#it’s so weird to hold a bottle of vodka in your hands and wonder if

[yoojinluv]

[hybridirl]

who first?

18+ only, please!

ellie x f!loser!reader x abby

a/n: sorry for the long wait! i was with my family the past week celebrating a holiday :)!! now i’m back and i’m gonna try and pump out a few. i am in fact working on the ellie x loser!reader pt2, so pls bear with me! i’m still thinking up ideas. this shit is harddd

brief summary: ellie and abby are the bestest of friends, and you’re… there. they kinda feel bad for you, so they bring home some of the “good shit” for a game. never have i ever? with shots. reversed. haven’t done it? drink!!!

tw / AU, *DUBCON* (reader is drunk (but so is ellie and abby)), strap-on, use of y/n, cunnilingus (r and e receiving), tit-slapping, porn no plot, rushed sex, threesome, reader gets referred to as “girl”

ᡣ𐭩

watching tiktoks for hours on end was never your proudest pastime, especially when your two roommates were constantly out partying. you, honestly, were a third wheel. well, to be fair, you came into this friendship way after these two had already been established as this inseparable duo. still, being a friend - even if it’s not as deep - doesn’t mean you should be excluded from their little activities.

so, this is how your night has gone so far: moping around, trying to bake some cookies you found on tiktok, and binging tiktok. you sat on the island of the kitchen, a frown plastered on your face as you munched on your fifth cookie.

you glanced at the clock: 11:35 PM. you knew exactly what this meant; one of them is slutting themselves out while the other waits to drive themselves home. god, how it aggravated you! - how easily they could get into someone’s pants by just looking at them while you had to ease your way into it. that slow, smooth talking you, except it rarely ever worked and you came off as a creep. the pickup lines from reddit don’t seem to work in reality, huh?

pulling yourself off the counter and shoving the last piece of cookie into your mouth, you wondered why you stayed up until they came back. maybe you were just a little afraid to go to sleep alone, maybe you were just simply lonely. you wanted them to come home, tell you about their day and get envious at their friendship that you weren’t in on and that you didn’t have. poor you. you were like a watchdog, always staying up and looking out until your ‘owners’ came along, praising you for your good work so you could get your little dopamine rush. you even whimpered, just a little, as you sat on the couch to watch some cheesy drama movie that you had zero interest in. about thirty minutes in, the door opens. you turn your head and watch your two acquaintances walk in, both holding a suspiciously shaped brown bag.

“hey,” you greet, “what’re those?” you pointed toward the bags in their hands.

“just stuff for you,” ellie chirped first, setting the bag on the coffee table.

“us, she means,” abby cut in, setting hers down. you watched as they revealed what was shielded from her viewing: two tall bottles of ‘devil’s spring vodka.’

you cocked your head to the side and spoke, “for us? what for?” they gave you a ‘what do you think?’ look before ellie headed off to get three shot glasses. she placed one in front of you, abby, and herself.

“so, y/n,” abby began, popping the top and pouring some into each glass. “we know you’re lonely and we thought we’d do something for you, huh? sound good?” you pursed your lips and nodded, completely weirded out by this interaction.

“we’re gonna play a game,” ellie said, circling her glass with her hands. “it’s like ‘never have i ever.’ ever played?” you nodded. “good. so, each time someone says something you haven’t done, you take a shot. got it?” you nod again. “a—lright, you guys ready?” abby smiles and raises her hand.

“i’ll go first,” she told, an obvious mischievous glint in her eye, “let’s start of tame. so, y/n, have you ever… kissed someone in public? i’m not talking a little peck, i’m talking seriously making out.” your face heated, and your jaw dropped just slightly. you thought about lying, of course, just to seem cool, but, you knew they’d know.

“i-i… no, i haven’t,” you muttered out, shakily reaching your hand toward your glass. you took a sip, wincing at the burn in your throat.

“c’mon, y/n, the whole thing,” ellie chuckled at your ministrations. you whimpered silently before your head tilted back, gulping the rest down.

“ugh,” you groaned as you set it down and watched as ellie pour more into your glass. you had a feeling this was going to be a long night.

“okay, my turn,” ellie giggled, looking at the two of you. “okay, y/n, have you ever… had someone motorboat you?” your brows furrowed immediately.

“m-motorboat? i, well, um… no.”

“drink up then, girl.” they watched as you took another brave shot, your face contorting into what looked like pain, and, to be fair, it was painful.

you were about to speak, for your turn, but abby interrupted quickly, barely even noticing your open mouth, “my turn, huh?” abby questioned. your jaw shut right back up, letting her take the lead. letting her do her thing. “so, y/n, ever, i don’t know, let’s get a little crazier with this one, yeah? ever been in a threesome?”

you stared at abby with wide eyes, why are they asking you this stuff? why only you?

“no…” you whispered, continuing your stare on her as you went to take yet another shot. you were already starting to feel a buzz, already starting to feel the heat in your tummy. with a slightly clouded head, you turned to ellie. she was smirking, her eyes knowing as her lips parted once more.

“how about you give it a go?” ellie asked you, and you felt some relief.

“h-have you guys ever, um… have you guys ever… had a threesome?” you asked in a low voice. you watched abby roll her eyes and go to grab her glass, as with ellie.

“o—kay, my turn,” ellie clasped her hands together, after setting her glass back down, “ever taken it up the ass, y/n?”

“why are you only asking me?” you gawked, reaching for your glass. you took the next shot, and felt a sudden need for more.

“because we already know what we’ve did,” abby replied, another shot of the vodka slithering down her throat. “mm, that’s some good shit. so, y/n, have you ever topped?” you sighed as you reached for the glass once more. “oh, so you’re a bottom? figures. i mean, look at you.” you looked up at her, slightly offended whilst your hands went to pour yourself another shot.

“have you guys ever, uh, had public… sex?” you found yourself boldly asking, obvious that this drink was getting to you. they both raised their glasses to their lips.

this went on and on, mostly them asking you, you sometimes asking them until you were all drunk out of your minds.

“y/n,” ellie finally groaned and she scooted closer to you. you hadn’t realized the proximity of them both, slowly decreasing as the night went on. you hummed a response, your eyes half closed and your face hot. “h’ve you ever, uh, fantasized? about us?” ellie asked, her bottom lip tucked between her teeth. your hand didn’t reach for the glass, rather you simply stared into those green eyes. “yeah? you have? why didn’t you tell us? we coulda’ made all of your dreams come true, sweetheart,” she whispered, her hand meeting your waist.

“i-i was n-nervous,” you whined, “didn’ wanna say anythin’…”

“y/n, baby,” abby purred into your ear, “you don’ gotta be nervous ‘round us.” your head throbbed as you bit your lip; their hands explored your body, slowly molding you into your arousal. you wondered if this was their plan all along as their fingers danced around your PJs, caressing your inner thighs…

“please,” you whispered and their eyes flickered toward you. “…t-touch me…” you sighed blissfully as ellie’s hand finally met with your pajama-clad vulva. abby’s head dipped into the crook of your neck; she kissed up your neck and throat, then tilted your head toward hers to kiss your lips. sloppily, her tongue slipped into your mouth, prodding and massaging your tongue. your own mingled with hers, dancing around each other’s. you barely noticed your bottoms being tugged down, only realizing once the chill of the air hit your heat.

“lemme taste ‘er first,” abby said quickly as she pulled away from your swollen lips.

“no,” ellie whined, tugging your body toward hers.

“it was my idea,” she growled in return, “now let me have her first.” ellie huffed, but let go. she took asylum in your breasts; lifting your shirt up, she immediately dove into your mounds. she licked up to your nipple, taking it between her lips. you let out a broken moan as she nibbled on your sensitive bud, her tongue swirling around your pebbling nipples.

abby slid your legs open with her hands, spreading your labia with her thumb.

“how long h’ve you been this wet, y/n?” an obvious rhetorical question. you were too occupied with ellie and the worship of your breasts.

“a’w-while,” you managed to croak, though. you heard her chuckle and felt your body being tugged toward her more. “mmf, abby, be gentle…” ellie watched as abby’s head dipped between your legs, then her eyes flickered to your face to watch it contort in pleasurable expressions. “abby… ngh…” your hand reached to tug at her blonde hair, earning a groan from her lips.

“i heard she’s a p-pro,” ellie whispered to you while she tugged off her bottoms. your eyes fluttered, staring dazed at the sight of her pussy.

“want,” you purred out. ellie only smirked at you, her hands moving in to shove you down onto the couch. her legs straddled your head and she lowered herself onto you without warning, virtually smothering you. “mmf!” your brows were furrowed, your nose smooshed against her wet cunt. she ground her hips into your face, covering it in her slick.

“c’mon, y/n, thought you wanted it.” your doe eyes kept gazing up at her and you began to do the best you could with her weight in your face, your tongue working hard against her swollen clit.

both of the feelings were intoxicating, abby at your pussy, you at ellie’s. your legs tightened around abby’s head as her fingers found your g-spot, thrusting her fingers in and out of you. you moan into ellie, slurping at the nectar leaking from her. you’re so intoxicated, you can’t tell if it’s from the alcohol or this delicious feeling. your hands gripped ellie’s sides and you pulled her closer. you were whimpering, moaning, abby’s tongue wriggling into you, her fingernails digging into your plush thighs.

“mmm!” you cried, your eyes shutting as you felt a knot in your stomach begin to uncoil, your juices coating abby’s tongue and face.

“ahn, yeah,” abby groaned. “righ’ on my tongue, sweethear’.” your eyes were rolling, face scrunched in pleasure. it was a sure sight for ellie, drawing - no, forcing ellie’s own climax to follow suit. her arousal painted you, creaming on your face as she held your head close to her.

“oh, god, please please please — fuck!”

she ground against you, riding her orgasm out in your face. her clit bumped your nose, and your hands gripped her hips, slowly guiding her to a halt as she came down. as she got up from you, she took a moment to admire her work. your face looked so exhausted, wet with her, and needy for more.

“abby,” ellie said, “g-go get the…” she gestured into the direction of the bedrooms, then abby knew what she was talking about. she made her way into one the bedrooms, who knows which, and rummaged through. you watched the hallway curiously, ready for her arrival. you tried to sit up, but ellie only grabbed you, laying you down on her thighs. when abby came out, you were surprised to find her pant-less, and with a harness strapped to her person, not to mention a dildo hanging from it. she approached, slow and cautious steps. you couldn’t tell if she was trying to tease you or try to get you into the idea.

“you wan’ it?” she asked you, slowly crawling into the sofa, then nudging and prodding your wetness with the head.

“wan’ it.”

“alrigh’, sweet girl,” she breathed, easing the head into your slippery entrance. “good?” you nodded your head, egging her on silently.

“abby,” you moaned breathlessly. she shushed you, halting her movements so you could get used to her. she ran her rough hands down your sides, down, down, to your clit, gently rubbing it to make you feel some sort of goodness as she stood still. “move, please,” you whimpered.

“y/n, you should see ‘yer face right now,” ellie giggled, caressing the side of your head. “god, y’so pretty. fuck ‘er, abby, hurry. look at ‘er face.” abby rolled her eyes, not usually taking commands. she was going to anyway, but…

“oh!” you gasped from her sudden movements, a tight snap from her hips. “f-fuck!”

“mmm, ‘n moans so pretty,” ellie praised, “didn’ get to hear ‘ya so well when you were under me. gettin’ smothered by my pussy... mhm…” she caressed your face again, cupping your cheeks as abby began to pound you.

“abby!” you cried to her, eyes shut tight, hands flailing to find somewhere to rest. they found abby’s biceps, gripping them tightly as she slapped her hips against yours. “please, ngh!” you grit your teeth, jaw clenched while pleasure overtook you.

“eyes open,” abby growled, “‘n on me.” you had to fight yourself to open your eyes, but the sight in front of you was perfect. abby’s blonde hair sticking to her forehead, her braid dangling and swinging with each thrust, her slack jaw, fuck. “yeah, ‘atta girl.” she was thrusting just right, obviously so experienced. it was pleasing her, too, the strap hitting just right at her swollen clit.

how badly you wanted to touch her body, worship her like you did quietly with her eyes. she was like a greek god, muscular and sculpted so perfectly. especially now, sweat marbling her skin and her chiseled body over yours. you almost forgot ellie was there, being as (almost) quiet as she was. glancing up, you caught sight of her, her fingers buried into her cunt. the sight alone was enough to make you cum once more, but you couldn’t, not so early. you looked back up at the deity above you who was staring into your eyes.

“abby,” you groaned. you threw your head back, going dumb on her cock. “right there… f-please…” cross-eyed, you sobered up a little as you felt a harsh pain on your breasts. “oh!” you gasped, feeling her large hand slap your chest. “abby!”

“take my cock, girl,” abby panted, hands squeezing your breasts, using them as leverage as she continued her pounding.

“fu—ck,” ellie groaned to the sight of you and to the noise of her fingers in her cunt, squelching, obscene, and loud. “y’doing so good, y/n… yes… uhn!”

you ran your hand up abby’s biceps, wrapping your arms around her neck. this prompted her to lean in and kiss your lips, deep and hungry. your hand cupped her cheek, pulling her close while your lips collided. abby pulled away first to admire your body and you took this moment to lift your arms above your head, desperately trying to pull ellie closer by her legs. she scoot closer and you cocked your head to the side, immediately licking at her cunt.

“yeah,” abby moaned, feeling the beginnings of her orgasm. “lick ‘er fuckin’ pussy.” she gripped your waist, hurriedly thrusting into you, her clot bumping against the harness. “fuck, i’m cumming!” she moaned, collapsing onto you as she came. she kissed at your neck, bit at it, too, while she continued to thrust, needing you to cum, too. her fingers finding your clit, furiously rubbing it.

you couldn’t help it anymore; biting into ellie’s thigh, you came. squirted, actually. all over her cock, all over her abdomen. your body was convulsing, shaking and twitching for her. ellie followed in suit, your teeth pushing her over the edge as they sunk deeper into her. all three of you were moaning, crying, holding each other tight.

“fuck,” you were the first to say. abby slowly pulled out of you, panting deeply.

“you squirted,” abby chuckled with admiration. she squeezed your thighs and glanced up at ellie, “all good?” she asked. ellie nodded.

“yeah, just,” she sighed blissfully, “fuck. we should do this again.” you giggled and kissed ellie’s thigh.

“mhm,” you agreed.

maybe your (sex?) life has just changed for the better.

[perfinn]

you're out of touch, i'm out of time

aegon ii targaryen x reader - part ii

wc: 4.6k

summary: you search for answers on why aegon is here, and find you rather enjoy his company

cw: f!reader, aegon the cringefail king, kinda just a lot of hanging out, a little make out session, aegon almost pushes toward dubcon advances but he's quickly stopped

masterlist, read on ao3, divider by saradika

You hardly sleep a wink that first night with Aegon in your flat. You’re too worried about him, and the carpet in the living room. You’re still not an expert on history, but you’re quite sure that vodka hadn’t been invented yet when Aegon was supposed to be alive. If it had, Westeros hadn’t yet set up any trade routes beyond the Bone Mountains. You still remember your first vodka hangover, even if you don’t quite remember the night that preceded it, and it was not a good time. Aegon is in for something of a shock if he hasn’t drowned in his own vomit– cheap as your vodka is, it’s a lot stronger than that piss water from the Arbour the historians all say he drank.

You rise from your bed with your alarm, not snoozing it as you usually do and instead going to go check on Aegon. Thankfully, he’s right where you left him and alive and well, if his open-mouth snoring is any indication. He’s splayed out on your couch, legs falling over the side and bottle of water you’d made up for him spilled on the floor. Hells, at least it’s only water he spilled. 

Leaving him to sleep a moment longer, you pad into the kitchen and rummage around for the electrolyte tablets you keep for this exact scenario. Well– maybe not this exactly. Usually it’s reserved for your own hangovers, not for when the time travelling king of Westeros has broken into your drink cabinet and passed out on your couch. But close enough. You make up a drink for him, deciding he can cope with the orange flavour even if he doesn’t like it and come back over, setting the glass loudly down on the coffee table and waking Aegon with a jolt. 

He almost falls from the couch, gasping and throwing his hands over his ears. “Get out!” He demands, wincing at the sound of his own voice. “Five more minutes!”

“Not your chambermaid, Aegon,” you say, folding your arms over your chest. “Drink this. And no, yesterday wasn't a fever dream, you’re still in the future.”

Part of you had hoped yesterday's events were a weird dream of your own. 

Aegon cracks his eyes open, taking in the sight of you slowly before he groans and presses his fists hard into his eye sockets. “Fuck,” he mumbles. “My head…”

“Yeah,” you say, picking the glass back up and holding it out to him. “Straight vodka will do that to you. Drink.”

He lowers his hands and eyes you suspiciously as he reaches for the glass, sniffing it. You roll your eyes. He’ll drink from a random bottle he finds in your home but not something you’re offering to him?

“It'll make you feel better,” you say. “It's orange flavoured.”

“Well, that makes it alright then,” he grumbles, taking a slow sip and moving to sit upright. “If I’m getting poisoned, at least the poison tastes like oranges.”

You make your way over to the kitchen and fish around your cupboards for instant coffee as Aegon makes a noise of confusion.

“Why is it-” he stops, brows furrowed as he looks for the word. “Bubbles?”

“Oh,” you say, looking back at him while you clutch the Garfield mug you found at the thrift a few months ago. You lean over to put the kettle on, sighing as you realise how much of modern life you’re going to have to explain to Aegon. You wonder how much of it can be avoided, skirted around so you don't have to explain the entire industrial revolution to him. “Yeah, it’s fizzy. It’s not poison, just science.”

Aegon stares at you indignantly. “Are you a witch?”

“Gods, it’s not a magic potion, Aegon. Why can’t you just accept that we’ve made a bit of progress in the last thousand years? Things are different, that doesn’t make it magic. Just drink it, it’ll help you feel better.”

Aegon takes a slow sip, lips turning down as he seems to decide he likes it well enough. You turn your back to him and scoop a spoonful of the coffee into your mug, wondering what you’re going to do with him. You’ll have to call out of work, at least for today. You don’t trust him to be left alone; Gods know where he’ll end up, if he’ll contract some disease his immune system isn’t ready for or get hit by a car as he so nearly did yesterday. You hear him groan softly and turn back to see him leaning back on the sofa and sipping slowly at the drink.

You suppose he probably wants your attention, but you withhold it until you’ve taken the first sip of your coffee. It tastes as shit as you expect instant coffee to taste. Gods, you need to buy a proper coffee machine. You make your way back over to him, sitting down on the other end of the sofa. 

“Ready to talk yet?” You ask him. 

Aegon grunts, rubbing at his temple. “Quietly,” he mumbles. “I had hoped yesterday might be a dream.”

“Me too,” you say, sipping slowly at your coffee. “I’ll be frank with you, Aegon, I don’t know what to do with you.”

Aegon scoffs, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table. You’d tell him to take them down, but it’s not exactly a nice coffee table. You can see him staring at the plastic dragon figure on the TV unit. The bags under his eyes are so heavy. “That often seems to be the case,” he says, leaning forward slowly and picking up the dragon. It’s a small one, red and gold. “I wonder how this feels for Sunfyre…”

“Sunfyre was your dragon, right?” You ask, voice still quiet as he requested.

He nods, frowning as he moves the hard plastic wing of the toy. “He’s a fine beast,” he says. “Should he think me dead?”

“I wouldn't know,” you say. “Aegon, I think we need to get you home.”

Aegon goes quiet, almost as though he knows, somehow, that a grizzly fate awaits him in his own time. But he nods. “Yes,” he agrees. “How?”

“No idea. We’ll need to go to the library.”

He looks over at you, setting the dragon down and raising an eyebrow. “So you really can read?”

“Really really,” you say with a slight smile. “We peasants have been literate for centuries. I’ll make you some breakfast and then we can go.”

Aegon leans back again, watching you with wonder as you go back to the kitchen. “You know, I thought we might teach the smallfolk to read,” he says. “I think after the war I’ll bring it up.”

You glance over at him and smile. “Maybe you will.”

“They like me, I think,” Aegon says. “The smallfolk. Aegon the Magnanimous.”

You raise an eyebrow, pulling down a box of cereal. “Kind of lame.”

Aegon sighs. “Yes. We are working on it.”

Once Aegon has eaten his fill of your off brand cereal (which he decides he hates) you get him up and lead him out of the house. Aegon still seems fascinated with the world outside. 

“I suppose it does still look like King’s Landing,” he says, staring up at the buildings around him. He refuses to look at the cars, and you can’t blame him. You can’t imagine they’d be an easy thing to process right off the bat. Still, he’s going to have to deal with it when you get onto the bus. 

You stop at the bus stop with him, pulling out your phone to check when it’ll arrive. You can feel Aegon staring at you, you glance up, seeing that confused look on his face. You put the phone away. “Bus’ll be here in five minutes.”

He nods, but doesn’t ask what a bus is. “It is strange,” he says. “It looks so different, but much the same.”

You nod, offering him a small smile. “A lot of it is heritage protected, so it can’t be altered. We’ve expanded a lot, so all the outer city is newer, but this is the centre.”

“This is Flea Bottom, right?”

You smile, laughing a bit. “Yeah, it is. They called it Flea Bottom back then too?”

Aegon nods, sniffing the air. “It doesn’t smell so badly these days, but the buildings are the same.”

“Yeah, well, rent’s cheapest here. There was some government initiative to clean it up. Or gentrify it. The university bought out a bunch of the flats for student accommodation, it was the best I could afford.”

“This… university, it is like the Citadel?”

You nod. “Citadel’s a university too, but yes.”

“No, the Citadel is the Citadel,” he says, scoffing. 

“Okay, it’s a university now. Certainly not one I can afford,” you huff, reminded of the rejected scholarship you’d applied for. You suppose it wouldn’t have helped– rent in Oldtown is something else entirely. You crane your neck to spot the bus, seeing it coming close enough to flag it down. Aegon immediately steps behind you, eyeing the huge vehicle warily. You reach back, gently taking his hand and squeezing it without thinking. 

“It’s okay,” you tell him. “Just trust me and follow me.”

You feel Aegon’s breath falter, and somehow you know he’s staring at your hand in his. You gently lead him up the step and ask the bus driver to tap on for two. The busdriver raises an eyebrow at Aegon, but nods and lets you on. You scan your card, leading Aegon up to a seat by the back.

Aegon sits down, frowning at the interior. “This is like a wheelhouse. But with no horse. And uglier.”

“They’re not really made for style,” you tell him. 

He nods, looking at you again. He glances down at your hands, still intertwined. When you notice, you begin to pull away with the thought that he doesn’t like it. But Aegon only holds you tighter. You meet his eyes and find something desperate in them, a silent begging for you not to let go. Strange. But you oblige. 

“So,” you say softly. “Can you tell me what you last remember?”

Aegon exhales slowly, puffing out his cheeks and glancing between you and the window. He settles on watching the world pass by, no doubt faster than any wheelhouse could carry him. He must decide he trusts you enough. 

“It was nothing,” he tells you, leaning his forehead against the window. “I was with my favourites. Drinking, talking. Discussing my sobriquet. Everything after that is nothing. I didn’t even go to sleep. It is as though I blinked, and I was in the street. Then I met you.”

“Well that's…” You purse your lips, leaning back in the bus seat. “Nondescript. You weren't doing anything out of the ordinary? Not fucking with any ancient rocks? Weirwood trees?”

“No,” he says, sliding his gaze toward you. “I was on the throne, in the Keep.”

None of this helps. You scratch at your chin as you try to make sense of any of it. You pull your phone from your pocket, opening the browser and typing in – dreading the targeted ads you’re inadvertently signing yourself up to get – ‘accidental time travel firsthand account.’

Aegon peers over, watching the screen with fascination as you scroll past various untrustworthy conspiracy sites. 

“Do you suppose perhaps Rhaenyra paid a witch to curse me?”

“Why would she do that?”

Aegon's lips pull down in a pouty frown. “Well, my brother did kill her son.”

“Yeah, well, that'll do it,” you sigh, closing your phone and leaning back in your seat. You glance out the window, watching the city go by. The people milling about the street go by so quickly you cannot see their faces. However strange a day anyone thinks they may be having, it cannot be more than yours. 

“Witches. Woods witches. Weirwood, maybe,” you murmur, tilting your head this way and that. “Even if you weren't directly fucking with any, there's one in the Keep’s godswood. I went on a tour when I first moved here.”

“A tour…?”

“It's as good a place to start as any. Weirwood, woods witches, and rock formations. The library will have plenty on it.”

You get off the bus at the campus library soon after. The university sits upon Visenya’s hill behind the sept, which you’ve never really bothered to enter. It’s a strange thing, living in such a city rather than visiting it. Apart from your dead boring tour of the Red Keep, you've never visited the tourist traps. Growing up in the Riverlands, you never once visited any of the old castles. You always thought you might see more of King’s Landing when you came. Perhaps you would if you could, but you find you rarely have the time between study and work. 

As you ascend the steps with Aegon in tow, he stops and turns, gazing across the city. You glance back at him, following his gaze up Aegon’s High Hill, where the Red Keep sits. You stop in your footsteps, coming back down toward him. 

“You okay?” You venture. 

“Yes,” he murmurs. “Just odd, I suppose. It looks the same.”

“Lots of it still does, I guess. The dragonpit is still there too.”

You nod your head to the other end of the city, pointing him to the ruins of the building. 

Aegon pales. “It's… what happened to it?”

“Time,” you murmur. In part because it's true, but also because you don't know why it's in ruins. You’ve never been that far up the hill. You’ve never had it in you to wonder. 

“I don't believe you.”

You look over at him, and an intense purple gaze meets yours. You scoff. “I think I’m getting used to you not believing me,” you say. “Come on.”

You continue up the stairs and Aegon follows after a moment. “You really won't tell me what happened to the dragonpit?”

“No. Because I don't know. It's been like that for centuries, as far as I’m aware. And even if I did know, I feel like there has to be some sort of rule against it.”

“Against what?”

“Against telling you about the future!”

“What? But I’m already here! If the Gods didn't want me to know about the future I wouldn't be here!”

You purse your lips. He makes a good point, but still. “Well all the movies say it's bad. What if I send you back and you change things, and make it so I cease to exist? And I can’t tell you anyway because I don't know, so don't worry about it.”

“You know, I don't understand half the things you say,” Aegon says as you push the door to the library open, gesturing for him to enter first. 

“Likewise.”

Once inside, you make your way up to the librarian’s desk, the older woman immediately perking up with your presence. You smile at her. 

“Hi, um, I’m after pretty much anything you have on weirwood trees, woods witches, and, uh, like rock formations–”

“And any scrolls you have on Aegon the Second, thank you.”

“No.”

You look back at Aegon, who pouts at being denied. You imagine he’s not used to that.  

“Don't worry yourself with the Aegon stuff,” you say, looking back at the librarian sheepishly. “He's uh… easily distracted.”

The librarian smiles anyway, putting her glasses on the end of her nose and leaning into her computer. “Let me see what I can find you.”

A few minutes later, Aegon and yourself are seated at a secluded table surrounded by soft chairs and lit by dusty sunlight, tucked away between bookshelves only matched in age by Aegon. Old books and new are scattered across the table, and Aegon marvels at the shining pages of a new textbook, thumbing at the photographs of Harrenhal. 

“Can I see that one?” You ask, holding your hands out for it. Aegon slides it across. He folds his arms on the table, leaning forward and resting his chin on his arms. 

“Do you do this often?” He asks. “Seems dreadfully dull.”

You shake your head. “Not as often as I ought to.”

“I assume this is what my father did all day,” he grumbles, thumbing at the worn cover of a book on the Old Gods. “Before he, you know.”

“Died?”

“No,” he says. “Well, yes. But I think his soul left long before his body gave out.”

You nod, unsure what to say. From what you can gather, Aegon didn't have much of a relationship with his father. You’re not sure if it's wise to pry. You’re not sure what you’d say if you did. 

Aegon begins to make a clicking sound with his mouth as you flick through the pages. 

“You could help,” you say after a moment. 

“You want me to read?” He scoffs. “Your magical little drink didn't work that well. I just wish we had a bard or something.”

“A bard,” you repeat, voice flat. You roll your eyes, fishing into your pocket for your phone. He watches you with curiosity as you set the phone down and begin playing something at low volume. As soon as the song begins, he jolts upright and leans forward. He snatches up the phone, turning it over in his hands, shaking his head in disbelief. It’s some old synth song, something you remember watching your parents dance to when they’d have their friends over on the weekend and drink late into the night. 

“Incredible,” Aegon murmurs. “How do you look at dusty books when you have this thing? Bards and scrolls at your fingertips.”

“I’m actually trying to get my screentime down,” you say sheepishly. “It’s uh… it’s pretty rough.”

Aegon gives you a quizzical glance before he’s distracted by your screen lighting up. He seems quite entertained by your lock screen and is silent for a few moments. You turn your gaze back to the books, resting your temple on your fist. 

Your phone buzzes after a moment, and you glance at it only momentarily before you school yourself back toward the books. You’ve been trying to stop being so trained by your phone.

“Messages. Jeyne– and there’s a little drawing of what I suppose is a seashell –” You bolt upright as Aegon begins reading out the message. You try to snatch it from him, but he moves it out of your reach. “I just got YiTish dick – Seven Hells, then there’s more of these drawings, they look to be peaches? – freaky as everyone says.”

You stare, stunned into silence, at Aegon as he processes what he’s just read, looking at you with a wicked sort of grin. He sets the phone down, now playing some modern house music you barely remember adding to your playlist. 

“I’m to understand this is some sort of raven, yes?”

“Yes,” you say. Gods, what else could you even say to that? Your former roommate was never the most couth person, and you were never her biggest fan. But even though she’s disappeared to the other side of the world, you’re still subject to her unprompted oversharing. 

“This Jeyne is quite something.”

“Yep,” you mumble, managing to grab your phone back. “How about we wrap this up for today? I’m suddenly craving YiTish food.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Aegon snickers. You realise that this may be the first time you’ve seen him smile, however wry and mocking it may be. It’s a lovely expression, but one you suspect he doesn’t wear very often. 

“Come on,” you say, picking up several of the books. “Grab a few. We’re taking them back. But I’m borrowing this weirwood tree one.”

Aegon groans in protest, but gathers up the remaining books to balance in his arms. Once you’ve borrowed the book and created a list of the others, you escape the dusty library into the waning sunlight.

Aegon is a chatterbox when you’re on the bus again, and as you order the both of you some YiTish food. Clearly his hangover’s worn off. You smile apologetically at the young girl behind the counter as you take the bags of food. You shoot Aegon a look in hopes of shutting him up, but you have no such luck. The walk back up to your flat is accompanied by the sound of Aegon's voice. 

When you get inside, he finally stops. Now that you’re in private, he wishes no longer to speak? You glance back at him with a raised eyebrow, but he's watching you unpack the food. 

“I got you sweet and sour pork,” you tell him, handing him the little box and a fork. “Should be free enough of any major allergens… if not, Jeyne left behind an epipen.”

“I’m growing quite tired of asking you what things mean,” he says, opening up the box and sniffing at it. He pulls his lips down but doesn't look to actually be frowning. 

You grab your own food, moving to sit down on your worn sofa and beckoning for Aegon to join you. “I’m guessing your time doesn't have YiTish food,” you say. 

He huffs, nodding as he sits down and kicks his feet up on the coffee table. You’d tell him to knock that off if you had a nicer coffee table, but as it is – a piece of shit wooden box with shaky wheels on the bottom – you don't bother. “Not by far.”

“I’m not sure how authentic this is,” you say, poking your chopsticks into the box and searching for a nice crunchy bit of cabbage. “But it's cheap, and has never done me wrong.”

Aegon takes a tentative bite, and you watch as his face twists in curious acceptance of the new flavours. It’s… Gods, well, it's sort of cute. 

“I like it. I think,” he remarks, taking another bite and leaning back comfortably. “Much has changed.”

You nod, glancing out of the window at the city lights. How had it looked all those years ago? How has the skylike changed? Brightened?

“You say you can't tell me what you know about my life,” Aegon says slowly. You nod, opening your mouth to sigh and tell him again that you won't budge, only he stops you. “I’m not going to ask. I only want to make sense of your world. And what remains of mine.”

“Oh,” you murmur. “Okay. Well, I’ll try.”

Aegon nods, looking down contemplatively. “Hm… the Dothraki?”

Not… exactly where you expected him to start. “Yeah,” you say with a small smile. “They're still around. They're kind of baller, actually. Like they gained all the modern stuff but still live nomadically.”

“Are they still so… brutal?”

“Oh, no,” you say. “Really kind of a peaceful state now. Jeyne reckons she'll be heading to the Sea after YiTi.”

Aegon nods slowly. “This Jeyne girl is quite something. She used to live with you?”

You nod. “Yeah. We were assigned the same flat… I can’t say I ever really liked her much, but she was tolerable.”

