#lyrics from Head Up by the score

[hearts4renaa]

SO HIGHSCHOOL ~

summary: all the corny, cute, romcom type things you guys do that makes everyone at NRC swoon. featuring the dorm leaders. contains: 1.4k words in total of fluff fluff and more fluff. gn reader, one of the lyrics i reference uses "her" but that's it. a/n: inspired by 'so high school' by taylor swift! i might make this into a series.... lololol we'll see! please enjoyy

“’Cause I feel so high school, every time I look at you ~”

“You knew what you wanted, and boy, you got her ~”

Riddle went above and beyond while courting you, giving you flowers, remembering and celebrating basically every important date, and eventually officially asking you to be his.

You giggle and almost coo when you open your locker to yet another small bundle of roses. You gently grab the small bouquet, letting yourself relish in both the floral scent and the affection you feel by this gesture. Ace and Deuce groan from besides you, already knowing who they’re from. “Geez, that guy and his roses, hey?” Ace comments. “That’s the third one within the past four weeks!”

You shush Ace playfully, your fingers trailing over the little paper tag attached to the ribbon. Your brain recognizes the penmanship almost immediately, for this handwriting has expressed numerous words of love towards you countless times before. Your heart flutters as your eyes scan the paper.

I love you forever, dearest.

“Truth, dare, spin bottles. You know how to ball, I know Aristotle ~”

You go to all of Leona’s Spelldrive games! you show up in Savanaclaw colors, your hair styled like his, and the biggest smile on earth.

“And look at that!” the Spelldrive announcer exclaims. “Yet another goal from Savanaclaw’s very own Housewarden,” The camera captures Leona’s signature smirk as he high fives a nearby teammate, high off the adrenaline of the game. “He’s playing well tonight,” The announcer speaks. “And I think we all know why!”

The camera pans to your absolutely shining face, cheering from the stands with crinkled eyes and hands clapping. Leona pauses for a moment to look at you, his eyes locating you almost immediately. “I love you, you’re doing great!” You mouth to him in pure excitement. Leona cracks a small smile before getting his head back in the game. He scored six more times that night.

“Get my car door, isn’t that sweet? Then pull me to the backseat ~”

Azul gives you total gentleman treatment! You haven’t opened a door in ages and you completely forgot what carrying a bag feels like.

“Thanks for tonight, Azul.” You smile at him as the two of you begin to approach the entrance of the Ramshackle dorm building. “I had a great time, as always. You didn’t have to walk me home, again, though.” You chuckle lightly. Azul gives a small smirk back, but his eyes gleam at your comments. His hand squeeze yours just a little tighter, and a faint blush starts to creep up his face.

“I’m glad,” He says softly. “And you know I’d do almost anything to spend more time with you.” Your front door comes fully into view and you feel as if it’s ending all too fast. Despite how many dates you’ve gone on, the rush of being out with Azul is something you’ll never get fully used to. He always leaves you craving him and his company. The two of you come to a still at your porch, and he turns to face you. He whispers your name, bringing your hand to his mouth and lightly kissing your knuckles. You swear that no fairytale prince could ever compete against him.

“I’m high from smoking your jokes all damn night ~”

You’re the first person Kalim looks at when he tells a joke. Taking you to his family home proved that he was absolutely serious about you, and it’s so evident that his siblings can see how much he loves you too.

The group of younger siblings burst into another fit of laughter at Kalim’s joke, as if they had never heard anything funnier in their lives. “Again, Kalim,” One of his brothers tugs on his sleeve. “Tell another one!”

While Kalim’s jokes were inevitably corny, you couldn’t help but stifle a laugh as well. The smiles of the little children were infectious, their energy fueling your own joy. Kalim tells another joke, but his eyes weren’t focused on his siblings’ reactions. No, he wasn’t even looking at their faces at all. His eyes automatically find your figure with each joke he tells, and he feels his heart swell each time you laugh. With your head thrown back and your eyes wrinkled with giggles, he’s never seen a sight more beautiful.

“Are you gonna marry, kiss, or kill me? It’s just a game, but really, I’m betting on all three, for us two ~”

Vil likes to mention you in his interviews, and he does it almost unconsciously. Questions about his romantic life are inevitable with someone of his level of fame, but he handles each one with grace.

The studio lights would be blinding for most, but Vil’s been in this industry for so long that he’s gotten used to it. The questions from the interview have been rapid fire, and Vil responds to each one with a graceful, almost calculated response. He’s been running on autopilot the entire morning; well, until your name gets brought up.

“Now, I just have to ask,” The interviewer crosses her legs and leans in towards Vil, as if he was telling her a secret. “Kiss, marry, kill: Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, and your partner, Y/N?”

He doesn’t hesitate for a moment before answering the question. “I wouldn’t kill any of them,” Vil responds with a small smirk. Kissing you is as easy as breathing to him, and the idea of marrying you sends a chill down his spine. He loves you like he was made for it, and his devotion shines like a glittering gem. Vil continues his response. “But the first two options are reserved for Y/N and Y/N only.”

“Brand new, full throttle. Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto ~”

Idia likes to have some sort of physical contact with you at all times. At first, he was really jumpy, but your touch has become a comfort to him.

You hum as you lean onto Idia, your head resting on his shoulder. The lights in his room are dim, save for the bright TV near the edge of his bed. Your left arm is linked with his right one and you nuzzle your cheek into the fabric of his sweater. The clicking sounds of Idia’s controller lull you into a drowsy state, the late hours starting to hit you.

Idia looks away from his game to gaze at your sleepy figure, and he feels his cheeks start to heat up. It’s definitely not the first time you’ve done this, but the intimacy of it all still brings a warm, fuzzy feeling into his chest. The idea that the two of you could simply link arms, sit in silence, and do your own things and be content astounds him just a little bit; He thought you would’ve gotten bored. Your affection for each other runs much deeper, but you can feel all of it in the form of linked arms.

“No one’s ever had me, not like you ~”

What’s there that Malleus doesn’t do for you? But seriously, one of his favorite things to do with you is stargaze at nighttime, where his affection for you is at an all time high.

The night air is soothing as the chill creeps up your skin, keeping you awake. Malleus sits next to you, his presence being a comfort. The moon is bright tonight, the field quiet, with the occasional chirp from the nearby birds. The stars in the sky create a masterpiece of little lights, and Malleus can’t help but stare at you like you’re a work of art.

Malleus rubs his thumb into the flesh of your hand, gazing at you with hearts in his eyes. He feels the sudden need to ask a question that’s been weighing on him for a little while. His voice rings in your ears.

“You truly don’t fear me?”

You giggle lightly, letting go of his hand and turning to fully face him. Your fingers brush past his cheeks, cupping them gently and bringing your foreheads together. “I could never,” You whisper, smiling brightly. “Not when you love me so deeply.” His heart swells with affection. You open your mouth to continue, but his lips crash against yours before you can get another word out.

[hoshifighting]

Crush on Music Student Jihoon

"So, I couldn't help but overhear something at lunch today," he says, his voice tinged with amusement. Your heart skips a beat as you try to recall what you might have said that caught his attention. "Oh? What did you hear?"

Jihoon chuckles softly, a blush creeping onto his cheeks. "Well, it sounded like someone might have been talking about me..."

Synopsis: Where you have a little crush on the music student Jihoon. He definitively is not like the jocks from the campus, his quiet demeanor between his loud friends, calls your attention, and your friends tell you to let go of this crush once and for all. But Jihoon shows up to show you that your admiration for him was worth it.

Word Count: 5.8k

Warnings: Smut, dirty talk, praising, overwhelming, fingering, blowjob, penetrative sex, unprotected sex, public kiss, their friends having a heart-attack when they kiss, tears and sobs of pleasure, g'spot stimulation and etc.

So, here you are, finally in college. No more high school drama, no more teachers breathing down your neck, and no more petty cliques. It's like a whole new world, and you're loving every minute of it.

College is different. People here have their own inspirations, their own goals, and their own quirks. It's refreshing to be surrounded by so much diversity. You feel more mature than ever, like you're finally coming into your own.

But then there's Jihoon. Your friends won't let you forget about him. He's a music student, from the same campus, and apparently, he's got you feeling all sorts of things. They tease you mercilessly, saying you're acting like a girl in high school with a crush.

"Ah, Jihoon. He's always been the quiet type…" They say. You've noticed it too. While his friends are loud and outgoing, he's content to stay in the background, quietly observing the world around him. It's one of the things that drew you to him in the first place.

But your friends don't seem to understand. They keep trying to push you towards guys like Dokyeom or Seungkwan, who are the complete opposite of Jihoon. Dokyeom, with his extroverted personality and vibrant energy, always seems to be the life of the party. And Seungkwan, well, he's practically a celebrity on campus with his charm and athleticism.

But as much as you appreciate their efforts, your heart just isn't in it. While your friends are off drooling over Mingyu at the football games, you prefer to sit quietly in the back of the university theater, listening to the sweet sounds that emanate from Jihoon's fingers as he plays guitar or piano.

You're sitting with your friends at lunch, trying to enjoy your meal while Jihoon's group of friends acts loud and rowdy as usual. Jihoon himself is sitting nearby, quietly changing papers, which you assume are lyrics for his music.

"So, when are you going to talk to him?" Hyeson asks, a mischievous glint in her eye.

You roll your eyes, knowing exactly where this conversation is headed. "I don't know, maybe when I feel like it," you reply nonchalantly, taking a bite of your sandwich.

Your other friend, Seungjun, chimes in, "Come on, you've been crushing on him forever. He's probably too shy to come and ask you out. Or maybe he's too busy burying his face in those ridiculous scores."

ou shrug, trying to play it cool. "I don't know what you're talking about. I just enjoy his music, that's all."

But your friends aren't buying it. They exchange knowing looks before turning back to you with raised eyebrows.

"Come on, you can't deny that there's something there," Hyeson says, leaning in closer. "Why don't you just go talk to him? What's the worst that could happen?"

You hesitate, chewing on your lip as you consider the idea. "I don't know... What if he thinks I'm weird or something?"

Your friend rolls her eyes, shaking her head in disbelief. "You've practically had the whole college eating out of the palm of your hand since you started to study here."

You feel a flush of embarrassment creep up your neck as she lays it all out there. "I don't know if I'd say that..."

But she cuts you off before you can finish. "Come on, Y/n. Let's be real here. You've practically dismissed every other guy in this place because you only have eyes for Jihoon. And you're worried about him thinking you're weird?"

The conversation about Jihoon continues to flow at the table, with your friend passionately expressing her opinions. But then, out of the corner of your eye, you spot Mingyu approaching. Your friend doesn't seem to notice, her mouth still going a mile a minute about Jihoon.

Quickly, you reach out and wrap a hand around her mouth, effectively cutting off her words. She widens her eyes in surprise, shooting you a confused look as Mingyu stands next to your table, likely coming over to talk to you all.

Mingyu starts talking about the upcoming football game this night, mentioning that there's going to be a frat party afterward. Your friend's ears perk up at the mention of Jihoon, and she can't help but blurt out, "Is Jihoon going to be there?"

Mingyu furrows his brow in confusion, glancing over at Jihoon who is still engrossed in his papers at the other table. "I don't know," he replies honestly. "It's been a long time since he appeared at one of our parties."

But then Mingyu's gaze returns to your friend, a puzzled expression crossing his face. "Wait, why do you ask? Does someone here have a crush on Jihoon?" he asks, his voice a little too loud for comfort.

You widen your eyes in alarm, shooting a panicked glance at Jihoon and his friends who are now looking over at your table, clearly intrigued by the mention of Jihoon's name.

Your friend's eyes widen in shock, realizing that his question may have been a little too loud. "Um, well..." she stammers, searching for an excuse.

But before she can come up with anything, Mingyu's gaze returns to Jihoon's table, a mischievous grin spreading across his face. "Looks like someone has some explaining to do," he says, loud enough for Jihoon to hear.

"Oh my god, I fucking hate y'all…" 

[...]

As you make your way to the promised frat party tonight, your friend nudges you gently and says, "Come on, Y/n-nie, don't be mad at us. We're just having some fun."

You shoot her a playful glare before sighing and shaking your head. "I know, I know. I'm not really mad. Just a little nervous, that's all."

But your other friend chimes in, unable to resist poking fun at the situation. "Seriously, though, I still don't understand why you like him that much. He doesn't even look like he fucks."

You roll your eyes at her crude remark, feeling a flush of heat rise to your cheeks. Brushing away the thought of your recent fantasies about Jihoon, you try to play it off coolly. "Oh, please. You don't know anything about him."

But deep down, you can't deny the truth in her words. Jihoon may seem shy and reserved on the surface, but there's a fire burning beneath that quiet exterior. And just the thought of him touching you, of him fucking you, sends a shiver down your spine.

How is Jihoon's cock? Could he really fuck you like you've been fantasizing about? The image of him moaning beautifully as he sings, his fingers dancing effortlessly across the strings of his guitar, sends a wave of desire crashing over you.

You squeeze your legs tight together, trying to ignore the pulsing ache between them as you continue towards the party. Each step brings you closer to the possibility of seeing Jihoon again, of finally making your move.

But as you approach the frat house, the thumping bass of the music growing louder with each passing second, you push those thoughts to the back of your mind. Your friend's little black dress that she lent you, hugs your curves in all the right places, a departure from your usual style, but you can't deny that it looks amazing on you.

She had insisted that Jihoon would love it, teasing you about your "Jihonnie" and the potential for a romantic encounter tonight. You couldn't help but laugh at her antics, secretly hoping that she might be right.

But as you glance around the crowded place, your heart sinks a little. Jihoon is nowhere to be seen. You try to push down the disappointment, reminding yourself that there are plenty of other people to talk to and enjoy the party with.

You lean against the bar, swirling your punch in your hand as you chat with your friend. Her eyes suddenly light up, and she says something that makes you furrow your brow in confusion. Glancing over your shoulder, you spot Mingyu walking towards you, with Jihoon by his side.

Jihoon walks with his hands in his pockets, his black shirt hugging his muscular arms perfectly, while his hair falls in his face in a way that makes your heart skip a beat. Your friend takes the hint and excuses herself, leaving you alone with the boys.

Mingyu gives you a sly grin and nudges Jihoon in your direction. "Go on, hyung," he says encouragingly. "You've been wanting to talk to her all day."

Jihoon's cheeks turn a faint shade of red as he leans against the bar with a sheepish smile. "Uh, hey," he says softly, his voice barely audible over the music. "Mind if I join you?"

You feel a rush of excitement as Jihoon starts a conversation, his shy demeanor only adding to his charm. "Of course," you reply with a smile, motioning for him to take a seat next to you.

As the conversation continues to flow between you and Jihoon, you find yourselves laughing and exchanging stories about your time at college. You're pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to talk to him, and before you know it, hours have flown by.

Suddenly, Jihoon pauses mid-sentence, a playful glint in his eyes. "So, I couldn't help but overhear something at lunch today," he says, his voice tinged with amusement.

Your heart skips a beat as you try to recall what you might have said that caught his attention. "Oh? What did you hear?" you ask, feigning innocence as you take a sip of your punch.

Jihoon chuckles softly, a blush creeping onto his cheeks. "Well, it sounded like someone might have been talking about me," he admits, his eyes meeting yours with a shy smile.

You can't help but scoff at his comment, feeling a surge of embarrassment wash over you. "You mean Mingyu mentioning your name out loud?" you reply, trying to play it off coolly.

Jihoon laughs and nods, his smile widening. "Yeah" he says with a nod. "I guess I've been on your friends' minds lately."

You chuckle, feeling a rush of embarrassment wash over you at the thought of Jihoon overhearing your friends teasing you about your crush on him. "Yeah, sorry about that," you say sheepishly, scratching the back of your neck. "My friends can be a little... outspoken."

But Jihoon just shakes his head, a smile playing on his lips. "No need to apologize. It's actually kind of flattering," he says, his gaze meeting yours with warmth. "And to be honest, I've been wanting to talk to you for a while now."

Your heart skips a beat at Jihoon's confession, and you feel a rush of excitement as you muster up the courage to admit your own feelings. "Yeah, I've been wanting it too," you confess, your voice barely above a whisper.

Jihoon's face lights up with a genuine smile, and he leans in closer, his eyes shining with curiosity. "Oh yeah? What have you been wanting to talk to me about?" he asks eagerly.

You feel a pang of panic shoot through you as you realize you hadn't prepared an answer to that question. You stutter for a moment, trying to come up with something to say.

Finally, you blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. "Um, your music project! It sounds awesome," you say, mentally kicking yourself for not being more prepared.

You can tell by the look on his face that he knows there's more to it than just his music project. And as the silence stretches between you, you can't help but feel a sense of unease settle over you.

"I was expecting something else," Jihoon says with a small, teasing smirk, his voice laced with mock disappointment.

A strange tension hangs in the air between you, and you can feel your cheeks flush with embarrassment. You wish you had been more honest with him, you can't help but wonder if this awkward moment has ruined your chance with him. With a heavy sigh, you take a sip of your drink.

You feel the unease settling in, a knot forming in the pit of your stomach as you realize the gravity of the situation. Are you really going to lose this chance? Are you really going to ruin this opportunity?

Hell no.

Your hand clenches around the red cup with more force as you weigh your options. Taking a deep breath, you muster up the courage to speak, determined not to let this moment slip away.

"That's not what I meant," you say, meeting Jihoon's curious gaze with determination.

Jihoon raises an eyebrow in confusion, waiting for you to continue.

"No, I mean, your songs are really awesome," you clarify. "But I have one more thing to say."

You lean in closer, your lips hovering just inches from his ear as you whisper softly, "I've been wanting to do this for a long time."

Before Jihoon can react, you close the gap between you, capturing his lips in a passionate kiss. The world fades away as you lose yourself in the heat of the moment, your bodies pressed together in an electrifying embrace.

Jihoon responds eagerly, his hands finding their way to your waist as he pulls you closer, deepening the kiss with a hunger that matches your own. In that moment, there's no awkwardness, no tension, only the undeniable chemistry between you and Jihoon igniting into something fiery and intoxicating.

You break the kiss, your lips still tingling with the remnants of his touch, feeling flushed, satisfied, and breathless. A sweet taste lingers on your palate as you lean against Jihoon's chest, his arms wrapped tightly around your waist.

Jihoon's breath is ragged as he pulls back slightly, his eyes locked on yours with a mixture of desire and adoration. "Let's get out of here," he says softly, his voice husky with emotion. "Before our friends have a heart attack."

You glance over at Mingyu and your friends, who are practically collapsing with shock after witnessing your kiss. Your cheeks flush with embarrassment, but Jihoon's hand intertwining with yours brings you back to the present moment.

You nod in agreement, grateful for his quick thinking, and allow him to lead you away from the crowded room. As you step outside into the cool night air, a sense of freedom washes over you, and you find yourself smiling up at Jihoon.

"Sorry about that," you say, a hint of amusement in your voice as you squeeze his hand. "I didn't mean to cause a scene."

Jihoon just chuckles softly, his thumb stroking the back of your hand as he leans in to press a gentle kiss to your forehead. "No need to apologize," he murmurs, his voice warm and reassuring. "I'm just glad I finally got to kiss you."

"You should have kissed me before," you tease, nudging Jihoon playfully as you walk together across the campus, heading towards the dorms.

Jihoon chuckles, his arm wrapping around your waist as he pulls you closer to him. "Oh, really? And risk giving our friends a heart attack sooner?" he replies with a smirk, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

You roll your eyes at his response, but a smile tugs at the corners of your lips. "Fair point," you concede, leaning into his side as you continue to walk. "But you could have at least hinted that you wanted to kiss me earlier."

Jihoon's smile softens, his gaze turning tender as he looks down at you. "Oh, really? And here I was thinking you were the one making all the moves," he says softly, his thumb tracing circles on your hip.

You roll your eyes in mock exasperation, swatting at his arm playfully. "Hey, I can't do all the work," you retort, a smile tugging at the corners of your lips. "It's about time you stepped up your game."

Jihoon chuckles, leaning in closer to press a soft kiss to your cheek. "Well, consider this me stepping up," he says, his voice low and husky as he pulls back to meet your gaze. "And trust me, I have plenty more where that came from."

As you and Jihoon approach his dorm, the air is charged with anticipation, and you can't help but feel a flutter of excitement in the pit of your stomach. The conversation flows effortlessly between you, filled with laughter and teasing banter as you navigate the familiar paths of the campus.

"So, you're telling me that you're going to make up for lost time?" you ask with a playful smirk, nudging Jihoon's side as you walk.

Jihoon chuckles, his eyes glinting mischievously as he glances over at you. "Oh, you have no idea," he replies, his voice low and husky, sending a shiver down your spine.

As you reach his dorm door, Jihoon suddenly stops in his tracks, turning to face you with a wicked grin. Before you can react, he slams you against the door with a sudden force, his hands grabbing your ass firmly as he leans in to kiss your neck.

A gasp escapes your lips as his lips trail along your skin, sending waves of pleasure coursing through you. You can feel his warmth radiating against you, his strong arms holding you tightly as you cling to him, your hands gripping his biceps desperately.

With a sense of urgency, Jihoon grabs the door handle and swings it open, pulling you into his room with him. The moment you step inside, the door closes behind you with a soft click, and you find yourselves enveloped in darkness, save for the faint glow of the moonlight streaming through the window.

Unable to detach your bodies from each other, you stumble forward, your lips locked in a passionate kiss. Jihoon's hands roam freely over your body, igniting sparks of desire with each touch, while your own hands explore the contours of his chest, tracing the lines of his muscles beneath his shirt.

Jihoon's eyes search yours, filled with desire. "Tell me," he says softly, his voice barely above a whisper.

You furrow your brow in confusion for a moment before he repeats himself, his tone more insistent this time. "I want you to tell me, with words."

You feel a thrill run through you at his words, and you hold onto him tighter, your lips still brushing against each other as you melt into his embrace.

For a moment, you're lost in the sensation of being so close to him, your heart pounding in your chest as you try to find the right words to express how you feel.

And then, before you can respond, Jihoon speaks again, his voice teasing and playful. "Come on, Y/n-nie," he says with a mischievous glint in his eyes. "I want to hear you say it. Tell me how much you want me."

You can't help but chuckle at his bold request, feeling a rush of heat spread through you at the thought of indulging his playful banter. "Why?" you ask, raising an eyebrow in mock innocence. "Are you planning to use this in your songs?" you ask breathlessly, your voice barely above a whisper as his hands slip under the fabric of your little black dress, hands find their way to your breasts.

Jihoon laughs at your response, his eyes sparkling with amusement as he shakes his head. "Who knows?" he replies with a smirk. "But I think I'd much rather hear it from your lips than write it in a song."

You roll your eyes playfully, a smirk playing on your lips. "Fine," you say, leaning in closer to whisper in his ear. "But you're going to owe me for this."

With a sly grin, you reach down and find the waistband of his pants and underwear, pulling them down in one swift motion. Jihoon gasps in surprise as his pink, big cock springs free, standing shiny and eager in the dim light.

You can't help but let out a low moan at the sight, desire coursing through you as you gaze hungrily at him. "God, I wanted this cock so bad," you whisper, your voice dripping with desire. "I've been dreaming about it for so long."

As Jihoon holds back the urge to roll his eyes at your words, you lean in closer, your breath hot against his skin as you lick a stripe from the base of his cock to the tip. He lets out a low groan, his hands gripping the hem of his shirt as he tries to steady himself against the overwhelming pleasure coursing through him. "Hmm Y/N yes!" 

With a hungry desire, you take his cock into your mouth, filling your cheeks with his hardness as you work him with eager enthusiasm. Jihoon's hands tremble slightly as he holds onto his shirt, his moans growing louder and more desperate with each movement of your mouth.

Feeling your own arousal building with each passing second, you can't help but reach down between your legs, pushing your panties to the side as you slide your fingers into your dripping wet pussy. You can't help but moan around Jihoon's cock as you pleasure yourself.

Jihoon's moans grow even louder at the sound, his hips bucking involuntarily as he struggles to hold back his release. "Fuck, I'm cumming, I'm cumming," he says, head thrown back. With each thrust of your mouth and each stroke of your fingers in your pussy, the tension in the room grows thicker, until finally, with a loud cry, Jihoon reaches his climax, his hot cum spilling into your mouth.

As you swallow eagerly, relishing the taste of Jihoon's release, you feel a surge of ecstasy coursing through you. But before you can fully enjoy the moment, Jihoon's voice cuts through the haze of pleasure, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

"Stop," he says, his voice hoarse with desire.

You reluctantly remove your hand from between your legs, your fingers still slick with arousal as you look up at Jihoon with glazed eyes. He takes your hand in his, pulling you to your feet and guiding you towards his bed.

