#it's been SO LONG since i've written fic you guys

[zepskies]

HEADCANON: Man Flu

Pairings: Dean Winchester x Reader || Beau Arlen x Reader || Soldier Boy/Ben x Reader || Boaz Priestly x Reader

HC: When Dean Winchester, Beau Arlen, Soldier Boy (Ben), and Boaz Priestly get sick, how would they act when you (try to) take care of them?

AN: After reading I Got You by @bettystonewell (Dean x Reader) and The Best Kind of Medicine by @lamentationsofalonelypotato (Soldier Boy x Reader), I realized that I've never actually written a sick-fic before. Here it is in headcanon form, since you guys seem to like these! lol 💜

Also adding Priestly to this lineup for the first time because some of you have been requesting more of him recently. 😉

Tags/Warnings: Established relationship, hurt/comfort, sick-fic, some needy affection-starved men who don't want to admit they're needy, lots of fluff.~

Dean Winchester

He's not sick. Because he doesn't get sick.

Dean claims he has the constitution of a horse, but you still take the beer out of his hand before he can take a sip at 10:00 a.m.

He's too busy interrupting himself, namely by coughing half a lung, wheezing, blinking teary eyes -- the whole phlegmy nine yards.

Sam shakes his head, casting you a look that frankly says, Good luck.

He knows his brother is stubborn as hell, and one of the things Dean dislikes most is being fussed over for "no reason." Being seen as weak. Not being able to just shrug his shoulders and shake it off.

To be fair, Dean tries. Except this time it's accompanied by a body shiver and a reluctant sniffle. His pallid face is drawn, and his usually strong and solid frame looks unsteady as he leans a hand on the War Room table.

"Okay, come on, Rambo. Let's get you back into bed," you say, guiding your boyfriend back to the room you share with him.

"I'm find," he insists, even as he begrudgingly accepts the gentle pressure of your hand on his back and shoulder, pushing him down to the bed.

"Sure you are, baby," you say with a smirk. "You're in the primb of libe."

Dean shoots you a narrowed look. Damn you for forcing him to binge-watch all those episodes of Friends late at night when you both can't sleep.

Right now he's Monica, trying to convince you he's in tip-top shape, while you're Chandler, just trying to get him to use tissues instead of his flannel sleeve to wipe his runny nose.

After taking his boots off, you get him to change out of his jeans and back into his sweatpants. Then you manage to get him to lay down under the covers with the promise of coming back with medicine and soup.

"I don't want soup, damn it," he grumbles. You just roll your eyes and rub his arm.

"Just rest. I'll be back with the Vicks."

As you might expect, Dean is not an easy patient.

He refuses to drink tea, but he does down the pills you bring for him, with a measured toss of his head that still makes his head swim. He groans.

He swallows a couple of cautious spoonfuls of the soup, pausing when he realizes that its warmth actually feels good down his sore and scratchy throat. It tastes pretty good too, especially with the warm, buttered slices of bread on the side.

"You made this?" he asks.

"Mhmm," you nod, smiling. If nothing else, good food will pacify this man. "Chicken and wild rice, made especially for you."

"Hmm. S' good," he nods in reply. He manages to finish the bowl.

He has to admit, if just to himself, that he does feel like shit.

He won't admit that the way you're rubbing his back, the gentle pressure of your nails between his shoulders and down his spine relaxes him, makes him feel better.

He knows that you care about him. That you love him. But this is one of those moments where it hits him, just how much.

It's a little overwhelming. A heavy swell of pressure fills his chest, so he tries not to let himself think about it for very long.

(He fails.)

After he's done eating, you take the plates away and help him back into bed. You linger there, slipping your fingers through his soft brown hair and pressing a kiss to his clammy forehead.

"I really need you to rest, okay," you say quietly. "If you need anything, just text me or Sam. Don't get out of bed."

Dean grasps your hand before you can move away from him. Since you're probably going to wash your hands anyway, he lays a kiss on the back of your hand.

"Thanks, sweetheart."

Beau Arlen

Sheriff Beau Arlen is the type to run himself into the ground because he's so damn into his work.

He wants to do well in his station of responsibility, and he feels like he has to make up for his performance during the summer madness of Buck Barnes and Avery...and everything in between.

You just have to make Beau realize that he needs to slow down, before he well and truly burns himself out.

You put your foot down one morning.

He tries to get out of bed but has to pause, his head swimming. He takes a couple of steadying breaths while sitting on the edge of the bed.

You notice with a frown. "Hey, you okay?"

"Fine. Just fine," he answers a little too breathlessly. He raises a hand to his head. His throat is sticky and coarse. He wrinkles his nose when he also feels a sneeze coming on.

"Just need a...a...mugh-ah-ha-hugh."

His coughing sneeze makes you grimace. You didn't even know someone could sneeze and cough at the same time.

"Aw, babe. You're sick," you say as you move over to him, resting a hand on his back. He shakes his head and groans.

"Nah, can't be sick. Gotta lot of work to do today," he says. His voice is like gravel blended with broken glass. It would actually be sexy, if for the distinctly un-sexy way he tries to clear the great wad of phlegm from his throat.

He tries to rock himself onto his feet, but there he sways on the landing. You hurry out of bed to grab his arm and steady him.

"Oh no, you don't. Back into bed," you say.

"Aw, sweetheart. I'll be fine--"

"No. Lay down. You're not going in today," you say more firmly, all while you tuck the man back into bed with the blankets covering him.

"All right, all right. No need to be so pushy," he can't help but tease.

It earns a small smirk on your face. It seems like his man flu hasn't yet deprived him of his sense of humor.

"I thought you liked that though," you reply. You sit on the edge of the bed and rub his chest. He groans in defeat.

"Can't believe this," he grumbles. "Today of all days--"

"There's always going to be another case. This is your body telling you that you need to slow down," you tell him. "So how about this. I'm gonna call in one of my sick days, and we'll bunker in together."

You stroke his bearded cheek. He quirks a smile, grabbing your hand and squeezing warmly.

"How long until I'm allowed out, warden?" he asks.

"Until you can stand without keeling over," you dryly reply. A smile tugs at your lips. "Remind me to stop by CVS to grab you a Life Alert."

"All right, har har haugh--" His sarcasm ends on a very real, wheezing cough. Your amused smile drops. You relent from your teasing and stroke his chest once more.

"Okay, just rest. Let me get you some actual medicine and I'll be right back."

He stops you by grabbing your wrist. "Hey, uh...can I have some chicken noodle soup later?"

"Of course, baby. I'll swing by the store now and get some stuff for you."

"And some saltines?"

"Saltine crackers on the side. Got it."

You're about to head to the bathroom to brush your teeth before you start getting ready to go to the store, but once again, Beau's needy hand stops you.

"Before you go, some tea with honey and lemon would be good. Just something for my throat," he croaks.

You smile and nod. "Yeah, for sure. That'll be better for you than coffee."

"Oh, and can you gimme that quilt over there?" he asks, pointing to your favorite knitted blanket at the edge of the bed. You graciously lay it over his form and drop a kiss onto his forehead.

"And some cough drops. Thank you, darlin'," Beau adds.

Your lips begin to press together, but you nod and continue getting dressed.

You can already tell this man is going to settle into you taking care of him just fine.

Soldier Boy (Ben)

Neither of you thought it was possible, considering his super genes that allowed him to eat and booze and drug harder than Andre the Giant and Keith Richards put together.

But one day, your over six-foot super soldier goes down hard. The warning signs came the night before, when you could hardly sleep with the way he was snoring like a grizzly bear.

In the morning, he wakes bleary-eyed with a runny nose and a coughing fit hard enough to shake the bed.

"Fuck," he groans, dragging a hand over his face before he turns onto his back. "This's gotta be some kind of bullshit hangover."

You move over to him in bed and feel the intense warmth of his clammy forehead. Your brows draw together in concern.

"No, I think you're sick."

"Not possible," he grumbles. "I haven't been sick since..."

Well, since he was a kid, probably. He won't admit it, but he's surprised he still has that memory lodged in the back of his mind.

It comes to the forefront now: your hand on his cheek unknowingly mimics his mother's gentle touch, her soft, kind voice.

"Aw, my sweet boy. Let's get you feeling better."

He can almost recall the floral scent of her perfume, echoes of it in the shampoo you use.

Ben claims he's fine, that he doesn't need your help or want the medicine and tea you bring for him. (He tries the tea, grimaces, and spits it out when you're not looking.)

He's a sourpatch grumbly patient who only begrudgingly stays put in bed when you ask him to. He doesn't mind lying around and watching movies all day, not to mention episode after episode of Below Deck. It reminds him that he wants to get back into boating.

"Hey, sweetheart," he calls to you from the bedroom, his voice croaking all the while. "I'm getting you a yacht for Valentine's Day. You want it all white, or throw in a bit of gold? Actually, check out this one with the navy trim."

You roll your eyes to yourself when you step back into the room. You're carrying a tray with a large bowl of soup and a fifth of whiskey. He claims the latter will help soothe his throat, and you don't have the heart to argue with him when he's clearly feeling so shitty.

"You mean you're getting you a yacht," you reply wryly. "We live in the city. Where the hell would we put a boat?"

"In a yacht club, where it belongs," Ben retorts. He hooks an arm around your waist and peruses what you've brought him on the tray. He doesn't look all that interested.

"Look, I know you're not exactly a soupy kinda guy, but this'll make you feel better," you say.

"Why can't you put some fucking steak in it or something?" he grouses. He tries and fails to hide another wet cough.

"Why can't you just eat what I lovingly made, just for you," you snipped back.

He rolls his eyes at your attitude, but he pipes down. In that silence, he's conceding that you have a point. There was a time were all he had to do was glance in someone's direction, and there'd be some fucking moron to fulfill his every whim.

Now, you're probably the only one in the world that would actually do what you're doing...

Cooking for him, putting your heart into it, for the simple reason that you do care.

Ben takes the bowl of soup from your hands. Raising a brow, you offer him the spoon as well.

He eats without further complaint.

You smile and reward him with a sweet kiss on his forehead, brushing his hair back as you do so.

"See? That's not so hard, huh?" you can't help but needle him. "It's okay, baby. I'll take care of you."

He eyes you dryly, but he won't admit that there's a different kind of warmth coiling in his chest.

Boaz Priestly

"Uuuughhh, babe," he groans. "I feel like death on toast."

You're standing beside the bed with a smile playing on your lips. You brush back his for once un-gelled hair back from his face. It's weird to see it all limp and lifeless, slightly damp with sweat.

"Unironically, I should make you some toast," you reply. "What kind of medicine do we have?"

Priestly unearths his head from under his pillow to look up at you with miserable red-rimmed eyes and a sniffling, stuffy nose. "Can we count the tequila in the mini bar?"

"Maybe later," you laugh. "How are we on groceries?"

Priestly struggles to think. He takes your hand and rubs it back and forth across his chest. Maybe your sweet, loving touch has the power to clear away his congestion without him needing Vicks. Too minty.

"We have that pastrami I brought back from the shop," he says.

"That's six days old already," you shake your head.

"Aw, that's still good," he argues. "But uh, other than that, I think I have half a cheeseburger left from last night."

Last night's date at TGI Friday's, he means.

You heave a sigh. "Okay, clearly I'm going to the store. You just stay in bed and rest. Drink your tea."

He grimaces like a child. "I don't like tea."

"I know you don't like tea, but you need to drink it. It's good for your throat and your immune system."

He groans and flops back over onto his stomach. You bite your lip against a smile. He's such a whiny baby when he's sick.

Talk about Man Flu.

"Come on, be a good boy for me," you say, smacking him lightly on the ass. "Soon enough you'll feel better."

A smile creeps across his face where it's pressed against his pillow.

"Know what would really make me feel better?" he hedges. He tries to guide you down to him by tugging on your hand, but you resist him.

"Oh, no. You're not gonna get your germs all over me," you say.

"Hey, what happened to in sickness and in health?" he croaks. Even while under the weather, he's still plenty strong enough to grapple with you. He manages to yank you down. Laughing, you stumble into a seat on the edge of the bed.

"Huh, I don't remember exchanging any vows. You see a ring on this finger?" you tease, flashing your bare hand in his face to try and distract him and weasle out of his grip. "I can jump this ship anytime I want."

Priestly pouts. His arm hooks tighter around your waist. "Huh, guess you got me there..."

He turns his head and coughs roughly into his arm. Your amusement fades into concern and sympathy. You lay a hand over his chest while he struggles.

Once again, he clasps his free hand over yours. He glances up a bit hesitantly into your eyes.

"Well, maybe it's time there should be something on this finger," he murmurs.

You blink your eyes wider. Your head tilts, wondering if you just heard him right. Is this delirium fever talking, or is he serious?

"O-Oh yeah?" you ask.

Priestly tries to gauge your reaction. Seeing your face break out into a cute, shy smile raises the corners of his lips. Hope blooms in his chest, right beneath your hand.

"Yeah," he says, trying to clear his cracking throat. "I mean, if you're okay with that. If it's not too soon--"

You slip your fingers over his plush, chapped lips, and your smile brightens.

"When you're feeling better, you can ask me that question properly."

AN: 😆 I hope you liked the first ever addition of Priestly!! It was so fun to try and write him again (it's been a while lol). Feel free to imagine this vignette in the same storyverse as The Miracle Man and Code Red.

But I also hope you enjoyed the "Big 3," as I call them, even though Russell is starting to give Beau a run for his money on one of those slots. 😂 Let me know which guy you had the most fun reading on this one! 💜

And if you want even more fluff before Valentine's Day, check out my friend @waynes-multiverse who just posted her set of V-Day headcanons with Dean, Soldier Boy, Beau, and Russell: Headcanon: Valentine's Day 💕

Join My Patreon 🌟 Get early access to new stories, bonus content, and first looks at upcoming stories, send me requests, and more!

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Dean, Beau, Soldier Boy + Priestly Tag List

@kazsrm67 @foxyjwls007 @luci-in-trenchcoats

@mostlymarvelgirl @thebiggerbear @roseblue373 @this-is-me19 @emily-winchester

@deans-spinster-witch @sanscas @mxltifxnd0m @hobby27 @kaleldobrev @spnwoman

@samanddeaninatrenchcoat @pieandmonsters @globetrotter28 @midnightmadwoman @chevroletdean

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@mimaria420 @stoneyggirl2 @fics-pics-andotherthings-i-like @waywardxwords @twinkleinadiamondsky

@my-stories-vault @kayleighwinchester @rizlowwritessortof @cookiechipdough @mrsjenniferwinchester

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@mrlonelycat @deans-daydream @leigh70 @aylacavebear @kmc1989

@siampie @rubyvhs @winchestergirl2

[toohardtosummarize]

Applied Physiology - wlwizards - Baldur's Gate (Video Games) [Archive of Our Own]

Finally got my new ao3 up and running! In which Ellery competes with Gale for title of 'weirdest, most academic flirt in Faerûn.'

[ur-fav-alien]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: All Elite Wrestling Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Jungle Boy/Kenny Omega Characters: Jungle Boy (Professional Wrestling), Kenny Omega, Small roles:, Judas Devlin | Luchasaurus, Marko Stunt, Christian Cage, The Elite - Character Additional Tags: Porn With Plot, Kenny Omega's ego is way too big, Jungle Boy finds out he has several kinks hes ashamed of, lots of hairpulling and degrading, during Kenny's world champ reign Summary:

Jungle Boy doesn't like Kenny Omega's bullying for reasons he'd rather not admit outloud.

[cookinguptales]

Okay, so the tarot meta poll is done now, got way more votes than I expected, really. I think I might've gotten more votes on that poll than notes on any of the meta posts, so I can only assume that some of the people who voted aren't actually reading the posts? I guess that does color the way I look at the results a little, if it wasn't my primary audience voting, but still.

It seems like a very strong majority said to just post them whenever and not worry about spamming the tag because people can block the wwdits tarot tag if they don't want to see it. After that, I'm putting the "once a day"/"post whenever but not more than once a day" people together (which I think is fair, bc I'd clarified that the second option really meant "post once a day unless I get distracted") and that was the second largest...?

So what I'm getting from this is that y'all either want the posts more often or just genuinely don't care when I post them. Keeping that in mind, I'm gonna do the one where I try to post once a day but if I get distracted or whatever I'm not gonna sweat it.

I did have a few people say that they like the current posting schedule (and one person said they'd actually prefer it less often than it currently is) and I considered that strongly, but I think probably the best option for people in that boat is to block the tag and then just look in on it when it's comfortable for them. It was like... 17% collectively vs. 83% collectively for the other side, so that's the solution that feels fairest to me...?

I am gonna try to post once a day as much as I can because if I do that, I can get finished for my birthday. And if I do that, then we can have a fun tarot reading party to celebrate being finished with the posts and also me being old. 💜

FINALLY, I don't plan on doing this often, but I'm gonna reblog the post I made yesterday because I think some regulars missed it. I made a bunch of these posts trying to figure out the schedule and I think the actual meta post might've gotten lost in the shuffle. lmao

Anyway, thanks for all your feedback! No more long posts like this for a while. I'll just post a lil tarot meta post every day and, as always, if you don't wanna see them please block "#wwdits tarot".

[osarina]

ᡣ𐭩 HE'S THE SERPENTINE, HE'S MY COLLAR!

FEATURING: dazai osamu

SUMMARY: you're finally back in yokohama after spending three years abroad dealing with mori's foreign business. the last person you want is to see dazai osamu, the wounds of his abrupt betrayal still too fresh for comfort. unfortunately, he decides to take matters into his own hands by showing up at your office in the middle of the night.

(wordcount: 7.1k; ņsfw; fem!reader; port mafia executive!reader, f!receiving oral, gunplay, knife play (ish), spitting, pussy drunk!dazai (as always), light choking, overstim, office sex, semi-public/public sex, unprotected sex, switch!dazai, switch!reader, undertones of angst (happy ending). lmk if anything is missing!)

AUTHOR'S NOTES: guys. GUYS. i had so much fun writing this, this is finally usurping in paper rings and picture frames as my fav fic that i've written. HAHAHH. i hope you guys like it too!!

You hear the door to your office swing open, and you press your lips together tightly, irritation swimming through your head as your grip tightens on the pen you’re using to fill out your paperwork. It’s already late—you’re tired and your head hurts, but you can’t leave the building until Akutagawa comes to hand you the report for his failed mission so you can pass it up to the boss. And you know that whichever subordinate this is, it’s definitely not Akutagawa because the boy would rather claw his own throat out than walk into your office without knocking. 

Which means it’s some upstart new recruit who has no manners and is likely going to make your night worse. You think being away for so long did some real damage to your reputation—three years ago, the lower ranked mafiosos avoided your floor like the plague, they didn’t barge in like they owned the place, but then again, you also had a certain dark-haired executive (ex-executive now, you remind yourself bitterly) lurking around your floor constantly trying to get your attention, and if people weren’t nervous enough about you, they were definitely terrified of him.

“Five seconds to explain why you came into my office without knocking or I’m putting a bullet through your fucking skull,” you say, voice acerbic, not even bothering to look up, the fingers of your free hand closing around the gun you have holstered at your side. 

“There’s a few too many cameras in the hall for my liking to stand out there and wait for you to open the door.”

The fact that he manages to dodge the bullet shot in his direction is testament to his skill, but you’ve known Dazai Osamu long enough to know that when he dodges to the side, nine times out of ten, he dodges left, so you drop your pen as soon as you pull the trigger and swipe the knife laying haphazardly on your desk, launching it in his direction. You watch as his eyes widen just a bit when it impales the wall right next to his ear, just barely nicking his skin—both a warning and a threat.

“My, my, bella, you’ve gotten faster the past few years,” Dazai grins, unperturbed, smile as reckless and lazy as the day he left four years ago as he plucks the knife from the wall. “I’ve missed you too.”

“What the hell are you doing here, Dazai?” you ask, voice cold and sharp as your finger rests against the trigger of your gun. “How did you get up here?”

“Security’s gotten lax since I’ve been gone, I guess,” Dazai shrugs, but his eyes dance with mirth as he makes his way over to your desk. “You should probably do something about that.”

“Dazai,” you say, keeping your voice low and trying to reign in your temper. There are no cameras in your office, but the hall leading here is littered with them, hidden ones that were recently installed that he wouldn’t know about, if any one of them caught his face and it’s reported to Mori… “You think I won’t drag your ass to Mori myself? What the fuck are you doing?”

You’d have to, or it would be your head on the line for betraying the Port Mafia—you know better than anyone the treatment that traitors get, considering you were the one that dealt with them up until you were sent abroad three years ago to handle Mori’s foreign politics. 

“I don’t know, will you?” Dazai counters, head tilted to the side as he takes a seat on top of your desk next to you, a smile on his face that makes you think he knows something that you don’t.

“Maybe,” you answer, finger twitching on the trigger as you keep your gun pointed in his direction. 

Dazai is completely unbothered, leaning down until his nose is nearly brushing yours, lips tugged up in an unbearable smirk. 

“Then do it,” he challenges, and you glare at him, jaw tight and eyes hard. He reaches out, fingertips brushing your skin, and you feel like you’re on fire beneath his touch. You hate that your body still betrays you to him. “Don’t look at me like that, bella. I won’t even resist, I promise, as long as you promise to be the one to put a bullet through my skull, so your face can be the last thing I see. Ah, that would be a lovely death, wouldn’t it?” 

“You’re a fucking freak, Dazai,” you spit out, but make no move to get up or grab your phone. “What is wrong with you?”

Dazai doesn’t respond, only winking at you. Instead, his gaze shifts to the side and his hand drops from your face to his lap again. You hate even more that you miss his touch immediately. 

“You still have my couch,” Dazai notes to himself quietly, an odd tone to his voice as he stares at the dark couch in the far corner of your office, where he’d bundle himself up under blankets to avoid Chuuya, because Chuuya used to avoid your office like the plague when the three of you were younger.

“It’s my couch,” you say tightly, even though you know no one has touched it since Dazai left, and the ugly orange blanket he liked so much is still draped over the back of it, and it probably still smells like him. Your throat feels swollen, and you steel away your emotions and continue with, “I’ve hardly been back here since you left, anyway. What do you want, Dazai?”

“I heard you were finally back in Yokohama,” he says. “I wanted to see you.”

“Fuck off,” you say roughly. “So you decide to break into the main base of the Port Mafia and come all the way up to my office? You know where my apartment is, you could’ve shown up there. What do you really want?” 

“It’s the truth,” Dazai says easily, and his dark eyes meet yours—both of them, you note, and wonder when he decided to shed the bandages that covered his right eye. “I was at your apartment for a bit, I got impatient and came here instead.”

He’s telling the truth.

Oh, you realize—the clogged feeling in your throat is coming back, you force it away again and lean back in your chair, looking away from him to turn your gaze to the window. It’s well past midnight already, the moon is high in the sky and the stars are glittering above. In the distance, you can see the Ferris Wheel of Cosmo World glowing a bright purple color and a string of flashing red and blue lights as the police chase after someone.

“Why?” you ask finally, breaking the heavy silence that had settled over the two of you. 

“I told you,” Dazai says quietly, and your eyes turn back to him. He looks… happier, you can’t help but note. A sick part of you feels jealous—you’re not sure if you’re jealous because he’s free and you’re still stuck in this place, or if you’re jealous because he’s happier and he’s happier in a life without you. You think it might be the latter. “I miss you.”

“Don’t give me bullshit, Dazai,” you snap, still trying to push away all of the feelings you’ve repressed for so long. “Get out of here before you find yourself killed. I’m not going to turn you in, but I’m not saving you if you get caught.”

“It’s not bullshit,” Dazai tells you, voice sharp in a way that it only ever is when he’s starting to get annoyed. “I-”

A knock at your door cuts Dazai off mid-sentence. Both of you freeze, Dazai looks at you as if waiting to see what you’re going to do, and you can so easily finish this now, let whoever is at your door in and drag Dazai back down to the torture room where he belongs, but instead you find yourself reaching for him. Your hand intertwines with his hair roughly, and you revel a bit in the hiss that escapes his lips as you yank him off the desk and roll your chair backward, kicking the back of his knee so that he crumples to the ground and you can push him beneath your desk. 

You lower your gun to your lap so you can keep it pointed at him and then glance down at him—he looks caught off-guard and disgruntled at being manhandled, but you think it's a bit funny how cramped he looks under there. 

“Not a single word,” you warn before fixing your chair and raising your voice. “Come in.”

Akutagawa wastes no time stepping into your office, nodding his head in respect as he makes his way over to the chair on the opposite side of your desk, a bundle of papers in hand. He doesn’t hand you the pile right away and he looks uncharacteristically nervous, and you raise your eyebrows, wondering what the issue is. 

“I am… unsure how to fill out some of the report,” Akutagawa says, unable to meet your eyes as he stares at the windows behind you. “The operation was… not a failure but not a success. The whole mission was in disarray, I do not know who was doing what at certain points.”

You stare at Akutagawa. “What do you want me to say to that?” you ask him, leaning back in your chair. “It’s your job to know that as the field officer for the mission. If you can’t handle that, Hirotsu will take back the position on the next major operation.”

Akutagawa bristles. “I can handle it,” he says, voice clipped. “This mission was just more chaotic than-”

“Than usual?” you ask idly, watching as he stiffens as your interruption. “This was child’s play, it’s unlike you to make excuses, Akutagawa.’

“I’m not making excuses,” he says immediately, “but…”

Akutagawa continues talking, but your attention is ripped away when you feel Dazai shift beneath the desk. You press your lips together tightly, stiffening as his hands rise to your thighs, spreading them a bit so he can settle between them. You glance down, he’s already peeking up at you, dark eyes glittering in a way that has you on edge. 

Don’t you dare, you warn silently, but Dazai only takes it as further encouragement, pressing his lips to your clothed inner thigh, you can feel the warmth and wetness through your slacks. It takes all of your self-control to not inhale sharply when he starts trailing open-mouthed kisses up your thigh until his mouth is hovering right above your cunt. 

You press the muzzle of your gun against his temple. 

He smiles. 

Your jaw clenches as he licks a long stripe between your legs through your slacks, making sure to press his tongue down hard over where your clit is hidden through your clothes. Akutagawa is still talking, oblivious to what’s happening beneath your desk as he airs his complaints about the mission. You could stop Dazai, place your foot on his shoulder and push him off of you, but you don’t, notably—you don’t want to acknowledge that though. You only vaguely hear Akutagawa’s issues, something about interference from a third party—the SDUP? What the hell were they doing there?— and Kajii blowing up an escape route. 

“Give me the report,” you say, cutting him off mid-sentence, and holding out your hand. You’re grateful that your voice comes out steadier than you feel with Dazai trying to tongue fuck your through your pants. 

As you lean forward to rip the papers from Akutagawa, you tense, feeling something sharp press against your inner thigh. Sitting back in your seat and glancing down, your eyes cut down to Dazai, who still has the knife you’d thrown at him and is using it to cut open your very expensive slacks.

You have half a mind to drive your foot into his face, but you refrain. If only barely.

It’s a miracle that you can keep your breath steady, because as Dazai cuts your pants, he kisses every inch of open skin that’s revealed to him. His lips are warm, wet, familiar—so familiar that your legs are instinctively spreading for him, giving him more room to work.

Your eyes scan the report but the words are just jumbled letters and not making any sense. Every time you try to understand, you feel Dazai’s teeth graze your thigh as he marks up your skin. You tense when you feel him bring the knife much closer to your cunt, to finish cutting off the material—you press the muzzle of your gun harder into the side of his head, warning him to be careful. You glance down only to see a hazy smile on his lips as he winks up at you, as if he’s drunk just off of the idea of what’s about to happen.

He works efficiently as always, freeing your lower body of your slacks and panties as quickly as possible, and he wastes no time burying his face between your legs. Your lashes flutter and the grip you have on your pen tightens dangerously, you think it might snap. Dazai’s tongue slides between your folds, lapping up the slick that had begun to pool—you know that if Akutagawa wasn’t sitting a few feet away, Dazai would be making a snide comment about how he knew you wanted him.

Dazai’s tongue flicks over your clit—you can feel him staring up at you, watching for every little reaction, the way your lip tightens as you bite back moans, the way your eyelids unconsciously start to slide shut, the way your breath is just a bit heavier than it usually is. 

This is so dangerous, you think to yourself desperately. If Akutagawa of all people figures out that Dazai is here-

You nearly choke when Dazai shifts a bit underneath the desk to kneel at a better angle, grateful that Akutagawa seems to be too busy wallowing in his own mistakes to notice your struggle. Your gaze  snaps down again, his eyes have fluttered shut as he buries his face deep into your cunt, nose pressed to your clit as he pushes his tongue into your hole and you can feel the way he lets out a silent, but shaky breath, barely holding back a moan.

You notice his free hand slide from where it was propped on your thigh down to his beige pants, fingers fumbling with the button as he desperately tries to slip his hand beneath his waistband to touch himself. You kick his wrist hard, using your foot to pin it against the side of your desk, watching him wince and withdraw his hand, looking up at you with those big brown eyes you can never say no to. 

God, he’s pathetic, his lashes are wet and his cheeks are flushed, eyes glossed over with pleasure as he looks up at you and you know you’ll let go of his wrist if he looks at you like that any longer, so you turn your gaze back up to Akutagawa, who’s staring at his lap and waiting for you to finish the report.

“Get out,” you tell him, voice sharper than you intended. Akutagawa’s eyes snap up to you, brows furrowed in confusion. “Go, I’ll handle this.”

“But-”

“Your job is to take orders, not question them,” you bite out, watching frustration flash across the boy’s face as he rises to his feet. You’re not usually this harsh with the kid, but you’re not sure how much longer you’re going to last and Akutagawa cannot be in here when you cum. You can feel the heat pooling in your stomach and that familiar hazy feeling clouding your mind. “Out, Akutagawa.”

Akutagawa inhales sharply but nods, turning stiffly on his heel to leave your office. As soon as the door to your office clicks shut, Dazai is pushing the chair backwards until the back of it hits the windows behind you, shifting into a more comfortable position as he resumes fucking you with his tongue in earnest. 

He moans into you, wanton and shameless, any restraint he had because of Akutagawa’s presence is long gone. While he was careful to not make noise before, now the sloppy sound of his tongue dragging in and out of your cunt drowns out any other noise in your office, he sucks and slurps, he’s so disgusting, like he can’t get enough of the taste of you, a man who’s been starved for years.

The knife clatters to the ground as he reaches up with both hands to grab your thighs, sliding them over his shoulders so he can push his tongue even deeper inside of you. Only sheer pride drives you to push away the creeping fog as Dazai’s tongue slides back up between your folds to draw figure eights around your clit.

“I should pull the fucking trigger, pulling this shit when he was in here,” you spit out, head falling back as a breathy noise escapes your parted lips when Dazai sucks gently at your clit. He moans again, as if the idea itself turns him on—it probably does, he’s always talked about wanting to die between your thighs. “You’re a fucking freak, Dazai.” 

He lets out a puff of air, you can’t tell if it's a laugh or another moan, maybe a mixture of both, but he’s too focused on drowning in your cunt to respond. Four years without him and you’ve forgotten just how good Dazai is with his tongue, working your body as easily as he did when the two of you were eighteen and seeking each other out before meetings and between missions for a quick fuck. You hate it—you hate that he’s treating you as if nothing has changed and you hate even more that your body is this responsive to him. 

Betrayal, you think, your own body betrays you for him. Again.

“Fuck,” you gasp the word out when Dazai rolls your clit between his teeth gently, sending a jolt through your body that throws you off just enough for that fog you’ve been fighting off to finally win. You choke over a moan, head pressed back against your desk chair, forearm coming up to press against your forehead as your eyes slide shut. Your free hand finally finds its place in his hair, tightening around his dark locks, he lets out a whimper against you, tongue flicking over your clit. “Like that. Just like that.”

You can hardly keep your head on straight as he traces letters around the sensitive bud, you try to figure out what he’s spelling but you’re too far gone. Your head is light and your chest is heaving. You’re barely able to bite back moans as your thighs tighten around his head, hips rocking against his face. You don’t even know if he can breathe, you don’t think you care, so close to the edge that your entire body is tingling and trembling; you don’t think he cares either from the way he’s moaning into you.

It takes one last suck, one last swirl around your clit, and you’re crying out his name, spots dotting your vision as your grip on his hair tightens, pushing his face impossibly deeper into you as you grind your hips against his face. God, it feels never-ending, a noise too close to a sob nearly escapes your lips as Dazai ardently laps up all of your cum, not letting a single drop go to waste. You can’t remember the last time you’ve cum this hard—with him, probably, you realize bitterly. None of the one-night stands you’ve had over the past few years have ever compared to him.

You’re still reeling even as you force yourself to straighten in your seat, not willing to let him know just how badly you’re thrown off by how intense your orgasm was. Your head is still spinning, vision still blurring, but you lift your leg and press your foot to Dazai’s shoulder, kicking him back and forcing him out from his position between your thighs. 