“And she… left? Escaped? “

“Mhm. Decided she was unfulfilled by higher education and fucked of to YiTi to ‘find herself.’ Alright for some, I guess.”

Aegon stares at you in silence for a moment, smiling ever so slightly. “You speak in such a strange and wonderful way,” he murmurs. 

You can't help but smile. He has a nice smile about him. You suspect it's not an expression he uses much, at least not in a real, involuntary way. 

“So do you,” you say softly. He’s… goodness, he’s beautiful in this light. You know you shouldn't think that. 

(But then, why shouldn't you? He's a grown man, he’s sober, what’s stopping you? Responsibility? Expectation? You’re not certain.)

He must see the budding conflict on your face because he reaches out to touch your cheek. He lifts his thumb up, pressing it between your eyebrows to smooth out the crease there. “Why the frown?”

You smile wryly at him. “Just thinking,” you tell him as he sets his food down. 

“Of course. You do a lot of that, don't you?”

You huff a soft laugh. “Too much.”

He shifts closer, and you find yourself less and less willing to stop him with every second. “Take a break from thinking,” he says, leaning forward and catching your lips in a kiss before you can respond. 

There's a moment of hesitation, the briefest second where you contemplate pulling away. You should. The last thing you should be doing is letting Aegon entangle himself with you. He's misplaced in time, practically a stranger. Not to mention married.

(Unhappily, and to his sister, but all the same.)

But the moment passes. And you let him. And you lean into him and return the favour. Encouraged by your response, Aegon shifts closer and grabs at your waist, trying to pull you closer. 

It happens fast, he doesn't seem to want to waste time building up to a point before he's shoving his tongue into your mouth and crashing his teeth against yours. 

“Aegon,” you murmur. He only grunts in protest, continuing his advances. “Aegon, slow down.”

Aegon huffs as he pulls away just a fraction, hands groping a little too harshly at your hips. “What for?”

You frown at him, gently pushing him away. He relents, but begins to scowl. You place your hands firmly on his shoulders. “There's no need to rush,” you say quietly.

You realise then that Aegon is used to taking. He is used to taking what he needs and not bothering with any sort of lead-up beyond unrefined kissing. He surges forward to kiss you again but you place your hand in his face and shove him away. 

He cries your name indignantly, unused to being denied either. 

“Sit down,” you say firmly, shoving him back onto the sofa cushion. “And stay.”

Aegon looks stunned, but readily obeys. He leans back against the cushions and watches you warily as you shift closer to him, throwing your leg over his lap so you straddle him. Aegon seems almost afraid to touch you all of a sudden, so you take his hands and place them gently on your hips. 

Should you be encouraging this? Absolutely not. But some touch starved little sect of your brain has staged a coup on your good sense, so here you are. 

“Have you never done this before?” You ask him softly. 

“Been ridden?” He scoffs. “Of course I have.”

“No,” you say. “I’m not riding you. Have you ever just made out with someone for a little while?”

Averting his eyes, Aegon shakes his head. 

“That’s okay,” you murmur, catching his lips in a gentle kiss that seems to startle him. You place your hands on his chest, closing your eyes as you kiss him again. He’s hesitant now, unsure. But you press on, sucking gently at his lip before slowly, gently, sliding your tongue into his mouth and dragging it over the flat of his. Aegon makes a soft noise of shock, hands grasping a little harder at the soft of your hips.

Before, he hadn’t seemed to know what to do with his tongue in your mouth except to have it shoved in there, desperate to have some sort of dominance over your mouth. You can tell he’s still fighting the urge to take over, but he sits nicely for you, only gently pushing back against your tongue. He seems to rather enjoy the feeling of not being in charge, of simply being guided. Not told what to do, not commanded, just… treated gently. 

After a while, you gently pull away, your thumb brushing over his wet bottom lip. “Do you want to keep going?” You ask, though you know you shouldn’t.

Aegon looks up at you with dilated eyes, pupils almost sparkling as he blinks slowly. Almost dazed. “I’d like to keep doing this. It’s nice.”

You smile, gently pecking his lips and nodding. “Okay,” you whisper. “We can keep doing this.”

You decide your research can wait. It’ll still be there tomorrow. 

[arlana-likes-to-write]

I Hate Myself By Florence Pugh

Summary: Loosely based on a song in Florence Pugh’s new movie A Good Person. You are struggling with grief and guilt of your fiancé. Life seems to be going down hill when a blonde Russian forced her way into your life. 

Warning: This story contains some heavy and possibly triggering themes. Heavy drinking, addiction of opioids, attempted suicide, guilt, grief, mention of death, overdose

Word Count: 2.9k 

It’s crazy how life could change in an instant. A month ago you were planning your wedding. You were trying on wedding dresses, tasting cakes, and designing wedding invitations. A month ago you were celebrating with friends and brainstorming destinations for your honeymoon, and you decided on Japan. A month ago you were happy. But a car accident caused by a truck driver falling asleep at the wheel took your happiness. You were driving. You woke up from a two-week comma and your fiance never woke up. Her family never blamed you like you expected them to. No, they did the opposite and kept being there for you. They brought you to doctor appointments and helped pay for medical bills when they were grieving the loss of their daughter. But the guilt and the grief became too much and you did what you used to do before meeting Courtney, you ran. You left South Carolina and moved to New York City. Her family tried to call you and you’d send them a text to confirm you were alive. You were, barely, surviving on cheap pizza, buzz, and prescription medication. 

It was lightly raining on your nightly walk around the neighborhood. You weren’t wearing a jacket, only a T-Shirt and sweatpants. The rain didn’t bother you. You loved it. On some days, Courtney would drag you off the couch into the backyard to dance in the rain. You missed her. You missed her so fucking much. You wondered if this pain was ever going to go away. Would the weight feel lighter to heavy? When would it hurt less to breathe? 

You felt someone grab your arm and drag you into a nearby alley. You were so startled you didn’t even scream as you were pushed up against the brick wall. You stared at the girl in front of you. She was blonde, with striking green eyes, and she was a little shorter than you. But you didn’t miss the gun in her hand. “Do you have a death wish?” You asked. Was she Russian? 

“Maybe,” you said. She lowered the gun. “Well, I mean we all die one die right,” you chuckled nervously. She put the gun on her hip and let you go. “I made this extremely awkward. Look if you are going to kill me, can you get it over with?” You had to admit it wasn’t how you thought you’d go out. Would you see Courtney? She pulled back her hood and her blonde hair was braided. 

“Do you live close?” She asked. 

“Uh, yeah,” you said. “Most girls take me to dinner first before I show them where I live,” you joked. She didn’t laugh. “Right, this way.” In hindsight, it wasn’t the best idea to show a mysterious blonde in your apartment that was just holding a gun but life worked in weird ways. The rain picked up and by the time you unlocked your apartment door, you were drenched. You toed your sneakers off and walked into the kitchen. “Make yourself at home,” you said, over your shoulder. You heard the door close and lock as you grabbed a bottle of vodka and poured your guest a drink. She was looking around your apartment. It had the bare minimum, no photos or decorations, all that was left in South Carolina.

“You live alone?” She asked. 

“Yup,” you said, taking the bottle to the couch and laying down, not caring about your wet clothes. You took a generous sip, liking the way it burned down your throat. Your guest walked softly, you barely heard her walking over to the drink and then to the couch. You stared up at her. “Want more?” Offering the bottle. 

“Stay off the streets for the next few nights,” she said. “It’s dangerous.” 

“Whatever you say,” you turned on the TV. She spared you one more glance at you before exiting your apartment. “Odd,” you mumbled, taking another sip from the bottle. You hoped that would be the last you saw of the Russian. 

*

However, life had other plans for you. Every time you left your apartment you saw the blonde. At the corner store. The pizza place. The shitty dive bar you worked at. But it was brief because when you looked away and back again she was gone. It wasn’t until Friday night, 5 days after your meeting with her did you see her again and this time when you looked at her she didn’t disappear. You had the night off. So, you were sitting on the couch, wearing only a sports bra and sweatpants. You were high, drinking beer and eating pizza with Criminal Minds on the TV. You were high. It was a glorious feeling because you felt floaty and free. You heard the handle of your apartment jiggly and when it opened you were staring at the blonde. “I should call the cops,” you told her. 

“You won’t,” she closed the door. “Not when you are high on oxycodone,”

“Vodka is on the top shelf,” you opened the beer bottle and faced the TV. 

“I know it is,” you heard her move around your kitchen. “Do you not have food?” She asked. 

“Pizza is food,” she huffed, mumbling something under her breath that you couldn’t make out. She sat down next to you with a Gatorade and a protein bar. 

“Drink this,” you looked at the blonde down to the drink then back at her. You didn’t like being told what to do, especially by a stranger. You took a sip of the beer instead.

“You’ve been stalking me,” she took a slice of pizza. 

“No,” she said. “Just watching.” You chuckled. 

“Yeah, that makes it sound better,” you sat back on the couch and focused on the episode. You felt her eyes on you, mapping out the scars from the accident. You would have them covered but sometimes clothes irritated your skin. Walking around in a bra was easier plus you never had anyone over. “Take a picture, it'll last longer,” you mumbled. 

“Thanks for the pizza,” she said, standing up.

“Yeah, no problem. Let me know when you're gonna stop by and I’ll have dinner ready for you,” the blonde opened and closed the door. “What a freak.” 

The next morning you found a bag of groceries at your door.    

*

Some days were better than others. You could make it throughout the day without your hands shaking and wondering when you were going to get high next. On days like that, the weight on your chest felt manageable. Those days were few and far between. Lately, the guilt was becoming heavier and the nightmares invaded your mind. It was harder and harder to stay sober and leave your bed. The bar fired you but you didn’t care. You had no energy. But like clockwork each week there were groceries at your door. It’s been a few months since you’ve seen the Russian. You tried not to think about her but it was impossible. It was annoying. Why did she care? 

*

You were drunk. Music blaring in your apartment and you were dancing around when the door opened. There she was. “My favorite Russian,” you ran over to her and put your arms around her. She caught you, stumbling slightly which caused the door to close. You rested your head on her shoulder, taking a deep breath in. “Mhmm. You smell good,” Whatever perfume she was wearing had an earthy scent to it like the smell after it rained. You leaned into her more. 

“Are you hanging out with more Russians?” She chuckled, stepping back from you slightly but she kept her hands on your hips. You giggled. 

“No, silly. You are the only one but still my favorite.” 

“Why don’t you go sit down and I’ll go get you water?” She went to move away from you but you stopped her. 

“I don’t want water. I want to dance with you,” you pulled her into the space between your living room and kitchen. 

“No dancing. You need to go sit down,” you scuffed, rolling your eyes. 

“You're no fun,” you mumbled, stumbling into the kitchen. “Aren’t Russians supposed to be big partiers?” You twisted off the cap of the bottle and took a large sip of vodka. 

“I think you’ve had enough of that,” she took the bottle from you. 

“I don’t like you telling me what to do,” you pulled the bottle back but she was stronger than you. “Whatever,” you let her have the bottle and open your cabinet. But she came around and closed it. “You are starting to piss me off.”

“What else have you taken?” She asked. Your jaw clenched. 

“Nothing,” you walked over to your fridge to pull out a beer. 

“So you haven’t taken hydro or morphine today?” She was pulling out the bill bottles. You took a hydro this morning. You woke up screaming from a nightmare. What were you supposed to do? “Courtney wouldn’t want this.” Your blood went cold. 

“What-what did you say?” She rolled her eyes. 

“Did you think I wouldn’t research who you are?” She asked, facing you. “You and your fiance Courtney Smith were in a car accident caused by a truck driver 4 months ago.”

“Shut up,” you said. 

“You woke up from a coma but she never did,” she continued. You wanted her to stop talking. “After the funeral, you packed everything up and ran to New York. You found employment at a local dive bar and spent your free time downing yourself in alcohol and prescription medication,” An anger was building inside of you, blinding you. How dare this stranger walk into your life and feel as if she had your whole life figured out? “Courtney wouldn’t want your life to be like this.”

“Stop saying her name as if you knew her because you didn’t,” you snapped. “You wouldn’t know what she would want,” you squeezed the beer bottle, afraid the glass would shatter in your hands. “I think you need to leave.” 

“I’m not going anywhere.” 

“Get out of my fucking apartment before I call the cops and have them arrest you for stalking and harassment,” she didn’t move. “Leave me the fuck alone,” you threw the bottle at her. She barely dogged it and the bottle shattered on the cabinet. You took off towards your bedroom, slamming the door closed, and locking it. You slide down the door and brought your knees to your chest as the blonde banged on the door pleading with you to let her in. But you couldn’t face her when somewhere deep inside of you believed everything she said. You crawled over to your nightstand, the banging becoming a distant memory and pulled out a polaroid picture. It was of you and Courtney on your third date. She took you camping in the Adirondacks. You didn’t have any photos of her as you left all of them in South Carolina. 

“I’m sorry,” you cried. “It should have been me,” you kept repeating as you pulled out a pile bottle and uncapped it. You swallowed the few pills dry. You fell to your side and cried, holding the picture to your chest. 

*

You woke up in a bed and room you didn’t recognize. It wasn’t a hospital but you were attached to an IV drip. You were wearing a sweatshirt that wasn’t yours but it smelt like the blonde. You took the IV out of your arm and swung your legs over to the side. Your legs were shaky and it took you a minute to feel confident to stand up. On socked feet, you walked to the door and opened it. You were in a house and it was quiet as you walked down the hallway into a living room. You should have tried to find a way to get out but your eyes were glued to a piano. It was a beautiful, white Steinway model. You sat down on the bench and opened it. The keys were cold underneath your fingers but there wasn’t any dust on them. It was well taken care of. You couldn’t remember the last time you sat at a piano, it felt like a lifetime ago. You began to play, afraid you wouldn’t be able to but it was like riding a bike. It came back to you without much thought. 

“I woke up today, at least that much is true,” you sang. Your throat was raw and it hurt but you kept going. “I saw what people see, what a year this made of me? I tried a hundred times but each time I thought of you,” you closed your eyes. You saw yourself sitting at the piano playing while Courtney sat on the couch studying. “I hate myself. I hate myself. I fucking hate myself.” She supported you in your dreams of wanting to be a singer-songwriter. 

“And I want days of pain. Oh, to feel the things I need.To pay off this shame. And I know that makes me broken. I know that makes me weak. I guess I'll put my armor back on now,” you asked her instead of doing a first dance if you could write her a song and play it. To your surprise, she said yes but she made you promise you would dance with her at some point. You promised her. You would have done anything for her if she asked.

“I found a way but I turned around. One step to start but I’d rather fall. Too much of a coward to say, ‘I’m wrong.’ Too much of a coward to admit I need help me, please.” When you opened your eyes, the blonde was leaning against the wall. She was wearing a sweatshirt with SHIELD written on it. It was so different from the clothes she wore when she was at your apartment. You ended the song. 

“That was beautiful,” you felt the tip of your lips turn into a smile. 

“Thanks,” you ran your hands across the keys. “It’s been a while since I sat down and played.” She nodded, pushed off the wall, and sat next to you on the bench. “What happened?” You asked.

“You overdosed,” she played A-C#-E on the piano. You copied her. “You’ve been out for 7 days. 

“Why didn’t you take me to the hospital?” She played C-E-G and you did the same. 

“Hospitals ask too many questions,” she smiled. “I figured you wouldn’t have to deal with questions. Your safe here,” she added. “An old friend owns this house.” You nodded, and you played E-G#-B. She tried to copy it but her last note was off. You smiled, placed your hand on top of hers, and arranged her fingers to the correct keys. It reminded you of when you tried to teach Courtney when she had free time. 

“I tried to teach Courtney how to play,” you told her. “She wasn’t very musically inclined. Her head was filled with math and science. She was in medical school when she died,” she didn’t respond but you knew she was listening. “You were right. She wouldn’t be happy with me.” The blonde sighed. 

“I should have handled that differently. For that, I’m sorry.” You played F-A-C and she copied it perfectly. 

“Why do you care?” You asked. “I’ve tried to rack my brain around it. You don’t know me.”

“Do you know who I am?” She asked. You looked at it. She didn’t look familiar. You shook your head. “My name is Yelena. My sister was Natasha Romanoff.” You knew the name. Even in your small town, you knew who the Avengers were. 

“You're an Avenger,” she nodded. “What does that have to do with me?” She sighed, playing G-B-D but you didn’t play it back.

“The truck that caused the accident didn’t fall asleep. He was murdered,” your stomach dropped. You could hear your heart pound in your ears. You had a vague memory of overhearing Courtney’s brother, who was also a truck driver, said he thought it was odd that a truck driver with that much experience would fall asleep at the wheel. 

“Did you-?”

“No,” she said. “No, but I was responsible for trying to stop the group. I was too late,” it clicked. She blamed herself for what happened to Courtney and in turn what your life became. You wanted to ask more but you sensed she didn’t want to give the specifics. “I’m sorry.”

“You aren’t to blame for her death,” she didn’t look convinced. “Did you stop them from hurting other people?” She nodded. “Good, that’s all it matters.” Yelena seemed lost in thought so you continued to play to fill the silence. 

“Her parents miss you,” she said, causing you to stop mid-song. “They called and I told them you weren’t feeling well and that you’ll call when you are better.” 

“I don’t want them to see me like this,” your hand shook. “My parents weren’t supportive of my relationship with Courtney or my career choice. They looked after me even after the accident. I-” she placed her hand on top of yours.

“It’s okay,” she said. “In your song, you said you were scared to ask for help. I want to help.” 

“I don’t want you to help me because of guilt or pity,” you said. “What will you get out of it?” She smiled. 

“Well, you could provide pizza,” you laughed. A real laugh that sounded foreign. “And you could teach me piano.” You stared into her green eyes and saw something you hadn’t let yourself feel in a very long time. Hope. 

“Okay,” you whispered. “When do we start?” 

“Play something for me,” you did. You played for her and she sat and listened to you. You poured your heart and soul into these songs hoping a stranger would help you put your armor back on.    

[neptuneslanding]

I May Be Fucked Up But I Meant What I Said

Eddie Munson x Best Friend! Reader

-> Y/N and Eddie throw an impromptu end of the summer party for The Hellfire Club. With a little liquid courage, Eddie is ready to tell Y/N how he really feels.

(TW: Drinking, Smoking, Idiotic Behavior: General 18+)

Eddie kicked the front door to Y/N's open, holding two rather large paper bags in each arm. He takes a deep breath in, smelling the air freshener that she must have just sprayed to cover up the weed smell.

Lavender, nice.

"Oh honey, I'm home!" He calls out, entering the home and slamming the door shut behind him. He watched as she ran down the hall to grab the bags out of his hands, "Stop slamming the door! If my mom gets back and sees that you dented it again she will be pissed." Eddie simply laughs as he follows Y/N to the kitchen. "Oh come on, your mom loves me, plus," He pulls out a couple of liquor bottles from the bags as he leans in to get uncomfortably close to her face,

"She thinks I'm a handsome devil."

Y/N pushes his face away as she rummages through the goods that he had brought over. "You're stupid." She mumbles, though she could feel the pesky butterflies make their home in her stomach again.

'I think you're handsome too,' she thinks to herself. Y/N would never tell him that. It's Eddie, that could only end bad for her.

Pulling a bottle of vodka from the bag, Y/N was quick to grab a plastic cup and poor a generous amount of it in, taking a quick swig of the liquid fire. "So we aren't even waiting for Gareth and Jeff to get here? Okay then, I can rock with that." Eddie watched as Y/N's face twisted up in reaction to the alcohol. "It's my house, I get the first drink. You can wait, pretty boy." her hand wraps around the beer he had in his own hands and yanks it from his grip, taking it to the fridge.

Eddie blocks her path before grabbing her wrist, making it a point to be gentle, taking the beer back, "Well, I bought the booze, sweetheart."

Y/N watches as he cracks the top open and takes a drink. 'Sweetheart'. She had only ever heard him call his guitar by that pet name. She brushed it off quickly as him being a smartass. Pushing him by the chest gently, she brushes past him to the living room, sorting through a box of records she had dragged out from her room.

With the bottle in hand, Eddie followed promptly after her and squatted down beside his friend.

"What do you think, The Smiths or Iron Maiden?" Y/N asks as she holds them up, taking in the details of each cover. Eddie smiles at himself, making it a point to place his hand over hers before grabbing the Iron Maiden record from her right hand. "That's not even a question you should ask. The answer is obvious. Iron Maiden or death!"

He laughs at his own half attempt at a joke while a flustered Y/N's eyes looked about ready to pop out of their sockets. "H-Hey, The Smiths are good too!" She proclaimed as she set the object back into it's home.

Eddie scoffs, "Yeah, but they are no Iron Maiden." Music poured out of the speakers as Eddie took a big drink of beer. Y/N stands up bobbing her head to the heavy sounds, going back to the kitchen and taking out some snacks for everyone. "Y/N, do you have lays?!" He asks, following like a lost puppy.

Eddie stands behind her, resting his chin atop of her head. "You're touchy today," the girl says under her breath as her ears felt like they were ablaze. Eddie hums a bit as he grabs a chip from the bag she held, "You missed Hellfire last week, think of this as your punishment." Scoffing, Y/N takes the lid off of a dip container. "It was my last shift at Family Video. Sorry I had to get a summer job," she says sarcastically to the guy who was now leaning past her to smother his chip in nacho cheese.

"That's alright, now you're all mi- ours again!" Eddie let out a loud cackle, though Y/N knew that this was his nervous laugh. She wondered why he was acting so... Weird.

"Will someone open the damn door!" The two nearly jumped away from each other when they heard Gareth screaming and pounding his fists against the door.

As Y/N rushed over to let them in, Eddie shakes his head to himself, "And she was worried I was going to be the one to break the door down." He says to himself while unconsciously keeping his eyes on Y/N.

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

Warm August winds rushed past the four young adults as they enjoyed their little get together.

The night came much faster than the group expected, though their sense of time was heavily altered by the copious amount of alchohol and weed in their systems. The four had moved to the back porch, listening to Jeff play his guitar. It sounded awful, but they were all crossfaded enough to enjoy it nonetheless.

"Man, Jeff you're gonna be famous one day!" Gareth slurred. Y/N, who had just finished off her eighth drink shook her head, "Now that's just mean Gareth. Don't lie to the poor guy, he's shit." Eddie spit out the drink of his beverage he had been taking as he starts laughing at her statement. Jeff flipped them off, almost dropping his instrument. "Fuck you guys!"

Y/N shook her head as she looked back up at the sky as the sun was almost set. There was not a cloud in the sky. Surrounded by the people she cared about, she felt content. A little messed up, but content.

Gareth and Jeff were now in the yard, debating who would be getting on Y/N's family trampoline first.

Scooting his lawn chair closer to Y/N, Eddie pointed to the trampoline, "Do you remember when we were in middle school and you showed me how to do a back flip on that deathtrap?" She begins to chuckle at him, "Yeah, I remember. You were so scared that you were going to break your neck. Instead, you almost broke mine!" She shouts, punching him in the shoulder. Eddie holds his shoulder as though he had been shot, "How was I supposed to know if I jumped too hard you'd go flying off?"

They laugh along with eachother at the fond memory before Y/N stands up, "Gotta go get another drink, I'll be right back." Eddie smiles at the sight of her standing in front of him, "Have fun with that." His eyes lingered on her as she entered the house.

The door close behind Y/N as he pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration. The duo who had been messing around on the trampoline stop jumping. "Dude, you need to just tell her." Eddie whips his head over to look at Gareth. "It's not that easy! But I don't expect you to know what it's like." Gareth glares over at him, "Sure, I don't. But I know if you don't tell Y/N how you feel it's probably going to just fester."

Eddie groans as he throws his head back and his hands into the air, spilling cheap beer all over the porch. "I've been holding this shit in since what... Seventh grade? I'm not ruining my friendship." Jeff clicks his tongue and shakes his head, "It will just enhance the relationship! You two already act like your more than friends. I mean, two weeks ago I saw you two holding hands when you picked us up for D and D."

A rosy blush spread across Eddie's cheeks, he couldn't tell if it was the drinks or the drugs, but it felt more intense than usual, "Yeah, because she saw some creepy guy at the end of the road." Gareth rolls his eyes before falling back onto the mesh. "All we are saying is you should probably tell her before it's too late." Those words rattled around in Eddie's head as Y/N sauntered back out, stumbling a bit over her shoes before collapsing back down in her chair.

"You got orange juice with pulp in it, just so you know." She says, noticing that her friend seemed to be in a bit of a daze. The two watched as Gareth and Jeff began to do dumb stunts on the rickety trampoline.

After a while however, Eddie found that his gaze settled on Y/N's face. Out of the corner of his eye he watched her as she reacted to the two failing miserably at reenacting the battle's they had recently had in the campaign with amused intoxicated giggles.

He smiled before looking back towards the sky, savoring the moment he never wanted to end.

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

The moon now shown down onto the yard. Y/N had dragged her tape deck out onto the porch to fill the silent night with her brand new mixtape she had made earlier that day. Gareth and Jeff had already passed out on the living room floor, a faint snore could be heard emanating from the open kitchen window.

Y/N hugged her knees to her chest as she tapped her foot against the seat of the chair in rhythm with the song that was playing. In reality, she was just trying to fight off her thoughts about going back to school. As awful as it sounded, she was relieved when she had found out Eddie would be attending Hawkins High once again; the thought of having to go her senior year without him seemed a bit too daunting. Though, she also pondered the dreaded idea that this may be the year Eddie finally found a girlfriend, leaving her surviving the year alone and more than likely heartbroke.

A cold breeze blew her hair from her face, a shiver being sent down her spin. The back door opened, Eddie poking his head out to peak outside. "What are you doing out here? I thought we were going to watch Children Of The Corn!" Their eyes meet and she shrugs with a little drunken grin, Eddie showing her a bowl he had in his hand, "I made popcorn, I even put extra butter in it because I knew you would be pissed if I didn't."

Y/N nods, "I would have. But I just want to sit out here for a little longer." She reaches out her hand to motion for him to join her.

Eddie wasted no time, running back into the kitchen to set the bowl down though he did trip a couple of times on the way there. Sitting beside her, he noticed she was staring at the moon. Y/N's face was blank, her eyes glazed over while she continued to hum.

"What's on your mind?" Eddie asks, knowing all too well that she did this kind of thing rather often when she was lost in troubled thought. Y/N takes a moment to respond, "Can I be honest?" Eddie furrows his eyebrows as he reaches over to take the beer she was holding from her hand, "Anytime. You know that."

"Am I like, holding you back from getting a girlfriend?" Eddie blinks as he watches her lips form a soft frown. "Y/N, no. I don't have a girlfriend because I'm a freak. Why would you even entertain that thought?" Y/N shrugs, resting her head on her palm. "I don't know." Her voice went flat.

"Well, I could ask you the same thing. You've never had a boyfriend." Eddie retorts, sipping from her beer bottle. With the buzz he had going, his mouth opened up and he began to word vomit. "I mean, you're by far one of the most amazing people I've ever met, and I don't even really like people. I'm sure I'm the one holding you back, if anything."

The two exchange nervous glances.

Clearing her throat, Y/N begins to speak again. "That's not true. I am just really particular about who I like." Eddie could feel a new emotion bubbling up from his heart. It felt terrible. Was she seeing someone? No, she would have told him; they tell each other everything.

'Is this jealousy, or rage?' Eddie thinks to himself

"Are you trying to tell me you are seeing someone?" his voice breaks a bit as his nerves began to get to him. The girl simply snorts, "Me? No. I've only ever really felt anything like that for one person. I've never told him though."

Eddie felt his heart shatter. She liked someone? Gareth and Jeff were right, he needed to do something. He needed to tell her before she slipped right out of his grip.

"That's the same predicament I find myself in. With you."

Internally, Eddie was kicking himself in the ass.

Y/N looked back over to him with wide eyes, "What?"

Filled by drunken courage, Eddie stares right back at her. "You heard me. Why in the world would I go scour through this shitty town to find some subpar chick when I already have the best one here, sitting with me? I've never needed a girlfriend because I have you. I've never even wanted anyone to love me as much as I wished that you would."

All Y/N could do was sit and stare at him as she processed what he was doing.

He stands up and starts gesturing towards her.

"For fuck sake, Y/N, I've loved you for as long as I can remember! We are like two puzzle pieces that fit perfectly together." He moves his hands in a way that resembled connecting a puzzle. Turning around he walks into the yard, his hands now on his head gripping his hair before turning around.

"Those stars up there," he points back towards the sky, then back at her. "-I would go up there and steal every single one, just to give them to you. That's how much I love you."

Y/N had began to open her mouth to speak, but Eddie holds up his finger to stop her. "I may be fucked up but I meant what I said. I love you, Y/N."

She stood up. Her knees shook as she began to walk over to where he stood. Eddie watched her as she started to clench her fists.

Y/N had an unrecognizable emotion plastered on her face that Eddie had never seen before. He braced himself for the inevitable rejection; assuming that he most likely just severed any and all ties by confessing his feelings to his best friend.

What he did not expect, however, was Y/N flinging her arms around him, hugging him as she buried her face into the fabric of his vest.

The air rang silent as the tape deck clicked off.

"Y/N?"

"Just shut up for a second, Eddie."

"What?" Eddie questions quietly to himself. The reaction was not what he was anticipating at all. After a couple of minutes of the sudden embrace Y/N took a small step back.

She reaches her hand out to grab his, holding it in order to keep herself grounded. "Do you promise you aren't joking." She deadpan.

"Y/N, I would never joke about this." Eddie replies lowly.

Y/N nods in response, gathering up her thoughts so that they do not come out as one jumbled up thought. "You're the guy I never told." She stops and let's go of his hand. "I always talked myself out of telling you. All because I couldn't imagine losing you." Y/N shakes her head at herself exasperated, "Hell, for the past three years when I blew out my birthday candles, all I wished for was you." She snickers to herself before mumbling, "Ew, that was corny."

"So, you're telling me," Eddie begins before cupping her face between his hands, "We are just that stupid?" Y/N laughs loudly and nods, leaning her face into the palm of his left hand. "I guess so, huh."

Her eyes traveled up to meet his again, "I love you too, Eddie." Eddie was smiling rather goofily down at her, "God, I wish we were sober."

Before they knew it, the two had locked lips. It was a foreign sensation; though neither of them were complaining. The kiss was gentle but greedy and riddled with longing.

Once the kiss was broken, Eddie speaks up. "Was that okay?" He asks, his eyelids still heavy from being drunk on beer and love at the same time.

"Okay is an understatment."

[ilici]

drunk on you.

Summary: C!Schlatt was known as the drunk who didn't care about anything besides himself. That all changed when Y/N showed up, he's never been so infatuated with something like he was with Y/N.

NSFW MINORS DNI !

Warnings: Size kink, choking, subspace, gagging, unprotected.

Word Count: 2117

Schlatt was in his office, when he heard Tubbo and Fundy's muffled voices growing closer to his office. He was in no mood for business, he was slightly buzzed from drinking more vodka. If he drank anymore, he'd be absolutely hammered, but he held himself back as he had a meeting for Manburg later that day. Hearing the knock he dreaded the most, he grunted wanting to ignore them, but once again a knock was heard this time more eager sounding. "President, we need to talk to you. It's urgent." Funny's voice ripped out into the silence, and Schlatt just glared at the shut door. Not answering, the door was swiftly opened by Tubbo, and Fundy looked at him as if he were crazy.

Tubbo walked in, his horns showing prominently after his haircut, "Hello Schlatt." Tubbo said, nonchalantly as if he's done that more times than once. Funny gave Schlatt an apologetic look, before following Tubbo inside, his orange fur popping as Schlatt's office was dark and dull. He wanted it to match his "heart" as if he even had one. So he forced Niki and Fundy to paint it, "What do you guys want?" Schlatt said, already annoyed at their presence, "We have someone new who joined Manberg, we tried to tell you yesterday but you kept yourself locked in here." Fundy explained, on edge afraid if he said one thing, the bottle of vodka that was on Schlatt's desk would be thrown at him.

Schlatt slowly looked over at the fox, as his eyes were glued on Tubbo, annoyed that he entered without permission for the eleventh time. "So? What's it to me?" He asked, and Fundy sighed, "Sir you're the president, it's mandatory for you to know if someone joins or leaves." He announced, and Schlatt just stared at him, face holding no emotions. Fundy gulped, fairly loudly, which made Tubbo glance over at him, grabbing his wrist so he would relax. "Well, who are they?" Schlatt asked, wanting this conversation to end already, "Apparently they are Sapnap's adopted sister. Dream and them went into the snow biome across here, and found her there. They took her in for a couple days, then she left and wandered into Manberg and asked if she could stay." Tubbo said, noticing how on edge Fundy was. Schlatt looked at him, "They didn't kill her on the spot?" He asked, genuinely confused.