Your dress is now bunched up around your waist, the fabric clinging to your skin as Jihoon manages to remove his shirt with trembling hands. You can feel the heat radiating off his body as he presses you gently onto the bed, his hands roaming over your exposed skin.

With a sense of urgency, Jihoon leans down to capture your lips in a searing kiss, his tongue dancing with yours as he explores every inch of your mouth. You moan softly into the kiss, the sensation of his lips making you feel rewarded.

As Jihoon's hand finds the fabric of your panties and tugs them down your legs, throwing the piece away, you shiver with anticipation, your arousal pooling between your thighs. His fingers find your sopping wet cunt, and you moan at the slight touch, your body trembling with desire.

With a wicked grin, Jihoon leans in close, his voice low and husky as he begins to dirty talk to you. "You know, Y/n-nie," he murmurs, his breath hot against your ear. "I saw you all those times you sat in the auditorium, watching me play."

You gasp at his words, the memory of those moments flooding your mind as you feel a surge of heat spreading through you. "I loved knowing you were there, looking at me, wanting me." Jihoon continues, his voice dripping with desire. "I couldn't help but wonder what was passing through your little filthy mind as you watched me." 

"Did you imagine me touching you, pleasing you, making you scream my name?"

His words send a surge of desire rushing through you, and you can feel yourself getting wetter by the second. With a desperate need, you arch your hips towards him, silently begging for more as you lose yourself in the intoxicating heatness of Jihoon's dirty talk.

s Jihoon's fingers sink inside your pussy, you let out a gasp of pleasure, the sensation overwhelming your senses. Your mouth opens to answer him, but all that escapes is a string of expletives as pleasure washes over you.

"Fuck!" you swear, your voice strained with desire as Jihoon's fingers move inside you. The sound of your arousal fills the room, loud and squelching as his fingers slide in and out, your wetness coating his hand with each delicious thrust.

His movements are slow and deliberate, each stroke driving you closer and closer to the edge. You squirm beneath him, your body writhing with pleasure as ragged gasps leave your lips. With each movement of his fingers, you feel yourself spiraling out of control, lost in the intoxicating heat of the moment.

And as Jihoon continues to drive you wild with his fingers, his voice fills the air with a mixture of desire and frustration. "Fuck," he breathes, his words heavy with longing. "Everyone told me to take action, but..."

But what? You find yourself holding your breath, waiting for Jihoon to finish his sentence. But he doesn't say anything else, leaving the words hanging in the air between you, tantalizingly unfinished.

You can feel the tension mounting, the anticipation building as you wait for Jihoon to speak again. But instead of words, he leans in closer, his lips brushing against your ear as he whispers, "But now that I have you like this, begging for more," Jihoon continues, his voice dripping with lust, "I never want to let you go." 

The admission sends a thrill of excitement coursing through you, knowing that Jihoon has been thinking about this moment just as much as you have. 

As Jihoon pumps his fingers inside you, you grip his forearm tightly, feeling the muscles flex beneath your touch. Your head spins with pleasure, and your stomach flutters with anticipation as he drives you closer and closer to the edge.

Every sensation is overwhelming, from the scent of his cologne to the intensity of his gaze, to the sound of his voice saying all those filthy things that send shivers down your spine. You're lost in a whirlwind of ecstasy, unable to think about anything except the pleasure coursing through your veins.

And then, just when you think you can't take any more, you feel yourself tensing, your pussy throbbing and clenching around Jihoon's fingers. He senses your impending release and curls his fingers inside you, sending you over the edge.

"And I promise," Jihoon murmurs, his lips brushing against your skin, "I'm going to make you feel so good, Y/n-nie. You won't be able to think about anything else but me."

You arch your back, a pornographic moan escaping your lips as you cum around his fingers, your juices coating his hand and forearm in a sticky mess. The intensity of your orgasm is overwhelming, leaving you breathless and trembling in Jihoon's arms.

"You're amazing," Jihoon continues, his voice low and sensual. "The way you moan, the way you tremble beneath my touch... It's driving me wild."

You can't help but blush at his words, feeling a surge of arousal coursing through you at the thought of Jihoon being so captivated by you. His praise is like a drug, intoxicating and addictive, and you find yourself craving more with each passing moment.

"Can I fuck this pretty pussy, hm?" Jihoon asks, his voice low and filled with desire, as he flips your clit with his thumb.

You gasp at the sensation, your breath catching in your throat as pleasure shoots through you. "Yes, please," you whisper, your voice thick with need.

Jihoon chuckles softly, a teasing glint in his eyes as he leans in closer, his lips brushing against your ear. "Are you sure you can handle it?" he murmurs, his breath hot against your skin.

You whimper at his words, feeling a surge of desire coursing through you. "Yes," you moan, your voice barely a whisper. "I want you to fuck me until I can't take it anymore."

As Jihoon's tip presses against your slit, you quiver with anticipation, feeling the wet folds parting to welcome him inside. His lips meet yours in a searing kiss, his tongue teasing yours as he guides his cock deeper inside you.

You moan into his mouth as he enters you fully, his length stretching you deliciously as he fills you completely. A gasp escapes Jihoon's lips as he sinks into you, the sensation overwhelming both of you with pleasure.

With his cock buried deep inside you, Jihoon opens his mouth in a gasp of ecstasy, his breath hot against your skin. You whimper at the sensation, feeling a surge of desire coursing through you as he bites your chin lightly, sending sparks of pleasure shooting through you.

As Jihoon moves inside of you, his hips rolling with a rhythm that drives you wild, you can't help but cling to him desperately, your hands finding purchase on his back as he fills you up so perfectly. The previous orgasm has left you sensitive and achingly aroused, making it easy for him to slide in and out of you with ease.

You look into his eyes, lost in the depths of his gaze, feeling a connection that transcends words. His necklace brushes against your face with each thrust, a reminder of his presence, grounding you in the reality of the moment.

Tears stream down your face, mingling with the pleasure and overwhelming sensation of having him finally inside you. It's not a dream – Jihoon is here, fucking you with a passion that leaves you breathless and shaking.

Your mouth hangs open in a silent cry of ecstasy as you surrender yourself completely to the pleasure, every movement of his hips sending waves of pleasure crashing over you. You hold onto him desperately, your nails digging into his skin as you ride the wave of sensation, knowing that this moment will stay with you forever.

As Jihoon's cock hits your G-spot, you arch your back in ecstasy, the pleasure overwhelming you as you cling to him desperately. He watches your reaction with a smirk, clearly enjoying the effect he's having on you.

But then, a sob escapes your lips, the intensity of the sensation bringing tears to your eyes. Jihoon hears your sob and responds by thrusting in the same way, driving you even closer to the edge of pleasure.

You sob even louder at the sensation, the pleasure so intense that it's almost unbearable. But Jihoon is there for you, cooing softly as he continues to move inside you, his touch bringing you both pleasure and comfort.

You call out his name, your words babbling as you try to express just how good it feels. "Jihoon, it's too good," you whimper, your voice thick with desire. "Too good..."

"Shh, it's okay," he murmurs, his lips brushing against your skin as he holds you close. "I've got you, Y/n-nie. Just let go and feel it."

As Jihoon turns you around and pushes your head onto the pillow, you let out a scream of pleasure, the intensity of his thrusts overwhelming your senses. With each movement of his hips, you feel yourself weakening, surrendering completely to the pleasure coursing through you.

Jihoon's thrusts are intense, his cock driving deep inside you with a ferocity that leaves you breathless. His hands tremble as he grabs onto you wherever he can, his moans mingling with yours.

And then, just when you think you can't take any more, you feel it – the tightening in your stomach, the trembling of your muscles as your pussy walls hug Jihoon's cock tight. He spasms with pleasure everytime you clench around him. 

As you feel the wave of pleasure building inside you, you grip the sheets and pillows tight, your body convulsing with the intensity of the sensation. Jihoon continues to thrust into you with the same relentless rhythm, driving you to the brink of ecstasy with each movement of his hips.

And then, it happens – you cum on his cock, your entire body trembling with the force of your release. A long, exasperated cry escapes your lips as you convulse around him, your pussy gushing with wetness as you ride the waves of pleasure.

Jihoon watches you in awe, his own desire reaching a fever pitch as he sees you spasming and creaming around his cock. He holds himself back with every ounce of willpower he has, determined to wait until you're fully satisfied before allowing himself to succumb to his own release.

But as he feels you tightening around him, the sensation driving him to the edge of control, he knows that he won't be able to hold out much longer. With a guttural groan, he lets go, his own climax crashing over him in a tidal wave.

As Jihoon rides out his climax, his cum mixing with yours as it drips from your pussy, the sound of the messy aftermath echoing around the room. You both collapse onto the bed, spent and breathless, the intensity of your orgasms still coursing through your veins.

The room is filled with the scent of sex and sweat, a tangible reminder of the passion that has consumed you both. But as you lie there together, wrapped in each other's arms, you feel a sense of contentment wash over you.

As Jihoon plays with your hair, breaking the comfortable silence that has settled between you, he asks softly, "Are you going to continue watching me play in the auditorium?"

You smile up at him, your heart fluttering at the thought of seeing him perform again. "Of course," you reply without hesitation. "I wouldn't miss it for the world."

Jihoon's eyes light up with a hint of mischief as he leans in closer, his breath warm against your skin. "Good," he says, his voice filled with determination. "But this time, I want you to be in the front row, not on the last chairs."

You can't help but blush at his words, feeling a surge of excitement at the thought of being so close to him while he performs. "I'd love that," you murmur, your heart pounding in anticipation.

[gunnerfc]

Consequences | Katie McCabe x Arsenal!Reader (18+)

Summary: Katie overhears you claiming to be the more dominant one in the bedroom and has to put you in your place

Warnings: semi-public sex (not the whole fic), edging, fingering (r receiving), teasing from Katie, strap use (r receiving), Katie calling r “good girl” and “slut”, strap sucking

WC: 2.7K

AN: posting this a bit later than I originally planned </3 

You were sat at a table in a loud pub with Steph, Lia, and Beth laughing at some of your teammates butcher a Taylor Swift song in a round of karaoke. Arsenal had just won the Conti Cup final and everyone decided that getting drinks and celebrating together was the best thing to do. You giggled to yourself watching Katie forget all the lyrics when it was her turn to sing, knowing it was definitely the alcohol she had consumed. 

Lia’s eye caught the love in your eyes as you stared at your girlfriend with a bright smile. “You and Katie are really cute! It’s sweet seeing how different she is off the pitch with you,” the midfielder all but shouted over the loud music. You tore your eyes from the group at the front of the room, Steph and Beth offering words of agreement with Lia.

You weren’t sure if it was the alcohol coursing through your veins, but you felt like being a bit messy. Perhaps scoring the winning goal was affecting you more than you thought. “Please, Katie is nothing like how she is on the pitch, you’d be surprised at what I could get her to do,” you smirked, throwing your teammates a teasing wink as you took a sip of your drink.

“That’s a bit surprising, you don’t have a commanding bone in your body, babe,” Beth laughed as she sipped her drink. You gasped dramatically at her words, earning a laugh from Steph and Lia as well. 

“Yeah, Y/N/N, you won’t even argue with a ref when you have the right to,” the Aussie added more insult to injury. You knew they were right, and you definitely knew Katie was the dominant one in your relationship, but hearing how your friends didn’t think you could be made you eager to continue the lie.

“I’ll have you three know that Katie is not the same person at home,” you huffed. While trying to convince your friends about something you knew to be untrue, you failed to realize your teammates who were doing karaoke had made their way back to the table. Others were still at the bar, chatting among themselves where they could actually hear each other.

None of you noticed the sly smirk on Katie’s face as she overheard your conversation. She found it entertaining that you thought you could be in charge in the bedroom, and it was even more comical that your teammates didn’t really believe you. 

“You good, babe,” Katie said as she took her seat next to you, a teasing glint in her eye when you jerked your head toward her. 

“Hi, baby! You sounded so good up there,” you knew she heard you just by the way she was looking at you and you knew she wouldn’t let you live it down. Katie laughed at your praises, you were in for it when the two of you got home. Though, a part of Katie wanted to tease you about your comments now, rather than wait. 

Katie waited until your teammates were distracted with new conversations before she leaned closer to whisper in your ear. “Meet me in the bathroom in a minute, love,” her accent laced with command, knowing you would listen. You nodded your head subtly as she stood from the table and headed towards the bathrooms. 

You let your teammates return to their conversations so they wouldn’t notice you were leaving the table as well. Your breathing picked up as you walked towards the bathroom, your heart was breathing against your chest as desire filled your body. You didn’t think Katie was going to be nice enough to give an orgasm so soon, but who were you to complain about your girlfriend making you cum.

The bathrooms were empty aside from the Ireland captain leaning against one of the stalls. The stall wasn’t the best size to do anything but seeing Katie’s smirk with a slight head tilt as she pushed the door in some, you didn’t care how small it was. You quickly entered the small cubicle, Katie joining you as she locked the stall, not that it really mattered. 

Before you could even plead your case, your girlfriend’s lips were on yours in a heated kiss. Your mouth moved against hers, Katie easily gaining dominance over you. You were grateful her lips were on yours as a loud moan threatened to escape your mouth. Katie’s hands held your waist tightly as she pushed you against the side of the stall. Your hands moved to wrap around her shoulders as your hips started rolling against her.

Katie pulled back when she felt your hips moving, her hands pushing you further against the siding to stop their movements. “What do you think you're doing, love,” she asked, fake confusion gracing her features. 

“Please, Katie! I’m sorry for lying to them, please just do something,” you whined lowly, hoping she would decide to be a bit nicer tonight. Katie laughed softly at your words, this was just the beginning for her. 

“Since you asked nicely,” she smirked as she moved one of her hands to the buttons on your jeans, easily undoing them without a second thought. Your heart was thumping against your chest in anticipation, waiting for her fingers to reach where you needed her most. 

You tilted your head back against the siding of the stall as Katie traced a finger over the top of your underwear leaving a blazing trail against your cool skin. You tried to jerk your hips forward but her hand that remained on your waist kept you from doing so. Just as you were about to beg again, Katie’s hand dipped under the waistband and ran up and down your dripping core.

The defender didn’t give you a warning before two of her fingers pushed into you. You had to control your volume as she moved her hand, thrusting lightly into you. Katie set a slow pace as she worked her fingers inside you and leaned forward to attach her lips to your exposed neck. One of your hands moved to tangle in her hair as she sucked harsh bruise-like marks along the side and column of your neck.

“Do ya enjoy this, you lyin’ slut,” she mumbled against your skin as kissed up toward your jaw. Your eyes rolled back at her words mixed with the agonizingly slow thrust of her fingers. You knew she wasn’t looking for an answer, she just wanted you to know your place. 

Begging for her to go fast would get you nowhere, knowing Katie she would stop altogether if you asked for more. Through heavy breaths and low moans, you focused on how close you were to coming. Katie could sense you were close, she’d given you enough orgasms to know how to read your body for signs. But she wasn’t going to let you off the hook that easy.

Just as you were about to cum, Katie pulled her fingers out of your tight cunt. You cried out at the loss of contact just as you were about to let go but Katie paid you mind as she redid the buttons on your jeans. As you opened your mouth to complain, her fingers that were previously inside you were shoved in your mouth. She didn’t have to tell you what to do as you sucked her fingers clean, moaning at the taste of yourself on them.

“Since you’re in a lying mood tonight, love, go tell the girls you don’t feel well and we’re gonna head home,” Katie ordered with a menacing smirk on her face as she pulled her fingers from your mouth. 

You didn’t speak, only nodding your head obediently. The quicker you could leave, the quicker you could get home and Katie would let you cum. Katie let go of your waist and moved so you could exit the stall first. You made your way back to the table a bit uncomfortably, you were beyond dripping and it was driving you crazy.

“Hey guys, I think we are gonna head out, I’m not feeling too good,” you spoke over the loud music, hoping you were convincing the team. A few of them made an ‘aw’ sound while others wished you well. Katie quickly waved goodbye to the team as you joined her at the entrance. You were in for a long car ride full of even more teasing.

When you reached Katie’s car she quickly opened the door for you, giving you a big grin when you got in the car. A minute later the two of you were off, heading back to your shared apartment. Katie had one hand on the steering wheel and the other held tightly to your thigh, squeezing it every so often.

“It’s not nice to lie to your friends, y’know,” the defender spoke, not even sparing you a glance. You took a deep breath as you prepared yourself for the remarks she was going to make.

“Not gonna respond, are we, love,” she chuckled as she stopped at a red light. Katie turned her head in your direction, watching your chest heave and your thighs attempting to rub against each other. She tightened her grip on your thigh, stopping you from succeeding in finding a bit of relief.

“I could,” you mumbled softly, “be in charge,” you finished with a deep breath. The lack of contact where you needed it most was getting to you and you weren’t sure how long you could last whenever Katie decided to finally give in.

Katie laughed sarcastically at your words as the light turned green and she took off. “You heard Steph if you can’t argue with a ref when you should, what makes you think you’d be able to boss me around,” the Ireland captain taunted with a grin.

You knew she was right but a small part of you believed that you could if you were given the chance. Though tonight would not be that night. The rest of the car was silent, Katie’s hand stayed on your thigh and you felt yourself growing wetter by the second.

You said a silent thank you when you pulled up to your apartment building, thankful that you were a bit closer to an orgasm. You and Katie rode the elevator in silence, both of you going over what was about to happen when you got inside your apartment. 

Katie quickly unlocked the door and you were pulled inside at lightning speed. Your back met the door roughly once it was closed and Katie’s lips were on yours once again. She easily won control of the kiss, you were too desperate to fight her. You let your girlfriend guide you through the apartment, her lips never leaving yours. 

When you reached the bedroom is when you were given the chance to breathe again. Katie pulled back from you before she all but shoved you toward the bed. “Be a good girl and strip,” her strong voice echoed around the room and she didn’t bother to watch as she moved toward the nightstand to get the girthy strap she liked to use when she deemed you to be ‘bad,’ 

You quickly got out of your clothes, tossing them wherever you could. You stood at the foot of the bed, naked and ready for the next order from the defender. Katie took her time taking off her own clothes and getting the toy situated around her hips. When she was done, she joined you at the foot of the bed while her eyes took in your naked form.

“Knees,” was all she ordered and you dropped to the carpeted floor. Katie held the toy near the end, holding it up toward your mouth and without needing further instruction, you took the toy into your mouth. 

You hollowed your cheeks as you sucked, taking the toy as far as you could before you started gagging. Katie had her hands in your hair while she rocked her hips forward, helping the toy go further down your throat. You were dripping down your thighs, and having Katie fuck your throat was affecting you greatly.

After a few minutes, Katie let go of your hair as she pulled the toy from your mouth. A string of saliva connecting your lips to the toy drew a deep groan from the woman standing above you. You waited on your knees for your girlfriend to tell you what to do before she motioned to the end of the bed.

You moved off the floor quickly as you lay on the bed, letting your legs dangle off the end. Katie used her foot to kick your legs open and you moaned lowly at the cool feeling on your wet cunt. Katie moved in between your legs and pulled them up to wrap around her waist. 

The defender ran the tip of the toy through your folds, teasingly pushing it in a little bit. You whined at the feeling, it wasn’t enough and if something didn’t happen soon you were going to cum around nothing. Katie lined the toy up with your cunt before she pushed it in, using her hips to push it further into you. Her hands held your hips tightly and she didn’t waste any time before her hips snapped against yours.

Your hands held the top cover in a tight grip, your knuckles turning white as loud moans spilled from your lips. Katie’s movements didn’t start slow, she immediately started pounding into you quickly. “Good girls don’t lie, bad sluts do. Are you a bad slut,” your girlfriend questioned as her skin hit yours.

You couldn’t formulate a sentence, high-pitched moans were too busy escaping your mouth. Katie squeezed your hips as she angled her hips slightly to hit that familiar spot inside you. A loud gasp echoed off the walls at the feeling, if she kept hitting that spot you were going to be coming soon. 

“I-I’m sorry! I’ll be a good girl! P-please let me cum,” you croaked out in between moans, tears falling down the sides of your face. 

“I don’t think you deserve to cum,” Katie said as she moved one of her hands to push down on your lower stomach. Your moans turned to cries as you felt an orgasm about to wash over you. 

“P-please, Katie! Let me cum,” you cried out as the familiar coil in your stomach started to break. You tried to hang on as long as possible, knowing if you came without permission, you were going to get punished for it.

Katie’s movements sped up as she pushed down on your stomach and held on tightly to your hip. She kept a steady pace as the sound of her skin slapping against yours and the wet sounds of your dripping cunt filled the room. Katie wanted to make you suffer for lying to your friends but the sight of you fucked out and coming was something she couldn’t pass up.

“Be a good girl and cum for me,” the defender growled, eyes locked on your face watching your expression as you let go.

Your orgasm sent shockwaves through you as your back arched off the bed and your head was thrown back. You came all over the toy attached to Katie’s hips but that didn’t stop her movements. She kept her pace the same as was determined to pull another orgasm from you. 

You cried at the overstimulation but the cries quickly turned to moans at the feeling of being full. Your second orgasm of the night hit you quickly, cum dripping down both your and Katie’s thighs. Katie slowed her movements, letting you calm down for a minute before pulling out of you completely and unwrapping your legs from her body. 

“Move up the bed and roll over, baby. We aren’t through yet,” Katie huffed out, she was going to show you just how wrong you were. 

You took a second to catch your breath before following her orders. You knew it was silly to lie to your friends over something like this but if it meant having Katie treat you like and having multiple earth-shattering orgasms back to back, then you couldn’t be too upset that she overheard you. You had a long night and felt every bit of it the next morning, but you were far from complaining about being sore.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 1: Welcome To A New Kind Of Tension]

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes, Jace is here unfortunately.

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “American Idiot” by Green Day.

Word count: 5.1k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

“What do you think, should we kill ourselves now or later?” Rio is spinning his Beretta M9 around on his index finger. This is not advisable. He doesn’t care.

Your hands are gripping the skeletal latticework of the transmission tower, steel hot enough to burn you; no electricity hums in the power lines suspended above your heads. Your eyes are on the horizon, golden June sunlight over fields no one has planted. Weeds are growing up through the earth, feral and defiantly useless, reclaiming their land just like the deer are, and the rabbits and the opossums and the turtles and the squirrels and the doves. The reign of humanity is over. Now you’re prey animals too. “Let’s wait.”

“For what?”

“Maybe someone will save us.”

“Ain’t nobody coming, Chips!” Rio says. “We’re a hundred feet off the ground in the middle of nowhere, motherfucking Catawissa, Pennsylvania, and we haven’t run into anyone since that Amish family back in Lightstreet, and I wouldn’t count on them driving by in their horse and buggy to pick us up.”

“We’re about sixty feet off the ground.”

“Okay, Bob the Builder, why don’t you whip up a helicopter or something to get us out of here?” Rio’s M9 has one bullet left in it, yours has three, nowhere near enough. At the bottom of the tower is a swarm of fifty-four zombies; you’ve counted them twice. There are no cute euphemisms: walkers, biters, the infected. They were once people and now they’re not. They wear the vestiges of their former lives, like how those who believe in reincarnation see meaning in birthmarks: here you were stabbed, there you were kissed by your true love. They lurch and snarl and hiss in their professional attire, college t-shirts, Vans and Jordans, septum piercings, wedding rings. They decompose in a miasma of metallic blood and spoiled meat. Parker had been the last one to the transmission tower, and they grabbed him by the legs. Now they’re chewing the gristle off his bones: disconnected ligaments that swing like strands of cobwebs, scarlet threads of muscle. “Oh shit,” Rio says, looking down. “We’ve got a smart one.”

Most zombies don’t have the fine motor skills to climb, swim, or open doors, but every once in a while—just like out of every 5,000 or 10,000 or however many ordinary humans you’ll pull the lever on the genetic slot machine and get a Picasso or a kid who can score a 1600 on the SATs—you run into an overachiever. This zombie, a teenage boy with red hair and a blue plaid shirt, is slowly scaling the tower. He’s already ten feet off the ground.

Rio aims his M9, semiautomatic, packs a punch but won’t break your arm with the recoil. “Fuck off, Ed Sheeran!” He fires and misses; the bullet grazes the boy’s shoulder. He groans dramatically and asks you in defeat: “Will you take care of that, please?”

You pull your pistol out of your holster and lean away from the tower to get a better angle, holding onto the scaffolding with one hand. You feel Rio’s large fingers close around your wrist, ready to yank you back if you slip. You click off the safety with your thumb, peer through the front sight, aim and wait until you’re sure. It’s a headshot: shards of skull ricochet off steel beams, half-rotten brains spray out in a mist. The carcass plummets to the earth.

“All this horror, all this catastrophe.” Rio’s eyes, dark like a mineshaft, drift mischievously back to you. “We could…distract each other.”