He grunts, looking thoroughly disgruntled as he falls back on his ass, pouting up at you as he tries to catch his breath. He looks debauched, lips swollen and wet, your cum smeared on the lower half of his face. His cock is straining against his beige pants and his eyes are still glazed over; he’s looking up at you with an expression that’s nothing short of reverent. 

God, he’s gorgeous. 

You hate him. 

You’ve missed him. 

You shift in your seat and Dazai is lifting himself to his knees, immediately leaning closer, a hazy smile on his lips as he angles his face up and pointedly parts his lips, sticking his tongue out. You know what he wants and the heat that had been slowly dissipating returns with a vengeance, breath catching as you look down at him.

“You’re gross,” you tell him, watching the corner of his lips quirk up even as he keeps his tongue out and waiting.

You don’t deny him. You never can. 

You shift forward, rising to your feet and reaching out to grab his chin, angling your face down. Your grip is too tight, it’ll leave bruises behind and you think that’s the least he deserves so you only tighten it a bit more as you lean over him. You don’t give him what he wants, not right away, letting the saliva gather on your tongue as you observe him, the way his pupils are blown wide and his chest is hardly rising and falling, as if he can’t even let himself breathe in anticipation.

Disgusting, you think again, but it’s fond this time, much to your displeasure.

You decide to put him out of his misery, letting the spit dribble from your mouth down to his. His eyes roll back as soon as it hits his tongue, and your hand slides from his chin to curl around his neck—not tight, just firm enough to feel the way his throat bobs as he swallows.

He lets out a shaky breath, eyes fluttering back open as he looks up at you, entirely blissed out. Your hand slides down more, curling around the ugly bolo tie he’s wearing in place of the black one you’re used to. You tug it hard, beckoning him to his feet; he acquiesces, albeit on shaky legs. 

Immediately, his hands find your hips as he pushes you against your desk, spinning you around to face it before his hand presses between your shoulder blades, pushing you down to bend you over it. Your eyes widen at the sudden change in demeanor, something you’ll never be able to get used to no matter how many times you fuck him; it always caught you off guard back then, it still catches you off guard now. He pulls off the remnants of your destroyed slacks and immediately is grinding his bulge against your ass, a low moan spilling from his lips. 

“How many people have you been with?” he suddenly asks, and you can hear him fumbling to unbutton his own pants. There’s an edge to his voice that you don’t like—something caught between jealousy and possessiveness, and you nearly want to scoff at it.

“What the fuck, Dazai?” you spit out, appalled and not expecting the question. “None of your damn business.” 

You turn your head to the side to rest your cheek on the desk, looking back at him from the corner of your eye. His eyes are still a bit hazy but there’s a tight expression on his face, reminiscent of the one that would be directed toward you whenever he stumbled in on you entertaining anyone other than him years ago. 

“Humor me,” he says, voice cold and eerily familiar. If you weren’t looking at him and if you couldn’t see the tan coat and bolo tie, you’d think you were talking to Dazai Osamu, Port Mafia Executive, and not Dazai Osamu, Detective. 

“A lot,” you finally tell him, feeling the way he stiffens behind you. “I don’t keep count. You?” 

You think he has some nerve asking when he’s probably slept around t-

“None.”

“Bullshit,” you snarl immediately. “How many? Don’t fucking lie to me, Dazai.”

“None,” he says again, gaze lifting from your back to meet yours, his eyes are dark—too dark, too still. Maybe he hasn’t changed as much as you assumed, because the way your chest swells with a confusing mixture of fear and arousal is far too familiar. “You’re the only one allowed to touch me.”

His gaze drags back down, with his pants unbuttoned, he lifts his free hand to caress the swell of your ass, a contemplative expression on his face as he stares down at you, his other hand still pinning you down to your desk. If your heart wasn’t thudding in your ears from sheer anticipation, you’d be irate over the fact that you were letting Dazai Osamu fuck you over your own desk in your own office, but you can’t bring yourself to care now.

“They never made you feel like this.” It’s a statement, not a question, and you want to scoff at his arrogance, but you can’t because he’s right. “They don’t know your body like I do.”

This time you do scoff. “You don’t know shit, Dazai. It’s been four years.”

Dazai’s eyes flicker back up to you, the way his lips curve up into a smile is dangerous.

“No?” he questions. 

A challenge. You never back down from one, not from him. 

“No.”

His smile sharpens.

“I know that after you cum for the first time,” he murmurs, rolling his hips forward. You bite back a moan when you feel the tip of his cock slip between your folds. “The second time comes right after.”

True to his words, your jaw falls slack and your entire body seizes as Dazai thrusts into you, splitting you right open on his cock. The moan he lets out is pornographic, and you wish you could see the way his head falls back and his eyes roll into his skull, but your own vision is white and you’re choking over a sob as you feel the familiar stretch of his cock against your walls.

“There you are.” Dazai has the nerve to let out a breathless laugh and another groan as he stills with his hips flush to your ass, feeling your walls spasm around him as you cum just from the feeling of him pushing inside of you. The hand he has placed between your shoulder blades slides up to curl around your throat. With a firm grip, he pulls you up so only your thighs are pressed against the edge of your desk, back flush to his chest as you gasp, reeling from the suddenness of your second orgasm. You can feel him smile as he nudges his nose against the side of your head, lips pressed to your ear. “The third time takes a bit after the second, but I’ll fuck you through it. Maybe a fourth too.”

“Dazai,” you gasp, eyes blown wide as your head falls back against his shoulder. You don’t know what you’re trying to say, maybe hold on, or wait, because you know you’ll embarrass yourself if he doesn’t give you a second to recover.

He hums in response, and the slow rolls of his hips, the drag of his cock against your walls, it has your head in the clouds, body trembling. Your lips part to speak but no words leave them, and right when you think you can finally force the words out, Dazai draws his hips back and snaps them back against yours hard. Your lips part in a silent moan, only the hand around your throat and the one pressed to your lower belly holds you up as Dazai fucks you at a brutal pace. 

His face drops to the crook of your neck, he moans into your skin, teeth scraping hard as he kisses recklessly up and down every available inch. He’s going to leave marks, you realize, and that’s dangerous now that you’re back in Yokohama because you don’t need any of the other executives to get suspicious, but even if you wanted to tell him not to, you don’t think you’d be able to. Whatever little coherency you had left in your thought process does not translate when you try to speak, the only things leaving your lips being shaky moans and gasps of Dazai’s name.

“Made for me,” Dazai groans. His grip on your throat tightens just enough to make the air you breathe in shallow, your head feels light and you’re not sure if it’s because of his grip or if it’s the feeling of his cock bullying so deep into you that you can feel his tip pressing up against your cervix. “Waited so many years for this, feels even better than I remember, pussy’s made for me, isn’t it?”

Dazai babbles into your ear as he fucks you, tongue just as filthy and unbridled as the day he left. Shameless. He’s so shameless. Doesn’t even care that anyone could walk into your office and catch the two of you; doesn’t care that if anyone does, he’ll end up executed. He’s fucking you in a building full of people that want him dead and all he cares about is how your cunt feels wrapped around his cock.

Your breath hitches as Dazai shifts you to bend over just a little more, still keeping your back flush to his chest but fucking you at a new angle—one that nearly sends you spiraling over the edge for a third time. 

“Gonna give me your third now?” he pants. His hand on your lower stomach slips down, lithe fingers dipping between your folds to search for your clit—your back arches against him when he finds it, a sob spilling from your lips, vision swimming with tears. Dazai laughs again, this one is strained, catching over a moan as your walls convulse around him. “Oh, fuck. Fuck, you’re so tight.” 

Unconsciously, his grip on your throat tightens, cutting off even more air. You can hardly breathe, you can hardly think—each thrust of his hips has your head spinning, ripping the little air you can inhale right out of your lungs. The tip of his cock rubs against that spongy spot inside of you every time he snaps his hips against yours, the quick circles he rubs on your clit are electrifying. 

Your cheeks are wet, breath ragged, vision spotty. One last thrust, one last circle, and you’re wrecked, sobbing out his name as your legs give out, only held up by the way he has your thighs pinned to your desk and his hand on your neck. You cum all over his cock so hard that you think you black out for a second, your mind fuzzy and pins and needles pricking all over your body.

Dazai doesn’t stop. He fucks you through your third orgasm, relishing in the way your body twitches and trembles, too sensitive for his touch. 

“Your fourth will come quick,” he gasps. His pace is erratic now, chasing his own release. Your ears are ringing, heartbeat thudding in your ears, the wet, sloppy sound of his cock driving in and out of you resounding through your office. “I don’t think I’ll last for five. Shit, shit, I’m close.”

You have to force yourself to move. You want to see him when he finishes. Your hand wraps around his wrist, nails digging into his skin to try to get his attention. It takes all of your will power to push the two words from your lips: “Flip me.”

He does. Without any sort of hesitation, his hand drops from your throat to your waist. His cock slips out of you for a split second and your cunt aches at the loss, but Dazai is immediately pushing himself back into you as he hoists you up by the thighs, sitting you down on your desk and wrapping your legs around his waist. 

Even through your blurry vision, Dazai is a fucking sight. His dark hair is matted to his forehead, pink lips swollen and wet, cheeks flushed. His eyes glazed over and half rolled back as he chases his high. God, he’s stunning. You’ve missed him. You’ve missed him.

You’re not thinking as you lift your hand to cup his cheek, sliding around to the back of his head to pull his face down to yours, moving on pure instinct. You drag him down to press your lips against his and Dazai is gone. The moment your lips touch his, he’s moaning into your mouth, hips stuttering against you as he spills his cum deep inside of you, and he’s right, because the moment you feel his cum filling you up, warm and thick, so much of it that you can feel it dribbling around his cock, the stickiness smearing against your thighs and ruining your desk, you’re pushed over the edge for the fourth time.

This one is weaker than the rest, not a single noise escapes you but your jaw goes slack and Dazai whimpers into your mouth when he feels your walls tightening around him again. But he takes advantage of your pliancy, pushing you back gently so that your back is flush to your desk. He follows you down, keeping his chest pressed to yours as he maps out your mouth with his tongue. He rolls his hips against yours, slow and deep, fucking his cum deeper into you as the two of you slowly come down from your highs. He slants his lips against yours to deepen the kiss, hand coming up to cup your cheek, his other sliding up and down one of your thighs. 

It’s too intimate. You tell yourself that you only let it happen because you’re reeling from overstimulation but you know it's a lie.

You don’t even know how long you stay in that position with him. It could only be a few seconds, a few minutes, it could’ve been an hour for all you know, laying on your desk with him pressed on top of you, kissing you so passionately that it makes your head spin as much as the orgasms did. 

Finally, you press your hand against his shoulder, signaling for him to get off of you. He does, albeit with a reluctant sigh. You stare up at the ceiling as Dazai shakily rebuttons his pants, making his way over to the closet where you still keep your spare clothes from when you have to stay over at the office to work. 

What did you do?

You’re hyper aware of how swollen your lips are, of the marks littering your neck, of the cum dribbling out of your cunt, staining your desk. 

If anyone finds out about this-

You don’t get to finish the thought, because Dazai comes back over to you. Neither of you speak as he takes a tissue to clean up his cum from your thighs and as it dribbles out of you, nor do you speak when he shifts you into a sitting position, helping you pull on a new pair of panties and a new pair of slacks.

He stands in front of you, dozens of indecipherable emotions rocketing across his face as his dark eyes search your expression for something. You don’t know what, and you don’t even want to look at him but you can’t draw your gaze away from him.

After what feels like forever, he finally speaks.

“I missed you,” he says, voice hoarse as he lifts a hand to cup your cheek. 

You turn away from his touch, ignoring the hurt that flashes through his eyes. 

“Why don’t you believe me? You think four years has changed how I feel about you? I thought you knew me better than that.”

“It’s been four years,” you say, and you hate that your voice wavers a bit. You blame it on still being hazy after your orgasm but you know it’s a weak excuse. You hate that he still has this effect on you after all these years. You hate that you always give into him, and you hate that you know you’ll never get enough of him. You want to hate him, but you can’t. “Knowing how to fuck me isn’t the same as knowing me as a person. I barely know you anymore. You barely know me. And it’s not like you were open with how you felt four years ago. So, forgive me if it’s a bit hard to believe, Dazai.”

“You wear the same perfume. You still shoot with your non-dominant hand for some god forsaken reason. Your lips still twitch whenever you get annoyed even though you do your best to stop it. You-”

“Stop.”

“You still talk to me like you hate me even though your eyes are all soft and you’re leaning in toward me.” Dazai doesn’t stop, and to your horror, he’s right—you had begun to lean in to him instinctively as he spoke. You try to shift away from him, but he follows, fingers grazing your cheek, chest brushing yours. You don’t pull away this time. “I still wear the same cologne you bought me for Christmas because it reminds me of you—I spent two months trying to figure out where you bought it when it first ran out. I don’t carry a gun around as often, but when I do, I still try to do that stupid flipping trick you tried to teach me when we were seventeen—I still can’t do it, almost shot myself in the knee last time I tried.”

The laugh he lets out at the last sentence is hollow. He hesitates, as if he wants to continue but isn’t sure if he should. You can feel his blunt nails scraping gently against your skin, his palm warm against your cheek. You want to pull away but you’ve missed him, no matter how much you try to convince yourself otherwise, and you find yourself sinking into his touch. You’ve always questioned why Mori sent you away for so long, angry because you figured he thought you were weak when it comes to Dazai and he didn’t want to risk anything. 

Only a few days back in Yokohama, and you’re already proving him right.

“I’m not the same person,” you tell him, something desperate edges at your tone. Desperate to convince him, or yourself, you’re not sure.

“I still love you,” he rasps, voice quiet as if he’s scared to admit it even to himself, and your heart is suddenly lodged in your throat as you stare up at him with wide eyes, the words he refused to tell you back when you were teens ringing through your head over and over again. “I’ve always loved you. Thought about you every day. I missed you so much.”

“I should hate you,” you say, swallowing thickly, unshed tears blurring your vision. “You didn’t even say goodbye. When Mori said you defected in the middle of a mission, I laughed in his face. Not because I didn’t think you’d never betray the Port Mafia, but because I didn’t think you’d ever leave me without saying anything.”

“If I said goodbye to you, I never would have left,” Dazai tells you quietly, the admission echoing in your years. “And I had to leave. I had to.”

“I should hate you,” you repeat, voice a bit weaker now, and you feel pathetic for falling apart like this in front of him. But it’s Dazai, he’s always had this effect over you. You suppose some things haven’t changed, because that certainly hasn’t. 

“I know,” he murmurs. 

You inhale deeply, shaking your head as you push yourself off your desk and straighten out your clothes, trying to get your head back on straight. You should’ve known better than to think you’d be able to come back to Yokohama and pretend that Dazai Osamu didn’t exist, for better or for worse, the two of you would always find your way back to each other. Mori was right to send you away, although you suppose the man is rarely wrong anyway.

Dazai doesn’t say anything, watching you with an unreadable expression as you search through the ruined piles of paper on your desk for the report that Akutagawa had handed you. Your eye twitches when you realize that it’s stained, realizing that you’re going to have to rewrite the whole thing because you can’t submit a cum-stained report to Mori.

Dazai snorts behind you, as if realizing your predicament. The look you give him is lethal, he silences himself quickly. 

“Don’t get yourself killed on the way out,” you tell him, grabbing your black jacket off your chair and swinging it over your shoulders as you look back at him. “If you make it out of here alive, I’ll see you at my apartment later. Then we can talk.”

His face twists. “What? Wait, don’t leave me here,” he panics, nearly tripping over his feet and your desk chair to follow after you. “Help me sneak out.”

“You got in here yourself,” you say dismissively. “Get out yourself.”

The noise he lets out is pathetic. “You do hate me,” he accuses. 

“No, I could never,” you admit quietly. His expression softens a bit, but you give him a sharp smile. “But I’m definitely not going to make things easy for you. Akutagawa is still out here prowling around. So is Chuuya, actually. Said he’d be at the office all night today. Good luck, you’re gonna need it.”

[hcneymooners]

dad’s best friend ambessa perhaps ..? :3 i love ur age gap fics ur so talented

⋆ come, and be my baby.

dad's best friend!ambessa x f!reader. men & minors dni. synopsis: you've always been a troubled, searching girl. ambessa, your father's long-time best friend, is your self-ordained solution. cw: age difference, older woman/younger woman, reader is implied to be between 22-24, emotional hurt/comfort, dom/sub, dom!ambessa, sub!reader, you're a little bit of a conniving bitch still love you tho, unhealthy relationship dynamics, codependency, slight emotional manipulation, listen you had to lock in, non-sexual intimacy, pleasure dom!ambessa, rough body play, manhandling, pet names, lesbian sex, dildos, vaginal sex, implied penetrative sex, implied strapping, oral fixation (ambessa), praise kink, mommy kink (specifically mama), implied exhibitionism, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, squirting, begging, spanking, impact play, face sitting, desk sex, you guys are definitely freaks but you love love love each other.

notes: hi, honey baby. this might be the most erotic questionable thing i've ever written. i hope you're happy with it. i went a little overboard and a bit non-conventional with the trope. i adore you & thank you for requesting, mami.

two things in this world reigned absolute: that you were glad your life would only be lived once, for you couldn't do this again, and that you were ambessa medarda's favorite girl.

the medardas were a family heavy with conflict, and perhaps that's why the matriarch and your father were best friends. they both were volatile people, sometimes prone to cruelty, with soft spots for certain people that were darkened with rot at the edges—perfumed with the sweet notes of their rage.

you were both of their favorites, and therefore, when your parents got divorced, you'd acted through the narrow scope of a confused and aching little girl and chose your father. once you'd shed that naive nature, you traced your way back to your mother in secrecy. you indulged in hushed phone calls in the middle of the night, timing your exits from your room with the fading beat of your father's boots as you left.

every month, she promised to get you.

the glass would fog with your breath as you waited in that tall, flaking phone booth, each passing car's headlights casting long shadows across your face. you memorized every crack in the booth's floor, every water stain on its ceiling, until they became as familiar as your own disappointment.

you wore the same outfit: thick, wool tights in burgundy tucked under the gleaming straps of your mary janes and layered underneath the dark denim of your favorite jeans. you cradled yourself into a black turtleneck, your hair tamed into two plaits that rested against your neck underneath the fabric. your eyes would be wide and searching, one hand gripping the curved handle of your brown leather suitcase and the other shaking around your well-loved copy of prozac nation.

she never came, but you showed up every time.

one night, a maserati did skate up to that ancient meeting spot, and you straightened from where you'd been dozing standing up. an overly tinted window rolled down, and you were met with the strong gaze of ambessa medarda, whom you hadn't seen since your early days. you didn't remember much, just yellow-tinged memories of being spoiled by her and being picked up and tossed into the bright sky above the farm she owned.

she must've moved back.

at first, she said nothing, just cataloged your most recent iteration of your "going with my mother" outfit and worked her jaw. finally, she leaned over and popped open the door before leaning back and letting you make the choice. embarrassed and teetering on the edge of emotional collapse, you slid in and shut down as she pulled away. this was how you met her again. seventeen and sobbing, emotionally wrought and disappointed from all angles. you probably came off unbearably young, dreamy, and unprepared for the challenges of real life.

it was only later that ambessa revealed that her first thought was that you needed a mother, that you needed her. that you were a girl abandoned and fighting your best against the more experienced hands of life.

⋅˚₊‧ 🕯୨୧ 🦪 ‧₊˚ ⋅

from then on you were her newest daughter, until you weren't. you noticed how 'miss' became 'dear' became 'darling,' each new endearment a step closer across the chasm between you. the way she said your name changed too, softening at the edges like butter left in sunlight.

by nineteen, you were practically sequestered to her house by your personal desires, curling at her hip as you grew into yourself. even now at an older age—still far younger than her—you came home from university only to lay all of your belongings in the warm wood of your makeshift bedroom (the guestroom, really). she taught you to appreciate aged whiskey, watching with amusement as you struggled not to grimace at the burn.

"small sips, little one," she'd say, her hand warm against your lower back.

you learned to love the taste, if only because it meant sharing these quiet moments in her study, the leather of her armchair creaking as she leaned forward to pour you another finger's worth.

you and mel even developed a soft friendship that lessened the tension between her and her mother, tall arguments tempered by the agreement that they would not aggravate your ptsd from the divorce days. sometimes you caught mel watching you both with worried eyes, but you'd grown tired of other people's concerns.

you'd rather have this - ambessa's fingers absently playing with your hair as she read reports, the way she automatically ordered your coffee exactly how you liked it, the subtle possessiveness in how she introduced you to her colleagues.

regardless, you knew that you and ambessa's relationship spun on an axis that could be labeled uncomfortably intimate, maybe even imbalanced. for all that everyone said, you couldn't find it in yourself to be concerned. you regarded her as all that you had, something that wouldn't leave.

she indulged you, kissing your forehead when she came in from a day at work or texting you about what replacements you had wanted for certain items on the grocery list. she rarely called you by your name, always coaxing you forward with firm, warm pet names. they were swollen with affection, a doting '(my) sweet girl', 'baby girl', or 'little one.'

your favorite one was invoked from a spontaneous trip to paris to meet an art collector she'd purchased from, only to return bearing handcrafted soaps and a penchant for calling you 'chouchou.' that stopped about two weeks later, but you wrote it down under your list of desired tattoos. what didn't stop was the way she'd buy authentic silken scarves to tie around your neck with careful precision, her fingers brushing against your pulse point in a way that sent you shivering.

the shift was gradual, like watching shadows lengthen at sunset. one evening, as thunder rolled outside and rain lashed against the windows of her study, she pulled you closer than usual. ambessa’s fingers traced patterns on your skin as she read, and when you tilted your head back to look at her, she met your gaze with an intensity that made your breath catch. the thunder cracked again and the peeking champagne of your bra strap slipped down your arm. still, neither of you moved.

the moment was eventually broken by mel’s surprise of coming home for the weekend. you pulled yourself upright, intending to put together a small plate for her. before you could leave, ambessa strolled up behind you and adjusted the strap, so that it was firm and held tight to the delicate bones of your shoulder.

for a moment, you thought you’d felt her lips right beside it.

⋅˚₊‧ 🕯୨୧ 🦪 ‧₊˚ ⋅

"you're not a little girl anymore," she murmured one night, weeks later, her voice carrying the weight of aged whiskey and unspoken promises.

you were curled in your usual spot beside her, but everything felt different - charged with an electricity that made your skin prickle. you couldn't remember when the maternal comfort of her touch had transformed into something more, but you knew there was no going back.

"i haven't been for a while," you replied, your voice steady despite the way your heart hammered against your ribs. her hand found your chin, tilting your face up to meet her gaze, and you saw in her eyes the same hunger that had been growing in your own.

your fingers traced the rim of your whiskey glass, ice long since melted. the study had grown dark save for the amber glow of her desk lamp, catching the silver in her hair like moonlight on water.

you'd noticed her watching you more lately, her gaze heavy with something between concern and desire.

"you remind me of her sometimes," she said quietly, breaking the silence. "mel, when she was younger."

the comparison should have stung, but you knew better. you'd learned to read between her lines, to understand the weight she carried. you were not mel's replacement - you were something altogether different, more dangerous.

you set your glass down carefully, the crystal making a soft sound against the carpet.

"i'm not her," you said, voice steady as you rose from your chair. "i won't leave."

the words hung in the air between you, heavy with promise and threat. her laugh was low, throaty.

"no, baby girl. you're nothing like her at all, are you?"

she spoke the endearment deliberately this time, watching how it made you shiver. you'd both been playing this game for months - you with your calculated vulnerability, her with her careful restraint.

you moved to stand behind her chair, hands resting on her shoulders. through the silk of her blouse, you felt her tension, the way she stilled like a prey animal. but ambessa medarda was nobody's prey, and you both knew it.

"i need you," you murmured, the words leaden. you were trying not to sound as crazed as you felt . "and you need someone who needs you."

her hand came up to cover yours, her gold rings dense and cool against your skin.

"you're very clever," she said, something like pride coloring her voice. "i should send you away."

"but you won't." you pressed your lips to her temple, breathing in the scent of her perfume - something expensive and french. mango wood and black rose if you remembered correctly, discovered during your illicit investigations of her bedroom. "because you understand me better than anyone. because we're the same."

she turned then, catching your wrist in a grip that walked the line between gentle and controlling.

"the same?" her thumb pressed against your pulse point, counting out the rhythm of your wanting. "you're barely older than my daughter."

"age is just a number," you said, and then laughed at how young it made you sound. "no—that's not what i mean. what i mean is that we both know what we want. we both know how to take it."

the silence stretched between you like spun sugar, delicate and sweet. outside, leaves skittered across the gravel drive, and somewhere in the house, a clock chimed eleven. you watched emotions play across her face - desire, concern, resignation, hunger.

"if we do this," she said finally, her voice rough like aged bourbon, "there's no going back. no playing innocent. no running away when it gets hard."

you smiled, all teeth and triumph poorly disguised as submission.

"i told you," you said, sinking to your knees beside her chair, resting your head against her thigh like you had a hundred times before - but different now, charged with intent. "i'm not going anywhere."

her hand found your hair, nails scraping gently against your scalp.

"my clever, terrible girl," she murmured, and you could hear in her voice that she'd surrendered to this animal between you. "what am i going to do with you?"

you turned your face into her touch, lips brushing against her wrist where her heart copied yours, beat for beat.

"keep me," you said simply. "just keep me."

the study grew quieter still, the only sound was your shared breathing and the distant whisper of wind through bare branches. you'd won, you knew, but then you'd been winning since that first night in the maserati, since you'd looked at her with calculated tears and let her save you. you loved her - truly, deeply, with all the fierce possession of your young heart - but you'd learned from your mother's absence that love wasn't enough. you had to learn how to hold on to what you wanted.

and oh, how you wanted this - wanted her, with her silver-streaked hair and elegant hands and eyes that saw right through you and wanted you anyway.

her fingers tightened in your hair, and you looked up to find her watching you with an expression that made your breath catch. the lamp clicked off, and in the sudden darkness, you felt rather than saw her move. her hand cupped your cheek, thumb brushing across your bottom lip.

"stand up," she commanded softly, and you did, letting her guide you until you were perched on the edge of her desk. the wood was cool against your thighs, a sharp contrast to the heat of her body as she stepped between your knees. "are you sure about this?"

your answer was to reach for her, fingers curling into the cotton of her blouse.

"i've never been more sure of anything."

the clock struck quarter past, and the last autumn leaves rattled against the window as she leaned down to kiss you, tasting of whiskey and an affection hard won.

you kissed back lazily, squeezing your thighs together as one of her hands came to direct you by the base of your neck. she slotted the two of you together, lips sliding and grasping at each other between soft inserts of tongue. your teeth seemed to buzz with unnamable energy as she leaned forwards, hands bracing around you, so close to cupping your ass.

you needed her touch, needed to know whether your fantasies had been well-conjured or only pathetic in their imaginings. you’d spent nights tucking your fingers into yourself, trembling quietly as you pictured the shape of her mouth and how it would fit over you.

as if reading your mind, ambessa firmly spread your legs apart with a forceful hand and came closer to you. you let out a weak moan as her teeth scraped your neck, a hand coming to press down on your stomach as if to see how much space she had to fill.

you were so immensely grateful for the flimsy structure of your sleep shorts, the fabric tugged easily down your legs by only one of her fingers. she used that same finger to feel out the shape of your clothed cunt, her throat trembling with a low sound of satisfaction.

you were wet and desperate, wrapping an arm around her broad shoulders so that you could grind against what was now two fingers.

ambessa moved your panties aside with no great effort, sliding a finger into your tight heat. gradually, she built a rhythm inside of you until you were bucking where she held you. after a minute, she slid it out and into her mouth.

“mmm,” she said consideringly. “my babygirl is so sweet for me.”

you’d swallow a boat of fucking blackberries if you had to, choke them down despite your allergies and sealing throat if that meant she’d taste you again.

“ambessa.

she laughed and you saw her eyes glittering in the dark, the light brown so bright with want they seemed gold. it was then you realized you’d never said her first name alone before, and she must’ve realized as well because her hand suddenly clenched around your throat.

“do you remember when you turned twenty and got drunk with those miscreants from the town over?” your mouth twitched at her avid disgust. she could be quite classist. you’d work on that. “you don’t because you practically drank your body weight, but i do. do you want to know why?”

you gasped out a ‘yes’ as she used her free hand to grope the peach of your ass before switching to thumbing at your pebbled nipples.

“i remember that birthday because you stumbled into my room and climbed into bed with me.” you felt dread rising. “you bumped against my back, like a little bunny, and worked yourself into quite the state. and the whole time you kept apologizing. you were saying ‘sorry, mama’, all slurred and saccharine, over and over till you finished.”

you were so hot with shame you could’ve set the house burning. she smiled, slow and teasing, as she pinched your nipple hard. you let out a high moan.

“i liked that.”

you were squirming now, two of her massive fingers back to stretch your pussy.

“i liked it very much. i had to make sure not to wake you as i fucked myself.”

your eyes widened, like two coins, as the words registered. ambessa laughed again and lowered to her knees, yanking you forward so your ass hung off the edge of the desk. she was still tall enough to tower over you, shadowing the sopping mess of your cunt.

with an annoyed roll of her eyes, she pulled her fingers away and reached behind you, returning with a pair of scissors. with two efficient cuts, your panties were hanging in tatters around your hips. your pussy was exposed in all of its pink glory and it pulled apart with a soft squelch as she pushed your thighs up and out, guiding your hands to hold them for her.

she tugged a hair tie from around her wrist, drawing her gray mass of curls into a loose bun. several strands fell around her face, but she only pushed them impatiently behind her ears. you slapped your hand around blindly, eventually flicking on the bright desk lamp.

“i want you to see me,” you breathed, and she cupped your cheek.

“i’ve always seen you.”

and with that, she went down. she started with a long, luxurious lick up your cunt, her lips suckling around your clit as she reached the top. you moaned loudly and dropped your hands from your thighs, raising them to tug and pinch at your tits. she kept your legs open by sliding the bulk of her back between them, sliding back down to lap at your hole.

for someone as rigid as ambessa could be, she was messy when eating you. she didn’t care to savor, not right now. she’d wanted you for what felt like forever, and you wanted to black out beneath her.

she further spread you open, thrusting her tongue into your heat and feeling you clench. back and forth she went, slobbering over the pink of you until you were tearing up. she suctioned her mouth over one of your lips, large and gleaming, pulling away so that it slid from her mouth with a wet extended ‘pop!’. you clutched at her head, rocking yourself into her unforgiving hold. she blew gently over your hole, watched as it fluttered.

“mama, please.”

tenderly, she grazed her teeth over your clit, soothing the sting with her tongue as she sank three fingers inside of you. ambessa fucked you hard and fast, your tits bouncing as you whimpered with a hand over your mouth. a hand came down like thunder on your ass, the crack hard and hot. you wailed and clutched at her, begging her to go faster, to mark you, to swallow you whole.

“there you are, baby girl. tell me what you need.”

“mama, wait—” you shuddered around her crooked fingers, the world turning white as your head grew hazy. “wait. mama.”

“hmm?”

you scrambled at her, pushing her until there was enough space to slide from where you’d settled at her wrist. wobbling, you turned on your hands and knees, pushing your ass up into her face and falling into a brutal arch.

“like this please.”

“anything for my girl,” ambessa said and you shook because you couldn’t see her face but you could feel her voice.

her fingers dove back into you, her mouth joining the effort. you were floating, only briefly aware of the consistent slaps to your ass through the pain ricocheting pleasantly through you. you pushed back, fucking yourself the way you wanted. she let you, steadying you when you began to lose rhythm.

“bessa, i can’t—i can’t see you,” you slurred and she hummed into your weeping pussy.

your stomach grew tighter and tighter, the world narrowing down to the way she slurped and worked into your cunt. you gripped the opposite edge of the desk, extending yourself as your orgasm began to boil over. quickly, ambessa swung herself under you and brought you down on her face. her arms flexed around your stomach, the corded muscle circling you as she moaned into your cunt.

the vibrations set you off. you felt like you were flying, like you were fucking free.

“oh shit, mama. fuuuuckkkk.”

your voice was unrecognizable to yourself, cracking and raspy. time stretched and winded. you knew your legs were shaking, that you’d squirted over her and yourself.

you didn’t know how, but ambessa was undressed now and rearranging you like a doll. you were back up on your knees, but she was draped over you with her heavy tits branding your skin with their warmth and weight. her hair was down and around you; it smelled like her shampoo, a curtain of coconut and cinnamon.

she bumped her hips against you, caught the silicone tip of a dildo again and again against your loose hole. you turned your head and opened your mouth like a baby bird so she could spit into it, stuff her fingers in.

she began to break into you, bullying your cunt into accepting her cock. you did what you always did. you pushed back and let her in.

you only ever gave her what she needed.