"No, probably because she was already on the brink of death from starvation. She has amor, netherite to be exact, I've also heard from George that she is good at combat." Tubbo added on, catching Schlatt's attention. "Why didn't they just leave her there to rot?" He asked once more, and Tubbo sighed, growing annoyed at the fact that Schlatt keeps asking why they didn't let her die. "Sapnap apparently felt guilty, and wanted to take her in. I'm guessing it took a lot of persuasion, because Sapnap now has a cut down his face from which I am assuming is from Dream." He explained, "Where did you get this Information?" The president asked, and a new voice spoke up from behind Tubbo. "Me." A much softer voice said, which caught Schlatt off guard.

Schlatt wondered how he had not noticed her before, but what threw him off even more was the fact that he could not see the girl. She was behind Tubbo, and Tubbo was already very short, so how old was this girl and how short was she? "Show yourself." He said, intrigued, and a small girl, decked out in netherite stepped out from behind Tubbo. It amazed him how small she was, she had to have been an inch smaller than 5'0. "What's your name?" He asked, and Y/N looked him in the eyes, her eyes held little to no emotions, "Y/N." She said, her voice strong and confident, "How old are you?" He asked, and Y/N just looked down, as if this conversation bored her. "I'm legal, if that's what you were wondering perv." She said, noticing that Schlatt was indeed checking her out.

Schlatt chuckled at her, "Fiesty aren't we?" He said, and Y/N glared at him, her E/C piercing through his skull. "Only with old men like you." She replied, and Schlatt let out a huff of air through his nostrils, almost as if it were meant to be a laugh. "She's welcome to join Manberg." He said, and Tubbo looked down at the girl, "Come on let's go Y/N." He said grabbing her wrist, his other hand still occupied with holding Fundy's. Dragging the two out, quite literally, the other two were stumbling on their feet trying to keep up with the teenager. "Slow down." Fundy pleaded, and Tubbo finally came to a halt when they were out of the building, "Y/N you will need to take your armor off, it's sorta a rule not to wear it in Manberg." He said, and Y/N audibly sighed as she took off her amor. Once her helmet was off her H/C hair finally showed itself, her H/L blowing in the gust of wind.

"You look pretty." Fundy said, now being able to see her without the amor, "Thanks I guess?" Y/N said, not really used to compliments. Her outfit consisted of F/C shirt and jeans. Her combat boots complimented the outfit, "Well we already gave you the tour yesterday, so if you need anything, you know where to find us." Tubbo said, as the two walked to their designated areas. Y/N looked around to try and find something to do, but was interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming up behind her. "Hello Schlatt." Y/N said, turning her head to the side where he now stood. "How'd you know it was me?" He asked, and Y/N just looked away, "You reek of alcohol, I basically smelt you." She said, and Schlatt scoffed and looked at her side profile. Schlatt being way taller than her, made him think of very inappropriate things he could do with her. "I don't appreciate that." Y/N spoke up, and Schlatt gave her a weird look, "I can hear your thoughts. They are very loud and fairly annoying." She told him, and Schlatt just looked away.

"How can you read minds?" He asked, and Y/N looked away, "I don't want to talk about my past." She mumbled, and Schlatt just nodded looking back at her, "So tell me what I am thinking of right now. Prove me wrong, because I don't believe you." He said, and Y/N looked over at him blankly, "What happens if I don't?" She said, wanting to bother him. Schlatt smirked, "You already know." He whispered, and Y/N rolled her eyes. "You're disgusting." She said walking away from him. Schlatt chuckled watching her walk away, before he walked away to go to the meeting he was having with Quackity and George. The entire meeting, his mind was thinking about Y/N in many ways.

It's now been four months since Y/N joined Manberg, and Schlatt has been on her ass at any moment he could. Y/N couldn't deny the feelings she was growing for the overly horny man. She could hear everyone's thoughts, but Schlatt's always overpowered theirs, which annoyed her because he kept her awake during the night with his lewd thoughts. "Fuck you Schlatt." She groaned tossing and turning in her bed, trying to sleep. Currently, Schlatt was having another daydream of him ruthlessly fucking the shit out of Y/N. She mainly couldn't sleep because of how loud his thoughts were, but she also felt this itching sensation that she tried to get rid of by touching herself but she simply couldn't cum. She never could, which was causing her sexual frustration to sky rocket. Letting a frustrated scream out, she threw her pillow at the wall before she got up.

She was now wearing her night shorts, and one of Fundy's shirts that she borrowed, from three months ago. Slinging her door open, she didn't care about the cold air biting at her bare legs and feet as she stomped her way towards Schlatt's house. "You fucking horny fuck." She grumbled on her way there, and Jack, who was awake watched her angrily make her way to Schlatt's house. He silently laughed to himself, as he knew why she was going there. He's caught her doing this many other times, which they bonded over and now the two were super close. "Don't kill him." Jack slightly shouted, and Y/N just flipped him off as she continued her way towards the rather ugly birch wood house. Ripping the door open, not even caring to knock at this point she basically bolted to his room. "Schlatt you motherfucker." She said, slinging the door open, and Schlatt looked over at her.

"What seems to be the problem princess?" He asked, and Y/N glared at him, as his eyes were glued to her thighs. "I will rip those horns right out of your goddamn head." She threatened, and Schlatt laughed getting up, his white t-shirt and black sweat pants, now visible. Walking over to her, he stood in front of her, dangerously close, "Do it." He whispered, and Y/N shoved his chest roughly, which he just stumbled back a bit before going back to his spot. "It's two in the morning princess, and yet here you are. In my room." He whispered, this time his voice huskier which sent a chill down Y/N's spine. "This is your room, what are you going to do about it?" She dared, and Schlatt chuckled darkly, "You already know." He said, as Y/N got deja vu from their first interaction like this.

Y/N bit her bottom lip, as Schlatt roughly grabbed her thighs hoisting her up and throwing her on his bed. Y/N let a giggle rip through her throat, as Schlatt was now hovering over her, his shirt already discarded. "Eager are we?" She teased, and Schlatt growled, "I could drink so much alcohol and be absolutely wasted, but somehow you make me so much more drunk." He said, and Y/N grinned, "Do it." She whispered, as Schlatt thought of just fucking her then and there. Schlatt groaned, and ripped her clothes, literally. "That was Fundy's shirt.." She groaned out, and Schlatt chuckled, "That's why I did that princess." He said, before flipping her over, "Ass up now." He said, giving it a harsh slap as he quickly took off the remaining clothes he had on.

"Mouth open, now." He said, and Y/N opened her mouth as he quickly shoved his fingers down her throat keeping them there as she gagged onto them. Chuckling, he teased her entrance with his tip, before he roughly thrusted into her, making her gurgle from a moan, choking a bit from his fingers. Using his other hand, he pushed her down into the mattress as he thrusted into her with no remorse. Once he saw tears streaming down her face, he pulled his fingers out of her mouth, letting her cough to catch her breath. "God you're so beautiful." He whispered to her, as he sped up his thrusts, not caring if she was now overly sensitive since she had cum on him seconds before pulling his fingers out. Y/N only let out a couple sounds, which were supposed to be words. She was too far gone to form sentences, "Awh, is my cock that good that you can't speak? Did my cock do this to you princess?" He teased, and Y/N barely heard him, making him realize how far gone she was. Wrapping his hand around her throat, he choked her smirking.

This only made him feel even more egotistical, as he did this to her. After a couple rough sloppy thrusts, he let his cum feel her up to the brim. Pulling out, he fell down beside her, catching his breath while Y/N was attempting to come back. Getting up, he walked over to his bathroom dampening a rag before coming back and cleaning her thighs, and wiping the sweat off of her body. Throwing the rag back into the bathroom, he laid beside her, pulling her body to his gently not to hurt her. Jack smirked, as he realized what happened when he saw a stumbling Y/N walking out of the house, wearing a pair of Schlatt's sweats and one of his shirts that reached her knee's basically. "Well I'll be damned, he killed your guts." Jack said, and Y/N picked up a rock chucking it at him, "Fuck you."

[anyoneseenadam]

Hey! I love your writing so much! Would you be open to write something about Azriel with a fae in Velaris who his shadows actively seek out and he has no idea why. I imagine that she works at a large library and that's where they meet because Azriel would go to figure out what was so special about her. Thanks!

pairing: azriel x reader (acotar)

warnings: implied smut, drinking, men being gross at bars (doesn’t go into detail), mainly just fluff and awkwardness though :)))

a/n: I rlly like this one so I hope you do to!! comments are always appreciated, hope you enjoy <3

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 Azriel was standing with Cassian in a small street in Velaris. The ground beneath him was cobbled and all the houses in this area were brightly coloured, the sun seeming to shine brighter over them. They were waiting for Mor as she demanded they help her buy Rhysand a birthday present, desperate to get someone, anyone a good present. She was in a small local shop after Cassian suggested that he would love something from any small business and Cassian let out a groan as he realised she had wandered deeper into the shop. They had already been waiting twenty minutes for her.

“I’m going to drag her out,” Cassian said pushing off the wall and Azriel huffed a breath through his nose.

“Please be quick, don’t let her scare you into staying.” Cassian threw a rude symbol over his shoulder and Azriel grinned reservedly.

He let his gaze travel over more of the houses, his gaze catching on a white house with blue accents, and a blue balcony where a girl sat sipping an orange drink from a large glass and reading a book. He observed her for a while, she was sat curled in a straw chair with a colourful cushion and there was soft music coming from her house, her hair was down and natural and her face was clear of makeup as she soaked in the sun, wearing a males oversized shirt and some knee high socks.

Feeling his stare on her she looked up, grinning cheekily at him when he flushed red and lifting her glass to him in greeting. He was saved from further embarrassment though when Cassian came out, dragging a triumphant Mor who was holding up a purple, silk shirt and bottle of wine. Cassian made a gagging face behind her back as she linked arms with both of them, dragging them down the road and chatting their ears off about the kind old lady from the shop.

As they left Azriel dared a final glance over his shoulder to the girl from the balcony who was still watching him, cocking her head, and waving as he left. As they walked home, choosing to enjoy the sun, he heard nothing of what Mor said, completely focused on the girl from the balcony.

--

When they got home Mor winnowed away to hide her present and Cassian made a comment about Mor’s unique ability to always get horrendous presents. They walked through the door and Feyre instantly looked up from her spot of the sofa, gaze narrowing at Azriel.

“You look different.” She said and Rhys looked up too, frowning when he saw Feyre was right.

“What did you change?” he asked as Amren walked into the room, her head tilting.

“Nothing.” He said defensively as everyone stared at him, not enjoying the way everyone was looking at him now and wishing he could be alone to daydream about the pretty girl he had seen.

“Haircut?” suggested Nesta but he shook his head.

“I haven’t changed anything!” Mor was back now too and had joined in staring, gasping when she realised.

“Where are your shadows?!”

“Ohhhhhhh, that’s it,” Cassian said, sitting down next to his mate as Azriel felt for the shadows that followed him, feeling a rush of white-hot panic shoot through him when he couldn’t feel them.

“Wait what? Where are they then?” Rhys asked and he shook his head, searching for them and frowning when he felt them far away.

“They’re still in Velaris, they must have just stayed somewhere,” he tried to explain.

“Is there another shadow singer in Velaris?” Amren asked and Rhys shook his head.

“Not that we know of,” Azriel felt a flood of relief as his shadows flew back in, almost sheepishly and settled around him, whispering complaints and apologies, as he wondered what had kept them.

--

You had frowned when the handsome, winged male had left, rather enjoying the eye candy. Your friend walked back outside and took her seat opposite you, as you placed down your book and picked up your Apperol Spritz.

“You just missed the hottest male I’ve ever seen.” You said, laughing at her as her face fell completely.

“Why didn’t you shout for me!” she screeched, and you flung an olive pit at her head,

“He would have heard me idiot!”

“Well did you at least get a name?”

“No but I made prolonged eye contact and I think he got the message.”

“The message being?”

“That I would like to marry him and have his babies.”

“Ah makes sense,” you were laughing together as she carried on with the story she had been telling you about the cute Faerie at her work when you felt a cold feeling settle around you, strange given you were still sat in the sun. She stopped talking, giving you a weird look.

“How are you doing that?” she asked as you shrugged.

“I’m not,” the feeling moved, and you realised you were surrounded by shadows, alike the handsome man you had just seen. Your initial anxiety slipped away as they started playing with your hair and caressing your skin alike a lover would. “Hot boy had shadows like this,” you commented, and your friend gasped, eyes wide and a hand over her heart as she sighed.

“Maybe you’re mates!” you rolled your eyes, relaxing into the shadows touch.

“I don’t think my commitment issues can take that,” you joked, and it was her turn to roll her eyes.

“That cynicism is going to be the death of you,” she said in a singsong voice before downing her gin, “Now onto important matters, Rita’s or The Marine?”

--

Two hours later you were completely dolled up, lips red and eyeliner smudged, heeled boots elongating your legs and your all-black outfit making you look intimidating enough that you wouldn’t be bothered by gross men.

“We’re fae, why do you dress like a vampire,” your friend asked, the two of you already slightly buzzed from pre’s.

“Cause vampires are hot and I’m hot so it’s a match made in heaven.”

“Also she has a blood kink!” your roommate shouted from the bathroom and you threw a shoe at her.

“Bitch.” You said, laughing as she came out and the three of you stood to leave.

“Am I wrong?” she asked, and you shoved her, muttering a small no under your breath.

The three of you made your way to Rita’s and got in the queue. You leaned against the cold, brick wall when you saw him again, similarly dressed in all black and somehow looking even better under the light of the moon, his tanned skin glowing in the pale light. He caught your eyes, his face barely changing as he lifted his hand in a half wave, you nodded your head up with a smirk. Your friends followed your gaze, both gasping slightly as they caught sight of him at the end of the queue with his friends.

“Is that hot boy?!”

“Uh huh,” you smiled cheekily at her, “And I call dibs.”

“I get why you want to have his babies,”

“Wait you know him?” your roommate asked, and you shrugged with a smile. “How the fuck do you know the high lords shadow singer?”

“I get around,”

“He was outside earlier today,” your friend translated as the three of you moved into the club, instantly heading to the bar for more drinks.

“That too I guess, shots?” the three of you ordered six vodka shots and you laughed at your friends’ reactions to them.

“How do you enjoy this,” your roommate squealed as you tipped your head back, smiling at the familiar burn.

“Feels good,” you said, taking your second.

“Sadist.”

--

Azriel couldn’t believe his eyes. There you were again, your bare face swapped for dark makeup, and loose clothes swapped for a dress he desperately wanted to see on his floor. At first he wasn’t even sure it was the same girl, your style so different, but it was. And he had waved. No cool head tilt like the one you gave him, no sultry eyes, and pouting lips, just a stupid wave. And then you had laughed with your friends and he decided he needed the sound bottled, something to keep with him at all times.

You had walked inside without so much as a second glance and Azriel had to refrain himself from slamming his head against the wall.

“Who were you waving at?” Amren asked, the small women appearing next to him.

“Just someone I met earlier.” He didn’t want to get into the details, especially not around Cassian who would tease him relentlessly if he heard. Amren, thankfully, dropped it as they moved into Rita’s, his eyes instantly finding you at the bar, two empty shot glasses next to you as you laughed with your friends.

He moved with his family to a table that pretty remained reserved for them as Rita came to get them some drinks and see if they wanted food. He only half listened, ordering a Scotch as he watched you as you and your friends moved to dance together, completely enamoured by you despite not having said anything to you.

Eventually he pulled his eyes away and focused on his friends and his drink as they laughed into the small hours of the night. He kept stealing glances at you, his grip on his glass tightening when he saw you leaning against the bar waiting for drinks as a male leaned too close to you. He almost stood to intervene when saw you lean in close to the man, meeting Azriel’s eyes over his shoulder and whispering in his ear. Azriel wished he could hear what you said but you were too far away, and the music was too loud, but whatever it was, the male turned white and scampered away, almost tripping over his feet as you giggled.

When it happened this time he noticed, feeling the coolness of his shadows leave and he watched as they travelled over to you, wrapping around you, and making you look like an angel of death. You turned and caught his eyes, winking at him before grabbing the tray of drinks the bartender had laid out for you and sauntering over to your friends.

“Is she a shadow singer?” Feyre asked, following his gaze and he shook his head, feeling a smile come over his face as he watched you interact with your drunk friends.

“No I think they just like her,” his high lady smiled at him,

“You mean you like her,”

“I haven’t even spoken to her.” He said drily and Nesta leaned over,

“Love at first sight,” she said in a singsong voice making him roll his eyes.

“This isn’t a romance book,” he said, huffing as a crowd moved in front of you and he couldn’t see you anymore.

“You tell yourself that,” Feyre said, patting his knee.

An hour later, when most the club was empty, you were standing, swaying slightly with your friend leaning on you.

“No baby, no more you’ll throw up again,” he heard you coo as she reached for a drink that was left on someone table. She huffed but you passed her into the arms of your other friend, and he sat up straight when he realised you were coming over to him.

You bowed your head slightly at Rhys and Feyre as all his friends turned to stare at you, your gaze unfaltering and your back straight as you looked at him.

“I think these belong to you,” you said, gesturing to the shadows swirling around your arms.

He tried to fight his blush, pulling them back in, “Yeah, thanks..?” he trailed off and you finished for him.

“(y/n).”

“Azriel.”

“Well Azriel,” his name sounded divine on your tongue, and you shot him another half-smile, “see you around.”

--

The next day, he was up only three hours after he fell asleep, desperate to find you. He wandered into town, usual leathers swapped for a white shirt collar peeking out of a dark sweater, his hands tucked into his pockets as he found himself wandering down your cobblestoned street. He looked up to your balcony and considered throwing rocks at the glass doors like in one of Nesta’s romance novels but paused when he saw all the lights were turned off.

Instead he chose to wander into the shop Mor had been in the previous day. The room smelt old, and he could see the dust moving in the morning light as he walked in. An old lady was behind the counter and she smiled as she recognised him.

“Hello, how can I help you?” she asked as he came to stand in front of her.

“I actually had a question,” she motioned for him to continue, “Do you know where I could find (y/n)?” he asked, and she smiled a knowing smile.

“Interested in my granddaughter are you?” she asked, eyes sparkling and Azriel rubbed the back of his neck, smiling nervously, “She works at the library in the square, I’m sure you’ll find her there.”

He thanked her and she waved him away, knowing she would get to hear all the details next Wednesday when the two of you met for tea. But until then she was happy to watch the handsome man leave to find you.

He flew to the library that your grandmother had mentioned and walked in. This was always one of his favourite places to come in the city. The bookshelves were tall and overflowing, candles covered the room, and there were huge glass windows on the far wall that cast the room in planes of light. He walked around for a while, letting his shadows lead him until he found you with a pile of books in your arms that you were going to return.

You smiled when you saw him, dressed in a black dress with lots of daisies on it that went halfway down your calf, a black cardigan, and black boots. Your hair was held back in a low bun, but you had strands falling out making you look impossibly cute, and he almost said as much as he moved to take some books from your arms.

“So are you stalking me now?” you had asked cheekily, and he stammered when he realised just how weird he looked.

“No, no I…”

“Relax I’m teasing, I’m glad you’re here actually.”

“You are?” he asked, relaxing slightly as you stood on your tiptoes to put a book on a shelf.

“Yes, you’re very pretty,” he laughed, and you smiled at him, your eyes creasing.

“Well so are you,” he replied as you turned to face him, “But you do keep stealing my shadows and I’m wondering why that is?”

“I’m stealing them am I? I just presumed that you were very mean to them and they wanted someone else,”

“They’re spoiled,” he joked, watching as they trailed up your arms and you giggled,

“You speak about them like they’re pets.”

“You’d be surprised how accurate that actually is,” he muttered as you moved to the next aisle and your laughter bounced of the walls, wincing slightly due to your drinking induced headache.

He went to help you with more books when his fingers touched your hand and the word hit him, mate. You looked up at him shocked before giggling.

“I guess that’s what the shadows meant,” you let out an ‘oomph’ as suddenly the shadows shot forward, pushing you into his chest and Azriel looked at you.

“I have a mate.” He repeated to himself.

“And I have commitment issues so this might be rough,”

“It’s fine I have attachment issues,” he replied, unable to stop the smile forming on his face, “Match made in heaven.”

“More like hell,” you joked as he leaned down to you.

“Can I kiss you?” he practically whispered, lips almost touching yours as his wings circled the two of you. You nodded slightly and the two of you stumbled back from the force of the kiss, his hands gripping your waist tightly as yours wove into his hair, grinning against his mouth.

“Azriel,” you muttered between kisses, pulling back slightly only to just be pulled right back in. You repeated his name again, successfully pulling away this time as his lips attached to your neck.

“Az, we’re in a public library.”

“So?”

“So we can continue this when I’m off work,” you shoved him off with a laugh as he grumbled, before pulling you in for a final kiss.

“What time?” he asked.

“My shift ends at three,” you smiled as he looked at the clock.

“It’s only eight,”

“Maybe wait at your house,” you laughed at his expression, pressing a chaste kiss to his mouth before walking off, shooting him a smirk over you shoulder.

Only six hours, fifty-nine minutes left.

[mviswidow]

falling

Wanda Maximoff x Reader

Word count: 1.5k

Warnings: cursing, alcohol

Prompt: i was wondering if i could request an imagine?? it’s kind of based off of harry styles’ song ‘falling’ whereas the reader accidentally admits she’s in love with wanda and wanda, having gone through so much heartbreak, pushes the reader away as she’s too scared to get involved with someone again, as all she’s known is loss. so, the two separate a bit until thor talks to her about it because he, too, has shared a lot of heartbreaking moments and shit and it’s not until she’s drunk (lyric: “I’m in my bed, and you’re not here 
And there’s no one to blame
 But the drink in my wandering hands.”) she realizes the mistake she’s made and goes to find the reader to tell them she’s in love with her too :(  IT’S SOME REAL ANGSTY SHIT BUT I FEEL LIKE IT COULD BE SO GOOD. LMAOO. <3 - @cierrascorpse​

Summary: R confesses her love for Wanda. Despite loving her back, Wanda pushes her away, but is convinced to go to R after the two of them have avoided each other for far too long.

A/N: this is my first songfic!! it’s ‘Falling’ by Harry Styles, in case you want to listen to it.

“You’re back!” You ran over to Wanda and hugged her, heart fluttering when she hugged you back tightly.

When you pulled away, she had a bright smile on her face even though she still looked sleepy. 

“Good morning, Y/n,” She chuckled, opening the fridge to get milk for her cereal.

You smiled and grabbed some fruit before sitting on the kitchen barstool and spinning around once or twice, “How did your mission go?”

“Eh,” Wanda shrugged with one shoulder and stuck her spoon in the bowl, nudging her cereal around.

“What happened?” You frowned.

“Nothing, I just made a mistake. Steve’s kind of mad at me,” Wanda sighed, looking up and seeing you with your eyebrow raised. She rolled her eyes, “I wasn’t paying attention and I almost got shot, I got lucky that Steve was watching.”

“Oh my god, Wanda, you have to be more careful.”

“I know, it was just an accident-”

“We don’t have room for accidents. You know better than to make careless mistakes,” You interrupted, shaking your head.

Her brow furrowed, it was weird that you were getting so worked up like this, “Yeah, I do know, and I obviously didn’t almost get shot on purpose, so if you’re going to be like this then I’d prefer you just back off.”

You scoffed as your eyebrows shot up, “Why are you being so defensive about this?”

Her voice raised, “I just don’t get why you care so much-”

“Because I love you!” 

Wanda’s jaw snapped closed and she noticeably swallowed before nodding, “I’m going to have breakfast in my room.”

“Wanda-”

“I don’t think us being friends is a great idea, Y/n,” She spoke softly, trying to keep eye contact for as long as she could.

Tears welled in your eyes and you pushed off the bar stool before making your way out of the kitchen, “Fuck you, too, then.”

---

From then on, the two of you didn’t talk unless absolutely necessary, which basically just meant missions and the occasional odd day where you had to talk to each other for something regarding the team.

It hurt. Really bad. Even looking in her general direction made you want to cry. The team wasn’t oblivious to the fact that there was something going on, they figured it out pretty quickly and it didn’t take long for them all to have found out what had happened.

You ended up spending a lot of time with Natasha. You were already close with her before Wanda rejected you, but you became best friends after the fact. 

Having to sit through meetings while sitting across from Wanda was excruciating. You willed yourself to get over her but she was constantly occupying your mind and you saw her every day, so that was pretty hard. 

Wanda also felt horribly about the situation. She’d never dated anyone before, and she loved you a whole lot, but she knew the last thing you needed was someone like her to come into your life in such a big way and leave mess in her wake.

Her heart raced when you took more than a few seconds to respond to comms and she always found herself looking around for you while out on the field, just to make sure you were okay.

Two months after Wanda had rejected you, the team was pretty fed up with the two of you. They obviously cared about your feelings but you were both way too distracted on mission and careless mistakes were happening more frequently.

That was when Steve gave Thor his own mini-mission of talking to Wanda.

He knocked twice on her door, which had her looking up from her book and opening the door with a swift movement of her fingers, “Thor,” Wanda smiled softly. “What’s up?”

“I wanted to talk to you, about Y/n,” He said as he closed the door, his usually loud voice now quiet and calm.

Wanda’s heart clenched and she bit the inside of her cheek, “Is she okay?”

“Oh,” Thor was now realizing that he might have made it seem like you were hurt. “Yes, she is- well, physically- I mean, it’s complicated.”

Wanda quirked an eyebrow up. The usual eloquent God of Thunder now stumbling over his words like anyone else, “This is about what happened between the two of us, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” He nodded and looked towards the edge of her bed. “May I sit?”

“Be my guest,” She nodded.

“Steve and I were talking about you guys, honestly, the whole team talks about you. It’s been hard to watch you guys like this, but we see the way you still care for each other. I know that you’ve been through a lot, Wanda. Losing family is harder than words could ever begin to describe, I understand that, but that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve happiness and that you can’t love the people you want to love. I see the way you look at her, we all do,” And eloquent Thor was back, apparently. “I just don’t believe you should let this pass you by. She’s a really special girl and she loves you a lot. I think you love her a lot, too, and I think you need each other. That’s all I wanted to say, I guess. I just hope you think about this more- maybe even talk to her when you’re ready, if you are.”

Wanda blinked away the tears in her eyes and nodded, “Thank you, I appreciate it.”

Thor left without saying anything else, and when the door closed behind him, Wanda pulled her pillow to cover her face and groaned. She laid there for a minute before getting up and walking to the kitchen in search of some kind of alcohol. 

An hour and a half later, she was laying on her bed in pajama shorts and a red hoodie that you’d given her for her birthday sulking.

She had half a mind to cry, but she didn’t really like drunk crying, and she was far enough into the bottle of vodka for her judgement to be impaired, but not enough to not acknowledge that drunk crying was the worst kind of crying. 

After months of being without you, she longed to be near you, to have fun sleepovers again, to sneak away from Tony’s parties to go up to the roof or to watch a movie, she wanted you to braid her hair and cuddle her at night and kiss her-

Before Wanda knew what she was doing, she set the vodka bottle on her nightstand and made her way to your room. She stood outside for a few seconds before knocking quickly so she couldn’t talk herself out of whatever she was about to do.

She could hear you laugh from inside your room, “Nat, did you leave something? You were here like- oh.”

Your smile fell when you opened the door and saw Wanda standing at the other side of it, “Do you need something?”

“I’m so sorry,” Wanda said, her voice breathy, her face flushed, that stupid hoodie that made her look adorable, and her hair tied back into a lose ponytail that was so messed up that it could probably barely even be called a ponytail anymore. But you could tell she was drunk.

You had to stop yourself from scoffing, “Well, you’re two months too late, Wanda.”

“I love you.”

“Don’t do this now,” You shook your head, tears now brimming your eyes. You didn’t want to put up with this when tomorrow things would be back to how they had been.

“Y/n/n, I’m serious. I love you so much,” And tears of her own threatened to spill. “I feel so guilty, as I should, but I just- I was really scared, and I thought that I was going to fuck things up for you, and that’s the last thing I wanted to do. I love you. I’ll say it a million times if that’s what it takes to convince you. I want us to happen.”

You sniffled and wiped away a tear that was starting to run down your face. All of a sudden Wanda was starting to sound really sober. “You promise?” Your voice broke, and you bit your lip, willing yourself to not make any noise.

“I swear to you that I love you,” Wanda smiled softly, bringing her hand up to cup your cheek, wiping away another tear that fell.

You leaned into her touch and closed your eyes for a moment before opening them and being graced by a soft smile on Wanda’s features.

“I would love to kiss you now but I want it to be good and not when I’m kinda drunk, so can I just sleep in your room tonight instead?” She asked hopefully, longing to hold you.

“Please,” You nodded and stepped forward, hugging her for the first time in two months. “I missed you so much.”

[superhero--imagines]

Part 1 Here! / Part 2 Here! / Part 3 Here! / Part 4 Here! / Part 5 Here! / Part 6 Here! / Part 7 Here! / Part 8 Here! / Part 9 Here! / Part 10 Here! / Part 11 Here! / Part 12 Here! / Part 13 Here! / Part 14 Here! / Part 15 Here!

Donate to Higher Ground HERE!

Song for this Chapter - (X) 

A/N: Posted a day early because a few people asked me to, I think y’all are going to like this chapter :)

* “So what’s your pick (Y/N/N)?”

* You turn to your right, seeing Tyler’s grinning face.

* “Pick for what?” You take another modest sip from your glass.

* Conner’s throwing a party at his house since his parents will be gone all weekend.

* Half the school must be here, his house is almost as big as the Cullen’s

* Tyler exchanges a look with Conner and Mike and grins.

* The three of you and Angela are sitting in his Dad’s study, drinking his finest brandy

* You’ve just been taking very small polite sips to throw off any suspicions

* The upside to being a vampire: you can’t taste anything other than blood so the alcohol just tastes like water

* The downside: you stay drunk until you force yourself to throw it up

* “F*ck, Marry, Kill: me, Conner, and Mike.”

* You wrinkle your nose and Angela laughs

* “Gross questions like that are why I don’t sit with you guys at lunch anymore.” The others laugh and you take a sip of you drink as Tyler grins

* “It’s a game, everyone’s gone except you”

* Have they? You’ve been pretty tuned out, Jessica and Bella left to go to the bathroom like 20 minutes ago.

* To add, you haven’t seen either Edward, Emmett, or Rosalie since you all came together in the jeep.

* Things are still...different between you and Edward

* He’s not outwardly hostile towards you or anything but...

* He doesn’t smile at you anymore

* Not like he used to, with that carefree boyish grin

* Just thinking about it gets you down

* You were fairly surprised when he said he would come with you, Rosalie and Emmett to Conner’s party.

* You were less surprised when he basically abandoned you as soon as you got into the house

* You’ve been trying to see if you can hear any of your friends in the house but you haven’t been able to distinguish any voices yet

* You sigh, holding your drink out to Mike

* “Marry,” the bright grin on his face almost makes you feel bad.

* “Kill, kill” your drink sways as you point to Tyler and Conner.

* Another roar of laughter

* “Hey that’s not fair, you can’t kill both of us!” Tyler protests, you roll your eyes moving to stand

* “Fine F*ck Conner, kill Tyler. Angela you wanna come with I’m going to the bathroom”

* You want to go see what’s holding Jessica and Bella up, but you don’t want to leave Angela alone with three boys.

* Mike’s here, and nothing would probably happen, Conner and Tyler are flirts but you like to think they wouldn’t do anything like that.

* Still you don’t want to risk it.

* She nods, gulping down the rest of her drink. Following you out.

* “Did you hear that?! They said they would f*ck me!” You hear Conner shout triumphantly after you’ve closed the door

* “Yeah but they said that they would kill you first, doesn’t count” Mike says, you hear the clink of ice as you assume he pours another drink

* “Oh getting arrogant just because they said they would marry you huh?”

* “Bet he wishes it was Bella who said she would marry him.”

* You roll your eyes holding out your hand to Angela

* “So we don’t get lost.” She smiles as she takes it. You have to practically slither through the crowd

* Conner’s house is needlessly complicated. Hallways that don’t lead anywhere and so many closets.

* The O’Malleys really should have hired Esme to design their house

* “Ah, there they are!” You see Jessica and Bella leaning against the railing of the second floor. It looks like they’re talking to someone-

* Oh it’s Edward

* Jessica notices you and works her way over to you

* But your eyes are glued to Edward and Bella, they haven’t even noticed you yet. Or that Jessica left them.

* Bella’s eyes are twinkling as she looks up at him, her cheeks are tinged pink, and Edward-

* He’s got a sparkle in his eye, his mouth quirked in that boyish lopsided grin.

* So that smile is really just for her now

* They really do look good together

* “Hey what’s wrong?” You didn’t even notice Jessica was standing in front of you.

