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reidgraygubler · 4 years ago

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sounds like sweet talk to my ears (spencer reid/fem!reader)

Title: Sounds Like Sweet Talk to My Ears

Request: kinda, it was already written but someone asked for it to be posted

Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader

Category: smut, fluff (18+ CONTENT!)

Content Warning: age gap between two consenting adults (Reader is 22. So it’s 15 years), swearing, sexual content (fingering, bathtub sex (?), groping, penetrative sex/creampie, hand kink), falling in love with a sugar daddy, mildly ooc spencer, light drinking, Sugar daddy!Spencer, sugar daddy relationship, mentions of under-aged drinking (in the past)

Word Count: 4,507

Summary: Reader and Spencer go on vacation where their relationship develops.

A/N: few things, this authors note might be a little long. And im sorry for that. This was written for a full length fic with mgg as the person. But i have heavily edited it to be for spencer instead. So if there are any weird things, or spencer being way out of character, that is why. Like i said this was originally going to be a full length fic (this was previously written!!), but i have since stopped writing it, i think i have one other part that is right after this, so if this part goes good, i’ll probably post the next part. secondly, this was also written for a friend of mine, who is 22, that is why the age gap is so big between reader and spencer. It was also written an original character, but i tried my best to make it be reader insert friendly (lots of petnames and nicknames)... someone on my nsfw blog (@reidsprincess ) asked about this, bc i found this gif that reminded me of this particular fic. Anyways… thanks for the love! Check out my masterlist!

~*~* THIS DOES CONTAIN 18+ CONTENT!! *~*~

{***}{***}{***}

“This place is beautiful,” I gasped once we were both in the small beach bungalow room. It was more grandiose than the last place we stayed in. The whole place was cozy and comfortable. This was a place I was never expected to be in...

The front door was connected to the living room, it was a comfortable room, two loveseats, and two armchairs. A flat-screen TV was mounted on the wall across from the furniture. And the kitchen was attached to the living room, separating the two with a breakfast bar and stools. The kitchen itself was better than the kitchen in my apartment. I was jealous of the owner of this home. Flowers and lit candles sat on every open surface.

The kitchen had a set of sliding glass doors, which opened up onto a patio. And that held outdoor furniture, and table and chairs set. Something told me it also housed a jacuzzi, and I was more than excited to utilize that later. The bedroom and bathroom were tuck elsewhere, but I had a feeling that it was as beautiful as the rest of the home.

The house sat on the beach. The sand was pure white and the water was perfectly blue. I couldn’t wait to run and play in the sand. As childish as that sounds… I’ve never been to the beach, so this is all new to me.

“Spencer,” I looked behind my shoulder and at him. He looked down at me with a smile as he set the luggage down on the ground beside him.

“How about,” Spencer pressed his lips to my ear and whispered. His fingers danced across my bare arm, leaving goosebumps in their wake. I shuddered and smiled softly. “I go run us a bath, while you order food? Dinner with dessert? Champagne?” he offered, dropping his hand to the hem of my shirt. I chuckled lightly and pushed his hand off me.

“That’s your idea of a perfect evening?” I asked, turning around to face him. “Dinner and a bath?” I chuckled lightly. He was looking down at me; the smile on his lips told me everything I needed to know. That he needed me right now more than I needed him. Although, I don’t think it’s possible for him to need me more than I needed him.

“Any evening with you is a perfect evening,” he whispered, lifting his hand to rest on my cheek. His hand fell down the side of my cheek and rested under my jaw, his thumb rested on the apple of my chin. I grinned as the familiar feeling of butterflies grew in my tummy.

“Oh you be quiet,” I whispered as I lifted my arms to wrap around his neck. He hummed before pressing a kiss to my lips. I hummed, pulling him down more so we were more so eye level. He wrapped his free arm around my waist and pulled me so I was close to his body. I breathed out a laugh through my nose. After a second, he pulled away from me and kept his eyes on me. “I guess you’re in luck then,” I smiled, placing my hands on his cheeks.

“How so?” he whispered, pressing his face into my hands. I smiled and went onto my toes.

“Because our perfect evenings sound very similar,” I whispered and pecked his lips, “Every evening with you is perfect,” I smiled before walking away from him.

“What… What are you doing, Sunshine?” Spencer asked in a complaining tone as I walked towards the kitchen. I looked over my shoulder at him as I pulled my phone out of my pocket.

“Dinner?” I waved my phone in the air, “What do you want?” I looked back at my phone and smiled.

“Whatever you want will be fine,” he came back up to me and kissed me again before going towards the bathroom, “Bubbles?” he called before stepping into the bathroom. I laughed as I pressed my phone to my ear.

“You know me so well, Spence!” I smiled and sat on one of the stools at the breakfast bar. I looked around the kitchen and living room, taking in the beautiful decor. I wonder how he knew about this place...

I quickly ordered food before finding my way to the bathroom. And, the bathroom was just as impressive as the rest of the house. One wall was just a window that faced the beach. And a large white bathtub sat in front of the window. A shower was tucked in the wall, just so it was out of the way, but even that was beautiful. And of course, it had a toilet and sink.

“Do you… Live here?” I asked, watching as Spencer was filling the tub. “Or like… Do you own this house? I mean… This is just. This is a beautiful house,” I leaned against the counter and looked at him. He stood up from the tub and looked at me.

“Sometimes…” he paused as he looked around the bathroom. Sometimes? How do you sometimes live somewhere? “On the very rare occasion, when I have time off… I take my mother down here for a week. She loves the beach and the ocean and the sand in her toes,” he smiled as he rolled the sleeves of his shirt down. Okay, I guess that makes sense. “You order dinner?” he asked, resting his hands on the counter beside me. I looked up at him and nodded.

“Yeah, yeah, dinner’s ordered and on its way here,” I nodded and rested a hand on his chest. He quirked an eyebrow and smiled softly.

“What’d you order?” he rested his hands on my waist. I smiled and cocked my head to the side, allowing his hands to wander up my sides.

“I’m sorry, it’s a surprise. I don’t want to tell you,” I smiled at him. Spencer wrinkled his nose before kissing my forehead. I let out a breath of air and shrugged. “You’ll find out in 20 minutes. You should save some space in the bath for hot water,” I poked his nose before sneaking away from his arms. He grasped my wrists and pulled me back so I was in front of him.

“Where are you going?” he asked, looking down at me. I flashed my brightest smile and shrugged.

“Champagne,” I batted my eyelashes. Spencer laughed and nodded. “You still want a glass or do you want to get in the bath now?” I offered as I walked back towards the kitchen.

“As always,” Spencer followed behind me. “I’ll grab a bottle, you get the glasses?” he asked, going towards a mini wine cooler. I nodded and opened a cabinet. I opened a few before finally pulling out two glasses.

“If this is your mother’s place, why aren’t there any photos of your family?” I asked, leaning on the counter as I sipped my beverage. Spencer turned and looked at me, leaning across from me on the counter.

“We rent it out on season.” He replied, looking down at his glass. I nodded.

“What does that mean?” I asked, feeling mildly stupid. He looked at me with a smile. “Sorry. But you gotta remember that I’m an elementary school teacher’s assistant… Who's poor. I have an apartment that I can barely afford… Not two houses, one of which I rent out.” I pointed out. Spencer laughed and nodded. “Or did you think I was just sleeping with you for fun,” I leaned over the counter to kiss his lips.

“Hurt,” he placed his hand on his chest in a mockery of hurt. I smiled at him and cocked my head. He looked back at me with a small smile on his lips. “Basically, when we’re not here, we rent it out… But we don’t have too many people staying here,” he chuckled before sipping his drink. “As for sleeping with me just for fun? I didn’t know it was just for fun,” he pouted. I smiled and shrugged.

“Can’t forget about that paycheck too,” I smiled at him and winked. Spencer looked at me with raised eyebrows, causing me to laugh. “And, I think the fun is just an added bonus feature…” I laughed, throwing my head back. “I thought what we were was just money and sex? Nothing more,” I whispered, leaning on the counter. Spencer looked at me and shrugged.

“It could be more than that,” he smiled. I lowered my glass to the countertop and stared at him. I could feel my lips trying to pull into a smile, but the longer I stared at him, the more I wished this wasn’t a dream. Because that’s all it felt like when I was with him. A dream.

“Surely… You can’t be serious, Spencer,” I whispered, finally looking away from him. Spencer lifted his hand and rested it on my cheek, carefully turning my head back to look at him.

“I’ve never been serious like this before, Sunshine. And, please, don’t call me Shirley,” he whispered, poking my nose. I smiled and leaned over the counter again, kissing his lips.

