing your hands on your already-ruined skirt. “Sorry about the mess. I’ll clean it up, I promise.”

He looked around, clearly trying to hold back a laugh. His eyes flicked from the chaotic kitchen to you, taking in the state of your clothes. “You’ve got something… there,” he said, gesturing vaguely at the chocolate smear on your shoulder.

“It’s fine,” you muttered, avoiding his gaze. “As soon as I’m done here, I’ll head back to the dorm and clean this up.”

Bangchan tilted his head, clearly unimpressed with your plan. “I can lend you a shirt. Might make you feel more comfortable.”

“No, no. I’m fine,” you said, waving him off. “But thanks.”

He rolled his eyes, muttering something under his breath. Then, without hesitation, he reached behind his neck and yanked off the black shirt he was wearing, leaving him in nothing but his jeans and a devilish grin. “Here,” he said, holding the shirt out to you like it was the most casual thing in the world.

You blinked, completely caught off guard. “You know you could’ve just grabbed another shirt, right? Like, one you’re not currently wearing?”

He leaned in slightly, the grin widening in a way that made your stomach flip. “And where’s the fun in that?”

For a moment, you just stood there, staring at him, equal parts annoyed and flustered. His shirt hung in the air between you, a silent dare. Finally, you snatched it from his hand, muttering, “You’re impossible.”

“I’ve been told,” he replied, unbothered, and strolled over to the counter like he hadn’t just walked into the kitchen half-dressed.

After a few minutes, you walked back into the kitchen, now wearing Bangchan’s shirt. It hung a little loose on you, the soft fabric brushing against your skin and carrying a mix of fresh laundry and whatever cologne he used. Not that you noticed. Much.

Bangchan was at the sink, scrubbing a mixing bowl. His back was to you at first, but when he turned around, his gaze lingered a second too long before he coughed and looked back down. “Did you know,” he started, shaking his head with a teasing grin, “that you’re officially the world’s clumsiest cook? There’s brownie batter... under the sink.”

You glanced at the cabinet beneath the counter, then back at him. “Hey, I said I’d clean up,” you defended, marching into the kitchen with your head held high. “And for the record, I never claimed to be a good cook. I’m just trying to help.”

Bangchan barked out a laugh, drying his hands on a towel. “Help? No fucking way. You’re a disaster, love.”

You froze, raising an eyebrow at him. “Excuse me?” You crossed your arms, the oversized sleeves of his shirt only slightly undermining your indignation. “I didn’t see you stepping up to bake anything.. Let’s see you handle a whisk without breaking something.”

He leaned back against the counter, arms crossed, clearly enjoying himself. “Trust me, I’d still be better than whatever chaos you’ve got going on here.”

Your lips quirked into a slow smirk, and you reached for the bag of flour on the counter. “Oh yeah? Well, let’s see you handle this.” Before he could react, you scooped a handful of flour and tossed it right at him, the fine powder exploding across his chest like a smoke bomb.

Bangchan froze for a second, blinking down at the mess. Then, his lips curved into a wicked grin that should have been your warning. “Oh, it’s on now.”

With your hands on your lip, you realized that you had fucked up. “I'm sorry, I...”

Too late. In the blink of an eye, Bangchan scooped up the sugar and poured it all over your hair. You stared, half-shocked, half-impressed by his audacity. You parted your lips to fire back, but before a word could escape, the sound of his laughter erupted from deep in his chest.

“Really? Is this how it’s gonna go?” You grabbed the cocoa powder with a grin. Oh, he wanted a war? You were so ready. “Bring it on,” you shot back, face lighting up with mischief. 

You were almost halfway to smearing him with chocolate when his hand shot out and stopped yours midair. The cocoa slipped through your fingers, and just like that, your plan hit the ground.

Then, you collided—chest to chest. Bangchan wasn’t laughing anymore, and you could feel the shift in the air, the heat between you two now undeniable. His lips curled into that damn smirk, the one that told you everything. Your heart was racing, but the thought of pulling away didn’t even cross your mind. The only question now was who was going to make the first move.

A silent battle passed between you two. His gaze locked onto yours, sensing the shift in your expression—less defiant, more... willing. And just like that, the tension morphed into something else, something undeniable.

Without hesitation, you leaned in, your lips brushing his. Bangchan’s breath hitched, a soft grunt escaping him at the sudden contact. Your hands, still coated with the remnants of your baking disaster, slid over his broad shoulders. You were a mess, sugar and flour everywhere, but somehow, it made everything feel a little more real. And Bangchan? He didn’t seem to mind one bit.

All he seemed to care about was having your lips on his. And fuck, you could feel how much he wanted it.

Bangchan grabbed your ass possessively, squeezing it and making a raspy moan escape your lips. You pushed him against the wall, without detaching your lips, savoring how the softness of his lips felt like cotton candy.

When you finally broke away, your chests heaving, your fingers still pressed into his skin, you met his gaze. His chest rose and fell beneath your touch, and you could feel the pull between you intensify again, magnetic.

“I should probably clean up this mess.” your voice broke the tension, but the realization hit harder than it should’ve. Bangchan was clearly fed up with your habit of diving in and then ghosting the consequences. 

“Don’t you dare.” his voice was low, the words like a command you weren’t about to ignore. His eyes locked with yours—intense. “You want this.” his lips brushed against yours, a tease that made your heart leap, while his words hung heavy in the air. “I know you do.”

Your pulse thundered in your ears, drowning out everything but him.

“Bangchan.” You whispered, barely able to breathe. The heat from his hardness spread like wildfire, and your body seemed to betray you. “We can’t.” you licked your lips—stupid, because he was already there, sealing your protest with a sloppy kiss, stealing that last ounce of restraint.

You were losing it. Why did he have to be so... goddamn good at this?

“Oh yeah?” he pulled away, just enough to make you regret the distance. “Tell me one good reason. Just one.”

You snorted, doing everything you could to hold it together, but the pull between you was undeniable. “Please.”

He tilted his head, lips twitching like he wanted to argue, but instead he closed his eyes and muttered a curse under his breath. “Fine,” he grumbled, walking away, but the air between you two still crackled.

The rest of the kitchen cleanup was like some strange form of punishment. You moved in sync, two people acting like they hadn’t just burned down every ounce of decorum in the room. The silence was deafening, the kind of awkward that made you wish you could pull the floor open and swallow you whole. But instead, you just scrubbed harder, hoping it’d drown out the thundering thoughts in your head.

He pulled away, no jokes, no teasing—just silence. It was like a switch had flipped, and the tension that had once sparked between you now lay dormant, suffocating. You didn't know if you hated the quiet or if you hated yourself more for letting things go as far as they had.

When everything was finally done, he still helped you carry your things to the dorm, his touch lingering just a little too long as he adjusted the bag over your shoulder. You were too busy battling the whirlwind of your own thoughts, replaying every moment, every look, and cursing both him and yourself for what you’d just crossed into.

You hated how easy it had been. How natural. And you hated even more that you couldn’t quite bring yourself to regret it—at least, not yet.

♡ taglist ― @kenia4 @chrizrizz @meerabmalik

[demonic0angel]

Lex Luthor snubs Vlad at a rich person party. Vlad decides he's gonna fuck with him in response, like a sane person would. "Children, help me ruin this rich asshole's life!"

“So you want us to mess with a bald guy for what?” Danny sighed, rolling his eyes.

None of them even looked up from what they were preoccupied with. Jazz was reading, both Danny and Dani were on their phones with one playing games and the other liking her friends’ posts, and Dan was tapping away on his laptop. They all lounged around in his room, taking advantage of his air conditioner and wifi.

Vlad sighed deeply.

“If you help me humiliate Lex Luthor, I will pay each of you 100 thousand dollars and I’ll leave all of you alone for a week.”

Immediately, it was like a light had been switched on.

Danny and Dani were immediately on various social media websites, already stalking Luthor’s various accounts. Jazz put down her book to start writing a list of plans as Danny and Dani supplied her with information and Dan was also typing away, browsing through websites and articles that referenced Luthor and any information about him.

Vlad silently shed a tear.

Kids were terrifying these days.

“So what kind of humiliation are you asking for? A public one? A monetary one? Do you want his money? His company? His name to be remembered as an embarrassment for the rest of his life?” Jazz asked, writing away.

“Yes to everything,” Vlad said happily. He reached over to pat Dan’s head, who scratched his hand away with a low growl, drawing blood.

Still, at least he didn’t try to kill him like he did last time!

Danny remarked, “He really hates Superman, so maybe we can somehow ally with him and Lois Lane to dig into his past and uncover something. Lois Lane is said to be one of his most outspoken haters and she’s apparently also related to Superman somehow. She could be useful.”

Dan added, “Luthor seems to have few scandals over the past few years, but it’s most likely because he’s using money to suppress it. However, if we work strategically, we can find the old articles again and push them back into public view.”

“Danny, send a message to Tucker to hack into Luthor’s company database, will you? I guarantee with the rate of how much money he’s making compared to the success of his products and company, there has to be something shady happening,” Jazz said.

Dani then perked up and said, “Ooh, Luthor has a son! A boy named Kon Kent! Also seems to be in a complicated custody battle between him and a reporter named Clark Kent? It’s a little weird how Luthor doesn’t just take him away….”

“How old is he?” Danny asked, narrowing his eyes at Dani.

Dani grinned. “Not much older than me. I’ll follow him and maybe sweet talk him? His posts are public and he hates his dad, so maybe I can get insider information!”

They all scowled, even Vlad.

“Absolutely not!” Vlad said. “I won’t let you talk to boys! Not until you’re 52!”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I agree with Vlad.”

“No boys! Block him!”

Even Jazz shook her head silently.

Dani groaned and rolled her eyes. “You’re all the worst. Do we want to humiliate Luthor or what?!”

Dan sneered. “There’s no way we’re letting you talk to a boy! Now help me find something related to Luthor and Bruce Wayne— I bet those two are in cahoots somehow.”

“Ugh!” Dani groaned, but still opened the page to Bruce Wayne’s Instagram account.

Vlad sniffled and almost cried.

He knew his children could be depended on!

Even if he had to pay them to defend him.

[sukunasluvrr]

Nerd Gojo who was an absolute simp for you. The poor man so badly wanted to get his hands on you in some way, but he knew he wouldn’t have a chance. You were way out of his league. You, the popular girl who hung around people like Sukuna and Kenjaku and were always present in frat parties. Often ending up with a pillow between his legs and humping the poor fabric like a desperate dog while whimpering your name over and over again, leaving the sheet soiled with his sticky sperm and a hint of shame in his actions, how did he end up this down bad for you?? Nobody knew.

He’d often help you out with your studies and tests, often doing them for you after you bat your lashes prettily at him and asked him real nicely. It really didn’t take much to convince him, looking at you with puppy eyes and his glasses that sat so adorably on the bridge of his nose as he nods and mutters „of course..“ under his breath. But he couldn’t take it anymore, one day while you were in his dorm, him helping you with a project- he couldn’t help himself. He was already half hard because of your tits being in his sight and the smell of your perfume that invaded his senses. Looking at you with his usual puppy like stare as he took all the courage he had. “Can you… stay the night?” He asked almost in a hushed tone. You had to look twice to make sure you weren’t imagining this,

“You want me to stay the night?” You asked him, to make sure you didn’t just hear it wrong, but to your surprise, he nodded without hesitation, hands moving to your hips as he got onto his knees- actually begging for you

“Please… just give me this one night… I’ll let you do whatever you want to me, this night and the rest of our semesters… but I’m begging you, I just wanna feel you for once…“

He was so desperate… it was almost cute. And his offer was quite tempting, so you agreed and he practically grinned in excitement. Already pulling you to the bed and kissing over your skin in soft pecks, being so gentle with it, like you could break if he went to hard and rough on you. His hands big enough to cup both your breasts through your top as he started kneading the soft subtle flesh, small whimpers leaving him from the feeling as he made you lay back on his bed, straddling your hips and grinding lightly against you, feeling the imprint of his length pressing against you. He already felt big through the fabric and the man wasn’t even fully hard yet!! He was still gentle with you, constantly asking if you really want this to which you nodded and he kept going. Removing his glasses and putting them on the nightstand as he started undressing you, lips pressing against your neck. Getting your top and bra off with practiced ease, without even wasting another second his lips were kissing around your breasts, kissing the underside of one while the other was being teased by his hand, thumb circling around your nippe and lightly pinching it while his mouth worked on coating the other in his spit, tongue circling around it and softly sucking on it like he was worshipping your chest. Earning small sounds from your lips and your hand moving into his hair while he kept this up for a few minutes until you remembered his offer, softly pulling him off your chest

„You said you’ll let me do anything, right?“ your voice a little shaky and breathy from arousal, „and I wanna ride you, pretty“ and god you could see the wheels turning in his head as he made sense of your words. Hearts practically forming in his eyes as he nods eagerly, already sitting up to remove his clothes with shaky hands

„Yes!! Yes yes yes, anything for you“ the moment his clothes were off and he was left in his boxers with a obvious tent standing out, his hands were already on you again, your words seeming to having made him only 10 times more desperate and harder for you, pulling at your sweatpants to get them off of you and pulling you on top of him, eyebrows furrowed in a pathetic way and puppy eyes looking up at you

„do whatever you want to me… spit on me, use me like a stupid toy, I just want you… I need you“

His words so desperate and full of emotion as his hips started bucking up into yours, moaning at the stimulation to his sensitive clothed cock. Your hands finding way to to his chest for stability as you tried to get him to calm down, not even having gotten your panties off yet and the slick was smearing over your pussy lips almost uncomfortably

„ 'toru… calm down for a second, I’m not going anywhere“

You tried to reason with him, but your words went to blank ears while he kept grinding up against you, hands already starting to pull his boxers down and fingers pulling at the strings of your panties to get the flimsy fabric off your skin and get access to your sweet pussy, accidentally ripping the fabric and pulling it off, the moment he made eye contact with your glistened cunt he felt like he was in a dream, his movements stopping for once and hands parting your thighs a little more and pulling your closer to his hard and proud standing dick. Making you gasp for a second as you saw it, already knowing that the stretch would probably make your poor pussy remember him for the next few weeks. He of course noticed your stare, and he thought you were disappointed

„it’s not really that big… sorry to disa-„ the poor guy couldn’t even finish his words before you interrupted him

„NO! No, oh my god, you’re probably the biggest I’ve ever had“

And you could’ve sworn you saw a light twitch in his dick when he heard your words, a soft hint of red tinting his pale cheeks, watching as your hand moves around his cock to give a few pumps to it, watching and listening for his reactions while he gave the prettiest whimpers from himself, hips bucking into your hand for more, before he could get a word out, he watched you let a globe of spit drop onto his tip, making his lower stomach cave in a little from the sensation on his sensitive dick. Already starting to beg for more, eyes half lidded while he watched you tease his poor, already angry looking tip. Your hand smearing the salvia over his cock to lube him up a bit before you moved, hovering a little over him with your knees pressed into the mattress and your entrance teasing his tip, letting it slip in and out faintly but never truly sinking down on him, making him almost cry while he endured the sweet torture of your pussy. The feel of your slick hole against his sticky tip almost too much to bear, having spend weeks if not months imagining how it would feel while fisting his dick to the thought of you almost pathetically at night. And now he was so so close to getting what he wanted, to feeling the slick warm walls of your heat around his throbbing length. It took some encouragement to actually have you sink down on him, the stretch mean and making you hiss a little, earning a small look of concern from him, his hands moving to your hips and rubbing soft circles into your skin in an attempt to soothe you while you got used to the size of him inside of you. The moment you started moving your hips against him, he felt like he ascended to heaven. A small groan leaving him and head titling back into the pillows to focus on your hips working to bounce along his dick, not able to keep his own from thrusting up into you from below- weakly at first but picking up in pace and firmness the faster you got. His eyes fixated on your face to look at every crunch of your nose, brows and the part of your lips whole moans left your mouth, his moans and groans being heard along yours, as well as the undeniable sound of skin against skin and the soft squelches of your cunt working on his dick to milk his cum from him. His fingers still digging into your hips but not moving them to bring you out of rhythm. Each stroke of your warm cunt around his dick had his mouth gaping and slutty sounds escaping from it. Your slick already trickling down his length and coating his balls, surely leaving a mess on the sheets but neither of you cared when you were riding him so good. Trying to keep his eyes on you and watching your tits bounce, unable to resist but move his hands to cup the soft flesh and knead gently

„you’re so pretty sweetheart…“ he muttered under his breath, his voice sounding somewhat shaky along with his whines and moans of pleasure

„don’t wanna be without your pussy ever again… ngh- fuck…. Keep going“

It was embarrassing to say he got close already, having been hard ever since you were with him and being so needy for you he couldn’t control himself, a pathetic whine leaving and eyebrows furrowing as his eyes closed „mhhff…. I’m gonna cum…“ his words were barely heard by you, wing lost in your own world and almost in a trance while using his dick to get yourself off, but you weren’t gonna be cruel… how could you be cruel to the sweet, nerd guy, who collected comics and who actually knew something about female anatomy???

„Go on Baby… cum for me“ giving him the go ahead because you were close yourself. Working the both of you to the edge at the same time, moaning your name as he came with a thrust up into your cunt, hands pulling you down by your hips to keep your warm walls around his dick, feeling your inner walls throb around his spent cock while you came at the same time as him was even better, feeling like he was being killed by your tight heat- breath coming out in gasps and brain going blank. „Ohhh ffffucck“ was all he could mutter out, you still gave weak grinds of your hips against his, rising out your own pleasure before you came to a stop and slumped down against him, face against his chest and listening to his fast heartbeat. Keeping him seethed inside of you, too exhausted to have him pull out just yet. But.. to your shock, he was still hard. Barely even calmed down from his highs and already bucking into you again

„Mff, another round??“

[daechwitatamic]

Cinnamon || KMG {teaser} - coming Feb. 7!

(banner by @sailorsoons)

Written for the Lonely Hearts Cafe Collab!

Cinnamon mingyu x fem!reader (nicknamed Sunny for Reasons), reader x male oc for a while fluff smut angst best friends to lovers, roommates to lovers, idiots to lovers all apply NSFW - minors DNI

Summary: You finally decide to try and move on after years of waiting for Mingyu to return your feelings. But when you start bringing your new boyfriend around more often, things with Mingyu get... difficult.

WC: 19k teaser wc: 900

Warnings: language, recreational drinking and overdrinking, a brief mention of throwing up from a hangover, angst and hurt feelings, not miscommunication but definitely refusal to communicate, kissing (some with mg and some with a male oc), arguments, reader and mingyu are both imperfect people who make mistakes and do things wrong... theyre not bad or toxic people but their choices can be hurtful... theyre humans who mess up have to just do better going forward, quick and prosey piv smut

teaser warnings: language, angst, drunkenness

a/n: beta'd by @sailorsoons and @eoieopda smooch smooch love yall

--

Mingyu is an avalanche. Rushing, rolling, thundering over and through you until there’s nothing left but a glinting field of ice and silence. Nothing else matters - nothing else exists - in his wake.

“You better watch out, Mingyu,” Jeonghan says from the couch, and your blood runs as cold as that field of ice, because you know he’s about to start some shit. “Sunny got flowers from her lover today. That guy’s coming for your woman.”

You’re opening your mouth to reprimand him - tell him to shut up, or something - but Mingyu beats you to it.

“Sunny’s not mine,” he says simply. 

All that ice evaporates in an instant like it was never there.

“My lover,” you echo with a frown, when you can speak again. “Don’t say it like that, you weirdo.”

“Well, isn’t he?” Jeonghan asks innocently.

You head for your bedroom with a roll of your eyes. “Goodnight, Jeonghan.”

“That means yes,” he sing-songs, and you slam your door shut.

Wonwoo’s voice floats through the door. “Who pissed off Sunshine?”

Mingyu responds with a growl, “Who do you think?”

–

You and Mingyu lay side by side in the grass, a late spring night unspooling with cricket song and a smattering of flickering stars above you. His arm touches yours and you can feel his chest shift as he breathes deeply.

You feel content - you feel infinite - you feel like one of those blinking stars. You feel like you could lay here next to him in silence and be happy until your light goes out, just like theirs. 

“Mingyu,” you say, turning to look at him. The grass tickles your cheek. 

He turns to look at you, too. It’s dark, here behind the university’s main hub, most of the lights on the far side of the building. Still, there’s enough light to see his eyes, steady on you, his gaze serious.

“Sunny Baby,” he responds, voice low, like he’s telling you a secret. “I love you.”

You startle awake, heart pounding, and you’re immediately furious. 

“Fuck,” you hiss, punching your mattress once. 

The pathetic truth is you dream about that night in undergrad all the time - you and Mingyu on one of the last nights before summer break, leaving a party together and laying in the grass behind the advising department building watching the constellations rotate above you. 

The pathetic truth is the dream never follows the script, always turning the scene sideways, making it something different than what it was.