* Are you crying right now? No of course not, you can’t cry.

* “Nothing! We were looking for you and Lauren. Mike and Tyler are playing this game that I think you two would be very into” you give her a sly wink and she blushes

* “I thought we came to go to the bathroom.” Oh sh*t you did use that as your excuse.

* “Well I didn’t wanna be obvious yknow?” You say to Angela, catching another glimpse of Bella and Edward behind her, looks like she’s laughing at something he said. “Do you need to go to the bathroom?”

* You turn your attention back to Angela who’s nodding.

* “Jessica why don’t you show her where it is, you just went right?” Jessica’s eyebrows thread together

* “Yeah I did but-“ she doesn’t want to leave you alone. Before you can reassure her you’ll be fine you feel someone throw their arms around you

* For a second your heart skips a beat.

* Edward?

* “Oh my god babes you look so cute, we have to take a picture together!”

* Oh it’s just Lauren

* Wait why are you disappointed? This is perfect.

* “Of course I was just looking for you!” You nod to Jessica and Angela. “We’ll meet you both back at Conner’s dad’s home office.”

* Jessica gives you a reluctant look but nods, leading Angela into the crowd.

* You take one last glance at Edward and Bella, from here he almost looks human.

* This is the way things are supposed to be.

* “Hey Lauren, wanna do some shots?”

* Lauren has her faults, but she’s always down for anything you might suggest. It’s kind of weird, but she reminds you a little of Alec.

* So you’re a little impressed when she finds a several bottles of vodka hidden in a various books.

* “Conner’s mom has a drinking problem, shhhhh don’t tell anyone”

* Yeah you kinda figured

* “We brought vodka!!” She shouts when she enters the study earning cheers from the rest of the boys.

* Looks like Jessica and Angela aren’t back yet.

* Lauren stole your spot on the armchair so she could flirt with Tyler. You sigh sitting carefully on top of the desk.

* “You leave with one girl and come back with another, how do you do it?” Conner’s got a devilish grin as he leans in to ask you.

* You drink straight from the bottle.

* You’re going to play a drinking game, anytime any of these boys try’s to flirt with you you take a drink.

* “I’m really hot.” You say bluntly

* Conner and Mike laugh

* “Yeah-I mean, yeah you definitely are.” Mike stutters

* If you were human you would probably be nervous by this situation, you’re basically sitting on the desk between Mike and Conner. Mike is on the end of the sofa, and Conner is sitting next to you in the office chair.

* But now that you’re a vampire, you could kill both of these boys with a simple flick of your wrist

* “So what’s going on between you and Cullen really?” Mike asks and you remember the look on Edward’s face when he was talking to Bella.

* “Nothing, we’re just friends” even less than that at this point. You’re just someone who lives in his house

* you’re worried they’re going to press further on the issue and all the emotions you’ve kept sealed away will come out overflowing.

* But they don’t, maybe Conner senses somethings happened because instead he says:

* “So you would f*ck me huh?” You laugh

* “Oh my god are you still stuck on that?”

* “And you said you would marry me?” Mike is grinning so wide he’s actually grinning.

* “You guys are ridiculous.” You’re laughing so hard you cover your mouth.

* “Alright, out of the entire friend group, f*ck, marry, kill, who are your picks?” Conner leans a bit closer, you wonder if he’s been eating healthier lately, he doesn’t smell nearly as bad as he used to.

* It’s still pretty bad, but now there’s a sweeter herbal undertone

* “Hmmm you guys go first I have to think” you lightly shove Conner by the shoulder and he actually rolls back a bit.

* “Alright hmmm-“ he rubs his chin in mock thought “well marry you of course-“

* “Of course” you nod taking another swig of Vodka

* “F*ck Mike”

* “What?” Mike is genuinely flustered and you grin

* “It’s that golden retriever vibe he gives off right?” You say and Conner nods

* “Exactly! Also he looks like a good cuddler.”

* “Definitely a little spoon”

* “Definitely”

* Mike looks like he’s going to combust from the attention from how red his face is.

* “Kill.... I guess kill Edward, the less competition the better” Conner gives you a meaningful look

* Well you don’t know how to feel about that so you just take another swig of Vodka. The more you drink the easier it’ll come out later right?

* “Your turn Mike.”

* “Marry Bella-“

* “Of course” you and Conner say in unison, clinking your bottle to his glass after you do.

* “Fuck you, kill Edward”

* “Damn no love for Edward at all huh?” You say with a gasp of surprise.

* You’re a little annoyed he didn’t pick Jessica.

* You like Bella and all, and her shy bookworm thing is kinda cute, but Jessica is clearly the superior choice.

* “Don’t deflect now that it’s your turn.” Conner lightly bumps your knee against yours

* Wait when did he move from the chair and sit beside you on the desk?

* You roll your eyes and take another swig of vodka

* “Marry Jessica,” they both sputter at that, Conner actually spits out his drink mid gulp.

* Ew Gross.

* “Fuck Conner, Kill Mike.”

* Conner does a fist pump and Mike looks genuinely hurt.

* “I’m sorry Mike but it’s either marriage or kill, there’s no in between.”

* Mike pouts, before sitting up straighter

* “I bet I’m a better kisser than Conner.”

* You take a long drink of Vodka

* “No way dude, you and I both used to date Lauren and I don’t think she would have dated me again after you if you were a better kisser”

* “That was in middle school! I had braces back then!”

* “Yeah, that’s why you’re so bad at kissing.” Conner says matter of factly taking a sip of his Dad’s brandy straight from the decanter

* “No, I had to lea-“

* “Oh my god would you both shut up?” You shout and let out a huff of annoyance before reaching out and grabbing Mike by the collar of his shirt, tugging him forward

* Your lips meet his briefly, your eyes are closed, and his are open. He adjust to the situation quickly, cupping your cheek and tilting his head slightly

* Not bad

* You break away, turning to Conner, he’s a bit more ready than Mike. He cups your face with both hands, mouth parting slightly as one of his hands slides into your hair.

* You break away sweetly, with one last peck.

* “Conner’s better” you say the bottle of vodka already on your lips. Conner’s laughing while Mike protests.

* “What-no, I wasn’t ready, I want another chance!” You roll your eyes as he looks at you expectantly

* “Fin-“ he breaks you off with his lips, this time is better than the last. He’s standing, and the angle adds to the technique, his hand is on the back your neck, tilting your chin up with the other

* Oh wow.

* You’re a little dazzled when you break apart. Jessica is one lucky girl.

* “Wait if he gets another chance I want one too.” Conner protests, you just nod dumbly.

* That was a really good kiss. You feel all warm and fuzzy.

* Before you can think Conner wraps an arm around your waist tugging you close, he dips you back before kissing you. You open your mouth from the surprise and he takes the opportunity to sweep his tongue in.

* You’re seeing stars, and then abruptly you’re yanked by the shoulder.

* Oh does Mike want another turn?

* Without even opening your eyes you kiss the person who pulled on your shoulder.

* These lips feel different then Mike’s, almost-sticky? Or is it slippery? They smell different too like boiled broccoli-

* Oh shit

* You hesitantly open your eyes, only to see a very shocked Jessica

* “Oh my god” you pull back quickly, cupping your hand over your mouth so you don’t kiss anyone else by accident “I’m so sorry Jess- I didn’t-“

* Before you can finish someone tugs your arm, you vaguely understand what’s happening, one of your arms grasped by a very strong hand and your other carrying a bottle of vodka.

* It’s Edward, you recognize the blue collared shirt he’s wearing, you bought him that shirt last year for his birthday.

* “E-Edward? Wait where-“ you turn to the side to see Jessica who’s standing very still, your eyes briefly meet Bella’s and they flash with-hurt?

* What did you kiss her too when you weren’t paying attention?

* “H-hey Edward that hurts!” If he heard you he doesn’t seem to care, dragging you through the party and through the cluster of people all along the front yard

* You’re vaguely aware of the stares your way. You both must look pretty weird, or at least like a couple of kids dying to f*ck

* All you can see when you look straight forward is Edward’s back. His broad shoulders and the slender curve of his back.

* For some reason, the safest place you can imagine is the middle of Edward’s back. You bet it’s so warm and safe to be nestled there.

* You bet it’s the place Bella feels the most safe in

* A prickle of irritation burns in you. And in your impatience when Edward starts to slow you wrap your arms around his waist-

* “(Y/N), what are you-“ He grumbles, but you don’t pay it any mind, you nestle your head in his back, right below the spot between his shoulder blades. Breathing his scent in deeply.

* Edward always smells so good, like Argon oil and Rosemary

* You feel him sigh, his hand resting over yours that are intertwined on his stomach

* You stay like that for a moment, you’re not sure how long, it might have been hours

* But it feels too soon when Edward pulls away from you.

* The whine of protest that’s building in the back of your throat dies when you see his face

* “Hey, what’s wrong, why are you upset?” A hand lifts to cradle Edward’s face. His mouth is pinched into a frown and his eyes... they look so sad

* Your compassion only seems to irritate him further because he shakes your hand off of his face

* You’re a little hurt, and very confused

* “What were you doing in there?” You can tell from the way his voice trembles he’s barely contains his anger

* “We were playing a game” you say in a small voice. Edward gives out a bitter laugh

* “And what game was that, spin the bottle?”

* “Who’s the better kisser actually” you mumble, looking down at your shoes feeling a little embarrassed

* “You can’t even imagine the vile thoughts they were-“ he cuts himself off, averting his gaze from you

* You feel like a bucket of cold water got dumped on you

* They’re your friends. You were just having a good time. It was all just harmless fun wasn’t it?

* oh god you kissed Jessica! Jessica your best friend.

* How are supposed to face her now

* “Have you been drinking?” He asks, tugging the bottle hanging limply from between your fingers.

* It’s almost empty, less than a quarter left.

* “H-hey I didn’t drink all of that, Lauren drank quite a bit too, and I’m pretty sure it was already half empty when we got it.” Edward raises an eyebrow and you avert your eyes. You’ve going through too much to handle facing him head on.

* “(Y/N), what’s going on, this isn’t like you” He let’s out a long sigh.

* Why did you drink so much?

* Maybe if he wasn’t so wrapped up in that human he would realize-

* Realize what? Where was that sentence going?

* You remember seeing Edward and Bella talk, the smile he gave her-

* No you can’t think about that right now

* “Nothing’s going on,” he looks at you skeptically and you look back to the ground “I just-I just want you to be happy Eddie.”

* He scoffs

* “You have a funny way of showing it.” He’s about to move back but your hand reaches out to stop him, resting on his forearm

* “No I really want you to be happy Edward, and I see the way you look at her-“

* “What?”

* “And I want you to know that it’s okay!” Your eyes stay fixed on his chest, the pocket of his shirt. “I know everyone around us, including Carlisle, have been hoping we would end up together, but don’t worry about that. You can say it was me if you need to, and-“

* He stops you by placing both of his hand on your face, your eyes meeting his.

* “What are you talking about?”

* This time you’re the one that scoffs

* “Bella of course,” he lets out some noise of disbelief, a mix of a scoff and a snicker

* “Bella? You think I love Bella?” He’s laughing at you! The criminal is laughing at you!

* “Im not stupid Edward!”

* “When have I ever said I have feelings for Bella?”

* “You don’t have to! I see the way you look at her! Like just now-when you were up by the stairwell, you looked at her like she was the only person in the room.”

* He doesn’t scoff now and he averts his eyes. You feel your heart sink a little.

* It’s okay, this is for the best.

* Bella’s going to give him everything he wants.

* Even a baby.

* You can’t give him that.

* “Oh my god Bella! She probably has the totally wrong idea! We have to go back, we have to-“ you’re already moving when you feel Edward grasp your arm, holding you back.

* Your eyebrows thread together in confusion

* “Edward what are you doing? We have to-“

* “I don’t love Bella” he interrupts.

* You’re confused, and then you’re angry.

* Is he lying to you? Straight to your face after you’ve already told him you know everything? Why even bother? What is he trying to save his pride or something, because you’re 100% sure that Bella’s feeling it just as much as he is

* “You don’t need to lie to me Edward-“

* “I’m not lying!” He tugs you closer, the bottle of vodka falling to the ground with a clang.

* You’re caged in his arms, each of his hands is holding your by the elbow. His gold eyes look straight into yours

* “There’s only one person I’ve ever loved,” a gentle smile curls onto his mouth. “They’re impossibly stubborn, when they get an idea in their mind. And they have no sense of self preservation whatsoever.”

* This sounds like Bella. Is this a trick or something?

* His eyes get warm as he looks down at you, his lips twitching as his smile widens

* “But they’re also very compassionate, they’re someone with endless amounts of hope, and everything around them is so-different- so fun! They make me feel....”

* he’s been inching closer this entire time, your chest is practically pressed against his.

* “Human” he finishes with a grin

* His forehead presses against yours and you feel butterflies erupt in your stomach.

* “I’m in love with you, (Y/N), it’s always been you.”

* Before you have time to process the bombshell Edward just dropped on you, Edward moves an inch closer and places his lips over your own.

* Your eyes are open at first, mostly from shock, but they drift close when Edward’s hand trails down the edge of you face, resting on your cheek.

* His kiss is so different from Mike and Conner’s kisses.

* Their kiss had been passionate, almost possessive.

* But Edward’s kiss- his kiss makes you feel safe.

* His hand rests on the small of your back, the other lightly touches the side of your face.

* It’s firm, but you know if you didn’t like his touch, if you wanted it to stop, you could end it anytime.

* He’s leaving you an escape

* He’s still your Edward, Your kind, considerate Edward.

* If you were human tears would prickle the corner of your eyes.

* Instead you stand on your toes, wrapping your arms around his neck to bring him in even closer.

* You’re seeing stars when he finally pulls away, and in your daze you actually follow him, stealing one last peck.

* You stand tall, looking straight into his eyes, he’s got the biggest goofiest grin you’ve ever seen

* Even goofier than the one he had when you said you would move with him to Forks.

* “Um, so how was I compared to Mike and Connor?”

* You roll your eyes, he’s still trying to lighten the mood with dumb jokes

* You doubt he needs you to answer. He knows you loved it. He’s so happy he’s glowing. You feel almost feel dizzy looking at him.

* And there’s a million things you want to say to him, but you don’t say any of them.

* Instead you lean over and puke all over his shoes.

* “That bad huh?”

BONUS:

* “Was it just me, or were they like really cold?” Mike asks, his lips still feel a little numb

* “Yeah, but I kind of liked it, it’s like ice play.” Conner grins, and then spares a glance to his friend “How you doing over there Jess thinking of coming down anytime soon?”

* Jessica’s got the widest goofiest grin on her face, her fingers trailing her lips every so often.

* Bella sits beside her with her mouth pinched into a frown

* “It’s always the blonde’s that have all the fun” She mumbles

Tags:  @moonlights27​ @thebluetint​ @the100thtwilight​ @awesomebooklover17​ @oneofthepotterheads​ @smileygirl08​ @imdoingathingmom​ @iconicgguk​ @yrawn​ @alyciaswhore​ @little-horror-show​ @wicked-watering-can​ @lazydreamers​ @ xxxmuxxx @ideas-for-you-to-adopt​​​ @poisoinedhope @maryleigh8796​​ @moose-squirrel-asstiel​​ @hotmessgoodness​ @jaimewho​ @corabmarie​ @what-am-i-doing10​ @alluring-venus​ @imdoingathingmom​

[justreadingfics]

It’s a Deal (Chapter 7)

Chapter Summary: How you and Bucky feel about the presence of your ex-boyfriend.  

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Words: 4.3k

Warnings:+18 only, mention to smut, overdrinking, embarrassing behavior due alcohol consumption, Natasha knows stuff, ex-boyfriend, minor jealousy, minor angst, floof, Bucky has a somewhat creep confession, but give him a break, he’s never been in love.

A/N: Another smutless one, I hope you don’t mind. Thank you to my sweet Les for having my back. The link to my masterlist, where you can find the other chapters, is on my description. Feedback is highly appreciated.

Tag list for this story is closed.  

Previously:

Your shoulder brushes against him as you walk past Bucky and he turns his body around, following you with his gaze. He takes a long sip of his drink and places a hand inside his pocket, watching as you approach your ex-boyfriend.  

He tries hard to bury deep down inside him the tug on his chest.

“Oh, fuck…”

Natasha’s curse makes him turn to her and he realizes she’s been watching him, with a dumbfounded expression he’s not used to see on her face.

“What?”

She scoffs and shakes her head, seeming in an estate of disbelief, “This whole time I’d been worried with the wrong person.”

No point. Bucky sees absolutely no point in trying to make it like there isn’t  turmoil twisting inside of him. Not for Natasha, anyway, it would be to no avail. Also, he’s pretty sure there’s a kicked puppy look on his face to make it harder for him to put on any kind of façade.

“Fuck,” he sighs and run his hand harshly over his face, “What the hell is this, Natasha?” He whines, failing at trying to not sound as helpless as he does.

“You tell me, buddy.” She points at him with her glass of vodka, tilting her head with interest.

“Shit,” he exhales, looking down, before his face snaps up at her, “I’m … just weird, I’m not myself these days.” Bucky bites his lower lip as if trying to somehow refrain from spilling the words, but he just can’t, he’s dying to let it all out. He steps closer to her and lowers his voice as much as he can with the loud music beating around them, “I’ve spent almost every day of the last month with her. I have absolutely no desire to see or think of another woman and I have to restrain myself constantly, cause if I had it my way I would call her every five minutes to check in on her, and… and when I’m thinking about her - which is all the time, I fucking swear - I wonder if she’s thinking of me, and now? I mean, right now? I feel like snatching the blade right now on my ankle and shooting it right on that fella’s throat.” Finally taking a breath after his rambling, he points in your direction, before turning to see you right when you’re letting out a small laugh at something the punk has said.

“Wow…” Natasha lets out a whistle.

“A few days ago,” he turns back to his friend, “I snuck into her closet to find out the name of her perfume. And you know what I did next?  I bought a large bottle for myself, like a fucking creep,” sheer frustration plasters on his tone.     

“Oh my…,” Natasha snorts at the same time a mix of incredulity and amusement shines on her eyes, “That’s definitely creepy and it’s even worse than I imagined. The almighty Bucky Barnes, the I’m a whore and proud,” she thickens her voice playfully, moving her arms in a mimicking way, “The I don’t do romance and attachments king is a tiny lost puppy with big blue heart eyes, aww,” she inclines her head as if she’s thinking of him as exactly how she’s just described him.

Bucky tries but he can’t actually find the amusement in all of that. The fact one single woman is making him feel that way is entirely new, unpredictable and… scary as hell. He has no clue where to go from there.

Natasha seems to swiftly catch on his little inner self torment and, after letting out a deep sigh, she puts on a small smile and shakes her head, “Don’t worry Bucky, it’s probably a crush. A big one. But only a crush,” she places her hand on his arm, giving it a squeeze, “Y/n is one of my best friends and I know how delightful it is to be beside her. Maybe you’re just infatuated…”

“Maybe…” he exhales and shrugs, “I wouldn’t know… all I know is I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. Not that I remember…. but I’m pretty sure I would.” He looks at you again while you’re still talking to the Eddie guy.  

“They have history,” Natasha says in a kind voice, following your gaze.

“I know.”

“He was her first and only boyfriend.”

“I know.”

“She thought she was going to marry him.”

“Damn Nat…” he breathes out his frustration, dropping his head for a moment, before raising his downcast gaze at her again, “Yeah, I know that, too.”

“But you’re Bucky fucking Barnes,” she snaps in a more cheerful voice shaking his arm with a enthusiastic force, “Don’t forget that, buddy,” she shoots him a warning glare, “Also, I’ve never seen a brighter smile on that woman than when she’s talking about you,” she beams.   

Bucky’s heart jumps and a quick breathy smile surges on his lips before he takes in a shuddering breath, “I’m not sure what I should do, though.”

“Well, figure it out,” she lets go of his arm and taps on it, “My advice for the night if you should accept it is let it flow,” she shrugs. “Go on with your thing and see what happens. Just try not to hurt you or her on your way, though,” Nat warns.

“I’m not even sure I-Wait,” he frowns after his gaze is drawn to the spot where you are again, “Did that fucker just leave her alone?”

He instantly struts towards you, ignoring Nat’s snicker.

~~~

“Hey,” you smile, gulping down the nervousness down your throat as you approach your ex-boyfriend. The one you haven’t seen ever since he broke up with you months ago.

“Hey,” he offers you a tight but kind smile back.

You halt on your way, the awkwardness building up a barrier on your way as you’re not sure what to do next. Should you give him your hand to shake? Hug him? Do nothing at all? Not once before you had thought that moment would play out between you and Eddie.

But he seems a bit more resolved than you and shrugs, leaning forward and wrapping an arm around your shoulders, “Congratulations again,” he says, still holding you, “You’re the best and most hard working person I know, you deserve it.”

The small smile in your lips grows wider and you accept the compliment, relieved that the awkwardness seems to be tamed. While you’re so close to him after all that time, you notice he’s wearing the same perfume he’s been wearing for years, the one which would make you sneeze all the time, but you never really said anything.

“Thank you,” you lean back, sniffing discreetly to suppress the sneeze threatening to come out, “I’m happy you could make it,” you add. The fact he’s arrived all by himself grasps your interest, considering how everyone around you would tell you he was probably seeing someone else… however, if he did have someone, he wouldn’t bring them to your party, would he?

“Of course. I wouldn’t miss it,” he says with a gentle tone, but the formality is still there, you notice.  

You two engage in some small conversation and you can’t help but to take him in and realize that, just like the perfume, Eddie looks exactly the same with everything else. The same hairstyle, same grey t-shirt you gifted him on your last Christmas together, the same constant half smile while he talks… he still speaks quietly, letting out just a few small words, which has always forced you to be the one to push on the conversations…

It’s… familiar… even comfortable, you dare say. But if you’re going to be honest with your own feelings, ever since he walked away, you thought you would be yearning to feel that familiarity again, that it would lead you to a sense of… home.

Why it isn’t quite like that, though?

“You look different,” he says as the subjects of small talk seem to come to an ending point.  

You put your previous thoughts aside for later consideration.

“Oh…Different good or bad?” you ask, tilting your head with a small pull in the corner of your lips.

“I don’t know... just…different, I guess,” he frowns and quickly puts on that half smile of his.

“Oh, well… it’s been a while…“

“Yeah… I guess you’re right,” he says, regarding you with a wondering look in his eyes that makes you shift on your knees, “Listen,” he clears his throat, “I was wondering if we could meet to talk one of these days.”

“Oh,” you draw in a breath. Talking to him, having a real conversation, is something you’ve been wanting to do for a long time. It still feels like you don’t fully understand why you’re broken-up. Regardless the time it’s passed, you still feel attached to him somehow, like, no matter how exciting and new, you’re now living someone else’s life and not the one you had planned for you years ago.

“I mean,” he adds before you can give him a proper answer, “We still need to figure out what to do about the condo.”

The words are like cold water thrown at your face. There you are, thinking he wanted to talk about your relationship, but what’s really on his mind is the condo you’ve bought together. Swiftly, you work on putting a small smile on your face, “Yeah… sure, you’re right,” you nod.

“Hey! Eddie!”

Both of you look towards the female voice and your eyes fall upon a beautiful young woman you recognize as one of the members of SHIELD’s tech team. You’ve worked with her on a joined project of the two organizations before. Chloe… you believe her name is Chloe.

She’s waving at Eddie excitedly, calling him over the little group she’s with. She doesn’t seem to notice you’re standing next to him until her gaze meets yours. The wide grin on her face drops into a quick cringe before she nods in a respectful manner and shifts her look away, whispering something at one of the guys in the group.

When you set your attention back on Eddie, you tighten your lips just as you notice how the bone on his throat bobs right before his flustered eyes meet yours again.

“I-I, ahm, gotta go,” he runs his hand on the nape of his neck, “Can I call you later?”

“Yeah, sure.” Your voice comes out calm and controlled.

“It was good to see you,” he says, before placing his hand on your shoulder, “Congratulations again.”

After you give him a small nod as a thank you, keeping the tight smile on your face matching his, he walks away towards the group and the woman. The one your friends kept warning you about, apparently, given how uncomfortable he seemed to be in front of you after you saw her. As soon as he gets there, you see the two of them talking in hushed words. He keeps a safe distance from her, but his hand on her arm is where your gaze sticks on. 

You don’t have the slightest idea of what’s happening with your feelings right now. Minutes ago you were realizing the familiarity of Eddie wasn’t what you expected it to be anymore, but now, seeing him so close to someone else… a beautiful woman, to be more specific, with her long black straightened hair and fancy blue dress holding each one of her beautiful curves…It just crushes you.  A lump grows in your throat and while your gaze flicks around, you feel small… lost… picturing ways you could flee away from your own party at the same time ten years of your life flash in your mind.

The cold, yet gentle touch of metal in your elbow is what takes you out of your own head, “Hey, everything alright?” says the silky and soothing voice.

Your gaze meets Bucky’s while he stares at you with concerned eyes. Those gorgeous blue eyes of his…There’s already a bit less  turbulence inside your chest and mind. You think nothing of it, though.

“Yeah, yeah…” you smile, “He, ahm… Some friends called him. He had to go.”

Bucky just lets out a hum – which sounds more like a groan – staring over your shoulder to where the little group stands.

“He said he wants to talk…“ you start, and don’t see when Bucky’s breath hatches catches on his throat, his eyes back on you, “About the condo,” you press your lips, “He said he’ll call me.”

While your gaze gets lost ahead, you have no idea that the sadness in them pinches deep inside Bucky’s chest. If you could read Bucky’s mind at that moment, you would find out that the fact your reencounter with your ex-boyfriend hadn’t ended up in some sort of hope for reconciliation hasn’t left him sad at all, but the lost look in your eyes… makes him wanna hold you in his arms and never let go. Not before punching a douche in the face, of course.

“Oh, come on, sweetheart,” he wraps his arm around your shoulder, side hugging and pulling you closer to him, “You’re the fucking boss now and, look around, ” he gestures with his glass of whiskey to the crowded and jazzing place, ”You have a damn Stark party just for you. We’re all here to celebrate the badass motherfucker you are. You’re not just going to let anything ruin your night, will you?” The corner of his eyes crinkle as he grins at you.

You let out a small laugh, the heaviness inside you slowly slipping out of your body as you allow yourself to synchronize with Bucky’s vibe. You can always trust  the upbeat way he presents the world to you to lift whatever mood of yours up.  You look down at your empty glass and shrugs, “I might need a refill, though…or two,” you shoot him a warning look.  

Bucky’s smile stretches even wider and he lets go of your shoulders to offer his arm, nodding towards the bar, “Shall we?”

You gladly accept his suggestion by wrapping your hand around his elbow and walking with him, not even noticing that Eddie’s gaze follows you with piqued interest.

~~~

Quite a few more drinks later and after listening to Tony’s very nice and very Tony speech on his toast to honor you, you’re already fully invested in your party again. Bucky stays by your side most of the time, but you also come across with a lot of your friends from work and a few others, who are all more than happy to put you high on a pedestal for your promotion and party with you. It stings a bit when Camilla, your friend from work, tells you she heard Eddie and Chole are really together, but two or three more drinks after, you end up hitting the dance floor with a few friends by your side, not even seeing when Eddie leaves the party early, right before Chloe.

You’re happy to see that Amanda, one of Bucky’s friends you met that night in the club, has made it to the party, but you’re already too tipsy and it slips from your attention when she comments on how Bucky has been quite distant from her and the other girls for almost a month now.

If you’re going to be honest, you end up not truly noticing a lot of stuff since you’ve been drinking a great deal more than you’re used to, probably due the drill of having a kickass party thrown for you mixed with the unexpected sight of Eddie with a potential new girl - after months without seeing him. As the alcohol does its thing in your senses, you don’t notice the way Bucky looks at you, the way he holds you a little bit stronger when you’re dancing together, how he glares at the guys who tries to approach you or the fact he only leaves your side when he knows you’re comfortable and safe.

All you see and feel now is the music and the lights as you sway your hips to the beats. The party is almost coming to an end, but there’s still a small crowd of people enjoying their last moments there. The alcohol, the music and your friends, more precisely Camilla, Olivia, Amanda and Nat – the last two in the middle of a flirting contest you fail to notice, as well – are the ones around you. The buzz clouds your mind in a delicious way until your back bumps into a hard wall. Your weakened knees give in but before you hit the floor the wall wraps around you and holds you still.

Oh, you know that hard wall of muscles… You know it pretty well.

“Hey, there.” A foolish smile plasters on your lips at the same time the back of your head leans against the wall so you can see his face. His gorgeous and ungodly sexy face, “Your face is sexy,” you decide it is a very good idea to tell him that now.

“That right?” Bucky smirks, holding your gaze.

“Oh, yeah,” you clumsily turn around to face him, prompting him to grab you tighter since you stumble a bit on your toes. You curl the hand holding your glass around his neck, “And you’re big, too,” you don’t even notice but you’re a slurring mess as you speak and look to see your running hand down his broad chest, roughly probing his muscles, “Very, very big,” you exaggerate a sultry tone, the alcohol erasing any kind of subtleness or refinement in you or the notion that there are people around you, while your hand explores further down his body to say it’s not just about his muscles you’re talking about.

“Sweetheart.” Not making a big fuss about it, he gently grabs your wrist over his lower stomach to place it around his neck along with the other one, ”I’m very flattered to hear that, you’re one very nice piece of ass yourself, too,” he engages with you, keeping the playful tone.

You let out a girlish giggle, turning your face towards your friends, the trio now whispering and laughing among themselves as they watch the both of you, “He said I have a nice ass,” you shout, not realizing how loud you actually are as you lift and shake your hips, making your friends laugh harder and causing you to trip on your toes once again. But of course Bucky catches you before you fall.

“How many drinks, so far, huh?” Bucky chuckles, keeping the hold of his arms and eyes on you.

“Three or four,” you answer with nonchalance, bringing the glass to your lips as you hold yourself on his neck, only to pout when you notice it’s empty.

Your friends scoff at your lie behind you, “You can add at least ten more to that count, sweetheart,” Natasha shouts from behind you, punctuating the word sweetheart with a teasing pull on her mouth. 

You make a dismissive face only Bucky can see, “Nonsense, check out what I can do,“ You step back from Bucky with the intention to put on a yoga pose you’re sure will convince your friends of how ok and steady you are and as soon as you lift your leg, you trip again and this time Bucky is not fast enough to catch you before your ass hit the floor.

The four of them rush to help you out as tears fall down from your eyes at how much you’re laughing, holding your glass up. It’s Bucky who ends up picking you up, though.

He and your friends shower you with questions to check if you’re ok but it all falls like a blur sound to your years.

“Ok, I guess it was a bit more than three or five,” ignoring the curious eyes around your group, you laugh making an ok sign with your hands before your stomach churns and you grimace, placing your hand over it, “Oh…” your face drops.

 “Alright, come one, let’s go,” Bucky supports you with his hands and urges you to walk with him.

“Where are you taking me?” You frown, sounding almost offended as he takes your glass from you and hands it to Natasha, gently pulling you along.

“My place… let’s freshen up, come on,” Bucky patiently says, nodding at the girls to say goodbye, who just nod back, knowing you would be in good hands.  