He’s not serious; this is a game you play. “No thanks.”

“You don’t want to die a virgin.”

“I do if you’re the only other person up here.”

“You deny a condemned man his final wish?”

“We’re not dying,” you insist. “What about Sophie?”

“Sophie would understand given the circumstances. She would want me to be happy.”

“What if we have sex and then immediately thereafter get rescued? You’d be a cheater. You’d be consumed by guilt. You’d never be able to take me back to your parents’ doomsday prepper cult commune in bumblefuck Oregon to wait out the apocalypse in peace.”

“You’re going to appreciate those doomsday preppers when you’re eating Chef Boyardee out of a can instead of shuffling around as a reanimated corpse.”

“Yeah, I’m sure I will,” you muse. “So you agree we’re going to get off this tower somehow.”

Rio sighs and whistles a morose tune: what a shame. “You should have gone out with that Marine at Corpus Christi.”

You frown, repentant, wistful. There’s nothing on the horizon except fields and trees and black storm clouds of crows taking flight. “I was afraid of making a mistake.”

“And now look at you. About to die as pure as Pope Francis.”

“How did this happen?! We’re not idiots, we’re goddamn professionals!” You re-holster your M9. You’re still wearing your uniforms from when you went AWOL, stealing away from Saratoga Springs like rats from a sinking ship.

“I’ll tell you exactly how this happened. You let that loser Parker come with us even though I knew it was a bad idea—”

“I couldn’t just leave him there! He started crying!”

“And he had one job, which was to check the oil in the Humvee, and clearly he failed because…” Rio glances at his watch. “Approximately four hours ago, the engine started smoking and the whole thing died on us, so we had to get out and walk, like we’re pioneers or some shit, and then that hoard down there came out of nowhere, and the only place left to go was up. Freaking Parker. I could murder that guy.” An awkward pause. “I mean, the zombies beat me to it. But still.”

“He had two jobs. He was also carrying the extra ammo.”

“Don’t remind me.” Rio isn’t messing around with his M9 anymore. He’s contemplating it as the sun hovers just past noon, hot and shadowless. “How many bullets do you have left?”

“Two.”

“Good. Don’t use them.”

You look at him, this man you’ve known for over four years, this man you’ve traveled the world with. You’ve already gone so much farther than Oregon together. How is it possible that what was once a six hour flight is now a month-long journey that might kill you? “It’s not over yet, Rio.”

“Remember what you promised me.”

His hushed voice in the moonlit indigo of the Humvee the night you left Saratoga Springs: Don’t let me die alone. “We’re going to be okay. We’re going to make it to Oregon.” Then you grin, sweltering summer air breathing over you, humid, heavy, the screeching of insects in the trees. “But if it comes to that, I’d be happy to shoot you first.”

Rio smiles as the zombies below growl and claw at the steel framework of the transmission tower. Flesh peels off their fingers until you can see the gore-stained white of their bones. “Don’t miss.”

“I rarely do.”

“Do you have any more packs of Cheddar Whales in your pockets or—?” He cuts off as he spots something in the distance. His eyes go wide, his jaw drops open. “What…what is that?!”

It’s an SUV, massive, dark blue, rumbling across the field in a dust storm of displaced earth. It’s headed straight towards you. There is someone standing up through the sunroof, short dark hair that whips wildly in the wind, binoculars. You can hear the engine revving and, faintly, Kanye West’s Gold Digger. As the SUV nears the tower, Sunroof Kid ducks inside and closes the hatch.

Rio explodes into hysterical, rapturous laughter. “Oh my God, we’re saved! We’re not going to die up here! Oh, thank you, Jesus, thank you. I’m never going to jack off on Sundays again.”

The SUV, still accelerating, plows through the mob of zombies. Severed limbs go flying; bones crunch and snap. There’s a woman driving, you can see now through the slightly tinted windows. She puts the monstrous vehicle and reverse and does another pass. Zombies paw futilely at the sides of the SUV, a Chevy Tahoe, as it turns out. They smack their open, soggy palms on the windows; they gnaw and lick at the bumpers and the wheel wells. The Tahoe circles to regain speed, the engine growling, a bear, a dragon, and barrels into the remaining ambulatory zombies. The hoard is now largely incapacitated. Rio is cheering and clapping his hands.

The Tahoe’s doors open, and your rescuers appear. There are two men wielding baseball bats: one with long dark curly hair, the other tall and blonde, and there’s something wrong with his face, the left side, though you are too far away to see clearly. They move rapidly through the battlefield of felled, moaning bodies, swinging their bats and crushing skulls. There’s another blonde guy, shorter, softer, pink with sunburn, wearing plastic sunglasses and a teal polo with a popped collar. He’s spinning a golf club in his right hand. He is followed out of the Tahoe by one last blonde, spindly and swift, stalking the perimeter with a compound bow, a quiver of arrows secured to his belt. Rio is singing along to Gold Digger, drumming his fists on the steel beams.

“Now, I ain’t sayin’ you a gold digger, you got needs

You don’t want a dude to smoke, but he can’t buy weed

You go out to eat, he can’t pay, y’all can’t leave

There’s dishes in the back, he gotta roll up his sleeves…”

The driver wriggles out of the Tahoe with some difficulty; she is seven or eight months pregnant. “Stay in the car,” Madame Driver tells someone inside as she slams the door shut. She’s holding a hammer and sets about euthanizing the zombies still squirming on the ground and gnashing their cracked teeth at her.

Golf Club says: “Jace, bro, that’s so embarrassing. You’re gonna let her do that?”

Curly—or, rather, Jace—shrugs. “Exercise is good for the baby.”

All three blondes respond at once in a chorus of appalled disapproval. Interestingly, your rescuers have British accents. From within the Tahoe, someone turns off the CD player. This is wise; noise tends to attract more zombies. Madame Driver, unaffected, puts her hammer through the eye socket of a former Arby’s employee.

Jace flings back: “She likes helping! It would be sexist to tell her she’s not allowed to!”

The Scarred Man looks up at you and Rio and salutes, two fingers glanced off his forehead. You begin climbing down the scalding rungs of the transmission tower to meet them.

“Oh fuck, Aemond, you gotta deal with this,” Golf Club says. He is holding a yowling zombie at arm’s length by the straps of its overalls. It’s tiny, maybe a kindergartener. “You know I can’t kill the little kid ones.”

The Scarred Man, Aemond, turns to him. He’s wearing a maroon Harvard University t-shirt. “You have to learn how to do things yourself. I might not always be around.”

Golf Club scoffs. “As if I’d outlive you.”

“Go on. You can do it,” Aemond says. Behind him, more people are emerging from the Chevy Tahoe: Binoculars Buddy, a slight girl with shifting, watchful eyes, a blonde woman in a billowing sundress and with a burlap messenger bag slung over one shoulder.

Golf Club is still struggling. “Aw, Aemond, man, he’s got light-up sneakers!”

Jace strides over irritably. “Aegon, you’re so fucking useless…” He kicks the miniature zombie to the dirt, raises his bloodied baseball bat, and brings it down on a skull that disintegrates like an overripe Halloween pumpkin. “You’re welcome.”

“Get bit, you poodle.”

Rio hits the ground first, his boots thumping against untamed earth. Aemond sets his baseball bat aside and reaches out to offer assistance as you dangle from a white-hot steel beam. “No,” Rio tells him roughly. “Back up.”

Aemond shows his palms and complies, retreating several paces. Rio helps you down. Now you can see Aemond’s face perfectly. There’s a relatively fresh wound running down the left half of his face, the violent red of burgeoning scar tissue, clear stitches; his eye has been sutured shut. But that’s not why you’re staring at him. His other eye is a focused, hypnotic blue, his short blonde hair disheveled. He keeps touching his chin, a nervous tick. Immediately, there’s something you like about him. He gives you the impression of someone who has gotten very good at hiding how afraid he is. Aemond looks away from your gaze, thinking you’re horrified by his injury. Then, reluctantly, he comes back. There’s forbidden temptation the lines of his ravaged face, a curiosity, a hesitation.

“Thank you for saving us,” you say to your rescuers, tearing your attention from Aemond. It’s not easy. “That was really, really cool of you, and we know you didn’t have to do it. So thanks.”

“Yeah,” Rio adds. “Sorry your Tahoe is covered in guts now.”

Aemond turns to confer silently with his companions, then asks you: “Where are you headed?”

“Odessa, Oregon.”

He nods. “We’re going to California.”

“NorCal,” Jace says, holding his baseball bat across his shoulders. “Bay Area.”

“Are you two together?” Aegon asks.

“Yeah,” Rio says, misunderstanding the question.

“Not like that,” you clarify. “He has a wife and baby, that’s what’s in Oregon.”

“So you’re single,” Aegon says, grinning toothily. His fellow travelers—family? friends? classmates? a combination thereof?—grumble and roll their eyes.

“Um, I mean, yeah, technically…?”

“Aemond’s also single,” Madame Driver informs you, relishing the chaos.

“He’s single but deformed and traumatized,” Aegon says. “I am mentally uninjured.”

You chuckle awkwardly. Your eyes, by their own volition, flick back to Aemond. He peers down at the ground then up at you again, smiling, a little sheepish, a little wicked.

Aegon groans, swinging his golf club around. “Man, come on.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Aemond replies.

“No, it’s just right there, all over your fucked up face.”

Madame Driver feigns a sympathetic frown at Aegon. “How sad. Guess you won’t have anyone to give your syphilis to.”

“I don’t have syphilis,” Aegon tells you. Then, to the others: “I can’t be the only single guy! It’s pathetic!”

“I’m single,” Archery Team says brightly.

“You’re like twelve. You don’t count.”

“I’m seventeen!”

“Are you Army?” Aemond asks you and Rio.

“Navy,” Rio replies. “We were stationed at Saratoga Springs in upstate New York.”

Aemond is fascinated. “You’re deserters?”

“What are you gonna do about it, Brit Boy?” Rio says. Aemond blinks at him. Aegon cackles, drawing huge circles in the air with his golf club.

“Everyone’s deserting,” you explain diplomatically.

“They were going to evacuate the base and send everyone left into New York City,” Rio says. “Fuck that, we’d heard things, we weren’t about to go on some suicide mission. We weren’t even in a combat unit for Christ’s sake, we’re Seabees.”

“You’re what?” Aemond asks, puzzled.

“We do construction. That’s why we were still at the base. If they’re putting us on the front lines, the situation is truly desperate. I’m not going in the meatgrinder. I’m not gonna be like those Hitler Youth kids sent to Russia.”

Aegon is squinting behind his sunglasses, truly lost. “Huh?”

“We should go west together,” Aemond suggests. He’s attempting to sound casual.

“I thought we didn’t want to travel with strangers, Aemond,” Jace says pointedly, mocking him. “I thought they couldn’t be trusted, Aemond. I thought they might slit our throats and steal our Tahoe in the dead of night, Aemond.”

“We’re useful!” Rio bargains. “We can shoot things!”

Aegon is very confused. “I thought you did construction.”

“Everyone has to go through basic training,” Aemond tells him impatiently, watching you.

“She got the Marksmanship Medal,” Rio says, grinning, proud.

“A lot of people get that,” you demur immediately.

“We can give you guys weapons training,” Rio continues. “You seem…like you probably don’t know about guns. Like you read a lot of books.” He gestures to Aegon. “Except that one.”

Aegon snickers, unoffended, still swinging his golf club around. “I don’t read books. I read maps.”

“Okay, lets do it,” Aemond says. “We’ll stick together across the Midwest and split up before we get to the Pacific. That puts us at ten people, and there’s safety in numbers.”

“Why do you get to make all the decisions?!” Jace demands. “Who signed that fucking contract? I didn’t consent to those terms.”

“Because that’s what Criston told us the last time the phones worked,” Aegon replies smugly. “He said Aemond’s in charge. So he is. If you want to find your way to California on your own, you’re welcome to try.”

“Who’s Criston?” you ask.

“Our fake dad,” Aegon says.

“Oh, your stepdad?”

“No, our mom is still married to our dad, he just sucks.”

“He does suck,” Archery Team confirms.

Rio tells you: “Hey, Chips, you’re standing in a torso.”

“Am I?” You look down. Your boots are buried to the ankles in the rotting gore of a bare midsection with only one limp arm still attached. You step out of it and shake off the bits of decomposing organs. “Gnarly. Thanks.” You spot Parker’s backpack containing the extra ammunition, pick it up out of the dirt, and throw it over your shoulders.

“Chips?” Aemond says. “Like…chocolate chips?”

“No, like woodchips. I’m a carpenter. I mean, I was a carpenter, I guess. That’s what I did in the Navy. Some people call the carpenters Chips.”

“I was an electrician,” Rio says. “So clearly, now that all the power is down, that turned out to be a fantastic career path.” Then he formally introduces himself. “Hi everyone, I’m Rio.”

Aegon perks up. “Oh, like the Rio Grande.”

Rio pretends to be scandalized. “Wow, racist.”

“So racist,” you agree.

Aegon’s chubby pink face fills with horror. “No, wait, I didn’t…um…”

Rio laughs and taps the nametag on his chest, black letters stitched over green camouflage: Osorio.

“His first name’s Bryan,” you say. “But no one calls him that.”

“My mom calls me Bryan. Sophie calls me Bryan.”

Aemond points at his companions, one after the other. “That’s my brother Aegon and my sister Helaena. Jace and Luke are our cousins. Then Baela and Rhaena are their girlfriends. Well, Baela…she’s kind of a fiancée. But there’s no official ring yet.”

Jace says: “Unfortunately, all the jewelry stores were looted on account of the apocalypse.”

“And I’m Daeron,” Archery Team says buoyantly, waving. Then he shields his eyes as he notices something at the edge of the field. “Oh, guys…?”

There are zombies approaching with clumsy, staggering strides, only a few now, but more will follow. That’s the thing; they are in seemingly endless supply. It’s easy to get too comfortable with them, to think of them as slow and mindless, even comical, even pitiful. But they can surprise you. And it only takes one bite to become just like them.

“Time to return to the Tahoe,” Baela announces, waddling towards the driver’s seat. Rhaena climbs in the passenger’s side. The rest of you pile into the back. The SUV has nine seats; Aegon crouches on the floor without being asked to. He’s unfolding a map he pulled from the pocket of his salmon-colored shorts and laying it flat across Rio’s knees so everyone can see. Baela turns the key in the ignition and the Tahoe rumbles to life. You spot a few red gas cans under the seats. If you can’t find more when that runs out—siphoning it out of other vehicles, stumbling across a gas station that is miraculously not drained dry—you’ll be walking, biking, or skateboarding to the West Coast. Or embracing the Amish lifestyle with a horse and buggy.

“We were planning to swing by Fort Indiantown Gap,” you tell Aemond. He twists around in his seat to look at you, that absorbed crystalline blue gaze. “That’s where we were headed before our Humvee broke down. It’s a National Guard Training Center. It’s probably cleaned out like everywhere else, but if it’s not…we might be able to find some guns and ammo there.”

“Where is it?”

“An hour south of here, just outside of Harrisburg.”

Baela is watching Aemond in the rearview mirror. He gives her a nod. “How do I get there?” Baela asks you.

“South on Route 42. Did you see the signs on your way in…?”

“Yup. Got it.” Baela steers the Tahoe across the field, kicking up a vortex of parched soil. She intentionally runs down four zombies before swerving left onto a two-lane road. Then she turns up the volume on the CD player: War Pigs by Black Sabbath. “It’s a mixtape,” she informs you.

Aegon points to southcentral Pennsylvania on a map of the United States of America, highway arteries and local route veins. “We’re here,” he says, sliding around on the floor of the Tahoe as Baela drives. His index finger traces the path; it’s a precarious balance between avoiding the most heavily populated areas and still having access to the necessary trappings of civilization: supplies to scavenge, roads to follow, buildings to take shelter in. “We’ll stop by Fort Indiantown Gap and then head northwest, thread the needle between Pittsburgh and Cleveland, stay south of Detroit and Chicago, cut across Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, that top part of Utah, then go our separate ways in Nevada. Oh my God, it’s just like the Oregon Trail! Do you guys remember that game?! Fording rivers, getting dysentery, hunting bison to extinction?” He starts humming the theme song.

Jace smirks, chomping on a Twizzler. “Hope you don’t die of a snakebite or something. That’d be awful.”

Aegon ignores him and refolds the map. “Rio! Fuck, marry, kill. The last three first ladies before Biden.”

Rhaena says, exasperated: “Aegon, you have to stop asking people that. It’s inappropriate.”

“Oh, easy,” Rio replies. “I’m fucking Laura Bush.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Aegon gives him a high five.

“And then I have to marry Michelle.”

“You gotta.”

“Which means Melania gets the grape Flavor Aid.”

“It’s the only logical answer.”

“I’d fuck Melania,” Jace says.