“Only if you’re serious, Spencer. I understand you’re a busy man yourself, with all that saving people with the FBI,” I whispered. He nodded, keeping his hand on my face. I wasn’t exactly sure if he was being serious, mostly because he’s a bit older than me and most people my age (and his age) don’t take such a big age gap.

A knock on the door caused us both to look that direction. I looked back at him and smiled. “Oh no. What’d you order?” He asked, watching me bounce towards the front door. I pulled the door open and met the delivery man with a smile.

“Thank you very much,” I smiled and took the food and pressed the door shut. “I got pizza because I really wanted pepperoni pizza,” I looked at him as I held the box up. Spencer laughed and nodded as he grabbed the two champagne glasses and bottle.

“I’m okay with having pizza,” he smiled before taking the lead back to the bathroom. I held the box in a tight grip as I followed behind him. “Although, I never pictured pizza to be a fancy dinner before a bath,” he looked over at me with a quirked eyebrow. I laughed before I sat on the ground.

“I mean, you are the one who put me in charge of ordering dinner,” I looked at him, watching as he sat on the ground across from me. He sat against the cabinets of the sink counter. I shoved his food towards him and smiled. “It just shows we have two different tastes. I mean, remember the first night we met. You ordered room service for steak and chicken alfredo,” I pointed out as I pulled my food out of the bag. “I’m a simple woman. I like pepperoni pizza,” I smiled at him.

“I think I’ll put you in charge of ordering food more often,” Spencer smiled at me as he went for a slice of pizza.

“I think that’s a good idea,” I grinned. “I’ll be sure to eat quick. I’ve never been so ready for a bath in my entire life,” I spoke as I moved to sit closer to him.

“Take your time. We have all the time in the world, Princess,” he smiled as he sipped his champagne. I felt my face warm up a bit as I looked away from him. Something about the petname he has for me just gets me going, and I love it. He definitely knew that too, that I loved the petname of Princess.

“Glad to know that,” I giggled as I looked at my mostly-empty glass.

{***}{***}{***}

“More champagne, Princess?” Spencer’s voice was low as he held up the bottle that was now mostly empty. I lolled my head back onto his shoulder and rested my elbows on his knees (I was sitting between his legs in the bath) and held up my glass.

“I would love more,” I whispered, watching him pour too much into my glass. I hummed happily, telling him it was enough. He placed the bottle back on the stool and wrapped both arms back around my body. The bathwater was warm and matched with how much booze I was drinking, I knew I was beyond intoxicated. I’m sure Spencer’s presence only fueled that feeling. No, it 100% added to that feeling. I knew that. And, he knew that. He knew he had a way with me that no other man would have, or ever have even.

“You should pace yourself, Princess,” Spencer whispered, pressing his lips to my shoulder. I giggled before sipping my drink, telling him I shouldn’t. His breath of air fanned over my skin as he began pressing kisses to my neck.

“You, Spencer, should stop giving me alcohol,” I looked up at him as best I could. He smiled and kissed me again. “Besides... you’ve had just as much... as me,” I spoke through tiny hiccups. Spencer chuckled and rubbed my shoulders before pressing his lips back to them. My eyes rolled into the back of my head as the unknown tension slipped away. Damn his touch.

“Okay, that’s fair,” he murmured into my skin. "However, I've been drinking for sixteen years. You, Sunshine, are only 22 and have only been drinking a year,” he stated like I would follow the rules. I held back the cackle that so desperately wanted to escape my lips. Me? Follow the rules?? Never ever… This should be a fun thing to tell him.

"True… But I have been drinking since I was 18," I smiled and nodded. I sipped my champagne as I rested my head back on his chest. Spencer made a sound of disapproval which only made me laugh. Oh yeah, that’s right… Under aged drinking is illegal… and he is an FBI agent... “Okay, since when have you known me to follow the rules? I’m dating a man 15 years older than me,” I pointed out.

"Oh, you naughty girl." Spencer playfully scolded me. I pouted before humming again.

“Yes, but I’m your naughty girl,” I laughed, arching my back a little bit. I felt his hand travel from my stomach and to my thighs. I hummed as I got a little more comfortable for what he was about to do. “Starting early,” I teased. Spencer let out a breathy laugh. He gently pressed his lips to my throat, right on my pulse point. I gasped lightly as he parted his lips and sucked a spot on my neck. I held my glass just outside of the tub.

“I’d rather have champagne in the bath than champagne and glass on the floor,” he kept his voice low as he pulled my hand back over the bath. I laughed and shook my head. “Is this okay,” he asked as his other hand traveled a bit more upwards, towards me.

“It’s always okay,” I whispered, taking a deep breath of air. I could feel my heart beating in my chest, I wouldn’t be surprised if Spencer could feel and hear it.

“Let me take this,” he spoke, taking my glass from my hands. I let out a sound of protest as he took my glass and pressed my head into his chest. He chuckled as he placed the glass on the stool beside the empty bottle. “You can have it back,” he spoke in a mocking tone. I pouted and dropped my head to my shoulder. “In a minute,” he added, his tone becoming a little bit more smug. I rolled my eyes and let out a huff of air.

“Fine,” I whispered. Spencer chuckled again and placed his hand back on my thigh. I hummed happily and looked up at him. “Do you have to be such a tease all the time?” I pouted at him. He smiled and shrugged before dragging his hand closer to my center.

“Could be more than a tease,” he replied in a whisper. I rolled my eyes and let out a deep breath of air. I carefully lifted my foot out of the water and rested it on the ledge of the tub. “Oh no, you’re gonna get water all over the floor,” he scolded.

“Oh no,” It was my turn to mock him. I smiled as I waved my foot in the air. Spencer hummed before pressing his lips to the side of my head. “A little bit of wet never killed anyone,” I snickered. Except, that snicker became a gasp when he pushed a finger past my folds. My eyes fluttered shut as my jaw stayed slack open. I pressed my back into his chest, feeling his arousal on my lower back. I nearly slipped under the water if Spencer hadn’t had his other arm around my waist, holding me safely against his body.

“Calm down there, Princess,” Spencer laughed as he held me up. I glared over my shoulder at him. “Don’t need you slipping under the water. I think you’re wet enough,” he added as his finger slowly circled my clit. My hands gripped the side of the tub and then moved to rest on his knees.

“I fucking hate you,” I muttered but moaned towards the end of my statement. Spencer laughed as he pressed his lips to the side of my head. His other arm was pressed against my chest, keeping me still as I wiggled and writhed under his touch. A breathy moan fell from my lips as he picked up his pace.

“No, I don’t think you do,” he whispered, keeping his lips close to my ear. My eyes fluttered shut as I dropped my head to the side. Spencer took this as his chance to press kisses across the space behind my ear, causing me to gasp lightly. Spencer hummed, pleased with how I was reacting to any sort of his touches.

I lifted both my hands and gripped his arm as he slowly eased a finger into my center. I pressed my nails so hard into his arm, I wouldn’t be surprised if come morning he’d have crescent-shaped bruises there.

A man like Spencer who has hands as beautiful as his, he clearly knows what he’s doing. It’d be a sin if he didn’t. A loss for all of womankind. I guess that’s why I’m so pleased that it’s me under his hands right now and not a different girl. I quite literally love his hands, and the way he can just work his magic with his fingers, getting me going in a matter of minutes. He wasn’t lying when he said he was a magician.

“You alright, Princess,” he asked, keeping his tone low as he continued thrusting his fingers in and out of me, curling them just right. I hope the gasp I gave was a good response because I don’t think I knew words right now. My brain was getting fuzzy, and my belly was starting to grow tense. Like a coil deep within me was about to break.

“S’close,” I mustered out. I swallowed roughly as he began rubbing my clit with the heel of his palm. My whimpers, gasps, and moans weren’t evenly timid as he picked up the pace, finally pushing me over the edge.

I was a mess. There’s no other way of putting it. But, I’m always a mess when I’m with him.

Spencer slowly withdrew his hand from between my legs and placed it over top of his other arm, embracing me like his life depended on it. I took a deep breath, trying to steady my breathing. A giggle fell from my lips as I threw my head back against his chest. Spencer hummed as he looked down at me.

“I love your fucking hands,” I turned my head and looked at him. Spencer smiled at me and laughed before pulling his hands off me to look at them. I took one of them in my own and looked at it, entranced by his veins and freckles peppered over the backside. It felt right for his hand to be in mine.

“Thank you… I guess. I think that’s a compliment,” he mused as he placed his arms back over my chest and kissed my cheek. “You good?” he asked, his thumbs rubbing my shoulders.

“Yeah, I’m gonna go dry off and get water. Better see you in the bedroom.” I smiled at him. He pressed another kiss to my face before allowing me to get out.