“Ooooo, bye girls, we’re going to his place to freshen up,” you wink exaggeratedly and make air quotations with your fingers, addressing your friends as you clumsily walk away with Bucky.

~~~

“Bridal style,” you loudly announce stretching your hands and legs to the air as soon as he steps inside his living room with you in his arms.

Bucky can’t help but laugh as a snorting giggle follows your words. If he had his way he would’ve carried you from the party, but he didn’t want to attract even more attention to your state. So, on the second trip on your own feet inside the elevator he picked you up. It would be easier that way.

Bucky carefully puts you standing on the floor and, as soon as he’s convinced you can stand on your feet without stumbling or falling, he turns to shut the door, only to have you jumping on him as soon as he faces you.

“Hey, hey,” he manages to say softly, placing his hands on your hips as you shower his mouth and face with sloppy kisses which taste strongly like fancy champagne.

“What? Let’s freshen up,” you answer in a log slur, dragging your lips on anything of him you can reach.

Bucky laughs, pushing you away with a gentle yet steady touch, looking deep into your eyes, “That’s not what I meant… not when you had so much to drink, sweetheart.” He flicks his thumb on your chin.

It takes a moment or two, but realization – and disappointment- finally dawns on your face, “Oh… you meant freshen up for real…” You shut your eyes and tap your hand on your forehead.

Bucky thinks you’re too damn cute for your own good.

You focus on him again, “Are you sure, though?” You insist, shoving a finger in your mouth and tilting your hips, putting on before him the unsexist pose Bucky has ever seen.

Yet, it’s the most adorable thing and his annoying heart swells inside his chest for you as you keep your attempts of seducing him, “Yeah, I’m sure,” he nods unrelentingly, holding back a laugh and waiting to see the follow up of your shenanigans.

“But I’m horny and I wanted to suck your big dick,” you pout, crossing your arms and thumping your foot against the floor.

Bucky takes in a deep breath. He is only human and can’t help that his poor cock twitches at your bratty whine. But your glossy half open eyes and dragged voice reminds him he’s the only one sober enough to make decisions in the room and therefore, his buddy down there needs to chill, “I’ll be more than happy to allow you to do so,” he’s amused when your face light up, “But not tonight, sweetheart,” he puts his hands on your shoulders and turns you towards the kitchen, not without spotting the dirty look you give him.

“You’re no fun,” you complain, barely able to put one foot in front of the other before you stop and swirl around, trusting on his strong hold to not let you fall wearing a devilish little smirk on your face.  

Bucky cocks an eyebrow, waiting for whatever mischievous pearl will come out of your lips now.

“What if…” you start before a hiccup interrupts you, “I show you my boobies?” You offer, leaning over and pressing your breasts together through your dress, “You looove my boobies,” you wiggle your eyebrows suggestively even if your eyelids can’t even remain wide open.

“I do love your boobies,” Bucky can’t deny, not hiding his amusement.  

Apparently, that’s all you need to hear before you throw yourself on him again. Bucky swiftly catches you with a huff, but you can’t do much more than circle your arms around his neck and rest your head on him.

“Love your muscles,” you mumble quietly against him, “There are so many of them.”

“Come on, sweetheart,” Bucky tries, “As much as I love your boobies and you love my muscles, now it’s not the time. Now it’s time to get you some water, maybe a sandwich, huh? Then I can prepare you a shower and you can rest a bit and… Y/N?” Bucky calls when you’re too quiet- not even making a sex innuendo when he mentions a shower.

He listens a not so soft snore as a response and looks down to see you completely dozed, with your mouth agape against his chest. He sighs… still the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, goddammit.

“Guess we can skip right to the resting, then,” he whispers through a fond smile.

Taking you in his arms he walks towards his bedroom and places you on his bed. You only stir a bit when he gently removes your shimmery and apparently uncomfortable dress and unties your heels. He dresses you in a t-shirt of his so you can rest comfortably. He manages to make you drink a little bit of water, to which you whine graciously enough, and, after covering you with a thin blanket – because he knows you’re never really that cold at night, no matter the temperature in the room –  he moves to get up and maybe take a shower for himself.

“Bucky,” you mumble and, without opening your eyes, you move yourself to nuzzle against his metal hand sprawled on the mattress, “You’re not going to leave me, are you?”

Bucky is absolutely sure you have no idea of what that question really means to him, how it falls upon the rising tangle of feelings inside him… which is all for you. Wonderful and beautiful and special you, who came unannounced and stirred up something in him he never thought possible. Something he just doesn’t know what to do with.

Moving meticulously slowly not to pull his hand and wake you up again now that you’re deep back into slumber, he lays down beside you. For your question… he doesn’t say anything. Simply because he doesn’t know the right answer yet.

~~~

To be continued. 

[serendipityunho]

Cheat Codes (M)

❀ Genre: smut, angst, college au ❀ Pairing: dom!Seonghwa x brat!Reader (fem.) ❀ Word Count: 5.3k ❀ Warnings: explicit language, intoxication, brat taming, hair-pulling, fingering, biting kink, blowjob, teasing, clit play, dirty talk, begging, explicit sexual intercourse, a little bit of a fight between seonghwa and yunho, yunho got his feelings hurt :( 

❀ Synopsis: "This party's boring, wanna get out of here?", may have perhaps led you to make the biggest mistake of your life by sleeping with your best friend's other best friend, your best friend who happens to be in love with you.

Another year, another number changed on his age. Despite that change, Yunho would always remain a child at heart, getting excited and wide-eyed at the birthday cake you’d always bake him. But for the past couple of years, there’s been a twist, he was able to drink legally. Since then, parties and gatherings were always wild, bringing a new meaning to the word ‘celebration’.

You’d do anything for your best friend, and he’d do anything for you. Yunho was there for you since you could remember, he was the first to show up with a bandaid when you fell off your bike or when you tripped over the rock chasing him around his house. It was an unbreakable bond, everyone knew it, they could see it, how close the two of you are. 

“One time for the birthday bitch- Ow! What was that for?” Mingi shot Yunho a hurtful look as he rubbed his arm from Yunho’s warning punch.

“Call me a bitch one more time and let’s see where that leads you,” he was obviously kidding, who in their right mind would ever dare to harm Mingi? All he does is just vibe in his own little world, smiling at every living thing.

This year, it was a whole lot more different compared to his usual birthday bashes. The girls, the beer kegs, the rave lights, the party animals? Not a single one in sight. Yunho thought it was time for a change in the annual scenery, it definitely let the both of you breathe a little bit more.

To be honest, it felt quite unusual without the booming music and sweaty bodies sexually grinding against one another. Not that you were complaining, it was a relief not to witness any more wild scenes.

Last time, San had to get stitches on his head as a result of slipping off the diving board. And Mingi? Let’s spare the details and just say his chest was in pain from a Hennessy-drunk-Wooyoung trying to vacuum his ‘tiddies’. Don’t ask how he managed to secure a vacuum in the first place. 

“Happy birthday, shithead,” was the first thing you say to him, pulling yourself onto one of the kitchen stools as you watch him gulp down a cup of whatever mix of alcohol he had swirling in there.

“Thank you, shithead, want a drink?” Yunho always offered you drinks whenever he had the chance, getting you drunk was always his favourite thing to do. Why? It was so he could freely express his feelings for you without the fear of you remembering it the next day. 

How did you know that? Yunho had once underestimated your drinking ability. It was quite a night to remember when Yunho mistook your fuller cup of alcohol for his, making him spew out the most cooing confession you’ve ever heard.

It honestly didn’t come as a surprise. One of you was doomed to fall for the other, he just happened to be the first. 

“No thanks, we’re keeping it calm this time, remember?”

“Right, right. Calm.” 

Several of his friends had been invited to Yunho’s little birthday gathering. They had just been as confused as you were when you were told there was no big party this year. But, of course, none of them questioned the birthday boy of his intentions.

You’ve familiarised yourself with their faces around campus, but San and Wooyoung were the only two you’ve actually brought yourself to talk to beside Mingi occasionally. The two were tight-knit, maybe even more so than Yunho and yourself. A pair who wreak chaos and havoc everywhere they go. No one could ever forget the time Wooyoung walked the walk of shame with nothing but a pizza box covering his lower region and San’s beanie on his head. 

“You never told me what’s with the sudden change,” no one had really asked Yunho, maybe that’s what he liked about them, the suppressed urge to ask a million questions. “No girls accepted your party invites? Shocking.”

“No, it’s not that,” Yunho sighed, leaning back against the counter with his hand wrapped on the edge. “I can’t have big loud parties for the rest of my life, you know?” 

“And what about it?”

“Don’t know, I just felt like having people I actually care about here,” it was rare to have a friend like Yunho, sure he was easy to talk to but that doesn’t automatically make someone his friend. “A time where I don’t have to fake a smile for an entire night because that shit just makes my face cramp.”

“Oh, please, don’t get all soft on me now. It’s your birthday, cheer up a bit, yeah?” You punched his shoulder playfully before hopping off the stool, grabbing his hand to lead him to the yelling boys in the backyard. 

“Pftt- I’m not getting soft, you know it’s the Vodka.” oh, the excuses always amazed you.

You could feel goosebumps poking out from under your cold skin, the night was chilly with a few waves of shivering breezes, you couldn’t help but mentally scold yourself for forgetting to bring a jumper with you. Yunho probably had none left considering you’ve stolen almost all of them to bring home.

It was a mystery how none of these boys reacted the way you did to the cold, it was as if their skin was ice itself. They just continued yelling and throwing arms around each other like it wasn’t a single care in the world. The brooding effects of alcohol, you could say.

Yunho wasn’t particularly a wild drunk, but when he was, it was something that needed to be recorded and watched the morning after. He was never wildly drunk at his big birthday bashes but tonight was, as said, different. Drowning himself in bottles of soju until his pale skin flushed bright red, Jongho could probably mistake it for an apple and break his skull. God hopes that doesn’t happen.

Despite familiarising yourself with the new crew, there was one who you couldn’t help but pay attention to more. He wasn’t like the others, he didn’t give off San and Wooyoung’s chaotic behaviour, he didn’t carry Hongjoong’s talkative manner and he definitely doesn’t seem like he would replicate Mingi’s clumsiness or Jongho’s bright personality.

The best you could assume from this boy was that he would probably share the same bluntness as Yeosang. Cold and blunt. Nothing else.

Park Seonghwa.

There was something about him. Maybe it was the sense of mystery that caused him to occupy most of your headspace. He looks like he holds a lot of mystery, mysteries you were eager to explore. 

You didn’t even realise you were staring blankly at him until the brooding pair of dark brown eyes met yours from across the circle of fold-out chairs, making you choke on the cheap liquor before quickly snapping your gaze away from the boy and to the drunken group of boys looking like they were playing ring-around-the-rosie.

It was just the two of you. Sitting in the array of seating with live entertainment before your eyes. Entertainment as in watching Mingi trying to lick his elbow. You could’ve sworn the people in front of you were simply just children in the bodies of grown men. Where did Yunho even find these boys?

Amusement from watching the chaos unfold before you quickly washed away as you kept your seat warm, watching your liquor hitting the sides of your cup as you lazily mixed it. Laughter boomed recurrently throughout the backyard, something that was honestly keeping you awake for the night.

You hate to say it but, you were bored as fuck. 

Sure, it was nice to stray away from Yunho’s regular birthday bashes but a little more entertainment rather than alcohol and snacks would’ve been a little nice. The several bodies of young men seem like they’re having the time of their lives just dancing on the edge of the pool right now, one was surely destined to fall in and cause a chain reaction.

Seeing Yunho so happy and not actually fake smiling was enough to convince you to stay and not drag him to the closest nightclub. What the birthday boy wants, the birthday boy gets.

“Hey,” the voice was nothing like you’d expect, soft and comforting but deep and brooding at the same time, making you snap your attention to the boy sitting down on the chair next to you.

“Hi,” was he as bored as you were? Looked like it. His cup was nearly as empty as yours.

“How long have you known Yunho?” Seonghwa asked, slouching back against the flimsy chair as he downed the last of his drink.

“Since we took our first baby steps. Childhood friend, and you?” 

“Known the big guy since highschool,” that’s weird, Yunho never mentioned a guy named Park Seonghwa once in his life till now. Let alone, you’ve never even seen him around school since the two of you went together.

“I don’t remember him telling me about you until now. Did you go to the same school as us?”

“I studied abroad in Australia, that’s why he never mentioned me. Thought our friendship wouldn’t last by the time I got back so there was no point in bragging about it.”

Well that explains it then.

“Huh, interesting,” despite sitting a few feet away from the pool, the lights had illuminated his face perfectly, showing off his sharp features you were able to admire from up close when he moved seats next to you. There was one thing you were captivated by the most. His eyes.

They were very alluring eyes, it was as if they were hand-sculpted by an almighty deity itself. 

His leather jacket framed his figure perfectly, a beautiful man with a sense of style? Makes you wonder if he has a girlfriend.

“Yeah, look,” Seonghwa sighed, running a hand through his sleek black hair before inching closer to you. “I don’t know how to say this but, this party is getting boring. Wanna get out of here?” 

And so you were right.

“As much as I would like to, I don’t think I should keep him out of my sight.”

“We can just go somewhere more calmer like upstairs if you want?” You wanted to snort at his desperation. It was clear what his intentions were and he obviously wasn’t trying to hide it. Yet, you weren’t willing to hide yours either.

“Yeah,” you smirked, licking your top row of teeth before pushing yourself off the chair. “We can go upstairs.”

Seonghwa didn’t even bat an eye before taking a hold of your hand in his, literally dragging you back inside the house where he discarded his empty solo cup in the trash along with yours. The source of laughter grew quieter as the two of you descended further into the house, silently navigating up the staircase with nothing in mind other than the fact that both of you were obviously desperate for some sort of action.

Your easy agreement probably made it sound like you were one of people who slept with anyone they could, but that wasn’t the case. Turning down boys was practically your profession. But with Park Seonghwa? You wanted a taste of that. 

You wanted a taste of his mystery, you wanted a touch of that tattoo strip on the side of his neck and the ones on his fingers. You just wanted to feel the flexed bicep underneath the tough leather jacket and the alcohol kissed lips against your neck and preferably on every inch of your body.

Who could blame you for wanting to?

“I didn’t think you were the desperate type,” Seonghwa lows, pushing you against the bedroom door as he locked it. 

“I’m not,” your eyes flicker up to his, smirking as you place a hand on the side of his neck, tracing his tattoo with your finger. “You just happened to catch my attention recently.”

“I’m flattered, really,” Seonghwa smirked, eyeing your features with his arms caging you between his body and the door.

“Just fucking kiss me already.”

“Oh, you’re so desperate for me to just fuck you right now aren’t you?” Seonghwa growled, grabbing your waist and pushing you backwards onto the bed until you were flat on your back.

“You’re delusional if you think I’m going to beg for it,” patience wasn’t really on your side, you weren’t gifted with it at all. Especially when it came to fucking.

“Alright, bet.” 

A pair of luscious lips slammed against yours in a matter of seconds, Seonghwa was pushing your body deeper into the mattress as his knee pushed open your legs and hands sliding up from your sides to your hands. It was as if you were kissing nothing but mouldable chocolate that tasted of a faint strawberry chapstick, kissing it so hungrily.

“You think I can’t make you beg? Just watch,” Seonghwa’s lips hovered over yours, barely parted as he pushed your legs further apart with his knee, fingers popping the button of your jeans before pulling down its zipper.

“I don’t give in ea- shit,” your head lurched forward as Seonghwa pressed his fingers against your clit, rubbing it slowly before guiding it down to your folds and cloaking his fingers with your wetness.

“Fuck, what was that? Starting to get wet for me?” 

“Don’t act like you don’t have a stiffy here,” you could feel Seonghwa’s hard-on underneath his jeans rubbing against your thigh, making you smirk before subtly moving your leg.

“Are you trying to make me beg? No, I don’t play like that,” Seonghwa lowered his face against your neck with a low groan, sinking his long fingers into your pussy with ease before pumping them in and out, earning a quiet whine from you.

“Tsk, tsk, I can do this all night, you know?” You could feel a smirk against your neck, the chilling inhales and exhales against your skin sent shivers down your spine as Seonghwa quickened the pace of his fingers pumping in and out of you, causing your knees wanting to shut close.

“Fuck- Seonghwanggha,” he wasn’t kidding when he said he could make you beg. You were literally on the verge of it. His fingers weren’t enough and he knew that, they were just enough.

“Aw, are you getting needy? Hm? Do you want more?” The tease sent your brain into a frenzy, cloaked with a thick film of haze as Seonghwa starts to rub your clit with the palm of his hand while still fucking you with his fingers. 

“Yes, jesus fucking christ- yes!”

“Yes what? Hm? What do you want?” 

“You.”

“I need you to say it.”

“Ohmyfuckinggod- I want you to fuck me.”

“Sorry, I couldn’t hear that.”

“Fuck me, I want you to fuck me- ughhnah fuck,” a sharp pain brews against your neck, Seonghwa had caught the flesh of your neck between his teeth, biting it while pulling your jeans and panties down to the floor. 

A moan slips out of your mouth as Seonghwa licks the spot on your neck, kissing it before sucking on your jawline. The sudden idea of where you were and what you were doing left your mind like a flash, all you could think of was being touched, touched by Seonghwa and kissing his tattoos on his fingers that were knuckles deep inside of you.

“Told you I would make you beg.”

Underestimation was always your weakness, tonight was a clear sign you should probably stop doing that. 

“You flatter yourself too damn much,” you grit, flipping Seonghwa onto his back before lowering yourself onto the waistband of his black jeans, eyeing his bulging erection with a smirk.

“But was I wrong? I don’t think so,” Seonghwa sits up, holding the side of your face in one of his hands before sliding them up to your hair. Your mouth shoots wide open as Seonghwa suddenly grabs a hold of your hair, pulling it back to expose the bruised skin on your neck.

Oh, how much you wanted to just rip his tongue out for his reckless teasing. It was driving you wild, too insanely wild. But you love it.

His belt unbuckled with ease as you yank his jeans and boxers down to his ankles, freeing his hardened cock that just hit his stomach. Your shirt already found itself discarded onto the floor with the rest of the items pulled off your body, as if they were just another decorative piece on the floor.

The longer he watched you with a cocky smirk, the more you wanted to just slap it off. But you were so turned on. So, so turned on you could practically feel your wetness smearing between your thighs.

A small wince shot out from above you as Seonghwa hissed through his gritted teeth, staring down at his dick in the palm of your hands, squeezing it lightly before slowly pumping. You knew if you decided to tease him, it wouldn’t end well for you, what else could you expect from a man like this?

“Jesus fucking christ,” Seonghwa moans, head falling back as he props himself up with his elbows. The tip of his dick was itching to hit the back of your throat any second now, just waiting for him to buck his hip up into your mouth.

It was the brief groan from the back of your throat that sent Seonghwa’s thighs squirming and abdomen tensing hard. You could tell he was enjoying the way your tongue swirled around the base of his cock, pressing against his length with enough pressure to have him gripping your hair.

Just the sound of him reacting to your mouth sent your head into a cloud full of lust. You wanted more and the best you could do at the moment was just rub your thighs together in anticipation as your eyes shot up to Seonghwa’s, droopy and filled with nothing but desperation.

“Fuck, you’re good,” his scrunched up face said it all. “Come here.” 

You remove your lips from his throbbing length with a kissing sound before climbing on top of him only to be flipped right around, wrists pinned down on either side of your head. It was impressive how he could do that so nonchalantly with nothing but a cocky smirk.

“I should’ve guessed you were a brat,” Seonghwa hissed, brushing his tip against your clit. The urge to just buck your hips against his was killing you but you knew it would only do more harm than pleasure.

“Then I guess you better fuck me like one.”

The fire in his eyes was more than any sentence. His desire was fuming inside him, eager to cloud his judgement the moment your hole stretched from his length suddenly sliding into you.

He sure knew how to work his dick right when a grunt outed from your mouth as Seonghwa hooked his hips at an angle before thrusting. The eye-rolling pleasure only lasted a few seconds before Seonghwa quickened his pace, starting to snap his hips into you as he hooked both of your legs over his shoulders.

Fuck, you wanted to kiss him, but he knew what he was doing to you. He was doing it on purpose. There was no way he was going to let you kiss him. No way to busy your mouth as moans escape it recklessly.

“Ohffuck-” your head was growing lighter and lighter by the second, back arched off the mattress by now if it wasn’t for Seonghwa pushing your knees against your chest.

It was quite embarrassing hearing just your moans bouncing off the walls of this room as Seonghwa was pile-driving you deep into the bed, it only made you more desperate to crash your lips onto Seonghwa’s to deafen them. You really didn’t want to bite down on your arm, but you were more desperate than ever.

“Aw, why are you being so quiet hm? Is this dick not satisfying you enough?” Seonghwa smirks from above you, parting his lips so you could finally hear his staggered breathing.

“Y-Yeah, something like t-that- unghh,” sarcasm was undoubtedly your go-to method to cope with certain situations, but this time it was sarcasm that would get you more than you asked for.

“Oh? You really want to fucking play like that? You’re not going to be able to walk once I’m done with you.”

Emptiness looms in your heat as Seonghwa pulls out, latching either side of your waist before flipping you around on your stomach in a flash. A surprised gasp left your lips as he stingingly squeezed the flesh of your ass with a chuckle, hoisting you onto your knees.

“You really think you’re different from everyone el- mhmmh,” your snarky remark was cut short when you felt a hand push the side of your face against the mattress, legs twitching as Seonghwa thrust himself into you once again.

“You’re getting on my goddamn nerves,” Seonghwa snarls, keeping a tight grip on your hair in his fist as the other hand smoothes over your side.

The pumping pleasure coursing through your body felt electric, making you feel like you were above the clouds with each hard thrust. You could feel your ass bouncing as Seonghwa’s thrusts became sloppy, louder as the room echoed with nothing but a mix of your lewd moans and slapping skin.

“Tsk, I can feel you shaking underneath me. Regretting it yet?” 

“I can fucking handle it, shut up,” you weren’t raised as no weak bitch.

“I really hope so,” well fuck. You could feel your thighs quivering as Seonghwa slowly pushed your legs further apart, stomach falling closer against the mattress. Just barely above it. “Impressive.” 

It was a new angle that had you wanting to cry, with the way his cock hit deep in you and both of his hands either side of you holding him up. You couldn’t help but let your face fall against your arms, breathing as if it were your last and brows furrowed so hard you could feel your face about to cramp.

“Seonghw-aaahhmhm,” your legs twitched, pushing themselves higher off the mattress as your ass hits Seonghwa’s stomach with no choice. You couldn’t hold the position any longer unless you wanted to burst into tears from the burning in your thighs.

“What’s the matter huh? I thought you could handle it.”

“P-Please,” you cry.

“What do you want?”

“Kiss me- just please fucking kiss me,” your voice grew deeper and louder, desperation dripping from your tongue like poison as you push yourself off the mattress and flip Seonghwa onto his back with no time wasted in hoping your soaking wet cunt back on his length.

“Get your pretty lips here then,” your lips crashed harshly onto one another, teeth clashing as saliva coated your lips. The weak taste of his strawberry chapstick was still there and you loved it, love the way his lips moulded perfectly with yours each time as his hips snapped up into yours.

Seonghwa’s hands grip your hips roughly as he tries his best to hold them up with your legs quivering. His hips were snapping up briskly with a slap, shooting immense pleasure through your body like little sparks bottling into a ball in the deepest pit of your stomach.

“Oh fuck, right theremhmmgh right there,” you whisper a moan against his lips before letting your face fall in the nape of his neck, hand cupping the side of his face as the other grips the bedsheets.

Seonghwa just couldn’t control the loudness of his breathing anymore, grunting through gritted teeth as he shut his eyes close and glutes on fire with how rapid he was moving his hips. It was a breath-taking moment with your knuckles turning white and nails on the verge of tearing into the bedsheet as the pleasurable feeling of his cock pounding into you from below just pushing you to the edge of your combustion.

“Uggnghh- shitohmygod!” your fist loosened on the bedsheets before slamming them closer to your body, pushing yourself off of Seonghwa’s chest with a high-pitched moan and wide mouth as your brain turns into mush. Nothing but electrifying pleasure washed over you like a tsunami, making you clench tight around Seonghwa’s cock and gazing into his droopy lust-filled eyes. 

A white film casts over your vision as you lower your lips onto Seonghwa’s, giving him a slow intent kiss as his hips calm down. Legs still quivering with the slightest movement as you lowered yourself with him, making his length slide out of you with ease and just poking at your stomach.

Seconds which felt like minutes went by with nothing but silence. Just basking in your own silent thoughts in your own heads.

You should’ve felt anything. Anything but guilt.

Why guilt? Out of all emotions, why guilt after fucking a stranger you just met? A stranger who was brought to you by your best friend. Your best friend who once confessed he loves you.

“This was a mistake,” you didn’t think twice before scattering to get your clothes, rushingly putting them back onto your body as Seonghwa was left there with confusion written all over his face.

“Wait,” he booms, “what do you mean this was a ‘mistake’?” 

Seonghwa replicated your actions and started putting his clothes back on in a swift, still waiting for an answer after you responded with nothing but silence. He should’ve known, he was Yunho’s best friend too after all. 

“Listen, just forget this ever happened, please,” just thinking about this night would eat you alive, and it would definitely kill Yunho from the inside.

Before Seonghwa could say anything, you dashed out of the bedroom door, skipping down the stairs with your heart pounding like crazy, ready to jump out of your chest. It wasn’t long before you could hear footsteps following you closely behind, which made you even more uneasy as you could tell he was desperate for answers.

“Hey, what the fuck is your problem?” Seonghwa grabs you by the arm, halting you in your escape before letting go with a piercing stare. “You can’t just beg me to fuck you like that and say, oh, ‘this was a mistake’.”

You could tell he was mocking you, but you really couldn’t blame him. The only person to blame here was you. You should’ve known better than to sleep with one of Yunho’s best mates, especially when you knew the boy had deep feelings for you.

“Because it is a mistake,” you grit, “we can’t tell Yunho what happened… it’ll break him.”

In all honesty, it would break you more than him. Guilt was a more deadlier disease than heartbreak, it was worse when it came down to friendships more than love itself.

“Wha-”

“Can’t tell me what?”

Your eyes widen in shock as you snap your attention to the familiar voice behind you, already feeling a pang in your chest as your eyes locked onto Yunho’s innocent ones. Seonghwa kept quiet as you tried to choke out a few words to Yunho, flickering his gaze back and forth between the two of you.

“Um, nothing! Nothing, we were just getting to know each other, that all,” you try your hardest to make your fake smile not obvious, but it clearly wasn’t working with Yunho’s confused gaze turning into a suspicious one.

“Getting to know each other huh?” Yunho poked the inside of his cheek with his tongue, running his eyes up and down the two of you.

“Yeah.”

“I could tell,” an octave drop in Yunho’s voice sent you breathing harder as his facial features hardened, soft brown loving eyes turned into a cold glare. “You fucking bastard.”

Yunho’s attention wasn’t on you anymore, it was focused on the person standing behind you. Everything happened so quickly, next thing you know, Yunho was pinning Seonghwa up against the wall by his collar, faces close in proximity with jaws clenched and fists balled.

“You fucking knew,” Yunho snarled, “and yet you still fucked her. I thought you were my best friend, Hwa. What the fuck happened to that huh?”

“H-How?” could he smell Seonghwa’s cologne on you? What the heck.

“Your shirt is inside out.” 

Well, fuck. Not only did he catch you lying straight to his face but he caught his two best friends fucking each other, his best friend and someone who he had poured his heart and soul to.

“Yunho, please. I can ex-”

“You can explain? Yeah, alright go ahead, let’s hear what you have to say and if this motherfucker has anything else to add to it.”

“Yunho, get your hands off of me or we’re going to have a problem,” Seonghwa tries his best to pry Yunho’s grip from his collar, standing on his toes as he faces his deadly glare.

“We already have a problem, Hwa,” Seonghwa drops down with a thud as Yunho finally lets him go, throwing his glare back onto you. “Go ahead, say what you have to say.” 

“I-I… we just… we were desperate, Yunho,” it wasn’t the best and most plausible excuse but it was honestly it.

“Desperate. Out of all people, you choose him? Are you serious? I don’t know if you got my hints, but fuck!”

“Yunho, I am so so sorry. Please, just-” 

“God, I hate being in love with you!” 

It was at that moment, you could see your world crumbling down as Yunho bites back a quiver. His eyes glossy and starting to frame with red as Seonghwa also couldn’t help but wear a remorseful face.

“Hey-”

“Don’t fucking touch me, Hwa,” Yunho aggressively brushed off Seonghwa’s hand on his shoulder, throwing him a side glare as he lowers his head. “Go home.”

“Woah, what is going on?” all three of your heads snapped up to a red flushed, drunk Mingi with a half empty bottle of soju in his hands stopping mid way with a questioning look on his face. Soon enough, the whole group of boys were here, standing behind Mingi with a replicated confused face.

“Everyone, go home. I’m not feeling good tonight,” Yunho pushed through the group of boys, passing to the kitchen where he grabbed a new cold bottle of soju from his fridge.

“Man, you sure? Want us to stay just in case?” Jongho spoke, brows raised as he was concerned for his gloomy looking friend.

“Mingi can stay, I don’t trust him alone at home while he’s drunk. Everyone else go home, please.”

“Yun-”

“I said leave,” you could barely even choke out his name before getting cut off again, guilt slowly but painfully chewing away at bits of your soul.

“Alright, you heard the man. Leave him be,” Yeosang took the liberty to usher everyone out with swaying arm movements, clueless of what had unfolded before everyone had walked in.

Mingi smiled brightly, waving his goodbyes and yelling his goodbyes as he joined a slouched Yunho in the kitchen. You couldn’t help but plaster a fake grin to fuel his happy hour before leaving out the door, embraced by the cold once more. But this time, you weren’t just cold on the outside, you could feel it inside of you. As if you had just turned yourself into a cold-blooded killer.

Murdering whatever trust and happiness Yunho had left in that big body of his.

Like everyone else in the entire world, you had to live with what you got, what you’ve done, what you can’t take back.

-

Copyright © 2020 by serendipityunho

    All Rights Reserved

[taetaesbaebaepsae]

hungry eyes (pjm)

Summary: Jimin's summer job is more often than not a pain in the ass, but you seem different than the other girls who need dance instruction at the resort.

A/n: A commission for @kpopnoobsstuff​! 

Warnings: dirty dancing au, some prejudice given race relations for Asian Americans in the 60′s but not a lot of detail, unprotected sex, public vaginal fingering, praise, dirty talk, Jimin is a jackass like over half this fic, a serious ankle injury, angst, mention of sex work (with an age gap), alcohol, smoking

Word Count: 8767 (i have a lot of feelings about this movie)

Rating: Mature

hey, hey hey baby

Of all the things Jimin had dreamed he'd end up doing, working as a dance instructor/gigolo at an expensive resort wasn't one of them.

Julliard wasn't cheap, though, and so every summer he ended up here at Sanders resort, teaching salsa and letting old ladies put hundred dollar bills into the back pocket of his slacks as tips.

Jimin fucking hated the crowd at the resort, hated the way they smelled like new money and champagne, how they looked at him like either a side of meat (the women) or like something that they needed to scrape off the bottom of their shoe (most of the men).

It's better than before, digging ditches during the summer and shoveling snow during the winter because no one is going to hire a Korean boy for an office no matter how good his English.

His hands had cracked and bled, forming callouses where they'd been smooth before and he finds himself running his thumbs over the ones on his palms while waiting for his cue in rehearsal.

When his coworker tells him of a gig he'd done, Jimin's eyebrow raised at his friend's paycheck.

Having to go by "Jimmy" instead of Jimin because the supervisors think his given name is too hard to pronounce puts a bad taste in his mouth, but he needs the money. It isn't as if he can tell his parents he's decided to be a professional dancer instead of a doctor or lawyer like they'd dreamed, and they didn't have the funds to help with tuition anyway.

So he spends every summer rolling his hips for the hungry eyes in the crowd, smiling and pretending that them purring, "Jimmy" in his ear doesn't make him shudder. It's the third summer before anything truly interesting happens.

Jimin didn't even like salsa or ballroom dancing or the mamba or any of the stupid easily learned dances he was forced to perform. He was a classical dancer, ballet being his forte, but this pays the bills and it's a way to keep his father off his back about his choice in colleges.

The older women weren't so bad, they'd give him anything if he whispered "noona," in their diamond decorated ears, but the younger girls, the ones who came there with daddy's money, those are the ones he doesn't fuck with.

The only woman he'd fucked with outside of work, in fact, had been Sunmi, his best friend since childhood, and even that not for years. Sunmi had followed him to Julliard and to the resort but they'd gone their own way after that and it wasn't as if they were ever in love, after all.

Despite the rumors among the staff, Jimin hasn't touched Sunmi outside of dancing in going on three years. He knew they looked like a couple, moved in tune with each other's bodies, and that's why they got paid the big bonuses.

Maybe he still got a little worked up after performances, liked to work up a sweat after at the dancer's barracks, and who could blame him when he sees you slumming it, tapping your toe to the music with your nose wrinkled and a little smile on your face.

He doesn't even have to say anything, just smiles at you, quirks his finger and you bounce forward ungracefully enough to make him laugh.

Sunmi snickers at him but he waves her off, knows she makes her rounds among the male staff that work in catering so she can't judge.

 You know of Jimmy before you ever see him, having several members of the staff tell you in no uncertain terms to stay away from him, that he's trouble. You're surprised by how good he is, you can't take your eyes off him during the first dance performance of the summer. Jimmy Park certainly looks like trouble, with his sly smirk and the way he’d effortlessly flipped up his partner, Sunny, her skirt flipping up to reveal a pair of boyshorts stretched across her perfect bottom, and you’d swear he’d winked at you after.

You don’t think about the dancers for a while, busy touring the resort with your sister, who’d dragged you to the resort in the first place. You’d wanted to stay home and study, but your father had insisted that you join the family for the summer.

It’s boring, more for the older crowd than someone like you, a junior in college. You’re studying business because that’s what your father wants, but you like to write poetry, and you’re usually content to stay in your room and scribble.

It’s hot, though, the air conditioning not doing much to help the humidity, so you go for a walk, hoping there’s a bit of a breeze.