“Of course you would, you sick, sick man,” Aegon mutters, rolling down a window and sticking his head out like a golden retriever, his sunglasses still on, his blonde hair flapping in the wind. There’s a tattoo in black ink on his forearm, you notice for the first time: It’s not over ‘til you’re underground.

~~~~~~~~~~

Fort Indiantown Gap is a ghost town like a gold seam emptied, an oil well run dry, a collapsed coal mine. There’s no central armory but instead a series of arms rooms, one for each unit. Every single scrap of lethal metal is gone: no pistols, no rifles, no grenade launchers or machine guns, no ammo, not even pocketknives, although you do find clean PT uniforms for you and Rio to change into, t-shirts and running shorts and sneakers. Clothes are surprisingly difficult to acquire now. Most stores have either been looted or overrun by zombies, and Amazon is tragically no longer delivering. You can break into houses that seem abandoned, but then you have to hope the people who lived there just so happened to be your size and also aren’t waiting inside to eat you. It’s not usually a wise gamble.

You study Aemond and his companions as you move through the base clearing buildings, you and Rio with loaded M9s in your holsters and clutching borrowed baseball bats; gunshots are best avoided if possible so as not to attract unwanted attention. Aemond and Jace take point, almost always; Aegon hovers on Aemond’s blind left side, wagging his golf club around, occasionally slapping Aemond’s shoulder to remind him he’s there. Daeron prowls at the back and on the periphery. Baela pretends she isn’t struggling to keep up. Luke and Rhaena are the lookouts. Helaena fills her burlap messenger bag with small treasures you don’t even notice her accumulating: bottles of Advil, batteries, lighters, pens, tweezers, Band-Aids, Uno cards. You encounter only three zombies, easily decommissioned. Fort Indiantown Gap must have been evacuated weeks ago. You wonder what pointless battles her soldiers died in. Everyone knows the dead have won.

What the abandoned base lacks in weaponry it makes up for in food. You find a chow hall with an untouched kitchen, a wealth of shelf-stable delicacies: chili, saltine crackers, applesauce, fruit cocktail with bright red gems of cherries, peanut butter, strawberry jelly, green beans, carrots, peas, beets, tuna fish, chicken noodle soup. You feast—a Thanksgiving, a Last Supper—then settle into the barracks next door as the sun begins to set. There are plenty of bunkbeds and a closet full of pillows and sheets. Someone always has to be up to keep watch; Daeron and Jace immediately go to sleep so they can get some rest before they are shaken awake sometime around 2 or 3 a.m. Baela says she’s going to lie down for a minute and almost immediately begins snoring. Helaena makes silent amendments in her notebook; she keeps an inventory of everything the group has, needs, or wants.

Outside, Rio and Aegon are engaged in a spirited game of Uno. Luke is sitting cross-legged on the roof of the Tahoe with his binoculars. Rhaena is beside him softly reading a book out loud: The Hunger Games. Aemond is on a wooden bench on the front porch of the barracks, watching the sun sink into the west. When he notices you, he seems pleased. “Hi.”

“Hi. I’m sorry we wasted your gas to come here.”

“No, it was a good idea. It was worth a shot. And now we have a safe place to sleep tonight.” His eye drops lower, his scarred brow crinkles in concern. “What happened to your hands?”

“My hands?” In the haze of the adrenaline, you didn’t even notice. Your palms are blistered, swollen and stinging. “Oh. It was the transmission tower. The steel beams got really hot while we were up there. I’ll be okay.”

“Let me bandage them. You don’t want to get an infection.”

“Really, I’m fine, I shouldn’t inconvenience—”

“Sit down,” Aemond insists. You take a seat on the bench while he goes to the Tahoe to fetch a black nylon bag about the size of a briefcase. Rio casts you a furtive, crafty grin. It’s nothing, you mouth back, more to convince yourself than him. Your pulse is thudding in your ears; your cheeks are warm. You haven’t felt like this since you almost agreed to go on a date with that Marine you met at Corpus Christi, where your battalion had been dispatched to build a series of new airplane hangars. Aemond returns to the bench and begins wiping down your palms with antiseptic. “Sorry if this stings.”

It does, but you’re grateful for the distraction. “It isn’t too bad.”

“You’re not from Oregon.” He’s noticed your accent.

“Kentucky,” you confess.

“You aren’t making a stop at home before traveling west?”

“Why would I want to go back there?”

Aemond looks at you uncertainly; he can’t tell if you’re joking. You like the way his voice goes quiet when it’s just the two of you. You like the way he barely shows his teeth when he talks, like he’s keeping secrets.

After a moment, as the sky begins to turn to orange and pink and lilac, you continue. “People join the Army for a paycheck and a place to sleep, free college, health insurance. People join the Marines to prove they’re the best. People join the Air Force because they want to be in the military but think they’re too smart for grunt work. And people join the Navy to get away from home. I wanted to get far, far, far away.”

Aemond smiles. “Are you far enough yet?” He doesn’t mean by miles. He means the fact that the world will never be the same. Now he’s coating your hands in a thick white ointment, cool and blissful.

“I was afraid of so many things, and now none of them matter.”

“We all have brand new things to be afraid of.” He gets a roll of gauze and begins to wrap your palms, careful to keep your fingers and thumbs unencumbered.

“Aemond?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened to your face?”

He shrugs. He’s trying not to be resentful about it; he can’t change it anyway. “We were scavenging supplies from a Home Depot. We had to board up the house and wait until things…got quieter and it was safe to travel out of Boston.” And by got quieter, he means that the initial wave passed, the zombies began to wander out of the cities and disperse, the survivors were hunkered down and not participating in gunfights or Vikings-style pillaging in the streets. “A piece of sheet metal fell on me from the top shelf. Aegon and Jace dragged me home, they thought I was dying.”

“I’m glad you weren’t. Who treated it?”

“I did.”

You can’t disguise your shock. “You…you stitched up your own face?”

He smirks, finishing the bandages on your hands. “I was in medical school before all this.”

“You’re a doctor?”

“I was an intern. So definitely not a doctor, but the closest thing to one I had access to. And I had taken some things from the hospital when everything went to hell. So I got a little mirror, and I lidocained myself very generously, and I started suturing.”

You don’t know what to say. His eye?? He stitched his eye shut?? “I mean…you did a great job.”

“I’m aware I look like Frankenstein, but I guess it’s better than not being here at all.”

“No, seriously. You look amazing, Aemond.”

He stares at you, bewildered. You realize how bizarre it must sound. You both start laughing as Aemond packs his supplies back into his medical kit. He touches his fingertips to his chin a few times—restless, meditative—then stands to return inside the barracks. “I’m…going to go check on Helaena.”

“Yeah. Cool. See ya.” You don’t watch him leave. This takes intentional effort.

Seconds pass anonymously: no time you need to be anywhere, nothing late, nothing early, no television premiers, no football games, no State Of The Unions, no time zones to do mental math over. You aren’t even sure what day it is. The earth has erased your invisible prisons. Now all that remain are the real ones: weather, terrain, disease, predators.

There is the creaking of weight on the porch steps. You warn him: “I’m not interested in your commentary.”

Rio winks as he says: “Maybe you won’t die a virgin after all.”

[heavenbarnes]

Run the pass

Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto x GN!Reader x Sydney Adamu

Warnings/Contains: reader is gender-neutral (no pronouns or descriptions of their genitals), swearing, allusions to alcohol, brief and non-descriptive mentions of vomiting, Claire exists, reader doesn't necessarily treat Syd the way she deserves, penetrative sex (with no mentions of protection), oral sex (reader and Syd receiving), coming inside, dirty talk.

Word Count: 7k

I have had this idea in my head for an AGE and I'm so glad I finally get to write it. In my head, the threesome didn't happen but I think it was a lovely addition. God, I just need these two like water.

This kitchen sounds like home.

Sure, there's a whirring noise coming from the walk in chiller. Sure, Richie is going waxing-lyrical at Fak over the score of some ball game. Sure, the grill spits like a dragon at the gates of doom.

But this kitchen sounds like home.

It's full of flavour, and friends, and- well, Carmy's in it.

You can only see the back of him, the white t-shirt stretched across his shoulders. You can see the backs of his arms moving as he plates the next meal. But it makes you smile, just inwardly, as you fold the mixture in the steel bowl in front of you.

When you look up again, Sydney's beside him. She's pushing another plate towards him and they're shoulder to shoulder. They work so perfectly in-sync that your smile widens.

Tina catches it, nudging you with her hip as she walks past you. "Wish somebody would look at me like that."

You just shake your head, putting it down to focus on your food in front of you as you keep working. By the time you pick your head back up, you see that Carmy's looking back at you over his shoulder.

Looking into Carmy's eyes is like staring into the sun, all consuming and a little blinding. If it'd been any different, you would've seen Sydney watching you over his other shoulder.

-

Carmy is a good boss, he's firm but fair. Firm but fair.

Working in his kitchen is one of the best gigs that ever fell in your lap. He wasn't even the one to hire you, go figure.

His brother, Michael, he hired you. You'd come in to put your name in the running for the kitchen-hand position they were advertising for. He saw something different.

That's how you ended up working the register.

Not exactly what you had in mind when you'd applied at the restaurant but, money is money and it was nearly impossible to find a job in this city. Also, Michael had told you that once folks walked past and saw you in the front window? Customers would come running.

You figured it wasn't worth the argument, and who knows? Maybe you could've impressed him enough to make your way into the kitchen.

Then things went and changed on you, Michael up and made his big decision and here you were on the register with his younger brother running the kitchen you so badly wanted to break into.

Carmy needed to find his feet in this place, understand how the sausage gets made. So you didn't fuss about your role, it was easier to let things lie as they were and maybe bring it up later on.

It wasn't even you that brought it up, it was Sydney.

"God knows we need more help in the kitchen but no, let's keep the register covered!" She threw up her hands with an exasperated groan.

Carmy's face scrunched in confusion, looking towards the wall as if he could somehow see through it and visualise you out the front.

He spoke your name like a question, one that Sydney was very quick to answer.

"Carmy, please tell me you're not serious?" She even laughed a little as she picked up the cloth on her shoulder and threw it at the man. "Have you two even spoken once?"

And then it was Carmy that finally brought it up with you, calling you into his office as he heard you getting ready to leave for the night.

You poked your head into the small room and smiled at him. "Yes, chef?"

He waved you in, turning his seat around till he was facing you. Carmy was hunched over, obviously tired with his elbows resting on his knees.

"Why didn't you tell me you graduated from Kendall?"

Your mouth suddenly felt dry, eyes going wide like you'd been caught out in some kind of lie. You hadn't really lied, had you? Just maybe not told him the whole truth.

"Well, I-uh-" You stuttered your way through, hoping he'd just give up and drop it.

Carmy was a surprisingly patient man.

Your voice could hardly be called more than a whisper as you spoke. "I told Michael."

Confusion was written on his face as his brow furrowed. "What?"

"He just thought I'd be better as front of house, thought maybe the customers would enjoy something nice to look at."

Carmy felt his eye twitch, his elbows nearly shattered his femurs as he his whole body went rigid. "Excuse me?"

He wasn't even sure why he'd asked that last part, it wasn't like he was listening. As you babbled away in the doorway, all Carmy could hear was the blood rushing in his ears.

Michael had said what? From the moment Carmy laid eyes on you he had wished nobody else could. He didn't want a single person to be able to look at you the way he did, he wanted you all to himself.

And his older brother was happy to let any of the bastards off the street look you up and down through the front window? He actually encouraged it?

Carmy stood up quickly, maybe too quickly, he felt like his head was spinning off his shoulders. As his heart nearly burst out his chest he realised what he needed. Keeping his head low, he turned to look at you and suddenly felt it.

The world slowed down a little bit, everything settled back nicely into place. You were smiling, albeit nervously, but you were there and you were smiling.

Carmy ran a large hand over his face as he spoke matter-of-factly.

"I want you in the kitchen starting tomorrow morning," His eyes locked onto yours. "Chef."

-

You didn't really remember where it started, well- you kind of did. You think it might've been a late night, both of you the last to leave the kitchen and you'd been talking each other's ears off like you usually do.

Carmy definitely made the first move, there was no doubt about it. You seemed to think he'd had your hips pinned to the edge of one of the stainless steel benches as he caught your lips with his own.

You'd felt the firm muscle of his neck beneath your hands as you cradled him like he was precious. Well, to you at least, he was precious.

It'd ended with him walking you to his office, making you kneel in his chair as he took you from behind. You remembered his hands closing over yours, where they gripped the back of the chair, fingers locking with yours.

You remember the flashes of his tattoos as he dropped one of his hands in front of you, sliding down your front to the centre of your thighs- how his hips didn't falter once as his stroked you to perfection.

Everything Carmy did was perfection.

His food made your eyes roll back in your head, his movements could make your mouth water, his words could have your whole body twitching,

In your eyes, Carmy was built on a pillar of perfection.

Not that he'd ever see it, anyways.

You'd both done your best to keep your private lives private, but this kitchen, this kitchen felt like family. It wasn't long before the glances between you both, the poorly timed arrivals and departures from the place began to add up.

Sydney was the first to notice, she didn't even say a word. She'd just seen the way you looked at him, how you'd light up when he praised your food, how your body reacted when he'd place a hand on your back to move behind.

Sydney was always observant when it came to you.

She didn't need to say anything, anyway. Tina coined on soon enough and then it was all over. Obviously, she told Richie, who told Fak, and the rest was history.

You and Carmy never confirmed or denied at work, but at least you didn't need to try and hide the way you felt about him. If they saw you kiss in the car before work, everyone just let it be (most of the time anyway, Jerimovich).

The confirmation never came because, well, you'd also never confirmed it just the both of you. He wasn't your boyfriend, there was no real label to what was happening.

You were two people who wanted everything to do with one another and very much enjoyed the other's company. That was simply that.

Any given night of the week, you could be found curled up on Carmy's chest either at his apartment or yours. Any of the other nights, you were probably underneath him or perched in his lap crying his name.

Neither of you felt the need to force a label on it.

-

By the time Claire showed up, things had become- different?

Carmy had been good about it, really good about it, he'd told you straight away that he'd seen her again and he had feelings for her. You'd both spoken at lengths over the dinner table about what this meant and the decision was mutual.

There was no label on it, he never belonged to you.

The rest of the family were harder to convince that this was for the best. Richie had actually walked out when you'd explained that you and Carmy had stopped 'seeing' each other.

Sydney couldn't deny she'd felt initial shock about it, too. It sort of blindsided her, but then there was a little something in the pit of her stomach that she couldn't- wouldn't name.

It was actually her that tried to have the 'come to Jesus' speech with you about Carmy.

"I'm not above begging, you need to start fucking that man again."

You nearly spat your coffee out, leaning against the front counter watching Sydney pace back and forth. "What on earth are you-"

"It was so much easier when it was you and Carmy," She stopped in her tracks, turning on her heel to look at you. "Since Claire turned up he's been impossible."

Even you had to admit that you'd noticed a change in Carmy since Claire showed up. He was so distant, he was hard to tie down, he seemed more on edge. He reminded you more of the Carmy that first arrived at this restaurant all that time ago.

It was a shame, you thought, he'd been doing so well.

You wiped a drip of coffee off the side of your mug as you placed it down beside you. "I really don't think me fucking Carmy is the answer."

Sydney gave a small shrug that almost came off as agreement. She wouldn't say it out loud but it definitely wasn't her first option, it wasn't even her second. If Sydney had it her way, she didn't want to think about Carmy's hands on you again.

And she'd thought about it. A lot.

"Something has to give, I don't think I can handle him canceling one more plan."

You sighed, a full-chested sigh that conveyed you felt her frustration. Pushing yourself off the counter, you placed a hand on Sydney's shoulder. If you were her, you would've felt the pure electricity that radiated off your touch.

"I'll at least talk to him, how about that?"

The talk didn't really do much. Carmy promised to do better, there was an apology in there somewhere. But you come to find out days later that'd he'd bitched out on another plan with Sydney.

Men, can't live with them!

It was in his office (without him of course, he was with Claire) with Sugar and Sydney that you'd all made up your minds. Well, you planted the idea and it grew from there.

"Lets just go get a drink, I don't think tonight is worth wasting any more energy."

Sugar jumped at the chance, already walking back out front to grab her purse. Sydney needed a little more convincing, her spirits a little crushed and her soul a little tired.

You'd managed to hush her up, giving her marching orders to get in your car and look like she was enjoying herself. Which, she ended up doing.

The booth was a little sticky and the music was a little shitty, the lights were so dim you could hardly see but you were having fun. Even Sydney had to admit she was having fun.

"Okay, fine! I'm having fun!"

Sugar let out a squeal of excitement, bringing your glasses together to cheers. "Here's to forgetting my little shit of a brother!"

After she said it, she turned to you with an apology on her tongue. "Oops."

You laughed it off, raising your glass and taking a sip. "No harm done, remember, we were-"

"Never togetherrrr." Sugar finished for you. "So you keep saying."

You just shook your head, calling the waitress over for another round. You ordered for yourself and Sydney before Sugar stopped you from getting hers. "Don't worry, Pete's on his way."

The three of you needed each other, needed this bond, needed these drinks, needed this moment. Regardless of your feelings towards Carmy, you'd all been scorned by him in some way, shape, or form.

It even felt good to hear Sydney get her real feelings off her chest.

"And you know what? Not to sound un-girls-girl, but fuck Claire!"

It was met with a quiet "fuck her!" from Sugar.

"She comes to the restaurant, she's just staaaaanding there, she knows she's taking up all his time."

All of you needed to get it out, you maybe the least. You knew it was hard for everyone else to understand, but you really didn't hold any resentment towards Carmy. Maybe a little, for leaving the kitchen high and dry. But really, you just enjoyed the memories of you two.

You and Sydney were a halfway through your new drinks when Sugar stood from the booth, grabbing her bag.

"Alright, I love you two more than life itself but I must depart!" You laughed as the tequila spoke for her.

"Bye, Shug!" You called after her as she waved and blew kisses at the both of you before disappearing through the door.

Leaving just you and Sydney alone at the table, you smiled at her as she intensely studied the grain of the wood. Sooner or later, she looked up and caught your gaze.

"Are you actually okay with Carmy and Claire?"

You smiled, earnestly. "Yes, I'm frustrated that it's upsetting you, but I'm inherently fine with it."

Sydney swallowed hard, you would've been able to hear it if the Brooks & Dunn in the bar wasn't so loud. She rolled the edge of her glass around the table before she spoke up.

"I just don't know how he's so okay with it."

You immediately thought she meant his letting the restaurant slide. But you knew Sydney, you knew her just enough that you could tell there was something sitting below the surface. You cared enough to implore it.

"Okay with what?"

She pulled her lip between her teeth before she looked up at you, like she was staring into the sun.

"With letting you go."

Your face softened, enough that she noticed. But Sydney also quickly noticed that it was a look of pity. That stung enough to make tears well on her waterline.

Pulling your jacket over your shoulders, you began to shuffle out of the booth. "I'll settle the tab and then I'll drive you home."

Sydney had never felt more like a tall child.

The lights of Chicago blurred past her eyes as you weaved through the streets. It wasn't lost on Sydney that you drove with one hand, the one closest to her was free and resting on your thigh.

She wanted nothing more than to reach over and hold onto it, maybe move it to her own thigh. As if you could read her mind, she caught the way your eyes flickered over to hers.

Slowly but surely, you lifted your free hand but instead brought it to the dial on the radio. As you turned it, she could hear the music in the car consuming her.

'And when I'm back in Chicago I feel it...'

She expected you to pull your hand back to your own leg but instead you reached over the gap of the centre console. Your hand brushed against hers as you took hold of it, squeezing it once and leaving the weight of it in hers.

Sydney knew that she had her chance, so she simply squeezed back and wrapped her other hand around yours with it. She held you tightly, like you were precious. Because you were.

She rested your hands in her lap, leaving them there against the soft fabric of her trousers as you continued you navigate the streets with one hand. When you pulled up outside her house, Sydney physically felt herself deflate.

Not only did you have to draw your hand back to kill the ignition, you'd reached the destination. It was up to her now to pull herself from the warm hold of your car and retreat to her room alone.

She weighed up the level of damage involved with throwing all caution to the wind right now. She figured she could just turn to you and let it out. Sydney could do something for herself for once.

As she balled up the courage in her chest, she didn't realise how long you'd both been sitting in silence until you finally spoke.

"Are you going to invite me up?"

-

And then Carmy loses his rag when he's locked in the chiller.

He laments about his failures, how much Claire had blinded him. He'd thrown your name in the mix, he'd apologised (for whatever reason) and decided his great epiphany.

If he'd never left you then none of this would've happened.

You weren't sure if he meant locking himself in the chiller or just everything in general. You weren't even in the kitchen at the time, this was all secondhand from Richie.

At the time Carmy was bearing his heart and soul to you, you were out the back of the restaurant holding back Sydney's braids as she emptied the contents of her stomach.

"I'm so sorry, this is so gross-"

"Don't apologise to me, how long has this been going on?"

The sound of the door screeching open tore your attention back over your shoulder.

"You really need to get in here- oh, what the fuck?"

"Richie, shut the fuck up. Can you get us some water?"

He grimaced a little at the sight in front of him but you pushed him with a flash of anger across your face. Yes, it was gross, but there weren't that many parts of Sydney you weren't fond of.

Even the ones that weren't pretty.

By the time Richie had come out with the water glass, he'd pressed even further how much you needed to get back into that kitchen. You knew it must've been bad if he wasn't even willing to tell you the details.

When you saw Claire by the chiller, you were moments away from asking for an explanation. You swallowed the words quickly as her face lit up in a hot rage, wet with tears. Before you could even think, she was turning on her heel to march out of the kitchen and back through the dining room.

What the actual fuck was happening?

It was a messy wee thing for you all to deal with, but deal with it you did. Sure, there was irreparable damage between Claire and Carmy (and you, by association), but the kitchen was stronger than ever.

And Sydney was happy again, back to having Carmy's attention and support at work. You saw the way she moved, her shoulders free of tension as she worked at her station. You just liked seeing her happy.

Sydney was happy, she was very pleased to be rid of the distraction that was forcing the kitchen apart. However, there was a gnawing little pit of jealousy that lived in her stomach and threatened to force its way out.

With Claire gone, there was nothing keeping you and Carmy apart.

She'd had you once, one perfect night. You'd been splayed out in the centre of her bed, her name falling off your lips as she settled in between your legs. She'd had a taste of you, and you weren't something she could just be okay with letting go of.

You were built from perfection.

So she waited, she waited for the other shoe to drop. There is always another shoe. Sure enough, no matter how hard Sydney tried to hide from it, it inevitably found her.

You and Carmy had arrived in the morning, same time, already laughing about something as you came through the door. That's all she needed, that feeling in her stomach expanded until she could barely breathe.

She caught the way Tina smiled at you both, a knowing smile. That cemented it for Sydney, if Tina had noticed it too, there was no doubt that it was unfolding in front of her and there wasn't a damn thing she could do to stop it.

And why should she stop it? You were happy! So was Carmy! And he was back to being fully present in the kitchen just like she wanted. But she'd be damned if she could get the thoughts of him touching you out of her head.

Touching you like she wanted to do. Like she'd done once, so fucking well.

Sydney wondered if Carmy really cared when he touched you? From the moment she held you she knew she wanted nobody else to do it, not the way she had. And now knowing that she had to share you? She felt like her head was going to spin right off.

She wondered what'd happen, when you finally told Carmy about what happened between the two of you. If you even would tell him. Did it mean as much to you as it did to her? Did it cross your mind every night like it did hers? Did you touch yourself as you lay in bed, reminiscing over that night like she did?

Probably not, she decided. You probably had Carmy to touch you, to hold you, and that would be consuming your mind. Sydney figured herself out to be an afterthought, a fun night that was never meant to become anything else.

When everyone was shutting the kitchen down and you were walking towards her across the dining room, Sydney braced for the worst. Silently, you helped her with the place settings until you spoke up.

"I told Carmy about us, about you and I."

In some sick way, all Sydney could really focus on was the fact that, even in the smallest form, there was an 'us.'

Without lifting her head, she continued to work on the cutlery. "And what does he think?"

You snorted a quiet laugh through your nose, a sound that should not have made flowers bloom in Sydney's chest. She couldn't breathe.

"He was jealous, I don't think he liked the idea of someone touching me like he does."

Sydney couldn't stop herself before her mouth opened. "Wonder what that's like."

In her peripheral vision, she could see your whole body still. Slowly, she trailed her eyes up the length of your body until they fixed on your face. Wounded, you looked wounded.

A sicker part of Sydney liked the idea of you finally knowing how she felt.

"I am so sorry, I never meant-"

"No, it's fine-" She cut you off, standing up to full height and brushing her hands on the front of her chef's whites. "I should've never got so attached."

"Sydney, please let me-"

"It was always meant to be you and Carmy, and now it is. Anyways, isn't this what I wanted?"

As she begin to walk away, leaving you alone in the dining room, Sydney mulled the same question over in her head.

Isn't this what she wanted?

-

"I just feel fucking terrible."

Your hands splayed out against Carmy's chest, fine hairs under your fingertips and inky tattoo's muddling against your skin. He held you so tightly as you rolled your hips in his lap.

"Don't worry about it, baby." He responded, breath a little clipped as he fucked up into you. "She said it's what she wanted."

You rolled your eyes before your eyes rolled back, Carmy's cock hitting the exact spot you needed it to. "You didn't see the look on her face or hear the way she said it-"

"To be honest, sweetheart, I don't really want to be visualising Syd when I'm balls deep in you."

Snapping your gaze down to his, you realised pretty quickly that you shouldn't have. Carmy looked incredible, eyes blown out, sheen of sweat across his skin as he put all his energy into fucking you. Ignoring the pang it sent to your stomach, you used the leverage of his shoulders to bounce on him.

"I really fucked up, Carm. I knew how much she was into me and I was selfish about it."

You couldn't really be sure he was listening to you, with the way his hands were running up your front to tweak at your nipples. You tried not to give away what it was doing to you, but a few whimpers escaped your lips, regardless.