“As you wish, Princess,” he smiled at me as I grabbed a towel. His eyes lingered on me for a moment as I wrapped the towel around my body. “I’ll be right behind you,” he added as I grabbed our glasses and empty champagne bottle.

I smiled at him as I left the bathroom, making my way across towards the kitchen. True to my word, I got a glass of water and drank half of it in one sip. I grabbed a second glass and retreated back towards the bedroom.

Spencer wasn’t finished in the bathroom, I could still hear him splashing around in the water. I grinned and shook my head as I stepped into the bedroom. I placed the two glasses on the nightstand. I sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for him to finish.

Not even two minutes later, Spencer entered the room, towel around his waist. I stared at him, my eyes lingering on his shoulders, down his arms to his hands, before flicking to gaze upon his belly and torso. I felt my lips twitch as I stood, leaving my towel behind. He smiled as I basically sprinted up to him.

I placed an open mouth kiss over his lips, putting my arms around his neck to pull him down to my height. I could feel his grin against my lips as our noses smooshed together. His arms wrapped around my waist as he brought us to the bed.

“You’re so eager, Princess,” he muttered against my lips. I hummed as I threaded my fingers through his hair. That action elicited a moan from his lips, making me smile. He gently pushed me against the bed, standing at the foot as I got myself to lie at the pillows. The way he looked at me told me he was pleased with how the night was going to end. And honestly, I understood.

He dropped his towel from his hips, letting it fall to the floor, before kneeling on the bed. I took a deep breath as I stared at him, keeping my eyes on my face. I knew if they wandered any further, I’d become a puddle right there. Well, more of a puddle than I already was.

Spencer smiled at me as his fingers ghosted my legs. He gently placed a kiss on different parts of my body as he made his way up to my face. The bliss I felt was unexplainable as he grasped one of my hands and kissed my lips.

He looked down at me, a small smile on his lips. My chest heaved as my breathing picked up once again. The kisses he pressed to the swells of my breasts made me feel like I was floating. That, or it was the softness of the mattress and bedding beneath us.

“You ready for me, Princess?” he asked, pressing a knee between my legs, separating them so he could fit comfortably between them. I licked my lips and nodded, keeping my eyes on his. His nose twitched as a smile grew on his lips. He brought a hand to rest on my cheek. “I need to hear you say it,” he leaned close to my ear and whispered.

“Yeah, yes… I’m always ready,” I swallowed roughly and nodded. Spencer pulled his hand from my face and moved it to my hip. I lifted my legs and wrapped them around his waist, pulling him close to me. He smiled and kissed my lips, a simple distraction as he pressed his cock into me. The breath in my lungs was knocked from me, causing me to loud gasp. Spencer smiled against my lips.

“You feel so good, Princess,” he groaned, dropping his head to my shoulder. It took a minute for either of us to move, adjusting to the feeling of each other. “Ready,” he asked, moving to place his forehead on mine. I swallowed and nodded, bringing my hands to rest on his cheeks.

A smile twitched on his lips as he slowly started to move his hips. At first, it was an unsure rhythm but slowly grew in a slow and meaningful pace. His hands roamed my body before wrapping around my torso and holding me close.

“Faster,” I panted, pulling my hands from his face and knotting them in his hair, again. He nodded, picking his pace. A familiar feeling in my belly, the coil winding, returned. The groans that fell from Spencer’s lips pushed me closer.

“You’re doing so good, Princess,” his voice was low and rough as he spoke.

I pulled a hand away from his head and brought it between our bodies. I began rubbing my clit, pushing me closer to the edge. Spencer’s thrusting grew more erratic.

“Come with me, please,” I whimpered, keeping my arm around him. He nodded and groaned as I clenched around him. After a moment, we both became a mess. Moans and gasps of each other’s names filled the silent bedroom.

Spencer stayed put above me for a minute, his arms around my body and holding me close. We took our time coming down from our shared high. A whimper escaped my lips as he pulled out from me and collapsed on the bed beside me.

“I got you water,” I panted, vaguely gesturing towards the two glasses of water on the nightstand. Spencer chuckled as he reached for a glass. I watched as he drank the water, his adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. I smiled at him, keeping my eyes on him. I knew I should look away, but I couldn’t. “You’re right, I don’t hate you,” I swallowed roughly and shook my head.

“I know I’m right,” he looked down at me with a smile. I rolled my eyes and watched him get off the bed. I furrowed my eyebrows and sat up. “I’m always right, Princess,” he looked over his shoulder and at me. I smiled and nodded as I got off the bed.

“So much for taking a bath,” I rolled my eyes as I felt our mixture roll down my legs. “I’m gonna shower,” I smiled at him as I walked towards him. He pecked my lips and nodded.

“Don’t have too much fun without me,” he poked my sides as I grabbed for my towel. I squealed and shook my head.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I smiled at him.

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permanentcrossfics · 4 years ago

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Blurred Lines: A Different Christmas // h.s.

How do we write Christmas fics in a really weird year? I’m still not sure, but I tried to string together a bit of relief for the end of December. I’m shutting myself up now, even though there’s lots I want to say. This is for anyone who wants it, anyone who needs it, anyone who enjoys it (or hates it!) silently and vocally alike. My Christmas gift is the happy and unexpected bonus of anyone reading what I have so much selfish fun thinking of and spinning out. Happy and Merry Christmas if you celebrate it, and a happy and merry end of December if you don’t and are just doing you! x

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It was the big Christmas tree you’d dragged back home by yourself on top of a rickety shopping cart all the way from a place on Second Avenue that had been your breaking point. Picking it had its own bittersweet undertones, but the smell of fresh pine tickling your nose even through a mask had kept you afloat as you struggled to get it off and onto curbs before traffic pancaked you in the middle of the road. It wasn’t until you were back inside, still wrapped in your coat and struggling to get it upright in the stand the correct way that you burst into a torrent of hot, selfish tears and bowed your head, kneeling next to the mass of needles and branches. He should be here! He should be helping you. He should’ve helped anchor lights in windows, he should’ve had an opinion on the scented candles, he should’ve made you go back for decorations you just weren’t sure of because you wanted them regardless of what he thought, and he should’ve helped pick, and carry, and set up the tree. The whole reason you’d gone out to get a fresh tree – something real in a year that had felt anything but – was to lift your spirits, but instead you were sobbing next to it and it all felt a little dramatically pointless. It was everything you’d avoided last year by flying off to England but that you couldn’t escape this time. What was the point? What was the point of pretending?

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“You coming home with me this year?”

Again. He asked the same question you’ve been dodging for weeks since plans had started to look uncertain again, not because he was pestering you, but because somehow, some way, you were both hoping for an answer with a loophole.

“I can’t,” you said softly, regretfully, holding your phone close to your face with one arm as you curled up under the duvet of a bed in an apartment that had somehow become yours together instead of his alone throughout the course of a very new, very different, very unsettling year. “For a few reasons.”

And he knew that.

Harry’s deep breath crackled and he dragged his hand down his face, holding it there as he shook his head, the thought processes you’d learned to read so well hidden from view.

You’d liked going home with him last year -- loved it, even. You’d hardly had time to look forward to a repeat when the world had flipped in the first quarter or sooner, and the sand had just kept slipping through the hourglass until all time for hope of a new and normal Christmas was gone and sucked away into the void of the year.

So many plans. So many memories that lived only as memories of daydreams now. So much else, so much more important, devastating, and tragic you couldn’t even put it into words and, frankly, didn’t want to. Not now -- you spent too much time thinking about it to think about it now, too.

“Filming’s done soon,” he said from behind his hand. “I can book my flight to New York--”

“Harry--”

“And then go to Manchester after Christmas -- after the New Year, we always take a bit of a longer break. Mum won’t mind--”

“Your mother’s barely seen you since last Christmas,” you said. “Your sister, too, and there’s not enough time to--”

“Course there is!”

“Two weeks quarantine in each?” you asked. “That’s a month of staying put, let alone--”

A split second glance at his face was all you saw before the screen went black and you bit your tongue. He hadn’t hung up, because you’d heard the soft thud when his phone collided with his chest, and you could hear him breathing now, so you waited, suppressing your own urge to snap as he had his. Despite having spent the better part of the year together, it was frustrating to think about not being together for the season. All you wanted was him, though you knew better than to voice it out loud. He’d do it -- for you, he’d do it if you asked him to -- and you’d have to live with the guilt of taking him away from his family at the time of year where family should be together most, if it mattered to them. And you’d been weirdly lucky enough to have him most of the year between carefully navigated business trips. He was only one man with one body. It didn’t -- couldn’t -- matter that you wanted him, too.