While you’re out, you run into a staff member, a dancer you think, but you aren’t sure, you’d been so busy watching the instructor. 

“Girl shouldn’t be out this late at night alone. Might get in trouble,” he teases.

He’s cradling bottles of alcohol and you raise an eyebrow at him.

“Aren’t you going to get in trouble for stealing those?”

He laughs, loud and open. He’s cute, dressed down in a white tshirt and jeans, not like the stuck up staff members that do catering and management in the resort.

“Not if you don’t tell, baby.”

You bristle, but only a little. That’s what everyone calls you, after all, Baby might as well be your name. You’re the youngest and you’ll admit you’ve always been spoiled.

He shuffles the liquor bottles around to stick out his hand. “I’m BamBam.”

You shake his hand, a bit awkwardly because of all that he’s holding. “Interesting name.”

His face falls, just a bit, but then he smiles again. “You don’t know the half of it.” 

Bambam pauses for a moment, and then cocks his head. “You wanna help me with all this? I’ll show you something.”

You’d been warned about being alone with men, you’d had some experiences in college that you’d never tell your family about, it’s not as if you’re a prude, but especially here, so many staff members whispered about how “dangerous” the dance crew was, but you’ve been bored out of your mind, and Bambam seems sweet, if a little flirty.

You shrug and take a couple of bottles, giggling when he sighs dramatically in relief.

It’s such a long walk that you start to get worried, but eventually you start to hear the music, a surprising amount of bass given the attitude of the resort in general, juggling two half liters of expensive vodka likely pilfered from the resort bar.

BamBam kicks the door open, nearly dropping the liquor, and you manage not to laugh but it’s a near thing. The heat almost hits you in the face, the music louder than you’d imagined, and you find your mouth dropping open, looking around at the dancers.

You recognize a few members of the dance team, but none more than Jimmy, the dancer you’d been unable to keep your eyes from earlier that week.

His partner, she’d introduced herself as Sunny and you’d noticed she was nearly as beautiful as him, is practically riding his thigh, her head thrown back as he moves to the music, and you turn your eyes away, embarrassed.

It seems intimate in a way that makes you feel a pang of envy. You’d had flirtations here and there, even a few flings at college (which you pray your father would never catch wind of), but here? In public, in front of everyone?

You try to tell yourself the heat in your stomach is from embarrassment instead of arousal.

When you look over, Bambam is looking over at you with a sly grin. He juggles the liquor bottles.

“You wanna try it?”

You gasp out loud and hope he can’t hear you over the music.

“The dancing,” he explains, all but yelling over the beat.

“Oh!” You exclaim, and his sly grin widens.

“What did you think I meant?” 

“Nothing! Nothing!” You insist, and finally find somewhere to put down your cargo on a large table next to the wall, just to have something to do rather than be embarrassed.

Bambam shrugs and moves to do the same, and you’re just standing there, looking around at everyone and how free and happy they look, so different than the way they look during performances and during instructions.

Bambam is about to say something to you, leaned in toward your ear, when Jimmy walks up to the table, and you freeze like a deer in headlights.

“Hey baby,” he says in this low but melodic tone, and you have this weird sense like you always do when someone calls you that, as if they know you somehow, know you’re the baby and daddy’s little girl and are somehow judging you for it.

To be fair, Jimmy looks like he’s judging everyone, even when he’s pasted on a smile during a rumba class or smirking during a resort wide performance. You’re not sure if it’s confidence, arrogance, or anger, but you have to admit it’s a little attractive, the way his dark eyes flash when you put out your hand for him to take.

He doesn’t just lead you out onto the dance floor, he tugs at your arm, pulls you close to his chest, looks down at you as if you’re lovers and you suppose the way the others dance, that’s just how this goes, that’s how the dance goes, but when he slides his thigh between yours you can’t help but gasp.

He laughs right at the shell of your ear and it makes goosebumps pop up on the flesh between your neck and shoulder.

“You gotta move your hips, baby. Nobody likes a dead fish.”

It takes a few moments and more of your face feeling hot but you manage to get a rhythm and it’s hotter in here than you’d expected, sweat rolling from the fine hairs at your temples to your neck, his hands on your hips and his eyes on yours and it’s intense, makes you wonder if this is what you’ve been missing out on when you refuse to go with your sister to the staff parties that she’s been trying to drag you to the whole resort stay.

His face is so close you can see the sweat on his brow, the way his full lips are parted, leaning closer and closer in and you could swear he is going to kiss you, you even tilt your chin up, part your own lips, close your eyes.

Then he spins you, instead, and you feel dizzy, open your eyes, and see him striding off toward the back of the building.

You huff out a long breath, torn between storming out into the cool night air or following him, deeper into the humid building, like descending into hell if you were to believe the way your father’s pastor preaches at your hometown church.

You look back at the open door, the breeze cooling the sweat on your body and making you shiver, before you follow him, weaving between the people on the crowded dance floor with murmured apologies.

You follow him all the way out into the night, just on the other side, and you feel a little stupid for your dramatic thinking earlier, watching him exhale smoke from his nose, leaned against he back of the barn.

He doesn’t look at you, doesn’t make any indication that he knows you’re there.

“Jimmy?” You call, and you’d meant to be flirty, aggressive even, but it comes out small in the cold air.

He scoffs, takes another drag from his cigarette, glances over at you.

“What, you gonna pay for a lesson? Bet you didn’t bring daddy’s wallet with you when you followed Bam.”

“I-I didn’t-I don’t,”

He smiles then, not as much of a smirk, and it softens his face.

“Don’t worry,  baby. I'm only teasing. I’m not gonna tell your daddy you’re out here slumming it.”

“I’m not-” your voice raises and he turns his head to face you, one eyebrow raised, and you lower your tone. “I’m not slumming it.”

He shrugs lazily, offers you a drag of his cigarette and you don’t smoke but you place your lips around the end anyway, wonder if you can taste his mouth on it, inhale and manage not to cough.

“Jimmy-” you continue, and he rolls his eyes and your heart races, feeling like you’d said something stupid, and maybe you have because he flicks his cigarette into the night, turns, bracing himself against the wall and when he’s closer you wonder if he’s drunk, you can smell some type of acrid liquor and the leather of his jacket.

“My name is Jimin,” he says, and there’s no slur at all around his words so maybe you’re wrong about that last part.

“Jimin,” you repeat, the name rolling around your mouth, feeling thick on your tongue like the red wine you sip at your father’s dinner parties. You find yourself tilting your chin up again as he nods sharply and your eyes keep flickering between the sharp line of his jaw and his full mouth.

“I know your kind,” he continues, and you haven’t even partaken in any of the liberally spiked punch at the party but you’re the one who feels drunk, your head light on your shoulders.

“My...kind?”

Jimin does that sharp nod again, shifts his body so that he’s standing in front of you now and your shoulders brush the back wall of the barn.

“Mmhm. Come out here on Saturday nights to see what all the fuss is about, you college girls with fur lining your purses, I swear to God I could taste the silver spoon in your mouth if I kissed you,” he breathes, his words rude and harsh but you don’t move, don’t push him away, can’t stop staring up at the flash in his eyes.

That’s what they’ve been missing, you think. That’s what all those college boys you’ve let put their hands up your skirt, grab your tit too hard in the backseat of their muscle cars, even let them fuck you over the hood of said muscle cars, hoping for some kind of thrill because it’s wrong and dirty but all you got was their cum seeping down your inner thigh and their murmured apologies and this ache between your legs. Because they didn’t have this, this energy you can feel in the air, the light in his eyes, something like anger and lust and yearning all wrapped into one.

It isn’t even for you, not really, you’re not dumb enough to believe that, but god, is it something.

“You could test that theory,” you mumble, sure that your words sound slurred, leaning into him, and his chuckle is bitter but it still sends a hint of a shiver down your spine. He traces his finger under your chin, the corners of that full mouth turning up.

“What makes you think I want to, baby?”

You’re cute, he supposes, in that way that all little rich girls are cute, with your bouncy ponytail that you almost always wear, your conservative dresses. After he’d left you outside with just the smoke from his rolled cigarette hanging in the air, he prided himself in not giving in.

He’s positive he could have fucked you, could have coaxed you to his room with a few short words, but he knows from the rest of the dance team (especially from Bambam, who’d bagged his fair share of the rich daughters of CEOs, bank owners, lawyers, doctors, and the like from the resort, considered himself a bit of an expert in the matter), that taking one of those types to your bed leads to nothing but drama. 

Drama wasn’t something Jimin needed, especially since all the odds were already stacked against him in this job (in life, really, but who’s counting?) Jimin wouldn’t consider himself a bitter person, in fact throughout his childhood and most of his adolescence, he’d been positive, optimistic, always smiling. He’d gotten stellar grades, always did what his parents wanted, had even planned to work on law school after graduation. The one class he took was mind numbingly boring, and he had no aptitude for debating. He’d been naïve, foolishly thought that his father would support whatever he wanted to do, and since he felt most alive when he was with his friends, dancing, making their own choreography, he’d approached his father with an application to Julliard.

Needless to say, Jimin became less naïve day by day, after that. It was gradual, his fall from grace, as some people might say. He thought of it more as growing up, as becoming more who he should be - and if that was a bitter asshole who manipulated rich older women into his bed for extra funds, so be it.

This isn’t to say that he doesn’t feel shame about it sometimes, or even guilt, especially like with Mrs. Jensen, nearing fifty but with the most beautiful  green eyes and the way she called him “Jiminie,” had insisted on learning his real name, traced the line of his spine in bed before he got up to dress and murmured how he was the most beautiful boy.

“If I were twenty years younger, Jiminie. Hell, I were only ten years younger,” she’d mourn, those green eyes almost liquid, and he’d smile and tell her she didn’t look a day over thirty and she’d scoff but she’d also smile, and when she smiles sometimes Jimin thinks that if he isn’t careful, age gap or no, he might just fall in love.

In the end, though, he felt okay about what he did, it was a means to an end, and if he judged the denizens of the resort too harshly, that’s because they could take it, no skin off their teeth with their millions of dollars in the bank. They could dry their tears with hundred dollar bills.

It isn’t until daylight the next morning, when Jimin wakes up slightly hungover and chugs a glass of water, when there’s this flash of your face in his head, tilted up to his, this almost hungry look in your eyes.

He’d like to say he’d seen that look before, but he hasn’t. Not quite in the same way.

Jimin doesn’t want to think about it long, and for a while he’s able to distract himself with his morning workout and then rehearsal, but for the first time in several summers, he misses a couple of steps and Sunmi looks at him from the corner of her eye with a sly smile.

“Shut up,” he mumbles, and she laughs and does a little piourette.

Jimin thinks later maybe she was hungover too, or had taken too many of those codeine pills she claimed were for her periods, but she loses her balance and goes down, too quick for Jimin to catch her, off the stage, her foot caught under her body.

She cries out but then bites her lip, hard, knowing that the supervisor was just around the corner, gorging himself on snacks and champagne while they all worked for hours to get the steps just right.

Jimin tries not to show it, but he knows as soon as he hops off the stage that Sunmi’s ankle is broken, and badly. It’s already swollen, already turning a bit purple, a bit of bone poking through, a streak of blood down her foot.

“Fuck,” Sunmi says in a pained whisper, eyes liquid when she looks up at him. “Jiminie, what am I gonna do?”

Jimin knows she doesn’t mean the ankle. He knows she means the next rehearsal and the next, the big dance they’ll be doing at a nearby resort, representing the dance troupe and the hotel. He knows she means her whole fucking life because if she loses this she can’t pay for Julliard.

“We’ll figure it out, jagiya,” he says softly, lifting her into his arms. Sunmi buries her face in his chest and Jimin makes hand signals at a wide eyed Bambam to distract the supervisor while Jimin carries her back to the barracks.

There’s nothing but nervous energy throughout your body the rest of the week, as you sit through your father gorging himself on shrimp, your mother chugging champagne, your sister flirting with the staff members at the buffet. You’re barely able to make conversation, not that anyone notices. You’re used to being ignored, as the baby of the family. All you can think of is the dance instructor’s full lips inches from yours, his finger trailing up your throat before he’s just gone and you’re all but swooning with the smell of him around you like a haze.

You’d seen him a few times that week, watching from far away as he twirled a few women around the dance floor, once at a resort performance, right in front and center, seen the way his nose wrinkled when they introduced him as “Jimmy Park.” He hadn’t given you a second glance, and while it stung, you weren’t one to give up easily, not after how you’d felt when he’d looked at you, really seen you.

You’re sneaking out of the resort room when it’s barely ten pm on the last Sunday, unable to wait any longer and shimmying out the back window just as you had the other night. You manage to remember the way to the barn, and even if you didn’t you can practically feel the music booming under your feet, the faint sound drawing you closer.

Your heart rate increases as you get closer and you stand near the edge of the building, a wallflower as always, but your eyes are searching the floor. You don’t see him anywhere, and after a few moments you’re sure your lip is turning into a pout. You do spot Bambam, your ambassador from the other night, and you figure he might know something about Jimin’s whereabouts.

Bambam goes uncharacteristically quiet when you bring up Jimin’s name, though, face blanching slightly.

You look at him curiously. “Is something wrong?”

He shakes his head. “No. Fine, everything’s fine.”

“Bambam?”

He won’t look at you, rocking back and forth on his heels, and then he freezes. “Hey. Baby.”

“Hmm?” You’re distracted, looking around at the crowd in hopes that Jimin will show.

“Didn’t you say your father was a doctor?”

It’s a whirlwind after that, your brief panic wondering what might be wrong, the internal struggle to know if you should wake up your father or not, knowing he’ll ask what you’ve been doing out and about, waking your father and having Bambam lead you both to the dancer’s barracks, where you see Jimin sitting on the coffee table, getting up when Bambam bursts in with your father, who is carrying his doctor’s bag.

“What the fuck-” he hisses in a low voice, looking right at Bambam and not even acknowledging you.

Your father, for his part, rushes to the couch, where Sunmi is bundled in blankets but still shivering, sweat on her brow, and when your father yanks back the blanket you gasp because her right foot is dark purple and swollen.

For the first time, Jimin looks at you, and there’s nothing but dark fury in her eyes. “Get her out of here,” he demands, and Bambam’s mouth opens and closes like a fish.

“Jimin-” you start, and he scoffs, turns away from you, toward your father, thanking him for coming and explaining what happened, ignoring you as if you were never there at all.

You wait anxiously in the living quarters, and you wince when you hear Sunmi cry out as your father works on her ankle. It takes hours, and while you wait, Bambam explains what happened and you just cock your head, confused.

“Why didn’t she just see a doctor?”

Bambam frowns, but before he can answer Jimin is stalking into the room.

“Yeah, why didn’t she just see a doctor?” Jimin mocks, staring at you with glittering eyes. “It’s that easy, princess?”

You don’t know how to answer, your face feeling hot, and you want to look away but you can’t. “Explain it to me.”

Jimin laughs, bitter and low. “You’d never understand, Baby. We can’t all call daddy and have him throw money at the situation.”

“Jimin, she brought him here to help us, we should be kind-” Bambam protests, and Jimin waves a hand at him.

Jimin turns to you, takes your hand and even though his eyes are still glittering with anger, your breath catches in your throat at his touch.

You’re perched on the arm of a chair and he leans down slightly, brushes his lips just barely over the back of your hand, all the while looking into your eyes.

“Thank you, princess, for deigning to help us peasants,” he says, voice low and charming and absolutely dripping with venom.

Anger rises in your chest, tightening in your throat but you stay quiet, jerking your hand from his and looking away.

Your father tersely gives instructions to Jimin after both Sunmi and Jimin refuse a hospital, and Jimin nods, but you see his face fall when he says something about how she is not to bear weight on her ankle for six weeks at least.

Your father is escorting you out with a blank expression but you’re looking back at Jimin and he’s watching you with those dark, glittering eyes.

It’s only a few days before your father has to go back and visit Sunmi, and he’s barely spoken a word to you, angry that you hadn’t told him about your friendships with the staff, you suppose. You can’t bring yourself to care, you’re an adult and even if he’s paying your tuition, he doesn’t have the right to tell you with whom to spend your time.

You insist on going with him to check on Sunmi, and you do sit with her for a few moments before you hear Jimin and Bambam arguing.

“Can’t someone else do it?”

You know Jimin’s scoff well by now, it seems like that’s what he’d been doing most of the few weeks you’d known him.

“No, Bam, someone else can’t do it! No one else knows the routine, it’s a special stage for Sunmi and me. Maria’s on maternity leave and Sooyoung can’t learn it in two weeks on top of the final rehearsals for the final show.”

“Do what?” You ask softly, standing in the doorway and shutting Sunmi’s door behind you.

“Can’t go a week without princess butting her head in,” Jimin mutters, and you huff out a breath.

“It’s a special dance stage,” Bambam explains. “Sunmi is expected there and so far she’s been able to get out of rehearsals but if the performance doesn’t happen, the supervisor…” he trails off, and you fill in the gaps.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. Can’t fix this with daddy’s money,” Jimin snaps.

“I wasn’t trying to-” you cry out, and then lower your voice. “I wasn’t trying to fix it, I just...I wanted to help.”

Jimin laughs. “Help? How? You shivered when I so much as brushed my hand across your hip when we danced.”

Bambam raises an eyebrow at that and you keep trying to fight down anger.

“I could...I could learn,” you insist.

“You are a dance instructor,” Bambam reminds him helpfully, and although Jimin is still incredulous, that's how it happens.

That’s how you start to spend three days a week at Jimin’s small bedroom, learning the steps to the most complicated dance you’d ever heard of. That’s how you start to fall in love with him.

I wanna know, oh

This is stupid, he thinks, over and over. This is so fucking stupid and it isn’t going to work and I’ll fail and Sunmi will be fired. Hell, I might be fired.

You keep stumbling in the heels you’d be required to wear for the dance and you’re taller than Sunmi so that throws off the whole performance and you only have just a touch of rhythm and you have an attitude and the list goes on and on.

The two of you are two weeks into rehearsals when it all comes to a head. You’d huffed out a long breath or given him a withering stare before, when he’d snapped at you or corrected your steps roughly, but usually you let it go.

There’s not enough room in his tiny space, and it’s not like the two of you were exactly friends, so it’s tense, for the most part.

One day, at the last rehearsal of the week, he spins you and you miss a step, stomp down on the top of his foot with your heel and he cries out and curses.

“This is never going to work,” he mutters when you try to help and you let out an annoyed almost growl that, in other circumstances, he might find kind of cute.

“You could give me a little goddamn credit, you know!” You yell, and he stops rubbing his foot and looks up at you.

Maybe he’d been a little dramatic, it didn’t hurt as much as he’d put on, but if that happened during the performance….

“Credit for what?” He bursts out.

You put your hands on your hips and you’re wearing this barely there white croptop and a flowing skirt and (not for the first time), he notices the swell of your hip, the outline of your breast.

“For one, bringing my father to help Sunmi-”

Jimin barks out a laugh at this, his eyes returning to your face. “Takes a real saint to call daddy-”

“Second,” you continue firmly, voice raising over his, “for working three days a week for hours to try and help you and your girlfriend keep your jobs!”

He opens his mouth to correct you but your voice keeps rising, your eyes full of fury.

“And last of all but most importantly, putting up with your constant bullshit! I can’t do anything good enough for you and I really just want to punch you and leave.”

Jimin pauses, stands up straight and looks at you for a moment. As much as he hates this situation he can’t let you quit. He needs you, more importantly Sunmi needs you, and he’ll never forgive himself if he fucks things up for his best friend because he can’t control his temper.

“Do it, then.”

Your eyes widen. “Do what?”

Jimin pats the middle of his chest. “Hit me, if it’ll make you feel better.”

You look at him incredulously.

He smirks at you, makes a little come hither gesture with his hands. “C’mon, princess. You scared?”

There it is, that flash in your eyes that he’s come to know well even during such a short time, and it makes the hair on the nape of his neck stand up.

You punch him, just at his diaphragm, weakly, and he laughs.

“C’mon, Baby. You can do better than that.” 

He takes a step closer and you just keep looking at him, your canine piercing your bottom lip, still breathing hard from the rehearsal.

He can’t deny it makes his dick twitch in his sweats, the fire in your eyes, the way he can see the outline of your erect nipples through that croptop.

He leans down closer to your face. “Still wonder if I could taste that silver spoon on your tongue,” he whispers, and then you slap him across the face, hard, making him stumble back with a laugh.

He nods, and you start to gasp out apologies but he holds up a hand. 

“Let’s get out of here.”

It’s been hot all week, and there’s on and off summer showers that come from nowhere. The thunder rumbles as you reach the parking lot and Jimin’s car, a clean but beat up Mustang. 

You dance around a bit as Jimin reaches into the pocket of his sweats for his keys but he curses instead. When you look in the window, cupping your hands, you see the keys in the ignition.

You sigh and stand up to tell Jimin but he’s removing his leather jacket and wrapping it around his fist as you watch, open mouthed.

He busts the back quarter window as if he’s reading the newspaper and unlocks the door, leaning over to pop your lock before cranking it up.

You stand there for a moment, shocked and oddly aroused.

“You coming?” He asks, looking up at you from the driver’s seat, and you scramble inside.

“You’re crazy,” you mumble as he pulls off at a speed that should have scared you but instead filled you with exhilaration. 

He looks over at you, as if confused. “What?”

“I said you’re fucking crazy!” You yell, laughing, and he starts to laugh too and you’ve never heard him like that, open and loud instead of derisive and bitter and there’s rain pouring into the back window but he doesn’t care and you can’t imagine ever feeling that free.

You have that feeling again, the one you’d had standing outside the barn with him, that energy like he’s wanting and hungry all the time and just like then, you want more.

You push that out of your head, though, he’s made it clear where his thoughts lie, and that’s with Sunmi. That’s the whole reason you’re doing this, to help her, help them. It’s certainly not because you just want to be near him, because even when he’s angry at you the way you feel with him makes you feel like you never have before, not because you want to memorize the bow of his lips, the line of his jaw, how his eyes crinkle up at the corners when he smiles.

“Where are we?” You finally ask when he’s pulled off into a clearing in the woods.

“You’ll see.” He grabs your hand and tugs you behind him and your heart skips a beat.

You end up practicing at the river for hours, and you ask questions and he answers them, about his family, how he started dancing, Juilliard and why he’s doing this job.

You’re not surprised that he wants more, he’s too good for this place and you can see it, even though you’re no expert.

He talks a lot more than he ever has, tells you so much about himself and you have fun, laughing and talking with him, he’s barely teaching you anything at all.

Finally, he’s sitting on a high log, swinging his legs and looking down at you as you sit on the shore.

“We haven’t practiced the lift because it’s best to practice in the water,” he says, and that’s how you end up waist deep with his eyes on yours and his hands on your hips.

“Ready?” He asks, quietly, as if there isn’t only the woods and the river and the birds to hear him.

You nod, your mouth dry, but then his hands slip up to your waist and you’re not sure you’re ready at all. Of course he’s touched you during rehearsals, here and there, but not like this, not this close.

“Jump,” he commands, and you do, think you’d have done anything he told you, but he lifts you up effortlessly and you try not to stare down at him as your heels lift off the riverbed, try to look ahead like he’s taught you but it’s impossible and when he lifts you over his head, telling you to hold the position, you go straight into the water, coming up sputtering.

He laughs, pulls you close, and does it again, and this time it works, this time you hold it and he slowly lowers you back down.

Your body slides down his, your nipples brushing his chest, his breath on your throat, and surely this is too close, surely you won’t be doing this on stage in front of people.

“Baby,” he murmurs, close to your ear, like it’s your name, and you shake your head.

“Call me Y/n.”

He says your name and you watch how his lips shape it before you tilt your chin to kiss him, pressing your mouth to his without thought, your lips parted.

His tongue in your mouth is hot, hungry just like you knew it would be, and your arms tighten around his neck. You hear the water moving and gasp into his mouth when you feel his hand slide up your thigh, under your skirt, sliding along the river water soaked crotch of your panties.

“Jimin,” you moan into his mouth, and he just kisses you harder, presses his hand harder against your cunt and you want more more more.

You’d imagined it, late at night, sore and exhausted from rehearsing and you could feel his hand on your hip as he’d turned you, slid your hands down your body imagining they were his, but this is so different, so much better than you’d ever dared to dream.

Suddenly, he pulls away from you, and you whine. 

“We should...we should get back,” he says, voice slightly hoarse, and he wades back to shore while you’re left wanting and aching.

would you be my girl?

You’re quiet in the car, your head spinning, and he doesn’t say a single word until he pulls back up.

“Want me to walk you back to the resort?” He asks quietly as he turns off the car.

You blink at him. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

He doesn’t  look at you, his eyes down in his lap, and you open the door and slam it when you get out.

Jimin knows he should stay put. He should stay put for so many reasons. It’s too much drama, you’re a guest of the resort, you’re a little rich girl with daddy’s money, you deserve better.

But he sees your shoulders shaking and he can’t help himself from getting out, rubbing your shoulders as he leads you inside. You’re shivering now, it’s after sundown and you’re soaking wet.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, planting a kiss on your shoulder. “I’ll get you some tea and some warm clothes.”

He turns to go and heat the kettle but you grab his wrist, tug him back.

“Nobody makes me feel the way you do,” you say in a quiet and shaking voice. “Even when we argue I-”

“Baby. Y/n. Don’t,” he pleads. He feels like he’s right on the edge of something, like he’d fall over with just a single push from you.

All these things are flashing through his head, moments where he’d let himself notice how he felt when you’d do this little growl in frustration when you missed a step, the way your mouth turned down at the corners when you were focused, how you set your jaw when he said something to make you angry. After just a few weeks he’s all but memorized the lines of your body and he’d blamed it on being focused on the performance but he knows somewhere that it’s something else, that you mean something else to him.

“Why?” You ask, sounding almost pained and he can’t stop looking into your eyes and he can’t speak either so he kisses you first this time, one hand at the nape of your neck to pull you close.

We aren’t from the same world, he should say. It won’t work and I’ll break your heart or you’ll break mine and I don’t know if I can take it.

He should say so many things but instead he says nothing at all, just kisses you and kisses you until you jump just like you did in the water, wrap your legs around his waist this time instead and he carries you to his bed, peels off your soaked clothes while you keep kissing him in between, his mouth, his throat, his chin, and it makes him laugh.

You’re bare beneath him and he doesn’t even realize that he still has his wet clothes on until he slides over you to kiss you again and you hiss.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, and smiles at you and you blink, have this expression he can’t quite pinpoint. “I’m usually better at this,” he finishes after pulling off his tshirt, and you open your thighs with this slow smile.

“We’ve got time.”

His breath hitches in his throat because that’s probably not true, after tonight you’ll probably avert your eyes when he looks at you in public, come to him late at night like all the others.

Instead of saying that, he curses under his breath and looks down at you, slips his fingers through your slick, sliding two fingers inside you as you arch your back.

You’re so wet already and he’s barely touched you and it makes him groan.

“Look at you. Such a pretty baby,” he praises, moving his fingers because he loves the way your face goes slack, your mouth parted as you writhe against his hand.

“God,” you whimper, voice a little slurred. “Please.”

Jimin feels like he might burst before he even gets out of his sweats, wants to make you come before he does but you lock your legs around his waist, surprising him and he falls forward, catching himself on his palms.

Before he can catch his bearings you drag your tongue along his throat and he groans.

“Baby, you’re full of surprises.”

You smile against his mouth and push down his sweats with your feet and it makes him laugh again, he’s found himself biting back smiles so often with you that it feels good to let it out.

Then his cock is sliding against you and you’re so hot and wet that he bites down on your lip. You cry out softly and rock your hips against his, panting out his name and then he can’t do anything else but slide inside you, burying his face against your throat.

He thinks, too late, that he should have flipped you over, focused on your ass and the line of you spine instead of like this, looking down into your face and the way your eyes focus on his. He knows better, but you’re rolling your hips up to meet his and biting your lip and you keep moaning his name and he can’t stop now.

Your nails rake down his back and he leans up to fuck you harder, hoping to focus on your breasts bouncing instead of how pretty you look beneath him. 

“Baby,” he breathes. “I’m gonna-” 

He doesn’t get to finish because you’re making the prettiest sounds, moving your head from side to side and your cunt clenches around him like a vice.

“Fuck. Fuck.”

It’s been fast and sloppy and he’s almost embarrassed when he comes inside you, but you lock your ankles around the small of his back and pull him down again.

After he’s made that tea he promised earlier and you’re sitting crosslegged on his twin bed, facing him, you call his name softly.

“Hmm?” He asks, distracted by how you look now, your hair mussed, skin slightly flushed.

“Does my mouth taste like silver?”

He frowns until it hits him, what he’d said to you that first night, and then he’s laughing again and tackling you to plant kisses along the side of your face.

Jimin is gone when you wake up, leaving you a note to lock up. No heart drawn there, not even his full name, just a -J at the end. You assume he must feel guilty about Sunmi, assume maybe he never meant for things to go too far and now here you are, heartbroken, and you still have to keep your promises and finish rehearsals and this dance with him.

You stay in your room at the resort for two days, until your scheduled next rehearsal with Jimin, and you feel like you’ve cried enough that when you see him, it’ll be easier.

You walk into the studio already dressed in your leotard and shorts, and he’s standing at the record player and even the set of his shoulders looks stiff, and it makes your heart ache.

You don’t speak, just start taking off your sneakers to put on the heels that you have to practice in, and it’s Jimin who says your name, softly. 

Your real name, not Baby, not sweetheart, and it seems like all the tears you’ve cried the last two days are stuck in your throat.

You take a deep breath before looking up and the words come out before you know what you’re saying.

“I know you’re going to tell me that it was a mistake. I know you’re going to tell me you love Sunmi and I understand. Let’s just not, okay? Let’s just not talk about it because I’m embarrassed and I’m sad and I feel stupid-”

Jimin sits on the floor with you, moves close and presses his forehead to yours.

“I don’t love Sunmi. I mean...I’m not in love with her.”

Your heart does a backflip. “But I’m a mistake.”

Jimin lets out a heavy sigh, shakes his head softly, looking into your eyes.

“Jimin,” you whisper, and then he kisses you and you forgot what you were going to say.

There’s two weeks until the performance and you spend all of those days irrevocably in love with Park Jimin.

“Why do you stay?” You ask him one night while you’re lying with your head on his chest after he’d bent you over the arm of the recliner in his room, rough, and you love it but you  know he’s angry because they wouldn’t let him change the choreography of the final dance, wouldn’t let him do anything but teach old ladies the foxtrot.

He’s been stroking his fingers along your spine and you wonder if that was a stupid question when he freezes just for a moment.

“It’s not like it’s easy, Baby,” he says, simply.

“It should be,” you insist, and you press a kiss between his pecs, knowing it isn’t something you can understand.

You know you’re privileged, know that your father would flip his lid if he knew you were getting  fucked by the dance instructor four nights a week and most days too, because your father didn’t think he could provide for you. You’re sure that if he found out, your father would disown you and you’d lose your tuition money and your apartment back home.

So when you and Jimin are walking back to the resort from the studio, holding hands and laughing and you catch sight of your father in a golf cart, you gasp, tug Jimin’s hand to hide behind a nearby building.

Jimin lets you lead him there, doesn’t protest, but his face is like stone when your father passes and you can relax.

“Jimin-” you start.

“Tell me again how it should be easy, Baby,” he says, his voice like ice, and when you try to take his hand he pulls away. 

You make up, eventually, it only takes a day before Jimin gives in to your apologies, the kisses you plant along his shoulders while he’s trying to stretch before practice, but in the end, he’s right.

It’s not easy at all.

just a fool to believe

Jimin knew this thing with you wouldn’t last forever. In fact, he’d been preparing for the performance to be the last night, the last time he’d see you look at him like that. He starts to dread it, starts to stay awake later at night to watch you sleep so that he’d have more memories of your face pressed against his pillow.

He’s always known you’ll leave him, whether it’s in the middle of the night because you realize you can’t let your father find out, after the performance when you’ve done what you’ve said you would, or at the end of the summer, when you’d return home to your college and your friends. Hell, maybe even a boyfriend. He tried not to entertain that, it made his throat feel tight to wonder if you have some Ivy League jerk with a letter jacket waiting for you, but it’s crossed his mind.

He knows he’s not good enough for you, knows that if his own bosses can’t even use his real name to introduce him he’ll never have someone like you, not long term, anyway. He’s used to being someone’s dirty little secret, with this job.

He’s always thought that you’d leave him, but in the end he has to leave you.

You’re full of nerves, counting down the days to the performance, and it’s only three days away when Sunmi comes up to you, sweating on her crutches, and your eyes widen. She’d barely left her room, knows that if the supervisors find out it’s her foot instead of an illness like your father had told them, she’ll be cut from the team.

“Sumni, what-”

“Jimin’s gone,” she bursts out.

“No. No he’s not gone,” you say confidently, but you can feel your heartbeat in your ears.