It wasn't lost on you the way the corner of Carmy's lip quirked up at that. He took his eyes off your body to fix on your own, fighting for your attention as he kept rolling your hips against his.

"Selfish? What were you missing me or something?"

Your eyes narrowed at him, hand leaving his shoulder to playfully smack his cheek. It immediately conjured a groan from deep within his chest, a sound that hit you right in the middle of your stomach and made your hips falter.

"You're bad, Carmen."

"Yeah?" He questioned you, hands gripping your hips to lift you slightly, increasing the pace of his own thrusts. "Well you're worse."

You wanted to argue with him, you had it on the tip of your tongue but the minute he started jackhammering his hips into you- it was gone in an instant.

"Missed me so fucking bad that you got into bed with Sydney. You laid back and let her put her mouth all over you, because you couldn't get what you wanted from me."

The words were crazy, he was speaking pure insanity but the way his cock hit deep inside you was enough to curb your arguing. The minute you tried to open your mouth, a pathetic moan slipped right off your tongue.

"Thaaaat's right," He cooed, goading you into more embarrassing little sounds. "You missed the way this felt so you had to go get it wherever you could."

It was a lot, it was nearly too much for you to handle. Right as you thought you were slipping, that he was going to win eternal bragging rights, you found your own again. Tensing tight, you made sure to choke Carmy's cock on his next thrust.

The man beneath you froze, eyes rolling back and hips stuttering as you clenched around him. Finding yourself, you pressed your hands back on his pecs as you bounced in his lap.

"Not quite, Carmen," His name dripping like silk off your tongue. "Sure, you might've decided to fuck off on me but it's not like I was hard up on options."

Carmy tried to respond, but it was his turn for the words to get lost in his throat. His hips bucked up into you, cock twitching at the feeling of you gripping him even tighter.

"Look at me," You ordered, his eyes shooting open to take in the sight of you above him. "Do you really think someone that looks like me, looks as good as I do right now would be hard up?"

You caught the slight shake of his head, the way his hands fixed back on your waist and pulled you down on him with every bounce. He was desperate, the way he speared you straight on his cock was sending shockwaves right through you but you fought to remain in control.

"I could've had anyone I wanted and I chose Sydney, because I've seen the way she looks at me."

You leaned down, lips up close to his ear as you spoke. This close, you could hear him whimpering for you, the heady sounds emanating from within him.

"I fucked Sydney because I needed someone to treat me the way I deserve. When she had her mouth on me, it felt like I was being worshipped."

Carmy squirmed under you, you'd been in this position enough times to know exactly what was going to happen. His lips fell open and the string of incoherent moans you'd know him for began sounding.

"And you know what, Carmen?"

You could hear him chanting quiet little sounds of 'what, tell me baby?' as you spurred him on.

"I think you both need to learn how to share."

A visual splashed across Carmy's mind. The sight of you, face down ass up. Your mouth between Sydney's spread legs as her head crushed into the pillow. Carmy's hands pulling your hips back onto his as he fucked you roughly from behind. The both of them sharing you.

All of a sudden, Carmy pulled you down into his lap and launched his hips up. His head tipped back, his mouth fell open as he came deep inside you. Your name was the only thing he remembered how to say as he shot several hot ropes of cum into you.

The sight of it was something to behold, your hand falling down to rub between your legs as you felt him finish in you. It was all enough to push you right over the edge, head dropping into the crook of his neck as you reached your own peak.

As you came down, you felt Carmy's hand rubbing soothing circles into your back. The blood rushing around your ears was dissipating and you could only just register he was speaking.

"Huh?" You asked quietly, lips gently pressing against the skin of his shoulder.

"You can have it," He repeated, fingernails gently scratching up your spine. "Whatever you want, you can have it."

-

Apologies were an uncomfortable beast. Carmy was coming to terms with them a little better, after a bit of self reflection. He figured they made him uncomfortable because they were necessary.

For you, you were feeling lucky that Sydney was the forgiving type. You’d fully expected her to ask you to go fuck yourself when you’d attempted your apologies. Nice enough, she’d been quick to forgive.

In her eyes, she just wanted whatever part of you she could get her hands on.

That was probably why she was here right now. Back in this bar with you, the bar that (as far as she was concerned) was the beginning of everything.

That’s why she was also astonishingly fine with Carmy being here too. She was even sitting shoulder to shoulder with him. It was then you noticed they were moving in sync, the way they both raised their glasses to their lips at the same time.

Your eyes flickered back and forth between the two, shitty music making up for the lack of conversation and dim light dancing across the both of them.

They looked good this way, this is how they were almost meant to look. Content? Beautiful?

Looking like everything you ever wanted.

So it was a natural course of events, when the three of you later burst through the door of Carmy’s bedroom. You stopped at the end of his bed, trapped between the two of them.

Carmy’s chest to your back, Sydney pressing firmly to your front. Trapped.

Trapped, but completely willing.

Hot, physically and theoretically. The heat that was radiating off the both of them was consuming you. Sydney's hands were desperately working up the front of your shirt, feeling across your chest to cover any stretch of skin that she could.

Carmy's hands were on the waist of your jeans, undoing the button and fly as he dove down the front of them. His strong, skilled fingers felt you through the thin barrier of your underwear.

Your head tipped back, resting on one of Carmy's shoulders. Sydney took her chance, bridging the gap and closing her lips on your throat. You could feel her sucking at the skin, teeth gently running along the column of your throat.

The unmistakable feeling of Carmy hardening against your ass was ever present in the back of your mind. As Sydney worked you up, Carmy was pushing your jeans down your thighs, pressing his cock further into the split of your ass.

His lips came to your left ear, you could feel the heat of his breath as he spoke. "You look so fucking good like this, feel so fucking good."

As his fingers began to breach the front of your underwear, it was Sydney that was making moves on your right ear. "Been dying to taste you again, once wasn't ever gonna' be enough."

Your hips bucked up into Carmy's hand as he stroked you slowly, Sydney's teeth gently gripping your earlobe. It was overwhelming, the bother of you whispering exactly what you needed to hear, working together.

They worked well together, one glimpse into the kitchen and you could tell they worked well together. But even now, the way they were touching you, talking to you- they were the perfect team.

"On the bed, sweetheart." Carmy spoke as he drew his hands from your underwear.

Sydney stepped aside to let you move, watching you kick off your jeans as you moved to the bed. She moved towards you briefly, helping you pull your shirt off over your head and throw it to the side.

As she moved back beside Carmy, you stared up at the both of them under half-lidded eyes. Carmy had stripped down to his underwear, a large hand gently palming his cock through his briefs. He moved to the end of the bed, gripping your ankle and pulling you towards him.

"Get down here, Syd." He ordered, as if they were running the pass.

She was quick to follow the order, kneeling down beside him with her hand wrapping around your other leg. They both pulled you in closer, Carmy taking the initiative to get rid of your underwear.

Sydney reached forward, her hand running up your stomach gently enough to leave goosebumps. "You're un-fucking-believable."

You laughed, just quietly, head rolling around on the mattress as they both stared at you like your next meal. Not waiting for another instruction, Sydney brought her mouth against your entrance and gave you one long lick.

Head tipping back, hips raising, your mouth flew open with a string of moans. Her tongue was unbelievable, moving across you quickly but not failing to miss a single spot.

You could feel the familiar prodding of Carmy's fingers, moving under Sydney's tongue so they could work together. Two of his thick fingers breached your entrance, curling up as Sydney's tongue kept up it's ministrations.

"That feel good, baby?" Carmy's voice snapped you back into reality. "Feel good when we share you?"

All you could do was nod, nod furiously as you rolled your hips down to feel more of their combined efforts. Your hand gently reached behind Sydney's head, pulling her in closer till you were effectively humping her face.

"Yeah, that's right- let her have it." Carmy cooed, his fingers still pumping into you whilst his other hand was pressed to his crotch.

Sydney only moaned, the vibrations hitting you straight on and sending a surge to the pit of your stomach. Carmy could feel the way you were clenching, being well versed with your body he knew exactly what was on the way.

So when you whined at the feeling of him withdrawing his fingers, he was quick to shut you up by man-handling you up the bed. "Hush, you're so fuckin' spoilt."

And you knew he was right, everything you wanted you always got it. That's why you were settled back against the pillows, watching him strip off his boxers whilst Sydney's shirt was being discarded.

You quietly slipped a hand between your legs, gathering the wetness from Sydney's spit to rub yourself. Your eyes fluttered, head tipping back into the plush bed as you watched Sydney reveal more skin to you.

"Baby can't even wait a fuckin' minute?" Carmy questioned, kneeling on the bed to grip your hips.

In a swift motion, he flipped you over. Still holding your hips, he pulled them up until you were face down with your back arched. He could always get you exactly how he wanted you.

Sydney came around the bed, sitting in front you with her hand coming to cup your jaw. "You deserve everything you want."

As she cooed at you, she leaned in just enough to press her lips against yours. You could hear the sigh from Carmy, no doubt rolling his eyes as Sydney quickly gave into you.

Sydney knew your games just as well as he did. Difference was, she didn't mind. She'd feed into you for as long as you let her.

Your mouth dropped and a moan slipped onto Sydney's tongue as you felt the head of Carmy's cock pressing against your entrance. As he eased into you, your eyes began to roll back, hands shooting out to grip Sydney's thighs.

"Want- ah fuck- want to taste you." Your voice sounded breathy and desperate.

Sydney eased herself back, legs spreading around you as you hungrily dove to get your tongue on her. Without wasting a second, you ran your tongue from her entrance to her clit and listened keenly for the sounds she made.

Looking up from under your tired eyes, you saw the blissed expression on her face. Both your arms hooked around her thighs, lips closing around her clit to suck gently.

Carmy fully sunk himself into you, giving you a second to adjust to the stretch. Soon, he was rolling his hips in a steady rhythm that was sending you even closer to Sydney's cunt.

You felt a large hand splay across your lower back, Carmy soothing you as he began to speed up. He fucked you hard, watching the way you clenched around his cock and moved your head quicker between Sydney's legs.

This is what he'd imagined, this was exactly what he'd thought of that night (and honestly, a couple of other times in the shower before work). This was a sight he could get used to.

Carmy wasn't all too keen on sharing you, he had an underlying penchant for jealousy when it came to you. But as he watched Sydney cup a hand around the back of your head, as he heard you moan directly into her core, as he watched you fuck yourself back onto him.

He figured this was definitely worth a little hit of jealousy.

Sydney's hips rolled up to meet your mouth, her backside lifting off the bed as she pulled you down against her. Quiet little whimpers of your name were drifting perfectly off her lips. Her eyes were switching between fluttering shut and fixing dreamily on you.

You could feel the hint of your release working it's way up your body. Strengthening your grip on Sydney's thighs, you pulled her in tight so you could suck at her clit, listening for what it did to her.

"Holy- fuck- oh God- I'm gonna' cum-"

Looking up at her, you found her eyes on yours. Drawing back just a little, you laid your tongue flat against her before running it up, flicking the tip of it against her clit and watching her eyes screw shut.

Sydney rode your face through her orgasm, the feeling running red hot through you. You could hear the faint sounds of Carmy talking you through it. "That's it, make her cum- you're doing so good."

His words were too much, coupled with the taste of Sydney on your tongue and the feeling of her gripping tight onto you. Your hips began to roll back against Carmy, desperately searching for the relief you needed.

Feeling his hand wrap underneath you, Carmy began stroking you towards your orgasm. His chest came to press against your back as he spoke in your ear. "Come on, baby- that's it- cum for us."

Eyes going a blinding white, you felt yourself collapsing into Sydney's lap as your orgasm overtook you. Gripping tight around Carmy, you threw your hips back against him as he pressed himself flush to you.

You felt him twitch inside you, a string of curses leaving his lips as he came for you. You felt his hot cum hitting deep inside of you, leaving you feeling completely full. All you had left to do was fall, splayed out, in the centre of the bed, totally fucked out.

Carmy was the one that cleaned you up, but it was Sydney that brought you the glass of water and tucked you up. You felt her soft kisses against your forehead and by the time you opened your eyes, you could see she was already fully dressed.

You reached out for her, grasping her hand gently before mumbling something about "we should do this again."

Faint sounds of her laughing about that with Carmy caught your ears, but the sleep was taking over too much for you to be able to understand the joke.

When Carmy joined you in bed, wrapping you up in his arms and pulling you close to him, you managed one more mumble before you finally crashed out.

"You guys work really, really, well together."

[babydollmarauders]

ILLICIT AFFAIRS — QUINN HUGHES

quinn hughes x fem!reader

summary: in which y/n is Quinn’s little secret.

specific lyrics: “what started in beautiful rooms; ends with meetings in parking lots” and “you wanna scream, don't call me ‘kid’, don't call me ‘baby’, look at this godforsaken mess that you made me” and “look at this idiotic fool that you made me” and “for you, i would ruin myself, a million little times”

warnings: cheating, 18+ content in the middle, ANGST!

notes: you will not think highly of the Quinn in this fic. i know i’m supposed to be writing the Speak Now Fic List— bear with me. this was written as a way to get out of my writers block.

i can always stop.

i can.

i have freewill to refuse his advances.

i think.

but the stolen stares, the weight of his body against mine, the feeling that comes with knowing he wants me in the way i’ve longed for him to want me, it’s an addiction.

a drug that i just can’t quit, despite how dirty and used i feel afterwards. despite having to sneak away with my hood up and my head down.

the high of being his, just for a moment, outweighs the inevitable self-criticism in the aftermath.

because that’s the thing about illicit affairs; they make you hate yourself a million little times.

**

i’ve barely just climbed off of him, my back skimming the mattress, before he’s already standing from my bed.

my eyes follow his movements, the fluidity and grace of flowing through steps he’s done a million times before.

his dress shirt buttoned back on, his suit pants following, his tie lazily swung around his neck and his suit jacket pulled over to complete the look.

while i’m tangled in my thin sheet, still recovering, he’s fixing his hair in the mirror above my dresser and letting his own eyes graze his neck for marks. finding none, as i know better than to make myself known on his skin.

never seen, never heard, always secret. no marks, never wear perfume nor lipstick, never leave any trace of existence. a ghost above all else.

his eyes lock with mine in the mirror, catching my longing stare with his indifferent one.

“i’ve gotta go. you watching the game?” he knows the answer, he always knows.

“yeah, Quinny, i’ll be watching.” my cheeks flush. “i always do.”

“good. i’ll try and score a goal for you.” he winks in the reflection, my heartbeat picking up as it does every time. “bye, baby.”

there’s no goodbye kisses, no whispered sweet nothings, just quirked lips and the sound of my bedroom door shutting behind him.

it’s not long until the bliss wears off, leaving me with nothing but self-depreciating thoughts. no one to blame but myself.

he has a girlfriend.

one who isn’t you.

aren’t you ashamed?

aren’t you disgusted with yourself?

don’t you deserve better?

although, maybe not.

my phone buzzes on the nightstand beside me, an incoming call from my best friend, and despite feeling like an idiotic fool and a betrayal of my own morality, i accept the call.

“hey, Lukey!” false cheer drips from my tongue, but just like every other time, i know he won’t know the difference. “to what do i owe the pleasure of your call?”

“hey, y/n/n!” Luke’s chuckle crackles over the speaker of my phone. “i just wanted to talk, i’ve been missing you extra the past few days. i want my movie buddy.”

“i miss you too, Lukey.”

god, if only he knew how badly i’ve fucked up without him to lead me the right way.

“don’t you have Jack now to watch movies with?” i question, shaking off the urge to confess my sins. to ask for his forgiveness and plead for him to talk some sense into my love-riddled mind.

“it’s not the same. he doesn’t pay attention to the little details as well as we do.” i can hear his pout through the phone, making me giggle.

“just one more month, then we’ll have the whole summer to watch as many movies as we want.” i remind him.

“yeah, one more month.” he replies, solemnly. “anyways, UBC is still treating you good, right? no chance you’d wanna transfer to, i don’t know, Rutgers or Princeton?”

i chuckle at his lame attempt at convincing me to leave my dream school.

“i’m sorry, moose; but UBC is still where my heart lies.” oh, if only he knew just what, or rather who, the reason was for that.

“yeah, alright. it was worth a shot.” he sighs. “and Quinny’s taking good care of you, right?”

i my throat closes up and i choke on the air in my lungs.

“what?” i ask him, sitting up in my bed and pulling the sheet closer to my body.

“Quinn.” he repeats. “he promised he’d look after you. has he?”

“oh, yeah. yeah, he’s been checking in on me. making sure i’m okay.” i guess that’s one way to put what we’ve been doing.

“good. i’d have to kill him if he let you get hurt.”

**

my feet have barely touched the ground outside of my car before the lake house door is flung open. my best friend bounds out of the house, his middle brother hot on his trail, attempting to speak to him about something long forgotten by Luke.

“YOU’RE HERE!” Luke’s arms are flung around my waist, hoisting me up in the air and spinning me around.

the melody of my laugh mingles in the air as my arms wrap around his neck.

“Lukey, put me down, i already feel sorta car sick! it was a very long drive.” despite the fact that my words are true, i can’t wipe the smile off my face from being reunited with my best friend.

my feet finally fall flat on the ground as Luke backs up to look at my face, his fingers grazing all over it, more specifically the under eye bags from stress and sleepless nights.

“i thought you said you were doing great? what are these?! they’re new!”

his concern is heartwarming but before i can respond, i notice all the people behind him on the lake house porch. Jack, their friends, and most importantly, Quinn. the real reason for my newly spotted dark circles.

i muster up a chuckle, rolling my eyes.

“they’re designer. they come with the UBC tuition.” i stress, hoping he buys the ‘i’ve just been working myself to the bone with schoolwork’ excuse.

“checks out. you’ve always been my little nerd.” he grins, slinging an arm around my shoulder and turning towards the porch. “aren’t you guys gonna come say hi?”

“didn’t wanna impose on your moment.” Jack jokes, hopping down the porch steps to pull me from Luke’s grasp and into a hug.

“hey, bubby. welcome back.” he smiles, ruffling my hair mid hug. i step on his foot in retaliation, making him push me back so he could check on his white sneakers.

“it’s good to be back, bubba.” i grin as he rolls his eyes.

“hey kid, long time no see.” my head snaps over to look at Quinn, who smirks at me with a knowing look.

we saw each other three days ago, the day before he flew out to Michigan.

“hey, Quinny.” a bashful smile takes over my lips and my heart beats overtime, the natural reaction when i’m in his vicinity.

“no.” Luke speaks, pulling me into his chest protectively. “you don’t get to ‘hi’ her. you got her all year. this is my turn.”

his words make me blush and i pat his chest.

“don’t worry Lukey, this is our time.” i reassure him. “i but i would like to go inside now.”

“yeah, right.” he nods, letting me push away from him. the guys all head back into the house, leaving me to open my trunk and grab my bag.

a strong hand encases mine on the handle of my suitcase, soft lips i know all too well grazing the shell of my ear.

“i hope Luke doesn’t mind sharing.” Quinn leaves me frozen behind him, taking my bag and my breath with him.

beats of time pass before i follow suit, closing my trunk and locking my car before jogging up the porch steps and into the house.

this will be one hell of a summer. literally.

**

“i’m going for a run.”

my words are spoken through Luke’s shut bedroom door, followed by the opening of said door.

“a run?” he asks me, sleep still prominent in his face from his mid-afternoon nap. “since when do you run?”

“i started running when i was in Vancouver. i thought i told you that?” the lie is like a sour candy on my tongue, spit out quickly as though another second of these words in my mouth would make me sick.

“oh, okay. how long will you be gone? i’ll have the movie set up for when you get back.”

“i shouldn’t be too long. like an hour at most.” i tell him, tightening my ponytail.

“you’ll actually probably be all sweaty when you get back. just wake me back up when you get back and i’ll get the movie ready while you shower.”

sweaty and flushed, for sure.

“okay.”

*

“Quinn, please.” my heavy pants turn to pleads, begging Quinn to get me over the edge. his hands hold mine behind my back as i grind my hips against his.

unable to risk being caught at the lake house, our rendezvous settings have downgraded from my bedroom back in vancouver. to the parking lot of a field, only a 15 minute walk from the house.

“you want me to make you come?” his words cause a shiver down my spine, my head nodding at rapid speed. “use your words, baby. say it.”

“i want you to make me come.” i beg. that’s all it takes for him to flip us over, my body laid across his back seat as he thrusts into me, hooking one of my legs over his shoulder.

“fuck, you’re so wet baby. feel so good squeezing my cock.” i clench around him, his dirty whispers echoing in my head as the coil in my stomach tightens. he angles his hips, thrusting up into the spot that makes my eyes roll back.

“right there.” i gasp, my hands coming up to grip his shoulders. i’m careful not to dig my nails into his skin. careful to never leave any sort of marks. his right hand trails down my body, settling on my stomach.

“right there?” he teases, repeating his previous move, all while pushing one hand down on my stomach. my legs shake, and i clench around him one final time before the pressure relieves and i achieve my orgasm.

Quinn thrusts a few more times, riding me through my high and chasing his before his hips stutter and he pulls out, painting my stomach with his release.

the glass windows are fogged, the car hot and reeking of sex, the only sound being our heavy breathing as we gather ourselves again.

my eyes flutter, my energy spent.

“hey, baby.” Quinn’s hand snakes onto my thigh, shaking it slightly. “you should go. Luke is probably waiting for you.”

i nod. i know he’s right, but it still stings, being dismissed so quickly.

i wipe my stomach with a napkin from his glovebox before slipping my biker shorts back on and pulling my tank top back over my head.

“i’ll see you at the house.” he bids me goodbye, as i slip out of his car, starting my walk back to the house.

aren’t you sick of this?

don’t you feel guilty for lying to your best friend?

for betraying him like this?

don’t you think you can do better?

that you deserve better than clandestine meetings?

than being someone’s ‘other woman’?

than being tossed aside the second he’s done with you?

i’m done.

*

“alright, you ready?” Luke asks, plopping down on the couch cushion beside me, a bowl of popcorn clutched in his hand.

“yeah, press play, moose.” Luke is just about to hit play on the netflix movie when the front door swings open. Quinn steps into the house, shutting the door before noticing us on the couch.

“hey.” he gives us a nod, walking towards the stairs. “oh, Olivia is flying in tomorrow morning.”

my heart stops, my muscles tensing.

Olivia.

Quinn’s girlfriend.

the one we’ve been sneaking around for four months.

“oh cool, what time?” Luke is oblivious to my silent panic.

“six a.m, so i’m heading to sleep. night, Luke. night, kid.”

there it is again. that stupid nickname. ‘kid’.

Quinn heads up the stairs and i hear the faint sound of his bedroom door shutting.

my head snaps over to Luke.

“hey, i gotta go get something from my room, i’ll be right back.” i pat his leg before rising from my seat, making my way towards the stairs.

“oh, okay.” he nods, getting on his phone as i walk up the stairs.

i come to a stop outside of Quinn’s door, debating knocking before i decide not to, in order to not raise suspicion from Luke.

i swing the door open, slipping in before quickly shutting it behind me.

Quinn sits on the foot of his bed, head rising from looking at his phone. his brows furrow before he raises one in questioning.

“didn’t get enough of me earlier?” he teases. “aren’t you and Luke watching a movie? i don’t think we can have a quickie right now-”

“we’re done.” his lips snap shut, whether in shock, or disbelief, or just plain speechlessness, i’m not sure. but he’s silent, so i continue. “no more meetings. no more.”

my heart aches in my chest, my throat getting tighter and tears bubble up in my eyes.

i thought it would be easy to stop.

i used to tell myself i could do it whenever i wanted. but now, i know it’s not true.

there was no ‘last time’, only this afternoon. no soft goodbyes. i’ll be stuck seeing him for the rest of my life. he’s a mistake that i became all too comfortable with. with him, i let my morals wash away like a drawing in sand. but i was done hating myself, thinking so low of myself for my forbidden actions.

he chuckles as if i told him a joke, as if i didn’t just tell him we were over. standing from the bed and prowling towards me, his hand raises to cup my cheek.

“what are you talking about, baby?”

it’s always ‘baby’ in secret. ‘kid’ while in company. he makes me feel so stupid, like i’m a child; naive and small.

“don’t call me ‘baby’.” i swat his hand away from my cheek. “and don’t call me ‘kid’, either. do you not know my name?

“do you not know the name of the girl you’ve been fucking in secret for the past four months? that you’ve known since you were ten?”

his nostrils flare, stepping back as though i’ve slapped him.

“i know your name, y/n.” his words drip with venom, his lips press together into a straight line. “they’re just nicknames.”

“they’re cruel.” i spit. “you know what you’re doing. i’ve made myself available to you for too long. i’ve let you use me and throw me to the side as if i’m nothing. i’ve become something i never would’ve imagined i would be-”

“y/n-”

“no! this is my turn to talk. look at this godforsaken mess that you made me. i’m actively lying to my best friend, your brother. i’ve become the ‘other woman’. a title i would’ve smacked myself for, just six months ago. i’ve lost my sense of morality. i’ve become someone that i don’t even recognize; because of you. so, i’m done.

“i will not be your secret anymore. i deserve more. i deserve better than someone who keeps me hidden. who dismisses me mere minutes after using my body.”

tear tracks stain my cheeks, my face feels tighter under the salty liquid and i quickly wipe them away.

“you’re right.” my lips part slightly, my gaze fixating on the man in front of me.

he seems genuine. his eyes glistening with pity and an unrecognizable emotion.

“i’m sorry. you deserve better.” he tells me, nodding his head solemnly.

“i do.” i reply. “and i’ve been rejecting everyone that is interested because i’ve been hoping and praying to any higher power that you would love me the way that i’ve loved you since i was sixteen, but that’s not gonna happen, is it?”

he shakes his head ‘no’ and i can’t even hold it against him, because at least he’s finally being honest with me.

i bite my lower lip, nodding dejectedly and gripping the doorknob behind me.

“for you, i’ve ruined myself a million times.”

i slip out the door, padding back down the stairs and leaving the man i love, and our illicit affairs behind me.

Luke’s head rises when i return, his eyebrow raised and his lips parted, surely ready to question what took me so long. but with one glance at my tear stained face and bloodshot eyes, his mouth closes, his arms opening instead.

i drop onto the couch, burying my face into his neck. his arms wrap around me tightly, one hand holding the back of my head as the other rubs my back.

“i know.” he whispers. “it’s okay. i know.”

his words are mumbled against the shell of my ear and the emotion with which their spoken confirms that he knew what i’d been doing. they only succeed in making me feel even more guilty. all this time, i thought i’d been doing a pretty good job of hiding our meetings this summer, but my best friend is smart, catching on a lot more than i realized.

“i’m so sorry, Lukey.” i sob, my apology muffled by his skin.

“it’s okay. and i promise, it’ll be okay, y/n/n. i’ve got you.”

[nwjws]

while you were sleeping - pjs

; PAIRING - jay x gn!reader

; SYNOPSIS - in which you’ve had the same album on repeat, unable to get it out of your mind. just like how jay, your roommate, can’t seem to get you out of his.