That you wanted to be with the man you loved.

When he picked up the phone again, his face was drawn, tired, and not just from filming, you suspected.

“Go home,” you urged, swallowing the break in your voice. “You miss home, and home misses you. I’ll have fun decorating and send you all the pictures you won’t be able to do anything about.”

His throat bobbed hard, audibly, and his eyes looked dangerously shiny.

“Next year I’ll go home with you,” you said, burrowing half your face into your pillow. “London and Holmes Chapel both.”

“Next year,” he said eventually, voice raspy. “We’ll have Christmas at home next year.”

You nodded, forcing the lump rising up, up, and up back down. “You should go to sleep,” you said. “It’s late and you have to be up early.”

“Later for you,” he said and you sighed, noting the 3:08 timestamp at the top of your screen.

“Let’s go,” you said. “Call me when you can.”

“I will.” Sad, but resigned. You wanted to reach through the screen and touch the downturned corners of his mouth to push them back upright again. “Sleep well, and I love you.”

Taking a deep breath, you murmured, “I love you, too,” before hanging up the call and the room descended into darkness and you into a fitful sleep.

***

At first, you were determined to make the most of it. Your studio had always been small, cozy, and Christmasy to the best of your abilities, but his -- your -- apartment had so many more possibilities. Candles were the first to be set out, with strategic clusters of red, green, and gold-colored wax placed all about and nestled in fake holly wreaths. String lights that cast a pretty glow lined windows even in the bedroom for some last minute holiday cheer, and despite the urge to drive him up a wall, you did your best to only pick out other decorations that you’d both like and want to use in the future. Because as much as you might avoid talking about it in many certain terms the longer the relationship went on (it still felt so funny to think that a one night stand had turned into a relationship), there was a future. He was your future. It wasn’t your first Christmas together, but it might be your last one apart.

He should be here! He should be helping you. He should’ve helped anchor lights in windows, he should’ve had an opinion on the scented candles, he should’ve made you go back for decorations you just weren’t sure of because you wanted them regardless of what he thought, and he should’ve helped pick, and carry, and set up the tree. The whole reason you’d gone out to get a fresh tree -- something real in a year that had felt anything but -- was to lift your spirits, but instead you were sobbing next to it and it all felt a little dramatically pointless. It was everything you’d avoided last year by flying off to England but that you couldn’t escape this time. What was the point? What was the point of pretending?

Wiping your nose, you stood, eyes heavy, swollen, and itchy. With your coat gone, you heaved the tree up until it was sitting securely in its stand, needles scattered in its wake but branches full and outstretched, enveloping you in the warm smell of Christmas in a way the cedar- and balsam-scented candles couldn’t. Stepping back with your hands on your hips, you looked up at it, the swell of your anxiety simmering, thanks partly to your crying fit and partly to succeeding at the task. You’d decorate it bit by bit to draw the season out, and then on Christmas Eve, you’d call him and you’d both sit by your own trees and talk until it was Christmas Day for him. It was just for now -- this wasn’t the way of all ways for all time.

Click.

You nearly passed out cold from the rush of fearful adrenaline shooting through you when the lock on the door clicked. In three seconds, you ran through whether or not you’d locked the door, determined that you had but then had forgotten, and figured out that somehow, someone had gotten in and they weren’t supposed to. You spun, frozen, brain zooming to determine if you dove behind a sofa or if you charged, but you didn’t get the chance before the door opened.

A duffle bag, a foot, a body, in that order, and then a pair of wide, green eyes rimmed with circles just above a cloth mask.

“You do not get to be mad at me,” he said, voice muffled. He grunted and pushed the door open wider to bring in the rest of his luggage as you stood there, as equally speechless as you were breathless. “I tested before I came here,” he said, speaking with a loud if exhausted sort of authority, like he was trying to get the words out before you could protest. “But I’ll take the guest room, and I’ll get my own food, and we’ll keep out of each other’s space until the two weeks are up.”

He brought his bags in the rest of the way, and it was only when he was halfway by you that he stopped in his tracks. “Y’haven’t moved,” he said, eyebrows furrowing as he narrowed his eyes on you. “Are you all right?”

Lightheaded, you nodded.

“O… kay,” he said, stilted, still eyeing you. “M’just gonna go get settled and showered, then.”

“What are you doing here?” you asked, the words finally forcing themselves from you.

“S’Christmas.”

“You’re supposed to--”

“Mum knows,” he interrupted. “M’taking Christmas here this year. Gem’ll have Christmas with her and I’ll go along after. She’s excited about having two. ‘Scuse me….”

Nodding, you waved him away to hurry, shoo, because you could feel the emotions rising in you again and your confusion wasn’t enough to quell them. Fifteen minutes ago, you’d been kneeling on the floor with aching knees, crying, and now here he was.

You’d wrestle with the confliction of doing what was right and doing what you wanted… later. Later, when you could wrap your head around it and the choice he’d made.

Two weeks. That would put you just on Christmas Day, basically. Just two weeks.

***

Dodging him around the apartment was a lot more difficult than you would’ve guessed for how big it was. More than once you nearly slammed into him in the kitchen, and someone was always in the favored bathroom. For his part, he’d taken to wearing a mask when he roamed, and even though you told him he didn’t have to do that, all he did was hum behind it. You got it -- the positive result from the crewperson on set had spooked everyone, and he was being safe. You both were being safe, but for as mindful as you’d been throughout, all you wanted to do was hold him, hug him, kiss him. Video calls were ridiculous when you were in the same house and you could hear his laugh through the walls. But you got it, and if you kicked too much he’d book a hotel to quarantine away from you, so you’d rather have him here, as selfish and risky as it was.

It was three days into your little bubble that he finally dared to get within arm’s reach of you. You were mulling over where to put the chimney sweep ornament when he shuffled over to the foot of the ladder you were leaning on, and you raised an eyebrow, arm outstretched.

“Can I help you?” you asked.

He shook his head, the lights from the tree reflected in his eyes. “Just watching,” he said from behind his mask.

“You’re standing a little close, aren’t you?” you teased. Jokes were all you had -- all anyone had this year, if they were lucky.

Immediately, he scowled -- how funny you could tell what his face looked like so clearly even with the cloth stretched firmly across it -- and you giggled. “Watch what you’re doing,” he said, taking his hands from his sweatshirt pocket to grab the ladder legs, and with his support, you held on tightly and leaned over to place it on the prime branch.

“Thank you,” you said. “Do you want to pass me that box?”

He did so and you murmured your thanks, resting it on the top step as you pulled ornaments out to hang them.

“Not there,” he said before you could drop a hook over a branch with a snowflake. “Give it… thank you.” He took it carefully from you and placed it on a different one closer to him, lower than where you were placing it but slightly higher than you could reach without a ladder.

“Thank you.”

Together, slowly, ornaments were hooked and rehooked (and rehooked yet again when one of you noticed the other had moved them from a spot you each thought was perfect) until the tree was trimmed, each branch heavily laden, bearing the weight of ornaments and of providing joy after the year behind.

“How’d you get this home?” he asked, looking up at it with you once you were off the ladder.

“Carefully,” you said dryly. “Oh! The top.” You turned, but he cut across your path.

“I’ve got it,” he said, grabbing the box from the precarious stack next to the coffee table.

“I want to,” you whined and he snorted.

“You’ve done the whole bloody thing,” he said without venom. “Let me do just the one.” With it in hand, he climbed the ladder as you held it steady, and he set it on the topmost branch, prodding it until it was tall and straight up, all five points outstretched and shining.

“That’s perfect,” you said under your breath, resting your head on his leg, and he patted the top of your head gently. You stayed like that for a minute, two, three, and more, with your arm curling around his calf, embracing as much physical contact as he’d allowed since he came home. “How many more days?”

“Eleven.” He sounded thoughtful, resentful, and exhausted all in one go. You squeezed his leg and kissed his knee through his joggers.

“Then it’s Christmas,” you said.

He exhaled slowly, still patting your head. “Christmas morning.”

***

Eleven. Whole. Days.

Eleven days of more of the same. He’d eased up, thankfully, and dared to venture a little closer with a mask on, because, as you’d reminded him, he had tested negative. You sat on opposite ends of the couch, enjoying the Christmas tree and decorations together, laughing, talking, planning, and exchanging stories about everything that had happened while you were apart. His, of course, were wildly more interesting, but he somehow managed to hang onto every word of even your most droll and mundane ones, and always with the right questions and supportive murmurs of agreement as necessary.

Eleven days of saying goodnight and crawling into a bed that was too big for one when two was next door.

Eleven days of not being able to share meals properly or touch each other -- sex aside -- and eleven days of Hell.