Sunmi is near tears and she nods her head sadly. “He’s gone, they fucking fired him!” Her voice breaks and you put out a hand to steady her. It feels like you’re moving underwater.

“He wouldn’t leave without...without telling me,” you say, less confident with every word.

Why wouldn’t he? Why would he come to you, a summer fling, someone he doesn’t even know that well?

Because he loves me, you think. But does he? He hasn’t said it. He hasn’t made you any promises.

“What about the performance?” You ask, feeling like you’re floating farther away from her as you speak.

“They replaced him,” she chokes out, crying openly now, and you hug her, comfort her so that you don’t break down yourself.

You find out from Bambam why, and it’s all your fault. Apparently one of Jimin’s so called students had caught you and Jimin in the studio, seen you through the window and in a bout of jealousy reported him for “cavorting with a guest.” It was against the resort’s rules, even though Bambam says all of them had done it, at least once and usually more.

It doesn’t matter. Jimin had been caught and he’d lost his job and probably his tuition and it was all your fault. You’re like a zombie the last three days, your mother asks if you’re okay and your father keeps ignoring you, but you can’t bring yourself to care. You can’t care about anything. You don’t have any idea where he lives, you can’t even write to him, and you lie in bed staring at the ceiling and thinking about how he joked that your mouth must taste like the silver spoon you were born with and how it used to make you laugh.

The night of the performance, your mother demands that you go, dresses you in this stupid pink dress you’ve never liked and rolls your hair, and you’re picking at your food when they announce that the performance is about to start. You’re sitting in the corner, against the wall, hanging your head.

Tears are welling in your eyes as you hear the familiar opening bars, but then there’s a loud feedback sound as someone kills the microphone and you look up, startled.

Jimin is standing at your family’s table, wearing a white tshirt and jeans, a leather jacket, similar to the outfit you’d first seen him in, and you wonder for a moment if you’re dreaming.

Then he says your name. Your real name, not Baby, not sweetheart, and you blink up at him, shocked.

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” he says with a smirk, and takes your hand to pull you up.

this could be love

You don’t leave him after the final dance, like he’d thought, but he was right that it wasn’t easy. Nothing worth it ever was, he supposes. You run away with him, live in his tiny college dorm on his twin bed, and he still doesn’t think he deserves you. 

You still apologize for getting him fired from that shitty job and he still cops an attitude and tells you that you’re spoiled sometimes but it ends in hot and hungry kisses or an impromptu dance session around his record player.

It isn’t easy but he wants it, and so do you, and he hopes that in the end, that’s all you need.

[btsslowburnfic]

-The Arrangement- Chapter 1

Summary: Desperately in need of money, you answered the questionable add. AKA-Arranged marriage AU featuring Y/N and Yoongi.

Chapter summary: Let’s meet our lovely [Y/N]. Every good story starts somewhere. Buckle up for the next few months babes <3 

Chapter 1

“Nope, sorry, I have to get to my other job.” You politely declined getting after-work drinks with your colleagues like usual. It was nice of them to still invite you even though you never said yes. 

You excused yourself to the company restroom. Out with the office worker, in with the bartender. You switched shirts, put your hair up in a ponytail, and applied heavier make-up. You'd switch out your skirt when you got to the club. As dumb and gross as it was, you always made more money when you wore your questionably short shorts. Oh well, money is money. 

You sent a quick text to your brother to make sure he and your sister got to your aunt's apartment and then headed for the station. Ok. How much money do I need to make tonight? You asked yourself as you opened the banking app. You mentally calculate the amount needed to feed your siblings, pay for the bus, and utilities. Ugh Maybe Park Minho will let me stay for him tonight. He usually wanted to get out of work early to go hang out with his friends. You would be ok this week if you stopped taking the bus and ate more ramen and less real food. You sighed. You were so tired.

You walked through the black glass doors of Club Tokki. There were only a few customers right now and you immediately went to see if anyone had made coffee. Work coffee=free coffee. Luckily for you, Lisa, the woman who worked the day shift almost always needed an extra dose of afternoon caffeine and there was still enough for a cup.

“Hey doll!” Lisa greeted you. “Here, I brought some milk in as well,” she said as she poured the coffee for you.

“You are a lifesaver. Thank you so much.” You gratefully took the mug, warming your hands. 

“No problem, do you need me to do anything before I leave? I’m going to close out with those two groups first.” She asked as she rinsed off some pint glasses.

You assessed the bar looking to see what you might need over the next few hours. “Yeah, ask the bar-back to get two more bottles of Goose and a bottle of Crown. We usually go through those on Wednesdays. And maybe cut a few limes and lemons. Thanks.” You took the coffee with you to the small office and finished changing clothes. Lisa was a student so she shared your need for thrifty living, coffee, and work. You didn’t have many friends, but you knew you could count on Lisa for caffeine and getting the bar prepped. 

You walked back out to the bar, mentally preparing yourself for the night ahead. In a few minutes people like your office coworkers would stream in, treating each other to after work drinks, socializing, and networking. You used to wonder if your circumstances were different if you would be the type of person who went out after work and socialized with their colleagues. You had come to the realization that “no” you wouldn’t. You would probably go home and sleep. Maybe read. You sighed and shimmied behind the bar as Lisa started to count down the drawer. "Alright, I asked the barback for the alcohol and there's 2 cups of lines and lemons." 

"Thanks a lot babe. See you tomorrow." you waved at her and started to move stuff around to where you liked it. 

"Happy money making." she smiled and headed out. 

As predicted about half an hour later, office workers start to show up and the bar is slowly starting to fill up. Club Tokki is known for its laid back vibe so it's mostly beers and "and" drinks. Whisky and coke. Vodka and soda. Occasionally there were some younger girls here that ordered the more complicated drinks. But you got those out as well; this wasn't the first bar you'd ever worked at, just the latest incarnation. And just like that, the night starts to speed up. Minho arrives two hours into your shift for the after-dinner rush.

“Just in time dude,” you greeted him as he walked behind the bar.

“What do you need?” He asked as he clocks in for the night. 

“The bar is caught up if you want to go check section one. Shinhye has the rest of the floor.” You instructed him and used this opportunity to catch up on cleaning dishes. You caught one of the guys at the end of the bar staring at you. He was definitely good looking, and stood out with his expensive suit, silver hair, and strong facial features. Whatever. As long as he tips. You were not looking for a boyfriend. Or a hookup. You cringed at the thought of even trying to navigate dating between your work schedule and also living with your Aunt as a grown ass woman. You shook your head like it would get rid of the thought. Satisfied with the current state of the bar you took a minute to drink some water and scan the club. There were worse places you could work for sure. 

Minho came back to the bar and asked you to make some shots while he grabs some beers. Grape bombs? Is this 2012? You resisted the urge to gag, having gotten sick on them when you were younger. You placed the drinks on his tray and checked the bartop once again.

Mr. Expensive Suit dimple-face was nursing a Goose and soda. “You doing ok?” you asked him as you made your way down the bar. 

“I’m great. Thanks. What’s your name?”

“[Y/N]” you responded and started to move on to your next guest. 

“This is the part where you ask my name.” he said arrogantly. Suddenly you did not care for him as much.

“Is it? I’ve never talked to someone in a bar before. I didn't realize there was a script.” you responded sarcastically. You hated it when guys thought they could manipulate you. 

“Wow. Ok. Ok. Hard to get. I respect that. I’m Kim Namjoon.” 

“Ok Mr. Kim, is there anything else I can get for you right now?” you asked, oh so sweetly.

“No. I’m good for now.” he said, laughing to himself. He shook his head incredulously and sipped his drink.

Well maybe you weren’t going to get tipped after all. Oh well. 

The rest of the night was mostly a blur. The vodka special brought in quite a few people and you ended up going through four bottles of Goose. Mr. Kim Dimples remained, nursing only his second drink now and still staring at you even though he was trying hard to not look like he was staring. It was awkward. He was hot but sooo not your type. Which you thought you had made clear.

“Mr. Kim, are you sure you even like Goose and soda?” you teased him as you made another round checking on people. 

“You know, I am more of a beer drinker myself, but I can’t pass up a good vodka special.” he leaned to the side, getting out his wallet, and pulled out a business card.

“[Y/N], I’d like for you to take this.” he stuck it between his index and middle finger, holding it out for you to take.

“I am flattered, Mr. Kim, but I’m not interested in anything like that.” you smiled politely. 

He rolled his eyes at you.  “Believe me, I’m not asking you on a date. You are so not my type,” he said with an air of disgust. As though he was repulsed that you would have even thought he would consider asking you out. “This is a job opportunity. I work for a talent agency of sorts.”

Wow. What a dick. “Oh yeah? What talent do you see?” you gesture to yourself. “I do pour some stiff drinks and can usually tell rude guys to fuck off with a smile on my face.”

To your surprise he just laughed. “You are very funny. And I suppose some people would find you attractive. Just take the card. I think you’re the best candidate I’ve found yet.” he stood up and put on his suit jacket, sitting the business card down on the bartop.

“Rude.” you casually said, crossing your arms in front of your chest.

"Well, it makes no difference to me if you accept or not. Regardless, there it is." He gestured to the card, and sat down way too much money on top of it. "Keep the change." He turned and left.  

You didn’t end up closing for Minho; the two of you both stayed since it remained steady through closing time. You were weirded out by the conversation with Mr. Kim, but having worked in a bar for the past 7 years, it wasn't the weirdest thing that had ever happened to you. You threw  the business card into your purse and forgot about it for the rest of your shift.

The remainder of the night passed without incident. As much as you disliked it, that weirdo's money helped make sure you could take the bus again the next few days. You stuffed your tips into your purse and walked home. Well. To your aunt's house. It didn't really feel like home. Just a temporary landing spot until you and your siblings could get your own place again. 

You entered quietly and washed your hands. You dutifully went through your siblings school bags, making sure their supplies and homework were where they should be. You packaged their lunches as much as you could and started a fresh batch of rice for tomorrow. All mostly in the dark so you didn't wake anyone up. Your brother was sleeping on the couch, which you hated, but he insisted on it. You were sharing the guest bedroom with your sister and your niece.

You grabbed your laptop and curled up in the corner of the kitchen to not bother anybody. I’m a 27 year old loser hiding on the floor of my Aunt’s apartment in the middle of the night. I have to wake up in 5 hours for my other job and instead I’m going to look up a website that some weird ass rude hot guy at a bar gave me. Why is this my life? You thought, and yet you pulled out the business card and entered the link. It took you to a black website with a white box asking for a code. You flipped the card over, and there it was, handwritten. You type it in and wait for the website to load, convinced it’s going to be some weird porn site with fisting or crush videos. You almost cover your eyes but to your pleasant surprise it’s a normal website. 

Seeking: a suitable adult woman for long-term companionship. Will be well compensated. Serious inquiries only. 

The text continued: If you are on this website, congratulations. You have already presented the basic level qualifications for this position. 

Ok. So maybe this was an escort service. Which I mean...if it paid better than both of your jobs and you didn’t have to have sex with people maybe you could. No. No. You talked yourself out of it and scrolled down to read more of the description,

Requirements:

Female between the ages of 20 and 40.

Flexibility in schedule

Desire to travel and attend events

Strong personality and interpersonal skills

Proficiency with Microsoft Excel and Word 

Punctuality, attention to detail, and strong organizational skills

Desired but not necessary

Non-smoker/drinks alcohol socially

Like animals 

Enjoy listening to music 

Compensation:

Position requires relocation to on-site premises and therefore covers room and board. 

Monthly stipend (click here for more information pertaining to taxes)

3 meals a day, beverages, and snacks included

Most escort services didn’t require proficiency in Microsoft Word or Excel...you were guessing. Maybe it was a legit job. Like an on-site event planner? You clicked the link contained in compensation and HOLY SHIT THAT WAS A LOT OF MONEY. 

You bit your lip and pulled up your resume. It couldn’t hurt to submit it, right? You didn’t have much to update since you had just started your office job 3 months ago. You updated the resume to include that job and listed your address as Club Tokki’s in case this was actually a sex trafficking set up. You thought about it for a another minute and then uploaded the document, took a deep breath, and hit “send.” NEXT CHAPTER

TAGS: @lidda​

[youngster-monster]

Dead meat

merry christmas @tasceri <3

It starts like this: Riku is drunk, and he’s bleeding.

He didn’t mean for it to happen. He has been at points in his life where he seriously considered harming himself for a wide variety of reasons, none of them good or approved by his mother, but tonight didn’t start off as one such occasion. Sora and Kairi invited him to a party with their university friends, and he didn’t have the heart to tell them he'd been lying in bed for three days instead of going to class, so the social anxiety won out and he actually ended up going. 

It was fun for about an hour, and then the vodka hit and he started wanting to go lock himself in the bathroom more than he wanted to dance with his friends, which is a sure sign that he should go home.

And then a drunk guy smashed a bottle on the floor, promptly fell on top of it and dragged Riku along in his fall.

Everything feels kind of hazy and numb, but when Riku looks down, there’s a three inch piece of glass sticking out of his hand, so.

He assumes he’s hurt.

Sora yells something that’s immediately drowned out by the music. It sounds worried, though, so Riku tries to tell him he’s fine, except his leg is starting to feel weirdly damp from having his hand resting on it. He’s keeping a very firm hold on his forearm, because he remembers just enough of biology class to have a vague idea where arteries go and to know that he’d rather not be bleeding out right now. It makes him look ridiculous as he tries to get to his feet. Like those P.E exercises where you have to stand without using your hands at all. 

The alcohol makes everything floaty and strange, and the pain radiating from his hand seems to be pulsing in rhythm with the pounding music. Riku looks at the blood dripping between the cracks in his finger with a kind of numb shock that is just begging to turn hysterical.

There’s a lot of blood in the human body. He’s looked it up before, for one of the aforementioned variety of bad reasons.

People have started to notice something is going on, and a circle is forming around Riku. He wants to tell them he’s fine, mostly because the attention is making him uncomfortable, but he’s not sure he can open his mouth without throwing up at the moment.

Kairi has her hand on his shoulder and a wad of paper towel in the other. He throws her a wobbly smile. 

“We need to get you to the hospital,” she says, right against his ear to be heard above the noise.

None of them have a driver’s license. They took the bus to come here, and he’s pretty sure there isn’t a single sober person in this room that could be trusted behind the wheel right now. Before he can ask how they expect to do that, though, Sora reappears. Riku hadn’t really noticed he was gone, so it’s a good surprise.

“They’re coming,” he yells. “We should carry him outside!”

It’s a bit blurry after that. Riku is lifted and put down and tilted sideways in every kind of weird position, even though he could swear the number one advice with someone who’s wounded is to not move them at all. Unless that’s just with road accidents. 

Mostly he notices the sudden silence as the front door shuts behind them and he staggers down the driveway, sandwiched between Sora and Kairi. The fresh air clears some of the fog from his skull. It seems like a good thing until they’re helping him sit down on the curb and he makes a wrong movement that jostles his hand, sending a bright flash of pain up his arm.

“Fuck,” Riku says, with feelings.

“Sorry,” Sora replies, despite having played no part in this whole fiasco. He leans against Riku’s good side and pats his knee reassuringly. 

They sit there listening to the muffled sound of the party inside for long enough that Riku is starting to lose feelings in his hand, except for the pain, which is just getting worse. He wiggles his fingers a bit and immediately regrets it.

He wonders if maybe they shouldn’t walk to the hospital when bright lights pierce the night.

Dizzying flashes of blue and red precede the ambulance by a good minute. None of them move, watching the truck pull up in front of the house.

The paramedic who jumps out whistles through her teeth at the sight of Riku, who’s now sporting an impressive bloodstain over the front of his clothes. Her face clears up as she examines him, though, tilting his hand under the light of a lamp torch.

“You’ll be fine,” she says after a minute. “I don’t think you lost that much blood, too, so I can just do your stitches right here and you’ll get to sleep in your own bed tonight.” 

That is great news to Riku, who’s spent a few nights in hospitals before and does not have anything positive to say about the experience.

The paramedic has Sora and Kairi sit him down in the back of her truck while she rummages through her supplies. She apologizes for the lack of painkiller, which would react poorly with the alcohol in his system. He regrets saying it’s no problem when she gets to digging the piece of glass out of his hand, and even more so once she takes out a sterile needle and thread.

“Breathe,” she advises. 

And then she stabs him.

The process of getting stitches is excruciating. He needs a lot of them, too: the cut isn’t all that deep, but it’s wide, and it takes forever to close it.

Sora keeps repeating you’re fine and it’s nearly done, hold on and other sweet, reassuring nonsense that do nothing to distract Riku from the pain. He’s mostly sobered up by now, which is the worst thing to happen to him tonight. 

“You’ll have a cool scar at least,” Kairi says around a yawn. “Chicks dig scars.”

Nothing about Riku gives the impression of wanting to attract “chicks”. She knows it, too, and makes a kind of apologetic face at him for it. He tries to think of a joke to lighten the atmosphere.

“Scars are boring,” he says without thinking. “It’s super annoying to have to wear long sleeves in summer.”

His attempt at a relatable don’t you hate it when… moment lands like a cinder block in a pond. He scratches a spot of half-dried blood on his thigh and doesn’t say anything else while the paramedic finishes sewing him up.

Before she leaves she gives him a bottle of mild painkillers, tells him to keep the wound dry and clean for at least a week, and slips a business card in his good hand.

He takes a look at it while they’re waiting for an uber home. It’s for a therapist; he recognizes the name from one of the pamphlets on mental health his mom has taken to leaving lying on the kitchen table since he dropped out of university. He pockets it without thinking.

Later — once he’s sober, in pain, and digging through the pockets of his ruined pants before trashing them — he’ll find that card and think, maybe. He’ll go on the internet to look her clinic up. And then, while agonizing over the phone call necessary to take an appointment, he’ll type:

Paramedic degree apprenticeship.

Just to check. 

Just to think about it.

-

Sirens howl in the distance.

The sound has started to elicit a near-pavlovian response in Riku. No matter what he’s doing, when he hears that two-tones shriek, his heart starts beating as if it’s gearing up for a run, even though the most exercise Riku might get directly after hearing sirens is fumbling for the handbrake and turning the key in the ignition.

Usually, if he can hear the sirens, it means he’s not getting anywhere. Another crew is on the case. Sometimes — rarely, but sometimes — something big is happening. That means they need more than one ambulance on the scene, and that’s when sirens scream move rather than stay put, wait for dispatch.

This time, he’s lucky, meaning someone else was very much not.

“Unit 23, come in.”

Riku presses a button on his radio and nudges his shift partner in the other seat with his foot. “23 checking in. What’s going on?”

“There’s been a six car pile-up on Park Avenue. We’re sending you in to assist.”

“Roger that. We’re on our way.”

Pence groans, rubbing his eyes and trying to detangle himself from the jacket he was using as a blanket. That’s what he gets for sleeping on the job.

“We’re finally getting some action?” 

“I wish you wouldn’t say it like that,” Riku replies, and steps on the gas.

The night has been quiet so far. Technically the streets are empty enough that Riku shouldn’t even need the sirens, but Pence always insists on turning them on ‘for kicks’, so he might as well. Speeding through the streets with the sirens blaring is always a bit of a rush, anyway. Riku’s therapist is always going on and on about how he needs to heal his inner child and whatnot; this is it, he thinks. Going way over the speed limit and living all his childhood firefighter dreams. Of course he’s nowhere near as in-shape as a firefighter and he definitely isn’t getting any naked calendar with his ass in it, but when the night flashes blue and red, setting the rain on his windshield alight like liquid light...

It doesn’t seem like such a bad trade-off.

They get to the scene in record time for traffic in the city center. The site of the accident was nearby; even without the warning from dispatch, Riku would have been able to see it from a mile away just by the crowd gathered around it. Even with the sirens on, he has to slow to a crawl before he drives into somebody.

The crowd parts in front of the ambulance less like the red sea than like the two halves of a ribcage: begrudgingly, through the application of outside force, in a way that seems unnatural to the very structure of it.

It never ceases to amaze him how people will be so quick to come and gawk at the horror their minds are so desperately glad to see happen to somebody else. Humans are messy. Riku likes them better when they’re unconscious, on average.

There’s nothing in tonight’s grim spectacle that he hasn’t seen before. He doesn’t have to think about not thinking about it; he jumps out of the ambulance, hears Pence doing the same on the other side. Their doors slam shut with well-practiced synchronicity. Then it’s the same old dance. Open the doors of the truck; get the stretcher out; go take care of the people the firefighters are already busy cutting out of their vehicles.

“Hi Riku, hi Pence.”

Riku waves at the other paramedic without really looking at them. He’s already kneeling next to a woman lying on the wet asphalt. She’s got cuts all over her face from glass shards and each intake of breath is a struggle to get it through her bruised throat. Her seatbelt must have crushed it on impact, although less dramatically than it could have. She’s still breathing, after all. 

“Hi Olette,” Pence replies above Riku’s head as he makes wordless soothing noises at the woman. Her eyes, animal-wide, can’t seem to focus anywhere. Pence lays the stretcher down and throws the straps off to the side while Riku works on fitting a mask over the woman’s face to help her breathe. “How’s your night been?”

“Oh, you know. Couple stabbing. A drunk guy tried to get into the back of the truck so we’d drive him home. Nothing special. What about you?”

“Quiet. We got to take a nap.”

“Assholes.” Their good-natured laugh dissolves in a grunt of effort as she helps her own partner lift another injured person off the ground and cart them towards their ambulance.

It’s a strange job, and it makes them into strange people. So much human misery; the worst night of these people’s lives, probably, and the last one for a few of them, and here they are, joking around. They’d go insane if they couldn’t compartmentalize, but it’s still weird. 

Riku looks at the flashing lights reflecting off puddles on the ground, as much blood as rain by now, until the surface of a puddle breaks under a firefighter’s boots as they jog past him.

Shaking himself off, he moves on to the next victim, a teenager with a bleeding head wound. He tries to keep them talking while he examines them. At least they’re conscious enough to talk. The worst of the casualties have been taken to the hospital already by the first crew to get on scene; those they’re dragging out of vehicles right now are either in no immediate danger of death or far past that point already.

“Is it bad?” They ask, voice quivering as Riku prods the back of their skull as gently as he can muster.

He tries to sound reassuring as he replies. “Not the worst I’ve seen. Can you look at this for a second?” He shines a light in their eyes and watches the movement of their pupils critically. Definitely a concussion.

“Man, you must see some fucked up stuff then.”

“Yeah. You get used to it, I guess. How are you feeling?”

They open their mouth to answer and promptly throw up over his shirt.

Business as usual, then.

-

Honestly, Riku likes his job. It’s good work; work worth doing. The pay isn’t great, the hours are worse and he’s lost all control over his meal planning, but there are more pros than cons.

Getting up in the morning and actually feeling like you want to get to work is a big one.

Like yeah, sure, he’s exhausted more often than not and he’d love a day off work just to catch up on all those books he hasn’t been reading, but the fact that he gets out of bed and it doesn’t feel like dying a little bit inside? It’s a pretty big change. Teenage Riku couldn’t have dreamt of it.

There are a lot of cons, though. 

Such as dealing with the med students.

It’s not the current students who are the issue, usually. The interns are much too dead inside to cause trouble. The real threat to Riku’s peace of mind are doctors, who never seem to move on from the medschool mindset. His colleagues, technically speaking, though they’d hate to be reminded of that.

They do good work too; important work that they’re uniquely qualified to do. The problem is that they know it. Somehow, in their brains shriveled by lack of sleep and sunlight for the decade of their education, this translates to a fragile complex of superiority where their divine power over life and death can still be threatened by a mere paramedic breathing a little too close to their coffee machine.

Listen. Riku doesn’t want to be here, either, but he’s not giving up on his dose of caffeine so easily and the coffee sold anywhere else in the hospital is overpriced sludge. The coffee from the breakroom’s machine may be tar with a side of gritty unmelted sugar at the bottom, sure, but it’s free tar.

“What school did you go to?” One of the doctors asks in a poor attempt at either smalltalk or intimidation. He looks a little too well-rested. Riku infers from that alone that he’s from the ophthalmology department.

He takes a sip of burning liquid — the hotter it is when you drink it, the less it tastes like anything, making it nearly palatable — and shrugs.

“I took an apprenticeship.”

“You can… do that?”

“Sure can.”

The maybe-ophthalmologist looks, briefly, as if he’s going through all five stages of grief at record speed. Riku wonders what he’s grieving. Ten years worth of lost sleep, perhaps.

Not his problem. He’s got third shift tonight: he’s all out of sympathy for the doctor’s plight.

-

“... and that’s how Kairi and I ended up having to buy them a whole new wardrobe. It was a fun night, wish you could have been there!”

Riku grunts to show Sora he’s still listening. He’s currently busy trying not to spill scrambled eggs all over his kitchen counter, and keeps his phone wedged between his shoulder and his cheek so he can still listen to Sora’s rambling while failing at this very simple task. A decent enough amount of protein ended up in his plate: that’s all that matters.

“Anyway, that’s no why you called,” Sora continues. “What’s up?”

Shrugging — the movement is lost to all but his dying potted plant — Riku pushes his chair out with the tip of his foot and collapses into it. He shoves a forkful of food in his mouth before replying. Bits of eggs fly as he attempts to enunciate a clear sentence through it.

He figured out not that long ago that Sora gets antsy when he hasn’t called in a while. He immediately assumes Riku got in a terrible burn-out related accident or something, it’s hard to tell. Riku has an alarm on his phone that goes off every week telling him to shoot his friend a text before he comes to make a welfare check by way of kicking Riku’s door down. 

“Nothing much,” he says instead of explaining this delicate system to his friend. Some things are better kept unsaid. If Sora has not noticed that Riku calls him every Tuesday on the dot yet perhaps it’s best he never does. “I thought we could catch up since I couldn’t come to Xion’s party.”

“You know I’m glad to speak with you, Riku, but it would be a lot cooler to see you for real!”

“Sorry. Work’s been crazy lately.”

Sora chuckles on the other side of the line, warm even through the static. “Work is always crazy with you.”

“Yeah, well, you know what they say. The devil works hard but the NHS works harder to make up for labor shortage.”

He scrapes the last bits of eggs off his plate and goes to rinse it in the sink when his pager goes off. Riku heaves a sigh and digs it out of his pocket.

“Don’t tell me. Duty calls?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“Man, I don’t envy you going out in this weather.”

Looking through the window, Riku sees that it’s started to snow, bright against the night sky. It’s going to be a long, miserable night. 

“Thanks,” he says, voice dripping with every ounce of sarcasm his shrivelled soul can muster.

Sora sounds as bright as the sun when he replies: “No problem!”

-

Every so often, when he finds the time and Sora proves particularly convincing, Riku lets himself be convinced to come to a social outing of Sora’s choosing. This time, it’s his office Christmas party, if the holiday-themed get-together at the hipster brunch place he works at can be called that.

It was fun at first when Kairi was still hanging around and they could bitch together. Kairi’s a wonderful person to bitch with: always eager to complain about minor inconveniences in the funniest way Riku has ever heard. Kairi has never been one for self-pity and it’s refreshing to syphon a little of that relentless determination while they’re both saying awful things about the traffic and the quality of the drivers they met on the road on the way there.

Unfortunately, his companion in misery was swept away by her fiance half an hour ago to go grab more drinks, and since they still haven’t resurfaced Riku assumes they’re making out somewhere in the back. Leaving him alone in the middle of a party where he knows nobody else.

With friends like these…

He looks into his drink with a pursed mouth, wondering if it tastes good enough to warrant staying longer. There’s a fifty-fifty chance Sora and Kairi won’t come back for another hour, at least. He knows they’ll be disappointed if he’s gone when they do come back, but—

Man, he’s tired and uncomfortable. He wants to go home and take a nap.

The only reason he hasn’t done so already is that this party has a buffet which he’s been methodically destroying, one hors d’oeuvre at a time. 

He’s considering going back for second of the mini quiches when someones walks up to him. 

The other man is attractive: tall, with black hair and striking blue eyes, and a look on his face that says he’s either trying to rescue Riku from his self-imposed exile to the edges of the party or trying to get into his pants. Either option is undesirable for wildly different reasons.

Riku has a lot of issues, but he’s not at the point where he’s going to sleep with one of Sora’s colleagues. He likes being able to visit his friends at his workplace sometimes and if someone there ever sees him naked he can never show his face around again.

“Hi,” the guy says, smiling a toothpaste commercial smile. “I’m Eric.”

“...Hi?”

Not deterred, the guy continues, “You’re Riku, right? Sora talks about you all the time. He says you, like, drive an ambulance?”

Taken aback, Riku blinks up at the guy and then nods slightly. He didn’t expect to be that recognizable — or even known to anyone else. Although he should have expected Sora to be unable to shut up about… anything, really, bless his soul. 

(It warms his cold, dead heart to know his friend talks about him so much. Not that he’d admit it.)

“That’s right, I’m a paramedic.”

“That’s so cool. What is it that you do?”

“I… just said. I’m a paramedic. It’s kind of like an EMT?” He hopes the latter is more recognizable to the general public, because he thinks that if he utters ‘nurse on wheels’ out loud a real nurse will physically manifest in front of him and punch him in the face.

“No, I got that, just… What's your job like?”

“Oh—” Riku grinds his teeth, feeling a blush creeping up his face from sheer awkwardness. “I, huh, I try to make sure people don’t die, I guess.”

“Sounds fulfilling! How’s that going for you?”

“Just before coming to this party, I got thrown up on by a preteen overdosing on heroin, so, you know.” He shrugs. “He made it ‘til the hospital, at least. Can’t say the same for my shirt.”

Erics looks at him with a blank face. It takes a moment for it to occur to Riku that the idea of a thirteen year old taking drugs would not be the ideal set-up to a fun anecdote for most people.

They stare at each other awkwardly for a few seconds before the guy mutters a polite farewell and melts back into the crowd. Riku wants to call after him to say this comment would have been very popular among his usual crowd, but honestly it’s not worth it. He doesn’t think it would make anything better anyway. Instead he stares down into his drink and decides to call it a night.

He sweeps half a platter of hors d’oeuvre on the way out as a consolation prize.

-

Sometimes, being a paramedic is… not glamorous, but satisfying. Fulfilling. Saving a life, helping to make someone’s terrible day a little better. Other times it’s the most awkward experience Riku has ever had, and he’s had many. He thinks he can pinpoint the exact moment he lost any remains of childish hope and wonder, and it wasn’t during his adolescence, the lowest point in his life so far — it was definitely when he was called on a scene to help a teenager stuck inside his girlfriend because of the suction created by the water they were having sex in. Most of the time though it’s just a job, with all the tedium that entails. It has its highs and its lows; its long periods of boredom intercut with intense adrenaline. 

When it gets bad, though, it gets really bad.

A bad day for an accountant might be their company losing money, or getting fired. Riku’s bad days tend to involve dead people.

Usually, they die before he gets there, or after he’s left them at the hospital. It makes it easier. When your whole day is ferrying people to the ER you can’t really focus on any specific case besides the most extraordinary ones, and that bar is set very high.

Today—

Today passes that bar, for better or for worse.

The victim is a teenage girl. Her ex boyfriend stabbed her five times with a kitchen knife before fleeing the scene, and she had to crawl to her phone to call 999. It was still clutched in her hand when they got there, the screen covered in bloody fingerprints and the thin voice of an emergency dispatcher advising the girl to stay calm and keep pressure on the wounds, telling her help was on the way.

She had still been conscious by the time they reached the scene. Barely. She had lost so much blood, a whole pool of it spreading around her limp body while she waited. Their boots tracked wet footprints through the house as they walked through it. Riku doesn’t remember ever getting someone inside an ambulance so quickly. Pence hadn’t even bothered putting on his seatbelt before he started the engine and barreled down the street towards the hospital.

Riku stays in the back to try and staunch the bleeding. And he tries, for a long while, piling gauze over her chest, again and again as it gets soaked through nearly immediately. He talks to her all the while, trying to keep her awake. He asks her name, what her favorite food is. Things she doesn’t really have to think about. Eventually, she stops responding. He looks down at this girl’s pale face, the blood all over his gloves, all the way up his wrist, and he just… knows.

She’s not going to make it.

It happens sometimes. People who have heart attacks outside of the hospital rarely make it; suicide attempts and assaults that were called in too late have a depressing lethality rate. They’re not miracle workers. It sucks every time, but it’s in the job description.

This is the first time he’s had someone die on him in such a way, with his hands nearly up her stomach as he tries to keep her guts in their rightful place. It feels like there’s something he should be able to do.

There’s not. Alice Spencer dies on January 16th at 04:48 P.M from acute organ failure and blood loss. Riku watches her face until she stops breathing; he keeps pressure on her wounds until they reach the ER.

Just in case of a miracle.