⋅˚₊‧ 🕯୨୧ 🦪 ‧₊˚ ⋅

morning light filtered through dense curtains, casting the bedroom in baby pink. you watched your rings catch the light as you stretched - the marquise diamond throwing prisms across egyptian cotton sheets, your simple gold band warm from sleep.

you'd chosen them together - ambessa insisting on the marquise cut for the engagement ring (something as unique as you, sweet girl) while you'd wanted the classic simplicity of the wedding band, a quiet echo of forever.

the bedroom remained your favorite place - all cream linens and dark wood, familiar as breathing. in the mornings, you could pretend time stood still, pressing chapped kisses against her strong bare arms in the quiet before the day began. sometimes you climbed on top of her, sunk as far as you could into the broad helm of her body.

despite the passing years, she remained your most fortified sanctuary.

"baby girl?" ambessa's voice carried from the en-suite, still commanding even wrapped in morning softness.

you could hear the water running; a bath being drawn.

“coming, mama.”

© hcneymooners. ⚚ special taglist: @sugrcookiiee @icespiceluva @16novvs @tnash-tammy @dyk3miffy @iwasholic @absandsevikasgirl @blackdykegirlblogger @fortluocha @neganwifey25-blog @rottngrl3 just pop me a message or comment if you want to be added to the taglist.

[officialaemondtargaryen]

Dinner & Diatribes

❝i knew it from the first look of mischief in your eye.❞

Summary: You both swiped right and suddenly you're standing in a stranger's kitchen while he makes you spaghetti.

Pairing: Modern Aegon Targaryen x Reader

Word Count: 5.2k

Author’s Note: this might be the most self-indulgent fic i've ever written, so fair warning. also, thank you tom, who inspired this by saying that dinner & diatribes would be aegon's hozier song. it's just true. anyways, this was really fun to write.

Warnings: language, recreational drug use, alcohol use, fluff, intense sexual situations (including: oral sex - female receiving, sexual intercourse - p in v), just two single people who are horny, more fluff, aegon being so cute that i couldn't stop smiling the whole time i was writing this.

It was precisely 9:39 PM on a Tuesday.

You were sitting cross-legged on your couch, nose deep in a fresh murder mystery that you had been working through for the last two days. There was a lit joint between your fingers that you were nursing, taking little hits so that it wouldn’t completely burn out, and on the cushion next to you, your phone softly vibrates and lights up; a familiar icon flashes across the screen and you can easily make out the words, “It’s a Match” from the corner of your eye. 

It’d been a regular occurrence since you had downloaded that accursed app. 

You’d been single for far too long, according to your best friend, though you hadn’t really noticed. The sweet silence of a solitary life was something that you had enjoyed for the most part. It wasn’t even like your online dating life had really taken off, either. You’d get matches but hardly anyone would reach out in any way that made you feel like they were serious. They wanted your Snapchat username, or they were in an ‘open’ relationship or asking for a threesome, and one guy even asked if you would send him pictures of your feet. Even some of the ones you thought were serious about taking you out- or even just hooking up- would end up ghosting you before anything actually happened. 

“It’s not supposed to be serious,” you could hear your friend’s words rattling around in your brain. You shake your head and focus once again on your book; they have a suspect, it’s the best friend! How fitting.

Once again, your phone lights up and vibrates. Not wanting to be distracted from the plot, you ignore your new match and get back to your mystery with anticipation; the best friend is about to confess. You go to take another hit of your joint and frown upon realizing it’s burnt out. As you move to grab your lighter, in comes another message, and another, and another. You stop what you’re doing and pick up your phone, swiping at the screen until you find the culprit. He’s known only as Aegon T, and according to the one sentence he has written on his profile, he has a dog. You swipe through his pictures- the dog is a golden retriever, the man looks like a golden retriever. 

In the message thread, he’s basically talking to himself. 

There’s four new messages waiting for you, while three little dots begin flashing at the bottom of the screen; disappearing and reappearing as you read what he’s already sent. 

“So, I’m high.”

“And I am making spaghetti… and it’s really good.”

“At least I hope it’s really good, it could just be the weed…”

“I could use a taste-tester, if you’re up for it? I can’t pay you or anything, but it’s honest work 😏”

Aegon begins typing again and you watch the screen, a smirk on your lips. You are 99% sure that the spaghetti is truly an innuendo for what he really wants and have half a heart to just block him, but you watch as those little gray dots continue in the bottom left corner of the screen; he’s going back and forth with himself and you can’t help but find it oddly cute. Your fingers hover over the keyboard as you contemplate a witty response, but before you can even begin typing, he sends a fifth message. 

“That was weird as fuck, right?”

Then a sixth.

“You probably don’t want to come over to some random guy’s house on a Tuesday.”

He finishes up with a seventh message.

“Unless you do…”

He almost sends an apology. After all, what's another message? He’s already fucked this whole thing up; not even giving himself a chance before he nose-dived. If he was being honest, he should just go ahead and delete his whole account; save you from secondhand embarrassment and save himself from repeating the same mistake again in the future. He sets the phone down on the kitchen counter and goes back to ripping bong hits to calm his nerves. Though, he’s unable to keep himself from checking his phone for a response; a response that likely wasn’t going to come and he’d spend the rest of his night feeling like a complete idiot. 

Seven back-to-back messages should have screamed ‘red flag’, but you’re glancing at the clock as if you were seriously contemplating taking this stranger up on his offer. After all, you do have needs just as much as the next person. But, you’re wearing a sweatshirt and a pair of pajama shorts, your hair’s a mess, and you were covered in the crumbs of your munchie snacks. Meaning, you were nowhere close to being prepared for what was sure to happen between you and this random stoner offering you dinner. 

Yet, you respond to him, “I could never turn down spaghetti”. 

Aegon’s stirring the sauce when he gets your message. He’s instantly elated, thrusting a celebratory fist into the air. His fingers fly across the keyboard swiftly, sending another quick message, “Atta girl 🙃 My place is on the corner of 9th and 51st, above Jasper’s.”

“Be there soon,” you reply with haste. 

It was apartment #4 and you made sure to text your friend the address, and given name of your potential murderer, and also share your location for her to keep an eye out.  She says all you have to do is text her at any time if you need her to call and bail you out with a fake emergency. All she asks in return is for you to have fun and let her know if you are planning on spending the night- which was an idea that you weren’t opposed to, but it wasn’t something you were planning on. 

You’re nervous as you stand outside of the door to his apartment, fist hovering for a moment. Now’s the time to make a fast exit- you haven’t met him, you could turn around right now and never meet him. You could wake up alive in the morning, safe in your own bed. Or, you can knock on the door and have what might be a really nice spaghetti dinner with a really nice guy. Hell, he could even be the love of your life and in fifty years you’ll both look back on this day and laugh about how you met on Tinder and how you were stupid enough to go to his house and not a public place. 

Finally, you knock. 

Aegon puts the lid back on his spaghetti sauce and shuffles into the living room. Sunfyre is on the couch with his ears perked; his tail’s wagging and he’s panting eagerly, waiting patiently to meet this new visitor. Aegon whispers over to him, “wish me luck,” and thinks to himself, please don’t be a catfish, please don’t be a catfish, please don’t be a catfish. He peers through the peephole when he approaches the door and there you are, a sigh of relief deflates his chest. 

“Oh, thank God,” you can hear him say as the door swings open. His accent is surprisingly British. “You’re real.”

The very first thing that you notice are his eyes. They’re piercing; somehow blue and lavender at the same time– the color of a warm, summer sunrise and they’re crinkling at the edges as he smiles. He’s wearing a pair of dark gray sweats and a pale green hoodie, and the only word that comes to mind when you look at him is warmth. He’s somehow more attractive in person than he is in the pictures on his profile, which you didn’t think was possible, but he’s standing right in front of you and you can’t help but think to yourself, he doesn’t look like a murderer. 

Then again, neither did Ted Bundy.  

Aegon stands there for a moment, just staring at you, unable to do anything else. His words escape him, he can barely even breathe. You look exactly the same as your pictures; even without the makeup and even in the shitty, fluorescent overhead lights of the hallway. Even in a sweatshirt and pajama shorts, you’re stunning. He’s having a hard time believing that you actually showed up and he doesn’t realize that he’s been staring for much too long until you shrug back at him. 

“Did you think I wasn’t?” You ask with creased brows and a lopsided smile.

The corners of his lips pull upwards as he looks at you, “I don’t know. You’re just so beautiful, I’m still not entirely convinced you aren’t some sort of hologram… or a robot.” 

“Wow, you’re pretty smooth,” you say with a playful smirk, desperately trying to keep your composure— trying to play it cool, hoping that he hasn’t caught on to the fact that you’re secretly spiraling, because it took all of one smile and one compliment and you were done for. “But, I’ll have you know that flattery won’t work on me. I’m here for the spaghetti and the spaghetti alone.” 

“My apologies,” Aegon says with a chuckle as he holds his hands up defensively. “Right this way, then.” 

He steps to the side, allowing you to enter his apartment, and shuts the door behind you. It’s nice, clean, smells like fresh baked bread and tomato sauce. There’s niche artwork adorning the walls, he’s got candles burning, and there’s some lowkey, downtempo R&B playing softly in the background. He quickly moves past you and disappears into the kitchen, leaving you to follow him. 

However, before you can take all of two steps into his apartment, a flash of golden fur is suddenly at your hip, pawing for attention. You drop down to a knee and happily accept any and all kisses from the pup. “Oh! Hi, what’s your name?”

Aegon sticks his head around the corner and says, “That is Sunfyre. In case you were wonderin’, he’s a very good judge of character and I will be consultin’ with him later where you’re concerned, fair warning.” 

You roll your eyes and scratch behind Sunfyre’s ears, his tail thumps in approval. 

“Would you like something to drink?” He continues and disappears back into the kitchen. “I’ve got wine and bottled water. Oh, and milk?” There’s a rustling in the kitchen before Aegon adds with a nervous chuckle, “scratch that, there is no milk.” 

You politely excuse yourself from Sunfyre and step into the small dining room off of the kitchen. 

There’s a grin on your lips, which you pursed so that he doesn’t think you’re laughing at him. Sunfyre joins the two of you and circles around his owner’s legs as Aegon empties an almost full half-gallon of milk down the drain. His kitchen is small but looks to be well used, which you appreciate. You know almost nothing about this man, other than his name- if ‘Aegon’ was even his real name- and the name of his dog, and yet here you were, standing in the threshold of his kitchen with a strange sense of comfortability as if you had been lifelong pals. 

“Water is fine,” you tell him. 

He produces a bottle of water from his fridge and tosses it over to you with ease and goes back to the stove. You step further into the kitchen, taking in your surroundings. The kitchen, like the living room, is covered in artwork and vintage decor- things you’d only find in some obscure thrift store or estate sale. On the refrigerator are a collection of magnets from different cities and countries, real touristy type shit. Some of them even had names on them; Alexander, Aaron, Alistair, Alan, Adolf. 

Maybe these are the names of people he’s killed. 

“You travel a lot?” You ask, trying to keep the conversation going.

“I try to,” he says from over his shoulder as he continues to stir the sauce. You can hear him set the lid back on the pot. “Most of those are from my sister, Helaena. She thinks it’s hilarious to give me magnets with random ‘A’ names since you’ll never find the name Aegon on any of those,” he says from behind you. He’s leaning against the counter with a half glass of wine. You quirk an eyebrow at him, not fully convinced. “She has a few from me that say Helen.”

“Is that her?” You ask, finger pointing to a pretty blonde in one of the many photographs he had pinned up.

He nods and takes a step closer to you. He’s so close that you can feel his warmth, smell his aftershave. The proximity causes you to blush and he smirks in response, leaning over your shoulder as he points to the other people in the pictures. “Those two are my little brothers, Aemond and Daeron,” he claims and then points to two women. “That’s my half-sister, Rhae, and next to her is my mother.”

“The redhead?” You ask surprised, given she didn’t look like she could be old enough to have four grown children. He nods and takes a step back, leaning against the counter with half-lidded eyes and a tipsy blush. “She looks like she could be your sister,” you say softly, turning back to glance at all of the faces; he seemed proud of his family, like they were very close. 

You turn away from the fridge and lean against the counter at his side. It’s quiet for a moment, save for the music and the sound of boiling water where the noodles were cooking. You look at him and the corners of your lips can’t help but twist up into a shy smile, but you bite at the inside of your cheek out of nervous habit. He props himself up on his elbows, taking a sip of his wine, clearly comfortable with the silence. 

“So,” you look up at him and his little smirk grows. “About the job…”

“Ah, yes,” he nods. “As I stated earlier, I won’t be able to pay you a monetary wage, but the position does come with a benefits package.”

“And what exactly would this benefits package include?” There’s an innocent flirtatiousness in your voice that only adds to the tension. 

“Outside of the free gourmet meals that I would be providin’ to ya, which is obviously the most important part,” he smiles and steps to the side to grab a spoon from the drawer and holds it out to you. Your fingers softly close around his as you pluck the utensil from his grasp. He clears his throat to distract from the fact that he was visibly flustered from the slight touch. “There’s also unlimited cuddle sessions,” before he can finish, you shoot him a look. “With Sunfyre, of course! He’s the real boss ‘round here, after all.” 

“Cuddling with the boss?” You quirk an eyebrow and look down at the golden retriever, his eyes round and gleaming; clearly waiting for a hand-out. “Sounds like a conflict of interest to me.”

“Well, if it’s a conflict of interest you’re worried about,” he counters quickly with a soft yet playful tone. “I s’pose we could renegotiate the terms of the agreement and you could have me instead.” 

“I’m listening.”

“He might be better at cuddling for obvious reasons and he might be better lookin’,” Aegon continues. “But, I give better backrubs. I mean, I have thumbs and he don’t. You can’t give decent backrubs without thumbs, can you? Plus, he’s a sloppy kisser.” 

“Oh, you’re really trying to sweeten the deal now, huh? Backrubs and kisses? I must admit, that is quite a compelling offer,” you muse. “It seems my decision hinders on whether or not you can actually cook, wouldn’t want to accept the position blindly, now would I?”

“Are ya doubtin’ my skills?” He asked playfully. 

“No offense, but you possess the aura of someone who could fuck up a can of Spaghettios,” you tell him with a sincere smile. “So, forgive me if I don't get my hopes up.”

Aegon laughs and it’s a warm and infectious sound that fills the kitchen. It’s genuine, as is his perfect smile. You can’t seem to keep yourself from staring; eyes softly tracing every detail of his face– from his full, pink pout, to the scar above his right eyebrow, and the dimple of his chin– thinking to yourself that you’ve never seen a man more beautiful. His smile turns back into a smirk as he notices you staring at his lips and you look up to meet his eyes. There’s something about the way he looks at you that leaves you feeling vulnerable. His gaze softens as you look away, turning your attention back to the spaghetti sauce on the stove in front of you to distract yourself from the blush creeping up your neck.

There’s only one way this night ends.

It was obvious before you even left your house and it was certainly obvious now. 

“Go on, then,” he prods, motioning to the pot on the stovetop.

His eyes are wide with anticipation as you dip into the simmering sauce, stirring it a few times before bringing the spoon to your lips. He’s nervous; it’s his mother’s recipe– one he’s spent years perfecting– but with his luck, you will most likely think it’s steaming garbage. Yet, he watches intently; holding his breath as your perfect lips curl to blow softly, cooling the sauce before you finally taste it. 

The moment the spoon touches your tongue, you're determined to remain impartial. After all, you’ve had your fair share of disappointing meals from men who’ve claimed to be great cooks. Aegon certainly could be the very latest and you wouldn’t be at all surprised. So, you keep your expectations low, and try your hardest to remain stoic, but as the flavors begin to unfold, you can feel your resolve wavering. 

It’s good. Better than most. 

Reluctantly, you have to admit that this is the second-best sauce you’ve ever had, right after your grandmother’s. You glance up at Aegon, who’s watching you with a mix of anxiety and hope, and you can’t help but smile. 

“I have to give it to you,” you say, your voice betraying a hint of admiration. “This is incredible. Almost as good as my grandmother’s.”

The relief and pride that spread across his face makes your heart flutter. 

“Yeah?” He asks with a toothy grin. 

“I’m still not completely convinced that you can actually cook, but you can– at the very least– make some top-notch spaghetti sauce,” you tell him as you place your spoon to the side. 

“Top-notch, eh?” He asks playfully as he begins plating your meal. “I’ll take it.” 

“Don’t let it get to your head,” you say to him with a laugh. “It’s just spaghetti sauce.” 

“Just spaghetti sauce? Don’t let my mum hear you say that,” he says with a smirk, setting a full plate in front of you on the counter. “I guess I’ll just have to work extra hard on the next one.”

“Assuming there will be a next one,” you reply, tone dripping with playful sarcasm. “Though, you have set the bar pretty high tonight. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“Well,” he murmurs as he steps closer, his body brushing against yours as he reaches around you to grab a plate. His lips are hovering above the shell of your ear, his voice low and teasing, causing your cheeks to immediately flush as the heat between the two of you intensifies. “I’m nothing if not a perfectionist.”

For a split second you expect for him to lean in for a kiss. Your heart is simultaneously skipping beats and racing at the same time; your breath catching in your throat as he leans in— But then he smirks, grabbing the plate and taking a step backwards. He’s doing it on purpose, you realize; his proximity expertly calculated to keep you on edge. You look up at him with wide, sparkling eyes and he knows he’s got you right where he wants you. The soft blush of your cheeks has his blood pumping and sends a surge of adrenaline through him. He’s trying his absolute best to play it cool but the way you’re biting your lip and looking at him has him unraveling.

“Is that so?” You ask, raising an eyebrow. “What other skills do you have up your sleeve?”

His grin widens as he looks down at you, setting his empty plate to the side. His gaze, once again, drops to your lips. “I have a few tricks,” he says softly, his voice filled with promise. “But I doubt you’d believe me if I told you, so how about I just show you?” 

“What?” You ask with a playful innocence. “Before dinner?”

“I’m not really in the mood for spaghetti anymore.” 

“Oh?” Your smirk is only growing. “What are you in the mood for?”

Aegon says nothing, but a confident grin tugs at the corners of his lips as he rests his hands on your hips. He doesn’t hesitate to pull you in by the waist, until you’re pressed against him and his lips are on yours. The kiss is both gentle and urgent and a little bit awkward, as any first kiss should be. You felt like a teenager again, kissing a boy for the first time– butterflies in your stomach and all.

It takes no time at all for you to find your rhythm with him, and he deepens the kiss, pushing you up onto the kitchen counter to meet his height. Your arms naturally drape across his shoulders, your legs wrap around his middle. He’s completely taken over your mind, filling up every tiny space that he can fit into; the smell of his cologne, the scratch of his stubble against your skin, the feeling of his hands squeezing the flesh of your thighs– his fingertips teasing just underneath the hem of your shorts. 

Breathless, he pulls away from you as he pulls your sweatshirt over your head. He stops for a moment to take in the sight of you; clad only in your bra and shorts, lips red and blotchy, swollen and full. You’re looking up at him from under your lashes, softly biting your bottom lip as you wait for him to continue. He gently lifts his hand up to your cheek and traces the curve of your cupid’s bow with his thumb, providing one last show of tenderness before he leans in to capture your lips in another searing kiss. 

His touch is suddenly rushed; spreading a wildfire across your skin in the wake of his lips as he rips off the remainder of your clothes. It doesn’t take long at all before you’re sitting exposed on his kitchen counter in only a thong, blushing wildly and covering your face with your hands. 

“No– no hiding,” he clicks his tongue and pulls your hands away from your face. “I want to see you.”

He whispers a string of profanities and compliments as his starving eyes roam your figure. Self-doubt creeps into your mind and you momentarily consider making a quick exit, convinced he won’t like what he sees, but the way he’s looking at you makes you feel desired in a way you haven’t felt in a long time. 

Aegon’s gaze is electrifying and intense, drawing you in and silencing your negative thoughts instantly. His hands pull you in by the waist, sliding you to the edge of the counter as his lips work their way down your chin and neck; leaving a trail of red marks down to your chest. He hums, smirking as he takes one of your breasts in his mouth. His hand kneads the other, rolling your hardened nipple between two fingers. Your head falls back, lips parted slightly as you breathe out his name. 

Each sound he elicits from you urges him on even further until he’s on one knee, looking up at you from his position with those pretty eyes. He runs a hand up the back of your calf, softly teasing you with his fingertips before tossing your leg over his shoulder. You knew where he was going, and yet, you were still surprised as he began placing open mouthed kisses on the inside of your thighs; shivering in anticipation as goosebumps formed on your skin. 

“You’re so wet,” he says proudly, praising you. 

His eyes are locked with yours as his fingers delicately smooth over your clothed clit. He hooks a finger around the dampened cotton and pulls your thong to the side, groaning at the sight of your perfect pussy. Without wasting another second, Aegon’s mouth is suddenly on you and your hands immediately find the back of his head; fingers curling into the roots of his silver hair. 

You roll your hips against his tongue, cursing out as your legs begin to shake. He moans, face still buried deep in you and the vibrations have you writhing. Both of his arms are wrapped around your thighs now, holding you tight to him, not letting up for even a second. Then he stands, lifting you up onto his shoulders. You squeal in shock, holding onto him tightly, but he doesn’t stop; he continues to devour you as he blindly carries you towards his bedroom. 

When his knees hit the side of his bed, he tosses you back onto the mattress. 

You prop yourself up on your elbows and watch as he strips out of his clothes. . You can see the outline of his arousal; prominent and pressing firmly against the fabric of his sweats. You bite your lip at the sight and he smirks as he catches your stare. His movements are unhurried, giving you ample time to appreciate the sight before you. His hoodie and shirt come off first, then his sweats, and you can’t help but notice the way that his muscles flex with each motion. He’s not overly built, but there’s a solid strength in his frame that is evident in the way he moves.

Outside, headlights from passing cars cast streaks of light and shadows across the walls of his room. It’s quiet, the music in the other room has stopped playing and all you can hear is the sound of your own heart beating in your ears. You swallow thickly, encompassed by the tension of the moment as he crawls up the length of your body; placing tender kisses along your skin. His lips leave a trail of warmth, each touch igniting a spark that travels through your entire body.

When he reaches your face, he pauses, his breath mingling with yours as he hovers just inches away. The anticipation builds, thick and electric in the air between you. His lips find yours in a kiss that starts slow and tender but quickly deepens; fingers threading through your hair as he pulls you closer, his body pressing yours deeper into the plush mattress. Your hands explore his back, tracing the contours of his muscles, feeling the tension and strength beneath his skin and coming to rest on his shoulders; gripping tightly as he continues to worship your body with his mouth. Each kiss, each touch, is deliberate, heightening your senses and pulling you further into the moment.

You curse at the feeling of his girth against your entrance. Your hand moves up to the back of his neck, pulling him down to meet your lips as he presses slowly into you. 

“Oh fuck,” he whimpers into the crook of your neck as his arms become weak. 

He knows that he won’t last like this; it’s been a while and you feel way too good. He’s slow at first, wanting to steady himself and maintain control, but his rhythm picks up quickly; hips moving with an unrelenting rhythm, each thrust bringing you both closer to the edge. You can feel his muscles tense, his grip on you tightening as he buries his face in your neck. His moans are a mix of pleasure and desperation, and you can tell he’s fighting to hold back.

You tighten your legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, feeling the overwhelming need to reach that peak together. His pace quickens, the tension in his body building to a breaking point. You feel the same pressure inside of you mounting before it’s suddenly crashing over you like a wave. He follows seconds later, a low groan escaping his lips as he spills into you. The intensity of the moment leaves you both breathless and clinging to each other, bathing in the afterglow. 

“That was incredible,” he murmurs against your skin, head pressed to your chest as you stroke his hair softly. His eyes flutter shut as he listens to the sounds of your heartbeat. 

You hum in agreement, smiling to yourself as you savor the peacefulness of the moment. 

Suddenly, you’re joined by Sunfyre jumping up on the bed, his tail wagging enthusiastically. You smile at him and pat the empty space next to you, inviting him to join your cuddle session. He eagerly accepts the invitation, circling the bed a few times before snuggling up next to you. Aegon lifts his head and smiles, clearly pleased that you would be so open to having the dog in bed with you. He wraps his arm around both you and Sunfyre, pulling you closer. 

“This is perfect,” he says softly, his voice filled with contentment as he lays his head back on your chest. 

"So, about that job offer," you say playfully, your fingers tracing patterns along his skin. "I think I'll accept the position. When would you like for me to start?"

He lifts his head to look at you, a playful glint in his eyes. “How about tomorrow night at seven?”

Before you can respond, a distinct burning smell reaches your nose. Your brows furrow as you sniff the air. “Do you smell that?”

Aegon’s eyes widen in realization. “The spaghetti!” 

He jumps up from the bed, pulling on his clothes quickly, and scrambles into the kitchen. You follow behind him, tossing one of his t-shirts over your head and meet him in the kitchen. 

“I guess I forgot to turn off the burner,” Aegon looks disappointed but then chuckles, shaking his head. He looks at you with a glint in his eye and smirks. “Occupational hazard, I guess.”

“Oh, that sucks!” You laugh, playfully nudging him. “Is it too late to back out of the job now?”

“Way too late for that,” he says as he pulls you into a soft kiss, silencing any doubts immediately. “You’re mine now.” 

“Mm,” you hum against his lips. “But I came here for the spaghetti.”

He chuckles and pulls back slightly. “Will you settle for pizza?”

“I’ll settle for anything, as long as it’s with you,” you say with a smile as you wrap your arms around his waist. “And as long as there’s extra cheese!”

[misojunnie]

DELICATE ─ psh. ☆

does love ever cross the line?

# genre: rich kid!enemy!sunghoon x fem!reader, forbidden love, enemies to lovers, slow burn, family feud, non idol au

# warnings: substances, lots of pining/angst, cursing, insults, mature jokes, implied sex, I have no idea how businesses work plz don’t roast me

# featuring: sunghoon & enha! + le sserafim

# playlist: delicate by taylor swift, take care by beach house, love by kendrick lamar, babydoll by dominic fike, hurts so good by astrid s

# a/n: hello all! been a long time :,( my life has taken several turns since I started this account, and I've been so preoccupied with my own bs that running this blog is becoming harder than ever... hence my little disappearing act. but I don't want to disappoint u guys! this fic was supposed to be released several months but it completely slipped my mind :( I decided to log in once again to finally let you all see it! I hope you like it and I hope to be back again soon 💓 much love to all my dedicated readers and I appreciate you all more than you know!

# word count: 13.2k

# taglist: @lovialy @minniejenseo @powerpuffstuts @mnxnii @idkdykilr @ionlyreadforfanfics @heelovesmeknot @100520s @simjyunnie @scrumptiousloser @eneiyri @pinkkami @milkycloudtyg @enhypenlovre @pinkkami @m3chigo @saythenameseventeen178 @desistay @capri-cuntz.@taerifin @ohmykwonsoonyoung @vixensss

# unable to tag: @hohohobo

this was written upon anon request; check it out here!

when your father’s company cratered after a faulty business deal, a vendetta was formed between your family and the biggest export company in south korea. but that rivalry begins to falter when you fall in love with the ceo’s son.

[more under the cut!]

You hated the business world. 

It was ruthless. Bloodless. It had no heart and no compassion. It taught you that humans were created to tear their own kind apart; it was a dog eat dog world.

A couple years ago, your family’s company went bankrupt, and you blamed it all on the Park Company. Fine, maybe your father held some culpability for throwing his business away in a deal that was obviously so faulty. But naivete and malice were entirely different things altogether; one was mostly harmless. The other? Not so much.

The Park Company was the most ruthless corporation in the business world. Working in any kind of business guaranteed running into them sooner or later. And now, not only had they run your business into the ground, they owned over ¾ of your company’s wealth in stock. Not that it was worth much anyway.

Well, it turns out fixing your father’s mistake was a little harder than you thought. Reviving a company from the dead was difficult, especially when public opinion wasn’t exactly favorable. So you made the riskiest decision yet; to start from scratch. You invested all your family’s ruined fortune on establishing your dream hotel. Even if it was the last thing you did, you would have more than a ruined corporation as your legacy.

With ten cents to your name and a pipe dream, you managed to create what would later be the most successful hotel chain in South Korea. Your wealth grew, and so did your reputation. Some praised you for making such a comeback, some degraded you for your family’s mistakes. And it definitely didn’t help that your father became a raging drunkard after his failure, raving the streets like a maniac. You even considered having him taken out just so he’d stop damaging your reputation, but you decided against it. To you, it didn’t matter. Your success was your only concern.

Destroying your life was all in a day’s work for the Parks. They were so obscenely powerful, that losing a mere company like yours was like losing an eyelash. Meaningless. You were nothing to them.

You hated them with a vengeance. They didn’t even know your name.

Or so you thought.

☆☆☆

Awards banquets were Sunghoon’s least favorite part of being in business. Forget the ruthlessness and backstabbing, dressing up in a suit and pretending to be successful blew all that warfare out of the water.

“It’s too tight.”

“It’s fine. You’ll be fine. Just stop complaining.”

“I’m not kidding, Jake. Loosen it or I’ll kill you.” Jake sighed, tugging on the navy blue tie until it was hanging loosely around Sunghoon’s neck, a stark and messy contrast to his crisp black suit and neat button up.

“Jesus Christ. After fifteen years, you’d think you’d know how to tie a tie.” Jake said, shaking his head as his best friend checked his hair in the mirror. 

“Are you sure we have to go to this thing tonight?” Sunghoon huffed, brushing a stray piece of hair into place.

“Don’t be stupid. You’ve been going to these galas since you were six, and dragging me along with you.” Jake scoffed, pushing Sunghoon’s head from behind and ruining his hairstyle yet again, the latter glaring at him.

Jake Sim, heir to the Sim corporation. An airplane manufacturing company that was this close to going under when the Parks took pity and bought nearly all their stock. These days, their company was worth next to nothing, but young Sunghoon took Jake under his wing, and there was no escaping now, to his chagrin. Though they’d never admit it, they had grown very fond of each other.

“You love it.” Sunghoon teased, tearing his eyes away from the mirror after checking his hair a last time. “God, I can’t believe we’re still having these idiotic galas. Everyone just knows they’re a coverup for big corporations to distract from the fact that they’re abusing their poor workers.”

“Nobody cares these days. Put a bow on anything and the media will eat it up.” Jake said, adjusting his tie before slapping his friend on the shoulder. “Ready to ruin some lives? Destroy some young futures?”

“Not funny.” Sunghoon warned, pointing his finger at Jake while trying to tug on his shoes with the other hand. “You know how much I hate the company.”

“Say that as much as you want, but you’re still wearing shoes bought with your daddy’s blood money.” Sunghoon huffed.

“Hm...I suppose you’re right.” he said, putting his hands on his hips.

“C’mon, let’s get you to the ball, Prince Charming.” Jake dragged Sunghoon out of the room by the wrist, locking it behind him, Sunghoon in tow.

Sunghoon sighed. God, how he hated his life. A legacy built on deception, and nothing he could do about it. Him and Jake made their way to the elevators, his dull eyes disappearing behind the closing doors.

He didn’t belong anywhere. Certainly not here.

☆☆☆

On the other side of the city, you were having an entirely different conversation.

��Take that off, Chae.” you said, biting into an apple. Your red lipstick bled into the fruit as you stared judgingly at Chaewon’s enormous diamond necklace.

“But it’s so pretty.” she crossed her arms, but you gave her a stern glance and she turned around to change with a roll of her eyes. “And you, put that out.” you swatted at Jay’s hand, a lit cigarette perched between his two fingers, roiling smoke spilling from the top. “You’re gonna make my new dress smell like smoke.”

“Jeez, what’s got your panties in a twist?” Jay asked, putting out his cigarette on the corner of the coffee table, which made you frown. “No need to stress. You’ve done this business routine a million times over.”

“I’m just nervous, I guess.” you said, hands fidgeting in your lap.

“I thought you didn’t care what the Parks thought about you.”

“I don’t.” you said firmly, tongue poking into the flesh of your left cheek. “I just want things to go smoothly, that’s all.”

“So you’re not gonna stand up to those fuckers that ruined your life? No protest?” Jay asked, resting his chin on his hand. “You always wanted to take them down.”

“Of course I do. But tonight’s not the night.” you sighed, rubbing your forehead, smudging your foundation and cursing when you realized what you had done. “I just want to be put together, just for one night.”

“Well you certainly look the part, honey.” he said, eyes trailing over your floor length red gown. “You’re a proper businesswoman.”

“I hope so.” you laughed.

“You’re gonna kill it. I know it for a fact.” Jay said, pressing a kiss to your cheek before standing. “Now let’s get you to this ball.” You grinned up at him, getting to your feet and brushing the dust off your skirt with determination.

“Let’s show these people who the Queen company is.”

☆☆☆

When the email stated “an intimate gathering”, you didn’t exactly expect nearly 300 people crammed into a dancing hall. The building was bursting at the seams to hold all the milling guests as they sipped on champagne and dined on fine food, laughing boisterously, teeth chattering. You hid your mouth behind the rim of your glass. You didn’t want to talk to a single person tonight.

Across the room, Sunghoon was doing the same. He had just about enough of the noise, and was considering running to the bathroom to hide when his father clapped him on the back and engaged him in a conversation he didn’t care about.