“It’s your fault,” you said one night from your end of the couch, scowling with your arms crossed. The tree twinkled happily despite your sour mood, and music that was too merry and bright played from the television.

“Me?” he asked indignantly.

“Yes! You had to do that stupid film.”

“It’s not stupid.”

“You’re wearing a mask in our home,” you said, burrowing into the cushions. “If I want to call it stupid, I will.”

He groaned, dropping his head forward. “Baby….”

You grunted.

“It’s only a couple more days. A couple more days, and then it’s Christmas. Think of it like a present you’re waiting for.”

Despite yourself, you snorted.

“I’m all you want for Christmas, aren’t--?”

“Shut up,” you said, kicking his thigh with your extended leg. He snickered, eyes crinkled and full of light all their own.

“Couple more days,” he said, patting your ankle. “Couple more days, and then you won’t even be able to get rid of me. We’ll be in bed all weekend.”

“I’m not calling your mother from bed.”

He waggled his brows with some exaggeration and you rolled your eyes.

That had been around day five, maybe six. Suffice it to say, by Christmas Eve, you were done.

“It’s one day!” you said over breakfast in the kitchen. “One day, Harry!”

“We made it this long,” he said, pouring hot coffee into a mug that had his face printed onto the head of dancing elf -- a gift from his mother shipped along with a matching one for you that she insisted you both open ahead of time to enjoy for as long as possible. “We can make it a couple more hours.”

“If I stripped naked, what would you do? Stand there and watch me?”

He froze and looked at you over his mask, the heated warning pinning you in place. Huffing, you pushed the stool away from the counter and hopped off it.

“Where are you--?”

“Out,” you said. “I’m going to get--” You floundered. “Coffee.”

A beat passed and his eyes dropped to the mug in his hand.

“We literally have--”

“I’m going out!” you said, wrapping your neck and half your face up in a scarf to keep warm. You were going out, because you were mad, and the tantrum was burgeoning. That poor man had seen more unreasonable tantrums from you this year than he had in the entire two and a half you’d reciprocally acknowledged each other’s presence, and you hated it. But he’d hate it, too, if you’d gone on a trip for work and come back and things were off.

Could be worse, you reminded yourself. It could be so very, very much worse.

“I love you,” you said, calmly, firmly. “I’ll be back. I’m only going around the block. Take that--” You waved at his mask, “--off. I’ll let you know when I’m on my way in..”

When you returned, he was in the guest room, but a fresh cup of coffee in your own dancing elf mug rested on a mug warming plate. The last of your frustrations that hadn’t melted with the walk deflated and you picked it up, enjoying the aroma before taking a deep sip.

He always made it better. And the coffee was nice, too.

His mother called in the afternoon and you hardly noticed he was at your side until the phone was in front of your face and you gave a startled hello.

“Has he been wearing that the whole time he’s been home with you?” she asked, her gleaming eyes and wide, genuine smile matching her son’s own warmth.

Home. With you.

“He has,” you said.

“S’posed to be proud of me,” Harry said and Anne laughed.

“Of course, sweetheart. We’re still calling tomorrow?” she asked you.

“Yeah,” you said. “We’ll be here.”

“Next year will be different, won’t it?” she all but clucked. “Did you like your mugs? I got one for me, Gemma, and Michal, too.”

“Used them just this morning,” he said, squeezing your hip and wandering away. “Won’t be posting them anywhere for people to see, though….”

Eventually -- finally -- the day drew to a close, and you crawled into bed with the knowledge that it was just one more night. One more night, and then in the morning you could say hello like you wanted to. One more night and you wouldn’t want to bite his head off. One more night and you wouldn’t feel so mental, as he would put it.

And yet, lying there, the minutes dragged. Ten? No, just one. Fifteen? Five.

It felt like Christmas, though. As much as this was pure torture, this was what Christmas was supposed to feel like -- like it used to feel when you were a kid and you’d wait for weeks tingling anticipation, counting down, hoping that you’d find what you wanted under the tree, bursting with more energy than any amount of sugar could give you. Except instead of presents, or money, or sweets, you were waiting for the man who’d been under your nose for two weeks by this point. You got to kiss your boyfriend tomorrow. You got to see your boyfriend, hold your boyfriend, and celebrate Christmas with your boyfriend.

Twenty minutes? Two.

12:02.

Two minutes after midnight.

Christmas.

Fourteen days.

Oh!

You sprang from the bed before you could think about the matter and darted to the door over the cold wooden floor, but when you rounded the corner in the hallway, out of nowhere, something all but slammed into you. Sucking in a sharp breath with a screwed up face, you squeaked when you collided with a very warm, very sturdy frame. Belatedly, two arms shot out to grab you by yours to steady you. “Oh my God, I--”

Hair, forehead, eyes, nose, and mouth, too. No mask.

“Are you o--?”

He didn’t get to finish his question. You clapped your hands over his cheeks and kissed him soundly before he could kiss you first. Under ordinary circumstances, he’d laugh -- you both would -- but rather than that, he locked both his arms around you tightly and spun you, teetering precariously with you in tow until you got to the guest bed. Tackle was an apt word for how he delivered you to it, but you were the farthest thing from upset at finally having not even an inch of space between you. The bed smelled like him and it was warm, he was warm, and you were kissing again, and again, and again, cold noses smushing together as you found new angles.

“Christmas,” he mumbled between them.

“Mmhm,” you returned against his mouth, legs interlocking with his. “I missed you,” you whispered.

“Missed you, too.”

Shivering, you both pulled the duvet up over your shoulders, and you curled up against him. Cologne, skin, and laundry detergent, with a bit of his minty toothpaste. There was no scented candle for that. You pressed your fingers against his chest and scratched lightly through the smattering of hair there. “We could go to our bed,” you reminded him, but he shook his head.

“Y’here now,” he rasped, leaning in to press his lips comfortably to your hairline, one arm draped over your back. “Let’s stay here tonight and we can change things later.”

“Were you coming to get me?” you asked, voice shaking as the last of the shivers left your bones.

“Yeah,” he admitted. You laughed, teeth chattering, and he pulled you closer. “Don’t laugh!” he said, rubbing your back and warming you. “S’been two weeks for me, hasn’t it?”

“For you!”

“You try bein’ home with you for that long,” he mumbled.

Shaking again, but less than before, you kissed the underside of his chin. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, darling.”

***

When you woke up, his back was to you, and his one shoulder was rising and falling with the rhythm of his sputtery, wheezy snores. You smiled, closing your eyes, and snuggled into the pillow. Better -- much better. You dozed on for an unknown amount of time, and you were walking the line between sleep and consciousness when featherlight kisses across your brow startled you and you jerked awake.

“Sorry,” Harry mumbled, only sounding slightly truthful. You made a noise and stretched, shaking from head to toe before curling up into a tight little ball next to him and opening your eyes fully. His own were puffy with sleep, but he grinned radiantly as if he’d been awake for a while.

“What?” you asked in a croak.

“Nothing,” he said. “Mum’s gonna call soon.”

Groaning, you halfheartedly turned your head to look over your shoulder. “What time is it?” you asked, straining to see the window and get a gauge.

“S’ten,” he said. “So about three for them. Sure you don’t want to call from bed?”

You glowered at him and his lip twitched. “I’ll put the coffee on.”

When you finally managed to leave the warm nest of the bed, the living room had been transformed. The tree was on, twinkling under the streams of light pouring in through the windows, and he’d lit the fireplace, too, flames licking up and up behind the glass. Soft, melodic Christmas music floated from the far corners of the room, and the smell of coffee tickled your nose.

“So,” he said from his spot at the island as he unwrapped cheeses and opened jars of olives, and jams, and honeys, and other goodies. “What time do we pop the bubbly?”

Laughing softly, you shuffled over. “It’s ten.”

“Little after ten now,” he said, lips pressed tightly together and arms flexed until the lid popped. “And somewhere in the world it’s five o’clock.”

You pulled a grape off the bunch lying on the counter and popped it into your mouth, chewing not so delicately but enjoying the sweet burst of freshness. You’d no sooner swallowed than his phone started buzzing and you grabbed it, sliding your finger to answer the call from the incoming Mum and pointing it at him.

“Happy Christmas, honey.” Anne’s voice was warm even through the phone, and Harry’s head whipped up.

“Wh-- Happy Christmas-- didn’t know you were-- ‘scuse the mess,” he said as you giggled behind the phone.

“Having a good morning so far?”

“Goin’ ok, yeah,” he said. “Just getting started, heating up the coffee.”

“Where’s your better half gotten off to?”

Trying not to melt, you waved your hand in front of the camera.

“Hello, love,” she said. “Happy Christmas.”