The pathetic truth is that Mingyu had been blacked out, more fucked up than you’d ever seen him, and you’d laid in the grass because you physically couldn’t keep him upright any further than that and you’d had to text Wonwoo to come help you. 

You hadn’t said anything to Mingyu - at least not something meaningful. You might have said please don’t puke on me, or god, you weigh a ton, or how many jaegerbombs did you do? 

He had said he loved you - had slurred it, eyes closed. 

You had laughed, even though it had sent a dagger through your chest. “Okay, Romeo,” you’d teased, and checked your phone to see if Wonwoo was on his way to help. 

“I do,” he’d insisted, one hand patting the grass next to him like he was trying to find you. “Sunny, I love you.”

You didn’t know how he meant it - still don’t know, to this day, because you don’t think he even remembers saying it and you’d been too afraid to bring it up.

What were you supposed to say? Hey, when you were blacked out last night, you said you love me… do you mean like… platonically… or…? 

God. The idea of it is just as humiliating now, years later, as it had been in the weeks that followed that night. And though he’s said it regularly since then, he never said it like that, and you never pushed it. 

Now, awake and furious and sad at three in the morning, you grab your phone and climb out of bed. 

You know you shouldn’t. You know it’s only making this worse for you. But you make your way on light steps through the dark and silent apartment to Mingyu’s door and push it open.

Is it mithridatism, this thing you do? Microdosing on the poison so that a full dose won’t kill you? No, that isn’t right. A full dose of Mingyu won't kill you. It’s an absence of Mingyu that you need protection from.

You climb into his bed and poke at his calves with your toes until he grunts as he wakes. Then, as he gathers his senses, he rolls to look at you over his shoulder.

“Bad dream?” he asks, voice kind of breathy with sleep.

“Mhm.”

He rolls the rest of the way, lifts his arm so you can scoot a little closer. You breathe easier immediately. It makes no sense that the thing that hurts you is also the only thing that makes you feel better. 

“Won’t your lover object to you getting in bed with me?” he asks, and you can hear the edge in his voice as clear as day.

You let out a single, wry ha. He’s got a point, but Daeyoung isn’t your boyfriend, you aren’t exclusive, and what he doesn’t know can’t hurt him.

“Nah,” you say easily. “I’m not his.”

--

Welcoming to the world the fic I have lovingly dubbed Cinnamingyu!!! Coming Friday, February 7th!!!

[aureatelys]

adore you

pairing: aaron hotchner/fem!bau!reader w.c. 3k a/n: written for @mggslover's 1k celebration event, congrats baby! i initially wrote 5k, hated it, and basically rewrote all of it but i swear i still had fun writing this. i hope you enjoy <3

summary:

Weird. You're acting like my boyfriend. - God Is a Freak, Peach PRC Your boss has essentially become your best friend. What the hell does Derek mean he looks at you a certain way?

c.w.: fluff! friends to lovers, age gap ofc, feelings realization, reader is oblivious and tipsy but is a consenting party

read below or on ao3 here <3

“So, you and Hotch, huh?”

You had just finished putting your coat up, stepping through the massive entryway of Rossi’s mansion, when Derek approaches you with that familiar shit-eating grin and hands rubbing together like he’s scheming something.

You blink up at him, confused. “Yeah… he gave me a ride.”

He rolls his eyes, shaking his head but still wearing that smile that made you want to lovingly punch him. “Yeah, I saw that. I meant, you and Hotch aren’t…?”

You squint at him, because you really aren’t sure what he’s hinting at. Also, a glass of wine has been calling your name since you started getting ready and Derek is very much in the way of that. Hotch was always annoyingly punctual, and today was no different because you were honestly about to open up a bottle when you heard his car pull up in the driveway. “We aren’t what?”

“Sweetness. You’re really trying to tell me you and Hotch aren’t together?”

You choke on your spit, coughing so loud in your fist that it echoes down the entryway and gathers the attention of Rossi and Hotch at the end of it. You wave them off when they both give you equally alarmed and concerned looks while Derek laughs heartily, like the asshole he is.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” you hiss at him, slapping him on the shoulder as he nearly makes himself tear up from laughing.

Derek puts a somewhat apologetic hand on your arm as he steers you to the kitchen and pours you a glass of red, finally. “Hey, I see the way he looks at you, I just wanted to make sure I’m up to date on everything.”

And that catches your attention.

Your chest still aching from your coughing fit, you give him another perplexed look. “What? He looks at me the same way as he looks at everyone.”

Derek’s face morphs into a nervous, almost uncomfortable one as he starts slowly backing away into the living room, as if you were an unpredictable dangerous animal. “I think I’m gonna… look for Garcia.”

And then he turns on his heel and is out of the kitchen before you can blink, leaving you with your lone glass of wine and the sounds of laughter emanating from the patio.

You’re still so fucking confused, because you and Hotch were only friends. In fact, you can almost consider him your best friend with the way you two are spending so much time together, even on the weekends.

One late night spent in his office to work on reports that were due the next day that you had procrastinated on and ordering Chinese food eventually turned into a habitual thing, now spending the last hour of the workday every night in his office. Then, he started inviting you to the park to play with Jack who had apparently been asking for you, then staying for dinner because Hotch was not eating the way he should’ve been and him and Jack didn’t deserve to eat pizza rolls with mac and cheese every night.

It's been a couple of months and now, you can honestly say you two are nearly attached at the hip. You’ve tried to tone it down for the office, because you knew you would get teased, and clearly you were right.

But dating Hotch? Honestly, the thought had never occurred to you.

You’ve been single for over a year and you were okay with that, because at least the job kept you busy. And you know for a fact that Hotch hasn’t even thought about dating since Beth moved a couple of years ago.

The sudden thought of Beth, her pretty blue-green eyes and perfect hair, causes a sour taste to form in your mouth. You had never met her, having only technically heard good things about her, but every time you thought of her or someone mentioned her in passing, you felt… upset.

For no reason.

When you glance at Hotch from where he’s talking with the rest of the team on the patio, you catch his gaze for a brief second before he’s turning his head back around to chuckle at something Rossi says.

You feel your heart start to race, your blood rushing through your ears, because what the fuck did Derek mean when he said Hotch looks at you a certain way? You were telling the truth when you said you’ve only noticed him looking at you platonically and nothing more.

Sure, Hotch was conventionally attractive, handsome even. You guess he hit all your boxes in a guy; tall, capable hands, and pretty brown eyes. He was a good boss, a good man, and was always putting other people first before even thinking about himself. He had an intense sense of justice, loves children, and would do absolutely anything for his team and even beyond for Jack.

He has a nice laugh once you break down his walls. For all he’s meticulous at work, his house is absolutely chaotic and it takes you nearly an hour sometimes to get him and Jack ready for a soccer game. He doesn’t prefer to cook but he seems to enjoy it more when you’re in the kitchen with him, laughing at his technique and groaning about the lack of certain utensils.

The sudden realization that you like Hotch, your boss that is older than you by 20 years, hits you like a ton of bricks. You nearly snap the stem of your wine glass, something like panic and mortification climbing up your throat before you could help it.

It’s fine, you’re fine. It’s normal to have a crush on someone you spend time with on a regular basis and is conventionally attractive. You can deal with that.

But the absolute possibility that Hotch doesn’t want you romantically was very real. In fact, it had to be the only possibility. You were younger and less experienced, both romantically and professionally. The only reason that he’s been spending so much time with you was because you needed guidance and reassurance as the newest member of the team.

He doesn’t look at you any differently than the others. That’s it. Derek has no idea what he’s talking about.

You take a shuddering deep breath, quickly composing yourself because, hello, you work with profilers. Which meant you couldn’t avoid or hide from Hotch tonight, no matter how much you wanted to.

When you make your way out to the patio to join the others with a full glass of wine and you spot the only space left in the circle was between Spencer and Penelope, you internally thank whatever God was out there. The sound of them talking over each other about something inane was oddly comforting as your eyes met Aaron’s from the other side of the circle.

His eyes appeared golden from the numerous fairy lights strewn across Rossi’s backyard, making his face appear softer and younger. You’re not sure how it took you this long to realize he was so handsome.

He raises his eyebrows at you, silently asking if you were okay because, somehow, he’s grown to learn your facial expressions like the back of his hand, which means he most likely will catch on to you having a silly juvenile crush on him.

You give him a weak smile, raising your glass slightly before taking a large gulp of it. You’re glad that Rossi is Rossi and that he doesn’t spare any expenses when he throws his parties, the strong cherry flavor refreshing compared to your cheap boxed wine you’re used to. You don’t even remember what you were celebrating tonight, or if you were even celebrating anything at all and this was just another much needed get together after case after case.

You catch something soft in Hotch’s eyes that makes your chest pang painfully as he raises his own glass of whiskey before taking a sip. No one else has noticed, too enthralled by their own conversations, so the intimacy of the private moment doesn’t escape you, in fact making you even more anxious.

It was going to be a long night.

-

You are absolutely going to give Derek an earful on Monday morning.

It’s entirely his fault that you’re not enjoying Rossi’s party to the full extent, his words swimming in your mind.

Now, you’re psychoanalyzing and second-guessing everything Hotch does.

You had made sure to walk alongside Penelope on the way to the large round table for dinner, somewhat consciously as you continued to avoid Hotch but also because she was rambling about the show you suggested she watch. Spencer was on the other side of you, interjecting whenever he could, and you made a mental note that Hotch was still on the other side of the circle between Rossi and Tara.

So imagine your surprise when, after you tear your attention away from Spencer’s ramblings and back to Penelope, you’re met with Hotch’s pretty eyes and woodsy cologne instead.

“Oh, hi,” you say, hoping he doesn’t hear the shakiness that’s suddenly overtaken your voice as that familiar panic starts to crawl up your throat. This wasn’t going to be good.

“’Hi.” The corners of Hotch’s lips quirk up, eyes softening, and what the fuck is going on. “Can I sit next to you?”

You swear you’re going to have a heart attack. This man cannot be healthy for you. “Oh, yeah, sure.”

And then he’s pulling out your chair for you.

And it’s not anything new—he pulls your chair out for you all the time, in the conference room, in his dining table when you made not-pizza rolls, and even at restaurants the afternoons after Jack’s soccer games. You’ve never thought anything of it, but tonight, after your impeccably timed realization, your brain feels like it’s going to implode.

He’s just being a gentleman, that’s all.

“Thank you,” you manage out, heat starting to come to your face. Before Hotch, no one’s ever pulled your chair out for you. It’s nice.

Hotch doesn’t say anything, because of course not, just scoots your chair in closer to the table before he takes his seat on your right.

And he’s sitting really fucking close to you.

Have you always sat this close to each other before? You must have at least once during those late nights in his office, poring over case file after case file.

Not only could you feel the heat of his body just from sitting next to him, but his arm kept brushing up against your bare one while he ate, because of course you had to sit on the left side of a left-handed person. Every brush of the sleek fabric of his green button-up against your bare arm sent shivers down your spine despite the summer air, making you shift uncomfortably in your seat.

His hand kept brushing against yours as you ate and your eyes are drawn to how large his hands are as he handles his fork and the thickness of his forearms, having had rolled up his sleeves earlier. If you searched closely, you could find scars scattered over them through the dusting of hair, undoubtedly from his time on the job.

You don’t realize you’re staring at his Rolex and the way it glints underneath the lights, until Hotch is suddenly leaning into you. “Are you okay?”

Jesus Christ, hearing that smooth voice speaking lowly in your ear, breath warm as it fans over your cheek, causes all of the air in your lungs to escape. Has his voice always been that smooth, attractive?

When you risk a glance at him, conversations around the table slowly fading into the background, his face is merely inches from yours. His brows are pinched in concern and lips are pressed into a flat line. There’s something dancing in his eyes that you couldn’t quite put a finger on.

You clear your throat. “Sorry, I think the wine is just getting to me.”

He chuckles low underneath his breath. “Good thing I’m driving.”

And then he’s knocking the back of his hand against yours, the briefest brush of skin that causes electricity to zing up your spine, and then he’s back to listening intently to Derek and Emily’s bickering over who cheated at the last game of charades.

At this point, you think Hotch is able to read your mind. Why else would he be touching you, be sweet on you, if not to torture you?

You try to wrack your brain through these past couple of months, trying to find whether Hotch touching his hand to yours has happened before or any other sign that he actually is attracted to you. You come up short.

You chalk it up to him loosening up from his whiskey. He’s already moved onto water, because he was your ride, after all, so maybe this was a fluke. A one-off.

But it’s not a one-off. In fact, you think you’ve honestly died and gone to Heaven after suddenly tripping and breaking your head open in the entryway after Derek spoke with you. If you didn’t know any better, you would think you were actually on a date with Hotch, sans the rest of the team.

He must have noticed your distracted mood, because he’s making sure you’re included in almost every table conversation by glancing at you and giving you a smile that has started to make something flutter in your stomach. He’s participating minimally like usual, content to listen, but whenever he has a comment or thought he wants to share, he’s leaning in and sharing it with you.

He's leaning in to top of your wine, reaching over the table to get more of those green beans you like, and once even knocking his knee against yours underneath the table when you looked especially lost in thought while staring at your plate.

And then when the team has moved into the living room for charades, Emily wanting payback against Derek, it somehow gets even worse.

You’re quick enough to be the first to volunteer to not play due to there being an odd number of players, thus requiring Hotch to play. Everyone cheers teasingly, because Hotch is always quick to volunteer himself out of games, content to watch.

You blame the copious glasses of wine you’ve consumed and the decadent filling dinner, warmth thrumming through your entire body, when you poke at Hotch’s considerably firm bicep. “Show us what you got, old man.”

There are resounding oohs and aahs from the rest of the team. Something fuzzy settles in your chest when Hotch rolls his eyes good-naturedly at you and stands up from where he had sat next to you on the couch to JJ’s team.

You continue to nurse your wine, pleasantly buzzed, as you are thoroughly entertained by your team’s antics. Emily and Rossi argue at least 3 times, Penelope gets significantly close to having a private meeting with HR, and Hotch continues to stare at you.

Or at least, you think he’s staring at you. The alcohol has started making you second guess things even more than you already were. Because for some reason, despite JJ sitting on the other side of the living room and being on a team with her, he moved to sit in the empty spot next to you after the first round.  

He’s definitely participating in the game, even in second place behind Penelope and Derek, but you swear you feel his eyes on you now more than ever.

It’s distracting as you try to follow the game and guess along with everyone else. This time, the right side of him is nearly molded against your left side, pressing into you so hard that you’re starting to sweat from how much body heat he’s radiating.

When you glance at him to try and catch his eyes, he meets your gaze steadily. His hair is starting to come undone, a few strands falling against his forehead, and his dimple seems to have made a permanent appearance from how much he’s pretending not to laugh at his team’s antics.

It’s nice to see him enjoy himself—a flush rising up his neck and shoulders relaxed. Although you understand he has a certain image he maintains for his team, it’s become familiar to you.

By the time it dwindles close to midnight, there’s a chorus of yawns around the group. Penelope’s the first to call it, stumbling to grab a hold of Derek’s arm and dragging him with her out the door to drive her home, ruining your initial plans to catch a ride home with her instead of Hotch. After that, everyone starts to say their goodnights and exchanging hugs despite the chance you may get called on a case as early as tomorrow morning.

“You ready to go?” Hotch leans to whisper in your ear, his breath fanning over you again and causing heat to rise to your face.

“Absolutely,” you exhale, clutching the water bottle that Hotch retrieved for you in the middle of the game, hoping the breathiness in your voice could be blamed on how late it was.

When you get to Hotch’s car, heart full and warm after spending another wonderful evening with your makeshift family, he opens the passenger side door for you.

You think you’re going to lose your mind if he keeps this up. How are you supposed to stop having a crush on Hotch when he keeps doing things that justify that crush?

“Do you need to stop anywhere for anything? Are you hungry?”

You blame it on the wine despite the fact you’ve been drinking nothing but water for the past hour, thanks to Hotch silently getting you and only you a water. Your body and tongue feels loose, inhibitions naturally decreased, and it’s not your fault. It doesn’t matter if the soft lights of the driveway highlight the sharp angles of his face or the way his woodsy cologne has infiltrated your senses.

“Weird, you’re acting like my boyfriend or something.”

The silence that ensues is deafening. Your brain takes forever to catch up with you, but then you’re suddenly struck with humiliation and dread. You mind starts to race, as best as it could, when you realize that you may have just royally messed up the best job you’ve ever had and the best group of people you’ve ever met.

Before you can backtrack and say that you were just joking, Hotch carefully says “Do you want me to be?”

“What?” Wow, you really can’t hold your alcohol well, why did you drink so much wine?

And then Hotch is stepping closer, into your space, and you’d be worried that the rest of the team was going to see if the car door wasn’t shielding you from view from the front of the house. You get a whiff of whiskey on his breath again, but when you meet his eyes, there’s not a hint of the same full body dizziness you feel.

“Was I not being direct enough?” There’s amusement sparkling in his eyes, eyebrows raised. He looks like he’s politely trying to hide a fond smile. He’s teasing you.

This Hotch is the one you’ve grown to become familiar with over the past several months. Charming and unafraid to tease you when you’re away from prying eyes. Hotch is a private person, always has been, so it’s not a surprise that him essentially torturing you tonight was his version of being direct.

“You’ve been flirting with me?”

Hotch ducks his head bashfully to chuckle. It’s ridiculously endearing and you want to tug him closer and touch him all over. “I’ve been trying to flirt with you all month so I’m guessing I didn’t do a very good job.”

You stare at him as if he grew a second head, suddenly feeling much more sobered up than 5 minutes ago. Clarity sluggishly comes to you. The various invitations to spend the night or go out to dinner without Jack comes to mind. The touching had steadily increased, but you had assumed it was just due to Hotch getting more comfortable around you.

For a profiler, you weren’t very good at noticing what was happening right in front of you.

Hotch may be a ridiculously patient person, clearly since he’s been content to flirt with you for apparently a month while you didn’t notice, but you were not. You knew what you wanted. The wine still thrumming through your veins just gave you that little extra push.

You place your palms on his chest, relishing in the subtle firmness you can detect through his shirt, and you wonder if that’s his heart you feel thumping erratically or your own. “I promise I’m not that drunk and am fully aware of what is going on right now.”

Hotch hums and places his hands on your hips, the heat of him searing through the fabric of your dress. His eyes briefly flit to your mouth before back up at you. “I’m not sure if I believe you.”

Instead of providing a snarky response, and because you know Hotch wouldn’t make the first move since you did have some to drink, you finally lean in to close the distance between you two to kiss him.

It’s soft, chaste in a way that makes you feel pleasantly warm all over, the barest tendrils of electricity tugging at the pit of your stomach. The intensity of how much you like him, how much you adore him, nearly barrels you over, but Hotch’s grip on you tightens, steadying you. His lips only slightly move against yours, as if briefly testing the waters, but it does nothing to quell the sudden desire slowly twisting inside of you.

When he pulls back, chest only marginally heaving, you instinctively chase after him. He chuckles again, low and comforting, as his hands come up to hold you still by the shoulders. It shouldn’t feel as nice and soothing as it does. “I should take you home.”

“Are you coming with me?” You sincerely hope that Hotch doesn’t question you and your boldness tomorrow. Again, not entirely your fault.

“I’ll walk you to your door, how about that?” As if he already wasn’t going to do that.

On the drive back to your apartment, the tight ball of panic and uncertainty in your chest quickly unfurls and is replaced by affection, tenderness, and promises of the future. Hotch’s hand, large and protective, doesn’t leave your thigh the entire way home.

You make a mental note to send Derek a gift card and thank you note on Monday.

[bitchlessdino]

the one where the stranger you fake date turns out to be your childhood friend (m) Teaser

A Valentine collaboration hosted by @camandemstudios and their masterlist

Pairing: office manager!seungcheol x childhood friend!fem!reader Genre: romcom, smut, fluff, slight angst Teaser word count: 1.2k rating: R Summary: In a world where relationships mattered just as much as money or status did, Seungcheol found himself wrapped up with a person from twenty years ago. He didn't know how you remembered him, and frankly he didn't know how he remembered you, but the way you've reentered his life, like a gust of wind, he didn't think he'll ever forget you now.

The crowd of Seungcheol’s colleagues all started harmoniously greeting you, their eyes lighting up and genuine smiles forming for the first time since encountering their superior outside the office. You were quick to entertain them, never leaving Seungcheol’s side as his arm essentially became a leash, lugging the thirty-year-old man around like a purse dog, and being at the receiving end, he was too stunned to object.

“Hi, you must work with this guy right here,” you grinned, nudging into Seungcheol with the crown of your head.

“How do you know Mr. Choi, Miss…” Jihoon began to ask, curiosity radiating off of him as much as it did everyone else.