You wished you could escape.

He wished he could escape.

You stood, leaving your empty glass on the tray of a passing waiter as you walked around the crowded hall, searching the crowd for anything of interest. Your eyes landed on the desserts, and you beelined for the table of sugary treats, hoping to at least find a bit of solace in them, head down as you avoided the public eye.

Your hand bumped into another’s when you reached for the tiramisu.

“Oh, excuse me.” he said softly. He was beautiful. Dark eyes, silken hair and pink lips. His posture was straight as a ruler, shoulders back and a kind look on his face. It was almost too cliche, running into this beautiful stranger. 

If only you didn’t know who he was.

You turned to look at him, eyes meeting. “It’s you.” you said, and he stiffened at the sight of your face. “I was wondering when we would meet.”

Sunghoon wasn’t expecting the daughter of the Queen Company to be so beautiful. Sure, he had seen pictures, but they had never done you justice. And putting a face to the name was suddenly making him dizzy.

“Hello.” he said politely, avoiding your eyes as he gulped, throat dry. “I’m Park Sunghoon. Son of the Park company president.”

“Oh, I know who you are.” you waved him off. “No need for introductions between us. Time is valuable, let’s not waste it.”

“And patience is a virtue, so let’s make time.” Sunghoon said, smiling a tight lipped smile with his hands behind his back.

You looked at him skeptically. You didn’t think it was possible for Sunghoon to be more of a prick than you expected him to be, but he had somehow done it.

“Y/n Y/l/n,” you said, holding out your hand for a handshake. “President of the Queen company.” Rather than shaking your hand, Sunghoon bowed his head, his lips brushing over your knuckles as he held your hand, pressing a chaste kiss to it.

“Charmed.” he said, and your brows raised instinctively.

“I’m sure.” you scoffed, pulling your hand away and rubbing it on the side of your dress in disgust. Sunghoon’s eye twitched. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m rather busy.”

“With what, buzzing around the dessert table?”

“With running a business.” you snapped, turning on your heel and walking away as fast as you could. Sunghoon watched, listening to the faint clicking of your off-brand heels against the marble floor, shaking his head the moment you were out of sight.

He totally fucked that up.

“Jesus, that guy is more of an asshole than I thought.” you huffed, taking your assigned seat and placing the desserts you had gathered on the table, Chaewon excitedly reaching for a mango pudding.

“What, is that even possible?” Jay asked, sparking up another cigarette. You swatted the lighter out of his hand, and he scowled.

“Apparently so.” you sighed, leaning back in your chair and crossing your arms. You couldn’t wait for this night to end. You could feel eyes on you from all sides, judging, watching your next move. Waiting for you to fuck up, waiting for you to make a mistake or a rash decision they could broadcast to the media.

“I think we started off of on the wrong foot.” you heard a voice say from behind you, and you craned your neck to meet the eyes of Park Sunghoon, yet again. Those damn dark eyes. Swimming with emotion.

“I think there’s a reason for that.” you responded sharply, quick as a whip.

“Let’s start over. What do you say?” he grinned, leaning his head down until he was at your level, ignoring the stares he received from your friends.

“I say I’d rather die than become acquainted with you. Sorry.” you said very unapologetically, pleased with the put-out expression on his face.

“Well,” he said, straightening up and adjusting his jacket indignantly. “Doesn’t someone have an enormous chip on her shoulder.” Your smug expression crashed, morphing into a scowl. “Pleasure to meet you, Ms. Y/l/n.” With that, he stalked away, nose turned up and an unpleasant look on his face.

“Stupid piece of shit.” Jay said, sparking up his cigarette with the lighter he retrieved from the floor. You didn’t try to stop him, just stewing in your own displeasure. You couldn’t believe that audacious bastard. Was he aware that his family was the sole reason for the ‘enormous chip on your shoulder’?

You tried not to let it get to you, and quickly gave up. Suddenly, this was feeling all too real, and you got to your feet, brushing off your dress, bunching it in your hands. You felt like you were going to throw up.

“Bathroom.” you mumbled, pushing your way past to get to the exit.

☆☆☆

If you didn’t know better, you’d think Park Sunghoon’s spirit was haunting you on purpose. The only thing convincing you otherwise was the fact that he was alive and well –to your chagrin.

You sat, fuming from your office as his snotty face stared at you from a newly mounted billboard across the street, a wide smile on his face as he endorsed some brand of cologne. So not only was he a scumbag businessman, now he was some kind of model? It turned your stomach to think about it.

“I want that billboard down, now.” you grumbled, dropping your head onto your desk in despair as Jay watched you with amusement.

“I can get someone to set it on fire, if you want.”

“Not necessary, but I appreciate the thought.” you said, standing and pacing around the room restlessly. “We need to take them down.” Jay snorted, taking a seat in one of your office chairs, twirling around comfortably.

“What, take down the biggest corporation in the country? It’s not as easy as it seems, honey.” You glared at him, continuing to pace. “Look, don’t get me wrong. I wholeheartedly support your ventures to destroy Park Sunghoon, but don’t you think your fury is a bit misplaced? His father is the one that destroyed your company.”

“Evil by association.” you waved him off. “Plus, he’s rude.”

“Can’t disagree with that.” Jay took a long drag. You hadn’t even noticed that he lit a cigarette, and you rolled your eyes at him.

“You seriously need to stop smoking.”

“I’ll stop when you stop seeking vengeance.”

“...Touche.”

☆☆☆

You seriously needed a vacation from work. After five 16 hour shifts, the exhaustion was beginning to set in. You couldn’t even remember the last time you went out with friends. A couple of years ago, there wasn’t a weekend where you, Jay and Chaewon weren’t in some hole in the wall drinking until you forgot your failures. But ever since your company took off, you didn’t have time for that behavior. But that didn’t mean you didn’t enjoy a good dive bar now and then.

You snuck through the entrance of your favorite dive bar on the East side of the city, your slip skirt waving in the wind as you nodded to the security. This was the only bar in South Korea that wouldn’t sell you out to the papers, and besides that, they made a damn good Manhattan.

There were less than 10 people in the whole place, an odd couple here or there and some folks in need of a pick-me-up. You took a seat in the middle of the bar, your usual seat at the end taken by a sodden boy with a big hood that covered his face.

“Hey, Won.” you greeted the bartender as he wiped his hands with a towel, smiling at your entrance.

“Hey, y/n.” he said, throwing the towel over his shoulder. You heard the man beside you stir. “Manhattan?”

“You know it.” Jungwon reached for a bottle of whiskey, expertly mixing and measuring like it was muscle memory, finishing your cocktail with a flourish and sliding it over the counter. You had gone to high school with Jungwon and Sunoo, the two men who owned the bar, and had been friends ever since. You trusted them.

“How’s the business?” he asked, leaning with his elbows resting on the marble. “Saw you on the news the other day. Said you stormed out of the Park’s gala.”

You sighed, “Yeah. It’s been a tough week.”

“I hear that,” he said, straightening up with a grin. “You’ll get through it, stronger than ever. You always do.” you smiled, pressing the rim of the glass to your lips.

“Thanks, Won.”

“No problem. Just kick those greedy bitches in the ass for me.” That elicited a chuckle from you, Jungwon smiling upon hearing your laugh. “I’ll go get Sunny. I’m sure he’ll wanna say hi.”

“I’d love that.” you said gratefully, watching as Jungwon weaved around the back of the bar and into the back room. You looked down, sipping your drink, lost in thought.

“What are you doing here?” A grating, angry voice interrupted your haze. You turned to the boy sitting beside you, and it felt like you lost your buzz in an instant.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.” you said, staring into the dark eyes of your nemesis yet again, this time foggy with drunkeness. “You seriously had to find the one place where I could escape your face?” he asked bitterly, taking another swig of his vodka soda.

“My face? There’s a sixty foot billboard of your face outside my window.” you grumbled, and he snorted gracelessly. You could tell by his hoodie being pulled forward and his bangs covering most of his face that he was trying to hide, just like you. “I’ve been going to this bar for four years.”

“Lucky you. I just found it last week.” he took another sip. You suddenly felt silly sitting multiple stools away from him, but you’d be damned before moving closer. “This is the only place that won’t sell me out to the press,” he sighed. “And their bartender is pretty damn good.” You observed the four empty glasses sitting beside him, the way he was slurring his words. Clearly he had come here for the same reason you had.

“Won’s a pro.” you said, averting your eyes. The Sunghoon before you was throwing you off. He had humanity, and you hated it. It gave you a reason to hate him a little less than before.

Jungwon emerged from the back, a bright faced brunette in tow. Grateful for the excuse to end the conversation with Sunghoon, you leapt out of your seat and rounded the bar to pull the man into a hug.

“Hey, Sunny!” you said brightly, and he grinned.

“I didn’t get a hug.” Jungwon rolled his eyes, reaching for a bottle of tequila to complete another order.

“How’ve you been?” Sunoo asked, releasing you to get a good look at your face. “Wow, it’s been awhile since you’ve been in here. You look all adult-like.” You scoffed, brushing him off. “Where’s Jay and Chae? I haven’t seen them in months.”

“I didn’t tell them I was coming.” you admitted.

“Ah, one of those nights?” he asked, and you nodded. “You busy working? I’ve seen you in the news, the company’s looking good.” Sunghoon snorted from beside you, and you resisted the urge to glare.

“Pretty busy, yeah. The business world is a battlefield right now.” you said with a pointed look at the man beside you who slammed his glass down on the counter.

“Another.” he muttered, and Jungwon looked him up and down skeptically.

“I think you’re done for the night. I’ve gotta cut you off.” Won said decisively, and Sunghoon looked up at him with glassy eyes.

“Fuck, whatever.” he said, getting up from his seat and drunkenly stumbling, tripping as he dismounted from the stool, using the counter to steady himself.

“He doesn’t look so good.” Sunoo said quietly, and you watched him, poking your tongue into the flesh of your cheek in confliction.

“You need help?” Jungwon said, ready to assist as he clapped a hand on Sunghoon’s shoulder, but the older boy shook him off frustratedly.

“I’m fine, get your hands off of me.” he stuttered, swiping at him.

“Hey, I’m just trying to help.” Jungwon said defensively, shaking his head as Sunghoon tried, failing, to make his way to the door. You huffed, setting your drink down and abandoning the last sip as you made your way to him.

“Hey, stop being an idiot. Let’s get you a taxi.” you chastised, and he scowled.

“I don’t want help from you.” Sunghoon mumbled, and you rolled your eyes.

“You’re drunk, Sunghoon. It’d be a nightmare if the news caught you wandering on the street.” That made him think, and he begrudgingly wrapped an arm around your shoulders, refusing to speak.

“You need help?” Sunoo called after you, and you waved back at him.

“Don’t worry, I know him. Put the Manhattan on my tab.”

“It’s on the house, angel. Get home safe.” Jungwon said, and you sent him a grateful wave as you attempted to get Sunghoon out the door, shutting it behind you.

“Why are you doing this?” Sunghoon said, almost incoherent. “You could’ve sold me out to the press. To get your revenge.” You pondered his question, then shrugged.

“I can’t say I don’t want to.” you admitted. “But you’re vulnerable right now. I know what it feels like to be blindsided when you’re defenseless. I wouldn’t do that to anyone. Clearly not even my worst enemy.” Sunghoon snorted.

“You’re a good person.” he mumbled, his eyes practically closed with the weight of his exhaustion and intoxication.

“Take notes.” you chuckled as you texted your driver, simultaneously attempting to get Sunghoon over to a bench. “I called a car for you, so just sit tight.” You both sat in silence, staring into the dark city, breath fogging in the air.

“I am sorry, y’know.” Sunghoon said, nose and cheeks red from the cold air. “About what my father did. I never would have condoned it if I had the power to stop him.” You stared at him blankly, before the corners of your lips turned up.

“Thanks. You must really be drunk.” He chuckled in response.

“Yeah, maybe.” He shook his head.

“Y’know, Sunghoon,” you started. “I hope you run the company the way you think it should be run. Stand up for yourself.” He didn’t respond to that, just staring at the floor, twiddling his thumbs. 

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “I think I will.” A car pulled up to the curb, and you sighed in relief. Sunghoon stood up, insisting he was fine when you tried to help.

“Goodbye, Sunghoon.” He looked back at you in silence, before nodding.

“Get home safe.” And with that, he shut the door of the car, the engine rumbling as he turned the corner and disappeared into the night.

☆☆☆

Park Sunghoon was an idiot. And he was finally beginning to accept it.

He woke up with a pounding headache, grimacing and gripping his forehead in pain. It felt like there was an 80 decibel bass pounding his head, and he blamed it all on the vodka soda. And you, of course. You were making his head spin.

He stumbled out of bed, attempting to shove his feet into the slippers next to his bed, confused to find that they were pink and at least three sizes too small.

“Morning, sunshine.” a feminine voice called, and Sunghoon was beginning to realize that this wasn’t his home at all. He froze as a beautiful young woman stepped out from the bathroom, a lush robe wrapped around her body. “Feeling sober?”

“How did I get here?” Sunghoon asked, dropping back onto the bed as the woman snickered, reaching into her closet.

“You were on the floor whining and crying outside the office building. I took you home when the press got wind of your theatrics. Remind me to get a key to your apartment copied if you’re gonna keep acting like this.”

“You don’t need a key, Yunjin. Don’t be stupid.” Sunghoon rubbed his head, frustrated. He didn’t even remember going to the office in the first place, much less being picked up by her; aka the daughter of his father’s closest business partner, aka the woman he was predicted to wed if all things went his family’s way.

He wasn’t partial to the idea. Neither was she.

“A thank you would be nice.” Yunjin rolled her eyes, emerging from the closet fully dressed, already on the phone and pulling on a pair of high heels. “Now get out of my apartment. I have to get to work.” She tossed him a key and a fresh tee shirt from her closet. “Get dressed and lock up when you’re done.”

“Got it.” Sunghoon said, rubbing his eyes and pulling the tee shirt over his head. Yunjin looked back at him, tongue poking into her cheek.

“My mother still wants me to marry you, y’know.”

“Well she and my mother have that in common.” He rolled his eyes. She frowned.

“You’re too careless, Sunghoon.” The door shut, and Sunghoon was left to think about her words. His mind raced as he recalled the night before.

Your kindness.

Your smile.

How he apologized and didn’t think twice.

He shook his head, shuffling to the kitchen and opening the fridge, the cold tile pressing against his feet. Maybe he was too careless.

☆☆☆

The room felt stuffy, and so did your nose. You wondered if you were catching a cold, or if you were just allergic to business dinners.

“Hey, y/n.” Jake said, taking a seat beside you. You wiped your nose, flashing him a tight smile.

“Hey.” you replied, looking at your lap. Jake was one of the rare people you respected, and part of that was due to his company’s failure, like yours. He had built it back up to its former glory, but remained humble. You didn’t mind him. He was sweet.

“You seem bored.” he said, watching as you stared at the floor, clearly ambivalent toward what was happening around you.

“Astute observation.” you chuckled under your breath.

“I get it. These dinners can seem like a chore.” he said, picking up his wine glass by the stem. “Trust me, I’ve been going to them since I was six.”

“Lucky you.” you snickered. “Why do you even bother?” “Sunghoon always drags me here one way or another.” Your mood visibly dampened at the mention of his name, and you took a sip of your wine, hiding your mouth behind the lip of your glass. “How are things between you two?”

“If he dropped dead, I wouldn’t cry at his funeral.” you cleared your throat.

“But you wouldn’t cheer either?” Jake grinned, and you rolled your eyes.

“Whatever.”

“Baby steps.” he laughed, and you failed to suppress a smile. “I’m happy nonetheless. It’s nice to see you get along.” You wiped your nose again.

“That’s a stretch.” you scoffed. As if summoned to disprove you, the presence of Park Sunghoon suddenly entered your view, his hands tucked into his pockets. You couldn’t help but notice how nice he looked when his hair was pushed back.

“Mind if I borrow the lady for a moment?” he cleared his throat and Jake stood, flashing you a knowing look when Sunghoon wasn’t watching.

“Point taken.” you grumbled, as Jake snickered to himself, making himself busy on the other side of the room. After a moment of hesitation, Sunghoon took his seat.

“Hi.” he said slowly, and you nodded in acknowledgement. The energy was painfully awkward. “Um, I just wanted to say sorry about the other night. I haven’t really gotten a chance to contact you or anything, but I am sorry, and I should’ve called-”

“It’s fine.” you said tightly, shaking your head. “It happens.”

“Not to me.” he said defensively. “Look, I only apologize once in a blue moon, so just let it happen.” That elicited a chuckle from you.

“Alright. I accept your apology.” you said amusedly, and he let out a sigh of relief. You watched him blow a piece of hair out of his face, his lips parting for a moment to let out a breath. You averted your eyes when he caught you staring. He truly was beautiful.

Sunghoon’s thoughts were similar at the moment. While you avoided his gaze, he watched the way your eyelashes batted, pushing a strand of hair out of your face.

“I gotta go.” Sunghoon cleared his throat, and you nodded, eager for his exit. “Um. I’ll see you around, I guess.”

“Don’t sound so excited.” you said sardonically, and he rolled his eyes as he got up, giving you a dramatic bow as he walked away and towards another table. You watched him leave, eyes following his graceful figure and the way he smiled.

“You want to fuck him so bad.”

“Ew, Chae!” you yelped at the sudden interruption, waving off the smug girl leaning on your shoulder. “No way. Me and him? No, never. Don’t be silly.”

“Whatever you say.” she shrugged, taking his seat as she sipped on her third glass of red wine. “But the eyes don’t lie.” You glared up at her.

“I seriously hate you.”

☆☆☆

Three clinks of a wine glass, and your attention was at the front of the room. Sunghoon seemed to be giving a speech, and you brought your eyes to the stage. When you realized he was already looking at you, an unfamiliar feeling flooded your stomach. It felt something like dread.

“Welcome, everybody.” Sunghoon said, smiling warmly into the crowd, met with applause and good natured whoops. His father, however, was looking at him like he had just killed his cat, leading you to believe he wasn’t intended to make this speech.

And you were right. Sunghoon’s heart was pounding in his chest as he stared into the hordes, some faces familiar, some not.

“I’d like to thank you all for being here today.” Sunghoon said. “And I’d like to make a toast to the company and all of its potential. All it has accomplished, and all it will continue to accomplish.” The clinking of glasses resounded through the room as your frown deepened, your arms crossing over your chest. “And I would like to say, as the heir to the Park legacy, that I will try my hardest to steer this company towards kindness.” he said, with a fleeting glance towards you. “And so, cheers to the Park company. And cheers to ushering in a new era of ethical business.” The crowd, while mildly confused, burst into applause, their glasses rattling, champagne and wine alike spilling over the rims as people took celebratory gulps.

You shook your head, picking up the hem of your dress as you stood, walking to the exit with a smile on your face.

You sat on the steps outside the building, your knees pressed to your chest as you took a long drag of your cigarette. You told yourself you would quit, but something was itching at you that you couldn’t quite scratch, and nicotine seemed to do the trick momentarily. You were yearning for some peace.

“Flighty, aren’t you?” An amused voice said, the sound of light footsteps preceding it. You turned around, exhaling when you saw Sunghoon’s face towering over you, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.

“Nice speech.” you said, ignoring his comment.

“You mean that?”

“I do, actually.” Sunghoon chuckled, seating himself beside you with a grunt. “I didn’t say you could sit with me.”

“I don’t need your permission.” Sunghoon scoffed, folding his knees. You glared at him, but didn’t protest, taking another drag. “Put that out. I hate smoke.”

“I don’t need your permission.” you mocked him.

“Touche.” he said, resting his chin on his knees. “I suppose the both of us are equally headstrong.”

“Trust me, I’m more stubborn.” you laughed, ashing your cigarette and watching the sparks hit the floor. After a moment, you stubbed it out against the bottom of your shoe, rubbing the dark ash off with your thumb. Sunghoon noticed, but said nothing.

“I meant what I said in my speech, y’know. It wasn’t just to impress you.” you snorted at that. “I mean it! I do want to reform the company.”

“That’s admirable.” you nodded. “I’m glad to see my words had an effect.”

“Me too. See? I’ve only spent a couple days with you and I’m already becoming a better person.” Both of you went silent at his words, his eyes widening as he realized what he said. But he didn’t take it back, the two of you staring, searching through each other's eyes. You hesitated to say something, but there was no hesitation when he reached out for you, your lips colliding as he kissed you.

His hand ghosted across the back of your neck, resting at your nape, making the hairs rise. Your skin felt like it was on fire as he tilted his head, pulling you closer, one of his hands resting on your waist, his thumb rubbing over the fabric of your dress. After a breathless moment, you pulled away. Both of you stared at each other in silence, panting to regain your breath, hungry for more, but hesitating.

After a second, Sunghoon’s swollen lips split into a grin, and he began to laugh, leaning back on his hands as he snickered. You heaved out a sigh, but you couldn’t hold back the smile on your face.

“You are so fucking annoying.”

☆☆☆

You now had Park Sunghoon’s number. It had been three days since you kissed, and you hadn’t yet texted him. You wondered if he assumed you would.

But you didn’t have time to worry about that now. You had work to do.

“Jay, I need you to run a diagnostic on the hotel website and check for errors. And Chaewon, please call Mr. Choi, for the millionth time, and request some new cleaners. We need three dozen rooms cleaned before 10:0o pm.” you said, flipping through a checklist. You had been buzzing around your office drinking coffee and handling busy work since 4 am. It was sufficient to say that you were in business mode. “And both of you, be quick about it. I have a million more tasks to take care of.”

“Okay, Mom.” Jay rolled his eyes, getting out of his seat on the couch and you sent him a quick glare. “Since when have you taken anything seriously?”

“If you haven’t noticed, I have a business to run these days.” you said facetiously, and Jay placed an apologetic kiss on your cheek before running out of the door. “You too, Chae.” She shut her laptop, sending you a quick salute.

The minute the room was empty, you dropped onto your chair, letting your head loll backwards, closing your eyes. The minute you opened them, you were confronted with the enormous, cheesy grin of Park Sunghoon facing you from the billboard across the street. You huffed, getting to your feet and tugging down the blinds with a frown.

You could not get him out of your head.

As you sat in silence, stewing with rage at the fact that Sunghoon, of all people, was occupying your headspace, your landline rang, the little light flashing green as the phone vibrated. You picked it up with a sigh.

“Y/n speaking.”

“Why haven’t you called?” You froze, slamming the phone down and hanging up as quickly as your hands would move. That infuriating, smug voice, you’d recognize it anywhere. You stared at the phone blankly until it began to ring again, and after a moment of reluctance, you picked it up again. “What exactly is your problem?”

“How’d you get my number?” you said exhaustedly, spinning in your chair and getting tangled in the phone cord.

“I called your secretary.” you internally cursed Chaewon, letting out a deep breath through your nose. “I gave you my number so you’d text, you know.”

“I’m busy.”

“I’m busy too. I still found the time to call.”

“I wish you wouldn’t have.” you quipped. “What, you wanna see me?” You could hear him chuckle from the other end.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. Vice prez told me you’ve been waiting on upper management’s approval for your budget. I’m here to take care of it.”

“Oh.” you replied embarrassedly, crossing your arms.

“Aw, don’t sound so disappointed, sweetheart.” he tutted. “We’re sending a representative over tonight to discuss business.”

“I’m assuming that’s you.” you said, and he hummed in response. “I look forward to it. And by the way, we aren’t close enough for pet names.” You hung up without allowing him time for a reply, taking a moment to collect yourself before you straightened your jacket and got back to work, a deep frown on your face.

Sunghoon, on the other end, was grinning like a fool.

☆☆☆

Three knocks resounded from your door, and you looked up from your laptop for the first time in hours, cracking your neck in the process. Rubbing the back of your neck, you called out into the empty room.

“Come in!” you said, and Chaewon’s head peeked through the door, her black bob swishing as she walked inside, her pink heels clicking against the floor.

“Park Sunghoon is here to see you.” she said, and you sighed, looking down once again. “He’s in the lobby. Says he’s getting impatient.”

“Let him in.” you waved her off, and she nodded. “Oh, and Chae? Give out my number one more time, and you’re so fired.” She grinned coyly, blowing you a kiss as she slipped through the door. You rolled your eyes. You were beginning to wonder if you had a single competent employee in your entire company.

It didn’t take long for Sunghoon to find your office. It felt like the air chilled when he walked through the door.

“Hey,” he said warmly in greeting, his hands tucked into his pockets. He looked incredibly handsome in his tailored gray suit. You slapped yourself on the forehead internally, shifting in your chair uncomfortably. You were acting like an idiot.

“Hi.” you said tightly, straightening a pile of papers. He dropped onto the couch, kicking his feet up on the table. “Make yourself at home.” you said sarcastically.

He grinned, “Let’s talk business, sweetheart.”

“Remember what I said about the pet names?” you reminded him, getting up from your desk and slipping into the chair across from him.

“Aw, c’mon. Loosen up,” he urged you, leaning forward in his seat. “Now, whaddya got for me?” You looked down at the stack of papers in your hand.

“Well, due to necessary improvements, budget has increased this year. We’re in the process of funding a new computer system, and we’ll definitely need more support if we want to expand the branch in Seongbuk-gu. So, I’d say we’re looking at a couple hundred thousand, minimum.” you explained, sorting through your files.

“Boring.” Sunghoon mimed a yawn, standing up and walking to the makeshift bar on your side panel, unscrewing a bottle of whiskey.

“Can you please take this seriously?” you asked exasperatedly.

“I am,” he said defensively, pouring a sizable glass of whiskey. “I’m more of a vodka guy myself. I’ll have someone go on a grocery run next week and get you stocked.”

“Sunghoon.” you deadpanned, and he rolled his eyes.

“Aw, c’mon y/n. Aren’t I supposed to be the uptight one, and you the free willed?”

“You seem free willed enough for the two of us.” you grumbled.

“Alright,” he said, moving to sit back down on the couch. “I have a confession to make.” You stared at him expectantly. “Management approved the budget. I sent off the form yesterday and it was done by 9:00 am this morning.” You raised a brow.

“So…”

“So I came here just to see you, yes.” You smirked, and he groaned in annoyance before you even had a chance to respond.

“I fucking knew it!” you laughed, and he took a sip of his drink. “Park Sunghoon, you are a player.”

“Whatever.” he sassed, standing back up to refill his glass. “Promise to call me next time, and I won’t have to make any surprise visits.”

“I can’t make any promises.” you grinned. “But you can make me a drink.” He looked at you for a moment before chuckling, pouring a second glass of whiskey with a splash of sweet vermouth and bitters for a makeshift Manhattan.

“There’s no cherry, but I did my best.” he said, handing it to you.

“You remembered.” you said warmly, and he nodded. You took a sip. It was a bit too sweet for your taste, but you didn’t mind. You were smiling so brightly, he was itching with the urge to kiss your cheek, so he did. Your smile fell as you rubbed your cheek, Sunghoon avoiding eye contact with you as he sat back down.

You sat across from each other in momentary silence. The window was open, and the night air brushed against your cheeks. Sunghoon’s nose was pink from the cold.

“Do you like me, Sunghoon?” you asked, breaking the silence. He stared.

“Whoah,” he chuckled nervously, slender fingers toying with the rim of his cup. “You get straight to the point, huh?” You didn’t respond. “Let’s not talk about it.” You thought for a minute, before nodding, folding your knees and resting your chin on them.

“I’m okay with that.”

☆☆☆

Surprisingly enough, your friendship with Park Sunghoon was persistent if nothing else. In front of the press you still acted like enemies—you both agreed it was better for your respective companies if nobody knew you had become unlikely companions. But behind closed doors, you would smile when you saw him entering a room, and he would call you on a late night after a hard day of work.

Tonight was one of those nights. 

You tore your eyes away from your phone lighting up the black night, ringing on the table. You and Jay were sitting on the fire escape of your apartment complex, passing a lit cigarette back and forth and watching the smoke disappear into the evening sky. You could see all of Seoul from the penthouse.

“You gonna answer that?” Jay asked smugly, taking a long drag as he watched you stare at your phone in conflict. You turned it over.

“Nope.” you said, reaching for the cigarette and taking a drag until you felt lightheaded. “I don’t have time for him tonight.”

“You seem to be spending a lot of time together lately.” Jay replied, and you glared at him. “Hey, I’m not poking fun. I’m genuinely curious.” You turned away, staring at the glimmering skyline. “You’ve fallen for him, haven’t you?”

“No.” you brought the cig to your lips again. “No, I haven’t.”

“Then what is it?” “...I don’t know.” you admitted. Watching the cigarette burn into ashes in your unmoving hand, Jay began to light his own. “I used to hate him so much, Jay. And now, he’s something completely different than what I thought. He’s a good person.” you turned to look at the boy sitting beside you.

“I know,” he affirmed. “I know.”

“So,” you said, remembering your cigarette and ashing it on the railing, watching the gray ash fall to the ground several stories below. “What now?” Jay took a drag.

“I think that’s for you to decide, y/n. I think you’ve earned the right to let go.” His words touched you. Had you finally worked hard enough to look past those who had wronged you? You had achieved everything you dreamed of, and more.

Were you finally more than your own vengeance?

You didn’t respond, only grabbing your phone and wrapping your jacket a little tighter around your body to protect yourself from the cold breeze.

“I think I’m gonna call him.” you announced, and Jay chuckled.

“I had a feeling,” he said, stretching. “I’m gonna head home. See you tomorrow?”

“See you tomorrow.” you said, watching as Jay walked out the door, giving you a little salute before shutting it behind him. You sighed, staring at your phone.

3 Missed Calls From Park Sunghoon.

You hesitated for a moment before pressing the call button, letting your phone rest on your lap as it rang. He picked up on the second ring.

“Hey.” his muffled voice said through the phone.

“Hey.” you responded.

“I’m outside.” Your eyes widened, and you immediately ran to the edge of the fire escape, peering down to the entrance of your apartment building. Surely enough, there he was, his back resting against the wall, polished shoes tapping against the concrete.

“How long have you been waiting for?” you called, and he looked up, his face barely a speck from so high up.

“Not long.” he responded.

“How’d you know I’d answer?” you could barely make out his grin in the dark.

“You always do.” you rolled your eyes, retreating inside and tugging on a pair of flats. You took the elevator down, and when you entered the lobby, Sunghoon’s solemn face was the first thing you saw. His nose and cheeks were tinted red from the cold, and his hair was messy from the wind. You smiled, tucking your hands into your pockets.

“You wanna come upstairs?” you asked. “I’ll make tea.”

“Tea sounds nice.” he said quietly, smiling as he followed you to the elevator.

This was the first time Sunghoon had seen your apartment, and he was fascinated to say the least. As you fussed over the boiling water and choosing the right tea, he toyed with the perfumes on your coffee table, running his hands along your brown leather couch and smelling the fresh flowers you kept in glass vases. He was enchanted by this little space you had created for yourself. His apartment was just a bachelor pad, filled with expensive furniture and lacking life.

“I like your apartment.” he said, staring at a print of Marilyn Monroe that you kept on your wall. “It’s stylish.”

“Thanks. You want jasmine or oolong?”

“Jasmine, please. And bring a shot of vodka with it.” You snorted, pulling out two tea bags and pouring two shots, bringing them to the coffee table.

“So, what brings you to my side of the city?” you asked.

“I had a hard day.” Sunghoon knocked back the shot of vodka, wiping his lips. “Thanks. I needed that.”

“You’re welcome.” you said, throwing back your shot and setting the small glass cup on the table. You didn’t want to think of the implications of Sunghoon coming over in the middle of the night without any warning. It made your head hurt.

“I’m finding that, as of late,” Sunghoon began. “That you have a somewhat calming presence in my life.” You froze. “Lately I’ve been under a lot of stress, with remodeling the company and everything. My father’s been giving me hell about my new policies. I don’t think he likes my idea of ‘ethical new business’.” He let out a large exhale. “At the end of the day, you’re really the only one who understands me.” He smiled bittersweetly. “And, well, I’m grateful for your company lately. Spending time with you has been the only thing keeping me sane. It’s hard to imagine that we ever hated each other.”

You couldn’t think of a single thing to say. You felt like your heart was rising in your throat, and you cleared it, attempting to collect yourself. Sunghoon chuckled, looking at the floor with red cheeks.

“Is it cool that I said all that?” he said after a moment of silence. “Cause I know that it’s delicate.”

“Y’know, I used to hate you more than anyone in the world.” you laughed gently. “But I agree with you. These days, you’re the only thing keeping me sane.” Sunghoon gazed at you, but you were looking into your cup of tea. “And yeah, it’s delicate. But I don’t really care what anyone thinks but you.” You met his eyes. Those damn dark eyes. Swimming with emotion. And they were trained quite blatantly on your lips.

Before you could register it, he was reaching for your face, his rough palm caressing the soft skin of your cheek, pulling you into his embrace as he kissed you gently, his other hand on your waist.