; WC - 1.4k (minus the lyrics)

; TAGS - college roommates au, fluff, from jay's pov, based off laufey's 'while you were sleeping' ; WARNINGS - not proofread

i still can't believe that you noticed me

mindlessly scrolling on your phone, you patiently wait for your roommate, park jay, to finish cooking up some breakfast. a comfortable silence has settled between you two, with the only sounds being the sizzling oil on the pan and your humming.

"you've been listening to the same 14 songs for the past week."

"what?" you ask, looking up at him. you stare at his back, broad shoulders exposed by his tank top.

he turns his head to look back at you over his shoulder, raising a perfect eyebrow. you realise then what he's saying.

laufey had released a new album last week, and you literally haven't played any other song outside of it since it dropped. you can feel jay judging you, but you just shrug at him. you were definitely not stopping.

"so what if i've had bewitched on repeat? can you deny that they're good?" you challenged him.

"no, of course not," he chuckled to himself, turning back to the pan. "i'm just surprised you haven't gotten sick of it yet."

"i would never get sick of laufey," you say with mock offence.

"alright, then," he said with a teasing undertone.

you wanted to retort, but he placed a plate in front of you, making you forget what you were going to say.

"hey, you have a later clinical today, right?" he asked as you two dug in.

"mhm."

"take the box i left in the fridge with you before you go then. its some extra lunch i made so you'd have enough energy to get through the day."

"thank you," you say appreciatively. "you really don't have to do that every time i have a heavier day."

"well, if i have time to, then i don't see why i shouldn't."

"what about you? what are you doing today?"

"my professor cancelled class today, so i'll go check out if i can bother heeseung or jake."

"i'll pray for whichever victim you choose, then," you joke.

"maybe i won't make you extra lunch next time," he pouted playfully.

"no, no. those actually really help me. god knows if i didn't score you as my roommate, i would have passed out several times by now."

"grateful to be of service"

after breakfast, jay lounges around the apartment as you're getting ready. some show plays on the tv, but it doesn't drown out the sound of must be love playing from your speakers.

you shout your leaving when you exit the shared apartment, and jay wishes you a good day. he watches you close the door, leaving him completely alone.

i'll never forget the first time i saw you then

when he drives to the shopping centre with jake later that day, he pauses mid-sentence when he realises something.

"is everything good?" his friend asks.

"yeah, i just recognised the song playing."

"really? you listen to from the start by laufey?" jake asks. he had decided to connect his phone to jay's carplay, and had been in the one in control of the playlist.

"not really, but my roommate does."

"y/n? that's pretty cool. they've got good music taste," he replies.

"they've had her newest album on repeat since she dropped it," jay laughs, eyes on the road.

"do you find that annoying?"

"of course not, it's funny seeing them prance around the apartment, belting their heart out," he laughs at a memory of you singing at the top of your lungs. "i guess i'm more of a second-hand listener now? if that's even a thing."

"probably," jake shrugs.

a light pink bouquet, a promise you'll stay and i start to believe

the two had decided to eat out at wagamama's first, before anything else.

"i think i'll get the pad thai," tells the waitor, who nods and notes it on his ipad.

"hm, i'm feeling like trying the grilled chicken ramen," jay says. "oh, could i also get the miso mixed vegetable salad to-go?"

"sure," the waitor replies. he pockets the small device in his apron, and leaves for the kitchen.

"you ordered another meal?" the younger asks curiously.

"me and y/n go here often. of course, i had to get them something. usually, they'll go for the typical miso salad, or some curry, but they've decided they wanted to try being vegan recently. so i got the vegan one," jay explains nonchalantly.

"wow, you really care a lot about them, huh?"

"of course, we're sharing the rent, after all. have to be a good roommate, otherwise they'll leave and i'll have to pay the bills on my own."

"maybe i should get a roommate," jake chuckles. "but i don't think i'd be able to get someone like you."

"i'd feel sorry for whoever ends up with you," jay teases him. "and anyway, they're a good roommate. they do the laundry for the both of us, and we usually spend the weekends cleaning together."

"you guys are so lucky," is all jake says.

i don't recognise myself ; who've i become?

jake dragged jay into their third clothing shop that day, despite jay's protests. in self-defence, jake whines about needing some new shoes.

"don't you have like, thirty pairs? what could you possibly need another one for?"

"actually, i only have twenty-eight. and i need one for graduation, of course."

"right, because none of your almost-thirty pairs suffice," jay rolls his eyes.

"don't act like you dont have seventy pairs of the same polo shirt."

"i don't!"

"i've seen your closet, don't lie to me."

jay sighs and leaves jake to wander around the shop on his own.

"there you go again, buying another shirt," jake's voice sighs from behind jay fifteen minutes later.

"not for me," jay shakes his head. he turns to show the clothing piece to his friend. "for y/n. this is definitely their style, and it'll fit them so well. they have a pair of shoes that are this exact colour, so it would be good outfit if they sandwhich it with any bottom piece they choose."

"you think a lot about your roommate," jake raises his eyebrow at him.

"i see them all the time, why wouldn't i?" jay asks.

"no, like, you think too much about y/n considering you're 'only roommates'," he says with a quote gesture.

"stop suggesting weird things," jay walks ahead to the counter, leaving jake to follow behind.

"is it really so weird, though? if you like y/n like that?"

jay just ignores him, and pays for the shirt. it's not, he thinks to himself, because it's not a new thought either.

i trace it all back, 3:30 am that night something turned in my heart

"thank you, jay," you hug him when he shows you what he got. "you really need to stop buying me things."

"i can't help it," he smiles. "when i see something that reminds me of you, i just feel like i have to get it."

"with how often you buy me things, i'd say a lot of things remind you of me, huh?"

"seems like it..." he scratches his nape, awkwardly avoiding eye contact with you. thanks jake, he scowls in his mind. now he can't stop thinking about what he said earlier.

you and jay decide to watch a movie the next night, since it was a friday, and neither of you had to be up early the next day.

but jay couldn't focus on the tv when you two were basically cuddling under the shared blanket on the sofa. his skin prickled where his arm hung around your shoulder, and the weight of your head on his made him feel light and airy.

the warmth of your body seeped through your clothes, and brought him immense comfort. your sweet scent filled his nose, subconsciously recognising it to be one of the perfumes he'd bought you.

it was only when the movie ended he realised he hadn't been watching at all. and neither were you, if your light snores were any indication.

he huffed amusedly to himself, and shifted on the sofa to get you two in a more comfortable position, actually lying down. reaching for the remote, he carefully switched off the tv, leaving the only source of light to be a soft, warm yellow coming from a corner lamp.

jay stared at your features, illuminated by the dim light. he realised right then, in the comfort of your arms, far into the night, what he felt for you.

while you were sleeping, i fell in love.

; AUTHOR'S CORNER! do u guys ever feel like throwing up at your own work? ALSO THANK YOU FOR 200 this is my offer of thanks 🤭

; TAGLIST - @lovelovelovebts @miyseung @babyy-bambii

[spideyanakin]

always remember us this way (e.m)

summary - corroded coffin member!reader, what if you wrote 'always remember us this way' for Eddie Munson?

warnings - sad ending, star is born vibes im sry :(, mention of sex

word count: 7.3k

thank you @inknopewetrust for proof reading some bits <3

back to main masterlist

eddie munson masterlist

That passion in your heart, burnin' in your eyes.

You fiddled with your pen as you watched Eddie from the other corner of the classroom. He was somewhere else; eyes distant and removed from the room you both occupied with 25 other bored souls. Mrs. Click was a drag. Her red manicured hands gripped the white chalk as it scratched the green stone.

The sound pulled him out of his stupor. He mumbled something incoherently and drew his pencil onto his paper. 

On the other side of the room, you couldn’t focus at all. 

A tune was haunting you. It was singing in the back of your mind as the melody began to swim around you. The notes of a song begging to be put onto a page and heard around the world. It was all you could think about; refrains coming to you two days ago when the boy across the room was six-feet-deep in a game of Dig Dug on your last date at the arcade.

A rhythm that you couldn't get out of your skin.

The mix of game chants and arcade music melted into one beat that you ended up humming all night. Fingers mindlessly drumming on the side of machines every time Eddie played his turn. 

You knew that when night fell, Eddie could sense you had music dancing in your mind. It was what brought you two together, after all. The melodies of songs that shaped a life; how stories could express feeling without ever feeling too vulnerable. Eddie knew the sensation all too well. For many a night he had been the victim of that vacant expression and mindless humming of the same few lines over and over.

You were so lost in the tune that when Eddie’s turn was over and he had been defeated for the ten millionth time that evening, his eyes burning a hole into your head hadn’t even fazed you. There you were, half leaning against the machine with eyes glazed over on the odd shapes and colors that danced on the carpet your polished shoes touched. Perhaps you could see the lyrics on the floor. The shapes and colors filled with blues and yellows jumped from their home and painted a score above. 

He called your name once. He called it twice. 

"What are you thinking about?" 

Eddie leaned on the machine’s panel that separated him from you, whispering the words in your ear. The light from Dig Dug illuminated his profile. He belonged in a place like this. A place where he could be free and seen and heard. No bands needth play when the song of Eddie Munson’s eyes filled your soul with warmth. Goosebumps passed through you. You blinked away the music from your mind and caught his gaze. 

He was looking at you with so much love you thought you were about to burst. Leaning so close you could see the tiny sparks of gold in his eyes.

One of his hands came to hold yours, reaching up with his ring-clad fingers to play with the bracelet he had gifted you two weeks before–a dark blue band with mini skulls braided in. It screamed Eddie and that's probably why you loved it so much. He had never seen you take it off since he had gifted it, and it made a small smile appear on his lips each time he saw it where it was meant to be.

And that's when the first piece of lyrics came into mind.

'You look at me and, babe, I wanna catch on fire'

When the words started fitting together in your mind, you could feel the way it made you flustered—heat creeping up your neck and traveling up to your cheeks.

You really did feel like you were about to catch on fire that evening.

Two days later, in the desks of Mrs. Click’s class, you tapped your pen on the back of your hand as it rested over a loose-leaf sheet of paper that had scribbled lyrics that kept popping up. It was like catching butterflies with the words. They came and went, difficult to grasp and hold onto if you didn’t have a pen handy. 

That passion in your heart, burnin' in your eyes

You look at me and, babe, I wanna catch on fire

It's buried in my soul, like California gold

You found the light in me that I couldn't find

The words “CHORUS” were written in sloppy big letters in the middle of the page. You scratched your head with the back of your pen, pouting as you tried to reach unknown corners of your brain for any kind of inspiration.

You had been on literal fire writing the first stanza. The words flowed freely and quickly and without remorse that perhaps it was cheesy that a boy in high school who you envisioned a life with had inspired those lyrics. 

When you look at me and I can't find the words

When the sun goes down,

And the clouds all fade

You looked back to Eddie in hopes something would appear. He was the reason for the song, the whole why as to why those words had made their way to the page in the first place. You watched as he scribbled something of his own, dropping his pencil onto his own desk before suddenly turning his head around and meeting your eyes.

It would be a lie to say that you weren’t caught off guard. Seized in the midst of your contemplation, in mid quest to squeeze any more inspiration out of the being that was Eddie Munson.

He smirked, mouthing something but you couldn’t do anything back. You could barely make out his words. He made you all choked up. Your cheeks started to burn again at the simple thought of him. His smirk, his pretty face… it all disappeared as he turned his head back around.

 He really had to choose now to be a good student?

You munched on the tip of your pencil before eying your page again. And as a light went off, you felt like scribbling something new. 

So when I'm all choked up

When you look at me and I can't find the words.

~

"You keep staring lately." 

Eddie took you by surprise, making you jump as he appeared behind you and laid his  chin on your shoulder.

"I always stare… you’re my boyfriend, Eds," you pointed out, tightening your grip on your piece of paper where your lyrics had been written—hoping he wouldn’t see it.

"Then there’s something different to your stare," he offered, leaving his place at your shoulder to step in front of you.

You grinned, shaking your head and smiling before leaning in for a kiss.

There was something so cheesy about being one of those couples you had once snickered about in the halls. Love had not reached you then. It hadn’t filled every part of your being with the pure adrenaline and immense pleasure it could provide by looking at the one you loved. It had never been obvious to you before that what those people had, you now did too and it was something you would never trade for the world. 

"Maybe it’s just because you’ve finally realized how desperately in love I am," you whispered against his lips and Eddie thought he could melt right there. He too had felt that love. He knew the Earth could swallow him whole and he would fly up to a heaven knowing that the girl of his dreams had loved him back. 

Instead of answering with words, he brushed a strand of hair that had fallen onto your forehead, gently pressing a new kiss to your lips.

"I love you so much" he breathed out, leaning against you as your foreheads touched. The bell sounded–the passing period was over. Eddie backed away, raised his arm to lay over your shoulders and the two of you bounded off to class for the fifth hour of the day.

~

Eddie's bed was filled with random papers, scattered pencils, and mini figurines—your two bodies mingled in the middle of it all. Your chin rested on his bare chest while your legs were tangled up together.

You watched him frown as he dropped the paper he was holding and blindly tried to find another one. He wiggled under you in an attempt to fetch a half-crumpled piece of paper from the other corner of the bed, succeeding after a minute of struggle.

You chuckled at his theatrics. He was never one for subtlety. He moved the paper away from his face to meet your eyes and grin back at you.

"How's that campaign going?" You murmured, almost too scared to break the silence.

For the past thirty minutes, the only noise that could be heard were the rustling of the trees and the uneven buzzing of the fridge coming from the living room mixed with yours and Eddie's pencils scribbling on paper.

It all started an hour and a half ago, when you both couldn't sleep. You thought that maybe tearing each other's clothes off and moaning the other’s names would have been enough to put you to sleep—but there you were at 2 am, after having cooked a box of cheap mac and cheese that had been bought so long ago it expired in a week. You were wearing the shirt he had been wearing that day while he was just in his boxers.

You still felt guilty for laughing at him when hot cheese splashed onto his chest, slightly burning him. You had been a laughing mess when you scolded him for not wearing a shirt while cooking. It was dangerous, you had to chuckle at the act as it was so abundantly Eddie. 

But now the bowls rested empty in the sink and Eddie was focusing on his campaign while you continued to think of the song that haunted your very being. The melody wasn’t catching. The lyrics weren’t forming and the ones that had stuck, from earlier that morning, loomed over your head like a big raincloud. 

Sleep was still far from both your eyes.

"It’s going well," he beamed, lifting his head while you perched yourself off him to steal a kiss.

You leaned back into the position you were in and watched as he began to work again. He grabbed a D&D figurine from the box he had almost fully emptied on the bed minutes prior. He inspected it, trying to find any specific detail that could be scoured for ideas before diving back into his paper and scribbling something new.

You couldn’t keep your eyes away from his face. To the way his tongue slipped between his lips in focus, or how he drew in his eyebrows, and tapped the tip of his pencil to his temple.

He scrunched up his nose before using the little space left on his chest next to your head to erase his scribbling.

You sighed in content. Tracing circles on his skin with your free hand, you had to force your eyes away from his face to look back at your page of writing.

The lyrics slowly began to take shape. The melody wished to fly from your mind and out from your lips, the tune familiar to him. Eddie had heard it for two days straight and couldn’t place it. He knew it was new. He knew it was original.

Your hums broke Eddie's train of thought and he brought his attention back to you, a figurine still in his hand as the pencil wavered in the other. 

"You keep humming this tune lately. I don’t recognize it," he spoke. 

You felt the joy of songwriting leap from you. There was a grin on your face that threatened to hurt your face. You were certain that you were smiling so hard that the strain in your cheeks was unnatural. 

"That's because I made it up,” you admitted. “It came to me that night at the arcade." 

Eddie's face lit up. He dropped the paper he was holding to give you his full attention. Everything in his hands disappeared and found refuge on the floor. 

"I've started writing lyrics to it as well," before you could even try and say something else, anything else to sell him your song, he was already wiggling himself away from the bed and walking to his guitars scattered around the room. 

He didn’t have much, but what he had was certainly enough. 

"Electric or Acoustic?" He asked, hand on his hips as he pointed to his most precious possessions.

"Acoustic… It’s 2 am, Eds, you don’t want to wake the whole trailer park," you chuckled.

"Who said I was plugging in an amp?" He turned to you, eyebrow quirked high in judgment before you gave him a flat face. He was joking. 

"I'm still going to pick Acoustic," he rolled his eyes before grabbing his black guitar and settling with it on the carpet.

He waited until you followed him. Eddie patted the floor in front of him as if to say, ‘hurry up, we haven’t got all night.’ So, you sat right in front of him with your paper delicately placed between the two of you. Lyrics now exposed to the world, the melody was beginning to be strummed without rhyme nor reason, just talent and the sheer excitement of producing something new. 

"What’s it about?" He questioned aloud as he started fiddling with the strings and pegs.

"You.” 

Eddie’s fingers froze in place. Head raising to meet your eyes, his face brightened and he gave you his best grin before muttering:

"Will you sing it for me?"

Butterflies fluttered in your stomach as they caught the lyrics. 

"Ok," you cleared your throat before reaching for the paper on the floor. You already knew the lyrics. They had been burned into your soul by this point because it’s the only thing you’ve been able to think about for 48 hours. But, you needed something to distract you from his burning gaze. "You ready?" 

“To hear you sing? Always,” you blushed. His hands were already clasping his guitar, impatient to hear you.

"Also, it's far from being finished–"

“Sweetheart,” Eddie let out a breath,  “just sing,”

“Alright,” you shifted on your spot "Ok,"

"Ok," Eddie repeated with a smile. Nodding, as if to tell you everything was going to be just fine.

"That passion in your heart,” you sang in the way you imagined you could hear it on the guitar. The rhythm and the pacing; all of it was to be done without the chords but the silence of the room and the tonal shifts in your voice. 

“Burnin' in your eyes. You look at me and, babe, I wanna catch on fire,” your head was low, eyes fixed on your lyrics as Eddie's jaw almost dropped to the floor, his heart beating in his ears.

"It's buried in my soul, like California gold, you found the light in me that I couldn't find," he thought he was going to melt right there on the carpet of his bedroom floor as the words sunk in.

"So when I'm all choked up, but I can't find the words," you raised your melody, knowing you hadn't any lyrics to this part yet. You weren’t sure what would fill the space when your mind stopped working and all that was left was the loud, thumping of your heart and a mind that raced to find the words that Eddie Munson made you feel. 

"When the sun goes down and the clouds all fade," you let out a bit more, until you stopped and finally gathered the courage to stare up at him as the words disappeared from mind. 

"I think I've found lyrics for the next verse, but I'm not sure yet," you commented, dropping the paper on the ground again, meeting Eddie’s starstruck eyes with clarity. 

You waited for him to say something, anything, that would make your anxiety about sharing this piece of work with him go away. But when he didn’t reply, his eyes just stared wide at you, mouth agape, heat climbed up to your cheeks and you suddenly felt shy. 

"So… what do you think?" you barely mumbled under your breath. 

"Are you sure this is really about me?" He asked, jolted that someone would write a passionate song about him.

"Yes, silly!" you took the lyrics on that loose-leaf sheet of paper and slapped at his chest lightly. "You've been judging me for staring at you too much lately! I'm sorry to say, but you inspire me and if staring at you is going to get me to write, then I’ll do it forever." 

A bright smile appeared on his lips and before you knew it, his guitar was on the floor and he was kissing you.

"What's the next verse?" He muttered in between kisses, hovering over you as you reached to get the paper back. 

"Tonight's scenery," your eyes scanned over the page and back to his eyes. You never wanted to look away from them, pools of honey that melted with his love for you. They were softened by his smile, you had to steal another kiss before you could read the rest to him.

"Lovers in the night, poets tryin' to write, we don't know how to rhyme, but damn we try"

"How are you so damn good at writing?"

"Because you inspired me," you tucked a rogue curl behind his ear.

"We’ve got to show this to the rest of the band!"

"It's not finished though!" you shrieked at the possibility of those boys witnessing this song in its incomplete nature. "It's far from being finished!"

"That's alright!” Eddie brushed it aside. “We can at least work on the melody with them if you'd like? We don't have to show them the words just yet."

He was so sincere. So honest and considerate. It made those words jittery on your fingertips; an itch to write again and put down more of what Eddie meant to you. 

“Ok,” you nodded at him, a smile of your own creeping its way onto your face. “That would work.” 

~

“This is useless,” Gareth pointed out, throwing his drumsticks to the floor and tugging at his hair. “Without Eddie were never going to get the proper rhythm, no offence Y/n.”

“Non-taken,” you shrugged, biting your lip as you looked down to your instrument. 

It was a cheap blue and pink electric guitar you had gotten two christmas’s ago. It suddenly felt heavy, hanging by the strap wrapped around one shoulder. It wasn’t as near powerful or clean sounding as Eddie’s ‘second sweetheart’. The notes didn’t sound as graceful and as Rock’N’Roll as his warlock did. Your fingers tapped on the side of it, you occasionally played it as a backup for Eddie’s, never even attempted to lead using it. 

It didn’t make the situation any better that you didn’t know how to play like Eddie, and that factor seem to aggravate the mood even more.

You knew that if Eddie had been absent with a reason, it wouldn’t have affected this rehearsal one bit. You had practiced multiple times without him before: like when he got caught up in detention or what ever odd side quests Eddie Munson was up to that week.

But this time, something was wrong and it was buzzing in the dusty Hawkins air, slithering through the streets and making people double lock their doors at night and barely leaving their homes. The paranoia was becoming unsettling, and it was starting to bubble in the stuffy air of Gareth’s garage.

Eddie had gone missing for two days now, he had left you soon after your last campaign, and you hadn’t seen him since. It didn’t help that Wayne Munson wouldn’t answer your calls and that Dustin Henderson refused to answer any of your questions. He’d told you a vague ‘He’s alright, don’t worry’, before scurrying off and getting into Steve Harrigton’s car, leaving with unanswered questions and mixed feelings.

No one wanted to tell you the truth and you had gotten answers from no one. 

The rest of the band knew as little as you did. 

There had been a murder at the trailer park, and Eddie had gone missing.

You also knew it wouldn’t be long before the police came at your doorstep to ask you about Eddie. You were just grateful Wayne hadn’t let your name slip.

Great.

Just great. 

“You know what,” you spoke up, breaking the heavy silence. “Let’s just cancel band practice today,” you removed the guitar strap from your shoulders, heading to put it back in your case. “I don’t think any of us can focus.”

“Yeah,” the boys muttered, watching you leave without another word. 

They all knew this was taking a toll on you, and all felt like they could use a good rest anyways. 

You missed Jason, his gang and Lucas by luck that day.

~

“Hey, do you hear that?” Eddie jumped, a faint whisper of a voice making the hair on his arm spike, goosebumps tumbling down his spine. 

The upsidedown was already a creepy place, and the last thing Eddie needed was whispers to start haunting him–he seriously didn’t know how much longer he could last in this place.

“Hear what?” Nancy turned, her torchlight lighting up Eddie’s face.

“I thought I heard a whisper,” Eddie muttered, eyes squinting from the light aggression. 

“Didn’t hear anything,” Robin concluded and continued her walk through the dodgy forest.

Eddie recognised this place, they were already far from lover’s lake and were almost by the main road, not far from where you lived. 

He bit his lip as he thought of you. He hated not telling you anything, but he knew it was to protect you. He couldn’t risk that the the evil he was wittnissing first hand to get to you, or hurt you in any way. He knew he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if anything were to happen.

“Eddie,”

He jumped like a startled cat, the whisper had been clear, sharper. 

“This time you guys must have heard it too!” He whined, gulping when everyone turned around with annoyed looks on their faces.

“Litsen, we’re not going to make it far if you keep stopping because you think you heard something!” Steve grumbled towards the metalhead, the aggravated look on his face becoming more serious. Steve’s hand was impatiently resting on his hip, now covered by Eddie’s battle jacket.

“I don’t think! I heard it loud and clear!” Eddie spoke up, matching Steve’s tone. “It called my name.”

“Great, now were loosing Eddie!” Robin whined before taking a step towards him and snapping her fingers in front of his face. “Get it together, Munson! We have to find a way out of here!”

“Right, sorry,” Eddie shook his head and continued his walk, pushing away what ever was happening to him–and ignoring the unknown whispers that nagged at his ear.

“Eddie please, answer me,” your fingers gripped the side of your talkie, in hopes that maybe, just maybe he would answer you. 

But by the fourth time you called, the talkie unwinglingly dropped from your hand, tumbling from your bed to find a new home on the carpet of your bedroom floor. 

Eddie had been missing for four days.  

Four days of escaping Jason, four days of trying to squeeze an answer out of anyone. 

“Eds, where are you?” You whispered to yourself, closing your eyes as your head fell straight into your pillow, clutching it at your side as you tried not to cry.

You hadn’t left your room today, only muttering a thank you to your mom for lying to Jason when he came at your door, again.

Things were leading to nowhere and the rumours were doing nothing good for your spiralling thoughts.

You lifted your head up from your pillow, sighing as your eyes caught a polaroid of you and Eddie. It had been taken by Gareth right after one of your gigs at The Hideout. You remembered Eddie asking you to do his eyeliner a few hours prior. You had neatly applied it all around his eyes as if he had been Billy Idol prepping for a concert, but after shredding his guitar like freaking Jimmy Hendrix on that small crooked stage, he looked more like a slanky raccoon than a rockstar.

His arm was wrapped around your shoulders, your hair was as wild as Eddie’s, going all over the place from the hour of performing. Both your eyes sparkled with some kind of after show high, but yours held something else entierly as you looked at Eddie. You looked so in love it only reminded you how much you cared about him.

About how much he means to you.

Stop. You decided it was enough sulking for one day. Swinging your legs on the side of your bed, socked feet touching your soft carpet before you snatched your notebook and pen from your nightstand, throwing it on the floor before taking your acoustic guitar from it’s spot on your wall. Your eyes barely caught the ‘This machine slays dragons’, spray painted in pink–done by Eddie himself on a rainy afternoon.

You sighed as you crossed your legs, resting the guitar on the edges of your thighs before starting to tune it, mindlessly twisting the pegs as you tride to push the ache from your heart away–maybe even channel it into words and music. 