“Well,” you took Seungcheol’s hand out of his pocket, interlocking your fingers together, earning a bigger reaction than a simple thousand-yard stare from the office manager. “I’m Seungcheol’s girlfriend.”

Everyone involved in the conversation stared at you as if you had grown a second head and Seungcheol looked at you as if you had grown a third.

[…] It’s when he realized for once in his life he feared someone, and it was this smiley little creature that lied through their teeth as easily as they breathed.

“Okay looks like it's all good. Looks like we can finally be in business. What will be our first move, considering you are the first to have proposed the idea?”

“Yes, well, that will be the office party the company is hosting. Usually, everyone is required to attend, and I've skipped many events like it–”

“And you want me to come with you to make you look good for your team?”

“No, I want to make you an excuse so I don’t have to go.”

You furrowed your brows. “That’s counterproductive. Literally the opposite of what I’m here for.”

“But neither of us would have to go.”

Your fingers curled up into your palms, forming halfhearted fists before you unfurled them, trying to cherry-pick the right words to get through this tinman’s head. “You have to realize that simply having a girlfriend is not enough for people to like you. It’s about talking you up, showing off your redeeming qualities. Getting people to understand Seungcheol the person, not Seungcheol the boss.”

“Are you proposing I have no redeeming qualities?”

“You were trying to use me as an excuse to avoid going to a company party. What were you going to do with that time on your own?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

“This is exactly why you need my help, Cheol,” you reminded, feeling like you’re lecturing a cat about not scratching up the couch.

He gave a light grimace, “You don’t need to call me that childish abbreviation. I have a whole name.”

You leaned over from your seat, staring over at him wide eyes, fluttering your lashes and feigning a lovestruck grin. “I need to give you a nickname if we’re dating. What about Babe? Baby? Honey? Lover?”

“Seungcheol is just fine,” he answered, unaffected, not bothering to look past his laptop.

Your smile dropped in an exaggerated scowl as you pulled yourself back down, crossing your arms. “How have your other girlfriends dealt with you?”

Seungcheol suddenly had nothing else to say, his eyes started darting everywhere but you, leaning back against the booth and preoccupying his mouth with his scalding hot vanilla latte.

Your eyes narrowed at him suspiciously as the silence persisted and the click-clacking of his keyboard, “Seungcheol, you have dated before, right?”

His eyes flitted back to you like a flickering flame before it went out, directing themselves back to his laptop, typing away at something at a more urgent pace, or looking as if he did.

“Oh my god. You haven’t.”

“Silence,” he finally said.

“You…You haven’t been on a date with anyone? With a woman? Or even a man?”

He rolled his eyes, groaning under his breath. “Don’t make a scene.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” you reassured, “of course, I'm just very surprised…and confused. For 30 years of your life?”

“It was never something I prioritized.”

“Middle school. High school. College,” you began listing off.

“I went to an all boys school, and college does not leave much time for dating when you’re getting your Bachelor’s and Master’s.”

You waved your hands bizarrely. “So what? You worked your entire life?”

“Yes.”

“…Hmm.”

“What?”

Curiosity killed the cat, so the cat never came to know Seungcheol and apparently he never came to know the cat. “So if you’ve never been on a date, your intimate life…?”

He raised his brow, and sighed, realizing he was doing that a lot today. He closed his laptop, placing his hands neatly in his lap. “That goes without saying, but yes. I haven’t been intimate with anyone.”

“Right,” you responded, processing the information in real time.

“Are we done here? Is this game of 101 questions over with?”

“Just one more.”

“What?”

“What are you so big for then?”

“They’re watching…” He sang, eyes glazing over off in the distance.

You slightly turned your head to watch his view, seeing a few of your friends off in the distance, coming from the beach or slightly in view from the poolside, that could easily catch you in whatever act you and Seungcheol looked like you were up to. However, at this point, everyone seemed to be in their own world, talking, laughing, minding their own businesses. You weren’t sure if it mattered.

You snickered, resting your hands on his shoulders and readjusting your knees as they dug into the seat cushions. “You’re gonna go this far?”

“Yep. I have to look like a good boyfriend.”

You squinted at him suspiciously. “You had a lot to drink, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know?” He mumbled dumbly, his dimple indented extra deep.

You shook your head in disbelief, dipping your head forward and momentarily colliding with his in a headbutt. You reacted as expected, rubbing your forehead at the slight ache you caused, but from the lack of tact of the receiver, your assumptions were true. “You're so drunk right now.”

His hand rose to your hair, patting it down before finding your ear. As he thumbed over the curve of the helix, he could feel the heat bloom between his fingers. “You look so pretty right now.”

“Cheol,” you tried getting up, but he sat you back down, gripping you by your hips until they met his.

“Stay,” he quietly pleaded, his eyes glistening under the moonlight staring back at you with utter need that you have no choice but just melt right back in his touch.

You couldn’t believe the situation happening right now, and neither could your heart in your chest as it started beating at twice its usual rate. All you could focus on was his hands as they traveled up your body, skimming through the thin fabric of your shirt, following up your spine as he let out soft, ragged breaths.

You pressed the pads of your fingers a little deeper into the meat of his shoulders, “S-Seungcheol–”

“Do you know what will really convince them?” His voice is unrecognizable, deep and indulgent.

You made the ghost of a whimper as a finger travelled back down your body as you responded earnestly. “I don’t think we have to do much more convincing. I think they believe us when we say we’re a couple.”

“But you know what will really convince them though?”

You were scared to even ask, thinking a single word would burst this bubble you have no idea how you got caught in. “What?” you asked softly.

[lvnleah]

Would love a AWFC!Teen reader fic where she's Leah's younger sister who has always had to deal with being with Leah's sister, so many expectations on her and people being her friends because of Leah (Leah is still very much an amazing sister, loves her baby sister to bits!)

So when she's around ten ish, she makes the choice to not let anyone know Leah is her sister, goes to games but doesn't sit in the family section and sits with friends who she's never told about her family, maybe even uses her mum's maiden name rather than Williamson etc.

Leah is undoubtedly a bit upset about it because she doesn't want to make her little ones passion dampen just by being her (I hc that Leah would very much see R as her baby because that's what she called her when she was born or something) but her and their family all accept it and do what R wants and needs

Cut to R being brought into the senior time, smashing it in the big leagues and getting along well with all of the senior players who are looking at her like 'she seems familiar and I don't know why...' only to find out she's Leah's little sister when she's injured on the pitch or Leah gets injured and she gets all panicked and doesn't want to leave her side

Cue Beth, Katie, Kim etc. Who have all been there for years like 'Holy shit, you've grown up!!!!' Because they probably would've known her when she was younger since they've known Leah that long

Long winded but hopefully you'll like the idea 😂😂

the other williamson | leah williamson.

thank you for this request! :)

this is one of my favourite fics I’ve written!

You had always been proud to be Leah’s sister, how could you not be? She was England’s captain after all and an Arsenal star but sometimes being nine years younger than Leah came with its struggles. 

You were only seven when Leah first broke into the senior team and you were so proud of your sisters that for a while it’s all you talked about. Everyone at school knew about your cool big sister Leah and how she was playing for Arsenal. 

At that time, women’s football wasn’t massive so of course you got a bit of stick from a few boys in your class but it wasn’t anything you could handle. 

“Arsenal women?” One of them scoffed one day in the playground, “that isn’t a proper team!”

You looked the boy straight in the eye. “They are a proper team! My sister’s going to be the best player in the world, just you watch!”

The boy had rolled his eyes and laughed, but you didn’t care. You’d march off, determined to prove him wrong. Well, Leah would prove him wrong, and you’d be there cheering her on every step of the way.

For a while, being Leah’s sister was the coolest thing in the world. You loved going to games, sitting with your family, wearing a little Arsenal jersey with Williamson on the back. 

Leah always made time for you, even when her schedule got busy. She’d let you run around on the pitch after matches, ruffle your hair, and call you “my little bubba,” no matter how much you protested.

But as you got older, things changed.

By the time you were fifteen, Leah was a household name. Women’s football had grown massively, and she was basically the face of it after winning the euros. People started treating you differently, not because of who you were, but because of who your sister was.

At school, kids who’d never spoken to you before suddenly wanted to be your friend. “Can you get me an autograph from Leah?” they’d ask, or, “Do you think she’d come to my party?” Teachers started expecting more from you, too, as if being Leah Williamson’s sister meant you had to be perfect at everything.

At the academy, it was worse. You had been lucky enough to sign for the Arsenal academy when you were twelve but after the euros things changed. Every time you stepped onto the pitch, you could feel the weight of their eyes on you.

Coaches would compare you to Leah, even though you were nothing like her as a player. You didn’t even play in the same position, you were a striker not a defender. Teammates would make comments, sometimes kind, sometimes not.

“She’s only on the team because her sister’s Leah Williamson,” someone whispered once after you scored. “She’s not even good enough for the academy.”

It stung more than you cared to admit.

That was when you made your decision. You didn’t want to be known as Leah’s sister anymore. You wanted to be you. That night after training, you came home and broke down in tears to your mum. 

“Bubba, what’s wrong?” Amanda asked you as you stormed into the house, flinging your bag down onto the ground. 

You sat down with a huff as more tears started to escape, Jacob gave Amanda a look, “Been like this since I picked her, won’t say what’s wrong though.” Your brother sighed.

“I’m fine,” you muttered, wiping at your face angrily, though the tears kept falling.

Amanda crouched down in front of you, her voice soft. “You’re clearly not fine, Bubba. Come on, tell me what’s going on.”

You glanced up at her, hesitating. Part of you didn’t want to say it. You didn’t want to sound ungrateful for the opportunities you had or for Leah being your sister but the words tumbled out before you could stop them.

“I’m sick of it, Mum,” you said, your voice cracking. “Sick of being just Leah’s sister. Everyone at the academy thinks I’m only there because of Leah. They don’t even see me as my own person, just as ‘Leah’s little sister.’ I can’t do it anymore.”

Amanda’s face softened, and she sat beside you before pulling you into a hug. “Oh, Bubba. I’m so sorry you’re feeling this way.”

Jacob sat down next to you on the couch on the other side, frowning. “That’s not fair. You’re talented in your own right. Anyone who says otherwise is just jealous.”

“But I'm always being compared to Leah, J,” you said, though your voice wavered. “No one believes that I'm good enough. They just think I’m riding on Leah’s name.”

Amanda kissed your temple, “You are good enough. And I understand why this is so hard for you. But what do you want to do about it? How can we help?”

You hesitated, chewing your bottom lip. “I don’t want to be ‘Williamson’ anymore,” you finally said. “I want to use your maiden name, Mum. I want to be a Baker, not Leah’s sister.”

Amanda blinked, taken aback for a moment, but then she nodded slowly. “If that’s what you want, then we’ll support you. Right, Jacob?”

“Of course,” Jacob said, ruffling your hair. “You’re still you, no matter what name’s on the back of your shirt.”

A lump formed in your throat, but you nodded, feeling a small wave of relief.

“What about Leah?” Amanda asked gently. “Have you talked to her about this?”

You froze. You hadn’t thought about how Leah would feel. “I don’t know. I don’t want to hurt her feelings. She’s always been so proud of me, but…”

“But you need to do this for yourself,” Amanda finished for you. “You know she’ll understand.”

You nodded.

Later that evening, when Leah got home from training, you sat down and told her everything. You expected her to be upset or worse, disappointed but instead, she pulled you into a tight hug.

“Bubba,” she murmured, her voice thick with emotion. “I had no idea you were feeling like this. I’m so sorry, I’ve made things harder for you.”

“You didn’t,” you said quickly. “It’s not your fault, Le. I’m so proud of you, but I just need to figure out who I am without being ‘your sister.’”

Leah nodded, her hands on your shoulders. “I get it. And I’m proud of you for standing up for yourself. Whatever name you use, you’ll always be my little Bubba, okay?”

You laughed through your tears, hugging her tightly.

That night, you went to bed feeling lighter than you had in months. You were ready to step out of Leah’s shadow and into your own light.

Fast forward a few years, you were now eighteen and transitioning into the senior team. Leah was now twenty-seven and somehow everyone had managed to keep it a secret that you were Leah’s sister. 

Majority of the girls that you played with had either left the academy or completely stopped playing football. Your shirt name was now Baker and had been for two years now, your coaches were different too and everyone just thought that Leah was your family friend. 

“Excited for your first senior training, bubba?” Leah asked you one December morning as she drove you both to the training ground. 

You shrugged, a mixture of emotions, “Bit nervous…” you muttered, “Excited but nervous.”

Arsenal’s senior team had a new coach, Renee Slegers, and she had been to watch the u18s a few times. For some reason, she had seen something in you and wanted you to come train with the senior team and potentially play a few games. 

“You’ve got this, Bubba. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t good enough. Renee knows what she’s doing, and so do you.” Leah told you. 

You nodded, trying to let her words sink in. You knew Leah believed in you, she always had, but the pressure of stepping into the senior team felt overwhelming. It wasn’t just about proving yourself, it was about proving you belonged and you were separate from Leah.

When you arrived at the training ground, Leah walked in beside you, her confidence making her look so at ease. Meanwhile, your stomach churned as the nerves threatened to take over. You adjusted your backpack, trying to focus on your breathing.

“Relax, Bakes,” Leah said with a smirk, using the nickname some of your academy teammates had given you after you changed your last name. “They’re going to love you.”

As you entered the changing room, you were immediately greeted by familiar faces, some you hadn’t seen in years. Beth grinned as soon as she spotted you.

“No way! Little Bubba? Is that you?” Beth’s voice was teasing, her eyes wide in mock disbelief.

You groaned internally. So much for keeping the “Bubba” nickname under wraps. “It’s Baker now,” you corrected with a sheepish smile, but your voice was warm. You couldn’t help but laugh a little as Beth pulled you into a quick hug.

“Leah didn’t tell us you’d grown up so much!” Beth teased. “Last time I saw you, you were, what, fifteen?”

“Beth,” Leah interrupted, shooting her a warning look, though she was clearly trying not to laugh.

More players filtered in, all of them reacting with surprise when they realized who you were. Some of them hadn’t seen you since you were a kid, tagging along to games and family events. For others, it was the first time they’d met you. 

“Wait, wait, wait,” Katie said, holding up her hands. “So you’re telling me Leah’s been hiding this one from us? You’re playing with us now?”

You felt your cheeks burn as all eyes turned to you, but Leah stepped in, her tone light and teasing. “She wanted to make it on her own. Didn’t want to ride my coattails.”

“Fair play,” Kim said with an approving nod. “Gotta respect that.”

Leah turned to you, her smile soft. “Alright, Bubba, I mean Baker, time to show them why you’re here.”

You gave her a small, grateful smile before heading out to the pitch. As you jogged onto the field with the team, the nervous energy in your chest began to settle. You reminded yourself why you were there. Not as Leah’s sister, but as you.

And as the session began, you could feel yourself falling into the rhythm of the game you loved, the sound of the ball connecting with your boot grounding you. The team was fast, skilled, and ruthless, but you held your own. A well-timed run, a sharp finish past the keeper and it wasn’t long before you felt like you belonged.

At the end of training, Renee pulled you aside, her expression calm but firm. “You did well today. Keep this up, and we’ll see about getting you some minutes in the next match.”

Your heart soared at her words, but you kept your face neutral, nodding. “Thank you, Coach.”

Leah was waiting for you by the car when you finally made it out of the locker room. She raised an eyebrow, clearly trying to gauge how you were feeling.

“Well?” she asked as you climbed in.

You smiled, the weight on your shoulders feeling just a little lighter. “I think I did okay.”

Leah grinned, her pride shining through. “I told you, Bubba. You’ve got this.”

The night of your debut arrived quicker than you expected. Arsenal was playing a league game at Meadow Park against Crystal Palace, and the squad list had you on the bench. You tried to focus during the pre-match warm-ups, but your nerves were all over the place. Leah, as always, noticed.

“Stop overthinking,” she whispered as the two of you jogged back to the dugout after the warm-up. “Just play your game. If you get on, don’t try to do too much. Be you.”

You nodded, though the butterflies in your stomach didn’t ease. The match started, and you watched intently from the bench, studying the pace of the game and trying to picture where you’d fit in.

By halftime, Arsenal was up 1–0, the goal coming from Leah. Renee made a couple of changes early in the second half, but your name wasn’t called. You were beginning to think your debut would have to wait until another day when, in the 70th minute Renee called you. 

“Baker, you’re on,” Renee said, her voice firm but encouraging. “Stay calm, yeah? Leah’s out there with you. We’re doing okay, 3-0, so just stay calm, yeah? Try your hardest.”

You nodded, barely able to believe this was actually happening. Leah was standing by the touchline, waiting for you, her hand resting casually on her hip. When you reached her, she nudged you with her elbow, a small smile tugging at her lips.

“Ready for this, Bubba?”

“Don’t call me that,” you hissed, but you couldn’t help the nervous laugh that escaped.

The referee blew the whistle, and you stepped onto the pitch, replacing Beth up top. Leah gave you a quick pat on the back as you ran to your position. “You’ve got this.”

The first few minutes were a blur. The pace of the game was faster than anything you’d experienced before, but you adjusted, remembering Leah’s advice: play your game.

Then, in the 80th minute, the ball came to you. Leah had intercepted a pass in and played a perfect through ball into your path. You took a touch, your heart pounding as you found yourself one-on-one with the keeper.

You steadied yourself, then slotted the ball into the bottom corner with your left foot. For a moment, everything went silent, and then the roar of the fans hit you all at once.

You’d scored on your debut.

Leah was the first to reach you, lifting you off your feet in a tight hug. “That’s my sister!” she shouted, her voice full of pride.

The rest of the team swarmed you, congratulating you with slaps on the back and ruffling your hair. The chant of your name began to ripple through the crowd, and for the first time in a long time, you felt like you belonged, not as Leah’s sister, but as you.

When the final whistle blew, Arsenal had secured a 5–0 victory. Leah pulled you into another hug as you both walked off the pitch.

“Told you you’d smash it,” she said, her grin wide.

You rolled your eyes, but you couldn’t stop smiling. “Thanks, Le.”

That night, as you sat with Leah in the kitchen at home, replaying the match in your head, she looked at you and said softly, “You’re going to have a great career, Bubba. I’m proud of you, you know that?”

For the first time, you didn’t mind the nickname. “Thanks, Le. Means a lot.”

[wqnwoos]

cw — alcohol mentions, reader wears makeup

you’re drunk and you’re annoyed, which is never a good combination, because it makes it that much harder for jeonghan to take you home. 

more specifically, you’re annoyed with him, which you’d told him through slightly slurred words and a finger to his chest the moment you saw him at seungcheol’s birthday party.

(“i’m really pissed,” you’d announced, and clarified, “at you. yoon jeonghan.” and then had returned to the party like you didn’t just make his heart sink to his stomach.)

jeonghan can think of two reasons why you’d be annoyed at him. one — you’ve worked out that he was the one who ate your favourite snack during movie night with your friends last week. or two — you’re mad about what happened yesterday.

to be honest, he knows which one it is, because there’s no way you worked out he ate your sour patch kids. he planted the evidence on seungkwan. but more than that, he’s focussed on trying to get you through the door of your apartment, so he stores the thought for later, and grabs your flailing arm to walk you inside.

“i’m not drunk,” you say, the moment your front door is shut. you scowl at him. “so you can go home now.”

jeonghan only sighs a little, reaching to take your bag from you. 

“no!” you pull away, still frowning, but you pull away. you’ve never pulled away from him, not like that, and it leaves jeonghan speechless for a moment. pricks him in a place where it hurts.

“i’m mad at you,” you remind him, shaking off your shoes. 

“you pulled away,” jeonghan says dumbly, still rooted to the spot. 

for some reason, that makes you scoff, and you turn on your heel, marching towards your room, calling over your shoulder — “well, you’d know all about pulling away, wouldn’t you, yoon jeonghan?”

well. if he hadn’t been sure before, he’d be sure now. he can’t do much else other than sigh and follow you, watching in silence as you fish out your pyjamas and shut yourself in the bathroom to change. 

he gives in when you come out, just as you start taking off your jewellery with excessive force. “okay, why don’t you just tell me why you’re mad?”

you cast him a dirty look through the mirror of your dresser. “you know why.” you take off your rings, placing them on the wood a little too hard — “or is that just what we do now? making out and never talking about it?” another ring comes off as you force a bitter kind of cheeriness into your tone. “because that’s great! that’s absolutely fucking fine!”

jeonghan leans against the wall, his face dropping into a frown as he watches you. “i’m sorry.”

“sorry for what? since we’re not talking about it.” you’re taking off your makeup now, running the wipes harshly over your face — too harshly, so jeonghan comes over and takes it out your hand before you can stop him.

carefully, slowly, jeonghan wipes over your forehead, across your cheeks and over the bridge of your nose. he tries to be gentle, and you don’t say anything, just blink at him owlishly — all your anger dissipated, at least for the moment. 