You had kissed before, but nothing had felt as intimate as the moment you were sharing now. Those past kisses had been a fleeting moment, an impulse decision, but now Sunghoon was kissing you like you were the only thing in the universe, like you were all that mattered. His grip on your waist was bruising, as though he was afraid you’d disappear if he let go. You felt drunk on love and vodka, shifting yourself onto his lap as you tangled your hands in his hair. You were both breathless, hearts racing as you held each other tightly, losing yourselves in the taste of each other’s lips.

Sunghoon pulled away, his lips splitting into a smug smile as he tucked a piece of hair behind your ear, your lips red and swollen as you attempted to catch your breath.

“Remember when you asked if I liked you?” he asked, hands trailing over your bare thighs, eyes trained on the way your eyes twinkled under the dim lighting and the thin tank top you were wearing underneath your jacket. “Well, I think I have my answer now.” you licked your lips, before grinning.

“You’re an asshole, Sunghoon.”

“Then I’m really lucky you like me.”

☆☆☆

You woke up to two things; Sunghoon’s face, and the sound of yelling.

His eyes were closed, his full lips slightly parted as he let out gentle snores, his dark hair sticking up. As much as you wanted to admire the way the morning light hit his skin, you stood up and walked to your balcony, peeking outside.

You yelped, slamming your glass doors shut as you ran inside, pulling on a pair of sweats, simultaneously shaking Sunghoon awake.

“Sunghoon, get up. The paparazzi are here.” you said frantically, attempting to retrieve a shirt from your closet when a pair of strong arms pulled you back into bed.

“Five more minutes.” he groaned from under the covers, and you fought back a smile, attempting to pry his grip off of you. His hands made their way to the straps of your bra, pulling and letting it snap back onto your skin. “Lace, huh? I didn’t notice.”

“I’m not kidding, get up.” you said, pushing him off of you and running to your closet to grab the top half of your tracksuit, pulling it over your head.

“What’s the rush?” he said, finally sitting up, ears perking when he heard the loud voices coming from outside. Peering out the window, his eyes widening.

“Oh shit,” he cursed, getting to his feet and hurriedly pulling on his shirt. “How’d they find us?” You shook your head, biting your lip as you thought about what to do.

“Not sure, but we should try to preserve our image.” you grabbed a snapback from your nightstand, putting it on his head to cover his face. “You go out the back, I’ll curse them out and keep ‘em distracted.”

“What happened to preserving your image?” he snorted, buckling his belt.

“Well, my reputation’s never been worse.” you said, tapping him on the nose. “So you must like me for me.” He smiled, pressing a chaste kiss to your lips.

“Mm, I do.” he said, before tugging on his shoes. He blew you a kiss before running out your front door, shutting it behind him, making sure it didn’t slam. You watched him leave, your fingers tracing where he had kissed you, and you smiled for a moment before collecting yourself.

“Hey!” you yelled, stomping towards the paparazzi stationed outside the lobby of your apartment. They immediately whirled in your direction, cameras flashing as they all fought to get their questions out. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Ms. Y/l/n!” a reporter yelled. “Are you aware of the rising scandal between you and Park Sunghoon?” You scrunched up your nose.

“Park Sunghoon?” you repeated in disgust.

“Sunghoon was reported to have arrived at your home at midnight last night! Do you have anything to say to these accusations?”

“Do I have anything to say?” you scoffed. “You must be mistaken. Park Sunghoon is a pig, just like the rest of his family. I hope the media understands that I do not, and never will, have anything to do with a pompous asshole like him.” The paparazzi erupted into questions and flashing cameras, but you turned on your heel and sashayed back inside, waving them off as the sliding doors closed behind you, drowning out the noise.

On your face you wore a grimace.

☆☆☆

A newspaper slammed onto Sunghoon’s desk, his drowsy eyes snapping open at the sound. “‘Park Sunghoon is a pig, just like the rest of his family!’ States Queen Corporation’s CEO After Being Accused of an Illicit Affair with the Park Company’s Son”, stated the title. Sunghoon smiled momentarily, but his amused expression dropped when he saw the furious face of his father towering over him.

“Would you like to explain this?” he asked, his tone deceptively calm. Sunghoon was smart enough to know that meant he was enraged.

“Um, is there anything to explain?” Sunghoon said timidly. “She said it herself, we’re not involved.” Sunghoon’s father rubbed his temples.

“Well, obviously, Sunghoon. I’d hope you’re smart enough to not get involved with the one woman who could ruin our company.” Sunghoon winced internally. “We must do something about this issue. Y/n is the only threat to our company.”

“Surely she’ll leave us alone if we don’t encroach upon her business.” he attempted to reason, but his father looked at him as though he had gone insane.

“Absolutely not. We’ll have to speed up your engagement to Huh Yunjin.” Sunghoon leapt out of his seat.

“Father, you can’t be serious!” he said in disbelief.

“I won’t hear any complaints. The Huhs own the largest company in Korea, second to ourselves, and we can’t afford to make an enemy out of them. Merging our companies will give us total dominion over the business world.” his father said with finality. “Not to mention their only heir is a woman. We’ll control their company through you.” Sunghoon bit his lip.

“But I don’t want to marry her.” His father shook his head.

“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice.”

☆☆☆

A newspaper slammed onto your desk.

“Park Sunghoon, a pig? A likely story.” Jay snorted, slipping into the seat across from you. You rubbed the sleep out of your eyes, picking up the newspaper. “Late night, huh? So it must be true.”

“Shut up.” you said, but you couldn’t hold back the smile on your face. “Guess I went a little overboard, but it makes for a good story.” Jay raised his brows at you, taking a sip of his coffee. “Will you stop looking at me like that?”

“I think you’ve got a little crush.” He said in a sing-song voice. You snorted.

“I’m a grown woman, Jay. Us hooking up doesn’t mean I have feelings for him.” Jay shrugged.

“Say whatever you want, but it’s obvious that you like Park Sunghoon. There’s no denying it.” You were about to respond when your phone rang, and you shooed Jay out of your office as he mimed kissing childishly.

“Hello?” you asked, and a familiar voice responded.

“A pig, huh? A pompous asshole?” Sunghoon spoke smugly.

“I did what I had to do.” you shrugged, spinning in your office chair.

“Mm, sure.” he said, holding his phone to his ear with his shoulder as he jotted down notes. “Well, Ms. Y/l/n, I’m calling to let you know that the Parks are throwing a very exclusive fundraising gala tomorrow, and there’s an empty seat for a certain CEO if she’s so inclined.” you snorted.

“Oh, really? And would your family like to see me there?” “A little trouble would do them some good. Plus, I want to see you.” You blushed on the other side of the phone, covering your mouth with your hand. “And I’ve booked a private reservation for two at the shittiest bar on the East side,” he joked. “So?”

You thought for a moment. After your recent statement in the news, walking into a Park gala would be like walking into a den of tigers. But since when had you been afraid of stirring the corporate pot?

“I’ll be there.” you promised, and Sunghoon grinned, tucking a pen between his lips. “I should look for a dress.”

“I’ll have it taken care of.” He twirled his pen. “Just wait for my call.”

“See you tomorrow then.” you grinned.

“See you tomorrow, m’lady.”

☆☆☆

It was three hours and counting until the Parks’ big gala. You stared at the wall ahead of you while Chaewon tried on countless lavish dresses and Jay sorted through piles of patterned ties. Sunghoon had assured you that you could bring your closest friends, but you weren’t certain that his family would appreciate your troupe of misanthropes intruding upon their event.

“Cheetah print, or zebra print?” Chaewon asked you, holding two dresses against her body. You shook your head, biting the nail of your thumb.

“Neither. Pick something nice, Chae.”

“This is nice.” she protested, but put the dresses down and continued to look around. Jay noticed the way you stared vacantly ahead, stressfully chewing your nails, and he set down his ties, scooching in closer.

“Are you feeling okay?” he asked cautiously. “Nervous?”

“I couldn’t care less what those people think about me.” you said, and Jay chuckled at your classic behavior.

“Okay, so. What’s wrong?” His eyes held concern as he rubbed his thumb along your arm, and you sighed heavily.

“I do care what he thinks. And that’s the problem.” Jay let out a quiet sound of understanding. “I don’t understand. Why do I even care about him? The only thing on my mind for the past six years has been destroying that family.”

“Y/n,” he began. “You don’t have to punish yourself for forgiving someone.” You stopped biting your nails. “Especially someone with no fault in the situation.”

“But he’s one of them.” you mumbled.

“Does he seem like a good person?” Jay asked. Your eyes made contact for a moment, before you nodded and quickly looked away. “Then that’s all that matters.” You considered his words for a moment, before sighing, folding your hands.

“You’re right, you’re right. Thanks Jay.” 

“I’m always gonna be here for you. Try not to worry.” He patted you lightly on the back as he stood, and you gave him a tight smile. Your eyes were drawn to your bed, snug in the corner of your apartment, a large bag lying on top. Fabric peeked out from beneath the top, a shining sapphire blue. You held your head in your hands.

Trying not to worry was proving to be impossible.

On the other side of the city, Sunghoon was tightening his tie.

“You finally learned how to tie a tie.” Jake snorted, but Sunghoon didn’t laugh. He was staring vacantly out the window and into the horizon, zoned out on the skyline. “Hello? Earth to Sunghoon?”

“What?” Sunghoon snapped out of his trance, whipping around.

“Something on your mind?” Jake tucked his hands into the pockets of his ironed blazer. They were both dressed in their nicest suits in preparation for the night’s events. Sunghoon shook his head.

“I can’t stop thinking about her.” Sunghoon admitted, and Jake grew serious. “This whole time, I feel like I’ve been looking for something deeper than just being the heir to this bullshit company. When I’m with her…I feel like I found something real.” “Sunghoon,” Jake said tenderly. “As of a couple days ago, you’re engaged.” Sunghoon sighed. “You can’t do that to y/n.”

“I don’t want to get married.” Sunghoon said, his voice breaking, which he quickly covered up with a cough. “I don’t want to marry Yunjin, and she definitely doesn’t want to marry me.”

“As sad as it is, you don’t have a choice.” Jake said sympathetically. “I know you’re upset. But just try to keep it together for tonight.”

“Yeah, got it.” Sunghoon scoffed, fidgeting, adjusting his cufflinks. “After 21 years, I’ve become accustomed to putting away my emotions for my father’s benefit.” Jake watched sadly as his best friend adjusted his jacket, shaking his head before exiting his room and striding downstairs to where the gala was taking place.

☆☆☆

Your eyes scanned the luxurious room, full of familiar but unwelcoming faces. Chandeliers were draped from ceilings twenty feet high, crystals glimmering in the golden glow, sending fractals of light spiraling around the room. You were receiving dirty looks from every corner of the ballroom, judgemental whispers echoing. You tried your best to tune it out. Jay stood behind you, glaring back tenfold at every disapproving partygoer, Chaewon oblivious to it all as she enjoyed the decadence.

You needed to find Sunghoon or you would lose your mind.

His face shone from the other side of the room, and when your eyes connected it was like the rest of the world fell away. His warm, brown eyes captivated you as he quickly left whatever conversation he was a part of, weaving through the crowd to get to you. He was breathless by the time he made it through the sea of people.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.” you responded unsteadily, looking over your shoulder to see his father watching you with a fierce glare. “Sunghoon, I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

“Since when have you cared what everyone else thinks?” he said with a bittersweet grin, and you chuckled, some of the tension relieved. “C’mon, I’ll show you the dance floor.” He tugged on your hand, whisking you away. You attempted to hide your face as you left with him.

Jake watched you leave, sipping gin from a crystal glass. Jay approached his side, picking up a bottle and emptying its contents into the largest glass he could find.

“They’re so fucked.” Jake said without thinking.

“I don’t know,” Jay said, taking a swig. “They seem like they really love each other. Who says love doesn’t conquer all?” “The business world.” Jake chuckled, looking at his reflection in the bottom of his glass. “I just hope he lets her down easy.”

“What do you mean?” When Jake looked up, Jay was staring at him inquisitively, brows furrowed. Jake’s face dropped, his heart in his throat.

“He hasn’t told her yet?” Jake asked hesitantly. Jay’s grip on his drink tightened. The two men stared at each other in silence, the tension palpable.

“...Told her what?”

☆☆☆

Sunghoon closed the towering, intricate wooden doors behind you as you entered the ballroom. Ceilings made of mirrors caused the light to bounce around the room like stars, and you watched, breathless. The smooth floor was slick under your stiletto heels.

“It’s beautiful.” you said, and Sunghoon watched you with a smile.

“A dance, m’lady?” he asked, offering his gloved hand to you. You took it with a grin, and he pulled you into his arms.

The two of you swayed, rocking back and forth in each other’s arms as he attempted to guide you in a waltz. You were uncoordinated, and you both giggled as you tripped over your feet. His thumb rubbed across your hand as he counted out the steps for you. There was no music playing, but you could both feel the rhythm in your head, like a grand orchestra was conducting a song just for you.

When you were alone, your head was suddenly clear. The stress from earlier melted away as he gazed into your eyes, and you rested your head on his shoulder, the two of you twirling as he hummed a song under his breath.

“You’re improving,” he joked. He was right, you were no longer tripping and stumbling. You had gained a sense of the rhythm, following his lead gracefully. He extended his hand, prompting you to spin, and you did.

“I have a good teacher.” you laughed, watching your gown twirl. The dress that Sunghoon had bought you was beautiful, trailing against the ground, the crystal detailing lighting up underneath the dappled golden light. Only then did you notice the sapphire shade of his tie, and how it perfectly matched your dress. “Let’s hope the press doesn’t get wind of our fashion faux pas.” you joked, gesturing to your matching attire.

“To be honest, I don’t really care.” he said, and his honesty made you gulp.

This was all too real for you. Your feelings for him were ripping you from the inside out, and you felt too nervous to speak. The feeling in your stomach was more akin to wasps than butterflies.

“Y/n.” he said seriously. “You know how I feel about you, don’t you?” He was overcome with guilt. He really didn’t want to do this to you, not now, not when he knew he’d have to break the news soon. It was too soon. His time with you was too short lived, he couldn’t let it go. Not when you were the only person who made him feel complete, the only person who made life feel like it was worth continuing.

“No, I don’t.” you grinned, baiting him to say the words himself, and he chuckled. “Why don’t you explain it to me?”

“Maybe it’s easier without words.” he said, unclasping his hand from yours so he could trace his fingers along your cheek. 

He dipped his head to kiss you, and your hands were tangled in his hair as he held you tightly. There was something desperate about the way he kissed you, holding you like you might slip through his fingers if he loosened his grip. The two of you kissed fervently, full of convolution and mixed emotions. He pulled away from you for a moment, but only for long enough to whisper,

“I love you.” You pulled away from him, his gaze intense. You always had a weakness for his eyes. It felt like they held galaxies. The weight of his words sunk upon you, and you opened your mouth to speak.

“I love you too.” you whispered.

☆☆☆

You and Sunghoon had parted ways after your illicit meeting, him fleeing to the front of the room to discuss with his father, you hesitantly retreating to your table. Chaewon was sipping vodka; Jay was nowhere to be seen.

“Everything okay?” she asked immediately, setting down her cup.

“I’m okay.” you assured her, your lips splitting into a bright smile despite your distressed exterior, and she let out a breath of relief, wrapping an arm around the back of your chair when you sat. “I can’t wait to get out of here.”

“Same.” she agreed, taking another swig of her drink. “Though I bet your reason is different than mine.” She sent you a wink, to which you shook your head amusedly.

Your eyes were drawn to Sunghoon, standing onstage with his father. He seemed nervous, and you wanted nothing more than to be standing beside him, but you knew you couldn’t. Not in public, and you were wondering if you two would go public one day.

You would do it the moment he asked, no hesitation. And that scared you.

You picked up a glass sitting on the table that you assumed was Jay’s, taking a large swig. It burned your throat, and you put it down with a wince. Out of the corner of your eye, you spotted a tall and elegant woman standing on stage, honey colored hair curling gracefully on her shoulders. Her floor length golden gown sparkled in the light.

“Welcome, valued guests.” a loud voice and feedback from the microphone snapped you back into reality, and your attention was drawn to the stage, where Sunghoon’s father was speaking with a cheesy, large grin. “Thank you all for attending our fundraising gala, graciously hosted by the Parks. We appreciate all of your generous donations.” he cleared his throat. “And on behalf of my lovely son, we have some news.” You began listening, setting down your cup.

“We are delighted to announce our own Sunghoon’s engagement.”

Your face paled. You felt like the world was crashing down around you, everything muffled. You could vaguely sense that Chaewon was talking to you, but you couldn’t process it. You felt like you were going to throw up.

“Sunghoon and Huh Yunjin of the Huh Company are set to wed in three months, and our companies will officially be merging.” Flashing cameras went off like grenades, the sound filling the room as the woman smiled for the camera, holding onto the arm of the man who told you he loved you. Despite the camera demanding his attention, his eyes were on you. And those beautiful eyes that you loved, they were devoid of feeling.

He stared at you, pale as a ghost, lips parted in silent surprise. The cameras snapped photos of him as he barely breathed, lost in the injured gaze of the woman who loved him. And you stood, striding towards the exit before you could even register what you were doing, ignoring the curious stares you were receiving. All you could see was the exit, the door that would lead you out of here.

The sound of cameras flashing and the hum of gossip silenced as you walked into the night, taking a deep and ragged breath. Tears spilled from your eyes before you could help it, and you swiped your palms over your face, smudging your makeup, sobbing unsteadily.

As Sunghoon watched you stand, he pulled himself away from the tight grip of Yunjin on his arm, eyes trained on your disappearing figure as panic rushed through his head. His father turned back towards him.

“What are you doing?” he asked quietly, urgently, as Sunghoon pushed through the crowds of paparazzi, jumping off the stage and running towards the exit. He burst through the doors, chasing you until he found your weeping figure running away.

“Y/n!” He chased after you. You knew you couldn’t outrun him, so you didn’t try. You just shook your head, turning away from him.

“Fuck off.” you replied harshly, and he grabbed your wrist.

“Please, I’m sorry, let me explain.” he begged.

“Explain?” you snapped. “Sunghoon, you’re engaged. There’s nothing to explain.”

“I don’t want to marry her.” he said desperately. “I never have, and I never will.”

“You told me you loved me,” you sobbed, wiping your eyes with your free hand, and Sunghoon’s eyes burned with tears and the cold wind.

“I do,” he said gently. “I love you more than anything.”

“Then why?” you said. “Why are you getting married?” “...I don’t have a choice. It’s for the company.” he said reluctantly, and you shook your eyes, pulling your wrist out of his grip and wiping your eyes for the last time.

“I can’t believe I thought you were different.” you laughed incredulously. “I thought you were different, but it turns out you’re exactly like your family.”

“Y/n, don’t say that.” he pleaded. “I’m not like them.”

“Yet you do what they say, slaving away for a company that does nothing but hurt people?” He went silent. “I should’ve known from the start that you would hurt me. God, I can’t believe I thought you really cared about me.” “I do.” he insisted, reaching for your hands, but you pulled away. “I care about you, I care about us-”

“There is no ‘us’, Sunghoon!” you yelled. “There never has been! Because you always knew that at the end, you’d leave me the minute someone told you to.” 

“That’s not true, y/n.” he shouted. “Everything we went through, that meant something to me. I meant everything I said, I’d do anything for you! I’d leave the company if you asked me to!” You scoffed.

“You wouldn’t do that for anyone, Sunghoon. You’re too much of a coward.” He didn’t respond, his hands hanging weakly at his sides. He felt numb.

A black car roared to life, approaching from the parking lot. The windows rolled down, and you were comforted to see Jay’s stony face in the driver's seat, Chaewon watching you from the back seat with concern. He nodded to the passenger side.

“Get in.” he said, requiring no explanation. He already knew.

You ran for the car, and Sunghoon came after you. You had one hand on the handle when he caught your wrist in his fingers.

“Please,” he begged, his voice a whisper in the night as his eyes pleaded with you. “Please, don’t leave.” You almost yielded, but instead you removed your hand from his, opening the door and sliding into your seat.

“Go.” you said quietly to Jay, and he accelerated, speeding out of the lot. His hand rested on top of yours, his thumb caressing the back of your hand. You silenced your tears, chin resting on your palm and staring out the window into the city to ignore how much your heart was aching.

☆☆☆

It had been four days since Park Sunghoon told you he was getting married to another woman. It had been three days since you called out of work sick, and two days since you blocked his number after countless missed calls. It had been only one day since you stopped crying yourself to sleep.

You weren’t used to being vulnerable. Since your father ruined both his career and your own, you were used to building up walls around yourself. You were filled with bitter irony that the person who tore those walls down was part of the family that hurt you so badly in the first place.

You felt like an absolute idiot, to say the least.

You flipped through a magazine, your hair up as you lounged in a salon chair. You had just gotten your nails done, and you tried not to smudge the gel as you flipped through pages of jewelry ads and gossip articles. When you stumbled across a promotion for cologne, Sunghoon’s handsome, smiling face decorating the page, you shut it with a sigh.

“Do you have any other magazines?” you asked the woman who came to do your hair, sharp nails gripping at the edges.

You strode down the bustling streets of Seoul, your fur coat clenched tightly around your body, a designer purse held in your free hand. You got plenty of stares as you walked down the street, some admiring, some judgemental. But you had learned not to care. You sighed, your warm breath fogging up the cold daylight, before dissipating.

The sound of screeching static froze you in place, and you turned to look at the towering screens lined up in the window of a store, all glitching. You stopped for a moment, waiting until they regained their sense, switching to a news channel.

An anchorwoman with a bad blowout and a gaudy diamond necklace was pointing very seriously at an image behind her, her other hand wrapped around a stack of papers as she read off a script.

“The business world- is sh-shocked,” she began, her voice skipping as the tvs froze and unfroze in sync. “At the alleged emancipation of Park Sunghoon from his family’s very successful enterprise. Mr. Park made a public statement this morning, claiming that he ‘would not continue to entertain unethical practices, and could not condon the idea of marrying purely for business’. Rumors are, according to inside sources from corporate high society, that he left his company for love.”

You stared quietly at the tv. A million thoughts were rushing through your head, but the majority of them were this;

You needed to find Sunghoon.

☆☆☆

The door to his apartment creaked open, Sunghoon peeking out from behind. His hair was matted to his forehead, sticking up in places, and his typical nice clothing was replaced by a white t-shirt and a pair of baggy sweats. He looked like hell, but it didn’t matter; he looked the most beautiful you’d ever seen him.

“You’re not a coward.” Was the first thing you said when he opened the door.

“I am,” he replied.

“You’re not, and I didn’t mean that. I was scared.”

“You don’t need to explain yourself to me.” he said, shaking his head. “It was all my fault. I fucked up, and I lose the only person I care about in this world because of it.” You stood up a little straighter, clenching your fists.

“At the end of the day, you’re really the only one who understands me.” you said firmly, and he smiled, recognizing his own words. “Sunghoon, I care about you more than I’ve ever cared about anyone. And that’s why I was so afraid of you hurting me.”

“I wish I could take it all back.” Sunghoon said, his hand tracing your cheek, too afraid to make contact. “I wasted so much of my life being complacent. You were the one that taught me to be brave.” You nodded, eyes watery. “I’m sorry that I made you mad.”

“I’m not mad.” you said very unconvincingly, and both of you laughed. 

You wiped your eyes furiously, hands trembling.

“I really do love you, Sunghoon.” you said shakily, and he pulled you into his arms. You melted into his warm embrace, his arms circling your waist, holding you tight. Your touch felt so familiar, and for the first time since you left him, he felt whole again, basking in the glory of your presence. He couldn’t help but kiss you, his finger under your chin as he lifted your face to his, pressing his lips against yours eagerly.

You had forgotten all the things you adored about kissing Sunghoon. The way his hands always held you so tightly, how he always tasted like honey chapstick, and the way he smiled against your lips when you lost your hands in his hair. You were both sick with love, and you were only just beginning to realize that you didn’t need a cure.

“I love you.” he mumbled between kisses, unable to pull away. “I loved you from the start, even when everyone told me not to. Nothing could, and nothing can, stop the way I feel about you.”

“I love you, Sunghoon,” you said, your tears wetting both your face and his. “And I hate you for even considering otherwise.” he chuckled, tapping your nose with his index finger.

“Well, my reputation’s never been worse,” you giggled at your own words being used against you, as he spun you around in his arms. “So you must like me for me.” You pressed a chaste kiss onto his lips with a glowing smile.

“Mm, you’re lucky that I do.”

☆☆☆

[lunarlando]

Hi I love ur girl dad lando fics sm they're adorable I was wondering if u could write smth where lando and readers girls invite their friends for a sleepover (like a crossover with carlos,charles, Oscar and max F's kids) cuz they're besties and reader and lando putting in lots of effort for the girls and making it a fun time for them and overall fluff and comedy pls xx

Hope u have a grt day and feel free to ignore this request if u don't want to write it xx 🫶🏼

so so sorry this took me so long to get around to, but thank you for your request! as a quick refresher since it's been ages since i've written for this little universe, we've got estelle and delilah norris, adrien leclerc, teo sainz, maeve and clara piastri, and some new additions—luca and lina fewtrell! hope you enjoy x

feel free to request more :)

“If someone told me I'd be in my thirties blowing up air mattresses for a bunch of children instead of going for a night out, I’d call them mental.” 

“And yet, here you are.” 

Here Lando is indeed, sitting in the middle of the living room floor, blowing up the third of eight child sized air mattresses for the girls’ sleepover tonight. Mattresses one and two have been cast off to the side, ready to go. You’re watching him moan and groan from the kitchen while you prep snacks and drinks for the kids. 

Estelle and Delilah had begged you to have a sleepover with their friends this weekend, and with all of them actually in Monaco for once, how could you refuse? 

“Y’know, you’re making terrible time on those mattresses,” You tease, turning towards the fridge to grab those little smoothie drinks the girls love. You’re all stocked up on their favorite foods, you’ve got their favorite movies queued on the television, and you’re pretty much prepared for anything a group of excited kids would want. 

All you want is for everything to go well tonight, because your girls are your world. 

You’re swept off your feet before you can throw another smart remark Lando’s way, drawn into his chest as his fingers dig into your sides, making you nearly shriek with laughter. You manage to push him away, but not before he’s rendered you breathless with his tickling. 

“When are all the little rascals coming over?” 

You slide your hands up his chest to link around the back of his neck, fingers toying with the curls at his nape. “Should be soon. Carlos is picking up Adrien on his way to bring Teo here, Lily and Oscar are dropping off the twins after gymnastics, and Pietra said she’ll be sending Max over with Luca and Lina pretty soon.” 

“Pietra’s not coming round?” 

“Pietra’s eight months pregnant on bed rest, my love. Have you forgotten, or has all that blowing made you lightheaded?” 

Lando rolls his eyes, squeezing your hip. “Ha ha, very funny, you.” 

“You love me.” 

“Duh. Wouldn’t have let you rope me into this circus otherwise,” He teases. 

“Don’t act like it hasn’t been your life’s dream to host a sleepover with eight kids hopped up on sugar and sweets.” 

“It’s all I’ve ever wanted.” 

There’s an undertone there, something more serious in his words that makes you smile warmly.

Lando has always been a family guy. His loved ones are his world, and the little family you’ve been able to create with each other despite all the challenges is one of the few things that take precedence over racing. You still remember the day you told him you were pregnant with Estelle. How he’d gone completely misty eyed and nearly tackled you in a hug before you’d even finished uttering the words. 

He’s told you before, getting to be a father, getting to have a family, it’s a gift he’d never be able to thank you enough for. 

You pull him in closer to kiss him, taking advantage of the girls being busy in their room to have a little time alone to love on your husband. 

“Daddy!!!” Estelle’s loud shriek has you both pulling away from each other in a snap. Lando deflates against you, groaning quietly. 

“Yes, lovebug?” He calls, angling his head towards the direction of her voice. 

“I can’t find my race car pajamas!” 

“That’s ‘cause they’re in the laundry! You got ice cream on them last night, remember?” 

You dig a sharp elbow into Lando’s side, eliciting a high pitched yelp and an incredulous look aimed your way. You raise a brow at your husband. “You gave them ice cream last night?” 

“Shit. Erm, no, ‘course I didn’t,” He says unconvincingly, shaking his head. “Wouldn’t do that, would I? Definitely did not give them—”

“Daddy!” Estelle screeches again, the end of the word long and drawn out. 

“Wow, would you listen to that? I reckon I should go see what I can do for that darling daughter of ours!” He’s wriggled himself free before you can blink, pressing the hastiest of pecks to the corner of your mouth quickly before speeding off to Estelle’s rescue (and away from the trouble he’d been about to get in). 

You laugh and shake your head, because he's just the same as when you’d first had the privilege of loving him all those years ago. He was younger then, more boyish, maybe even a little naive, but that was who you fell in love with. In some ways, he's the same. In other ways, he's grown tenfold. 

Either way, changed or not, you've loved him all this time and will continue to, even after you inevitably become old and grey together. It won't happen for a long time, but you're looking forward to growing old with Lando. 

—

“My back is killing me,” He grumbles later in the night, as he pads gingerly across the room over to his side of the bed. It’s nearly midnight and all the kids had gone off to bed a few hours ago after a fully action packed evening, so now it’s your turn to wind down. 

The days when you’d stumble home hand in hand, drunk and giggling in the wee hours of the morning are nothing but a distant memory. Now, you can barely stay up past twelve most nights. Right now, you’re both exhausted. But the kids had a blast, and that makes everything worth it. 

You giggle at his over exaggerated steps. “C’mere, I’ll massage you.” That makes him perk up, smirking at you like the massage will lead to other things. “Don’t even think about it, mister. Try again another day when we’re not hosting all of our friends’ kids.” 

“Am I able to get that rain check in writing, or…”

“Uncle Lando?” A small voice from the hallway draws both of your attention. Max’s son, Luca, is peering at the two of you, half shrouded in the darkness of the hallway. 

“Luca! What’re you doing up, buddy?” Lando asks, beckoning him into the room. The boy pads in hesitantly, looking worried.

You pat the covers as a sign for him to take a seat and he does, rubbing at his shoulder the same way his dad always does when something is bothering him. Sometimes you can’t believe how similar Luca is to Max. 

“I couldn’t—I can’t sleep,” He mumbles, little brows furrowed. “I miss my mum.” 

“Oh, honey,” You soothe, scooting closer to put your hand over his smaller one. The seven year old’s bottom lip trembles a touch. 

“You know, there was one time your dad and I had to stay in the same hotel room, and he couldn't sleep either because he missed your mum,” Lando mentions, voice light, like he's recalling something casual. 

“You and dad had a sleepover?” 

Lando looks very much like he wants to explain that no, he and Max, two grown men, did not have a sleepover, but at your subtle shake of the head, doesn't. He nods instead, patting the boy on the back. “Yeah, mate, we had a sleepover. Anyways, your dad just couldn’t fall asleep for hours, and d’you wanna know what eventually did help him?” 

“What, Uncle Lando?” 

“We gave your mum a call, and they talked for a bit, and afterwards, he was able to fall asleep right quick. Shall we do that? Give your parents a ring?” 

Luca nods quickly, sniffling. Lando smiles warmly as he reaches over to swipe his phone off the bedside table. You watch as he shows the boy what to do instead of just ringing Max himself. 

Suddenly you're hit with an overwhelming feeling of what Lando would be like if the two of you ever had a son. You’d had the conversation many times before, whether or not you wanted to have a third child. The timing had just never been right. 

Raising two kids under two whilst Lando was away racing most of the time had been rough enough, but the girls were nearly eight now. And sure, his career is still going strong at the moment, but you've got years of experience under your belt now. 

You wouldn't say no to another kid if Lando felt the same way, especially if it ended up being a boy. Make no mistake, you were a girl mom through and through, but the thought of having a little mini Lando running around with his big sisters made your heart swell.

“Mate, shouldn’t you be—Luca! Hey, big guy!” Max answers on the third ring, teasing demeanor morphing straight into parental as soon as he catches a glimpse of his son on the other side of the screen rather than Lando. “What’s up? You having fun with your friends?” 

“Yeah, yeah. Um, is…” Luca hesitates, casting a nervous glance at Lando, who only nods encouragingly. It seems to help, because he turns his attention back, sounding much more firm when he speaks again. “Can I talk to mum?” 

“Can you talk to mum? Of course you can! Let me go find her. You know your mum, always wandering around these days,” Max jokes, winking. Luca giggles quietly. He already looks like he's feeling much better. “Oi, P! There’s someone special who wants to talk to you.” 

Luca chats with Pietra for a little bit, and you can tell just how much that little boy loves and adores his mother. He’s beaming happily when the call ends, a far cry from the timidness he’d come in with earlier. 

“All good now, mate? You’ll try and get some sleep tonight?” Lando asks, clapping Luca on the shoulder gently. 

“Yep! Thanks, Uncle Lando!” He runs off without another word after that. 

“Well, I think we handled that pretty well, don’t you think?” Lando hums, tossing his phone back on the bedside table. “Hello? Darling?” 

“What would you think about having another baby?” You blurt. 