“Happy Christmas, Anne.”

“Are we going to get to see you today?”

“Fair’s fair,” Harry chimed in. “Turn that thing around, why don’t you?”

Rolling your eyes, you flipped the phone and waved, sliding around the counter to stand next to him.

“That’s better,” Anne said with a firm nod. She had a red top on with a festive, sparkly necklace, and looked a good deal more put together than either one of you.

“Where’s Gem?” Harry asked, taking the phone from you so you could unbox the crackers.

“Upstairs napping off the morning,” she said. “She’ll want to call again later.”

And that was how the morning went, with each of you passing his mother back and forth while you carried plates and trays full of snacks to the coffee table and couch in front of the tree to nibble while tearing into gifts on camera, including a box full of chocolates for you, Branston pickle for him, and Christmas crackers for both of you to have, “A little bit of home this year.”

“Thank you,” you said, clutching your sweets close. “And thank you for--” Unbidden, you choked up, and Harry glanced at you sharply, his inquisition vanishing with his understanding. For sharing him -- allowing you to steal him away during the holidays in a year where everyone needed family, either by blood or choice. He squeezed your shoulders and his mother, as adept as he was at redirecting a conversation, piped up.

“Promise you’ll come see us again next year,” Anne said. “It’s been too long.”

“It has been,” you agreed, resting your cheek on his shoulder.

“Maybe sooner.” Harry looked down at you. “If things ease up?”

You nodded. “Summer in London,” you mused. “That would be nice.”

“And then a bit of time back home. We could go before things pick up in August.”

Summer in London. A beacon of hope you couldn’t erect just yet, but a beacon nevertheless. A bit of time with him before he, hopefully, went back to work and you got to revisit adjusted and postponed plans.

The rest of your Christmas Day was quiet -- different from the year before when you’d been overwhelmed with names, faces, screeches of Uncle Harry, and not being sure how to break your way in. You kept trays of cheese, crackers, and other snacks within an arm’s reach, and by the early afternoon both of you had a comfortably steady buzz from the bubbly he was good at topping off both your glasses with -- never sloppily drunk, but enough to be warm in your fingers and toes and to seek out cuddles from him under the blanket you were snuggled in on the sofa with paper crowns on both your heads.

“Can I tell you something?” you asked, ribs crunched from how far you’d slid down on the sofa to nestle into his side, all but eye-level with his chest. “And have it not be as awful as it sounds?”

You felt his laugh before you heard it. “Sure,” he drawled. “What is it?”

Squeezing his wrist, you turned your mouth into his forearm, eyes on the television as a snowman leapt and bounded over a wide, snowy plain before jumping into the air. “I like this Christmas,” you admitted into his skin.

Harry snorted. “S’not awful, s’the point -- Christmas is supposed to be likeable.”

“You know what I mean,” you said, sighing. “I know it’s just us and there’s no family or anyone around, but… I dunno… it’s not all bad, is it?”

“Like having me to yourself?”

You groaned and rolled your eyes, shaking your head. “Shut up,” you mumbled.

He kissed the top of your head, crown crunching under it, and you grunted. “S’not so bad,” he said into your hair. “Like having you all to myself, too, y’know.”

“You’re just saying that because you have to because you’re stuck with me,” you said and he laughed with another smacking kiss.

“Not stuck with me yet,” he crooned. “Can leave any time you want.”

“Maybe I will….”

“Oi!”

Giggling, you untangled yourself from him and squirmed out from underneath the blanket. “More bubbly?”

***

Boxing Day was a Christmas redux, with more cheese, sparkling wine, music, and calls with family and friends. Long distance versions of old favorite games were adapted and adopted, and you snickered quietly from the corner of the couch, staying out of his way when he shouted about how he had hit the button, it was his trackpad that hadn’t worked.

The late afternoon and on, though, was yours together and alone with the time difference breaking up the party earlier than it normally would be. The bittersweet cloud vanished, though, when you at some point you separated even further into your own activities -- him with his stack of new books and you with a film you played quietly on your laptop. Able to be near each other without having to be wrapped up and begging with your bodies for sorely missed attention, it finally, really, felt like home again.

“It’s so pretty out,” you murmured, nose pressed to the windowpane to see as much of the light-lined streets as you could. It got dark earlier and earlier these days, and yet later than it had even a few days ago. “I love Christmas in New York. I wish--” You caught yourself ahead of finishing the sentence, thinking better.

You wished it was a normal year -- for many reasons -- so you two could go out and see the city. So you could show him your favorite places, so you could make memories together like you had with him last year. It wasn’t anything life altering or new, but it was different when you were with someone you loved. You wanted him to know you -- all of you, even the unknowable parts.

“Y’know,” he said next to your ear, hand on the back of your neck as he slunk up behind you, “it’s getting pretty late.”

You turned your head slightly, looking at him in the reflection of the glass. “Do you want to go to bed?”

Too early for sleep. Was he asking for sex?

Harry hummed and shook his head. “How ‘bout you get your coat on?” he murmured. “Let’s have that Boxing Day walk we didn’t get last year.”

“Now?”

“When else?” he said. “Haven’t been out yet, and it’s late. Streets’ll be empty. We can go wherever, do whatever, see whatever.”

“You’re serious?”

Nodding, he pulled you by the arm and you stumbled with him, still processing it even as you pulled beanies on with masks and (winter) gloves.

“Where are we going?” you asked.

He shrugged, calling the elevator. “Dunno,” he said. “Figured you’d lead the way. Show me your favorite bits. Seem t’remember summat about Bryant Park last year.”

There were sobering realities at the street level, too. Gates were down on storefronts that hadn’t been pulled up since March, awnings above them tattered from months of neglect and ‘For Rent’ signs flapping against them in the wind. The usual post-holiday influx of tourists was thinned, with hardly a white sneaker in sight, and everything was just a little quieter than it should be and would be in a usual year.

But there were lights. Broadway’s may have dimmed for the time being, but endless, endless displays of lights, brighter without the ambient light pouring from storefronts diminishing their power, offered beacons of hope -- literal lighthouses in a storm of a year -- and led you uptown like a trail of breadcrumbs.

You pulled him this way and that way, weaving through side streets to look at any display that looked bright enough from a distance, fingers locked tightly with his in a way they never were outside of the house. As bittersweet as it was no one was out, it afforded you a level of privacy you never had, anywhere. Not even Holmes Chapel. You couldn’t remember a time where you’d ever held his hand for this long at one time, if you were honest, and while you didn’t need it, you enjoyed the option.

In between zigs and zags, he mumbled stories to you about this time, and another time, and a time after that, pointing at buildings, venues, restaurants, and hotels, and you listened half in awe and half in earnest. It was a whole other life he’d lived without you before, and you’d only been aware of the surface of it. Nobody knew what he was telling you except the people he’d lived it with, and you didn’t think you’d ever get over or be able to thank him for trusting you to be someone he chose to share it with.

“I love Sixth,” you said, sighing as you walked past giant red Christmas ornaments three times the size of you both, the reflection of the string lights wrapped around tree branches bouncing off their shiny surfaces. Radio City’s electric red script beamed at you both from a distance, and traffic lights winked and waved in the wind up and down the avenue. “They do a lot with it.”

“It’s pretty,” he said, squeezing your hand. “Tree’s this way, isn’t it?” he asked.

You raised your eyebrows. “Yeah,” you said.

He jerked his head and you blinked.

“You want to?” you asked.

“Just a bit,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“There’s people!” you warned him, because even from here you could see the trickle of people with the same thought. “And I saw online they have a schedule--”

“We don’t have to get close,” he said, pulling you firmly. “S’big enough we don’t need to, just wanna take a peek.”

He was so certain, but you were less so, because all you needed was someone to see him to break the serene bubble you’d blown around yourselves. Despite that, you shuffled with him until the tree was visible, a bright, glowing ball of multi-colored lights stretching towards the sky. “Wow,” you whispered under your breath.

“S’nice,” he said and you nodded your agreement. It was nice -- despite the sad press it had gotten, the tree had turned out very nice at the end of it all, tall and impossibly beating all odds. What a metaphor for the year.

“It’s beautiful,” you murmured, squeezing him around the middle.

“Come here,” Harry said next to your ear.

“Hmm?” Reluctantly tearing your eyes from the tree, you gasped when he pulled your mask down first and then his own in two swift tugs, revealing a cheeky grin with a face cradled by the fabric. “What are you doing?” you asked, eyes darting around.

“Getting a kiss by the tree with my girlfriend,” he said. “Now, come here,” he repeated. This time, you obliged and allowed him to steal one, two, three kisses, each one of them smashed against your lips with a palpable sort of eagerness that made you think he would drink you if he could. This felt… normal. Normal, safe, and free.