“jeonghan,” you say quietly, and suddenly your eyes are wet, and he’s reminded that you’re not completely sober. “what are you doing?”

“hey,” he says, suddenly alarmed, hand cupping your cheek, setting the makeup wipe down, “don’t cry. why are you — ”

“i’m not crying! my eyes are just wet, okay?”

there’s a long moment where he stands with his hand on your cheek, you leaning into his touch, and then you’re asking again, soft — “jeonghan, what are you doing?”

“apologising,” he breathes, and then he’s running a thumb over your cheek. “i’m sorry. about yesterday. about leaving right after — after we kissed.”

your lips protrude in what he can only call a pout. “you didn’t even text.”

“i know,” he murmurs. “i wanted to. i thought — ”

“am i a bad kisser or something?” you demand through a yawn, and then you’re rambling again, a mixture of nervousness and alcohol. “because you kind of caught me by surprise, you know, and i wasn’t really ready and i just — i didn’t know if you were kissing me for the same reason i was kissing you — or if you were just… bored.”

somehow, jeonghan manages a laugh. “___, i don’t kiss people because i’m bored. i kiss them when i like them.”

“so then…” you trail off before you ask the actual question, but jeonghan can see it in your eyes, and he thinks he can see something else too. something that makes his heart do a funny little swoop, makes him crack the slightest of smiles. the weight that’s been pressing into his ribs since yesterday is gone, because one look into your eyes and jeonghan suddenly knows what he couldn’t tell yesterday.

“exactly what you’re thinking,” he says, letting go of your face when he observes your drooping eyes. “but maybe we should talk about this in the morning. if you still remember.”

you don’t say anything, but your eyes sparkle with sudden clarity, like you’ve realised the same thing he’s realised, and you wrap your arms around him for the briefest, sweetest moment.

and then you’re pulling away, but this time jeonghan doesn’t mind as much, because you look him in the eyes and give him a smile that could very well be a piece of heaven.

“i’ll remember,” you promise. “as long as you don’t run away again, i’ll remember.”

prompt from this prompt list !!!

an / guys honestly this may be incoherent because i’m so sleepy and i had motivation to write this but nowhere near enough motivation to proofread. it might not even make any sense. in fact i apologise for this piece because i don’t think it’s worth reading but if you’re reading the author’s note at the bottom i’m going to assume you’ve already read it. sorry

perm taglist: @n4mj00nvq @eoieopda @som1ig @wondering-out-loud

@tokitosun @hannyoontify @sahazzy @dokyeomin

@icyminghao @smilehui @nicholasluvbot @lvlystars

@immabecreepin @hanniehaee @kokoiinuts @astrozuya

@yepimthatonequirkyteenager @qaramu @weird-bookworm @phenomenalgirl9

@lightnjng @strnsvt @onlyyjeonghan @athanasiasakura

@iamawkwardandshy @twilghtkoo @yuuyeonie @lllucere

@pearlesscentt @sourkimchi @porridgesblog

[evanbuckleyrecs]

January wrap up

So I haven't really had the energy to make separate posts lately, BUT I started track what I read and bookmark, so here is a list of all the 911 fics I bookmarked in January 2025!

Edit: I tried adding the author's tumblrs but couldn't find all of them. If you are/know any of them, please let me know :)

Please, please, please by bookinit

E rated | 8,7K | Buddie | touch starved Eddie | angst & smut | getting together | @bookinit02

buck doesn’t touch eddie anymore. eddie’s losing it, a little bit.

You'll Never Find Me Trying to Leave by DuoOfDiaz

T rated | 3,5k | Buddie | getting together | Christopher comes back from Texas | love confessions | @smolfunpenguin

Eddie and Buck are overjoyed that Christopher has returned from Texas. They organise a Welcome Back to LA party in his honor and it goes off without a hitch. Buck wonders whether the after party moment is finally the time to tell Eddie how he feels.

Please don't say I'm too much by buckleyys118

G rated | 3/3 chapters | 10K | Buddie | touch starved Buck | emotional hurt/comfort | getting together | angst with a happy ending | Tommy bashing | insecure Buck

a comment from Tommy causes Buck to spiral. Eddie fixes it.

Born with a weak heart by foxwatson

T rated | 7,4k | Buddie | post 6x11 in another life | touch starved Buck | getting together | idiots to lovers | touch as a love language

the one where eddie won't touch buck once he wakes up in the hospital, and buck goes absolutely bonkers bananas about it

If I loved you less by spaceprincessem

Rated T | 1,9K | Buddie | getting together | light angst | text messages | post 6x11 in another life | @spaceprincessem

Buck can't use his phone for two days. Eddie sends him text anyways

If You Need Me, You Know I'll Be There by soft_satan

Rated T | 4,1 K | Buddie | hurt/comfort | hurt Buck | no Ana bashing | soft Buddie | tending to wounds | mentioned hate crimes | protective Eddie | post s4 |

Eddie’s heart dropped to the bottom of his stomach. “Buck? What’s wrong? Are you okay?” “No,” Buck laughed, breathless and bitter, just on this side of hysterical. He sniffled again, sounding like he was trying to stop himself from crying. “C-could uh… could you come get me? Please?”

Out of ashes by ashavahishta

Rated M | 6,6K | Buddie | presumed dead | kidnapping | established relationship | dark whump | worried Eddie | heavy angst | hurt/comfort | TW: implied/referenced torture, starvation, sensory deprivation | @ashavahishta

“They found Buck.” Hen’s hand goes to her chest. Chim stumbles like he’s been hit, hand curling around the back of a chair for balance. And Eddie - Eddie’s knees give out. He’s lucky there’s a chair right under him because he just buckles, head in hands, trying to remember how to breathe. “Is he - did they - what…what did they find?” “He’s alive.” “What?” Eddie’s head snaps up.

I Did It All (To Make You Love Me) by sirencalls

Rated E | 4,4K | Buddie | panties | top eddie/bottom buck | resolved sexual tension | praise kink

Honestly, Eddie is just trying to find the pair of boxers he knows he left here last week.

Won't you kiss me on the mouth (and love me like a sailor) by hirarih

G rated | 2,1k | Buddie | crack treated seriously | accidental love confessions | light angst | getting together | first kiss | POV alternating | idiots in love

Buck discovers he’s in love with Eddie, rants about it to Maddie, and doesn’t realise Eddie is right behind him.

I can read between your lines (dizzy from the spinning) by buckleydiazy

E rated | 4,3K | Buddie | phone sex | praise kink | pre-relationship Buddie | mention of past casual buck/omc

“So, theoretically,” Eddie sounds absolutely delighted, “if we didn’t know each other, you’d hook up with me in a public bathroom?” “Theoretically—I mean, do you want a serious answer?” Eddie hesitates for a moment. “Yeah,” he says quietly, all traces of humor gone from his voice. “Tell me.” “Probably,” Buck says. Then a little firmer—“Definitely.”

Not Doing This Alone by carpediaz

Rated M | 27,4k | Buddie, Buck & Chris, Eddie & Maddie | AU | Nanny Buck | mutual pining | getting together | angst with a happy ending | fluff and angst

The one where Eddie hires Buck as a nanny for Christopher and has to navigate falling in love with someone he shouldn't want (who definitely wants him in return).

The kiss that lingers by greenbergsays

E rated | 10,7k | Buddie | Buck’s birthmark | 5+1 | forehead kisses | non sexual intimacy | touch starved Buck | insecure Buck | getting together | fluff and smut and angst | @greenbergsays

5 times Eddie kisses Buck's birthmark & 1 time he doesn't.

Was I even on your way? By rangerdanger

Rated M | 3K | Buddie | past rape - Dr. Wells mention | panic attacks | established relationship | hurt/comfort | emotional hurt/comfort | worried Eddie | POV Buck

Buck gets reminded of something that happened he'd rather forget.

This Could Be Our Year; Don't Let Go of My Hand by allisonRW96

Rated T | 39,7k | 8/8 chapters | Buddie | mutual pining | alternating POV | getting together | Buck whump | worried Eddie | protective Eddie

After a routine call at the studio of a wealthy, eccentric fashion designer, the 118 find themselves invited to a masquerade ball on New Year’s Eve. Buck thinks it will be a perfect time to kiss Eddie. Eddie thinks it will be the perfect time to kiss Buck. Someone else has more sinister plans.

Rhythm of Your Heart series by devirnis

Part 1 rated T, part 2 rated G, part 3 rated M | Madney, Buddie, Buck & firehouse 118 | AU - criminals | 118 aren't firefighters | protective 118 | mutual pining | getting together | buck & maddie whump | total word count 39,6K | @devirnis

the 118 run a front restaurant for money laundering, and accidentally adopt the Buckley siblings

Baby mine by Fizzlespin

Rated G | 2,9k | Buck & Athena | hurt Buck | Buck needs a hug | Bathena are Buck’s parents | protective Athena | parental Athena

When Maddie tells him about Daniel, and being born for spare parts, Buck doesn't know what to do. Hurt, confused (and drunk), he goes to who he always goes to in a crisis for some calm, fatherly advice. But Bobby isn't home and Athena is left to pick up the pieces.

A minute from home but I feel so far from it by cozycatwriter

Rated G | 2,1k | Buck & Athena | post law-suit | post tsunami | emotional hurt/comfort | implied/referenced suicide

He thinks to anyone watching him that they might think he’s just lost in thought. He’s leaning against the pier fence, avoiding the bench this time around. Or maybe he looks like he’s about to throw himself off the wooden walkway and into the rocks below. He’s not sure which would be true. “Because you’re exhausting. We all have our own problems but you don’t see us whining about it.” He’s been back at station 118 for only a few shifts but it’s like the world has flipped upside down and he’s found himself within an alternate universe. Like Stranger Things.

Hen Wilson's Four Part Guide to Making Your Stupid Friends Date by songbvrd

Rated M | 25 K | Buddie, Hen & 118 | crack treated seriously | Chris comes back from Texas | POV outsider | miscommunication | post canon | locked in | idiots in love | @songbvrd

When Buck and Eddie aren't speaking, Hen decides to take matters into her own hands.

50 Cheeky Texts by songbvrd

Rated M | 20,9K | Buddie | b/t breakup | texting | pre-relationship buddie | drunken flirting | crack treated seriously | fluff and crack | bad pick up lines | hurt Buck | @songbvrd

Buck gets drunk-dared to send Eddie one cheeky text every day for 50 days. Eddie loses his mind. TW for the cringiest pickup lines in existence.

You warm me up (inside and out) by becausebuckley

Rated T | 3,4K | buddie | touch starved | cuddling & snuggling | sharing clothes | first kiss | getting together | @becausebuckley

after a shift leaves buck tired and shivering, eddie takes him home.

See y'all next month 🫡

[deanssun]

✧ dean winchester x party girl!reader | minors do not interact

when dean spots his ex, it was likely to

end in a fight, but instead they let out their

pent up emotions in a different way..

! mentions of drugs. alcohol. sex. fucking in the bathroom. dean cums inside !wrap it up y'all!. exes to lovers (once again).

dean winchester and his ex, you, were toxic–highschool sweethearts which in all honesty hated each other. still you both kept crawling back to one another. it wasn't until you found out about deans hunting, and he found out about the parties you threw. you were just a girl–who was he to judge? you broke it off for good and you never saw each other again.

until years later while at the club, here he was at the bar, drowning himself in his sorrows.

his eyes trailing over various womens figures, eventually landing on yours. a tight dress that hugged your curves just right, perfect hair that he'd love to pull, and glossy lips.

all the feelings he had pushed down came back up–anger, annoyance, but worst of all jealously. he was jealous that you were still living your life.

and that other men had got to touch what was his, once his.

deans mind trailed off, unbeknownst to his legs carrying him off towards you. his hand coming to rest on your waist, the thin fabric doing nothing but igniting a fire beneath his touch. you whipped your head around so fast it almost hit against his.

“dean!? what're you doing here, and especially around me?” you questioned him quickly, voice slurred and a lingering smell of weed clung to your form.

you couldn't help the warmth that begun in your core as you got a better look at his face. the bright lights of the dance floor highlighting his features.

he had aged well, and it wasn't helping with the arousal that pooled in your panties at his presence. he still had such power over you, that's why when you both were young, you couldn't help but crawl back to him.

the smell of leather and whiskey overpowered anything else around you, all you could think about was just him. but you didn’t let that stop you from arguing.

"you think that you can just walst back into my life, pull me close and expect me to start sucking you off!” exclaiming loudly, facing him with a headstrong stare, a pout etched onto your lips and your hands snug on your hips.

“oh no, kitty, i don't–” dean smirked, one that made your knees weak.

your cheeks warmed as he called you your nickname from highschool. watching and letting him pull you even closer, dress riding up which allowed you to feel his denim-clad bulge. you bit your bottom lip at the sensation.

your friend, who'd been the one to get you to break up with dean in the first place walked by you with a wink. swiftly handing you a joint and patting your ass. you looked towards her in confusion, not that it lasted long because dean was dragging you by your waist into the bathroom.

it was small and cramped yet you both found a way to make it work. his thick cock was pumping in and out of you. your legs were locked around his waist, back pressed against the door which rattled with each thrust.

“i bet you wanted me to see you, fuckin’ slut. i know you missed this–missed my dick filling you, ruining you for any other man.” dean rasped, groans leaving his saliva covered lips.

your pussy clenched at his degrading words, mewls and whimpers spewing out from you. it was dirty, so dirty and you both didn't care to mind.

not when his cock was hitting that sweet spot each time, the tip lightly grazing your cervix. your hips bucked up towards his calloused fingers that ghosted over your clit, touching once-in-awhile.

“dean, dean, dean!” you moaned his name like a prayer, but he was no god. he was as man, your ex, fucking you like a whore in the bathroom of some dingy club. and you liked it, you'd really missed him.

your hands tousled with his hair, grasping onto it. sweat causing the strands near his face to stick to his forehead.

your actions caused dean to let out noises of his own, his head falling in between your breasts. harsh breaths fall from his plump lips. he growled, nipping and sucking at the sweat covered skin, leaving marks in his wake.

the feeling of his dick slipping in and out of your tight, wet walls was all that you could think about, bringing you closer to the edge.

when he knew you were close, he finally began to rub your clit. giving rough attention to the pearl. his fingers applied just the right amount of pressure.

you were dripping, soaking his cock. the air was thick and the smell of sex clung to the both of you. anyone walking by could immediately tell what was happening in the room. the sound of his balls slapping harshly against your ass and the slick sound of his dick inside you was loud and rung in your ears. your bodies stuck together, bound by the feeling of pleasure.

your body shuddered and your hands grasped onto his forearms. the muscle flexed beneath your touch. you screamed his name as you came, your body limping against the door.

deans hands gripped onto your ass to hold you up. his dick still unrelenting, fucking you hard and fast. even as you came down from your high, he never slowed. moans continued to fall from your lips, though more breathy and quiet.

dean came inside you with a low groan, his warm sticky seed filling you up. the white substance stuck to your inner walls, proof of his claim over you.

“you're so good f'me, baby. taking my dick so well–” he whispered into your ear, his fingers tracing patterns on your bottom.

he caged you in his hold, his mouth working magic on your neck. leaving little hickeys so everyone would you were his, once again.

dean pulled out, little whines fell from you at the loss of contact and warmth. he quickly pulled your panties back over your cunt. trapping his seed inside you.

you attemted to fix your hair and makeup, mascara dripped down your cheeks and your lipstick was smudged. you felt a smack on your ass, and a kiss on the cheek as dean opened the bathroom door.

“have fun cleaning up, sweetheart, and when you wanna leave–come find your daddy, yea?” he teased with a wink, which in response to you rolled your eyes.

watching his form leave and head back to the bar. his hair was a mess and he was glistening with sweat.

but he was still so handsome to you. your heart fluttered with the love you once felt for him as it trickled into your being.

and now you knew that you can't stay away from dean winchester forever.

sunny yaps! HII MY ANGELSS!! I decides to just write something for party girl!reader. I KNOW IT DOESNT REALLY DIVE INTO HER CHARACTER BUT I WANT DEAN WINCHESTER SOOOO BAD RN!! I do NOT write smut good so comments would be appreciated if you find this enjoyable!! I didn't mean to write a lot just a little drabble but ykkk....HEHE ANYWAYSS!! I LOVE YOU ALLLLL, KISSES TO UUUU !!

[darnell-la]

Can you do dark!Logan being kinky and baby trapping you?

summary: Logan knew everything in the past, wouldn’t matter once he did his job, so he decided to go on a side mission to fulfill a dream he’s been dreaming about for years.

btw, this story was a bit rushed just like the rest that we will be posting soon. college has been kicking our main authors ass…

DO NOT READ IF CNC/SA TRIGGERS YOU!

———

Logan had woken up on a huge hotel bed, with a hand over him. The man was confused, not understanding what was going on until he remembered he was sent back in time.

Logan quickly got dressed, not wanting to wake up the women that were in his bed. His only thought was on y/n. He even remembered offering his room to these two women because he couldn’t have y/n.

Y/n was and still is dating Scott Summers. Logan couldn’t stand it. Scott had confronted Logan once, telling him and everyone how jealous Logan was of him because he had everything the lonely animalistic man wanted.

Logan couldn’t help but laugh when Scott thought he read him like a book. Logan could have any girl Scott wanted. He proved that by reeling in Jean.

Logan wanted y/n before anyone knew who she was. He was the first to see her, the first to talk to her, the first to make her laugh, and the first to make her upset. Logan hated the fact that they didn’t talk as much because of Scott.

“We can’t talk if you’re gonna keep flirting with me, Logan. I’m not Jean, and I’ll never be her,” y/n said years ago at a party after Logan pulled her into a bathroom.

“I know you’re not Jean. You’re better, and he knows that. He knew I wanted you, so he got you first,” Logan tried explaining to y/n, but she ended up leaving after apologizing. It wasn’t her problem or fault that Logan couldn’t commit.

Logan is currently outside of y/n’s house, debating on whether he should go through with this or not. He bought a basket, hoping he could sweet talk his way into her house, maybe even get her to take him and leave Scott.

“Hello?” Y/n asked in her sweet and soft voice as she opened the front door. “Logan- Hey, what are you doing here?” Y/n asked as she opened her door further, seeing a friendly face.

“Hey, just wanted to stop by. It’s been a few months, right?” Logan wanted to confirm to make sure his dates were right. “Yep — I do miss the team, though. Maybe I’ll visit next week,” y/n smiled.

“Could I maybe come in, and put this down?” Logan asked as he lifted the basket that he had put together for a good hour. “Yeah, of course,”

Y/n and Logan talked for a while, catching up on each other, but she couldn’t help but notice how flirty he was. She had told him not too long ago, that he needed to quit with it.

“Logan, it’s nice to meet you and all, but you can’t just come in here- In my house that Scott pays for, and flirt with me — I-I thought you came by to say congratulations on Scott’s sad mistake,” y/n giggled at the end of her sentence.

“Congratulations? To what?” Logan asked. “Didn’t Scott tell you as well as the others that I was pregnant? Well, at least I thought I was. Sadly, I was only two weeks late,”

Logan felt an instant pressure in his head. He’s never known anything about any close pregnancy. If his calculations are right, this would only be the first six months of Scott and y/n dating.

“Are you okay? Logan, hey,” y/n snapped her fingers in Logan’s face to get him back into reality. “You were almost pregnant? How? Why? When- I-“ Logan couldn’t keep himself from thinking.

It’s almost like Scott took no time to try and claim her — To try and claim what was his.

“Relax, I’m not actually pregnant. We’ve had our small talk, and we think it’s better to wait until it’s our one-year anniversary,” y/n smiled as she sat down on the living room couch.

“You haven’t even been with the man for a year, and you already had a pregnancy scare? Are you serious, y/n?” Logan asked in a tone y/n was surprised by. Why was he so upset?

“I mean, we’re around the age people start making a family, so-“ y/n went to continue, ur Logan cut her off with a loud sigh as he rubbed his hands all over his face. He’s never been this stressed in his life.

“You let him breed you? Are you- Fuckin’ hell, Bub,” Logan cussed as y/m scrunched her eyes. “Logan, what is your problem? Scott has been my boyfriend for months. Why do you care if he breeds me?” Y/n could barely repeat the word Logan had used.

The tall man snapped his neck to look at her. He was upset about how she could see how wrong this was. Opening her legs, and letting Scott go in raw within six months?

“You wouldn’t even kiss me when I tried. You wouldn’t touch me. You wouldn’t let me please you — I was willing to keep it slow and only go down on you, but you rejected me? For what? For Scott!?”

“Logan, it’s fine to leave,” y/n got up to show Logan out of her home, but instead of letting her, he pushed her back down on the couch. “No! No more running. I’m fuckin’ tired of this. Are you even happy? Do you seriously see more in him than me!?”

“Logan, please just leave. Scott will be back in half an hour, and-“ y/n tried getting up again, but this time, Logan pushed her down on her back and hovered over her.