“Another—babe, what? Where is this coming from?” He splutters, looking utterly bewildered. His eyes go wide a split second later. “Wait, you’re not—are you?” 

“No, no, I’m not—I just—fuck, I’m sorry. I didn't mean to ask so bluntly like that, I was trying to ease into the conversation.” 

“Oh. Okay. That’s…yeah. Sorry, you just caught me off guard is all.” He scrubs a hand over his face.  “I didn’t know you were thinking about it. Last I recall we were on the same page about stopping at two. Did something change, or…?” 

“I don’t know. I guess I was just thinking about, y’know, what if we wind up having a boy? A mini Lando, running around with his big sisters one day?” 

Lando opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something, then snaps it shut before inhaling a sharp breath and trying again. “I love our little family more than anything.” 

“I do too.”

“Are we really ready to have three kids?” 

“I think we are. We managed eight of them pretty well tonight.” You shrug, sliding a reassuring hand over Lando’s. “Plus, there’s more than enough love to go around, don’t you think?” 

That seems to solidify the decision, because he brings your joined hands up to his mouth, pressing a kiss to your knuckles. “We got this. Let’s have another baby!” 

[pathologicalreid]

buried alive | S.R.

in which the BAU races against the clock to rescue you from a killer team

who? spencer reid x fem!BAU!reader

category: angsty

content warnings: kidnapping, case stuff (murder yk), suffocation, being buried alive, hospitals, blood, nausea, CPR, funerals, use of pet names, guns, and drugs. i think that's all.

word count: 2.9k

a/n: okay, so i've been reading so much spencer fanfic and i started writing it and yesterday i realized i have 20 fics written and they're doing no one any good just sitting on my computer. i decided to finally try posting one. i wrote fanfic in high school (so like seven years ago) but this is my first time writing for a TV show. i've also never really posted on tumblr so please bear with me while i try to figure out formatting. tysm for checking out my post.

part two part three

You walked into the conference room and dropped the file on the table, allowing it to land on the wood with a satisfying splat. “The unsub’s burying them alive,” you said, letting the rest of the team know the conclusion you had come to with the medical examiner. “The M.E. found metal shavings and satin threads under the nails of our last victim. The most common materials to make up a casket.”

“There’s no way someone could bury someone alive in a casket alone, we’ve got to be dealing with a team, at least three people,” Emily concluded, standing in front of the evidence board.

It was the team’s third day on a case in Nebraska, four women had been discovered dead. Asphyxiation by hypoxia. Carbon dioxide poisoning.

“Approximately 420 people in the United States die from accidental carbon dioxide poisoning every year,” Spencer said, grabbing the file off of the table and flipping through it, taking a few seconds to read through it.

Rossi looked over Reid’s shoulder to look at the file, “but there’s nothing accidental about these deaths. Who would have access to these caskets?”

You shook your head, placing a hand on the back of Spencer’s chair, “A funeral director seems most likely.” You looked around at the Omaha field office, different agents running about in an attempt to solve these very murders. “They’d have the most access, write it off as displays. It could be hard to match the materials since they’re so common.”

Hotch leaned over the table and pressed the conference phone, “What can I do you for?” Garcia’s bright voice rang through the speaker.

“Garcia, I need you to look into funeral homes within the comfort zone. Look for a director who’s ordered more caskets than they’ve had funerals. Find anything, nothing is too small.” He told her.

“Absolutely, I’ll hit you back when I’ve got something,” she said, hanging up the phone.

There ended up being four funeral homes in the unsub’s comfort zone, so the team split up. You went with two locals to a family-owned business, Garcia had sent you all of the files you’d need on the location. “It looks like the Varn family has been in the funeral business since the seventeenth century,” you read aloud to the two agents you were in the car with.

“Does it mean they’re more or less likely to be the killers if they’ve been in business for so long?” One of the agents asked you, a younger man named Harrison.

You pursed your lips as you continued to look over the files, “I’m not seeing any glaringly obvious stressors before the murders started, but over the years I’ve learned that’s no reason to write someone off. Psychopaths can be tipped off by the slightest thing. Things none of us would bat an eye at.”

Harrison nodded in the passenger seat, looking over to his partner Jimmy, “You and your guy sure do make an interesting pair.”

“I’m going to take that as a compliment, so thank you.” You and Spencer never explicitly stated to the field office that you were dating, but you walked into the precinct this morning holding hands. The agents must have drawn their own conclusions.

The younger officer cleared his throat, “It is a compliment, ma’am. The two of you are very impressive, your whole team is.”

You smiled, “Thank you, Harrison.”

The funeral home was run by a mother and her two sons, you held up your credentials for the mother when you knocked on the door. “Are you Sheila Varn?” You asked her, raising your eyebrows.

“Yes, what’s this about?” She inquired. She didn’t really look the part of a serial killer, a middle-aged woman who was running her family business.

Pocketing your credentials, you spoke, “We’re investigating the recent murders in the area and we were wondering if you had samples of the materials your caskets are made out of. Might we be able to come in?” You asked, adding a charming smile for effect.

Something flashed across her face before she returned your smile, opening the door and welcoming the three of you inside. “Hold on, let me get my boys up here. They’re so much more versed in the goings on of the town than I am,” she said, opening the door and calling for her sons. Felix and Joss came up the stairs from the basement, now they definitely had the physique to load dead women into caskets and bury them alive.

“Why don’t you two men come with me? I’ll get you those samples,” Sheila said, motioning for the agents you were with to follow her. To your horror, they followed her around the corner. “Felix, Joss, show this young lady what you know,” she instructed.

You took a deep breath before you looked up at the two men.

They were tall, maybe Spencer’s height, but they were built like wrestlers. There was no way you could physically subdue them on your own.

You passed out before you even had the chance to pull your gun.

Hotch was in full Unit Chief mode, Spencer watched from the corner of the room as he separated people into groups and gave them specific instructions. JJ and Morgan walked into the precinct, “What’s going on?” JJ asked looking around the room.

“The Varn Family is the team; two agents were found drugged on the side of the road and when we went to the funeral home Y/N was missing. Her badge, gun, and phone were all there, covered in blood,” Spencer said morosely, watching as Hotch finished giving orders and called the rest of the team over.

Your picture was up on the evidence board with the word “missing” written in bold letters beneath it. All of your belongings had been put into evidence for the time being. “Reid?” Hotch said his name, causing his head to snap up. “Are you okay to keep working?”

Spencer nodded affirmatively, “Yes.”

“Good, I need you to estimate how much time we have, I want a clock on these screens,” he ordered.

Morgan turned to Reid, “What do you think she has, kid?”

“The tidal volume for the average adult is point five at rest. That ends up being about six liters per minute. The average casket is approximately 886 liters in total volume and the average volume of the human body is 66 liters, leaving 820 liters to be filled with air for her to breathe. If she’s been gone for half an hour already, I’d estimate she has less than five hours of breathable air left.” Spencer explained, doing all of the math in his head while Emily put a timer on the screen next to the evidence board.

After a moment, Hotch continued, “Rossi, JJ, go back to the funeral home. Tear it apart, there has to be something there we haven’t found yet. The rest of us will split the list of cemeteries in the comfort zone and search them.”

“That’s a lot of ground to cover, we don’t have anything else to go on?” Morgan asked, looking at the list of burial sites he had been handed.

Hotch looked at Spencer, but Spencer stayed silent. “That’s all we have right now,” Hotch responded, “hopefully we’ll come across leads as we go.”

It smelled like a garden around you. The memory reminded you of spring with your mother, tending to the vegetable garden.

The only difference was that instead of the sun beaming down on you, it was pitch black. The space surrounding you was so dark that you weren’t totally sure your eyes were open.

Your head was throbbing just above your right temple, and you observed your surroundings. Slowly, you lifted your arm until it hit a ceiling.

Not a ceiling. A lid. You were in a casket. You pressed one hand to your chest and tried to slow your breathing. Chances were that the casket was already buried beneath the surface of the earth, trying to open it could be catastrophic. You patted the pockets of your jeans, only to find your phone missing, so the team wouldn’t be able to trace the location.

Even if you had it, there likely wouldn’t be service six feet under.

Your team would find you. They had to find you.

They found Spencer, they found Emily, and they would find you.

Spencer shifted in the passenger seat of the SUV, “You know, carbon dioxide poisoning is a rather peaceful way to die.”

“Reid,” Morgan said, turning the vehicle onto the main road, they had just finished scouring over another cemetery with still no sign of you.

He sighed and stared at his hands, “No, it’s good. We see so many people killed in so many different ways that it’s good that she won’t be in pain when she runs out of air.” He tried to convince himself.

Morgan cleared his throat, “We aren’t out of time yet, kid. We can still find her. Y/N’s smart, I’m sure she found a way to make more air or something.”

But they were running out of time, less than an hour remained on the timer set on all of their phones.

They pulled into the next cemetery, “There’s some fresh dirt over there, what are the names on the graves of people who were actually recently buried?”

Spencer starts to recite the names, and the two of them start to comb through the cemetery.

You had done enough research on this case to understand what was going on. The light-headed feeling had started not long ago, but now you felt like you were spinning, despite the knowledge that you were stuck in place.

It was a high. Not unlike the good kids high. Except instead of trying to chase a feeling, you were dying.

The timer went off when they were still scouring graves, shovels in hand. Derek stopped in his tracks, but Spencer kept going.

“Wait,” Spencer called out, reading the name on the card next to the fresh grave he was standing at, he moved to start digging. “Essie Dunbar was a thirty-year-old woman who was mistakenly buried alive in 1915,” he said, digging. “This has to be it.”

Derek called Hotch, putting the call on speakerphone so he could help Spencer dig. “Hotch, we got her, but she’s buried.”

“We’re on our way, Omaha police have one of the brothers in custody,” Hotch told Emily to have an ambulance dispatched.

What Reid knew that Derek didn’t was that it could take four hours to dig a grave by hand. The soil had been overturned, so maybe call it three. Your odds were still negligible. He didn’t stop, he didn’t stop when a caretaker came running at them, and he didn’t stop when Derek told him to get his digging equipment out here now.

Derek flashed his FBI badge to get what they needed. He had to physically pull Spencer back from the grave so the backhoe could dig, only going until there was less than a foot between them and the casket.

Spencer crudely attached a chain to the casket and the caretaker's vehicle. Carefully, the caretaker dragged the white container out of the earth and up a slant they had dug. It was locked shut, “Reid, move,” Derek ordered.

He leaned back and Derek fired at the lock, taking it off and opening the casket. Spencer gasped, there was blood on the side of your head, dried and raked through your hair. He was vaguely aware of Hotch and Emily arriving as they pulled you out of your satin prison. You had no pulse, but you were still warm. Immediately, Spencer started CPR.

“Reid let me do it,” Derek insisted.

What he was trying to say is that he shouldn’t have to be the one to try to save your life.

Morgan repeated himself and Spencer pulled away, allowing the other agent to immediately take over. There was a siren in the background, an ambulance. More people showed up, Spencer heard their voices, but he just kept watching you. CPR was effective if it was done shortly after your heart stopped, and even then, permanent brain damage was likely.

It had been eight minutes since they pulled you out of the ground. Clinically, you were dead for eight minutes before you gasped.

Spencer smoothed your hair back, away from your face, while you desperately tried to catch your breath. You weren’t moving, and Spencer started running through symptoms of hypoxia. His biggest fear was brain damage, that they had done more harm to you in bringing you back than they would have had you died.

The EMTs came running over to where everyone had gathered, dispersing the crowd, and placing an oxygen mask over your face. As they were loading you on the stretcher, you started trying to talk, reaching your arm out to your side. “Wait, what’s she saying?” JJ asked.

“Sometimes it’s hard to talk after CPR,” the male EMT said as they moved you closer to the ambulance. He listened to what you were saying, “It’s not coherent.”

Spencer didn’t move, all of the adrenaline that had been coursing through his body all day was leaving.

Aphasia. They were saying the lack of oxygen to your brain was causing aphasia. “No,” Emily said, realization dawning on her features as she strained to listen to you. You were whispering, rasping the same word over and over again. “She’s saying ‘Spence.’”

He stood quickly and looked at you, sure enough, you were reaching out your hand and whispering, “Spence, Spence.” Your voice no more than a whisper.

Grabbing your hand, Spencer squeezed it, “I’m here,” he answered. “It’s okay, it’s over,” he told you, moving your hair out of your face. Spencer secured your oxygen mask over your face as you tried to take it off, “You have to keep this on, angel.”

To his relief, you squeezed his hand back.

You had been instructed to get some rest, but you couldn’t close your eyes. You asked Spencer to go back to the hotel and change his clothes because he smelled like dirt, and it made you nauseous. Your head had been bandaged, you’d been run through an MRI, and you did an EEG, so far, the only brain damage that had been incurred seemed temporary.

According to the doctors, the nausea and fatigue should wear off, but they hadn’t been able to fully assess if any permanent damage was done. At this point, the worst of your injuries had been caused by being given CPR, resulting in cracked ribs.

Despite your headache, you kept most of the lights on in your hospital room, not quite ready to be left in the darkness again. “Hey,” a voice called from your doorway, Spencer stood, waiting to be invited in. He was wearing different clothes, a button-up with a green cardigan thrown over it, and clean pants. “How are you feeling?”

A nasal cannula slightly restricted your movement, but you were sat up in the hospital bed, “Better than I was, but not perfect.”

He shook his head, walking in and taking a seat next to you, “No one expects you to be perfect right now.” Gently, he reached out and took your hand, skimming the pad of his thumb over your knuckles. “They found the mother and the other son, and all three of them are going to go away for a long time,” he told you, speaking in the kind of hushed, reverent tones that are reserved for hospitals.

You sighed and tilted your head back, “Good,” you maundered. “That’s uh, good,” your voice was barely audible.

“So why do you look so worried?” He asked, leaning in closer to you.

In an attempt to dismiss his concern, you joked, “I think I owe Morgan some sort of life debt now.”

Spencer offered you a soft smile, “The two of you tend to trade those off, I’m sure you’ll find some way to make it up to him.” He inclined his head towards you as if to silently say, So what is it really?

You swallowed thickly, “I’m scared to close my eyes, Spence.”

His shoulders dropped, “oh, Angel,” he breathed. “Is there anything I can do for you?” He asked, looping a loose strand of your hair behind your ear. “Wait, what are you doing?” He asked, watching you as you lifted yourself, so you were on one side of the bed.

Shyly, you patted the new empty half of the bed, inviting him to sit next to you.

He had no choice but to comply, he had the hardest time saying no to you. Leaning the bed back slightly, Spencer kicked off his shoes before he laid down next to you, wrapping an arm around you as you set your cheek on his shoulder.

Your body relaxed into his and you sighed, “Spence?” You murmured.

He pressed a gentle kiss to the crown of your head, “Yes, angel?” He whispered back to you.

“Thanks for coming to save me,” you mumbled, slowly relaxing enough to fall asleep.

Spencer exhaled, “I’m always going to come to save you.”

part two

[palskippah]

Hi!! Nimona Tangled AU my beloved 🗣️🗣️

Here's drawings of some of the stuff I can remember of the movie woo

Also under the cut are some random thoughts too c:

(Apologies on any mistakes! I tried checking in to make sure that everything was correctly written)

-Save me, PNG of a frying pan.

-By the way, I've only watched the movie (several times) in Spanish, never in English, so not only I am writing what I can actually remember of the dialogue, but also I'm translating it into English djfdk clarifying this in case it feels weird

-I think it was Ambrosius' voice actor who mentioned about the discarded idea of the queen being Ambrosius' mother, but anyways here she is his mother and Ambrosius was stolen from his crib and all that

>Invented Ambrosius a dad called King Something-Something and the guy definitely cried like Rapunzel's dad when him and his wife were getting ready to send floating the first lantern (I swear, that scene is my favorite in the whole movie, it's just so aaa hitting me right in the daddy issues, he was missing his daughter so much)

>Then Queen Valerin wipes the king's tears very tenderly while feeling very melancholic herself, but she doesn't cry because she had accepted long ago that their son was never coming back, but she knows that her husband is still hopeful about it, even if each year he gets disappointed.

-Instead of it being Queen Valerin who was sick, it was Ambrosius who was born as a sickly baby (stealing comic Nimona's lore a bit here sjdkf), and so in all the kingdom they went to look for a cure for his sickness because otherwise they were sure he wouldn't make it.

>Then they find the flower and they give it to him and from then on he becomes a very healthy, robust baby. Also he started quickly growing blond hair with the weeks and they were like ? okay, but he's healthy, so-!

>(It would've been cool to color Ambrosius' tip of his blonde hair brown like his haircolor is supposed to be but I forgor and I'm too lazy to fix it sjdfkjs)

>Anyways the Director thought that she had lost the power of the flower forever since they fed it to the prince, but then she's like :0 bc hey it seems that the powers transferred to the baby. And she's like, well, that works too, and tried to get his hair but it didn't work so she planned on kidnapping him instead.

>Maybe she kidnapped him like when he was a toddler or lil kid under four or very young so he wouldn't remember his parents or anything prince-related, that's why twenty years went by and yet Ambrosius is older than that.

-I'm yet to keep reading rosemary-frog's tangled au fic but the idea of Ballister being Lord Blackheart is really cool and then him probably admitting that his name is just Ballister pipipi when he and Ambrosius are about to drown in that lil cave.

>Maybe Nimona starts narrating the story with something like 'this is the story of how Lord Blackheart/my boss/the villain died' or something very dramatic.

>Maybe he's surname-less and the queen names or knights him Boldheart or something aaa

>Ambrosius starts calling him Ballister and then just Balli wiwiw

-The director sometimes losing her cool and blaming Ambrosius over it (in a, look what you made me do, kinda way) [LIKE THAT THING IN AMPHIBIA SJDKFSJF the king just kills Marcy and is like oh look what you made me do :( ]

>She definitely applies that when she stabs Ballister nearly to the end of the story sdfjs like, look what you caused, Ambrosius, if only you had listened to me.

-Her not naming herself his mother to keep some distance between herself and the queen's kid, so just going along with her director title, since she is still the director in the institute or something, and how is Ambrosius going to know what a director actually is, anyway.

>He tried to call him mom once and she was like (ew) no, it's director, I'm not your mother (maybe he's told his parents abandoned him or tried to use his magic for their own evil benefit, and that's why the director decided to save and protect him, taking him to the tower).

>Ambrosius hasn't known anyone beside her tho, so she allows the occasional hug or gentle treatment. He's very touch-starved.

>She feels nothing for him, he's just useful and at the second of him rebelling she tries to kill him or whatever happened in the tangled movie sjdfkds

>Actually I think Rapunzel's mom wanted to take her away for no one to find them? Maybe the director was just so desperate to not lose Ambrosius' magic that she'd leave everything behind just to get to keep it for herself idk.

>Also she definitely tells him out there are monsters and stuff bc why not, anything to keep Ambrosius fearful of the outside world and keep him in the tower.

-Nimona doesn't like Ambrosius for calling her a monster, then over finding out that he whacked her boss in the head with a frying pan several times, and then for gatekeeping the crown that they stole.

-Nimona starting the Goldie nickname, Ballister following along, and Ambrosius not finding it amusing. Maybe Ballister comments something about having a thing for blondes during the whole thing of him and Ambrosius clearly liking each other (and Ambrosius' like oh?? I am a blond! 😈).

>Later on, after the whole dying and reviving through Ambrosius' tears, Ballister says that he's crazy for brunettes actually and Ambrosius' like :D ??!! because Ballister is alive (and hey, he is a brunette! 😈)

>Btw they definitely flirt in-between their mission of going to see the lanterns, even if Ambrosius isn't all too sure about what he's doing bc he has never flirted with anyone before, he just knows that saying things to Ballister that make the man look almost coy makes his heart go faster, and also of course receiving the flirting from Ballister.

>What if he applies all the stuff he had read in his books or something sjdkfjs he had only ever flirted with the mirror and now he gets to apply it to the very attractive man that is leading him to watch the lanterns sjdfkjf

-Nimona breaks Ballister out of jail exactly like in the Nimona movie and hurts lots of guards and jumps out of the building as it explodes and stuff.

-Since Nimona is sort of using Maximus' place in the movie (and any animal, like Pascal and also that bunny that Rapunzel gets scared of), let's say that the overly competent guard/knight here will have to be Todd and his team sjdkf

>They're after Ballister and Nimona, but since Ambrosius' there too they also chase him (running away from the law as a family, amarite)

-When they're in the lil' cave about to drown, both Nimona and Ballister have to pull Ambrosius out of the water when he keeps trying to push the rocks away, in desperation because how is he going to die this way.

>Nimona's like, Goldie stop! It's useless. Because she tried pounding the rocks in the biggest forms she could use and had to resist turning into a much bigger form in fear of squashing both men. And her smallest forms did nothing because they were completely sealed in, yet she was aware that both men were about to die and she wouldn't. Then Ambrosius turns to Ballister who just gently shakes his head, because it is a lost cause.

>Both Nimona and Ballister see him crying in guilt and stuff and Ballister says his actual name when Ambrosius says, I'm sorry, Nimona, Lord Blackheart-. Ballister admits that he isn't a Lord nor Blackheart, and that he actually has no last name. He's just Ballister.

>I'm not sure what Nimona would admit, like the being lonely thing, the pushing people away, or something to do with their powers? (but I doubt that one), maybe she just watches the other two share their small moment of truths.

>Ambrosius reveals that his hair glows when he sings. And so he does when he realizes that they could use that, and once there's a very small crack revealed by the light where his hair is trying to get out, Nimona puts her whole into using that and she finally manages to push all the stuff away.

-Ballister is like, his hair glows?! and Nimona's like, yeah and I change forms, so what?! a bit offendedly and Ballister's like, oh right.

>(Nimona getting offended on Ambrosius' behalf over Ballister freaking out about his powers/magic, reminding her a bit of when they first met and Ballister freaked out too. But Ambrosius couldn't care less about the guy freaking out, he's way too happy about being alive)

>Then he heals his right hand where he had a cut and all that and the whole talk of stuff.

-Imagine that same night that they have to spend resting, that Nimona and Ballister easily fall into a sleeping position that works to brace them (especially Ballister) against the cold of the night, and Ambrosius just staring with like a smile because isn't it great that those two get to have each other and be so familiar between each other to just do that?

>Then he prepares to lay on his own side to sleep, but Nimona just rolls her eyes and roughly pulls him into their pile, leaving him wrapped on her arms too. And there's Ambrosius and Ballister back-to-back, and Ballister just says 'goodnight' to him and Ambrosius mutters the same back, feeling something like a lump in his throat as he accommodates his head on Nimona's arm like a pillow.

>And Ballister throws Nimona a knowing look, because despite her not liking the blond much, she still felt some clear sympathy for him, both over him admitting that he had never left the tower, and the fact that they were similar somewhat, both had pretty cool powers that confused people.

>And the fact that Ambrosius getting locked into a tower so no one could use his powers was a bit similar to Nimona's situation in a way (if we're going with the comic lore for her)

>(maybe it was Nimona who muttered the 'you've never left the tower' in realization after Ambrosius said almost shyly the 'that's why I've never been out and...' and then he sighed defeatedly and then said the next stuff all resigned, and all that)

-When the whole dancing bit happens in the Kingdom, Ambrosius tries to keep Ballister as close as he can but apparently the dance meant to change partner every once in a while. In the end he forgets about holding his hand and finds that holding anyone's hand while dancing and moving around to the music is just as thrilling.

>But then they end chest to chest anyways and smiling at eachother wiwiw (like the art in this post by unironicallyresurrected waaa)

-Maybe something and something and Ballister loses his arm when the director tried to kill him, some way. Ambrosius' tears only fixed the injury and blood lose but it was already almost completely detached from Ballister's body, so it just laid there jsdfk

>How did he manage to cut Ambrosius' hair I have no idea, don't ask me 😭 maybe Nimona made act of presence at some point, I have no idea where to put her here, I doubt she'd be down after a smack from the Director in the same way it happened to Pascal sdfkj

>(But anyways wouldn't it be cool if she jumped to defend Ambrosius? pipipi is like Eugene and Maximus teaming up but it's Ambrosius and Nimona sdjfks)

-When Ballister and Nimona take Ambrosius with the king and queen, they step back and watch the whole family reunion go by and they're like :) bc hey look at the guy, he's crying his eyes out and hugging like his life depends on it to the queen, but he's happy wouu 🗣️🗣️

>Anyways, the queen's hug is the warmest hug Ambrosius' had ever received (aside from Ballister's), and it's nothing like the Director's and he can't believe he has never been hugged like this in his life.

>Then Queen Valerin pulls Ballister into the hug and encourages Nimona to get in there too but she just shifts into a bigger animal and squeezes them all into a hug.

-Ambrosius gets a better haircut maybe, or maybe he keeps the bob cut I don't know 😭 dfjkj but his hair never grows longer bc the flower's power affected it or something like with Rapunzel.

-I think Ballister would be knighted or something, and then there's Nimona who's just doing her thing of being a little menace and being Ballister's sidekick, and Ambrosius is a good prince and is very happy of finally being outside and getting to know so many people yippiee

>And the director is dust in the air wouu

-Btw the last part in the movie is like this, because I think Ambrosius would say yes the second Ballister asked him to marry him unlike my pal Rapunzel, so- 🤨 also Nimona is the main narrator like in the Nimona movie sjdkf

Nimona (narrating): And so, after years and years of begging and begging and even going to his knees by his feet... Ambrosius: I finally said yes 😌 Ballister: Hey- Ambrosius: Fine, it was me who begged 🧍 Ballister (amused): And so they all lived... Nimona and Ambrosius: Happily ever after. [Happily ever after music and celebration]

>And then there's a drunk guy blowing a kiss to the audience or something 🧍

That's it, thanks if you read till here!

[yxngbxkkie]

just a fight (b.c)

hello!! it's been an extremely long time since i've posted any fics on here (or written them)! but i finally got the inspiration to write one for our lovely chris 🤭 i saw a tik tok from the new album intro and came up with this idea. i hope you all like it 🥰

feedback is greatly appreciated 🥰

It's about the fourth time in an hour that Chris has checked his phone, the frown on his lips staying there as there's still no texts from you. He releases a sigh before attempting to refocus on the task at hand; recording.

The two of you have been in an argument for the past two days. Longest time the two of you have spent angry at one another. You didn't argue often, so Chris is becoming a bit panicked when you don't text him on the third day.

“Hyung,” Changbin's voice snaps Chris from his thoughts, turning in his chair to face the younger member. “Is everything okay? I've never seen you this spaced out.”

Chris provides a fake smile, going to reassure him that everything is okay when his phone vibrates. He picks it up immediately, his heart dropping a bit when it's not you. He swipes away the notification without any thought, not really in the mood to converse with anyone.

“I'm okay, I guess,” he mumbles, setting his phone back on the desk. “Uhm, Y/N and I had an argument three days ago and…” Chris trails off, biting his lip to stop himself from crying.

“Have you tried calling?” Changbin asks, motioning for the other staff to give them a minute alone.

Chris blankly stares at the computer screen, moving the mouse around idly. “I get sent to voicemail,” he tells Changbin, not moving his gaze once.

“I'll try calling. This can't go on any longer. You can't work like this,” Changbin sighs, standing up from the couch. The younger member pulls his phone out of his pocket, finding your contact before calling your number.

Chris can hear the phone ringing, his heart beginning to beat a million miles a minute in his chest.

“Bin?” Your voice comes through the receiver, causing Chris to gasp lightly. He finally looks over towards Changbin, seeing him hold his phone out.

Take the phone. He motions, holding the device out to him. Chris hesitantly takes the phone as you continue to call out for Changbin.

“Y/N?” Chris calls out your name just after Changbin leaves the studio. He can hear your breath hitch at the sound of his voice, and he begins to think you might hang up. “B-Before you hang up… can we talk? Please?”

Silence fills the space as he waits for your reply. He swallows the lump in his throat, wondering if he's fucked up one of the good things in his hectic life.

“I'm really sorry, y'know? I've always had the habit of keeping shit to myself. You can ask the guys,” he starts to apologize, staring at your contact name. “I was doing really well on keeping you in tabs of everything, but these past few weeks have been pretty stressful. And, I know that's not a great excuse, but being cooped up in the studio hours on end has brought me back to my old ways. I should've told you what's been going on, but I promise, if you don't leave me that I'll change. I don't want to lose you.”

His heart is in his throat as he waits for you to say something, anything. When he hears you start to cry, his first instinct is for him to run to your apartment. “Baby–”

“How are you so perfect?” You whisper loud enough for him to hear. You sniffle and clear your throat before speaking again. “I should be so mad at you, Chris. But, you– you make it impossible to stay mad.”

“I'm sorry?” He mumbles, furrowing his brows in confusion.

A chuckle comes from your end, and his heart skips a beat. “It's okay. Uhm, are you busy? Is it okay if I come to you, or,” You offer to meet up, making Chris's heart race.

“Y-Yeah, no, yeah, you can come by. I'll let the front desk know. Text me when you get here?” He asks, a smile coming to his lips for the first time in three days.

“Of course, handsome. I'll see you soon, okay?” You reassure him.

~

You're nervous as you walk into the JYP building. You know everything's going to turn out okay, but for some reason, the nausea is still there. The receptionist clears you through, and you step into the elevator. After pressing the button for the floor Chris is on, you decided to take some deep breaths.

Your phone vibrates in your hand, seeing a single heart emoji text from Chris. Your heart flutters in your chest, beginning to believe that everything will be alright. The door to the elevator opens up, and you step out, walking in the familiar direction of the studio they're using.

When you round the corner to go down the slim hallway, you find Chris standing at the studio door. You stop in place, meeting his dark eyes. The first thing you notice is the bags under his eyes. A frown comes to your lips at how exhausted he looks.

“Baby,” you mumble and start walking towards him.

“You look good,” Chris smiles at you, his eyes a little glossy. “I missed you so much.”

Both of you wrap your arms around one another, embracing tightly. You tightly grip the shirt he's wearing as he takes in the scent of your perfume.

“I missed you, too, baby,” you sigh, combing your fingers through his hair with your free hand.

Chris holds on to you as if you'll disappear once he lets go. He moves both of you into the studio before shutting the door, giving you some privacy.

You pull away from him, keeping your hands on his forearms as you look back up at him. “Everything's gonna be okay, okay?” You reassure him, gently stroking his arms.

He nods his head, clearing his throat before wrapping you up in his arms again. “I honestly thought that this was the end, y'know?” He mumbles into your neck, kissing the skin lightly.

“I'm in love with you, Chris. I don't ever want this to end,” you tell him while massaging the back of his head.

His hands slip under the hoodie you're wearing, a breathy sigh leaving his lips at the feeling of your soft skin. You bring your hands to his face, making him look at you before your lips meet his.

Chris moans into the kiss, his grip on your waist tightening. “God,” he mumbles, pulling away for a quick second. He reconnects his lips to yours, putting some more passion into the kiss. “I love you.”

You can't help but giggle, resting your forehead against his. “You make me feel like I've got a high school crush, you know that?” You ask him while placing one of your hands to your chest, feeling how fast your heartbeat is.

“I feel the same about you, baby,” he grins, dimples on full display. Chris grabs a hold of your hands as silence fills the room. He intertwines your fingers, keeping his gaze on them.

“You okay, baby?” You ask him quietly, squeezing his hands. “Talk to me.”

He lifts his head, the smile still there, and he nods. “I'm okay. I'm just– really happy that you're back and that we're okay,” he releases a deep breath, bringing your hands to his lips, peppering the backs of them in kisses.

“I'm afraid you're stuck with me,” you joke with him.

“I wouldn't want it any other way, baby,” Chris pulls you close to him, capturing your lips in another kiss.

~

tagging: @strawboorybunny @reddesert-healourblues @spacegirlstuff @like-a-diamondinthesky @prettymiye0n @foxinnie8

[cvnt4him]

How about, instead of walking in on your husband Izuku jerking off, we have you walking in on your best friend Izuku jerking off by accident, cause you were supposed to watch a movie together :)

I like the way you think nonnie/nonnette<33

It's been a while since I've written an actual fic!!!! I enjoyed this

When izuku, your best friend, texted you asking you to come over his to watch a movie you were over the moon. You'd missed your bestie so much and hadn't seen him in so long! He went to some super fancy schmancy college called yuei, it was like supposedly the best college yk like Yale n Harvard n shit.

He was back in town and you didn't know until JUST now. What kind of best friend is he?! He was back in town for a week and hadn't told you? Come on. Of course you were going, you missed him and there was no way in hell you weren't gonna see him.

He was gonna get one hell of a pout though! On your way over to his house you thought about getting him something from the local corner store, y'know just as a welcome back gift. You fiddled with your charm bracelet that had both of your initials on it as you chewed on your lower lip and stared at the window.

You knock on izukus door with a bag of gummy worms, when he was younger he had an odd fascination with finding bugs in the dirt and became infatuated with gummy worms and their brand. They were so sour yet so sweet, he enjoyed them last time you remembered.