You couldn’t remember the last time you’d felt like that.

When you broke and burrowed against his neck, he covered the back of your head and wrapped his other arm around your back, cocooning you in the shell of the most protective embrace he could give. Just a man -- any man, a regular man -- holding the person he loved, and, after his decision to stay with you through Christmas and New Years, he arguably loved you most.

Through the thick knit of your beanie, you felt him kissing your head, and you nuzzled into his scarf. “Thank you,” you said, face safely out of sight. “For coming here.”

“Not mad a’me for it?” he mumbled and you shook your head. “‘Kay, good.”

Shivering, you huddled closer and he tightened his arms, shielding you from the brisk wind.

“People will see,” you said, but despite that you held him closer.

“Who cares?”

He did, despite his quiet rasp. He did, and you knew why he did, but right then, you could pretend that it didn’t matter at all.

***

It was simultaneously the longest and shortest week of your life.

The longest, because time didn’t exist, much like it hadn’t for most of the year. Days, afternoons, evenings, and nights blended together, blurred by a happy holiday haze onset by too much of everything good -- sleep, sustenance, and spirits. The weird, if nice, part of all the extra time was having the chance to do things you’d enjoyed over the course of the year all over again. Nine times out of ten, when the two of you were together, it was rushed even on the long layovers. You’d watch one series or a film the whole way through, and next time you’d have to be on to the next one you’d agreed to hold off on until the other was there, but after having spent most of the year under the same roof, the typical race to the next one was paused. Instead, you settled in for old Christmas films and other ones you hadn’t seen since you first started properly dating, lending a timeless sort of quality to the week.

The shortest, because he’d only just gotten there. How had it been three weeks since he’d walked in the front door with a mask on and a warning? Three weeks, two of them masked, and now it was over and done. The whole year was over and done, with 2020 coming to a slow close after feeling simultaneously like it never would and like it was moving much, much too fast. Who would’ve known this would be how it would turn out after kicking it off in the back of his car with a paper plate full of snacks and the countdown on his phone? You’d made it through another year, together.

“Do you know what I just realized?” you asked as you unpacked the bag from El Diablito at the kitchen counter. In the background, the low hum of commentators on the TV remarking about how different this year was provided a steady buzz amidst familiar scenery of lights in different cities. Berlin had gone first, then London, and now, gradually, the new year on the east coast was gliding ever closer.

“What?” he asked over the noise of him unfurling the bag of tortilla chips.

“This was our first year together,” you said. “Full--” you drew an arc through the air-- “year, I mean. Saying it and all that.”

He didn’t say anything, but when you looked at him the corner of his mouth was lifted up slightly. “S’pose it is, yeah. Feels like longer.” He fished a chip out with his index and middle fingers before crunching into it noisily.

“Almost three years of everything else,” you murmured, unwrapping a taco to inspect it. “This one’s yours.”

“‘Everything else’?” he teased, snickering when you slid the taco across the counter to him. “Watch it, it’ll fall apart….”

“Shut up and eat,” you said and he barked a laugh, grin permanent and eyes sparkling as he unwrapped it to peek.

“In a minute,” he said, setting down his food, satisfied it looked right. “Come here,” he said.

“Why?” you asked, smiling slightly though you eyed him suspiciously. “What do you want?”

He motioned with his hand. “C’mere a minute,” he repeated, voice light but eyes tight, and he swallowed hard. A cold wave washed down you from head to toe. You didn’t know why you were suddenly so nervous, but the nerves themselves spiked your anxiety and made your scalp prickly and your palms sweaty, and they got worse when he grabbed one of your hands -- your left hand -- to hold between his. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about summat.”

Oh, God.

“Harry,” you said, but he shook his head.

“Lemme do this.”

Five seconds. Five seconds was all it took to imagine the words coming out of his mouth, quietly, with soft, trusting eyes waiting patiently, hopefully for an answer. Five seconds was all it took for you to imagine mucking it all up with a twisted tongue, not because you weren’t sure what to say, but how to say it. No, no, no -- you didn’t want to hurt him, not even temporarily, not even by accident.

Clearing his throat, he squeezed your hand. “I dunno how to do this,” he said, and for the first time ever, you were pretty sure he laughed without his eyes. You made a noise in your throat and curled your fingertips into his palm. “I love you,” he continued, Adam’s apple bobbing, lips trying and failing to form a smile. He was terrified, but determined, and you held his hand tighter while pressing your opposite one into his cheek.

I love you, too. You couldn’t say it, but you felt them swelling in your chest, growing your heart not two, not even three, but six times over.

He opened and closed his mouth a few times before saying, “M’going to spend the rest of my life with you,” with a thoughtful quality in his rasp. “I think, if-- if that’s somethin’ you….”

You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t, you were trying, but it was like sucking in helium.

“So, m’kind of wondering if--”

“Harry--”

“I’m not,” he shook his head. “I’m not asking you anything right now, because we’re not ready.” He rubbed the back of your hand assuringly. “We’re not ready, you have… and I’m….” He exhaled sharply, dropping his head, and your hand moved from his cheek to his hair and you rubbed the back of his neck. “I just want to know,” he said, breathing heavily, with his voice muffled into his chest, talking very fast, barreling through and tripping over words, “if I’m totally off base here. Cause m’not gonna now when there’s so much shit happening, but like… I don’t want to put my foot in my mouth when-- if I do, so if I could just get an idea of what you think, because we had a talk once but now every time you cut me off at the knees and--”

He sputtered, stopping short, and you pressed your face into his short hair.

“I want it,” you said, sounding braver than you felt admitting wants out loud. “I do. I will.”

His shoulders fell with his slow, deep breaths, and you rubbed your fingertips into his scalp gently.

“I will,” you say. “Promise,” you added, voice cracking. “You’re not off base.”

Neither of you said anything for a while. You couldn’t -- you quite literally, physically couldn’t -- and he was gulping for air as quietly as he could.

“Okay,” he said into his chest finally, sounding inexplicably embarrassed. “S’good to know.”

Silly, silly man. Did he really think… did he doubt…? “I love you,” you murmured.

“I know,” he said. “I know y’do.”

“No, you don’t.” You kissed his head. “I love you, I-- you’ll never know.”

Harry took a deep breath before straightening up, head high and curls falling over his forehead above the weariest, most agonized eyes you’d ever seen. His cheeks were bright red, and he might as well have just run a marathon for how spent and miserable he looked.

“I promise,” you repeated. “I promise, honey.”

He nodded slightly, mouth still set in a thin, grim line, and, instinctively, you stepped in to kiss him, because no. No, that wouldn’t do. Stiff and unmoving at first under your lips, gradually he warmed and softened, releasing your hand to grab your hips and you moaned softly, hands running across his shoulders over his hoodie. You promised -- when it was right, when you both could, if he asked and it was what you both wanted? There was only one answer you’d ever give.

The stool scraped against the floor when he stood, but he never broke the kiss, and you squeaked when you stumbled back against the counter. You opened your mouth wider when he coaxed you to, dizzy behind your closed eyes, and you let your hands wander freely, pulling him into you as the intensity behind the kiss escalated from comfort to need.

Two weeks. Two weeks -- three -- of pent up energy. Of hardly being able to touch each other, of being close but not close enough.

“Come here,” he demanded in a mumble, the firm hold he had on your jaw to hold you in place as he kissed you the way he wanted leaving you breathless. Rarely did he ever do that; usually, he guided you into what you both wanted to build it until the bubble of tension popped. There was something thrilling about being told though -- something that reminded you of when you were new, three months instead of almost three years in. Something that was like when time was limited and you had to be efficient to learn each other and what would feel good and do good for the other and yourselves, and telling was sometimes all you had.

Harry broke away with a wounded little noise and you blinked, dazed. “M’just….” He grabbed two tacos with one hand and threw them back into the paper bag. “M’moving these.” Tacos, nachos, and burritos all went back in, topped off with the chips, and he shoved them aside with some impatience. You laughed breathily and lifted yourself up onto the counter with his help, but it faded when he stepped between your legs and cupped your cheek and jaw and you caught a glimpse of the blown pupils and flushed cheeks that gave him a wild, primal look before your own eyes shut.

Each and every tender sponging of his lips across your jaw and down your neck made you ache, and it was all you could do to stay upright and not collapse back, limp from how weak you were. His needy, mesmerized groans made your belly tighten, and when he tugged the hem of your shirt you nodded.

Shirt, sweatshirt, bra, and undershirt were the first to go, and the straps had no sooner fallen down your shoulders than you let out a wordless, guttural shout from deep in your chest when Harry latched on and sucked your nipple with greedy enthusiasm, moving with you when you squirmed, his stubble scraping the soft skin of your breast.