“Then he can come home to a pretty sight if you bread right,” Logan growled before he began tugging at y/n’s leggings that he just knew Scott bought for her. All Scott did was buy things Logan would love seeing y/n in.

“Logan- Stop! Get off of me!” Y/n tried fighting, almost forgetting that Logan was a mutant and she wasn’t. He was automatically stronger than him. He didn’t even struggle.

“Gonna take it easy on you for right now, Bub, but when I get back to my future past, I’m gonna give you think kids you want,”

Y/n didn’t know what to say. He was all over the place. She’s never seen anything like this in Logan. She wanted to talk to him and ask him what was going on, but that left her mind when he got her leggings just under her ankles.

“Logan- Stop this! Get off of me, you can’t- You can’t fucking do this!” Y/n cried out, upset that Logan never got the idea. It’s not like y/n never saw anything in him.

Y/n just hated how he wanted women to chase him, and when he never got them to, he pushed until he got what he wanted. Today, he had to do more the seduce a woman with his looks and words.

“I can do whatever I want. Who’s gonna fuckin’ stop me, huh? You? Oh, you can’t lie, Bub. I smell how sweet you are from up here,” Logan chuckled as he pulled himself out of his jeans.

“You know, when I get back, the date will be set back before Scott met you, meaning, I get to have another chance. I could’ve waited to taste you, but as soon as you mentioned Scott impregnated you — God, that pissed me off,”

Logan held his cock as he pushed pushed into her. He knew his length would be the biggest she’d ever taken, and that only made him want to stretch her out more.

“L-Lo!” Y/n screamed as her back automatically arched. “Yeah, that’s it? Haven’t had a good cock since you’ve been with Scott, huh?” Logan asked as he continued pushing his cock through her lips.

“Logan!” Y/n cried loudly as he slammed himself all the way into her. “Take it, baby — I know you can,” Logan took his hands and pushed her waist into the couch, pinning her down so she couldn’t get away.

“Just look at you — You’re soaked and gripping me so tight,” Logan pounded away as y/n’s eyes rolled to the back of her head. She tried telling herself she couldn’t do this, but the way her body reacted made things so difficult.

“I bet you’ll love it when I fill you up, babe — No matter how much you say no, I know you’ll love it. You’ll love me,”

[m-neuvillette]

First kiss interrupted - Wind Breaker boys

Togame, Umemiya, Suo, Kiryu x fem reader

Author notes: HAPPY BIRTHDAY UMEMIYA🩵🩵🩵 spoilers for Umemiya’s background in his and don’t worry you and the characters will kiss at the end so you aren’t left hanging!

Togame:

You hear an obnoxiously loud knock at your door and it can only be one person. Your next door neighbor and your childhood friend, Choji. You’re glad that your grandma is always out when he decides to come and “knock” on your door, she would think someone is trying to break in. You laugh at the thought and swing your legs off your bed to go answer the door. You weave through your house and open the door to see Choji raising his hand like he was going to knock again and Togame holding his arm back. “Choji, you seriously need to wait more than 10 seconds. You could have hit her.” Togame says as he releases Choji’s arm.

Choji laughs and turns his whole attention to you, “Well I didn’t so it’s all good! Anyways come hang out with us and Shishitoren! We are hosting a party at Ori and thought you would want to come.” Togame is quick to add in, “Don’t feel like you have to, no pressure.” You look to make eye contact with him and he gives you a little smile. You feel your knees almost give out, his smile is something really rare so your heart races anytime you see it.

You debate on what you want to do. Yes you would get to hang out all night with your crush, but you would have to deal with all of Shishitoren and some of them can be a lot especially at these parties. You haven’t seen Choji and especially Togame since the whole restoration of Shishitoren so you think it’s worth it. You look at Togame and reply, “I’ll go. I haven’t seen you guys in a while and I bet the party will be fun. Come inside and let me change. Oh I also have to leave a note for my grandma, she’s at the senior game night with her friends.”

Choji starts jumping up and down while Togame pushes him inside and shuts the door, “YAY! But seriously it’s sad that your grandma gets out more than you.” Togame smacks the back of his head, “Leave her alone. Not everyone has the energy to run around the city 24/7 like you.”

You are walking to your room but you laugh at their argument and call out to them, “See Togame gets me. Keeping up with you is hard, I don’t know how he does it.” You get in your room and close your door but can still heari Choji and Togame bicker. You want to impress Togame tonight because you think tonight is the night you are actually going to try and confess to him. You look around your closet and decide to pick out a black skirt and white sweater with a little bear drinking boba. You are happy that your grandma dragged out of the house earlier to go grocery shopping because you put on some makeup before the two of you left, so now you don’t have to keep the guys waiting too long. You tie up a pair of converse then spray some perfume on and walk out of your room.

You just see Togame standing in the living room, “Oh no, where is Choji? He didn’t break anything right?”. Togame is quick to face you and quick to turn your bad thought down, “NO! No, he just went to the bathroom.” He looks you up and down and you feel your cheeks start to burn, “You look really pretty.” Togame makes eye contact with you again and gives you another smile. That smile can quite literally kill you but you smile back at him and thank him. He just nods his head and watches the tornado known as Choji come back into the room. You quickly write a note to your grandma saying you are hanging out with Togame and Choji and will be back later tonight. Then the three of you head off.

The entire walk to Ori was you and Togame listening and sometimes adding to Choji’s endless rambling. Choji is really passionate about telling you every detail to the new video game he got that you aren’t paying attention to your surroundings. You hear someone call out “MOVE” but you before you can even try to move you feel someone pull you into him and hold you close. You are facing a firm chest and you can recognize that cologne from anywhere. It’s Togame. You then pick up your head to see the biker blow by the three of you really fast. Choji starts yelling at the guy to bike somewhere else while Togame catches your attention, “You okay?”

You turn back to look and him and nod, “Yeah I am. Thank you Togame, if you didn’t do that I would have been road kill.” Togame’s grip tightens on you and gives you a sharp look, “I would never let that happen to you.” You go to respond but Choji cuts you off saying hurry up. Togame rolls his eyes and lets go off you but still stays super close to you the rest of the walk to Ori.

Before you even walk into the abandoned theatre you can hear just how loud the party is, it is going to be a long night if that’s how loud it is going to be. Togame is quick to sense your discomfort towards the noise, “Hey, just stay by me alright?” You look to him then nod. He grabs your hand and leads you inside to a quieter part of the theatre. You and Togame stand by a table and catch up. He tells you all about the restoration of Shishitoren and why he cut his hair. Before he gets to the next story you are quick to compliment him, “You look really handsome with short hair.” Togame gives you a blank stare and you start to ramble, “WAIT! I am not saying you looked bad with long hair. You looked handsome with long hair too, I even loved when you would let me play with it. I just feel short hair fits you a lot more.”

Togame lets out a deep laugh on that makes him nearly fold in half, “I knew what you meant, that ramble was cute. But thank you.” You look away and nod. Togame excuses himself really quick to get you two some snacks and drinks. You see Sako a little further away and give him a wave, he returns it and walks over to you. You two chat until Togame comes back, the two guys say hello and Sako goes back to the group he was standing with. Togame brought back some sweet treats and ramune. You two eat and chat more until you hear Choji’s loud voice get even louder if that’s possible.

Togame mumbles a little “Damn it” under his breath. Before you can ask whats wrong Choji’s voice cuts through the crowd again. “HEY EVERYONE! WE FIGURED OUT THE MIC AND SPEAKER SYSTEM. SO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS… KARAOKE TIME!!” You physically shiver at the thought of the guys “singing” super loud into the mic. It is already so loud now and it’s only going to get worse. As if Togame can read your mind he calls your name, “Let’s go outside and take a break okay?” Once you agree, Togame grabs your hand and leads you outside.

“Wanna go on the roof?” You look up there and think about how Togame and Choji always talk about how pretty the view from the roof is but don’t know if you can exactly get up there yourself. You respond, “I would love to, but I don’t think I can climb up there myself. Togame is quick to turn away any doubt, “Don’t worry I’ll help you. I can either lift you up or climb up first and help you up. The choice is yours.”

“How about you go up first? That’ll probably help my nerves.” Togame nods and climbs to the first level, he turns to crouch down and holds a hands out to you. You reach for his hands and he reminds you to hold on tight. He is quick to pull you up but you still need to walk a little bit on the wall to help you get up. Once you are both on the first level he makes sure you are okay before he climbs to the last level. Togame reaches his hands down again, “Really hold on tight to me here and be careful climbing up the wall is more messed up here.”

You take a deep breath and respond with a nervous “okay”. Togame catches your attention again, “I will not drop you. I promise.” He really always knows what to say to help you calm down. You look up and smile, “I never believed you would.” He returns the smile but it is quick to go away because he starts pulling you up. You pay really close attention to the bad spots on the wall and avoid them. Once you’re to the ledge Togame steps back and pulls you into his chest once again.

You two stand like that for a little bit until he lets go and grabs your hand again to lead you to the back where the railings are. Once you see the view you let go of Togame’s hand and run to the railing. The view of the city and the night sky is so pretty. You see people laughing outside the restaurants and the stars gleaming in the dark night sky. It really is the best of two worlds. “Togame this view is absolutely beautiful no wonder why you and Choji talk about it all the time.”

Togame stands next to you and leans his forearms on the railing, “Yeah I love it. I am glad you finally get to see it.” You close your eyes and take a deep breath and taking everything in. You think this is the perfect time to confess since you and him are alone. You open your eyes and look ahead, “Hey, Jo…?”

“Mhm? Something wrong?” You shake your head and close your eyes again, “Not necessarily. I- uh, well there is something I want to tell you.” You take another deep breath and open your eyes once more and turn to look at Togame, he is looking at you with the utmost patience. He is letting you take your time and not rushing you at all. The man is truly an angel. “I am sorry in advance if this ruins everything. I like you Jo. I have for such a long time, really ever since Choji introduced me to you. You make me feel so happy, safe, comfortable, beautiful, and I just have so much fun around you. The times I am with you, I never want them to end because all I want is to be around you.”

Togame stands straighter, “You like me?” He smiles and looks in the distance. He looks back at you, and leans in closer to you. You two are a barely apart, “You like me?” You nod your head in response. Togame leans in a little more until your lips are almost connected, you decide to close the rest of the distance. Your lips are about to touch until you hear a couple pairs of feet jump onto the roof yelling for Togame. Togame stands up but you can still feel his heat radiating off of him. He gives the other men a deadly glare, “What. Do. You. Want.” You watch the men stutter out, “We need your help. Choji started a big brawl because he lost the karaoke battle…”

Togame groans in frustration, “I am going to kill him. Give me a second and I will be down.” The men nod and hop down off the roof. Togame gives you his full attention and you speak first, “Go ahead, go stop the tornado. I’ll just head home.”

Togame’s eye widen, “Hey come on don’t do that, stay here.” You shake your head trying to hold back tears of frustration, “Really it’s okay, so go Togame. He probably already made a big mess.” You back up and go to jump down off the roof leaving Togame stunned, mad, and upset. Once you’re off the roof you are walking fast to get back home. You think about the whole situation again. He didn’t say he liked you back and he was probably just caught up in the moment that’s why he tried to kiss you. You definitely ruined everything.

You hear a pair of heavy footsteps coming up behind you and feel someone grab your wrist. You try to wiggle out of the strangers grasp until you hear your name and “It’s just me.” You turn to see Togame breathing heavily obviously from his run to catch up to you. Between his breathes he says, “We aren’t done talking. I didn’t get to say anything. So here it goes,” he says your name, “You are so captivating. The first time I met you I thought you were the most beautiful woman I have ever saw. I like you so much and have for the longest time. Your presence is so warming, when you smile, laugh, or just do anything my heart races so much. I never want our time to end either, the time I get to spend with you is such a highlight to my days. So please give me a chance, I want to be your boyfriend. I promise I will treat you right.”

You are at a loss for words so you just throw yourself at Togame, you hold him tight and nod your head. Togame is quick to return the embrace and holds you tight against him. After a couple minutes of calming down and holding one another, Togame tilts your chin up, “Can I kiss you now?” You smile and say “Yes.” Togame leans down to connect your lips for a soft kiss. It is short but it gets your whole body warm and fills your stomach with butterflies. You look into Togame’s eyes and tell him, “I have been wanting to do that for a while now Jo.”

Togame gives you a smirk and says, “Not as long as me.”

Umemiya:

You were hanging out with Kotoha in Cafe Pothos baking some sweet treat of Umemiya and the Furin boys for their harvest festival. Umemiya was ecstatically yelling over the phone to you about how well his garden did this year so he had to host a “harvest festival”. He was telling you him and Hiragi were going to grill different kinds of meat and then a couple of people have volunteered to cook the veggies or set up platters. Which all that left was sweet treats. That’s why he reached out to you. A lot of the Furin boys love the sweet treats you make to give to Kotoha to sell at her cafe so he thought you would be perfect.

Umemiya said that you and Kotoha can come to the festival since you two are helping. It makes you excited because Furin get together are always fun and energetic.

You are putting the last batch of cookies in cafe’s oven when you hear the door slam open. You then hear Kotoha groan, “UME WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT SLAMMING THE DOOR OPEN!?”

You turn to see Umemiya giggling, “Oopsies. Well I came to check how you two are doing. I brought extra hands to help carry the treats over.”

“We are almost done Umemiya, the last batch of cookies are in the oven then have to cool. So like 20-30 minutes if you all are willing to wait.” You respond to him. Umemiya nods and waves the other boys in.

Sakura grumbles, “No wait said we would have to wait. This is so much work.” Hiragi comes up behind him and pushes him a bit, “You’re fine. Not like you’re doing anything else.”

The boys sit at the counter and make small talk while Kotoha gives them some coffee. Half way through the conversation the oven goes off so you pull out the cookies and set sheet on the counter. Umemiya calls out your name, “Those smell great!! I can’t wait to eat them.”

You giggle, “Thank you Ume. Ironically they are your favorite, sugar cookies.” Umemiya’s pupils are basically in the shape of hearts. Umemiya tries to reach over and grab a cookie but Hiragi grabs the back of his coat and pulls him back, “You idiot, fucking waiting. There’s plenty you can have at the festival.”

Umemiya pouts and silently agrees. The boys finish their coffee while you pack away the cookies in the last box. Kotoha closes up the shop real quick while you sort out who is going to carry what.

Once the cafe is locked up you all make your way to Furin. Hiragi and Kotoha are picking on Sakura while you are walking a little bit behind him. Umemiya bumps your shoulder with his, “Thank you for doing all this. I took a peak in all the boxes because I couldn’t help myself and saw you obviously put a lot of time into this. It means a lot.”

You smile brightly at him, “No need to thank me! You and Furin do so much for the town so it’s the least I can do. Plus you’re my favorite person to make treats for so I was happy when you asked me.”

“Well your treats are my favorite. I can’t wait till you make a bakery. I am going to go there everyday and make it another hang out spot for the school.”

“Well hopefully I can open a bakery after I graduate.”

Umemiya stops in front of you making you stop too, “I’ll make sure it happens. I’ll help you every step of the way no matter what you happens.”

You stand there shocked but feel fuzzy inside. No one has ever encouraged you this much to follow your dream. It feels so special, he makes you feel so special. He makes it so easy to love him. You realize you were stuck in your head too long and respond, “Thank Ume. That really means the world to me. Once I open my bakery you’ll get a free pastry box.”

“NO! I HAVE TO PAY!! That’s how you stay in business silly, can’t give free stuff out all the time. But I won’t turn down being a taste tester.”

You shake your head, “Fine, fine. You can be my taste tester.” Umemiya brightly smiles and turns to walk again, “Well let’s go get this party started!!!”

After your talk with Umemiya the walk to Furin isn’t too long. Once you get there Hiragi leads everyone to a classroom to put everything for now until everything is fully ready to set up. Once you place everything in the order you want you feel a tap on your shoulder and see Umemiya, “Hey, meet up on the roof in 20 minutes okay? I gotta do some checks of all the classes but I want to talk to.”

You are a little concerned because it’s out of nowhere, he’s okay right? “Are you okay Ume?? Nothings wrong right?”

“Oh no not at all! Everything is all good. Just want to talk to you about something.”

It still makes you a little nervous but it seems nothing is wrong, “Okay! I’ll meet you up there!” He nods and goes to walk out of the room until Hiragi stops him. Hiragi whispers something in his ear and he nods to whatever Hiragi says. Then Hiragi looks at you and smiles. Umemiya walks out and Hiragi follows.

You decide to go talk to Kotoha about it. You find where she is talking to Nirei and Suo. You walk up to the group and grab Kotoha’s arm and tell them, “Sorry boys but I need to borrow her real quick.” You drag her away to empty classroom.

“KOTOHA, UMEMIYA WANTS TO TALK TO ME!!”

“Uhhh okay and???”

“IT’S OUT OF NOWHERE!?! WHAT DO I DO!?! You know I like him, omg what if it’s him saying he knows and he rejects me. I can’t deal with that. Especially not with a crowd on his home turf. I think I’m going to be sick.”

Kotoha smacks her face and drags her hand down it, “You’re an idiot and oblivious. No way that idiot doesn’t like you, he’s basically obsessed with you. Just calm down and talk. Confess if you want.”

“I don’t think I could do that. I would end up making a fool of myself and then he would reject me.”

Kotoha rolls her eyes, “Whatever. I’m leaving.” Then walks out of the room. You stand there baffled she just left, jerk. You look at your phone and see that you should head up to the roof now. You leave the classroom and head up to the roof.

Once you get to the double doors you take a deep breath then open the door and see Umemiya standing in the corner already. He hears you come through the doors and waves you over. You walk over to him and stand in front of him.

You two stand in silence for a bit looking over everything. Then a big gust of wind comes and makes you shiver. Umemiya is quick to take off his coat and offer it to you. You deny the offer because he would get cold without it.

Umemiya sighs and starts talking, “You know the first time I came to Furin, I actually was really young. It was after my parents died and I ran away from the orphanage. I wanted to die so I could be at peace again. But a student from Furin was the one the helped and saved me. I learned a lot that day and it shaped me into the man I am today.”

Umemiya then takes the corners of his coat then wraps it around you and pulls you into him. “I learned you can’t do everything alone. You need people you care about to help you when you need it. No matter what you’re going through those people are always willing to take the time to help you because they care about you. Those relationships are very important to me that’s why I changed Furin so I can make more connections with the people in this town.”

Umemiya leans his forehead against yours, “You are one of those people I treasure. You make my life brighter and happier. You mean everything to me and I like you so much. I want so much with you. I want to have a future with you.” He leans in closer making his intentions clear. He wants to kiss.

Umemiya just told you so much. You can’t believe someone who is so bright was at one point so dark and alone. He really is the most incredible person to grace this earth. But he really does return your feelings!! You then make your intentions clear that you want to kiss him as well.

Before your lips can connect you hear the door to the roof open. You and Umemiya snap your head to the noise to see a mad and bright red Sakura. “HEY WHAT ARE YOU DOING UMEMIYA!?! WASN’T THIS FESTIVAL YOUR IDEA!? WE ALL ARE-“ then Sugishita grabs him back the back of his shirt and throws him down the stairs. After he throws Sakura he walks down the stairs. Hiragi is standing watching the whole thing go down.

Hiragi turns to you two, “Uh sorry. Couldn’t stop him, I was busy grilling. Anyways carry on, but don’t be too long Umemiya. Everyone is waiting for you.” He turns back and shuts the door on his way down.

You and Umemiya turn back to look at each other and burst into laughter. After you two are done laughing, Umemiya wastes no time to connect your lips in a passionate kiss. He pulls you closer with the grip he still has on his coat to deepen the kiss. Before the kiss gets too heavy Umemiya breaks it off.

He smiles down at you, “Sorry I didn’t want to waste any time on doing that. Jeez, that was great. So what do you say about being my girlfriend gorgeous?”

You smile brightly at him, “I would love nothing more to be your girlfriend Hajime.”

“YAYYYYY!!! Time to go have a festival now!! I’m going to show you off all night.” He then leans down and presses a kiss to your forward and leads you back down to where everyone is at.

By the end of the night everyone calls you two the king and queen of Furin.

Suo:

Suo has always been a gentleman. That’s what made you fall for him in the first place, you accidentally rammed right into him on the street with all your groceries. He kindly helped you pick everything up and even helped you carry everything back to your house! That day you exchanged numbers and began talking each day, slowly getting to know each other.

As time went on, and you two talked and hung out more, you began to fall in love with Suo. He eventually introduced you to Sakura and the rest of his friends and you began to hang out with them when you all were out of school. You and Suo still spent plenty of time alone together, which only made you fall for him even more.

One day when you two were walking around town you turned to him and tilted your head. “Hey Suo? What is going to Furin like? Are the other guys there as fun as your other friends?” He turns his head towards you and stops walking to ponder on your questions. He puts his hand on top of your head and laughs softly.