Izuku opens the door rather quickly with an expressionless face up until he seen yours. That silly little pout that you'd practiced all night for. His smile was bright and warm before he seen that little pout on your face, his smile turning into a mischievous smirk.

“ well, are you gonna come inside or are y’just gonna sit there with that adorable lil’ pout on your face?”

Oh. Suddenly you felt your cheeks warming, you look up to him n see a little smirk painting his features. Had he always been this sexy, and this... tall? He leaned on the door frame one arm above him and the other on the door handle before he moved out of the way to let you inside.

You swallowed hardly and walked past him, you looked up to him seeing the way his eyes followed you watching you very closely. You went straight to the couch and took a seat on the very edge. Izuku closed the door and walked over to you, with a small chuckle as he sat next to you, scooting back and putting his arm on the edge of the couch.

“ whaddya wanna watch, bug?”

Your breath hitched at the nickname. You hadn't heard it in so long, he had been gone for over 3 years. He gave you the name when you were kids, you would help him find bugs wherever you could, you never wanted to touch them so you always used a stick.

“ uh.. whatever is uh, fine.”

You say as you stammer on your words and hand him the snack you brought him, he was controlling the TV with the remote before the crinkling of the bag caught his attention, his wide eyes turned down to look at the bag in your hand before he turned to look at you. His eyes blinking a few times before he smiled.

“ ‘s for me bug? thank you!”

Izuku took the bag and held your hand whilst it was still in it, his bright smile returning with a chuckle. He took the bag and pulled you into a tight hug, you groaned and held him back his smell was intoxicating and mesmerizing. It was so pungent and left a big strong impact. Once he pulled away he patted your head and turned back towards the TV putting on some random movie.

“ so uh.. how long do you plan on staying?”

You spoke trying to clear the silence despite the moving being on. He didn't answer right away, not looking at you ad he gathered an answer.

“ well I've already been here for about 2 weeks and— ”

“ TWO WEEKS?!”

TWO. WEEKS. he's been here for TWO WEEKS and he didn't think about contacting you until NOW?! For fucks sake this guy sucks ass through a straw! You looked at izuku with a stunned get angry look. He couldn't help but to chuckle at you and turn his attention back to the movie. As if he had nothing to say to you.

“ so, buggy, how've you been? Any uh, romances I need to know about?”

Izuku spoke suddenly as he chewed on the candy you got him. He was watching the TV as you hummed in acknowledgement, you went to a college as well it wasn't as high and mighty as izukus but it was a place that could give you a degree or whatever. You hadn't really been with anyone recently, you'd just gotten out of a relationship about a month before izuku got back, it didnt mean too much to you do you didnt shed any years but uh, y'know.

“ not really, I mean did have a boyfriend — ”

Izukus eyes shot over to you within an instant of hearing the word 'boyfriend'. Izuku hummed in disapproval, he didn't like what he just heard. His face told it very well, he swallowed and turned his head fully listening to what you have to say now.

“ but uh, we broke up. like a month ago or something, t’wasnt really serious.”

He hummed once more, nodding slightly. His expression seemed to relax a bit more at the end of your sentence, but he was still somewhat on edge.

“ what about you? any baby mamas i need to know about?”

Your words snapped him out of whatever daze he was in, causing him to get flustered and snicker a bit he hid his face while he laughed and caught his breath. Izuku had changed a lot, he knew that. He gained a lot of mass and muscle, he got taller, and he was a pretty attractive guy well around. Of course he'd had a couple of girlfriends and friends with benefits.

“ nope. no babies or baby mothers for me.”

You giggled at the way he spoke, clearing your throat and turning to face him.

“ any girlfriend? boyfriend?”

He scoffed and rolled his eyes. He licked his lips and ticked his tongue, humming and chewing on his lip as if he were thinking.

“ well, I'm not in a relationship perse, but I had a fling.”

“ oh yeah? tell me about it handsome face.”

Izuku perked up at the name, a slight blush painting his cheeks while he cleared his throat.

“ just some girl in my classes who stays on campus with me. we used to date but uh, it didn't work out.”

“ so instead of staying away you decided to rekindle your 'love' by fucking her. you should honestly write a romance novel.”

“ fuck you.”

He says flustered as he turned his face, you burst out laughing slapping your knees and nearly falling off the couch. You lean back and catch your breath tears prickling at the side of your eye.

“ oh yeah yeah, it wasn't that funny.”

“ you're right kid, it was hilarious.”

“ I'm older than you?!”

His shrilly voice and the reaction he made had you dying all over again, you laughed loudly and almost lost all your breath coughing and gasping for air. Your side began hurting from all the laughing and you leaned against him holding your side in pain.

“ hmph. that's what you get.”

“ awwhh~ gettin’ all pouty wif’ me zuzukins?”

You tease him in a baby voice with a faux pout and leaned your head closer to his, your cheek right up against his shoulder. He groaned at the tone of turn voice and the name you called him, slightly cringing as he rolled his eyes and looked down at you.

You felt his breath slightly fanning your face, his slandered expression becoming rather expressionless now, serious in some sort. A small grin was still present on your face as you exhaled through your nose while looking up at him. You noticed the way he licked his lips, a quick swipe of his pick tongue going over his top then bottom lip. It's as if it played in slow motion.

Your smile dropped as you looked at his lips then back up to his eyes, he was staring right back at you, just not your eyes. A small smirk appeared on his face, his eyes trailed back up to yours. Before you knew it your foreheads were touching, your breath hitched at the sudden realization of the contact.

Izukus eyes moved back down to your lips, yours doing the same. Your noses gently rubbing against each others before he leaned in quickly and —

“ izuku honey, I'm home! you would never believe what happ—- oh!”

You two quickly snapped apart, your breathing was heavy as if you'd been stripped of all of your hair, izuku was breathing just ad heavy through his nose. Stammering on his words as he stood and greeted his mother who's eyes were locked onto you.

You cleared your throat and stood, this was quite awkward now. Izuku was rambling on about whatever and inko was just smiling warmly. She didn't hold at judgement or teasing behind your eyes or smile. Just a warm smile.

“ it's good to see you dear.”

“ haha, you too inko. erm, izuku id better uh, head home it's pretty late y'know?”

His head turned towards you, he instantly stopped talking as his brows furrowed slightly. Truth be told he didn't want you to leave. He didn't know what'd just happened between you two but he didnt want it to end.

“ are you sure? It's pretty late you could just stay the night like old times! I don't want you walking out late.”

“ awh, y’ worried about me zu?”

“ I just want you to be safe.”

He said quite sternly. It wasn't necessarily a lie, he had wanted you to be safe. He cared about you and your well being. It's just be better if you'd stayed there with him! For safety. And all.

“ thank you for the concern but I'll be fine, I'll even text you once I make it since you 'cawe so mwuch'”

You tease ending your sentence with air quotes and a baby voice. He scoffed looking rather angry and rolling his eyes. Your teasing manner instantly vanished at the sudden cold shoulder he'd just given you.

“ fine. whatever, see ya I guess.”

“ uh.. yeah. b- bye.”

You walked past him and turned back to the door as you were outside before it was almost slammed in your face. You were stunned beyond speaking. It's like you were knocked out of your body, you actually felt like crying even. Why was he suddenly being an ass? Whatever.

You walked home thinking long and hard about what you could've done or said to piss him off. Was it not staying when he asked? Maybe you'd teased him too much, y'know pushed and poked at his buttons. You groan in anger with yourself as you walk inside and jump right into your bed. You sigh heavily grabbing your phone and thinking about texting him. Maybe he didn't want to hear from you. You thought about it and realized you didn't give a shit.

" hey!!!!"

"made it home:))"

"k"

The absolute lovely fuck?! 'k' who the fuck just says 'k' like that. Fucking lame ass loser. You groaned loudly even angrier than before he was being an unreasonable dick because of what?? Hes just being a whiney little shit because you wouldn't stay over. It was late and you didn't feel like being away from right too long. Why couldn't he get that? You turned over and closed your eyes to try and sleep through the anger.

It's been about a week since you two last talked. Izuku was still being as dry as ever, not giving you anything when you two text. Just "oh"s and "lol"s like huh? Okay, give us nothing.

Your eyes were glued to your phone the entire time you were out with your friend. You kept letting out quick and timid sighs. This was like your 5th one in a singular minute. That has GOT to be a world record.

“ ya’ alright?”

“ huh?? Oh. Yeah.”

“ uh- y’sure? yer’ actin kinda weird.”

“ ‘m fine. Just pissed off.”

“ wanna talk about it?”

No. You wanted to run over to that shitty green haired humanized bunny ass prick and best his ass. Why was he acting so weird. There is no way he's still hung up over you not staying over that one time. He hadn't texted you in like.. 3 years and the second he gets back in town, he invited you over for a movie and flips out once you try to go home???? The fuck?

“ my friends just being a dick s’all.”

“ guy or girl?”

“ ...guy.”

“ he probably likes you.”

The absolute shock that went into your face. You literally let out some kind of noise at the absurd statement. There was no way in hell he liked you. Especially not if he were acting like this. Last time you remembered izuku was a sweetheart, not some stone cold dickhead who pouts and gets all angry when things don't go his way..................................

okay well he at least wasn't a stone cold dickhead.

This was actually typical behavior for izuku now that you think about it. You scoffed to yourself and a smile appeared on your face. That's it! Izuku was just being pouty because he didn't have his way! You solved it!

You laughed aloud and thanked your friend before literally sprinting down the street to catch the nearest bus. Your friend was literally so confused and yelled out to you, unbeknownst to you, you left without paying the bill like you agreed...

You got off the bus and headed straight to izukus house, running past the shop that you'd gotten his candy from. A few turns down some streets and you were there. Once you are at his street you stopped next to a fire hydrant and caught your breath, wheezing and nearly dying from the lack of air. You inhaled sharply and choked on the air that invaded your lungs in such an uncomfortable way.

You sucked up the horrible feeling and continued to jog to his door which wasn't too far. Once you were there you made sure to look somewhat presentable so you could get ready to beat his ass for being a whiney little bitch. You made sure your hair looked nice and sprayed on some perfume you had in your bag. You take one final breath before knocking on the door.

“ oh? Hello?- oh! Y/n dear, welcome welcome, come in come in!”

“ hello Mrs midoriya! It's good to see you as well, haha! ya’think I could go up n’ see izuku?”

“ of course hon, I'm sure he'll be happy to see you! you go one up, I'll just be in here if you need me.”

“ thank you Mrs midoriya!”

You walk up the stairs with no hurry at the beginning. You stop in your tracks and think to yourself; "what the hell am I doing." You sprint up the stairs with a motive and fake anger in your head. You stomp down the hall and make it to his childhood room door and twist the nob, slamming the door open. Unfortunately for you, you made the mistake of not knocking......

“ izuku midoriy— uh.”

You were frozen in place, your cheeks warming up at the explicit sight. Your friend best friend had his head thrown back and he looked as if he was experiencing pure ecstasy. He was groaning quietly yet so whimpery at the same time, his brows were stitched together and his eyes were closed, slightly fluttering and showing that his eyes were rolled into the back of his head.

Your mouth just hung open at the sight. Your childhood friend, the guy who'd always been so scrawny and weak was sitting here jacking off, and that wasn't even the problem. It was the fact that this guy was ripped.. you knew he'd gotten bigger since the last time you'd saw him, but wow.. as if getting taller wasn't enough, he had to go and get more muscle too, abs n shit. And fuck.... Your eyes accidentally trailed down. You swear up and down it was an accident, really. But gosh it looked so appetizing.

His cock wasn't exactly like.. looong, perse just like. Really really really thick. Like this guy was big. It was twitching against his hand as he stroked it, as far as you could see two veins painted the sides of his girthy cock. His hand wrapped around it but just barely, only his middle finger and thumb touched around it. Seeing how he could hardly even wrap his large hand around his cock had you thinking what it'd look like if your hand was around it...his tip was huge red and leaky, a glob of precum dripped down the side of his shaft and he was quick to swirl his hand around his cock bringing his thumb up to the tip of it and circling it fastly making him whimper.

He bit his lip and tried to muffle his moans that wanted to escape, that wanted to be heard. He had headphones in and obviously didn't notice you were there, he was watching porn on his laptop you'd guess as it was sitting on his thighs. He wasn't even watching more or less just listening. You couldn't take your eyes off of his cock and the way he touched it. It was so mesmerizing and hypnotizing. he bucked his hips into his hand a couple of times and laid his head back in his pillows. Little ropes of "fuck!"s And "oh yeah!"s left his lips. He looked so good like this, all desperate and yearning for release. Despite how bad he seemed to want it, it also seemed as if he was edging himself. Not yet letting himself cum.

His other hand came down to squeeze his balls lightly which made him whisper something. You didn't quite catch it but just your luck, he said it again. Still in a hushed tone, just a bit louder.

“ fuck! y/n, just like that...”

Oh. Your breath hitched and your thighs squeezed themselves together. You bit your lip and couldn't help the fiery feeling that erupted inside. You could practically just feel your cunt throbbing from his words. Was he really thinking about.. you?! Why were you just standing here watching... He's your friend for fucks sake and your watching him in a private moment! You're a weirdo! A perv! And worst of all his mom is right outside and could come up at any given moment! Have you no shame woman!

You seen how tightly he squeezed his cock, his knuckles turning white as his eyebrows knitted together. Sweat was beading at his forehead and his face was red and hot by the looks of it. His had breaths quickened and the movements of his hand had gotten sloppy, he couldn't help the whines that started leaving his lips.

“ please! want it— wna’ cum!”

“ please please please, y/n!~”

He sped up his movements just a bit more before he started cumming. He let out the most quivery and gutteral moan ever, it was all whiney and breathy and oh so desperate. He kept going despite cumming, stroking him twitching cock as it spewed out long thick ropes of his milky white cum. It shot far all over his tummy his hands some even on his face. It was quite a sight to see him all sweaty and disheveled like this, covered in his own cum as well. Your eyes still hadn't trailed away from him or his cock, he used his other hand to swirl his palm around the tip of his cock causing him to bite his lip hardly and basically scream. He tried to muffle it, he did but it was quite loud. You were lucky his mom didn't call out. Your breath hitched as you seen the reaction. It was so adorable yet slutty, he was overstimulating himself.

You watched as he calmed down, fluttering his glossy eyes open and looking at the mess he'd made. He looked at the computer before realizing.... There was someone standing at his door...

He turned his attention to you before his eyes shot wide open and he got extremely red in embarrassment.. you both just looked at each other, speechless. Neither of you blinking, speaking, or even breathing. His computer had slightly shifted off of his thighs now that they were relaxed and your eyed had accidentally trailed to the screen, it was bad enough that he was moaning your name while fucking himself, but there was a picture of you on his computer right next to the open tab of porn asking to be replayed.

" man gets fucked by dom mommy!!! [Pegging included!!]"

Wow. You didn't think this was the kind of thing that got him off. You gulped and turned your eyes back to him, his eyes filling with tears his breath was shaky, not just from cumming but from pure disbelief. His mouth was agape and his lips were dried. The post nut clarity was hitting him HARD. he tried to convince himself it was just a hallucination from all that edging he'd been doing.

“ tsk.... so uh. I'm gonna js’ see myself out...”

The second you spoke he closed his eyes and tears had fell down his cheeks. He covered his face with his hands despite being covered in cum. He truly was a filthy pig and he felt it.

You closed his door and walked out silently. Walking down the stairs and not even saying anything to his mother who had wished you a good night and everything. You were too stunned to speak. Quite literally. You walked all the way back to your house speechless, your mind was empty as well. Literally no words could come to mind or to your throat.

You laid in bed staring at the ceiling thinking about what you'd seen. The images just flashing in your mind like a camera. Fuck... The squelching noises you heard from his cock being so wet.. oh, and the way he threw his head back moaning... Goodness when he came?! It was like he was shooting planks! And it was just so much!! How can a guy cum that much!!!!! You covered your face with your hands and groaned. There was no way it wasn't gonna be awkward.

Literally three days past before you realized you didn't even get to speak to izuku. It angered you again that you never got to give him a piece of your mind. Being the person you were, you got dressed and walked to his house getting ready to probably make the same mistake again. You sigh and knock on his front door, because clearly you need to learn how privacy works.

“ oh! Y/n, to what do I owe the lovely surprise!”

“ just here to see izuku is all!”

The way her face contorted from happiness to nervousness within an instant. It made your smile fade aswell. The silence was a bit too loud for your liking, it was beginning to get a bit awkward..

“ I'm sorry honey but, izuku left yesterday. He said he had to leave early for an upcoming project he forgot about.”

Oh ... Your mouth opened and shut like a goldfish. Hed run away. He left town and probably wasn't going to return. He was so fucking scared he actually ran awake like the pussy he'd always been. You were suddenly filled by a rush of anger. You bid his mother a good day and rushed back home.

You sat at your desk and pulled out your laptop getting ready to text him through email because you'd already texted him through his number, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, even Snapchat! He just kept leaving you on delivered. This motherfucker.

You'd sent him a total of 315 messages in between every app, email, and messaging. Not only did izuku not answer, he didn't even look at them. And by the next day he had unfollowed you on everything and blocked you. There was no way to get in contact with him....

Through your phone at least.

AN: how we feeling w this one chat? Did I cook?! Rs I really enjoyed this bc it's been SO LONG since I've written an actual fIc like HWHAYATATAAYA.

Also, I have ALOT of reqs I'm DROWNIGN in and I've answer alot of them and have like fics n shit like basically ready to go I just like lost motivation to give them actual endings so... Yeah!!!

[totalswag]

nonsense — DREW STARKEY

authors note i've wanted to write a singer!reader drew fic for the longest time. i've read some singer!reader fics lately and it gave me some inspiration to write my own. i hope you guys enjoy reading. this was also requested by an anon not long ago, so if you’re reading this enjoy 🩵. the song choice is nonsense and just think to when sabrina is performing this song at coachella.

summary performing at coachella for the first time with friends and your lovely boyfriend supporting you in the crowd.

warnings none!

Coachella.

This is your first Coachella where you are performing. You will be playing live in front of millions of people. This is the last weekend for the festival.

Tens of thousands of people travel from all over the world to attend Coachella. The festival features sculptures, art installations, and other open events in addition to music.

When your manager called you about being invited to perform you couldn't believe your ears. Now, here you are about to step on stage.

Standing in a circle backstage with your crew, discussing everything you've prepared for over the last few days and having fun out there. This is what you always do before a show.

Second weekend of the festival.

Walking on stage seems like a surreal experience for you. Looking around, you can sense the intensity of the enormous crowd in front of you.

The weather was lovely, with the sun still shining and the breeze brushing over your skin. 

"Hello Coachella, my name is Y/F/N, what's yours?" You smile into the microphone while waving away.

You began by introducing the crowd to yourself, your backup dancers, your music, if everyone is having a great time, etc.

Interacting with your fans is one of your favorite parts of singing on stage. You value your interactions with them since you like conversing. When you read comments on your shows, they usually mention how fascinating you are.

After singing a few songs from the set list, you took a little breather and spoke to the crowd saying a joke, making them laugh.

You begin the next song by sipping from an old-fashioned soda bottle while seated in a chair. As you take a seat, you glimpse your boyfriend, Drew, along with a couple of your friends and security. 

You two make eye contact. Butterflies fill your stomach. You offer him a small wave, and he smiles and turns around, presumably blushing.

Fans up close captured the brief interaction with their phones out. We'll see it on social media later today.

Drew and you began dating in the midst of season three of Outer Banks. The first outing was Pougelandia, and fans began to speculate about your relationship because it came out of nowhere.

To be honest, Madelyn Cline and you were close friends before she began filming season one of Outer Banks. She’s the one who introduced you to Drew.

"The last song I'll be playing for you guys is nonsense, so if you know the lyrics, sing along," you cheer, lifting your free hand in the air, moving it around with excitement.

"Is it possible we get my amazing dancers out here," you turn around, pretending you have no idea where they went, "guys come out here, we could perform some sort of choreography, you know" as you gaze at your dance crew coming out the set.

Nonsense is about Drew.

It is one of your favorite songs that you have written. When you first released it, many were unsure who it was about until photos of Drew and you emerged.

Think I only want one number in phone

I might change your contact to "don't leave me alone"

You said you like my eyes and you like to make 'em role

Treat me like a queen, now you got me feelin' thrown, oh

You dance with your dancing crew, who are behind you and moving in sync. The choreography is muscle memory for you guys because you've been performing this song for a few years now.

But I can't help myself when you get close to me

Baby, my tongue goes numb, sounds like "bleh bleh bleh"

I don't want no one else (no no) baby, I'm into deep

Here's a little song I wrote (a song I wrote) its about you and me

When you sing the last line of the pre-chorus, you gesture to Drew in the audience, who moves his head side to side while listening to you sing and blushes when you point to him. You giggle into the microphone.

Fans started cheering louder as they watched you motioning to your lover in the audience.

You continue to move around stage all throughout the song.

You go around the center of the stage as your backup dancers finish their final few dances. One of your backup dancers grabs a chair for you to sit in.

At the end of nonsense you always come up with rhymes. Started doing this after the first performance and can't stop doing it.

Told him he makes me weak to my knees

Everything about him just so dreamy

By the way he's name Drew Starkey

When you say your boyfriend's name, the crowd cheers. You saw his response as he mouthed the words "I love you," dropped his jaw, and put his hands over his heart.

"Coachella, you've been amazing to me these past two weekends. Thank you so much. Can we please give a huge around of applause for our amazing dancers, come on out guys!" Excitement in your voice when you call your dance crew out on stage.

Once you guys made it off stage, you guys began cheering with a bunch of energy. Everyone gave each other hugs.

"Water is calling my name right now" you groan with urgency.

Approaching your manager, holding a cold water bottle for you- thanking her a few times as you open the bottle. You were about jugging down the water when you heard Drew's voice approaching.

"Hi baby," you squeal, dragging the y in baby, and rush into Drew's arms, wrapping your arms around his neck. Being in his arms sends relief in your body.

He smells so good.

He chuckles, "You did so well out there, so proud of you," and delicately places you on your feet.

"Thank you," blushing to the point where your cheeks were red. "Did you enjoy the outro of nonsense?" You inquire with curiosity, despite the fact that you already know his response.

He softly grins that makes your heart flutter, "Mhm yeah I did" kissing the top of your head, wrapping his right arm around your shoulder, pulling you closer to him.

"Why don't we get something to eat?" "How's that sound, baby?" Drew asks, his arm still around you.

Your ears and eyes light up from his request, “obviously yes.”

Before leaving you heard the voices of friends turning the corner. The rest of your friends, as well as Drew's cast members who are also your friends, returned to stage, thrilled to see you.

It was so good to see them.

Drew and you returned to the van to change, drove to the Airbnb to relax before returning to watch other artists perform after the sun had set with your friends.

my taglist!

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[sceletaflores]

"Dependence Is Weakness, Darling."

pairing: older!patrick zweig x fem!reader

summary: it wasn’t just the cigarettes or the lighters. it was the way you still find yourself thinking about him. patrick, with his tangled emotions and overwhelming presence, had left an inescapable mark on your life. and as much as you wished it, he wasn’t someone you could easily erase from yourself.

—or: it's been a little over twelve years since you've seen patrick zweig.

word count: 7.8k (hopefully this is long enough lol)

contains: 18+ SMUT MDNI, p in v, rough sex but in a loving way, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it y’all!), semi-public sex (fucking in a car, you know i had to...), angst, swearing, cigarette smoking as a love language, slight mommy issues lmao, hints of mean!reader cause i still live for that shit, love confessions, rain scene cause i'm corny as hell, porn with SOOOO much plot, no use of y/n.

author's note: this might me the filthiest thing i've ever written lols. i actually DID get a couple asks for some more angsty patrick fics and ofc i love writing angst i'm just a girl i live for that shit. look at me doing what was asked of me and not just whatever i wanted! i'm a giver, what can i say. this fic was revived because of a few anon's who demanded it and i'm so glad they did. you guys got me to give this a second chance and i'm so proud of how it turned out. extra special shout out to @bii-aan-ckaa who fiercely advocated and waited very patiently for this! i'm so obsessed with you and your beautiful kind words. hope you love it! mwah xoxo.

Fifteen minutes. 

That’s how long you can stomach sitting in the sticky booth of the bar watching Patrick Zweig flirt with a woman you don't recognize across the dimly lit room. Fifteen measly minutes until you were giving your friends some lame excuse of needing fresh air and leaving the table to escape out into the alley.

It’s been a little over twelve years since you’ve seen Patrick. A little over twelve years since you turned your back on him with tears spilling down your cheeks and your favorite racket a mangled, smashed mess gripped tightly in your shaking hand as you walked out of his life forever. 

Or at least what you thought was forever, you guess you were wrong.

To put it lightly, your relationship with Patrick was…complicated. You met him the summer before you started at Stanford. He was tall with green eyes and curly hair and he was kind of an asshole but he made you laugh, so you let him fuck you anyway. At the time, you thought that was it. One really good fuck with a really hot guy you’d never see again.

You thought you were hallucinating when you saw him on the campus courts two months later, when he sauntered up to you with an unmistakable “I know what you look like naked” smirk on his face. He was just as tall and had the same green eyes and the same curly hair and was an even bigger asshole than he was before. You still let him fuck you anyway.

You never thought you’d get sucked into the storm that was whatever the fuck was going on between Art, Patrick and Tashi. Never thought that it would completely ruin your self esteem, your tennis, your everything.

You weren’t particularly close to Art or Tashi in college. Sure, you were all in the same circle. That didn’t make you best friends. Art was nice enough, but he never went out of his way to talk to you. You and Tashi were on the same team but that didn’t mean anything. You respected the hell out of her and her game, and you could tell she felt the same. Even with that respect, there was still a tiny part of you that resented her. 

She was number one, the pride and joy of Stanford, had a constant slew of brands and scouts up to her ears. It seemed like no matter how hard you worked that she would always be number one. It felt like you were always just inches behind her.

Clawing and scratching your way through the ranks since you were twelve to be second best was never the plan. Your mother made sure to remind you of that every chance she got.

Then slowly, she started beating you at more than just tennis. Patrick wanted her, it was more than obvious. At first you didn’t care, he wasn't your boyfriend. He was just a guy you fucked, he could do whatever he wanted. You were friends. There wasn’t a problem.

When you realized you knew more about Patrick than just how he worked dick, then there was a problem. 

At first, all the things you knew about him were boiled down to the vulgar little tidbits you’d notice when he fucked you. You know that he has a birthmark on his lower back. You know when he’d be close because he’d always bite your shoulder before he came. You know his favorite position was really missionary even though he told everyone it was doggy.

Knowing all that was fine.

You also know that he’s allergic to kiwi. You know that he only holds his cigarettes with his thumb and his pointer finger. You’d always know when he was nervous because he’d start tapping his fingers on his thigh. You know that when he’d listen to music he loved, that his right hand would drum along to the beat just a little bit faster than his left would.

You knew all those things because you were falling in love with him, and Patrick Zweig is not someone you fall in love with. Especially not with Tashi Duncan in the picture.

You tried your best to push it down, to pretend you weren’t hurt every time Patrick chose Tashi over you. When he’d miss your games because he was with Tashi, when he’d blow you off to go meet Tashi, when he started to stop returning your calls or replying to your texts. All things you never cared about before started slowly eating at you. You felt awful most days, holed up in your room wallowing in self-pity. Your GPA was steadily dropping as the semester went on. Even your tennis started slipping, and you lost your winning streak to a fucking scrub. When you finally cracked and broke down to your mother over the phone one night she just scoffed.

“Well what did you think would happen when you started to depend on that boy? Dependence is weakness, darling.”

Dependence is weakness. You blocked Patrick’s number that same night.

It all came to a head when he blew up at you after Tashi’s injury. Everyone was pretty shaken up about it. You’d never forget the way it buckled, the way the sharp snap rang through the court, the way she fell to the ground screaming. You’d never seen her cry before. 

Patrick found you later that night, all alone on the practice courts trying to burn the day out of your mind by serving balls till you collapsed. It was the first time he talked to you in weeks. He was pissed. Screaming at you, calling you every nasty thing he could think of, getting up in your face. It was a fucking mess. You both said some things that should have never been said, but it ended when Patrick accused you of somehow being the cause of all of it.

“You hate Tashi, fucking hate her. You wanted something like this to happen. I bet you’re just over the fucking moon that she’s finally out and you can take her place. You can finally be number one seed and you're fucking ecstatic, aren't you? You’re so fucking pathetic, so desperate for validation. Maybe if mommy paid attention to you for once, you wouldn’t be so fucking needy. You're just a sad, delusional fucking runner-up, grasping at whatever shreds of importance you think you still have.”

You stood there, stunned by his outburst, each word hitting you like a physical blow. It was insane, nothing but Patrick blowing things way out of proportion in the midst of his anger.

You wanted to scream, to deny it vehemently, but the hurt and frustration choked off your words. Tears welled up in your eyes, a mixture of anger and heartbreak swirling in you. Vision blurring out everything but Patrick's face twisted up with rage as he glared at you, his words lingering in the air like poison. 

You told him about your mother because you thought you could trust him. You thought he was the only person that really understood you, his dad was a piece of shit too. Him using something so delicate as material to hit you where it hurts was the last straw.

You blew up, all the things you’d been keeping bottled up for months finally boiled over in you swinging your racket down on the green concrete over and over until there was nothing left of it to break. You didn’t even look at Patrick as you walked away. You never saw him again.

You’d love to say it was also the last time you thought about him, but that would be a lie. As much as he hurt you, and as much as you hated him for it, your mind refused to let you forget him.

You still smoke Camel Blues because that was your guys’ brand, even when you should have quit years ago anyway. You still buy the same color lighter, pink. You tell yourself it’s nothing more than an easy choice, that it’s a good color. It’s not at all because you can still hear Patrick’s teasing voice in the back of your head bitching, “I can’t believe you make me use a pink lighter.” when he always forgot his and had to borrow yours. 

It’s not based on a compulsive need to be reminded of him every single time you use it. It’s just convenient, okay.

You know deep down that they were the only remnants of a past that you still couldn’t fully let go of. As much as you tried to bury those memories, they lingered, melded into the corners of your mind like stubborn stains. 

It wasn’t just the cigarettes or the lighters. It was the way you still find yourself thinking about him. Patrick, with his tangled emotions and overwhelming presence, had left an inescapable mark on your life. And as much as you wished it, he wasn’t someone you could easily erase from yourself.

Even twelve years later you’re still trying to convince yourself that dependence is weakness, that you were better off without him. But sometimes, in the quiet moments like this when the smoke curls from your cigarette and the pink lighter flickers in your hand, you wonder if he ever thinks of you, if he regrets how things ended between the two of you.

Maybe it's not that you can't escape Patrick's grip on you after all these years, it's that you just won't.

You’re so lost in your own thoughts that you don't hear the heavy door to the bar swinging open, or the sound of gravel crunching underneath approaching footsteps.

“Holy shit,” a deep voice rings out from your right, “someone pinch me.”

Your whole body tenses, your cigarette freezing a few inches away from your lips. Something like fight or flight starts to quietly buzz beneath your skin. You’d recognize that voice anywhere, even despite the gruffer, more grown up tone that wasn’t there the last time you heard it.

Your heart’s already kicking into overdrive when you finally start to hesitantly turn your head, time almost slowing down as your eyes sweep over the alley. You kind of don’t want to believe that your luck is this shitty. That maybe it was all in your imagination, that you were thinking about him so much you were starting to hear things that weren’t really there, that he was still back in the bar feeling up that blonde girl. But it can never be that easy, and sure enough, there he is.

Patrick Zweig is standing a few feet away from you with both hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans and a wide, achingly familiar grin lighting up his face.

You’re quiet for a few long moments, completely shocked into silence. Your mind races with a million different things you want to say but can’t find the voice to. You should be causing a scene. You should be losing it, screaming, crying, throwing things, slapping him hard across his unfairly handsome face. But you don’t, too surprised to even move. 

Patrick speaks again, taking several steps towards you. “It is really you, right?” he asks, eyes wide and mouth pulling into an easy, lopsided grin. To anyone else, the laid back, carefree tone he was going for would sound genuine. You can barely pick up on the stunned, almost breathless edge lacing his words, like he also can’t believe you’re standing right in front of him.

He steps into the light shining from a dingy lamp above the door, it basks around him in a yellow orange glow.

Same eyes, same ears, same Patrick.

For years you’ve thought about this exact moment, what you’d say if you ever saw him. You lose all of that practice the closer he gets. He’s less than a foot away from you now, an expectant look on his face. He’s waiting for you to say something. 

You feel like running, like stubbing your cigarette on the pavement and making a break for the door. You already ran from him once, but old habits die hard. 

You don’t run, you refuse to take the easy way out. You’re a grown woman, you’re stronger than you were in college, you’re going to the goddamn Olympics. It’s only Patrick for Christ’s sake.

“What are you doing here?” It sounds harsher than you meant, but that’s probably for the best. He doesn’t deserve kindness from you. 