You opened your notebook, hoping to find something to save you, but it was just a reminder. The song still rested on the white pages, words mending together in pretty loops of letters. You had almost finished it before he vanished, and even if writing music had been the last thing on Corroded Coffin’s mind, it was the only thing that could keep you from spirialing. The only thing that kept you sane in this mess of a situation. 

The page you were staring at had been wrinkled by your aggressive erasing during the past few days. The pencil writing of your most recent words were already smudged from the tears and constant doubting on the way it sounded with your melody.

But all I really know, you're where I wanna go, 

And maybe, just maybe if you had told him these words before you would know where he is. Maybe you’d be with him and help him sort through this mess.

 ~

A week.

A week of silence.

And Hawkins had crumbled under your feet.

Your grip tightened on the cardboard box filled with clothes to donate. You had gone alone–sent by your mother who had been too busy to go herself. You tried to calm down your nerves as you walked in through the large double doors of the gymnasium. You didn’t know why anxiety was munching at your stomach, threatening to swallow you whole–but the bad feeling was rising in your chest and you couldn’t push the intuition away.

You caught a glimpse of Dustin talking to Wayne, frowning when the conversation didn’t look very joyous. Dustin had his fist closed, handing something you couldn’t see from that far to the older man sitting in front of him.

“You should give it to her yourself,” Wayne mumbled, pushing away the boy’s hand away. 

Dustin blinked, shock seeping through him at the suggestion. God he didn’t know how he would even tell you.

And just like that Dustin found your eyes. You were already looking at him from the distance–eyes wide in silent question–maybe also fear; he couldn’t be sure, he couldn’t know until he actually talked to you. 

He gulped.

Dustin’s face held nothing but anguish and the closer he was to you the better you could see the tear stains on his cheeks and the slight glaze in his eyes.

He didn’t have to even speak. He didn’t even need to voice it–the look in his eyes said everything that needed to be said.

Tears prickled at your eyes and you felt the sudden erge to throw up. The feeling rose and your heart physically started to ache–was that what grief felt like? Was that the feeling that came crashing onto your body like waves onto cliffs.

You didn’t even know what Dustin had said. It was all a distant echo, a distant voice in a parallel reality–muffled by the way your body’s reaction.

You caught some words. Sentences that didn’t ease the feeling.

‘He talked about you t’il the end.’

‘He didn’t want to put you in danger.’

‘He really, really loved you.’

‘He left this for you’

You didn’t know how long ago he had left. How long you had been standing there–Eddie’s pick necklace resting against your palm. 

But it was long enough for you to register the sudden feeling of loneliness, washed up from the storm on the shores of your mind. 

Your other half was gone.

~

"This is um- the song" You zipped up your bag, slipping out the tear-stained paper you had spent the last few days blankly staring at. Maybe hoping it would bring him back.

Jeff grabbed it without a word, giving you a tight smile. You could see he had been crying too.

You looked away as his eyes started shifting across the paper. You looked at the small window of Gareth's garage, the sunset bringing the rays of golden hour across the musty room.

If he had been here, everyone would have taken a break and you would all be watching the sunset. You'd be wrapped in his arms giggling to some dumb joke he made about whatever was on his mind.

But that wasn't the case.

And everything felt so dull now.

You looked around. You were slouched onto an old green bean bag chair, the one you and Eddie would fight over every single band practice, but now he wasn’t there to fight you for it–you had the dirty, half empty and wrapped up in duck tape poor exuse for a sagbag all to yourself. The used up thing didn’t even look appealing anymore, and you hoped Gareth would throw it away for your sake. 

The garage’s owner was blankly staring at his cymbals, drum sticks barely hanging from his hand and threatening to drop on the carpet. He looked like hell, not much of a difference from his band mates if you were honest.

Jeff's bass was hanging low around his shoulders as he read, tears nudging at his eyes.

"You- you wrote this?" The strain in his voice was evident. "For Eddie?"

"I wrote it with Eddie, but I want to change a lyric, before we um, do anything with it."

"Yeah go ahead," he blinked the shock out of his eyes.

The lyrics felt so beautiful, so magical. To him, you and Eddie had been nothing but one of those high school couples that would either go on to get married, just to have that classic white picket fence life or end up breaking up before graduation. Nothing more, nothing less.

But as he looked at you wiping tears off your cheeks he realized it was so much more, and it had always been so much more.

The both of you were never going to fall into either of these two options. The two of you had always been the odds one out of the pack, the whole of Hawkins had been a witness to they way your crazy minds worked–but your relationship didn’t just hold on your similarities. The two of you had been in love, truly in love. Like the type of love Aragorn and Arwen shared, or the one in the stupid movies channel six passed on friday nights. The ones poets wrote about and people died for. 

You were meant to be rock stars together as you crossed the world. The two of you were supposed to be the pillars of this band, the glue that would hold everything and see members come and go. He didn’t know why it took him all this mess to realise. 

"You want to read it?" You looked at Gareth who looked up from his drum set with a blank expression.

"I'd rather hear you sing," he muttered.

"Alright,” you cleared your throat. "Can you-" You were about to ask if he could play the guitar for you but remembered that was Eddie's job. Jeff played bass, and Gareth was on the drums. "Nevermind," you took the decision on your own–you’d do it accapella.

You weren’t bad at guitar, you knew how too strum a few simple chords, but you weren’t Eddie.

"When the sun goes down" your voice cracked and you had to close your eyes to keep focus "and the band won't play," your words felt heavy in the room, and a sad smile adorned Jeff's lips. "I'll always remember us this way," you continued, and suddenly Gareth started playing the rhythm that you had rehearsed two weeks prior. Jeff started on the bass, and as they started duetting–your eyes fell upon Eddie's guitar.

You picked it up.

You grabbed the guitar from the corner of the room, hanging it on your shoulders and attempting to keep singing as you plugged it in the brand new Marshall amp–a gift from Gareth’s mom to the band. 

You thought that maybe Eddie would be proud–proud of all of you for continuing music even if he wasn’t there.

"Lovers in the night," Gareth picked up the pace on the drums, and you desperately tried to follow the rhythm, hanging on to what Eddie had taught you. "Poets tryin' to write, we don't know how to rhyme, but damn we try," it took everything for you not to cry. “But all I really know, you're where I wanna go," You closed your eyes in anticipation of the next line, the one you had written just yesterday, "the part of me that's you will never die"

"So when I'm all choked up, and I can't find the words" Eddie was peering up at you with the brightest smile you had ever seen. "Every time we say goodbye, baby, it hurts" Your fingers glided over the guitar strings, Eddie knew you were fully into the song but he just had to stop you.

"What?" You smiled as his hand reached the guitar and his other your cheek.

"I cannot believe you wrote that about me"

You giggled, "is that so bad about?"

"I love you," you could have stared at the giddy smile across his face for ever.

"I love you too,"

"And I love the new lyrics, please continue, I'm sorry I've cut you off" He sealed the moment with a kiss, before leaning away and sitting patiently in front of you again.

"When the sun goes down, and the band won't play," the memory was cut by you opening your eyes again.

The sun might have been setting a beautiful color upon the walls, but the garage felt so much darker without him. Without his voice.

"I'll always remember us this way"

~

"So what inspired you to write this song?" The interviewer pursed her lips before settling her papers back onto her lap, fixing her glasses before staring back to you.

You looked down at your skull bracelet, sad smile forming upon your lips.

"Isn't it obvious?" You quirked an eyebrow, hiding behind humor to stop the bubbling feelings.

"Love?" She smiled back and you nodded your head. You wanted this conversation to end like it usually did. You always gave the same answer; Love.

The same music with cheeky gazes and smiles always followed;

‘Is it anyone we know?’ 

‘Is he in the band?’

‘Are they famous?’

‘Are you in a relationship?’

You never answered. Gareth, Jeff or the latest addition to the band would change the subject–but as the crowds grew, so did their curiosity. You knew you couldn't hide from the eyes of the public much longer.

"Yes, but we all want to know more,” she urged on, her tone staying sweet and comprehending. “You once said it was one of Corroded Coffin's most personal songs if I’m not mistaken." 

There it was. You were alone–no boys to help you change the subject with a joke or random statement about the song. You looked at your shoes for a brief instant; maybe trying to sum up the courage and push away the feeling of dread. Attempt to mend the hole in your heart, just for a few minutes. After this you could leave back to your hotel room and find a way to drown your sorrows.

When you didn’t reply, she continued.

"I can't help but notice that there's a certain sadness to the lyrics?"

She hit the bull's eye.

"Well," You looked up, meeting her gaze. Maybe it was the unspoken comprehension of a woman towards another–the subconscious bond that created itself just by your similar place in the world that made you more comfortable to share. Maybe it was what caused her to spot the hidden meaning–or maybe it was just her journalist mind that picked the song apart, ready to latch onto any information you were ready to hand over.

"What people don't usually realize is that the song takes a turn,” you shifted uncomfortable in your seat–you had never gotten this personal in an interview before. "It starts out as this love song. Two soulmates who can't believe they've found each other," Eddie's pick necklace felt burning hot against your chest, the ring you had slid on the chain too–a diamond ring that belonged to Eddie’s grandmother. 

You remembered the moment you had discovered it. You were going through Eddie’s room accompanied by Wayne, trying to naviagte around the ruins of the trailer and scavenge for anything that was left plausible to use or donate. Boxes of random objects and clothes laid in between all the mess and you had already managed to find his guitar–releif when it was in perfect condition, left untouch by the damages of the earthquake. Which now hung on your living room wall, preciously behind a glass frame.

Your attention had been caught on the broken closet while Wayne was going through the drawers of the small desk. The earthquake had broken one of its feet; making half of the drawers hang open with clothes tumbling out of it. You had organized his shirts and jeans already–piling up the ones you could keep and the ones you could give away or give to the corroded coffin boys to share upon themselves.

Your fingers gripped the handle of the third drawer–and you'd only realize this after but it was probably the last time you’d have any a glimpse of sanity in your bones; if you had even any sanity left since he passed away.

If you were honest with yourself you didn’t even really know what this drawer contained. He had never really opened it in front of you and you couldn’t say that you had much curiosity towards it before. You half expected it to be his sock drawer–but your breath caught in your throat when you slid it open.

A collection of souvenirs–mainly of you, laid at the bottom of the hard wood. Photos, souvenirs, concert tickets, boxes with what you assumed even more trinkets and things he collected since the start of your relationship.

You gulped in a pour attempt to push the tears away. 

You started sorting through the collection papers and polaroids–everything bringing memories that were dug deep into your brain’s memory, hidden behind other memories of Eddie. You already knew you’d keep everything, probably throw everything in a box and sort it out in the comfort of your own room–when Wayne wasn’t there to see you crumble even more as you gazed upon Eddie’s collection.

There was a mediumish wooden black box nestled in the far corner of the drawer, and it immediately caught your attention–like something pulling you towards it, screaming for your acknowledgment.

The box wasn’t heavy in your hand, it almost looked like the boxes Eddie used to store his extra special drugs and you expected that to be the content. Eddie hid drugs everywhere in the trailer in a poor attempt at covering up the fact that he wasn’t a drug dealer in his spare time. That if the Hopper or some other dumb officer ever came around they couldn’t possibly find everything he hid. 

But even if there was, most probably a zip-lock bag with some kind of funky psychedelic powder or pills hidden inside–you still wanted to be sure. You fiddled with the unlocked buckle, and pushed the lid open; but you were met with no drugs. 

Instead there was another black box. A small squared box draped in black velvet. You frowned, it… couldnt be? No. You refused to even think about the idea–this was again probably one of Eddie’s weird drug hiding spots.

This must have been something even more special than the special K.

With trembling hands you grabbed it, fingers wrapping around the top of the box and popping it open.

You blinked, all words dying in the back of your throat. You didn’t trust your voice, but your mind had talked at loud on it’s own.

“Um, Wayne?” Your voice was definitely shaking, and he immediately turned to face you. “Do- um- what- huh-” You couldn’t formulate a proper sentence, and you watched Wayne’s expression soften when his eyes caught what was in your hands. 

His mother’s engagement ring.

“So that’s where the little devil’s kept it,” Wayne almost laughed, almost chuckled at the absurdity of the unworldly situation. Your frown deepened and your heart raced to your ears, you couldn’t formulate one single thought and Wayne seemed to take notice because he continued, “we found it in a box a few months ago, Eddie was adamant of keeping it,” Wayne weighed out his words, wondering if he should continue. He knew well enough this was going to break you even more, but now that Eddie was gone, he couldn’t keep the subject of his conversations with his nephew to himself, “to give it to you someday.”

Wayne had insisted that you kept it. That it was meant for you and that he’d have no use of it–that it would be collecting dust in a drawer when Eddie wanted you to have it, when Eddie had kept it stored in the back of his closet for you.

You had worn it on your ring finger for months–as if he had actually given it to you himself. As if he had made it past graduation and got down on one knee, locking your lives together forever.

Gareth had caught you speaking of him one too many times at bars. You would have one drink too many, some guy had probably made a move and you shoved your hand towards his face, drunkenly rambling a life you wished had been real.

But your drunken and fuzzy mind always caught up with the fact that you were lying. That your fiance wasn’t really on a trip and you weren't just at a bar with your best friends to celebrate being engaged and soon to be married- and that's when the tears became uncontrollable.

Gareth-the usually sober one often found himself attempting to dry your tears, trying to sober you up on the floor of the dodgy tour bus or in some hidden corner of the bar if the bus had already been taken hostage by Jeff and his latest conquest.

But when fame rolled down at your doorstep you had to remove the ring from your finger to keep any unwanted rumors away.

And right now you couldn’t just open your room’s mini fridge to scavenge for anything that could take the pain away from your chest, you had to continue that interview.

"But then the song becomes a requiem," you continued, trying to keep your voice from wavering. You watched the interviewer face almost fall, her mouth opening into an 'o' as she pieced up the lyrics together.

You thanked the stars she was being respectful, maybe even understood.

Soon enough the interview was finished, and neither Jeff nor Gareth or the world was ready for what you did the next time you stood on stage. 

Because for the first time in years you spoke his name.

For the first time, you told the world who this song was about.

[blingblong55]

Sweet Nothing- Rodolfo Parra (includes Philip Graves)

Based on a request:

Look, as much as I love Philip Graves, he gives off jackass bitch energy. So, he leads on the reader (who's just fuckin adorable, wife energy, protect this one for the rest of your life vibes) before leaving them after a one night stand and then they meet again years later and reader changed into a badass boss bitch dommy mommy you'd wanna tap but she's fucking hostile af. Also dating Rudy, cuz Rudy's the only man who deserves to score a pre-Graves reader. Idk, im in my "fuck me up and you're next" era

A/N: Someone said I should use the lyrics of Sweet nothing, so...here it goes

F!Reader, fluff, angst, soldier! reader

I find myself running home to your sweet nothings Outside, they're push and shoving You're in the kitchen humming

7 years ago, a few of your comrades and you had a huge victory. You all went to celebrate out by a local pub. It was fun, the drinks, the stories, laughs, the stupid songs you'd all sing, and then the stupid mistake of letting Graves take you home. You had a crush on him before, how when he smiles he would do so to the side. The way his hair was always well groomed and how his cologne never changed. You noticed his American southern accent, getting rougher when he was drunk like this. The way his hands wandering your thighs or back. So for you it was a dream to even have him offer himself to you.

If you can describe yourself from 7 years ago, you'd call her "sweet, innocent, caring, bubbly, and loving", and all that is true, well was true. The night with Philip was great, the way he assured you all night in bed that he'd take care of you. How his lips met yours, how he kissed you with so much delicateness it felt beautiful. "al'right, sweet thing, just close your eyes and rest now." Your head rested on his chest, his hand drawing small circles on your back. You felt content in his arms.

By morning, instead of waking up to him by your side, it was just you. A note and nothing else.

"That was fun, but just a one time thing:) -take care, Philip Graves"

You never knew it'd be just a one night stand with him, you'd expect more. Back then, you were only a 22 year old, still learning and understanding much of the military. You trusted him with your body that night, a innocent girl, not knowing she'd be robbed from something she held dear to her, her own young heart on a platter, eaten by the man Philip was.

By some miracle, a commander in Mexico had seen your work for Shadow company. Alejandro Vargas, a major at the time of him recruiting you and his friend, Rodolfo "Rudy" Parra, a captain at the time. Graves let you go, knowing that you'd ask for more and he was not wiling to give. In all honesty, after you left, he talked about his time with you, made fun of you the weeks after it had happened.

After that night with Philip and how he belittled you, even if he didn't know, you promised you'd never let that happen to you. All the men that approached you were quickly turned down. You only gave time to your job, training and to yourself. You treated men like the scum of the earth.

Belittled them if they ever spoke about you. "I'd shut it, because you are nothing more than a worthless, good for nothing piece of ass." All men at some point feared you, not making advances on you, except for one.

Rudy, although rejected by you more than 19 times, always came back. He never cared if you degraded him with your lemon filled words. He loved you for it, loved how you never spoke bad of yourself, standing tall and proud. Alejandro tried to tell him to stop pursuing you, but he is stubborn as he is cute.

With him, you were always more soft. Although at times you'd say mean things to him, you were never too mean. Because in him, you found your old self coming back. Begging to be let out, because all you wanted to do was cuddle with him, listen to his problems, kiss him, adore his very soul.

And to be honest, he worshipped the ground you walk on. He didn't care that he was a higher rank than you, no, he always said. "Yes ma'am", "No, ma'am", "Sorry ma'am", "You look beautiful/perfect, ma'am". In his eyes, you deserved all the shiniest of things this world could offer.

He loved how you would yell at rookies, but the second you saw a puppy, you'd turn all soft and would pet it for a long time. How one time he saw you baking and dancing to a melody in your head. Your puppy eyes when you would see a something adorable.

One night, there you were, ready to hop on your motorcycle when he approached. "R/N, uhm...do you mind if maybe this Sunday me and you can maybe....I dunno, go on a date?"

You see, the reason why he asked you on a Sunday and not on a Friday or Saturday was because he heard you sing a song to yourself.

"I want a Sunday kind of love, A love to last past Saturday night, And I'd like to know it's more than love at first sight, And I want a Sunday kind of love" Your voice soft like a whisper.

"Sunday...time?"

His face lit up, in a way for him, this was you agreeing, "6 am, ma'am." he happily responded. You were confused, why would he want a date on a Sunday at 6 in the goddamn morning?

"I was thinking breakfast by the lakes...maybe you'd like that," he answered as if he was listening to your thoughts, he paused and looked at you, "Or whatever time, all I want is to spend time with you."

A light red hue on your cheeks, there it was. The old you, feeling excited because for the first time in years, you were validated as more than just a 'one time thing', seen by him for you. You nod, "very well-"

"I'll pick you up?"

"I don't see why not."

You put her helmet on, going for the typical night ride. Funny enough, he was the guy who would race you any chance he got. You of course never knew, but he did. Wanted to spend time with you in whatever way he could, so, he learned from Alejandro how to ride one.

During the date, he was so nervous, he completely forgot his Spanish and English. Giggled as he tried to compose himself for you, you took his hand, "Just one work at a time, I promise to listen." the way you said it and carried it, was a different side of you, the old you.

"Eres hermosa, la mas bella." he cups your face, looks you in the eyes and smiles. You'd learn Spanish for him after months of dating, but in this moment, when you barely spoke the language, you understood the meaning. Skin melted on his hands, turning into mush, he leaned in, kissed your forehead and then looked you in the eyes.

"Thank you, for giving me this chance."

Soon after that, you went on more dates, Sunday dates. Always by the lake, eating, laughing and at times, he'd chase you into the water. Both laughing, being the sweetest of creatures.

6 years after that first date, you and him celebrated your engagement, Alejandro being asked to be the best man. While everyone had seen your cold hearted side, he saw you, the woman he'd be waiting for at the end of the isle. His favourite melody, the girl who made him soup, stayed up all night understanding the video game he was enraged by, taking classes to speak to your in-laws in their language. Wearing that sundress and although you weren't religious, attended church with his mum, grandma and him.

4 months after he had proposed to you, thats when you met 141 and Shadow Company. Graves introduced himself, once he spotted you in the room, he stopped, "-any...ways, it's a pleasure to meet y'all." He nodded to himself and walked to where you were. Alejandro ran through the plan.

"You look beautiful, sweet thing-"

You raised a finger to him, "I don't let dogs speak to me." Rudy heard it, chuckled to himself. He was happy, a part of him was always protective of you, wanted to be selfish and have you to him. So knowing you were still like this with other men made him glad. Now that he was on the good side of your actions, he didn't know if you still spoke like that to other men.

Graves was....mad...? He noticed how you changed, how you looked healthier, happier and that stupid fucking diamond ring. He did love how much your body had changed, how your curves become more prominent, your hair longer, the same body he was once all over was...sexier, appealed to his needs for sure.

And then after the meeting, he saw you hand in hand with Rudy. Your cold gaze now soft, you blushing and admiring your boyfriend. Rudy kisses your cheek which caused you to look away blushing. Although you were dating him, it was as if you were a school girl, crushing on a celebrity, gushing over him.

Rudy was always the one, that was clearly known. Graves will now forever hold his peace, as the girl that treated him with love and respect was now with another. You'd be the bride and he would never be the groom who gets to call you his.

His lost was and is clear to be Rudy's gain.

Industry disruptors and soul deconstructors And smooth-talking hucksters out glad-handing each other And the voices that implore, "You should be doing more" To you, I can admit that I'm just too soft for all of it

Tags: @anonymuslydumb

A/N: checking my inbox and I just realised I have request from back in may....sorry...I'll get to those, I promise

[panda-writes-kpop]

Hey I requested that last yunjin x gn reader can u do another one where they’re sitting at home and he’s trying to help her come up with a song for the new album thank you

my victory - "my sugar" ~ h. yn.

a/n: thank you for the request, and i hope you enjoy this! it's a bit short, my apologies in advance, my allergies are kicking my ass 🥲 it's a bit different than your request so i hope that's alright!

tw: reader is a simp (aren't we all)

♡ Masterlist ♡

summary: yunjin has trouble drumming up inspiration (me too girlie) for song lyrics on her upcoming album. As her partner, you take it as your responsibility to help her get out of the house and find her groove. and you get to spend time with your girlfriend - a win-win scenario!

"Babe, stop it!"

Yunjin's screech lands on deaf ears as you plant another wet kiss on her cheek.

"How am I supposed to focus when you-" She turns her head to face you, and you place a fleeting kiss on her lips, "now you're teasing me."

You lazily wrap your arms around her waist before pulling her away from the desk.

"C'mon, you've been looking at that laptop for hours and nothing has come to you. Why don't we go out for a bit so you can refresh your mind?" You suggest as she tries and fails to grab her laptop from the desk.

"I have to finish these lyrics before the deadline-" Yunjin tries to argue, but you shush her with another kiss to the lips.

"-which is a month away, and you're supposed to be relaxing when you're here visiting family and friends." You emphasize the word friends, as if the company that approved the trip wasn't already aware of your relationship.

You wanted to make the most of Yunjin being back in the States, but with her so focused on her group's upcoming comeback, you felt like Yunjin was with you without really being there with you.

"Alright." She reluctantly closes her laptop after you let her go from your arms. "What do you want to spend today doing?"

~

"You're such a fucking cheater." You scoff as you tally up the miniature golf score.

"You're the one who gave me the handicap." Yunjin accuses you as you roll your eyes.

"You said you were bad at mini golf!"

"I said I was bad at mini golf... when I'm without a handicap." Yunjin teases you as you finish adding the scores together.

"You failed to mention that when we started." You sigh as you show her the score card. "You got ten up on me, so you know what that means."

"I'm the winner?" She beams at you, and your crushing defeat is nothing compared to her happiness.

"You have to buy me a pity drink, as the winner."

"No fair!" She whines as you grab the car keys.

"It pays to be a loser." You shrug before unlocking your car.

~

"Cheers." You press your glass to hers. "To love, to us."

"And to sore losers." Yunjin jokes before taking a drink from her glass. "I'm glad you took me out for a date, babe."

"Me too, I can actually have some time with my girlfriend this week." You chuckle to yourself. "Feeling better now that you're out and about?"

"I am, despite your sarcasm, and I've got a few new ideas for that laptop." She presses a soft kiss to your cheek.

"Any of them involve me?" You lean in to kiss her on the lips before she pushes you away.

"None of them, actually." She scoffs after you kiss her. "But I haven't written any lyrics yet, so there's time for you to inspire a few."

You pull her in to another kiss to show your approval.

"Let's head back to my place so we can relax for a bit, and then you can write as long as you want, alright?" You pull her into your arms before she snatches the keys from your hand.

"One more drink?" She looks at you with pleading eyes.

"One more drink." You say confidently, as if the two of you aren't going to spend the rest of the night in each other's arms, the laptop and her work schedule long forgotten.

[pookietv]

number one fan | george clarke

this was requested! and i couldn't resist the end lmao so !!

george had always been supportive. he liked to consider himself his friends biggest fans, always turning up to whatever may be important to them, from arthur's tours, to his home friends graduations, he always wanted to be there and be able to show his pride in the people in his life.

so when he began dating a singer, it was to no one's surprise that he became the biggest fan out there.

your music a staple of the household, to the point where an intervention was called by arthur and chris.

"geooooorge can we not put on different music now?" chris said with a slight smile on his face as he rolled his eyes jokingly.

"you know we love y/n's music but george, this is a little excessive," arthur agreed, giggling to himself a little.

"just let this song finish! its the best one," he protested whilst cooking at the kitchen island, earning a joking groan from arthur.

"i'm convinced that just by living in this house we may know her lyrics better then she knows them," chris laughed, and george just shrugged with a mockingly innocent look.