“Well if you really want to know dear, it’s quite fun there I suppose. There’s all sorts of guys there, but none nearly as fun as you are to hang out with.” Your eyes widen before you look away blushing. “Ah I see, that’s very sweet of you to say Suo.” He lightly smirks before grabbing your chin and titling before teasing you. “Oh? What’s this? Are you blushing over a little compliment, how cute.”

You blush even more and lightly hitting his chest. “Suo, stop teasing! You do that way too much, it’s crazy! I’m gonna die from embarrassment one of these days I swear!” He softly chuckles before letting go of your chin and continuing to walk. “Well, let’s continue our walk shall we?” You sigh before shaking your head and running to catch up with him.

As the day stretches on you decide that you are going to confess to Suo, and you are going to do it soon. You can’t wait any longer without telling him how you feel, you don’t care if you get rejected, you just need to get it off your chest. So once you get outside of your house, since Suo always insists on walking you back, you decide to ask him to meet up.

“Suo? Can we meet up tomorrow? In front of Furin is fine, I just need to tell you something and I think tomorrow is a good day to tell you.” You decided to pick tomorrow because it’ll mark one year since you met Suo and you think that’ll be the perfect time to confess to him. He tilts his head down at you before lightly smirking. “Oh? What could you wish to tell me that must wait until tomorrow? I’m quite impatient you know, I’m not sure if I can wait that long.” He huffs softly before chuckling, “I’m kidding, of course we can meet up, you don’t even have to ask you know that? I would meet up with you every single hour of every single day.”

You give him a deadpan look before giggling. “You’re so weird sometimes you know that Suo? But I’m glad, I never tire of hanging out with you, it really makes me happy.” You smile before striding forward and wrapping your arms around him. “Just wait a little longer okay? Then I’ll tell you all that I have to say, because I won’t chicken out any more, I promise.” His eye widens slightly before he wraps his arms around you. “You can wait as long as you need to tell me whatever it is you need to. I’d wait forever for you, just know that dear.”

You part ways for the night and walk into your house. The next day comes and you are full of jitters, because today is finally the day that you confess to Suo. Hopefully it all goes well and he likes you back, but it’ll be okay if he doesn’t right?

Once you arrive outside of Furin, you see Suo already standing outside looking at his phone. You call out to him and walk up to him. “Good morning Suo! How was your night? Did you sleep well?” He picks his head up and puts his phone away. “Hey there dear, I slept just fine no need to worry.”

He walks up to you and gently wraps his arms around you. “Now, just what did you need to tell me today, hm? Could you possibly be professing your undying love to me?” Your arms freeze and they go to wrap around him because did he seriously just guess that? He’s got to be some sort of mind reader right? “Wow Suo, you should switch professions, because I think you’re a mind reader. Because yeah, I did want to confess to you today, I love you Suo and it’s okay if you don’t feel the same, I totally understand.”

Once again his eye widens at your confession, he didn’t think that he’d be right on the money with that guess of his. “Well then, aren’t we lucky? Because I get the pleasure of you loving me and you get the pleasure of me loving you in return.” He gently kisses the top of your head after he confesses to you as well.

“Suo, you better not be joking with me right now because I’m being serious. I really do love you!” He softly sighs before taking a step back to tilt your chin up and looking you dead in the eyes. “I would never joke about this, I know you know that. I may tease you a lot but never would I joke about something like this. I love you beyond words, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

Your eyes widen at his confession and before you know it, he’s leaning in to give you a kiss on the lips. But before his lips ever reach yours, you hear yelling and feet pounding against the ground. And next thing you know Nirei is ramming right into Suo and ruining the moment. “Oh Suo! There you are! I’ve been looking for you all over! There’s a meeting with the grade captains soon so we need to get going now!”

Suo sighs before turning to Nirei and smiling tightly. “You got it Nirei, I’ll be there soon alright? Let me just finish up here first.” Nirei looks around beside seeing you and his jaw drops, “OH NO DID I INTERRUPT?? I’M SO SORRY PLEASE FORGIVE ME!!!!” Your eyes widen and you softly giggle. “No need to get all worked up Nirei, it’s okay.” Suo looks softly at you before hugging you once more and whispering in your ear. “Don’t worry, we’ll finish this later alright. I’ll try not to keep you waiting too long, I know how impatient you are, hehe.”

You give him a deadpan look before hugging him back. “Don’t make me wait too long then lover boy, I’ll be waiting for that kiss alright?” You wave goodbye to the two of them before walking back to your house all giddy because now you and Suo have confessed and you know he’s going to kiss you later.

Once his meeting with the other grade captains is over, he immediately goes to find you. You had texted him that you were sitting on one of the bridges in town overlooking a river and he practically ran there. Once he saw you sitting on the ledge of the bridge he decided that he was gonna sneak up on you to surprise you.

Once he gets behind you he wraps his arms around your waist and softly whispers in your ear. “Well my dear? Shall we continue where we left off?” You about jump out of your skin when you feel arms around you but when you turn and notice that it was just Suo you relaxed immediately. “You really know how to scare someone, you know that right Suo? But anyway let us continue, I’d quite like to see how good of a kisser you are.”

He raises an eyebrow at that and smirks. “Oh? Is that a challenge?” He grabs you by the waist and lifts you off of the ledge and swiftly turns you around. After that he grabs your face with both of this hands and pulls you into a deep and passionate kiss. After a little bit you two separate to catch your breath. “Well how was it dear? Was it to your satisfaction or do we have to do it again?”

Your eyes widen as you blush. “Well that was amazing but I will not turn down doing that again. I would love to kiss you for the rest of my life, Hayato.” He softly smiles as your use of his given name and he hugs you close to his chest. “I will gladly fulfill that wish of yours milady, until the end of time.”

Kiryu:

You had met Kiryu in middle school and became the best of friends. Though right before you two graduated you started to develop feelings for him, you were doing to confess the day of graduation but chickened out when he told you he was going to a different high school.

Though you lived in Makochi and could still see Kiryu when you two weren’t in school, you thought against confessing because he was going to the school for good fighters. You didn’t exactly want to get caught up in any quarrels. But things didn’t really go as planned on your part, because you two ended up hanging out every day after school.

Since he got out of school before you he always walked to your school to pick you up to hang out. Those hang outs were the highlight of your day, but it didn’t help your feelings whatsoever. You thought since you didn’t go to the same school, you two would drift apart. That didn’t exactly happen, and your feelings only ended up growing more.

One day you got out of school early, so you decided to walk over to Furin when Kiryu got out to surprise him. You were waiting outside the gates with your school bag in hand while scrolling on your phone. When you heard people walking out you put your phone in your pocket and waited for Kiryu.

When he walked out with his friend you waved and called out to him. “Hey Kiryu!” He looked in your direction a little surprised, he didn’t expect you to be out of school before him. “Hey there, did you get out early today? You didn’t tell me, how rude.” He lightly joked before patting your head.

“Hehe yeah I did get out early. I wanted to surprise you, wanna go to Café Pothos? I’ve been craving Kotoha’s cooking all day.” He lightly smiled at you and nodded his head, “I’d never turn down going anywhere with you, wanna head out now? Or did you want to drop your stuff off at your house?”

Sakura and the others were standing there baffled because where did this girl come from? And how does Kiryu know her?? Nirei was the first to voice his confusion. “Uhh Kiryu, who is this girl? And how do you know her? Does she live in Makochi? Does she go to school around her? Does she-“ He was abruptly cut off by Suo placing his hand over his mouth. “Sorry about that, but we are curious, who is this mysterious lady? Sakura’s romance radar is going nuts.”

You both look at Sakura before looking at each other giggling. “This is my bestest friend from middle school, she just goes to a different high school that’s why you’ve never seen her before. I always pick her up from school too.” You smile softly at him before kindly telling them your name. After you introduce yourself Kiryu grabs your hand gently and asks if you’re ready to go. “Well we’re gonna leave now, see you guys tomorrow.”

As he gently tugs you along, you turn around slightly and wave to his friends. “Bye you guys! It was nice to meet you!” When you turn around you run a little to catch up with him. “Kiryu, your friends seem so fun! I hope you’re having a good time at Furin, though I do miss going to school with you. It’s not nearly as fun without you.” He turns his head to face you, “Yeah, they are pretty fun, but you are even more fun to hang out with. Let’s get going to the café shall we? You said you’ve been wanting Kotoha’s food all day.”

He gently taps the tip of your nose before turning forward again. You were thankful he turned forward so he wouldn’t see the ever growing blush on your cheeks from his actions.

You two arrived at Kotoha’s place and walked in. Kotoha turned around to see who came in and greeted you two. “Well if it isn’t my favorite love birds! What’ll it be today you two? Same as usual?” You cursed mentally because you just got rid of your blush from before and now your face turns red once again. “Kotoha you know it’s not like that!” Kiryu giggles softly before responding to her. “Yeah we’ll have the usual, thank you Kotoha.”

Your eyes dart to him because he always brushes over when Kotoha calls you two lovebirds, could he feel the same? Or does he just not want to be rude? You two sit down and chat amongst yourselves while you wait for your food. “Hey Kiryu? Do you want to hang out tomorrow? There’s a spot that I’ve been meaning to take you for a while, it’s near my school and it’s super pretty, I think you’ll really like it!”

He tilts his head at you and nods right away. “Sure! Sounds like it’ll be fun and I’ve got no other plans, so let’s do it!” You breath a slight sigh of relief, even though you knew he would agree, you have decided that tomorrow will be the day that you confess to Kiryu and the spot you want to take him to will be a perfect place for it. “Perfect! Do you want to meet up outside here at 10 tomorrow morning?” He thinks about it for a second before responding. “Yeah that’ll work for me, sure you don’t want me to pick you up at your house?”

You gently shake your head, “No, no there’s no need for that! I like the walk here anyway!” He softly laughs and that’s when Kotoha brings your food. “Well here you go you two lovebirds, enjoy!” You both thank her and begin eating your food. When you finish you two walk out of the café, hand in hand yet again. When you are outside of your house you smile softly down at your intertwined hands and lightly squeeze his hand. He looks down at your hands when you do that and looks back up at you.

He lets go of your hand and immediately wraps his arms around you tightly. “I’ll see you tomorrow yeah, my dear?” He whispers the last part so quietly that you barely heard him but you wrap your arms around him before placing your head in the crook of his neck. “Yeah I’ll see you tomorrow, I have something to tell you then too okay?” He gently nods and lets go before waving and walking away.

The next day arrives and you walk over to Café Pothos and wait for Kiryu. When you see him walking towards you, you run up to him and hug him. “Hey Kiryu! Let’s head off shall we?” He wraps his arms around you for a gentle hug before nodding. “Yeah let’s go, I wanna see how pretty this spot is.”

You two walk to the spot, a spot right by the river a little ways off from a bridge near your school. You turn to him and ask him, “Well? How do you like it?” He doesn’t turn to face you but responds, “This is beautiful, definitely somewhere we need to come more often!” He turns to face you before gently taking your hands in his. “Now what did you need to tell me?” Your eyes widen at the fact that he remembered that, but it was now or never.

“Well Kiryu, I have liked you since before we graduated middle school and I just couldn’t wait any longer to tell you, I understand if you don’t reciprocate and that’s okay! We can stay friends or not stay friends, whatever you think is best!” His eyes widen before he pulls you into his chest.

He gently whispers into your ear, “I’m so glad that you said that, I’ve been meaning to confess to you for so long but I’ve always been too nervous. I cannot begin to express my love for you but let me just show you with my actions instead yeah?” He takes a step back and places his hands on your cheeks and brings your face closer to his.

Right before his lips press against yours you hear someone yelling. “KIRYU!! WE FINALLY FOUND YOU, WE HAVE A PATROL NOW COME ON LET’S GO!” Your heads snap in the direction of the yelling and you see Sakura, both of your eyes widen and you both blush furiously. Kiryu huffs loudly before turning around to face his friends. “Yeah, yeah I’m coming stop rushing me will you?! You interrupted quite an important moment you know!”

You giggle softly before grabbing his hand. “It’s okay Kiryu, we can talk more later okay? You should go on that patrol of yours, Furin needs you.” He sighs lightly before nodding his head. “We’ll have that kiss of ours later alright? Look forward to it!” He pats the top of your head before walking off and waving to you. You smile softly before waving back. You stand in place while thinking back on what just happened, because Kiryu really does like you back and he told you to look forward to a kiss later!

You smile to yourself before jumping up and down and walking back home. For now though, you’re just going to have to wait for that first kiss of yours with your new beloved.

Kiryu texts you as soon as he’s done with his patrol to meet up at the same spot you were at earlier. When you finally get there the sun is setting and you see Kiryu. As soon as you see him you start running towards him and as you reach him you jump into his arms. He wraps his arms around your waist to catch you and that’s when he locks your lips together in a soft and warm kiss. He spins you around while kissing you and when he sets you down he separates from your lips to catch his breath.

He sighs happily before tucking your face into his neck. “That was amazing, well worth the wait I suppose. Let’s keep doing this everyday alright? I liked this a lot and want to do this forever.” You smile into his neck and give it a soft kiss. “Yeah I’d like that a lot. That was an amazing first kiss, thank you for that Mitsuki.” His eyes widen before he presses a gentle kiss to the top of your head. “Anytime my dearest, I’ll kiss you forever and ever, no matter where or when.”

[verstappenf1lecccc]

Hey p here!!! 👋🏻 Just as we talk, I want a fic about Toto Wolff x wife reader who always healthy/happy go lucky person and suddenly she's ill. You can't decide what it is. Include there drivers/anyone in the sports reaction. Like they're trying to help her, watching out for her. She's their friend/mother figure, of course they're worried. But being her, she just deals with humour even though she's sick. And can you include Jack? That boy has my heart. Even though this must be heartbreaking for him at such a young age, I think it's time for some angst, gut wrenching story that traumatize us all😃 And lastly how everyone cope with it. Add anything you want to. Thanks!!! :))) Appreciate it❤️❤️

With prompts:

1) "After all this time?” “Yes. I still do"

2) "My sweet and brave little munchkin."

3) "Tick tock, the clock is ticking"

4) "I thought we had more time"

Slipping through my fingers

there are moments in life that define everything, moments that still your world to a complete standstill people often assume that these moments are of joy or happiness. unfortunately for toto his moments caught a rotten streak and his world was never going to be the same ever again.

the day toto met her was a day full of surprises for both of them.

y/n had just recently made the decision to switch up her major from nursing towards mass media and journalism. it was a switch that raised a lot of eyebrows and concern from her family yet they supported her nonetheless, everyone knew how talented she was and knew she’d get a job eventually. What they didn’t know was along with the job she’d catch the attention of a rather tall man.

toto was having a rather eventful day, both of his star drivers had crashed into each other on lap one giving his arch nemesis horner his day in the sun with his prodigy max verstappen winning the race only to rub salt in his raw open wounds. he should have signed him instead of nico toto thought as he stomped through the media pen only to be bombared with around a hundred reporters eagerly waiting to see if the team principal was going to have another one of his infamous anger blowouts. alas to them a young female reporters questions had caught the interest of Toto.

Her question was clear cut no glazing no unnecessary flattery to grab his attention, all she’d ask him was if he’s going to fire someone on the pit wall for the strategies today. it was a bold question not one that reportes like to use since it ends up in court cases but she really didn’t care. It was her first few races and she wanted to make a name for herself and boy did she.

Toto’s response was curt and dismissive but she didn’t budge one bit, she was persistent and that caught Toto’s attention.

ladies and gentlemen this was the first moment in Toto’s life that had stopped the world for him.

the moment he looked into her eyes he felt everything was irrelevant. He didn’t care that both silver arrows were a pile of silver dust all that was captivating to him was the brown tinge in her hazel eyes. toto wanted to stare into them forever, and perhaps god was smiling straight down on them and decided to seal both their fates together.

and so it started.

their infamous courtship.

Now for a team principal speaking to people was almost second nature but when it came to her toto was a blubbering mess always leaving the conversation wanting to speak more, it was rather funny towards the other team principals. he was acting like a teenager with his first crush.

things weren’t all that easy for her too, each interaction with toto outside of business had her craving him more and more, she chuckled at his faint attempts to woo her and get her lunches. she too had a crush on him and it was only getting stronger.

the turning point in their relationship was the after party at the Abu Dhabi Grabd Prix, the long season was finally over and the celebrations had started. Toto had eagerly invited her and was hoping praying dying to see her come, unfortunately he wasn’t the only one who was waiting to see her, amongst his infatuation toto was as blind to how interested zak brown had also become towards her. he wasn’t often caught staring at her in places no man’s eyes had entitlement to. things were starting to get creepy but none of our two lovebirds had figured that out.

the party was in full swing when she had decided to show up, wrapping up her tasks with sky sports made her rather late but the look in Toto’s eyes when he had saw her was everything she had hoped and wanted. The man looked starstruck it was insane how whipped he was for her and they weren’t even together.

a couple of drinks and close dances later when she had excused herself to go to the ladies room was when calamity hit.

zak had his dirty gazes set on her ever since she had shown up, he knew toto wasn’t on guard whenever she was there and knew it was his time to try and get handsy with her.

right after walking out of the ladies room she was dragged into a corner and that’s when she felt small fat and stubby fingers trying to touch her. it felt humiliating disgusting and frankly made her want to bleach her skin. right before zak could cover her mouth and start with his actual plan she screamed as hard as she could hoping to get anyone’s attention oh how she regretted not taking up Toto’s offer to walk her to the restroom.

toto had wondered where she had ended up disappearing, was he being too much did she need a break from him?? he was overthinking when he heard her cries for help and in a second all the alcohol in his system had vanished. He leaped towards her cries and the scene startled him to his core, in a second zak was off her and his disgusting touch was replaced with the warm calm caressing of toto a man she was familiar with someone she knew.

the entire night was ruined in a split second, it wasn’t until toto had zak in a head lock that she’d regained her senses, seeing him so worked up over protecting her name and honour made her do what she did next.

the second toto was close by she kissed him, full on kissed him. it wasn’t short or messy it was full of reassurance of promise and of new beginnings.

that’s how the two souls collided.

oh and zak was given not one but multiple fractures and a hefty legal case to fight, toto didn’t play when it came to the ones who he loved.

the new couple relationship caused frenzy all over the internet and the paddock, no one really expected them to be a couple it didn’t make sense, out of everyone why did toto choose a journalist? Didn’t he know if they break up his whole life would be plastered onto the news.

Headlines like these made both of them chuckle, neither of them seeming to care, they were just happy to be with each other against all odds.

throughout the course of their relationship there were times where y/n had become sick, it often worried toto seeing how easily the common cold for her could become much serious, she always brushed his concerns away. it wasn’t until much later into their relationship when toto started noticing more and more health concerns for his now fiancé.

the proposal had taken place in Iceland she’d always loved it there especially the black sand beach and how beautifully it contrasted against the bright white snow, often times she’d dreamed of going there and toto made it a reality for them. she later joked that the beach and the snow represented each of them perfectly, Toto being the dark black beach that only softens in appearance in front of the snow. he’d got down on one knee at that exact spot uttering words of love and honesty. they had their vows at the exact same place. some things don’t change.

it was now 3 years into their marriage, toto had settled down and wasn’t all angry and violent like he used to be (ask the poor abused headsets) he was much calmer and level headed, that’s what happens when you marry the love of your life. he knew not to piss his wife off or worry her after all she was carrying his baby.

the pregnancy test was taken after she had thrown up half her body weight, toto wasn’t around he infact was in austria for the Grand Prix, she had excused herself from it with dumb excuses, Toto ever the gentleman knew not to push it and let her have some space.

In a matter of seconds their world’s axis shifted.

the pregnancy test came as a positive surprise, neither of them had discussed having children but they weren’t against the idea, when toto came back to his wife pale and heaving beside the toilet he knew what was going on, he whisked her off her feet and kissed her so strongly that you might think the man was off to war.

her pregnancy came with a price thou, a huge price for her to pay. y/n was anaemic her body didn’t have enough red blood cells and that’s why she could faint at the drop of a hat.

the couple had been shopping during the off season for the arrival of their little baby, unfortunately fans and paparazzi got a hold of their location resulting in a rather ugly swarm of cameras and people. the noise alone alerted Toto that their quiet evening had come to an end, in a rush to protect his wife and unborn child Toto’s steps where hastened and elongated, unfortunately his wife simply couldn’t keep up and fell victim to one of her fainting spells the camera and the noises alongside the amount of people did nothing to help her and so she collapsed.

the faint thud would haunt Toto forever, his whole world crumbled when he heard it, instantly he rushed towards her only to find her knocked out cold, the rush to the hospital has been the longest wait of his life.

he swore then and there that he wouldn’t ever put her or their child in such a situation.

luckily both mother and baby were okay, when they got home later that night she had fallen asleep unknown to the storm that was brewing within her husband.