Her fate alone would be enough to ruin his day, but of course the universe doesn’t stop there. When the ambulance comes to a screeching halt in front of the ER, sirens dying with a sharp whine even though Pence knows speed isn’t going to save her now, her mom is waiting for her.

He wonders who called her in. Perhaps it was Alice herself, sending that one text every parent dreads. Going to the hospital. If anything happens, I love you.

Ms. Spencer watches them open the doors of the ambulance with a wide-eyed look that’s as much horror as it’s hope. It freezes in her face at the sight in front of her. There’s so much blood; it’s hard to make out the girl underneath all that red. Riku gets a front row seat to the private spectacle of misery that is her realizing they’re not running; there is no emergency. The body they’re wheeling out is just that. 

A body, bled from any soul it might have had.

She doesn’t cry yet. They don’t always do. Some people cry later, in the privacy of their own home, or it sneaks up to them midway through the speech every paramedic practices in front of the mirror and still stumbles through when they have to direct it at anyone but their reflection. I’m sorry, there’s nothing we could do.

Some never cry. Riku looks at the woman and he doesn’t know which one she will be, but for now there’s no trace of tears in her eyes. Only the yawning emptiness of a parent outliving their child, flaring up with helpless anger towards the ex boyfriend, the universe, the knife, everything and everyone who played any kind of role is the tragedy of her life.

Even the emergency responders. As they walk past her, pushing the body of her daughter between them, she hastens her pace to keep up with theirs.

“Why didn’t you save her?” She hisses, her eyes riveted on the pale, drawn face underneath all the blood.

Floundering for some… comfort, or some reassurance, kind words that Riku would want someone to tell his mother in this situation, he defaults to: “I’m sorry. We tried everything.”

She cuts him off before he can say something else stupid, like she didn’t suffer or it was quick, neither of which is true or fair to Alice’s struggle for survival until the very end. “Couldn’t you have done more? She’s dead. There had to be something—”

Someone comes to pull her away then, a quiet orderly who gently steers the woman out of the path of the two responders.

Riku watches her leave with a weight in his throat.

“Come on,” Pence says, patting him on the shoulder. “Today’s suck. Let’s make it end, okay?”

If only it were that easy.

-

People die all the time. Rarely so while Riku has his hands practically inside of their body trying to keep their heart beating, but it happens, and he’s used to it. 

After this one girl, though, he starts to wonder if there isn’t more that he could be doing.

(Her mother’s voice echoes in the dark hours of sleepless nights. There had to be something… Were there?)

The next casualty he encounters is dead on arrival. Geralt McKinsey, an old man with no one left to take care of him who had a heart attack in his kitchen and died without anyone being none the wiser. Thankfully he had been properly old-fashioned and still got his milk delivered to his door: when the milkman rang later that day and no one came to let him in, he called the fire department. It means the body hadn’t started rotting by the time they got there.

Thank god for small mercies.

It’s a little sad to see this lonely old man in his bare, empty house, dead with no one to mourn his absence, but…

It’s a nice change of pace from Alice Spencer.

Riku drives the ambulance to the hospital slowly, like a funeral procession. Obviously McKinsey doesn’t care but it feels worth doing. It feels like it helps. 

Maybe Riku has been carrying more grief than he thought.

Pence lights a cigarette while they watch the coroner take Geralt McKinsey’s body away towards the morgue.

“Where do they go, after?”

“I don’t know, man. Heaven or hell I guess.”

“No, I meant— The bodies no one comes to claim. Where do they go?”

“Oh.” Pence takes a drag of his cigarette and exhales slowly, letting smoke curl around his head as he ponders that question. “Probably to some funeral home the hospital has a contract with or something. I think they cremate them.”

Humming, Riku glances one last time towards the morgue before pushing away from the side of the truck. 

“I’m going to grab something from the cafeteria. Do you want anything?”

“Coffee would be nice.”

On the way to the cafeteria,  Riku stops by the help desk to ask if they have a contract with any funeral home.

“Oh, yes, it’s—” The secretary looks around the dozens of sheets of paper, pamphlets and notices pinned around the walls of her cubicle. “Man, I don’t remember the exact name. I think it was something latin… Why do you want to know?”

Grappling for an excuse, Riku stares at her for a long moment. Her easy smile turns a little more strained the longer it goes on. It’s starting to become uncomfortable to look at. “No reason,” he lands on. It sounds exactly like what a man planning on desecrating corpses would say. “Can I give you my number so you can text me the name once you find it?”

The secretary nods and jots down his number without any comment. Riku is sure his name will go on some kind of list after this — probably the one titled first to name as suspects if there ever is a serial killing case around the hospital. He wants to hit himself the second he walks out: he should have told her he wanted to recommend the service to someone or… anything but that, really.

He also ends up forgetting to go to the cafeteria at all and has to double back to get Pence that coffee he promised. His partner bitches at him for being so slow and Riku almost tells him what he was doing, but that isn’t a conversation he feels like having right now. Or ever.

Later that day, his phone buzzes with a text from an unknown number. 

[08:24 P.M]

Hi this is Veronica from Radiant Hospital :)

Here’s the address of the funeral home you asked for: Memoriam Funeral Home

Riku types it on google maps. It’s really close to the hospital, too. 

He looks at it for a long time, wondering.

-

Riku doesn’t end up going to the funeral home for Geralt McKinley. Nor does he for the next dead person he deals with, or the one after that.

It nags at him, though. A persistent question at the back of his mind. Couldn’t you do more?

Funerals are for the living, not the dead. They don’t care about what kind of casket they’re being buried in or how many people are there to throw a handful of dirt into the hole. Alive people care about death; dead people are just a bunch of loose meat and fluids in a bag of skin with none of the brain activity necessary to care about anything.

Still it makes him… melancholic, to think about the lonely people he brings to the morgue. The ones no one comes to claim. Some of them don’t even have names because there is no one to identify them.

So, the next time it happens—

Riku offers to drive the body to the funeral home. Someone has to, after all..

“Why would you do that?” Pence asks, bemused.

Riku shrugs. “Don’t have much else to do when I’m not on shift.”

“That is so fucking sad. You need a hobby, man.”

 Maybe caring for the dead is my hobby, he very much wants to say, but doesn’t. Firstly, it wouldn’t really be true, and secondly, who says that?

Caring for the living is his job. Caring for the dead is just an extracurricular he picked up accidentally.

It doesn’t matter whether or not Pence gets it, anyway. Riku offered; he has to do it, now. The guy from the morgue looks happy about it at least. Apparently their usual guy has been sick from the flu and they’ve had to take turns driving dead people around for a week. 

“I’m used to the cadavers,” the weirdly enthusiastic coroner tells him, “But man, I hate driving.”

Riku makes polite noises at him until the coroner lets him go, dead body in tow. 

The drive to the funeral home is pretty short, and probably one of the most relaxing of Riku’s career. There’s none of the urgency of someone dying in the backseat, or the adrenaline crash and heaviness of carrying a recently deceased patient. This guy isn’t getting any deader whether or not Riku slows to let pedestrians cross. It’s nice. 

Also, it’s hard to get road rage with a dead body hanging out in the back. Paramedics get aggressive behind the wheel: when lives are on the line it’s easy to yell at the asshole who’s not letting the ambulance pass. Now though he feels like he has to observe some form of… respectful quiet or something. It feels wrong to yell at someone for cutting him off at an intersection. You don’t scream during a funeral service, after all, and this feels kind of like part of the whole process.

The gates are open, so he drives the truck into the back of the funeral home and sits there, suddenly hesitant. He came all the way there — now what? What did he intend on doing, coming here?

Someone knocks on the window of the driver’s door.

Jumping, Riku opens the door without thinking and nearly slams it into the person who just tried to get his attention. He freezes, one leg through the door and his hand still around the handle as he keeps it open halfway even though the guy has already jumped out of the way.

“Wow there cowboy, don’t go putting me in the back of that ambulance of yours yet!”

“Sorry,” Riku says. He tries to close the door gently once he’s out, to make up for the near-accident. Countless times slamming the ambulance’s doors shut as they run towards a bloody scene has fucked the closing mechanism in a way that makes them basically impossible to close properly. He can feel it kind of jamming in there, and has to reopen the door and then slam it back inside with way too much force.

When he turns around, the guy is clearly laughing at him.

The first thought to cross Riku’s head is that this man looks a lot like Sora, which makes no sense. It’s just a vibe he gets from him, something about the disheveled haircut and toothy smile, although Sora’s is much less sharp. The height, too: Riku has a good head on him, at least.

“I’m here to deliver a body?” 

“Are you sure? You don’t sound sure.” 

“Well, I haven’t checked the back since I started driving, so— I don’t know, he might have he walked it off.”

Is that a weird thing to say? It’s definitely a weird joke to make at a funeral home. But the guy just barks out a laugh. It makes his light brown eyes sparkle, and when they catch the faint wintery sunlight they seem to glitter gold. Riku feels his shoulders lose the unconscious tension that had them curling towards his ears as he second-guessed his instinctual joke. 

“Should I grab a shovel just in case?” The guy quips, walking around Riku towards the back of the ambulance. He’s wearing a long, black skirt and a bolo tie with a silver crow skull on it. It looks like exactly what Riku expected from someone who works at a funeral home, and nothing like it at all. He expected both more skulls and a more professional suit, maybe. 

“Are you in charge of the place?”

“What, me? Nah, I just work the cremator. I’m Vanitas, by the way.”

The name, somehow, is exactly right for the job.

“It suits you,” Riku blurts out.

“I know, I chose it.”

Something about the way he rolls with anything that comes out of Riku’s mouth makes the conversation more confusing, not less. Riku is used to fumbling his way through social interactions through a mix of awkwardness and macabre thought process. The lack of uncomfortable silence is almost unnatural.

Vanitas is chatty, and he has no problem filling the silence with an impromptu visit of the building, pointing out points of interest such as the many, many paintings of skulls that crowd the walls of the corridor leading to the cremator . 

“No one comes back there, really, so they let me decorate with whatever,” he explains as he pushes the stretcher the dead body is laid on energetically through the swinging doors leading to the cremator. “Okay, this is where the magic happens.”

The magic being a fire thousands of degrees hot that melts down human blubber into a practical pile of ashes and bones. Yeah, that’s as magical as it ever gets in this world.

Riku helps Vanitas carry the body off the stretcher, and then he stands there, unsure if he should leave or—

“Do you want to stay and watch it happen?”

“Kind of?”

Vanitas’ smile is so enthusiastic it makes Riku forget why he was hesitating at all.

-

It’s a pretty fascinating process, cremating a body. Vanitas goes about it with well-practiced efficiency while Riku leans against an examination table and watches him work. He’s grown serious and quiet as he works, but it doesn’t take long for him to start talking again once the cremation has begun.

“It takes a while,” he says, nodding towards the cremator. “You might want to sit down.”

“Is that allowed?”

“I don’t know why you’d want to stay. It’s pretty boring. But yeah, if you want.”

The thing is, Riku does want to stay. He can’t, though: he has a shift starting in half an hour, and he should probably eat something before then if he doesn’t want to pass out behind the wheel. When he explains that to Vanitas, the other man just shrugs, balling up his gloves and tossing them into a garbage bin with a flourish.

He doesn’t offer to see Riku out, and Riku doesn’t ask. Part of him wishes he had.

-

It’s that part of him that brings him to the funeral home again a month later. He comes in by the front door this time. A receptionist in a sober suit welcomes him in with a blank smile and a soft, toneless greeting. He blinks and has to check the plaque on the desk to be sure he’s in the right place. He wonders who is the outlier among the profession between this person and Vanitas.

“I’m here for, huh—” He checks the piece of paper in his hand, to be sure. “Gary Norton’s service?” 

The receptionist shows Riku to a room with a thick, maroon carpet that swallows his footsteps and makes every single sound seem overly loud in comparison. He resists the urge to clear his throat just to hear it bounce off the blank walls. Rows of foldable chairs sit empty, facing a raised platform displaying a handful of blank urns and three picture frames clustered to the side. He only recognizes one of the three portraits: he looked down upon that face three days ago while performing CPR on a man whose heart had stopped beating in the middle of a bar. 

Gary Norton, 42. His ex wife didn’t want anything to do with his body. Apparently neither did anyone else: the only person present to pay their last respect is Vanitas, the crematory operator.

The man looks up from a small side table holding a small bouquet and multiple plates of finger food and stares at Riku for a moment.

“Good afternoon,” he says, waving a baby carrot at Riku. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“What?”

“Your loss. You know, since you’re at a funeral service?”

“Oh, no, sorry. I didn’t know any of these people. Not really.” Riku walks the rest of the way to the urns and gestures at Gary’s portrait. “I heard he didn’t have any family left, so I thought I’d come… pay my respects.”

“That’s kind of you, huh...” Vanitas waves at him in a go on gesture. It takes Riku a while to realize the other man is waiting for his name — he forgot to give it last time.

“Riku.”

“Well, Riku, the room is theirs for the whole hour, so… yeah.” 

He goes back to the food, and Riku nods to his back and turns to the urns once again. 

The portraits stare back at him with disturbing liveliness. They look like social media pictures printed on cheap paper rather than professional photographs but the wide smiles and sparkling eyes make up for the low quality. Riku hasn’t been to many funerals before but he remembers the portraits being a lot more solemn. Faint smiles and gracious poses, rather than a poorly cropped picture of a young woman with a beer bottle in hand.

He tries to connect each portrait with an urn, but there’s basically no distinctive sign to tell them apart. He nods to each one of them to be sure he got Gary’s. He came because he didn’t want another person to be buried alone; whether he does that for one or three strangers doesn’t change much.

Eventually it gets a little boring to just stare at metal canisters filled with ashes, though. He looks at Vanitas and finds him happily chewing his way through a collection of aperitif crackers.

“Are you obligated to hold a service for everybody?”

“Nope.” The crematory operator gestures at the urns with a fistful of crackers. “The families are in charge of it, but the hospitals technically pay for a full body disposal and they don’t really question the bill I send them. No one ever comes, usually, so I mostly do it for the catering.”

Considering the catering in question is a bunch of cheap snacks Riku remembers living off on when he was a teenager, he wonders if it can really be that much of a draw.

“That’s… very generous. What happens to the ashes after?”

Vanitas shrugs. “They end up in storage. Every so often I take a trip to scatter them somewhere pretty. Taking care of the dead is my job, but like, caring for them is kind of my hobby, you know?”

Oh my god, Riku thinks, who says that? Quickly followed by, dammit, I did.

He rubs his neck, opens his mouth—

“Do you want to get a drink sometimes?”

And promptly shoves his foot inside of it.

“Are you coming on to me at a funeral?”

“I— I mean, no, but—” 

Vanitas chuckles. “I’m fucking with you. Do you want to hear about taxidermy? Because that’s all I’m gonna talk about if we go out.” 

“Actually… Yeah, I do. I love… Taxidermy.” Riku winces. Way to sound like a serial killer again.

Vanitas only grins, as if he couldn’t wish for a better answer. “Come help me eat all these chips then. I need to clear this up for the next service, and then I’m free for the whole afternoon.”

[justasparkwritings]

Green Light

Previous: 

Pairing: Harry Styles X Ex Reader, Harry Styles X New Girlfriend

Genre: Angst

Rating: PG15

Word Count: 2.3k

Warnings: Swearing, Alcohol use, Mentions of Drug use, Past Infidelity 

Listen: Green Light by Lorde

For the #playlistficchallenge by @harrystylescherry 

           The lights flicker against her skin, dancing pinks and purples and blues giving way to green as the bass thumps through the speakers. The light up floor is causing an illusion against her body as she hastily searches for her peers. Eyes darting across the club, trying to find the couple of the hour, but getting lost in the sea of drunk people dancing to a b-rate Whitney Houston cover, she’s becoming frustrated. Why play Whitney if you’re not going to play the original? She wonders, moving through the perimeter towards what she assumes is the VIP area. Being correct, she waits patiently for one of the guests to notice her, waving her into the exclusive space.

           He notices her first, beaten converse and magenta tulle, she dressed to kill. Standing, he moves towards the bodyguard, pointing to her as the guard gave her a once-over. Nodding, pulling the rope back, she smiles at the stranger before deftly moving into the space.

           “I didn’t know you’d be here,” Harry says, hand on the small of her back, flush against the exposed skin, lips low to her ear, guiding her towards their friends.

           “You’re such a liar,” She replies, rolling her eyes. The neon eyeliner, drifting over her eyelids and near her brows is striking against the dim lights. The single rhinestones applied carefully to the inner corners of her eyes bounce the light off, shrouding her in a conflicting color story.

           “You made it!” Daisy yells, arms reaching to pull her into a hug. It’s tight and sweaty, a sign she’s either been dancing or snorting.

           “I told you I’d be here,” Her smile widens at her friend, “Congrats again on your engagement.”

           “Thank you!!! Now please, drink. We have bottle service until midnight,” Daisy hands her a champagne flute, which she happily tosses back before reaching for the vodka. “If you’re good, you can have a little of what I’m having.”

           “I better behave,” She responds, eyes clocking Harry talking to Daisy’s fiancé, Jack.

           “I thought he wasn’t coming,” Daisy’s gaze follows hers, eying the man. His wide trousers and cropped jacket give way to the tattoos covering his chest, swallows in constant conversation. Hair recently cut, he’s scruffy and wanting, his eyes not hesitating to check her out for the second time in two minutes.

           “Lies,” She scoffs, eyes rolling again at the sentiment.

           “I swear! Jack said he was out of town,” Daisy counters.

           “Clearly he’s not,” She looks at their other friends, nodding and smiling to the familiar faces. Their friends from uni, from work, a few from their neighborhood in Holmes Chapel have all gathered to raise a glass at Daisy and Jack’s inevitable engagement. It feels like the kind of New Year’s party Harry would’ve dragged her to, on the pretense that it would be fun to catch up. Knowing he would be right, she would’ve gone and enjoyed the company of the people who knew her before she was on his arm, the people who knew him when he worked all hours at the bakery. Tonight, their friendly smiles weren’t hitting the same, welcoming her into their embrace, no, they were darting between her and Harry, unsure where their allegiance should lie.

           “Rumor has it, he’s got a new girlfriend,” Daisy says.

           “Super,” She purses her lips, eyes moving to search for whoever his latest trophy was.

           “Don’t be like that,” Daisy shakes her head, disappointment oozing from every syllable.

           “Like what?” She snaps.

           “You’re so mad he’s with someone else, when -

           “I thought we were done talking about what happened between us?” She interrupts, frustration and anger coursing through her veins.

           “If you were over it, you’d stop looking at him like that,” Daisy holds her own, tone unwavering.

           “Fuck off.”

           Handing her a drink, Daisy levels with her, “Drink.”

           Tossing back whatever was in the glass, she waits impatiently for the liquor to take over, coursing through her veins and reducing her heat to a dull simmer.

           In the months after the breakup, she hadn’t seen or interacted with Harry. No cursory texts, no awkward pleasantries exchanged at a birthday party, or running into him at the grocery. She didn’t speak to him, and yet he was everywhere. His voice, his favorite sayings, his touch, his music, all of it spread across the city, taunting her. She had let him go, literally, but figuratively, metaphorically, he was everywhere. Seeping into her thoughts, burrowing into her mind, never able to escape him even in sleep. Tonight, he looked at her like he didn’t know her at all, like she was the villain in his story, not the other way around. Like he didn’t let his work get the best of them, ruining what they had in its wake.

           Somewhere between drinks four and five, Harry’s latest lover arrives. Scarily tall and equally skinny, silky brown locks and pouty lips, it’s clear she’s a model. Whether she was with anyone or not, the bouncer lets her into the VIP section without a second thought. She floats towards Harry, sinking gently onto his lap before whispering in his ear. He smiles at her as she places a hand on his scruff covered cheek and lowers her lips to his.

           From the dance floor, she stares, unable to stop watching him move on from her. How could it be so easy?

           Pulling her attention back to the floor, Daisy spins her, moving them out of sight from Harry. The lights beneath their feet give way to a soft glow about her, the colors bending against Daisy’s white jumpsuit. She’s grateful for her friend, her best friend, grateful for the distraction of alcohol and blow, grateful to be dancing and screaming the lyrics instead of sitting in the tub at home, crying into her room temperature bath water. But grateful and grieving often go together, and as her level of intoxication ebbs, the hurt of seeing Harry with someone knew, she retreats to the VIP section to gather herself.

           “You must be Y/N,” The model says, moving from her post next to Harry to her.

           “Um, yes?” She responds, eyes traveling up the woman’s legs, slowly making their way to her face.

           “I’m Arden, Harry’s girlfriend,” Arden smiles, blinding, and sits down. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

           “Can’t believe everything you hear,” She scoffs, grateful for the bottle of water Jack hands her before going to find Daisy amongst the neon.

           “Harry speaks quite highly of you, so does Jack,” Arden continues to smile, blissfully ignoring the contempt she’s displaying.  

           “You’ve met Jack before?” She asks.

           “Just Jack, never Daisy, she’s stunning, right?” Arden asks, laughing.

           “Yeah, completely,” She nods, eyes traveling to find Daisy, her beacon in the club. She’s been best friends with Daisy since diapers, their mother’s best friends, hoping and praying they’d each have daughters to carry on the legacy of their familial bond.

           “Harry tells me you’re in publishing,” Arden tries again to make conversation.

           “Correct,” She nods again.

           “That’s amazing, I love reading,” Arden offers.

           “Same.”

           “I have a lot of downtime at work, I’m a model. I just did the new Rodarte campaign, and Gucci,” Arden is trying her damnest to make this work, but her motives remain a mystery.

           “Congrats,” She snorts, unimpressed by the model’s recent credentials.

           “Thanks, I just want to say, I know you and Harry are at this weird point in your friendship, but I do hope you’ll work it out.” Arden is serious, glossy blue eyes resolute.

           “Did Harry tell you why we broke up?” She asks, eyeing Arden suspiciously.

           “A little, but I didn’t ask. It was before me so really, who cares?” Arden forces a giggle, baby blues trying to break through the tension.

           “Right,” She nods, a slight eyeroll giving way to her true feelings.

           “I just thought maybe you two could, mend your –

           “Hey,” Harry says, making his way towards the two of you.

           “Hi babe,” Arden seamlessly slips her arm around his waist, pulling him close to her.

           “What uh, what are you two talking about?” Harry asks, eyes accusatory as he again takes in your stunning appearance.

           “I was just saying that we’re going to Tahiti after I finish my campaign with Gucci. Relax, sit on the beach, drink Mai Tai’s, surf, or really, for me, learn,” Arden rambles on, her hair bouncing in animation, matching her words. Her deft swerve to the topic of vacation surprising, unsure why she needed to lie to Harry.

           “The beach?” she asks, looking at Harry. He nods, cursory.

           “Yeah,” He sips on his drink.

           “Huh,” She responds, eyes narrow. “Will you excuse me? It was nice meeting you Arden.”

           Slipping out of the VIP section and into the night air, she feels his presence behind her, chasing after her as she moves through the crowd and into the brisk summer air.

Not bothering to turn around, she asks, “Why are you following me?”

           “Why did you just disappear?” Harry demands, coming to stand next to her. His warmth radiating onto her skin.

           “You’re here with someone else,” She reminds him.

           “You haven’t responded to any of my –

           “Harry, you are here with someone else, the very someone else who if I’m not mistaken, is the reason for our demise,” She turns to stare at him, eyes boring into his.

           “I, she’s not,” Harry shakes his head.

           “Oh right, because I am the sole proprietor of our heartache and failed relationship,” Another eyeroll. Her mother used to tell her that if you roll your eyes too many times, they’ll get stuck up there. A fear she was clearly ignoring.

           “You’re not,” Harry scoffs, they’d had this fight before.

           “Why are you looking at me like I am?” She’s unwilling to back down, a trait Harry once loved about her.

           “I’m, I’m sorry alright?” Harry’s flustered speech gives way to a run of his hand through his curls. Resting his hands on his hips, he stares at her.

           “Sorry for what?” She asks again, words clipped.

           “Everything,” He shrugs.

           “That’s the least specific apology I have ever heard,” She deadpans. He wants to respond with some witty banter, some lighthearted sarcasm, some joke a year ago, five years ago, she would’ve laughed at. But they’re not the same people they were six months ago.

           “What do you want me to say?” Harry’s exasperated.

           “I want you to tell me how you really feel, because we broke up six months ago, and I still don’t understand why you ran to her, whoever she was, instead of fighting for me. Then tell me why our friends think I’m the viper, I’m the one who broke your heart. Why are you spreading rumors hoping they’ll bite me, when they just show how pathetic you’re behaving?” Her volume increases exponentially as she speaks, until she’s nearly yelling at him.

           “That’s not fair,” Harry states, eyes closing as he shakes his head.

           “I’m trying to let go, Harry. But you fucking have your tentacles in everything I do! You’re everywhere.”

           “It’s so easy for me? You are everywhere. Every new song I write, every role I consider taking, every project. I still fucking talk to you like you’ll hear me, everywhere I go is tainted by some memory of us.” Harry spits back.

           “Tell me why, Harry. Why are you going to Tahiti?” She questions, voice cutting through the cold air and going straight to Harry’s heart.

           “I like the beach,” He shrugs.

           “You are such a fucking liar! No, you don’t!” She yells, arms reaching towards the summer sky as she shakes her head at him.

           “Maybe I’m trying out new things,” Harry stares at her, “Maybe I’m trying to be –

           “What, different? Better? You cheat on me, after saying that you will always be in love with me, which surprise, you’re not!”

           “Not a cheater?” Harry’s momentarily confused, a slight diversion from the rant she’s begun.

           “Not in love anymore,” Her eyes are wide, confused by his lapse in memory, “You’re not in love with me anymore. You cheated on me, lied to our friends and now you’re here with little miss long legs.”

           “Don’t call her that,” Harry says.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Arden,”

“Look, I’m sorry,” Harry runs a hand through his locks again, sighing in frustration.

           “No, you’re not. If you were, she wouldn’t be here with you. If you were sorry, you wouldn’t be fighting with me outside the club. If you were sorry, you’d –

           “I need your forgiveness! Alright, that’s why I’m out here.” Harry’s voice raises several decibels. He’s been holding onto this for months, long before she found out, long before he willingly broke her heart.

           She lets out a shaky breath, “What?”

           “I need you to forgive me, to accept my apology, to, give me the green light that it’s okay to be, not yours anymore,” Harry explains.

           “You cheated on me!” She yells, finger pointing directly above Harry’s heart. “I have honored you by not telling our friends for what? You don’t get to have or ask for my forgiveness, I’ve already given you too much. Forgiveness went out the window when you fucked someone else Harry! How dare you ask me to forgive you, absolve you, for a sin you willingly committed. You were in complete control of yourself and you still cheated on me. You want a green light? That was fucking it.”

          She pushes past him, stomping back into the club and onto the dance floor, into the arms of someone else, someone who isn’t scared to kiss her above the dazzling lights, someone whose bedroom she’ll wake up in, unsure where she is, not caring to leave a note before slipping out into the city. And hopefully, after a few more escapades, the embrace of the rising sun on her walk home won’t echo his voice anymore. The birds chirping won’t sing his songs, and the sting of telling Daisy the truth won’t ring out over overcooked eggs and overpriced mimosas.

          Harry had wanted her to give him the green light, but in refusing to do so, she watched the light change for herself.

Next: Talia

[higherfurther-romanova]

Bruises and Cuts

Warnings: Parental abuse, injurries, mild language, soft nat, angsty though.

Word Count: 1,103

A/N: Heyyyy. Thank you for the request, love. <3 Hope you enjoy. (This is a college AU) Uhm... not me giving the end of this fic One Direction song vibes... HAHA.. never. 

~~~~~~~~~~~⧗~~~~~~~~~~~

Weak. 

Broken. 

Useless.

Weapon.

Replaceable. 

His words echo throughout the room. You’re just returning to your dorm after spending the weekend with your father like you always do. Natasha hasn’t failed to notice your sudden change in style and mood, she didn’t say anything because she’s scared of pissing you off. You’ve been telling her you fell when she does ask but it’s getting to the point where she doesn’t believe it. The obvious thing to do to avoid these situations would be to just stop going and seeing your father, right? Wrong, he will come to your dorm if you don’t go to him and you don’t need Natasha caught in the middle of this. You’re not easy to push down or break to most people. You’re actually known as one of the strongest people at your campus but that changes around your father. He’s trained you well in martial arts, not for your own safety or pleasure but for his. He likes causing pain for others and has always told you to show no mercy and if you did, there were consequences. You hate yourself for not standing up against him and letting him break you. When you do stand up for yourself he brings your dead brother into the situation, telling you that he’d be disappointed, that he’d hate you for what you’ve become. 

Taking a deep breath, you open the door and you’re greeted with a dark room, the only light showing is the TV. It reminds you of your life… A dark room with a small source of light that just happens to be the redhead asleep on the couch. You smile a bit, grabbing the blanket on the back of the couch and draping it over her sleeping form. You go to set your things in your room and then you make your way to the kitchen. You grab your bottle of vodka and lean against the counter, pulling your hood up to hide any possible marks on your face. 

Nat must have sensed your presence because she jolts up and exclaims your name. 

“Hey.” You chuckle, setting your bottle behind you. 

“I missed you. Are you hungry, I made some food, it’s in the fridge.” She stands up and walks into the kitchen. 

“You… Natasha Romanoff made food? What did you do, poison it? Burn it? I’m surprised this building is still standing.” You tease. 

She lightly punches your shoulder. You struggle to hold back the whimper that is dying to escape but you manage. 

"So are you hungry or not, asshole?" She laughs. 

"I ate before I got home, but thank you." 

She nods and leans against the counter opposite of you. 

"How was your weekend?" She asks.

"Fine, yours?" You lie. 

"Boring. Any day without you hear is boring. Not in a weird way but-" 

"You know… the more you ramble on, the weirder it gets." You joke. 

She rolls her eyes playfully. 

An awkward silence swallows the both of you. 

“(Y/N)...?” 

“Nat…?” You repeat, grabbing the bottle of vodka and taking a sip of it. 

“Why do you keep showing up with bruises and cuts… please don’t tell me you fell, I’m not falling for that anymore.” She blurts out. 

You choke on the alcohol that was making its way down your throat. Clearing your throat, you avoid her eye contact. 

“I go down do martial-” You start. 

“You’re lying. Try again.” She shakes her head, stepping closer. 

“I think you know the answer, Nat.” You say with your voice getting caught in your throat. 

“Does he-” 

You nod slightly, if she were to blink she would have missed it. You see the fear and sadness flash across her face before she moves so she’s inches away from you. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She asks. 

“I… didn’t want you caught in the middle of it.” You look at the ground only for your face to be lifted by her index finger. Your heart is beating insanely fast, your faces are inches apart, all it would take is for one of you to lean forward just a smidge. Her eyes travel down to your lips and back up to meet yours, wordlessly asking for permission. You answer by closing the gap, pulling her in by her hips. 

“(Y/N)...” Nat whispers against your lips. 

You pull away and look down at her. 

“Can I…?” She asks, motioning towards your hood. 

You nod and she pulls down the hood revealing your beat-up face. 

“Is this it…?” She questions, afraid of the answer. 

You shake your head, “No…” 

She looks at you, tears welling in her eyes. You pull your hoodie up, revealing cuts, scars, and bruises littering your abs. 

“Will you let me tend to them? Please?” She asks gently. 

You nod hesitantly. She guides you to the bathroom and pulls out a first aid kit. You lean against the sink. 

“I’ll need you to take off your shirt…” She says bashfully. 

You chuckle at her bashfulness but comply. You don’t miss the way her cheeks flush perfectly red. She sprays a cloth with an antibiotic and carefully wipes off the cuts. You don’t really react to the pain at this point. She sprays a bit more on it and wipes off the ones on your arms and then your face. 

“Is that all?” She asks, trying to avoid looking at your breasts. 

You nod, “Thank you.” 

“Always.” She smiles softly. 

Your eyes flicker down to her lips but then back up to hers. She smirks and leans in, closing the gap. Normally you’d blame it on the vodka, but you know you’ve loved this woman since you were 18. You always wondered if the innocent flirting between the two of you meant she felt the same, but the way her lips move against your answer that without a doubt. There are unspoken words waiting to be said behind the kiss. She’s broken down your walls with just the movements of her lips against yours. Tears flood out of your eyes and she wraps her arms around your neck, rubbing her hand against the back of it letting you know that she’s right there. 

“I love you…” She whispers. 

“I have loved you since we were 18…” You let out a wet chuckle, looking down at the floor and back up at her with soft eyes which make her heart melt. 

Her eyes light up at your confession. You smile at her and pull her in by her hips, wrapping your arms around her, swearing to yourself that you’ll never let her go. 

~~~~~~~~~~~⧗~~~~~~~~~~~

Taglist: @imnotasuperhero​ @rooskaya-yelena​ @aaron-despair​ @natasha-danvers​