when you first got signed by a manager, changing from original songs uploaded to youtube to a real publishing plan.

"george?" you grinned to yourself as you went into his room, having been let in by arthur, seeing him sat at his desk, seeing you and pulling his headphones off his head.

"hey, you! didn't know you were coming around today," he said, standing to press a quick kiss to your hairline, and you could barely stop yourself grinning at him like the cheshire cat.

"what's that look for?" he asked as he pulled away, quirking his head slightly as a small smile approached his face too.

"i got offered to be signed! by a real label! they actually want me to be under their label!" you practically babbled out, watching george's grin grow wider before wrapping you in a hug, practically lifting you from the ground.

"no way! that's amazing, darling," he muffled into your hair, his arms around your torso only wrapping tighter, "i'm so so so proud," he beamed, pressing another kiss to your cheek.

"thank you george," you smiled back, your cheeks glazed with red, "you've been so supportive, and i appreciate it so much,"

"so, now can i convince you to write a whole album about your biggest fan?" he teased, and you playfully pushed his chest.

"well, maybe i could write a song for arthur, i mean he was so lovely letting me open for his tour, he definitely has been a loyal fan..." you teased in return, pretending to ponder, causing george to mock pout.

"hey, hello, i am your biggest fan you muppet!"

when your first album released, and it was all george could yap about for at least a month afterwards.

when he featured on his bach and arthur's podcast? practically the first thing to leave his mouth.

"yeah, so i've not been up to too much, y/n was really busy recently so we decided now she's done and the album's released, we might try and go away somewhere - the album's out now on all streaming platforms! go listen, she's brill," he says with a cheesy grin on his face.

"what was the timer on george mentioning y/n there? under five minutes?" bach laughed, george's face going slightly red as he shrugged.

"it is a good album, in his defence," arthur laughed a little.

when he's in one of chris' videos? practically every goal he scored was backdropped by the beat change of one of your songs.

"if you miss this one, we're not letting you aux the flat for a week," chris chided with a grin, and george rolled his eyes as he placed the ball down, lining it up and kicking it in.

"see? he's the biggest fan around! the second the thought of not playing y/n's new album 24/7 is unthinkable to george," arthur laughed, before continuing, "i don't even live with you guys and i think i've heard y/n's music more times then i have actually met her in person."

going to your first big concert?

you had offered him to be backstage, but he had said no - of course he wanted to be in the front, seeing you perform like he was anyone else, he wanted to see you properly, from the floor.

"you're sure you don't wanna be backstage?" you had asked him on facetime earlier that day, when you were already at the venue for sound checks but he had assured you no.

"we're all coming in the pit, we've gotta see it like a normal concert!" he grinned down the phone, and you rolled your eyes playfully.

"you at least gonna stand at the back so you guys don't get like, mobbed or squashed or something? 'cause people might ask for photos," you said, slightly concerned for him, but he just shook his head.

"we can take photos afterwards with whoever wants one - i'm not standing at the back and barely seeing anything just cause some people may try and be rude and take photos with us whilst you're performing, that's not fair to you," he hummed slightly down the phone, "plus, chris wouldn't be able to see from the back and you know that," he laughed a little at his own joke

you cracked a small smile as you shook your head, "you're so stubborn, george, you know that?"

and when he showed up to the concert, with both of the arthurs and chris, all stood as close to the front as they could be, and before you could even notice anything else, you saw george's shit eating grin at his shirt, which he wore in a teasing sort of pride, that just said 'i fucked the singer', and as he saw your eyes roll, you could hear his laugh from the crowd.

[sevvynth]

sing with me..?

or in short, you go to a karaoke booth with them.

xavier... is not that good when it comes to singing, but he's got the spirit. he'd get all shy when you offer him the microphone and he prefers singing in private but he will sing if you want him to. he's trying (not to blast your eardrums), please don't laugh.

"i want you instead.. here, you can have this back," xavier hands the microphone back to you as he sat down, laying his head on your shoulder. "but you were doing so great!" you exclaimed. was he getting shy under your stare? you ran your fingers through his hair and he let out a pleased sigh. "i don't want to sing anymore. besides, i prefer listening to you sing anyway."

zayne... definitely has a smooth voice, but he doesn't sing often. he might sound like he's just reading the lyrics sometimes but it's not on purpose. he'd be the type of guy who wouldn't pick up the microphone and sing a lot, but he will sing one song if you request him to.

"dr. zayne, one more song, please?" you plead, handing the microphone back to him after he just gave it back to you. "no." zayne only took a sip of his drink as he sat back down. "boo.." you mumbled, cheeks puffing in faux disappointment. he sighed and moved closer, taking the microphone from your hand. "..alright, just one."

rafayel... is a good singer. he'll pretend to have a terrible voice when you give him the microphone, but don't get fooled— he was a theatre singer once. he'll sing out of tune at first, but when there's other people around, he'll definitely show off. he'll do the same thing if it's the two of you and you tease him enough.

"boo, you suck," you joked, snatching the microphone from his hand as soon as the song ended. rafayel let out the loudest, fake gasp you've ever heard in your entire life and looked at you as if you've just insulted his entire bloodline and the entire marine life. "give me that," he snatches the microphone back, letting out a huff as he flips through the songbook. "i'll show you the highest score in this screen, you'll regret doubting my skills!"

[sweetcandyhigh]

⚜️Goofy Eddie⚜️

:A little Drabble from the imagine I posted earlier about Eddie being a big goofball

Eddie’s quirky smile spread across his lips as he saw you searching his cabinets for anything halfway edible, most of everything being expired or just gross looking. A low humming following along to the music Eddie had playing on the speaker as you swayed, escaping your pretty lips.

You furrowed your brows looking around as you could feel an oh so familiar gaze on you but couldn’t find the usual culprit. You sighed calling out, “Eddie?” Pulling out some most likely stale, but thankfully not expired pop tarts. Not exactly the flavor you’re used to but it was fine.

While occupied with your snack Eddie crept up. Feet light on the floor boards, as he swiftly walked towards you. He snickered as he waited for the song he had on to get to the guitar solo. His hands snaked around your body mimicking the actions as if he was playing the guitar, and doing his best to impersonate the sounds, causing you to jump clutching your chest.

“Jesus Eddie!” You yelped out in surprised as he continued his intense performance of the guitar solo, with a few of his goofy laughs falling out of his lips.

⚜️.

You sighed as you slumped on your bed, finally able to slip into your pjs and relax. You sighed as you closed your eyes, enjoying the silence, furrowing your brows when you heard a knock on your window.

Quickly sitting up you rush you way to the window shoving open the curtains looking out of it trying to find the culprit. You chalked it up to the tree that was right by it, making your way back to the comfort of your soft bed.

Once you had finally gotten cozy there came another noise, “Fushing!”, causing you to shoot up out of bed stomping your way to the window. Sliding it open sticking your head out, “Who the hell?” You started before trailing off as you heard an oh so familiar snicker coming from just outside of your line of sight.

“Goddamnit Eddie! How many more times are you gonna do this?”

And before you knew it there popped out a very disheveled Eddie, who seemed as though he came here last second before going to bed.

“Aww how’d you know it was me?” He mumbled out disappointed as you gave him a look.

⚜️.

*nsfw*

You laid on his bed in his empty trailer, between your legs black disheveled curly haired was all that could be seen. Sloppy noises of his tongue connecting with your core filling the room. He slowly inched his hand up as he slid a finger in, the feeling of the cold metal on his ring making you shiver

“Hi pretty,” He said with a crazy giggle, looking straight at your pussy fluttering around his finger. You furrowed your brows before he curled his finger, making you throw you head back with a moan. Then came another goofy giggle

“Thank you for scoring this for me,” he said talking to you pussy like it was his ticket to having you. Your eyes slamming shut as he entered a second finger , his lips connecting with your clit.

You were so blissed out by the pleasure you couldn’t even focus on how goofy he was. And you didn’t even flinch when he blew raspberries on your clit, well maybe it did feel pretty good but you’d never admit something like that to him, would just fuel the fire.

He giggle and coo at your pussy as he finger fucked you, making your thoughts incoherent. And you best believe he was humming some kind of rock song like he was doing the dishes or some other mundane chore instead of giving probably one of the most pleasurable experiences with him in your life.

“Dirty deeds,” he hummed out as he added a third finger, “Done dirt cheap,” he continued as he curled upwards only pulling his eyes away from your pussy when he heard a whine escape your lips. He chuckled, “Good girl,” he mumbled out before bringing his attention back between your legs. His head coming down to suck on your clit once again.

“Concrete shoes, cyanide,” he hummed out as he sucked on your clit, relaying the only other lyrics he could remember at the time. And don’t even think for a second that he wasn’t finding pleasure in this because oh he was. The fact you even let him get near you made him ecstatic, so you best believe he was enjoying this, he just couldn’t help his goofy side showing.

And when you finally came undone, that coil finally snapping in your stomach, and when all your fluids and cum rush onto his fingers, he lets out a deep guttural groan, followed by a chuckle. And you best bet he’s giving you a ton of praises except… they’re all directed at your pussy, but really he was just to shy to look up at you.

⚜️.

The first time you guys took a bath together was the only time cause he acted like a goddamn kid in the bath. While you were running the water so you could relax your aching body, he had peeked in, “Watcha doin?” he said with his eyebrows raised, “Bath,” you mumbled out as he full on stepped inside the bathroom causing you to look over at him.

And right then in there he practically threw his shirt of his body, “I’m joining,” he said with his big smile as he stood there waiting for the tub to fill. And you were shocked, he hadn’t ever shown interest in something like this. And you thought you didn’t mind but best believe you did once you got in.

Next thing you know you’re sinking into the bathtub with Eddie behind you, his hair tied up because he whined about it getting wet, Which you help him with because you wanted him to be quiet.

He of course insisted on having bubbles so you squirted some shampoo in which did the job. You exhaled as you laid your body back on his chest. For the first few minutes everything was fine, relaxing even, but you should’ve now better.

You heard that signature giggle from him, causing you to furrow your brows. And before you knew it you felt his hand sliding up your body, assuming he was gonna do something to rile you up you let out a choked out noise as his hands stopped at your stomach. Before you could speak up he started patting your stomach like it was a goddamn drum kit and before you knew it he was having a full on jam session.

“Thunder! Thunder!Thunder!” He started off, your face dropping as he did so, his hands patting your belly lightly, “You’ve been, Thunderstruck!” There was his laugh once again and then he started with his pretend air guitar solo.

You sighed pinching the bridge of your nose as this went on for about 20 minutes until you were done with his jam session, too tired and sore to deal with it. You slowly got out and the next thing you heard and felt, was a slap to the ass,

“Eddie!” You screeched sending him a glare as he looked away whistling another song, pretending nothing happened.

[assortedvillainvault]

Hello! Can I request Starscream with a reader who loves video games, especially older "retro" ones please?

Anon you have waited so long, please accept this humble word train of inconveivale proportions, becuase this went from 'haha Screamy vs tetris' to 'holy shit I can't stop typing-'

Starscream x RetroGamer!Reader

HA!

Such primitive, meagre entertainment. How can you engage in something barely even fit for newsparks??

Yeah, Starscream is waving his ‘technological-race superiority’ around again. You’ve long since learned to roll your eyes, tune him out and turn the tinny volume on your console to maximum just to annoy him.

For all that he snorts and rolls his optics and waxes lyrical about how his games were played in high-speed roulette 5D stratospheric-chess - or whatever - you don’t fail to smugly notice how his wings twitch in time with the music. (Don’t bring it up or he’ll screech about how he can’t get the bouncy little tunes out of his head at 3am. It’s not worth your eardrums.)

And when he DOES pay attention, he’s the kind to aggressively backseat drive.

What’s worse, is that after breathing down your neck and screeching at you to “Jump HIGHER-” (Mario Bros is a relationship tester), he’ll cluck his tongue and smarmily coo at your game over screen until you finally snap and shove the comparatively tiny controller in his face.

The affronted shock lasts a millisecond before he huffs and says such childish little things are beneath him. Obviously.

Your petty revenge is to chat obnoxiously loud to Knockout and spread a rumour on the Nemesis that the Mighty Commander Starscream is too outdated to try anything new, clearly, I mean he’s just so old-

- much screeching shouting and scratched paintjobs later, you find out that he’s simply downloaded the games into his brain and fully intended to not breathe a word to you about it apparently until you died. Prideful bastard.

He HAD intended to tell you, but only after he had gotten an impossibly high score to beat so he could rub it in your cute squishy face.

In a beautifully ironic twist of fate, being as advanced as cybertronians are, the highly simple nature of most retro games actually renders them incompatible, like trying to run a floppy disk through a hadron collider. So while yes Star can play tetris on his break, he cannot simply blitz the levels as expected and call it a day, because the old games have such simple parameters in comparison to how he usually operates.

So he has to actually play.

With no instructions because of course this high strung high maintenance metal bird could not possibly deign to ask you how to play first. That would be demeaning. And he won’t google it either.

You can sit in smug, satisfied peace as you watch him slowly tick through several layers of frustration: wings twitching, claws tapping, optics whizzing to focus on platforms and little 8 bit enemies you can’t see.

But Starscream is still the Second in Command of the Decepticons. And the Decepticons have very stringent security measures.

Soundwave fucking manifesting outside your window one evening was enough to have you pray to every god you’ve ever heard of. Inscrutable, all knowing fucking Soundwave. You regret every conversation you’ve ever had on the Nemesis, oh god your house is probably bugged-

His face screen flickers to life. You blink, as a live stream of the Nemesis command deck appears.

You have, by dint of hanging around too much and a few close encounters with the Autobots, seen cybertronians on the battlefield before. It is nothing compared to the later levels of Pacman on the Nemesis bridge at 1 am.

Soundwaves inscrutable smiley face emoji pings your phone, almong with a simple, translated glyph.

“More? :)”

PS-

Soundwave is Pacman god. Knockout has a soft spot for the Mario games. Starscream fucking loves Galaxian and will die before he ever tells you this. Shockwave, logically, finds Tetris soothing.

Megatron plays pong on his throne sometimes when his usual brooding gives way to inevitable drug induced boredom. It spaces his eyes out to either side nearly completely. Starscream has screenshots of his gormless mug taped to his hab wall to shoot on occasion.

[velvet4510]

I guess I’m one of those weirdos who so deeply feels the essence of an instrumental leitmotif from a film score associated with a particular character or couple, that I start associating said leitmotifs in my head with ANOTHER character from an entirely different film/book/series. And I’ve built up a whole library of leitmotifs for LOTR characters even though I ADORE Howard Shore’s original score for the trilogy. I consider these leitmotifs to be add-ons, NOT replacements.

Nor do I intend to completely dissasociate all of these themes from their intended films/characters; some of them are perfect fits for the films they were written for. It’s just my mind going wild like usual. (But I admit, in some cases, the pieces are from films I dislike, and thus I would rather see these great songs associated with something of LOTR quality rather than what they were actually stuck with, especially when the lack of lyrics gives you the freedom to let the melody take you wherever it takes you, personally.)

In the case of Silmarillion characters and relationships, well, it’s a different story - it really is my attempt to cobble together what could be a hypothetical score, if it were brought to the screen. Obviously it’d never be this exactly, but I would hope a composer for a potential screen adaptation of The Silmarillion might be inspired by themes like these.

In some cases, the characters these themes were originally written for don’t resemble the corresponding LOTR characters very much, or at all. Also some of them have titles that by themselves could not be more different from and unfitting for Tolkien’s world. It’s just the melodies on their own, without context or even name, performed by these gorgeous orchestras, that have come to remind me of particular Tolkien figure(s).

I also have found lots of “love themes”, both romantic and platonic, for character relationships, as you’ll see. I’ve included romantic themes for canonical couples, as well as for pairings that I personally ship. I know Shore already gave Aragorn and Arwen a theme, but as I said, these are all extra additions and not replacements.

And yes I have a lot of Star Wars stuff in here, because I love Star Wars…but I love Tolkien more.

For the heck of it I’ll share some of these, with links to each song on YT. It’s hard to explain why I made these choices/associations, but maybe you’ll get it if you listen to some of them.

CHARACTER THEMES

The Valar = “Guardians of the Whills Suite” by Michael Giacchino

Lúthien Tinúviel = “Once Upon a Time in the West” by Ennio Morricone

Túrin Turambar = “Anakin’s Theme” by John Williams

Niënor Níniel = “Helena’s Theme” by John Williams

Frodo Baggins = “Romeo” by Nino Rota

Sam Gamgee = “Rey’s Theme” by John Williams

Aragorn = “The John Dunbar Theme” by John Barry

Gandalf = “Yoda’s Theme” by John Williams

Legolas = “Rose Tico” by John Williams

��owyn = “Marion’s Theme” by John Williams

THEMES FOR LANDS/LOCATIONS

The Undying Lands = “Out of Africa” by John Barry

ROMANTIC LOVE THEMES

Frodo x Sam = “Love Theme from Ben-Hur” by Miklos Rozsa

Beren x Lúthien = “Love Theme from The Godfather” by Nino Rota

Faramir x Éowyn = “Han Solo and the Princess” by John Williams

Aragorn x Arwen = “Love Theme from Cinema Paradiso” by Ennio Morricone

Sam x Rosie = “Love Theme from Dances with Wolves” by John Barry

Bilbo x Thorin = “Andante Cantabile” by Bernard Herrmann

Thingol x Melian = “Indecent Proposal” by John Barry

Fingon x Maedhros = “Wuthering Heights” by Alfred Newman

Galadriel x Celeborn = “Central Park” by James Newton Howard

Finrod x Bëor = “Somewhere in Time” by John Barry

Aegnor x Andreth = “Love Theme from The Scarlet Letter” by John Barry

Finduilas x Gwindor = “Deborah’s Theme” by Ennio Morricone

Túrin x Beleg = “Across the Stars” by John Williams

Mablung x Niënor = “Wanda and Vision” by Christophe Beck

Tuor x Idril = “Conversation Piece” by Bernard Herrmann

Eärendil x Elwing = “Tennessee” by Hans Zimmer

Maglor x Daeron = “Midnight Cowboy” by John Barry

Elrond x Celebrían = “And Then I Kissed Him” by Hans Zimmer

Pippin x Diamond = “Love Theme from Spartacus” by Alex North

Merry x Estella = “Love Theme from Rebel Without a Cause” by Leonard Rosenman

Elanor x Fastred = “Theme from A Summer Place” by Max Steiner (arranged by Percy Faith)

PLATONIC RELATIONSHIP THEMES

Elrond & Elros = “Brothers” by Hans Zimmer

Merry & Pippin = “Flying” by John Williams

Legolas & Gimli = “Rain Man” by Hans Zimmer

Boromir & Faramir = “Luke and Leia” by John Williams

Bilbo & Frodo* = “The Mother’s Love” by Miklos Rozsa

Sam & Elanor = “The Ludlows” by James Horner

I may add to this as I think of more, or even replace certain songs entirely if I come across a better match. Always return to the pinned post here to see the most recently updated list.

* Bilbo & Frodo’s melody is heard in the first minute of the linked track, 0:00–1:01, and again at 1:48. Also, the love theme I associate with Frodo & Sam starts playing at 1:03, making this whole thing fit all the hobbits even better.

[cowgurrrl]

Bug

Pairing: rockstar!joel miller x actress!reader

Summary: The BuzzFeed Puppy Interview [1.6k]

Warnings: mentions of a pet passing away, grief, puppy shenanigans, a happy ending (and surprises)

"The last time we were here, I was pregnant." You say as you settle onto the ground next to Joel. 

"I know, it's been a minute! How old are the twins now?" The same producer from the last time you and Joel did a Buzzfeed promo video asks.

"They'll be six in July," Joel says, beaming with pride, and you nod. 

"Is this your way of announcing something?"

"No!" You and Joel say at the same time, making everyone laugh. Once things settle, you introduce each other to the camera and wait excitedly for the puppies to come clamoring onto the sound stage. It only took six years, but you're finally getting to do the puppy interview with Joel, and you both immediately melt when the little baby pit bulls pad their way over to you. 

You specifically asked if you could work with pit bull puppies to raise awareness about the misconceptions surrounding the breed in memory of Daisy. It's been six months since she passed after fifteen years of belly rubs, snuggles, and love, and you've felt the ache since then. Seeing the tiny versions of her makes you feel a little better.

"C'mere, honey," Joel coaxes as he half-lays on the floor and scoops up the tan one. "Oh, look at that little face." He murmurs as he kisses her head and tucks her safely in his arms. Meanwhile, you're working on getting a shy black one to toddle over to you with little whistles and kissing sounds.

"It's okay. You don't have to be scared." You say, but he doesn't budge. The other two puppies, one grey and one brown, cuddle between you and Joel, and you take turns leaning down to kiss their heads and petting them.

"What was the process like working together on this film?" The producer asks.

"It was really fun! I always like having him work with me on things, and he just has an ear for scores and music in a way that I don't, so I think bringing him on for that was a perfect choice." You say, your eyes flitting to the black puppy who's still hesitant at your presence.

"Havin' her direct me and make notes was different than how we've worked together before because this is the first time she's been a director and producer, but it was a really cool environment. Our kids got to come to set with us and raid the craft station, so it was a good time." He's always been guilty of talking with his hands, but the puppy whining at a lack of attention really highlights it and makes you laugh. "Oh, I'm sorry. Are you feelin' neglected?"

"Joel, do you have any favorite movies or shows of hers?" 

"What a great question!" He exclaims, and you laugh. "I love everythin' she's been in and done, but that's 'cause I love her so much, and seein' someone you love do somethin' they love is just… the most special thing in the world. But I do have a special place in my heart for Self Made Men 'cause that's the first thing I ever saw of hers, and she's just so pretty in it. I mean, c'mon." He says, and you pretend to roll your eyes. The grey puppy climbs into Joel's lap and begins nipping at his arm to get him to put the tan one down and hold him instead. "Oh, don't be like that. I've got two hands for a reason." 

"What's your favorite album or piece of music Joel's made?" The producer asks you as Joel holds the puppies, alternating between head scratches and lightly pushing at their chests to get them to play. 

"I still really love the album he was making when we first started dating." 

"Glass House?" Joel asks, and you nod. 

"Sometimes, I'll put it on in the background while reading or doing something. It's just so nice, and it's so beautiful, both lyrically and sonically."

"Look at you with your vocabulary." He teases. 

"I married a musician a couple years ago. I hope I'd sound like I know what I'm talking about." You say as the two puppies in his lap finally have enough of him, riling them up, and they run off to play. The brown one joins them quickly, but the black one still lingers around you. You open your hands to him to let him smell, but he doesn't actually sit with you until his siblings come skating by and spook him. "Oh, sweet angel! Are you just so shy and little?" You coo as he snuggles into your chest, hiding his face like he got caught. You pet him gently and adjust so he can rest comfortably in your arms, and something in your chest settles for the first time in months. There's a fleeting thought, but you dismiss it quickly as the producer asks another question. 

"What is your love language?" She asks, and you laugh.

"Joel's is acts of service and touch."

"Hers is… I wanna say," Joel squints at you as he thinks. "Words of affirmation, and I'm gonna say touch." 

"You got it." You say, holding out your hand for a high-five. The trio of puppies start playing a little rough, and you and Joel immediately go into parent mode. He disengages the fight by picking them up while you protect the whimpering puppy in your arms. 

"Woah, woah, woah!" Joel says. "I understand that you wanna play and you're explorin' different things, but that's not how we treat other puppies, okay?"

"I can't believe you're gentle-parenting a pair of puppies." You laugh, and he shrugs as he puts them back down before reaching out and scratching the ear of the puppy you're holding. He makes a content noise and leans into Joel's hand. You smile as you look down at him. 

"It worked on the five animals we raised."

"What's one thing you could give a lengthy PowerPoint presentation on with no prep?" The producer asks.

"New York City history," you answer quickly. "I lived there for several years when I was in my late teens/early twenties, and it's kind of mandatory if you're gonna live there to know different bits of history. I just found it so fascinating."

"I think mine would probably have to do with guitars or somethin'. Especially since I started makin' them." Joel says.

"Oh, yeah. He made one for Ellie's birthday recently. It was just gorgeous, and it sounded perfect, too. You could probably teach classes at this point." 

"I don't know bout all that, but I do know a lot bout it." He says.

"Tell us a little bit about the Big Dreamer Foundation." The producer says. You and Joel each say a little bit about the foundation you created together to support arts programs and give kids scholarships to go to the programs of their dreams. Since you've started it, you've been able to send hundreds of kids to school and provide them with resources they wouldn't have had access to before. You even hint a little bit at the community center you're planning on building in your hometowns to support the arts there and help bring the community together. Starting the Big Dreamer Foundation with him is by far the most rewarding of everything you've ever done. 

As the interview goes on, you continue cuddling the black puppy as the others play and eventually fall asleep on Joel. When you come to the end and you're promoting the movie, you look at the people who brought the puppies from the shelter. "Are these guys available for adoption?" You ask, and someone nods. You look back at Joel and see him already looking at you and the puppy. 

"Are you thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" 

"I don't know. What are you thinking?" 

"I'm thinkin' there's no way we're goin' home without a puppy." He says, and you take a deep breath. You've been hesitant to bring another dog home since Daisy died. You weren't ready to love something else as much as you loved her. You also weren't ready to admit that she was really gone. But the kids miss having a dog around, and, honestly, you miss it, too. You didn't know you could even consider adopting another pet until the tiny black puppy captured your heart. 

"What's this one's name?" You ask the people from the shelter.

"That one's Bug."

"Bug." You echo in a baby voice. You look between Bug and Joel and feel tears spring in your eyes for some reason. "Baby, I think we need to take Bug home." You say. He makes a sympathetic noise and pulls you and Bug into his side.

"Then, Bug needs to come home with us." He murmurs. 

By the time the video goes live, Bug has come out of his shell and adjusted to the chaos of the Miller home. It turns out he loves music and will often sing along if Joel hits the right note on his guitar. He also loves cuddling up in bed when you're doing story time with the kids and is exceptionally patient when they try to put costumes on him to act in their plays. He's perfect. BuzzFeed includes pictures and videos of Bug with your family and a sweet memorial to Daisy at the end of the video.

You'll miss Daisy for the rest of your life but you know she would want you to love again. Her mysterious entrance into your life still baffles you, but you like to think she sent Bug your way in an equally baffling experience. You like to think she's still watching over you and the kids in her own way. You like to think she's just as happy as you are when Bug settles into your family like he was always meant to be there.