Toto wasn’t a very emotionally available man, he preferred to deal with his emotions privately or not at all if possible but ever since meeting her he’s been more open towards showing love and care but the one thing he won’t show is fear.

Torger Christian Wolff was afraid.

he’d been having these vivid dreams of his wife dying and leaving him and their six year old son alone forever, it’s been haunting him ever since her fall.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Petard, Part III

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/01/miskatonic-networks/#landlord-telco-industrial-complex

Last week, Trump's FCC chair Brendan Carr reversed a rule that banned your landlord from taking kickbacks in exchange for forcing you to use whatever ISP was willing to pay the biggest bribe for the right to screw you over:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/fcc-chair-nixes-plan-to-boost-broadband-competition-in-apartment-buildings/

Corporate fascists and their captured regulators are, of course, that most despicable of creatures: they are plagiarists. Like so many of our tech overlords, they have mistaken dystopian sf as a suggestion, rather than as a warning. I take this personally, because I actually wrote this as an sf story in 2013, and it was published in 2014 in MIT Tech Review's Twelve Tomorrows, edited by Bruce Sterling and published in 2014:

https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262535595/twelve-tomorrows-2014/

I adapted it for my podcast, in four installments:

https://archive.org/details/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_278

https://archive.org/details/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_292

https://archive.org/details/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_293

https://archive.org/details/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_294_-_Petard_04

And, given the new currency of this old story, I thought it was only fitting that I serialize it here, on my blog, also in four parts.

Here's part one:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/30/landlord-telco-industrial-complex/#part-one

Here's part two:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/31/the-blood-speech/#part-two

And now, onto part three:

One of the early Ftp code contributors was now CTO for an ISP, and they'd gotten their start as a dorm co-op at Brown that had metastasized across New England. Sanjay had been pretty important to the early days of Ftp, helping us get the virtualization right so that it could run on pretty much any cloud without a lot of jiggery and/or pokery. Within a day of emailing Sanjay, I was having coffee with the vice-president of business development for Miskatonic Networks, who was also Sanjay's boyfriend's girlfriend, because apparently ISPs in New England are hotbeds of Lovecraft-fandom polyamory. Her name was Kadijah and she had a southie accent so thick it was like an amateur theater production of Good Will Hunting.

"The Termite Mound?" She laughed. "Shit yeah, I know that place. It's still standing? I went to some super sketchy parties there when I was a kid, I mean sooooper sketchy, like sketch-a-roony. I can't believe no one's torched the place yet."

"Not yet," I said. "And seeing as all my stuff's there right now, I'm hoping that no one does for the time being."

"Yeah, I can see that." I could not get over her accent. It was the most Bostonian thing I'd encountered since I got off the train. "OK, so you want to know what we'd charge to provide service to someone at the Termite Mound?"

"Uh, no. I want to know what you'd charge per person if we could get you the whole Mound — every unit in the residence. All 250 of them."

"Oh." She paused a second. "This is an Ftp thing, right?"

"Yeah," I said. "That's how I know Sanjay. I, uh, I started Ftp." I don't like to brag, but sometimes it makes sense in the context of the conversation, right?

"That was you? Wicked! So you're seriously gonna get the whole dorm to sign up with us?"

"I will if you can get me a price that I can sell to them," I said.

"Oh," she said. Then "Oh! Right. Hmm. Leave it with me. You say you can get them all signed up?"

"I think so. If the price is right. And I think that if the Termite Mound goes with you that there'll be other dorms that'll follow. Maybe a lab or two," I said. I was talking out of my ass at this point, but seriously, net-censorship in the labs at MIT? It was disgusting. It could not stand.

"Damn," she said. "Sounds like you're majoring in Ftp. Don't you have classes or something?"

"No," I said. "This is basically exactly what I figured college would be like. A cross between summer camp and an Stanford obedience experiment. If all I wanted to do was cram a bunch of knowledge into my head, I could have stayed home and mooced it. I came here because I wanted to level up and fight something tough and even dangerous. I want to spend four years getting into the right kind of trouble. Going to classes too, but seriously, classes? Whatever. Everyone knows the good conversations happen in the hallway between the formal presentations. Classes are just an excuse to have hallways."

She looked skeptical and ate banana bread.

"It's your deal," she said.

I could hear the but hanging in the air between us. She went and got more coffees and brought them back along with toasted banana bread dripping with butter for me. She wouldn't let me pay, and told me it was on Miskatonic. We were a potential big account. She didn't want to say "But" because she might offend me. I wanted to hear the "but."

"But?"

"But what?"

"It's my deal but…?"

"But, well, you know, you don't look after your grades, MIT'll put you out on your ass. That's how it works in college. I've seen it."

I chewed my banana bread.

"Hey," she said. "Hey. Are you OK, Lukasz?"

"I'm fine," I said.

She smiled at me. She was pretty. "But?"

I told her about my talk with AA, and about Juanca, and about how I felt like nobody was giving me my propers, and she looked very sympathetic, in a way that made me feel much younger. Like toddler younger.

"MIT is all about pranks, right? I think if I could come up with something really epic, they'd –" And as I said it, I realized how dumb it was. They laughed at me in Vienna, I'll show them! "You know what? Forget about it. I got more important things to do than screw around with those knob-ends. Work to do, right? Get the network opened up around here, you and me, Kadijah!"

"Don't let it get to you, you'll give yourself an aneurism. I'll get back to you soon, OK?"

#

I fished a bead out of my pocket and wedged it into my ear.

"Who is this?"

"Lukasz?" The voice was choked with tears.

"Who is this?" I said again.

"It's Bryan." I couldn't place the voice or the name.

"Bryan who?"

"From the Termite Mound's customer service desk." Then I recognized the voice. It was the elf, and he was having hysterics. Part of me wanted to say, Oh, diddums! and hang up. Because elves, AMR? But I'm not good at tough love.

"What's wrong?"

"They've fired me," he said. "I got called into my boss's office an hour ago and he told me to start drawing up a list of people to kick out of the dorm — he wanted the names of people who supported you. I was supposed to go through the EULAs for the dorm and find some violations for all of them –"

"What if they didn't have any violations?"

He made a sound between a sob and a laugh. "Are you kidding? You're always in violation! Have you read the EULA for the Mound? It's like sixty pages long."

"OK, gotcha. So you refused and you got fired?"

There was a pause. It drew out. "No," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "I gave them a bunch of names, and then they fired me."

Again, I was torn between the impulse to hang up on him and to hear more. Nosiness won (nosiness always wins; bets on nosiness are a sure thing). "Nicely done. Sounds like just deserts to me. What do you expect me to do about it?" But I knew. There were only two reasons to call me after something like this: to confess his sins or to get revenge. And no one would ever mistake me for a priest.

"I've got the names they pulled. Not just this time. Every time there's been any kind of trouble in the Termite Mound, MIT Residence has turfed out the troublemakers on some bogus EULA violation. They know that no one cares about student complaints, and there's always a waiting list for rooms at the Termite Mound, it's so central and all. I kept records."

"What kind of records?"

"Hardcopies of emails. They used disappearing ink for all the dirty stuff, but I just took pictures of my screen with my drop and saved it to personal storage. It's ugly. They went after pregnant girls, kids with disabilities. Any time there was a chance they'd have to do an air quality audit or fix a ramp, I'd have to find some reason to violate the tenant out of residence." He paused a moment. "They used some pretty bad language when they talked about these people, too."

The Termite Mound should've been called the Roach Motel: turn on the lights and you'd find a million scurrying bottom-feeders running for the baseboards.

I was going to turn on the lights.

"You've got all that, huh?

"Tons of it," he said. "Going back three years. I knew that if it ever got out that they'd try and blame it on me. I wanted records."

"OK," I said. "Meet me in Harvard Square, by the T entrance. How soon can you get there?"

"I'm at the Coop right now," he said. "Using a study-booth."

"Perfect," I said. "Five minutes then?"

"I'm on my way."

The Coop's study booths had big signs warning you that everything you did there was recorded — sound, video, infrared, data — and filtered for illicit behavior. The signs explained that there was no human being looking at the records unless you did something to trip the algorithm, like that made it better. If a tree falls in the forest, it sure as shit makes a sound; and if your conversation is bugged, it's bugged — whether or not a human being listens in right then or at some time in the infinite future of that data.

I beat him to the T entrance, and looked around for a place to talk. It wasn't good. From where I stood, I could see dozens of cameras, the little button-sized dots discretely placed all around the square, each with a little scannable code you could use to find out who got the footage and what it's policy was. No one ever, ever, ever bothered to do this. Ever. EULAs were not written for human consumption: a EULA's message could always be boiled down to seven words: "ABANDON HOPE, ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE." Or, more succinctly: "YOU LOSE."

I felt bad about Bryan's job. It was his own deal, of course. He'd stayed even after he knew how evil they were. And I hadn't held a gun to his head and made him put himself in the firing line. But of course, I had convinced him to. I had led him to. I felt bad.

Bryan turned up just as I was scouting a spot at an outdoor table by an ice-cream parlor. They had a bunch of big blowing heaters that'd do pretty good white-noise masking, a good light/dark contrast between the high-noon sun and the shade of the awning that would screw up cameras' white-balance, and the heaters would wreak havoc on the infra-red range of the CCTVs, or so I hoped. I grabbed Bryan, clamping down on his skinny arm through the rough weave of his forest-green cloak and dragged him into my chosen spot.

"You got it?" I said, once we were both seated and nursing hot chocolates. I got caffeinated marshmallows; he got Thai ghost pepper-flavored — though that was mostly marketing, no way those marshmallows were over a couple thousand Scovilles.

"I encrypted it with your public key," he said, handing me a folded up paper. I unfolded it and saw that it had been printed with a stegoed QR code, hidden in a Victorian woodcut. That kind of spycraft was pretty weaksauce — the two-dee-barcode-in-a-public-domain-image thing was a staple of shitty student clickbait thrillers — but if he'd really managed to get my public key and verify it and then encrypt the blob with it, I was impressed. That was about ten million times more secure than the average fumbledick ever managed. The fact that he'd handed me a hardcopy of the URL instead of emailing it to me, well, that was pretty sweet frosting. Bryan had potential.

I folded the paper away. "What should I be looking for?"

"It's all organized and tagged. You'll see." He looked nervous. "What are you going to do with it?"

"Well, for starters, I'm going to call them up and tell them I have it."

"What?" He looked like he was going to cry.

"Come on," I said. "I'm not going to tell them where I got it. The way you tell it, I'm about to get evicted, right?"

"Technically, you are evicted. There's a process-server waiting at every entrance to the Termite Mound doing face-recognition on the whole list. Soon as you go home, bam. 48 hours to clear out."

"Right," I said. "I don't want to have to go look for a place to live while I'm also destroying these shitbirds and fixing everyone's Internet connection. Get serious. So I'm going to go and talk to Messrs Amoral, Nonmoral and Immoral and explain that I have a giant dump of compromising messages from them that I'm going public with, and it'll look really, really bad for them if they turf me out now."

It's time for a true confession. I am not nearly as brave as I front. All this spycraft stuff, all the bluster about beating these guys on their home turf, yeah, in part I'm into it — I like it better than riding through life like a foil chip-bag being swept down a polluted stream on a current of raw sewage during a climate-change-driven superstorm.

But the reality is that I can't really help myself. There's some kind of rot-fungus that infects the world. Things that are good when they're small and personal grow, and as they grow, their attack-surface grows with them, and they get more and more colonized by the fungus, making up stupid policies, doing awful stuff to the people who rely on them and the people who work for them, one particle of fungus at a time, each one just a tiny and totally defensible atomic-sized spoor of rot that piles up and gloms onto all the other bits of rot until you're a walking, suppurating lesion.

No one ever set out to create the kind of organization that needs to post a "MIT RESIDENCY LLC OPERATES A ZERO-TOLERANCE POLICY TOWARD EMPLOYEE ABUSE. YOU CAN BE FINED UP TO $2000 AND/OR IMPRISONED FOR SIX MONTHS FOR ASSAULTING A CAMPUS RESIDENCE WORKER" sign. You start out trying to do something good, then your realize you can get a little richer by making it a little worse. Your thermostat for shittiness gets reset to the new level, so it doesn't seem like much of a change to turn it a notch further towards the rock-bottom, irredeemably shitty end of the scale.

The truth is that you can get really rich and huge by playing host organism to the rot-fungus. The rot-fungus diffuses its harms and concentrates its rewards. That means that healthy organisms that haven't succumbed to the rot-fungus are liable to being devoured by giant, well-funded vectors for it — think of the great local business that gets devoured by an awful hedge-fund in a leveraged takeover, looted and left as a revolting husk to shamble on until it collapses under its own weight.

I am terrified of the rot-fungus, because it seems like I'm the only person who notices it most of the time. Think of all those places where the town council falls all over itself to lure some giant corporation to open a local factory. Don't they notice that everyone who works at places like that hates every single moment of every single day? Haven't they ever tried to converse with the customer-service bots run by one of those lumbering dinos?

I mean, sure, the bigs have giant budgets and they'll take politicians out for nice lunches and throw a lot of money at their campaigns, but don't these guardians of the public trust ever try to get their cars fixed under warranty? Don't they ever buy a train ticket? Don't they ever eat at a fast food joint? Can't they smell the rot-fungus? Am I the only one? I've figured out how to fight it in my own way. Everyone else who's fighting seems to be fighting against something else — injustice or inequality or whatever, without understanding that the fungus's rot is what causes all of those things.

I'm convinced that no normal human being ever woke up one morning and said, "Dammit, my life doesn't have enough petty bureaucratic rules, zero-tolerance policies, censorship and fear in it. How do I fix that?" Instead, they let this stuff pile up, one compromise at a time, building up huge sores suppurating with spore-loaded fluids that eventually burst free and beslime everything around them. It gets normal to them, one dribble at a time.

"Lukasz, you're don't know what you're doing. These guys, they're –"

"What?" I said. "Are they the mafia or something? Are they going to have me dropped off a bridge with cement overshoes?"

He shook his head, making the twigs and beads woven into the downy fluff of his hair clatter together. "No, but they're ruthless. I mean, totally ruthless. They're not normal."

The way he said it twinged something in my hindbrain, some little squiggle of fear, but I pushed it away. "Yeah, that's OK. I'm used to abnormal." I am the most abnormal person I know.

"Be careful, seriously," he said.

"Thanks, Bryan," I said. "Don't worry about me. You want me to try and get your room back, too?"

He chewed his lip. "Don't," he said. "They'll know it was me if you do that."

I resisted the urge to shout at him to grow a spine. These assholes had cost him his home and his job (OK, I'd helped) and he was going to couch-surf it until he could find the rarest of treasures: an affordable place to live in Cambridge, Mass? Even if he was being tortured by his conscience for all his deplorable selloutism, he was still being a total wuss. But that was his deal. I mean, he was an elf, for chrissakes. Who knew what he was thinking?

"Suit yourself," I said, and went and made some preparations.

#

Messers Amoral, Nonmoral and Immoral had an office over the river in Boston, in a shabby office-block that only had ten floors, but whose company directory listed over 800 businesses. I knew the kind of place, because they showed up whenever some hairy scam unravelled and they showed you the office-of-convenience used by the con-artists who'd destroyed something that lots of people cared about and loved in order to make a small number of bad people a little richer. A kind of breeding pit for rot-fungus, in other words.

At first I thought I was going to have to go and sleuth their real locations, but I saw that Amoral, Nonmoral and Immoral had the entire third floor registered to them, while everyone else had crazy-ass, heavily qualified suite numbers like 401c(1)K, indicating some kind of internal routing code for the use of the army of rot-fungus-infected spores who ensured that correspondence was handled in a way that preserved the illusion that each of the multifarious, blandly named shell companies (I swear to Cthulhu that there was one called "International Holdings (Holdings), Ltd") was a real going concern and not a transparent ruse intended to allow the rot-fungus to spread with maximal diffusion of culpability for the carriers who did its bidding.

I punched # # #300# # # on the ancient touchscreen intercom, its surface begrimed with a glossy coat of hardened DNA, Burger King residue and sifted-down dust of the ages. It blatted like an angry sheep, once, twice, three times, then disconnected. I punched again. Again. On the fourth try, an exasperated, wheezing voice emerged: "What?"

"I'm here to speak to someone from MIT Residences LLC."

"Send an email."

"I'm a tenant. My name is Lukasz Romero." I let that sink in. "I've got some documents I'd like to discuss with a responsible individual at MIT Residences LLC." I put a bit of heavy English on documents. "Please." I put even more English on "Please." I've seen the same tough-guy videos that you have, and I can do al-pacinoid overwound Dangerous Dude as well as anyone. "Please," I said again, meaning "Right. Now."

There was an elongated and ominous pause, punctuated by muffled rustling and grumbling, and what may have been typing on an old-fashioned, mechanical keyboard. "Come up," a different voice said. The elevator to my left ground as the car began to lower itself.

#

I'd expected something sinister — a peeling dungeon of a room where old men with armpit-stains gnawed haunches of meat and barked obscenities at each other. Instead, I found myself in an airy, high-ceilinged place that was straight out of the publicity shots for MIT's best labs, the ones that had been set-dressed by experts who'd ensured that no actual students had come in to mess things up before the photographer could get a beautifully lit shot of the platonic perfection.

The room took up the whole floor, dotted with conversation pits with worn, comfortable sofas whose end-tables sported inconspicuous charge-plates for power-hungry gadgets. The rest of the space was made up of new-looking worksurfaces and sanded-down antique wooden desks that emitted the honeyed glow of a thousand coats of wax buffed by decades of continuous use. The light came from tall windows and full-spectrum spotlights that were reflected and diffused off the ceiling, which was bare concrete and mazed with cable-trays and conduit. I smelled good coffee and toasting bread and saw a perfectly kept little kitchenette to my left.

There were perhaps a dozen people working in the room, standing at the worksurfaces, mousing away at the antique desks, or chatting intensely in the conversation pits. It was a kind of perfect tableau of industrious tech-company life, something out of a recruiting video. The people were young and either beautiful, handsome or both. I had the intense, unexpected desire to work here, or a place like this. It had good vibes.

One of the young, handsome people stood up from his conversation nook and smoothed out the herringbone wool hoodie he was wearing, an artfully cut thing that managed to make him look like both a young professor and an undergraduate at the same time. It helped that he was so fresh-faced, with apple cheeks and a shock of curly brown hair.

"Lukasz, right?" He held out a hand. He was wearing a dumbwatch, a wind-up thing in a steel casing that was fogged with a century of scratches. I coveted it instantly, though I knew nothing about its particulars, I was nevertheless certain that it was expensive, beautifully engineered, and extremely rare.

The door closed behind me and the magnet audibly reengaged. The rest of the people in the room studiously ignored us.

"I'm Sergey. Can I get you a cup of coffee? Tea? Some water?"

The coffee smelled good. "No thank you," I said. "I don't think I'll be here for long."

"Of course. Come and sit."

The other participants in his meeting had already vacated the sofas and left us with a conversation pit all to ourselves. I sank into the sofa and smelled the spicy cologne of a thousand eager, well-washed people who'd sat on it before me, impregnating the upholstery with the spoor of their good perfumes.

He picked up a small red enamel teapot and poured a delicious-smelling stream of yellow-green steaming liquid into a chunky diner-style coffee-cup. He sipped it. My stomach growled. "You told the receptionist you wanted to talk about some documents?"

"Yeah," I said, pulling myself together. "I've got documentary evidence of this company illegally evicting tenants — students — who got pregnant, complained about substandard living conditions and maintenance issues, and, in my case, complained about the network filters at the Termite Mound."

He cocked his head for a moment like he was listening for something in the hum and murmur of the office around him. I found myself listening, too, but try as I might, I couldn't pick out a single individual voice from the buzz, not even a lone intelligble word. It was as though they were all going "murmurmurmurmur," though I could see their lips moving and shaping what must have been words.

"Ah," he said at last. "Well, that's very unfortunate. Can you give me a set and I'll escalate them up our chain to ensure that they're properly dealt with?"

"I can give you a set," I said. "But I'll also be giving a set to the MIT ombudsman and the The Tech and the local Wikileaks Party rep. Sergey, forgive me, but you don't seem to be taking this very seriously. The material in my possession is the sort of thing that could get you and your colleagues here sued into a smoking crater."

"Oh, I appreciate that there's a lot of potential liability in the situation you describe, but it wouldn't be rational for me to freak out now, would it? I haven't seen your documents, and if I had, I can neither authenticate them nor evaluate the risk they represent. So I'll take a set from you and ensure that the people within our organization who have the expertise to manage this sort of thing get to them quickly."

It's funny. I'd anticipated that he'd answer like a chatbot, vomiting up Markov-chained nothings from the lexicon of the rot-fungus: "we take this very seriously," "we cannot comment on ongoing investigations," "we are actioning this with a thorough inquiry and post-mortem" and other similar crapola. Instead, he was talking like a hacker on a mailing list defending the severity he'd assigned to a bug he owned.