“Tennis.” Is all he says, fishing out a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket. Camel blues. “What are you doing here?” He parrots back, smacking the bottom of the carton, plucking the one that shakes out between his long fingers. “I’d think that Miss. Team USA would be too busy for bar crawls.”

You bristle, eyes narrowing skeptically. You can’t tell if he’s making fun of you or not. “It’s not a bar crawl,” you shoot back childishly, feeling defensive under his heavy gaze. “We’re celebrating.”

Patrick just nods, letting out a small hum in lieu of replying. He's close enough now that you can see gray strands streaked through his hair. He looks older, a few barely there wrinkles creasing his skin as he pops his cigarette between his lips. “Got a light?” he asks around the filter, holding his hand out expectantly before you even answer.

It’s still just as annoying. You roll your eyes, sighing dramatically as you fish your lighter out of your skirts pocket. You place it in the open palm of his hand, ignoring the fireworks that go off at the base of your spine when his fingers catch on your wrist as you pull away.

He mumbles out a half-assed thanks, cupping his hand around the flame to shield it from the wind. If he notices the color, he doesn’t say anything. It feels wrong that he doesn’t tease you about it, staying silent as he tosses it back to you when his cigarette finally lights. You ignore the hurt blooming in your chest as you pocket it.

Patrick takes a deep inhale, the tip of his cigarette burns bright red. The way his lips wrap around the filter has heat spreading through you. “Shocked you’re still smoking,” he waves his free hand at you vaguely, smoke flowing from his lips as he speaks. “It’s not super admirable.”

You let out a dry laugh, shaking your head in disbelief. “That’s really how you want to start this?

“Start what?” he asks coyly, leaning his shoulder too close to you against the brick. He’s playing dumb, the smirk on his face gives him away. 

You say nothing, not trusting yourself to speak. He has a beard now, sort of patchy and fairly new looking. You wrinkle your nose up at it. 

It doesn’t surprise you that he’s acting like this. All calm and collected like he’s catching up with an old friend, like he didn’t say all those horrible things to you. As if every single word he said that night isn’t still engraved in your mind and carried with you through your whole career. 

Patrick’s quiet for a bit, taking another slow drag. “Have you seen either of them?” His voice is hesitant, like he’s treading the water of your boundaries by bringing this up. “Or am I your first?” He lets the innuendo hang in the air, trying to joke his way through something neither of you really want to talk about.

You don’t look at him, keeping your eyes trained on the part of the street you can see through the alleys opening.

You don’t need to ask who “them” is.

You just shake your head no, not wanting to have to say anything out loud and make this into a whole thing. The smoke from your cigarette swirls through your lungs, warm and familiar. 

You’ve seen them both at multiple tennis events. Things like matches, and galas, and charity auctions. Hell, they watched from the stands when you won Wimbledon for the first time. You just make sure and avoid them like the plague, always running the other direction the second you see a short bob and cropped blonde hair.

You’ve been in the same room with them countless times over the years but you might as well have been in separate worlds. The only “contact” you’ve had with them since you all graduated was weirdly ominous.

Art followed you on Instagram after you got your third career slam, but he doesn’t like any of your posts. You’re one of the mere twenty accounts in his following. You never followed him back. 

Then, when your career first started taking off, the press somehow learned about your past with Tashi. They started using it to their advantage when picking headlines for any pieces written about you. “The only woman in the world to beat Tashi Duncan!” It pissed you off to no end. It was stupid, a way to get clicks on their sad little gossip sites. And it wasn’t even fucking true.

They finally stopped when you threatened to sue their asses. Apparently, Tashi noticed.

She sent you flowers. You threw them out.

Patrick nods back, taking his own slow drag. The sound of traffic hums in the background, the music from the bar bleeding through the wall mutely. 

“Congrats on that,” he says casually, looking you up and down slowly. You fight not to squirm under his gaze. “On making the team. That’s some serious shit. I always knew it’d be you, out of all of us.”

It’s a blatant lie. You were always four out of four in college, the one person in the group with the least potential for stardom. If it wasn’t for Tashi’s injury, she’d definitely be in your place — on top of the world.

He’s trying to pacify you, to butter you up. All it does is grate on your nerves and leaves a sour taste in your mouth. 

“Did you just come out here to interrogate me? To mess with me?” you ask sharply, frustration starting to get the better of you. “Do you want a fucking autograph or something?”

Patrick laughs, throwing his head back. “Nope, I wanted to catch up. It's been a while.” he shrugs, eyes darkening ever so slightly. “I just know how much you like talking about yourself, that’s all.”

You pause, picking up on the clear implication of his words. “Excuse me?” you question, turning towards him.

“Just saying,” he says, raising his hands in surrender. “When we were younger everyone always thought I was this arrogant, cocky, self obsessed prick…” he trails off, an infuriating smirk still playing on his lips. It does nothing to soothe you, only adding fuel to the fire of your anger. “And they were all right, I was. But, that’s also exactly what you are right now.” he finishes, tapping the ash off his cigarette.

You feel it, all the emotions swirling inside you of at seeing Patrick again threatening to burst. Anger and misery waging a war in your stomach. The wind is starting to pick up around you, making goosebumps break out over your skin. The fabric of your skirt swishes around your thighs. You feel clammy, but it has nothing to do with the temperature drop. 

“Was?” you ask, condescending and mean, crossing your arms across your chest defensively. “You really don’t think you’re still all of those things?”

Patrick chuckles, shoulders shaking with amusement. He goes to say something, but you beat him to it. “I’ve changed, Patrick.” you say sternly, brows furrowing in displeasure. Your tone is hard, frustration seeping into your words. Considering the last time the two of you spoke, this was almost going well. It’s just like Patrick to ruin something before he needs to.

You know distantly that you could deescalate the situation, but maybe you’re more alike than you thought. Maybe you’re just too greedy to keep the peace. “So fucking sorry that I’m not the same person I was in college, but I actually chose to grow up.”

Patrick snorts, exhaling a plume of smoke through his nose. “Yeah, clearly.” he mutters under his breath, it’s condescending and sarcastic. It pisses you off.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you ask sharply, cigarette now forgotten and steadily burning away at your side. 

Patrick shrugs, like it’s obvious. “You’re still so lost. I sure as shit don’t have a red, white, and blue track suit hanging in my closet, but at least I know who I am.” He doesn't sound angry, only sure of himself, like he may have been thinking about this for a while. His face is passive, body relaxed as he leans against the hard brick.

Your jaw clenches, anger running hot through your veins. He doesn’t know anything about you, hasn’t for over ten years. He doesn’t have the right to try and talk down to you, not after all the hard work you put in to get to where you are.

“My wrist alone is worth ten million. What are you worth now, Patrick?” You’ll be embarrassed about bringing up status later, you always try to stay as humble as possible, but you’re too mad to care. You just need to hurt him, to hurt him like he hurt you. You’d heard from a friend of a friend that Patrick’s parents cut him off a while ago, that he’s been slumming it ever since. “I know exactly who I am, I’m a fucking Olympian.”

The venom in your tone is sharp, each word from your lips like a knife stabbing through the tense air trying to draw blood. “You’re a fucking nobody, Patrick. You’re irrelevant. Washed up. Buried. Forgotten.” You pause when your voice starts to shake, taking a deep inhale of smoke to try and calm yourself. Your hand is shaking too, ash falls from the burnt out tip down to the gravel. Patrick just watches you, his expression doesn’t change. Smoke billows from between your lips, blowing away with the wind. “We’re not on the same level, not anymore.” 

Patrick’s unfazed, staring back at you with his cigarette dangling from his lips. He takes it between his fingers, letting his arm drop to hang at his side. “I’ve been thinking about you.” he says casually, head lolling to the side lazily. He looks at you through his lashes, eyes sweeping over your face slowly. “I was just thinking about you, and now you’re here. Right fucking in front of me.” he shakes his head with a dry laugh. “You look…” he trails off, green eyes taking in every inch of you. “You look amazing.”

Your pulse flutters wildly, you feel so light headed, like you could pass out any second. “I’ve missed you, missed you everyday since that night.” His expression is that same half cocked grin from before, all smooth bravado and easy smiles as if he’s not staring at you like you’re the very blood coursing through his veins. All the air drains from your lungs, mind racing what feels like a thousand miles per second. 

He sounds like he means it. He looks like he means it. He can’t possibly mean it.

A loud chant ringing through your skull is the only coherent thing screaming through all the mess. Don’t fall for it, don’t fall for it, don’t fall for it, don’t fucking fall for it–

“Well I don’t miss you.” A lie. “You were nothing to me, Patrick.” Another lie. “You were just easy dick.” Your stomach twists painfully, like your body is physically trying to stop you from lying to yourself any further.

His face stays neutral, it frustrates you to no end that you can’t tell what he’s thinking. Patrick had a terrible poker face in college, you could read him like a book with a single glance. It was one of your favorite things about him, how expressive his face always was.

Now he’s just staring down the bridge of his nose at you passively, the picture of indifference. It’s another reminder of how long it’s been, that he’s lived a whole life without you in all that time. He takes a long drag off his cigarette, never breaking eye contact with you as he does.

His lips are slick and pink, just how you remember them. The beard isn’t so bad, it makes him look more rugged, more like a man. It’s the most drastic change in his appearance, far different from the smooth skinned pretty boy he was before.

He exhales, a long stream of smoke blowing past your ear. “What are you still doing here then?” he muses with a small shrug. He leans in even closer, slowly, like you were a cornered animal he didn’t want to spook. You can smell him, something woodsy with a hint of musk. You can see the clusters of freckles scattered over the bridge of his nose, almost completely faded. “If I’m nothing,” he clarifies, simple, easy. “Why are you here?”

It’s a loaded question, one he obviously knows the answer to. It’s a dick move, forcing you to confront what you’re really feeling. Your eyes start to sting, complicated emotions welling up in your throat. “Fuck you Patrick.” you whisper weakly, all the bite in your tone getting lost in your dejection. Your lip wobbles warningly, you try your best to stifle it. You refuse to cry in front of him.

Patrick’s face does something funny, turning his eyes to the sidewalk. “I need someone like that again. Someone that isn’t afraid to fucking check me, that wants me to do better and not because they just see a check or a legacy or whatever the fuck else my parents expected from me. Someone that wants me to do better because they actually believe in me.”

The honesty in his voice takes you by surprise. He gets more worked up the longer he talks, chest rising and falling a lot faster than before. Rare vulnerability slipping through the cracks of his hardened exterior.  “I fucked up that night, I know. Now my life’s a fucking mess, and I need someone to help make it make sense again.“ 

You scoff thickly, shaking your head in disbelief as you fight back tears. “And I’m that person?” you ask skeptically, brow raised in question.

“You always were,” he replies easily, his face forming into a sad smile. He almost sounds like his old self. Your brain flashes the image of Patrick leaning outside the door of your science lecture, waiting to walk you back to your dorm. He’s smiling wide enough to show teeth, looking down at you with brilliant green eyes, just like he is right now.

Suddenly, he wasn’t the boy that broke your heart on a tennis court twelve years ago. 

He was the boy that held your hair back when you threw up after drinking too much at a frat party and still stayed the night even though you didn’t hook up, his chest pressed against your back like a security blanket the whole night. He was the boy that let you make friendship bracelets on the handle of his favorite racket, and secretly kept the one you made for him braided around the neck for weeks until you finally noticed the fraying blue strings still in place when he forgot his tennis bag at your dorm room one night.

Suddenly he wasn’t anything but the boy you fell in love with when you were eighteen years old.

You swallow hard, heart pounding against your ribcage. Your cigarette falls from the slack grip of your fingers, plummeting to your feet where it burns out on the pavement. 

It’s like you lose control of yourself, like all your morals get shot out of a cannon into the sun. You’re lunging forward before you know what you’re doing, fisting the fabric of Patrick’s shirt and pulling him down to meet you halfway. Your first kiss with Patrick in twelve years.

It’s a mess of teeth clashing together roughly, with way too much tongue and spit to be classified as romantic. It’s desperate. It’s angry. It’s fucking filthy and it’s exactly what you need.

Your tongue forces its way between Patrick’s lips when he gasps in shock, mapping out the familiar territory of his mouth like muscle memory. His big hands fly up to hold onto your hips as he eagerly returns your kiss, pressing you up against the brick and sucking your tongue lewdly. He tastes like smoke and bottom shelf whiskey. You moan into his mouth, wetness starting to seep through the thin material of your panties.

You stay like that for a while, just kissing until Patrick slides the hard line of his cock against your hip strategically. You moan at the size of it pressing onto you through his jeans, breaking the kiss to inhale a couple lungfuls of air. “You’re not fucking me in an alley.” You say bluntly as he trails wet kisses down the side of your throat.

He laughs, nipping at your collarbone teasingly. “My car’s a block away,” he offers between kisses.

You think about it for a second. Deciding on whether or not you’re going to let Patrick fuck you in the backseat of his car like you’re two horny teenagers and not full grown adults.

“Lead the way.” Is all you say, finally letting yourself smile when Patrick starts to drag you away from the bar. 

You shoot your friends a quick text letting them know you decided to head home early, already in the uber you ordered when you’re actually letting Patrick drag you across a blessedly empty parking lot to an old SUV parked in the middle. A completely one-eighty from the Porsche he used to drive.

He takes a second to press you against the door, capturing your lips with his again. It’s a slower kiss, sweeter than the one you shared outside the bar. You feel butterflies erupt in your stomach when he cups your face, gently rubbing his thumb over your cheekbone. He fumbles blindly for the car door with his other hand, pulling it open and pushing you into the back. He follows closely, climbing in and shutting the door behind him.

Patrick’s back on you in less than a second, yanking at the buttons of your shirt impatiently, fingers too big to work them through the holes as fast as he wants to. He lets out a frustrated growl, grabbing both sides and pulling hard. The buttons all go flying in different directions, landing in different spots around you.

“That was three hundred dollars,” you mumble against his lips, not wanting to stop kissing him for even a second. He looms over you, broad and all encompassing. He sits up to yank his own shirt over his head, tossing it aside and popping open the button of his jeans.

“You can buy another one,” he says simply, shucking his jeans and boxers off all in one go. His dick is long and lovely, tip red and drooling pre-cum that drips all the way down to his balls. Your mouth waters, desperate to taste it, to feel the weight of it on your tongue and down your throat. You push it to the back of your mind. There’s no time for that, both of you too keyed up to do anything other than fuck.

Patrick leans down, biting your bottom lip hard enough to make you moan. He turns his attention to your pulling skirt down, panties going with it and getting tossed onto the floorboard carelessly. His eyes zero in on your bare pussy, wet and on display. The cool air shocks your system, making you want to press your thighs together but Patrick’s hands keep you spread open.

“Fuck,” he whispers quietly, moving to roll the knuckle of his right index finger over your slick entrance, just barely rocking it into you. You gasp, your whole body trembling with need. “Just like I remember.” He mutters to himself, pushing in the smallest bit deeper. 

Your leg kicks out, patience starting to wear thin. “C’mon, Pat.” you mewl sweetly, bucking your hips up in a clear invitation. “Fuck me.”

Patrick shifts up onto his knees, silently shuffling closer to your spread thighs. His cock juts out from his body, so thick and heavy that it doesn’t point straight up, instead hangs angry and red between his legs. His big hands slide halfway up your thighs, you shiver at the way they skirt across your skin lightly. He presses you backwards by them, leaning over you with your legs slung across his shoulders.

His cock drags across your inner thigh, trailing a sloppy line of pre-come as it does. You nearly wail, wrapping your arms around Patrick’s broad shoulders as you beg for him to give you what you want.

“God Patrick! Put it in. Please, put it in. Let me have it, please, fuck–,” you beg frantically, arms tightening around his shoulders like you’re trying to drag him impossibly closer to you. He goes willingly, burying his nose in the soft skin of your neck. He presses a small kiss directly over your pulse.

“I’m gonna give you this cock, baby.” he whispers lowly, hot lips brushing against your skin with every word. He slides the head of his cock through your wet folds, stopping to rub it over your swollen clit a few times. “Gonna get all up inside you and fuck you exactly how you like.” He slides the length down, letting his tip catch on your empty, clenching hole.

You’re so damn worked up, writhing and pushing back and begging Patrick to just fuck you already, that you can’t take anymore teasing. Your hole contracts around the tip of his dick like it’s trying to suck him in. He sinks in deeper, slowly feeding every thick inch into your aching cunt.

“God,” Your name falls from his lips in a shuddery breath that fans over your fluttering pulse. “You still smell the same.” It’s the same stunned, breathless tone from when he first saw you. He presses his face cheek to cheek with yours, the rough texture of his beard scraping against your skin. 

Patrick moves his hips against you slowly, deep strokes that drag every thick inch of him against the walls of your cunt. The tip of his cock stabbing that sweet spot inside you that makes stars glow bright on the ceiling of his car each time you blink. The angle has his balls pressing against your cunt as he fucks into you, the excessive pre-come leaking from his tip mixing with the sticky wetness of your juices leaves an obscene ring of creamy white around the spread hole of your cunt. It sticks wetly to the base of Patrick’s cock with each thrust, shining back at you on his skin when he pulls out.

The slow thrusts feel amazing, but you know it’s not enough. You need him to pound into you, to bully his big cock into your cunt like he’s getting back at you for shutting him out. You need him to fuck you. 

“Harder, Pat…” you whine breathlessly, clawing desperately at the polyester seats.

He groans loudly, hips immediately speeding up, getting rougher, meaner. He leans up to get more power behind his thrusts, breaking your tight hold on his shoulders. “This is where you belong,” he grits out, sweat dripping from his forehead to fall onto your heaving chest. The sharp smack smack smack of his hips bruising your ass gets louder, the lewd noise filling the car. “Where you should have been this whole fucking time, spread open on my cock.”

The only thing you can even get out anymore are pleading whines and loud moans of Patrick’s name as he pounds into you like he’s trying to kill you. The harsh snap of his hips inching you further up the backseat until your head’s knocking against the doors handle on each mean thrust. Your feet bounce by his ears, body almost completely folded in half so all you can do is lie there and take it.

The car rocks steadily, anyone who spares a glance at the SUV will know what’s going on inside. 

Patrick sneaks a hand between your legs, fingers sliding over your swollen clit. You scream, throwing your head back in pleasure as the calloused tips over his fingers work you over. “Fuck yeah,” Patrick mutters, turning his head to lick and bite at your ankle. “You’re so fucking sexy, so fucking beautiful. I missed you so much, missed this pussy.” His voice is pinched, hips fucking into you impossible faster.

The wet squelching noise of your cunt is filthy, splattering against Patrick’s heavy balls with each thrust. “I know she missed me too, didn’t she baby?” he taunts, eyes wild and blown out. “Taking my cock so well, squeezing me so fucking good.”

“Close,” you gasp out. Patrick pitches forward, licking into your parted lips as he rubs tight circles over your clit faster. He kisses you sloppily, smearing spit all over your lips and chin. His sweat drips onto your face and mixes with your own, it should be gross, but it makes you even wetter. The primal part of your brain overjoyed to be claimed by him. He lifts his fingers up the tiniest bit, smacking them over your clit with the smallest amount of force.

Your orgasm hits you suddenly, back arching off the seat wildly as you gush around his cock. You claw at his back desperately, nails raking down his skin hard enough to leave angry red welts in their wake.

“Shit– that’s good, milk it out of me baby, work for this fucking load.” he groans, hips not slowing down as he chases his own release. His breath puffs over your skin, the rhythm of his hips starting to falter the closer he gets. You whine, trying your best focus on clenching your cunt over his cock in your fucked out state. “That’s it, baby– God – you’re gonna make me come, squeezing me so tight I can barely fucking move…” he growls, teeth sinking into your neck hard.

You hiss sharply, nails digging into his skin as the pleasure starts to become too much. He licks over the bite mark, like he’s apologizing. “Gonna fucking come inside you, fill you up so good, fuck–”

His rambling dissolves into a loud groan, hips giving one last thrust as he buries himself as deep in your cunt as he can. You feel rope after rope of warm come flood your insides, painting your walls with it. It feels like hours, him unloading into you with cut off moans and grunts. 

You're still desperately trying to catch your breath when he finally starts to pull out of you as gently as he can. The red tip of his cock popping free lets the river of his come leak out from your abused hole, spilling out of you to drip onto the car’s seat.

Patrick curses at the sight, scooping the white, creamy mess onto his fingers so he can fuck it back into you. You hiss at the over stimulation, thighs squeezing together around his hand. Your chest is still heaving, breathing erratic as you slowly come down from your orgasm. Patrick tucks a stray strand of hair behind your ear, smiling warmly as he takes you into his arms and shifts around until he’s sitting up against the door with you curled into his chest.

The windows are steamy, melting all the streetlights outside into a swamp of warm colors on the glass. They shine through the car like sunlight piercing through a stained glass window. You feel light and hazy, like you’re in a dream. Patrick’s body grounds you, firm and familiar against your back. It’s quiet for a long time, only the sound of soft breathing fills the car. You're scratching your nails through the hair on Patrick’s chest when he finally breaks the silence.

“There’s…” he says into your hair, trailing off near the end. He’s idly tracing shapes on your lower back. A circle, a square, a circle, a diamond, a square, a heart. “There’s this challenger in New Rochelle in a couple weeks, I’m entering it. You should come.” 

Your heart drops, the delicate cloud encompassing you and Patrick forcefully ripped away in less than a second. You’ve already heard of this challenger, seen all the publicity it’s been getting since Art’s name came up in the conversation surrounding it. The ‘Phil’s Tire Town Challenger’ is all anyone can talk about. 

If Art’s there, she will be too. Sitting in the stands in a classy Ralph Lauren two piece, watching her husband and Patrick on the court, looming over the two of them for the first time in years. You can’t stomach the thought of seeing her. You can’t stomach the thought of Patrick seeing her, terrified that the second she spares him a glance you’ll be right back where you were in college, an afterthought left in the dust for something better.

Your stomach lurches violently, you feel nauseous. The heat of Patrick’s backseat becomes almost unbearable, making it harder to breathe. You rip yourself away from him, tearing through the backseat to find your clothes. 

Patrick startles, sitting up with a concerned look on his face. “Jesus, what's wrong?” You can feel the warmth of his hands hovering over your back, not sure if he should touch. “What did I do?”

You don’t say anything, you can’t. Your throat feels tight, chest constricted and heavy as you try to take in lungfuls of air. You tug on your skirt and panties haphazardly, grabbing the first shirt you find strewn across the car's floor and yanking it on. You know it’s not yours but you don’t care, too busy trying to shove your shoes back onto your feet and push open the door all at once.

Patrick questions you the entire time, voice confused and insistent as you tumble out into the parking lot. The cool air feels like a life jacket, the smell of rain fills your nose as you try to steady your erratic breathing. You’re still trying to tug your right shoe on as you start to speed walk away from his car.

You can hear the sound of feet slapping behind you on the pavement as you walk. A strong hand wraps around your bicep, whipping you around. Patrick only has his pants on, shirtless and barefoot in his haste to catch up with you.

“What the fuck are you doing? What’s wrong?” He sounds genuinely concerned, his eyes searching your face closely. It makes tears burn hot at your waterline, blurring your vision and falling to trickle down your cheeks when you try to blink them away.

“This was a mistake, Patrick.” your voice is thick with emotion, you try to wrench your arm out of his grip. He doesn’t let go, not squeezing tight enough to hurt but to try and keep you in place. You need to leave, to get as far away from Patrick as you can before you’re in too deep. “Please, let go.” Your voice is small, shaky and weak and so unlike you. The panic from the car is still wrapped around you, growing tighter every second you spend with him.

Patrick shakes his head wildly, raindrops slowly start to fall onto his bare shoulders. “No, fuck no! We can talk about this. We just need to talk–”

“Patrick stop!” Your voice cracks embarrassingly, loud and desperate as you double your efforts to free your arm. “Please just let me go!”

You don’t know if it’s the way you said it or the look on your face, maybe it’s a bit of both, but something makes Patrick let you go. Dropping your arm from his grip and letting his own hang limply at his side.

Rain starts to come down all around you, large drops hitting your skin and soaking the cotton of your shirt. You let yourself meet his eyes, they're sad in a way you’ve never seen before. The green turned dull and lifeless. It looks wrong on him.

When you can’t stand the hurt look on his face any longer, you leave. Walking away deeper into the rain, small puddles splashing up around your shoes with every step. You hope Patrick doesn’t follow you, that he lets you go. You’re doing him a favor by making the choice for him, it’s easier this way.

“You know, I think I really loved you.” He calls from behind you as the rain really starts to pick up. His voice almost gets swallowed by the thunder, you wish it would have. 

Against your better judgment, you look back. Patrick hasn't moved, still standing in the middle of the parking lot. The rain is making his hair stick to his forehead, starting to seep into the denim of his jeans to darken the gray. 

“I’m sorry,” you say quietly, voice tiny and pathetic. Patrick probably couldn’t even hear you over the wind whipping through the air. He stares back at you, there's too much distance for you to see the look on his face. You turn on your heels and keep walking.

It’s nostalgia in its sickest form, the dark familiarity of the situation washing over you with the rain as you walk away from Patrick again. Ignoring every call of your name and desperate pleas for you to come back is new, you can’t tell if it hurts more or less than the silence of last time.

You wrap your arms around yourself, tears mixing with the trails of rain running down your cheeks. It’ll make it easier to convince yourself later on that you weren’t really crying, that it was just the rain. Tomorrow you’ll wake up and this will all be behind you. Patrick will be fine, he doesn’t really love you. In a few weeks he’ll go to the challenger and forget all about you. 

You hear your mothers voice ring out in the back of your head as you walk.

"It's for the best, my love. Dependence is weakness."

You hope to God that she's right.

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[st0ryf1lms]

home, that's a weird word ➳ ken sato

pairing: ken sato x reader

word count: 1.5k

genre/warnings: angst, hurt/comfort, undertones of xenophobia, basically how i interpreted the last thing kenji said to ami on their first interview, grammatical errors (most likely), no beta we die like men, personal assistant!reader

synopsis: the word "home" always left a weird taste in kenji's tongue when he said it.

a/n: AAAAAAAA I'VE FINALLY WRITTEN A THOUSAND WORD FIC AFTER 2 YEARS IM SO HAPPY!!! and i'm really hoping u guys like this bc i really am so proud of this sooo enjoyyy!!

It had been a long day, as far as Kenji is concerned. Way too long for his liking. All the cameras and microphones pointed at his direction, all those flashing lights-- a man could only take a few for so long, and Kenji has had enough of his share for the day. As he gets off his bike, all he can think of is the comfort of his own bed, how his pillow would feel against his head and how the duvets would feel covering his skin.

He opened the door to his house, surprised to see you sitting on the couch with the living room lights turned off. Your back was facing him, and with your laptop's glaring LED screen being the only source of light in the room, all he could see was your crouched silhouette.

"Already settling down, huh, Y/N?" He spoke, breaking the silence in the room. "Oh, Mr. Sato, you're home," you say unfazed, as if the only thing that was powering you right now was your laptop's battery. "Just wanted to stay for a while to catch you so I can brief you for your schedule tomorrow." You stated, closing your laptop and standing up to turn on the lights on the dim setting. Kenji sighed and closed his eyes as he plopped down on the couch in front of you, serving as a signal for you to start.

"Okay, so, first thing in the morning, Mr. Sato, you have baseball practice which Coach Shimura insists you attend, an interview scheduled…" Your voice becomes buzzing in his head as he looks out the window, a view overlooking the city. The sound of laughter and joy drifting out from the street below, making him feel very alone in this somewhat new town. "…Sato. Mr. Sato. Are you even listening to a word I say?" You say exasperatedly, not sure if your asshat of a boss actually understands that you came from a 12-hour flight, too, and want nothing to be in the comfort of a nice and comfortable bed. You follow where his gaze is at, looking out the window where the busy streets of Tokyo are hustling and bustling as the nightlife slowly rises. You look back at your boss, sporting a solemn yet longing look on his face- earning a tilt of confusion from your head.

"Can I ask you a question, Y/N? Off the record, please." He asks, eyes remaining trained on the window. "Have you ever felt like you've never belonged? Like, no matter where you go, no matter who you are, you'll never find yourself home?" He finally looks at you, noticing your once tense figure now replaced with a relaxed yet calculating stance, figuring out what to say to him. The silence feels like forever as he awaits an answer from you, Kenji letting out a sigh as he hangs his head down low.

"Ever since I had moved to LA, I lost all sense of the word 'home.' Hah, even saying it right now leaves a weird taste in my tongue. All those kids back there, they always told me to 'go back home,' and when I did go back to the house where my mom and I lived, she'd always tell me that we were right at home. Now that I'm actually back in my 'homeland', it feels so weird to even call it that now." He blurted out, his previously relaxed figure on the couch is now one of a crouched one, his head still glued facing down on the floor. "In LA, I felt too Japanese to fit in. The culture shock hitting me every single time I try to do something I was used to. Now, here in Japan, I feel too American now to even call myself a local. Even speaking in my own tongue feels weird to my mouth and my throat."

He finally looked up at you and saw a blank yet somehow shocked expression adorning your face. His eyes slightly widened and his breath hitched in his throat as he quickly realized the gravity of his words and who he was speaking to about a sensitive topic. You, on the other hand, was internally slack-jawed. What the helllll, is this really happening???? You rhetorically think to yourself as your boss, The Ken Sato, the egotistical baseball superstar, literally just spilled his guts in front of you, his personal assistant whom he keeps at an arm's length.

"I- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-" he stuttered as he racked his brain, trying to make up an excuse for what he said. You still stayed silent and eerily still. "A–are you still there? Hello? Earth to Y/N?" He asked, cautiously waving a hand.

"Yes," you cleared your throat, "yes, Kenji." You say, his contorted face relaxing as he hears his name slip your mouth. You clear your throat once again before starting.

"You know, if I may, I'd like to believe that home is a construct you make and that a place doesn't really define it. Sure, in kindergarten, we get taught that the definition of home is a place where you live in but as we get older, don't some things actually change? And I'd like to say that the word 'home' is one of those things. As a child, we would say home is where our parents live. As teenagers, we'd say home is with our friends as we laugh and joke with them on various different occasions of our lives at school. As adults, I believe we can be left to define 'home' what we fit it deem to our liking. After all, home is where the heart is, am I right?" You ramble on, pacing around the living room as you animatedly explain with your hands as Kenji follows your every move.

Realizing your mouth once again moved with a mind of its own, you straightened up and cleared your throat. "Ahem, sir. Right, well, I better get going. Long day tomorrow." You nervously chuckled, refusing to look your boss whose privacy you've seem to have invaded as you spoke without filter. You tentatively grab your things and slowly head to the front door, feeling your boss' eyes on you follow your every move as if saying you've overstayed your welcome.

As Kenji trains your every movement, he realizes what you're about to do and stands up abruptly from his place in the couch.

"Y/N, wait."

Your hand hovers above the door handle, eyes closed as you brace for the impact of what your boss is about to say. Please don't fire me, please don't fire me, please do-

"Do you mind if you stay the night?" He says and your head snaps back to look at him, as if he'd grown another head.

I- I mean, not like that, b- but, well… Well, you know what I mean." He sheepishly clarifies, his hand bringing up to scratch the nape of his neck. The silence is awkward and deafening, and he was about to open his mouth to take back what he said but you beat him to it.

"Sure. I'll stay the night, Mr. Sato." You face him with a soft smile.

"Please, Y/N, Kenji's fine."

He leads you to the spare bedroom he has in the house and asks Mina to deliver a fresh set of clothes where you'll stay.

"I just want to say thank you, Y/N. I know I don’t say it enough and I'm sorry for that. I appreciate everything you do." He sincerely told you, looking into your eyes with nothing but pure admiration and gratefulness. "It's all in the job, sir." You say before realizing, wincing as the honorific accidentally leaves your mouth. You open the bedroom door before saying,

"Good night, Kenji."

"Good night, Y/N."

BONUS:

Kenji wakes up to the noise of cooking downstairs, with a pair of voices talking back and forth. He rubs his eyes free of sleep and lifts the duvets off of him, getting up from his bed and out of his room.

The voices become clearer as he goes down the stairs on the way to the kitchen, where he makes out your voice and Mina's, seeming to be guiding you as you follow a recipe she reads out. "Y/N, he's awake." Mina alerts you as you turn to face him.

"Oh, good morning, Mr. Sato. I hope you don’t mind, Mina told me you barely use the kitchen anyway." You nervously chuckle as you focus your attention back on the stove. "Please, Y/N, what did I tell you?" He visibly cranks up at the mention of his last name early in the morning.

"Right, Kenji, I mean." You quickly recall, still stirring the pot. "That smells amazing, what's that?" He says as he walks over you, looking over your shoulder.

"I know it isn't really for breakfast but Mina told me how it was your favorite, so I made curry. Or, at least, attempted to make it." You explain cautiously, slowly looking over to your boss who's currently sporting a look of surprise.

"M-may I?" He gestures to the spoon. You nod and hand it to him, scooting over to give him a taste. His eyes close and you start to feel anxious, building up an excuse in your head to tell him.

"Tastes just like home."