"Sergey, that's not much of an answer."

He sipped that delicious tea some more. "Is there something in particular you wanted to hear from me? I mean, this isn't the sort of thing that you find out about then everything stops until you've figured out what to do next."

I was off-balance. "I wanted –" I waved my hands. "I wanted an explanation. How the hell did this systematic abuse come about?"

He shrugged. He really didn't seem very worried "Hard to say, really. Maybe it was something out of the labs."

"What do you mean, 'the labs'?"

He gestured vaguely at one cluster of particularly engrossed young men and women who were bent over screens and worksurfaces, arranged in pairs or threesomes, collaborating with fierce intensity, reaching over to touch each others' screens and keyboards in a way I found instantly and deeply unsettling. "We've got a little R&D lab that works on some of our holdings. We're really dedicated to disrupting the rental market. There's so much money in it, you know, but mostly it's run by these entitled jerks who think that they're geniuses for having the brilliant idea of buying a building and then sitting around and charging rent on it. A real old boys' club." For the first time since we started talking, he really seemed to be alive and present and paying attention.

"Oh, they did some bits and pieces that gave them the superficial appearance of having a brain, but there's a lot of difference between A/B splitting your acquisition strategy and really deep-diving into the stuff that matters."

At this stage, I experienced a weird dissonance. I mean, I was there because these people were doing something genuinely villainous, real rot-fungus stuff. On the other hand, well, this sounded cool. I can't lie. I found it interesting. I mean, catnip-interesting.

"I mean, chewy questions. Like, if the median fine for a second citation for substandard plumbing is $400, and month-on-month cost for plumbing maintenance in a given building is $2,000 a month, and the long-term costs of failure to maintain are $20,000 for full re-plumbing on a 8-10 year basis with a 75 percent probability of having to do the big job in year nine, what are the tenancy parameters that maximize your return over that period?"

"Tenancy parameters?"

He looked at me. I was being stupid. I don't like that look. I suck at it. It's an ego thing. I just find it super-hard to deal with other people thinking that I'm dumb. I would probably get more done in this world if I didn't mind it so much. But I do. It's an imperfect world, and I am imperfect.

"Tenancy parameters. What are the parameters of a given tenant that predict whether he or she will call the city inspectors given some variable setpoint of substandard plumbing, set on a scale that has been validated through a rigorous regression through the data that establishes quantifiable inflection points relating to differential and discrete maintenance issues, including leaks, plugs, pressure, hot water temperature and volume, and so on. It's basically just a solve-for-x question, but it's one with a lot of details in the model that are arrived at through processes with a lot of room for error, so the model needs a lot of refinement and continuous iteration.

"And of course, it's all highly sensitive to external conditions — there's a whole game-theoretical set of questions about what other large-scale renters do in response to our own actions, and there's a information-theory dimension to this that's, well, it's amazing. Like, which elements of our strategy are telegraphed when we take certain actions as opposed to others, and how can those be steganographed through other apparent strategies.

"Now, most of these questions we can answer through pretty straightforward business processes, stuff that Amazon figured out twenty years ago. But there's a real risk of getting stuck in local maxima, just you know, overoptimizing inside of one particular paradigm with some easy returns. That's just reinventing the problem, though, making us into tomorrow's dinosaurs.

"If we're going to operate a culture of continuous improvement, we need to be internally disrupted to at least the same extent that we're disrupting those fat, stupid incumbents. That's why we have the labs. They're our chaos monkeys. They do all kinds of stuff that keeps our own models sharp. For example, they might incorporate a separate business and use our proprietary IP to try to compete with us — without telling us about it. Or give a set of autonomous agents privileges to communicate eviction notices in a way that causes a certain number of lawsuits to be filed, just to validate our assumptions about the pain-point at which an action or inaction on our side will trigger a suit from a tenant, especially for certain profiles of tenants.

"So there's not really any way that I can explain specifically what happened to the people mentioned in your correspondence. It's possible no one will ever be able to say with total certainty. I don't really know why anyone would expect it to be otherwise. We're not a deterministic state-machine, after all. If all we did was respond in set routines to set inputs, it'd be trivial to innovate around us and put us out of business. Our objective is to be strategically nonlinear and anti-deterministic within a range of continuously validated actions that map and remap a chaotic terrain of profitable activities in relation to property and rental. We're not rentiers, you understand. We don't own assets for a living. We do things with them. We're doing commercial science that advances the state of the art. We're discovering deep truths lurking in potentia in the shape of markets and harnessing them — putting them to work."

His eyes glittered. "Lukasz, you come in here with your handful of memos and you ask me to explain how they came about, as though this whole enterprise was a state-machine that we control. We do not control the enterprise. An enterprise is an artificial life-form built up from people and systems in order to minimize transaction costs so that it can be nimble and responsive, so that it can move into niches, dominate them, fully explore them. The human species has spent millennia recombining its institutions to uncover the deep, profound mathematics of power and efficiency.

"It's a terrain with a lot of cul-de-sacs and blind alleys. There are local maxima: maybe a three-move lookahead shows a good outcome from evicting someone who's pregnant and behind on the rent, but the six-move picture is different, because someone like you comes along and makes us look like total assholes. That's fine. All that means is that we have to prune that branch of the tree, try a new direction. Hell, ideally, you'd be in there so early, and give us such a thoroughgoing kicking, that we'd be able to discover and abort the misfire before the payload had fully deployed. You'd be saving us opportunity cost. You'd be part of our chaos-monkey.

"Lukasz, you come in here with your whistleblower memos. But I'm not participating in a short-term exercise. Our mission here is to quantize, systematize, harness and perfect interactions.

"You come in here and you want me to explain, right now, what we're going to do about your piece of information. Here's your answer, Lukasz: we will integrate it. We will create models that incorporate disprovable hypotheses about it, we will test those models, and we will refine them. We will make your documents part of our inventory of clues about the underlying nature of deep reality. Does that answer satisfy you, Lukasz?"

I stood up. Through the whole monologue, Sergey's eyes had not moved from mine, nor had his body-language shifted, nor had he demonstrated one glimmer of excitement or passion. Instead, he'd been matter-of-fact, like he'd been explaining the best way to make an omelet or the optimal public transit route to a distant suburb. I was used to people geeking out about the stuff they did. I'd never experienced this before, though: it was the opposite of geeking out, or maybe a geeking out that went so deep that it went through passion and came out the other side.

It scared me. I'd encountered many different versions of hidebound authoritarianism, fought the rot-fungus in many guises, but this was not like anything I'd ever seen. It had a purity that was almost… seductive.

But beautiful was not the opposite of terrible. The two could easily co-exist.

"I hear that I'm going to get evicted when I get back to the Termite Mound — you've got a process-server waiting for me. That's what I hear."

Sergey shrugged. "And?"

"And? And what use is your deep truth to me if I'm out on the street?"

"What's your point?"

He was as mild and calm as a recorded airport safety announcement. There was something inhuman — transhuman? — in that dispassionate mein.

"Don't kick me out of my place."

"Ah. Excuse me a second."

He finished his tea, set the cup down and headed over to the lab. He chatted with them, touched their screens. The murmur drowned out any words. I didn't try to disguise the fact that I was watching them. There was a long period during which they said nothing, did not touch anything, just stared at the screens with their heads so close together they were almost touching. It was a kind of pantomime of psychic communications.

He came back. "Done," he said. "Is there anything else? We're pretty busy around here."

"Thank you," I said. "No, that's about it."

"All right then," he said. "Are you going to leave me your documents?"

"Yes," I said, and passed him a stack of hardcopies. He looked at the paper for a moment, folded the stack carefully at the middle and put it in one of the wide side-pockets of his beautifully tailored cardigan.

I found my way back down to the ground floor and was amazed to see that the sun was still up. It had felt like hours had passed while Sergey had talked to me, and I could have sworn that the light had faded in those tall windows. But, checking my drop, I saw that it was only three o'clock. I had to be getting home.

There was a process-server waiting ostentatiously in the walkway when I got home, but he looked at me and then down at his screen and then let me pass.

It was only once I was in my room that I realized I hadn't done anything about Bryan's eviction.

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

@steddiebingo prompt - second chances

pairing: steddie | rated: G | wc: 2,482 | on AO3: second chances

wheeee my first steddie bingo fill!! i have so many of these started and finally finished one tonight 🤗🤗 this one is also partially inspired by this tiktok!

In late October 1986, following everything, Steve and Robin move to Indianapolis.

And one night, in the early morning hours after another round of upside-down induced nightmares, Steve finds himself checking in on Robin’s soundly snoring form in her room of their small two bedroom apartment, leaving a note for her about where he’d gone (just in case), slipping on his shoes, and heading the five or so blocks to their local 24 hour grocery store.

He’s done this a couple times before; the walk helps to clear his head and by time he gets there, he can get the shopping done. Two birds with one stone. Makes his sleepless nights work for him..

The double doors whir open before him and he grabs up one of the mismatched baskets, nodding politely to the woman manning the one open register as he passes.

He wanders the aisles, drumming his fingers on the metal handle of his basket to the somewhat familiar new Fleetwood Mac song that’s echoing down on him from the speakers embedded in the stained ceiling tiles, when he rounds the corner to the most unbelievable sight.

He literally cannot believe what he’s seeing.

At first Steve thought there was no way. That the frizzy head of unkempt waves before him had to belong to someone other than the one person he wanted it to.

But no. The person’s own basket is dropped unceremoniously onto the floor to whisk their dark hair up into a bun.. and there’s no doubt.

The scarred cheek, the dark brows, the same strong nose.

It’s Eddie. The newest, most bat-chewed member of their party, who sped out of town with his uncle as soon as he could (which is more than fair, honestly; he wasn’t going to get anywhere in Hawkins), is dancing. In the middle of the bread aisle. To Fleetwood Mac.

Steve lets him continue, the new bun pulled up in time for Eddie to jump easily into one of the goofiest looking dances he’s ever seen.

He spins around dramatically to the other half of the aisle and snatches up a box of macaroni, using it as a microphone to sing along about “sweet little lies” while he waves his arms wide and steps his feet in time to the beat.

Steve lets him finish, not wanting to interrupt the highest form of art unfolding in front of him, and doesn't speak until the song fades out, “Stevie Nicks, huh?”

All of Eddie’s limbs spasm in shock, “Jesus H. Christ!!” He clutches a hand to his chest and looks down the aisle towards the interruption. “Steve?! What–”

Steve was already on the move though, scooping Eddie up into a crushing hug. “So this is where you ended up! Why didn’t you tell anyone, man?” he questions, setting him back down but letting his hands linger on Eddie’s upper arms; as if he’d disappear if he let him go. 

Eddie seems to come back into himself once his feet touch the floor, his own hands coming up to clutch onto Steve’s arms and a bright smile on his face.

“Steve? How are you— Why are you— You—” Eddie huffs then frowns, starting over again with a new smile, “You’re here!”

“I’m here!” Steve grins back, giving Eddie a shake before shuffling him back into another hug, “You’re here,” he says, softer now.

Eddie’s arms come up around Steve’s waist, squeezing him back.

“What have you been up to, man?” he asks when he finally lets Eddie go, “Besides early morning dance recitals.”

“I’m managing a Sam Goody around the corner from here, actually.” he says, picking up his discarded basket.

“Very cool, very cool.” Steve nods, “And you’re here at 3am because…?”

“I maaaayy also bartend a couple nights a week.” Eddie picks up the box of pasta he’d been using as a microphone earlier and shrugs at it, dropping it onto his basket.

“No shit? How’ve we not run into you before?

 “Beats me, Stevie,” Eddie shrugs, ”Maybe you’ve been getting drinks from those heathens at Searchlight instead of from my humble abode.”

Steve winces.

“I knew it! Traitor!”

“How could I be a traitor if I didn’t know??”

“If you were really my friend, your gut would’ve told you to stay away from Searchlight and their gargoyle of an owner.”

Steve snorts out a laugh, “Gargoyle? What’s wrong with Brad?”

Eddie’s face does something weird. “And you’re on a first name basis with him too! Double traitor!” He smiles again, but it’s flat.

“I hereby vow to never again set foot in the forbidden lands, my liege, you have my word.” Steve says, holding his hand up in fake pledge.

Eddie looks at him in bewilderment, then presses his lips together futilely, a loud raucous laugh bursting through. “Where in the..” another laugh, “Where’d you get that kind of vocabulary, Harrington?”

“The shitheads, of course,” Steve chuckles, “They managed to wrangle me into a game or two after you—”

Eddie’s smile falls back into the flat imitation of itself instantly. 

Steve clears his throat, “Uhm, mostly Erica’s games, actually. She’s got Henderson, Robin, and me contracted into playing with her ever since Starcourt, and lemme tell you man, she’s ruthless.”

He smiles fondly to himself, “Yeah she is.”

Steve watches him think back for a moment before Eddie’s gaze is on him again, studious.

“Listen, Ed, It was really nice to see you,” he says, reaching into his pocket for an old receipt he’d remembered he’d stashed there a couple nights ago, “Lemme give you my number? Maybe we can meet up again soon?” 

Eddie grins, reaches into his basket and returns with a small pad of paper, a pen shoved unceremoniously into the wire binding. “Sure Stevie.”

Steve takes the offered paper, pulling out the pen and flipping past Eddie’s grocery list to the next page.

“There, this is the number to our apartment,” He moves to hand it over, but pulls it from Eddie’s reach at the last second, “Do you promise to call?”

Eddie rolls his eyes, but concedes, straightening up and placing his right hand over his heart, “I, Theodore Wayne Munson–” 

“Theodore?”

“--Hereby swear to use the precious information given to me this day, November 9th 1986, in a timely manner.”

“Timely,” Steve scoffs as he relinquishes the notepad, “Yeah, sure.”

“A Promise is a promise Steve-o; and Munson Doctrine dictates a Promise may never be broken.” Eddie stuffs the pad and pen into his back pocket, “Though one notable Munson has never kept one in his life.”

“I bet.”

They stand there for a moment longer, before Steve steps away, “Well, the groceries won’t buy themselves, talk to you soon?”

“I promise,”

Steve’s still backing away down the aisle, “Good, you better,”

Eddie shoo-s him off with a chuckle, turning off toward the opposite end.

As soon as Steve’s turned and taken a step around the end toward the next aisle, he gets a feeling in his gut.

He gets them sometimes, pangs of worry, of anxiety; a clenching stomach that he’s just recently been told is his literal gut feeling.

And he gets one now, walking away from Eddie in this supermarket at three in the morning.

Eddie, the man who saved his brother in the upside down, Eddie, who only let Hawkins drive him out of town when his Uncle was threatened, Eddie, who would have endured it forever if it’d meant his only family left in the world wasn’t inconvenienced by the moving process.

Eddie, who it was only after he’d left that Steve’d realized the gut feeling walking though the Upside Down at his side wasn’t nerves about what was going on at all; that it was the same swoop he’d gotten after “Good Luck.”, “For your modesty, dude.”, “That Steeeve Harrington was actually… a Good Dude.”, after the goddamn “Don’tcha, Big Boy.”....

That he totally had feelings for that loser metalhead who helped save the world.

But the Munsons had gone, they were off somewhere and weren’t telling anyone where that somewhere was.

And now he’s here. A grocery aisle’s length away.. And he’s going to let him go?

No chance in hell.

So, Steve turns on his heel and jogs past the bread and pasta and, “Eddie, hey! Eddie, wait.. Wait…”

Those damn doe eyes turn to him, “Y’wanna get out of here?”

—

After a thorough ribbing for using that line to get him out of the store, Eddie agrees, puts his couple things back, and follows Steve out the front doors and down the street toward the nearby park.

“So.”

“So.”

“You got me out here, what’s up, Stevie.”

Steve huffs a laugh, his stomach doing flips even though he told it to cut it out at least six times by now, “Dunno, just had a feeling I shouldn’t let you go that easy.”

Eddie’s quiet for a moment, and Steve worries he’s already said too much.

“You really know how to make a guy feel special.”

Steve glances over at him, and is relieved to see a smile on his friend’s face. 

“We missed you,” He says, nudging him with his elbow “I missed you.”

Eddie nudges him back, “How could you miss me? You barely knew me.”

“I knew enough,” Steve says defensively, “You’re a part of the official party, Eds. But you were gone before I could get to know you more.”

“Yeah,” he scoffs, “As if you’d actually want to hang around with the Freak.”

“Stop that man; You don’t know me either, not really.” he scoffs, “Not the real Steve. Not the one who wanted to get to know you, wanted to hang out with you, be friends with you…” Steve trails off, not quite knowing if he should say what he’s been wanting to since he found out Eddie and his uncle had skipped town.. Should he risk it all right now and spill his guts? Spill why it was they told him to turn around a go back for him?

“And I’m telling you that you wouldn’t.”

“Ed—”

“You and I both know how that would go, Steve. It’s why we left in the first place. I couldn’t get anywhere in that town and neither could you. Any of you as long as you were my friend.”

That stops Steve in his tracks, watching as Eddie takes the handful of steps left to sit on a bench just off their path in the park proper.

Eddie sighs heavily as he sits down, stretching his legs out in front of him and his arms over the back of the seat, hanging his head back to look up at the stars.

Steve finally follows, sitting half-turned toward the other man.

“Can I talk now?” Steve asks after a couple breaths.

All he gets is a short shrug, so he does.

“A lot about me has changed since ‘83, Eddie. And not just because of the upside-down shit either, though that was a part of it.

“If I had a time machine, I’d do it all again, exactly the same. But I think I would have wanted to try to get to know you sooner.”

Eddie scoffs, and Steve continues, “You think I’m bullshitting, but it’s true, man; the three most important people in my life are people who, at one point, I thought–or would have thought–to be some of the most annoying types of people in existence.”

He brings his hand up into Eddie’s line of sight, counting off on his fingers, “Robin - band geek, Dustin - annoying know-it-all nerd, Max - she’s that kid that skateboards everywhere, who does that?? Just walk!”

Eddie huffs out a laugh but stifles it just as quickly, like he doesn’t want Steve to know his little speech is working. 

“Every single one of the rest of those little shits annoys the crap out of me on a daily basis, and I wouldn’t trade them for the world.”

Steve looks over and sees Eddie turn his face on his shoulder to look at him. He wonders if he should say the next part, if he even can.

“With you–” he starts, looking away from those dark eyes. “And feel free to hate me after this but I uhm–”

Shit, this is harder than it seems.

He opens his mouth again to start, but closes it again just as fast; he does it again before he feels a hand on his shoulder. 

Looking back, Eddie’s sitting up straight now, wide-eyed and expectant, “Go on..?”

Steve lets out a long breath, hanging his head with the movement of his lungs.

“When you left,” he starts again, lifting his head but not turning back, “When I found out you left, I felt hollow. Didn’t know why, and for a long time after I just rationalized it as missing the friend I could have had in you.”

He stops again, his stomach twisting tight.

“I feel like there’s a ‘But..’,” Eddie coaxes.

Steve turns, sits back, and faces Eddie. “But I talked to Robin–”

“Of course.”

“Of course,” he concedes, matching Eddie’s smile momentarily. “I talked to Robin about it and I wasn’t looking forward to a friendship with you, Eddie. I was looking forward to something more than that. Something that I didn’t know was possible until the summer of ‘85, and something I never thought I’d ever get to experience.

“And again, I didn’t even know what it was I was feeling until you were gone, when the possibility of having that with you was gone with you.” He looks away again, not wanting to see the inevitable rejection in Eddie’s face.

“The bottle to the neck, the vest, the ‘Big Boy’ thing, how I couldn't keep my eyes off your lips even though we were in the middle of literal hell..” Steve laughs sardonically, He makes the mistake of looking back at Eddie then, and finds his face flushed red in the light of a nearby streetlamp.

“I think I’ve had feelings for you for a while, Eddie. And it took you leaving for me to realize it.”

Eddie’s eyes are wide, mouth agape; his face is still tinged pink.

“Is that– is that alright?” Steve asks, looking concernedly at the rapid rise and fall of Eddie’s chest. “Are you okay?”

“‘Is that alright?’ he asks.” Eddie rolls his eyes, grinning, “‘Are you okay?’ As if I haven’t been told the best fuckin’ news in the whole damn world.”

“Reall– Really? The best. In the whole world.” he can’t keep the smile off his face despite his attempt at sarcasm.

Eddie laughs, “In this moment, it’s the best thing anyone’s ever heard in the history of forever.” 

There’s a moment’s pause, then Steve decides to be brave for the second time that morning; “Could I maybe kiss you about it?”

“Sweetheart, I’d be offended if you didn’t.”

317 was the only area code in indianapolis until 2016 btw

like i said at the beginning, i have so many of these started but i cannot for the life of me finish themm 😭 please lend me your worms!!

divider is from @saradika-graphics!