“Oh my God,” you gasped, eyes watering and elbow nearly buckling underneath you in your effort to hold yourself up. “Yes, please,” you said when he pulled the strings on your sweats.

“That’s my girl,” he said, releasing with a pop and latching on again. “That’s my girl… gonna make it better for you.” He stood tall again when he pulled by the waistline, and you wriggled until they were at your knees and you could kick them off the rest of the way with your underwear as he dropped his own to his ankles.

With nothing left between you, you shivered, shrinking into him when he stepped closer and drew his hands around your body in a circuit. Legs first, stomach, back, breasts, shoulders, arms, and repeat, each squeeze and dig of his hands and fingers just a little restrained and not as zealous as his groans and heavy breathing made him out to be -- like he was trying to be good, or patient, or….

“It’s ok,” you murmured between kisses. “You don’t have to wait.” They’d done the waiting -- more than enough of it. You just wanted him now.

“Sure?” Harry rasped and you nodded, eyes rolling up when he slipped his fingers between you both and they slipped up and down your folds. “Sure,” he confirmed under his breath. “Open a little more for me, love-- there we are, thank you.”

You folded your arms around his neck and over his back and locked your ankles loosely just under his ass, heart racing in your chest.

“Breathe in--” Harry murmured and you squeezed your eyes shut when he fit his head against your entrance. It slid and you laughed, kissing his jaw when he kissed your brow through his grin. “Deep breath for me.”

Every time. He did that almost every time with you, first asking for a deep breath and then, invariably, pulling a long exhale from you when he thrust into your warm, wet cunt. “Oh, fuck,” he whispered in awe, holding still. You could feel the tremors pulling each fiber in his muscles, and when he throbbed inside you, you bit your lip. “Holy shit, you’ve got me good,” he groaned.

You laughed once. “Yeah.” Yeah, something like that. Wincing, you rolled your hips forward and gasped softly from the stretch before tightening your arms and pressing your face against his hot skin. You nuzzled in between your own slow, lingering kisses, taking deep, grounding breaths. He was soft, and smooth, but firm, and hard, and he smelled amazing. Clean -- all soap and cologne with some detergent that smelled even more from the warmth of his skin.

“Oh, God,” you whispered. “Oh, God, I--” You sucked in a harsh breath, abdomen tightening as you pulsed around him, feeling wetter, and you moved your face higher, nose pressed into the base of his sheared hair as you moaned quietly. “Oh my God, I love you.” Pitchy, bordering on hysteria, but you’d be hard pressed to remember a time you felt it as much as you meant it like you did right then. “I love you, I love-- I-- you feel--” Good. Better than good. No one had ever fit like he had -- too much, but just enough, physically, mentally, emotionally.

“I love….” Harry gulped. “Shit, ok, m’gonna….” He made to pull his shoulders back, but you shook your head.

“No, no, stay,” you begged, wrapping your arms and legs tighter. “Stay, please,” you murmured.

“I can’t-- ok,” he panted. “Lemme….” He gripped your ass and pulled you closer and your back arched as you opened your thighs just a little more. “There we go,” he grunted, hips snapping forward as he finally moved. “That’s… fuck, that’s better now.”

You could hear the effort you could feel between your legs -- each sharp pull of breath between his teeth, each muted grunt between his driving thrusts, and the pants he let out when he had to stop for a moment to catch his breath. “M’ok,” he said every time between labored gulps for air. “M’good, I just need to--” and he grit his teeth before he began again, and again, you gasped and whimpered, shrinking closer to him.

You didn’t want to be anywhere else, with anyone else, now or ever. You didn’t want to be this close to anyone else again ever. This was never supposed to happen. He was never supposed to meet you, know you, fall in love with you, nor you with him, but now he had, and you were, and you couldn’t imagine it any other way. You couldn’t imagine a world in which he didn’t come home to you, for you, and where you weren’t there. Not waiting -- never waiting on a man, any man, but ready for him when he returned and ready to move forward together.

He was yours. He was yours, and you were his, and the mere thought pulled something behind your belly button, making you groan.

“What?” he asked, kissing the side of your head. “What, darling, what?”

“I’m gonna cum,” you whispered and then whimpered, tightening your hold around his neck and in his hair. “Harry--” you choked, shuddering with your deep breaths.

“I know.” He grunted, thrusting with slightly more power. “Fuck! Tight little--”

“Don’t stop,” you begged. “Don’t stop, I’m close, I’m so-- I just need--” Faster and faster you rolled your hips against his, crying out against him when he wedged his thumb between you both to catch your clit, a stream of mumbled, “I’m gonna cum, you’re making me cum,” confessions hidden in his neck. Deep breaths. Long, slow, and deep, with your toes curling behind him until you were barely breathing in your efforts to concentrate, because you were right there. And then, you did cum, hard, convulsing and sucking in harshly as you trembled your way through whimpers of his name, immediately and thoroughly exhausted.

Both his arms locked around you, then, all but crushing you to his torso in his efforts to hold you up, and he thrust hard, fast, deep, getting the right rhythm and stroke he needed. Barely able to keep your eyes open, your mouth moved soundlessly around the demand -- request -- to cum. Cum, Harry, cum, baby, please. Wordlessly, he sputtered through a sharp exhale, and it was the only indication before you felt the hot, wet release accompanying his groans.

“Fuck,” he choked, one of his hands landing hard on the counter to prop both of you up. You laughed, eyes rolling up, and you held on tightly through his turn to shake.

“Happy New Year,” you said, still feeling a little punch-drunk from your orgasm.

He nodded. “H-Happy--” he gulped. “Happy New Year, darling.” His shoulders slumped. “Reckon this was the problem,” he said. “Should’ve fuckin’ rung the year in right last time, y’know?”

“Right,” you breathed even as you shook your head, not quite caught up with what he was saying.

“M’only sayin’,” he said. “We had sex the one time last Christmas. Should’ve had… a bit more,” he said indeterminately.

“We haven’t had sex since you’ve been home.”

Sighing heavily, he kissed your shoulder. “S’pose we’d better start,” he slurred. “S’not the new year yet.”

#harry x reader #reader insert fanfiction #harry smut #harry styles smut #harry styles imagine #harry imagine #harry styles blurb #harry blurb #harry styles one shot #harry one shot #christmas #blurred lines #blurred lines: adc #blurred lines: a different christmas #a different christmas #permanentcross #original writing

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13uswntimagines · 4 years ago

Text

Chanukah party (USWNT x Baby!Reader)

This isn’t a request but @literaryhedgehog and I thought it would be fun. The basic premise is that reader is at camp during Chanukah, and the team feels bad (especially Lindsey) so they throw her a party. (thank you @notmia101 for betaing this for us).

You smiled at Alyssa as she described her winter plans after training camp. How she was going to visit her sister and her family for Christmas. How they were hoping for snow and how they were going to kill an innocent tree and desecrate its body with lights for their amusement. Her words, not yours. It was a game she and the other girls played every year, trying to make their Christmas plans sound as horror-movie-ish as possible. It was a way of trying to make fun of themselves so you could share the amusement and join in laughing at them.

But despite their efforts, a little piece of you always felt left out because you couldn’t (wouldn’t?) participate. See, you were one of the few who didn’t celebrate Christmas. You were proud of your Jewish heritage, even if your family wasn’t the most ~religious~. But you were proud of the culture you had been raised in. You held its traditions very near to your heart and weren’t AT ALL bitter that the rest of the team had time designated to visit their family during their winter holidays while you still had training camp through the third week of December.

You were kinda zoning out because you could only take so much of their cookie baking, their stalkerish man that watched kids while they slept, and their hiding of a stupid stuffed toy you were sure would give you nightmares (who the fuck thought having an ‘elf’ stalk your family all month was cute?!?!? Capitalism was a weird man). (Though you may or may not have paid attention to Lindsey’s plan to dress Ferguson like a little elf…)

“What about you kid?” Tobin asked, nudging you out of your daydream.

“What?” You shook your head, making everyone around you laugh.

“Do you have plans for the holidays?” Lindsey repeated, her smile showing off her dimples.

“Oh, um. Chanukah started a few days ago. It’s cool, they have an app with a menorah and everything. My family has been face timing me most days, but it will be over before training ends.” You shrugged, hoping they couldn’t see how much being away from your family during this time of year sucked (though you were glad to be included on the camp roster).

Most of the veteran's jaws dropped, how had they not known that you were missing something so important to you? How had US Soccer overlooked a holiday (and inadvertently given you an ultimatum- celebrate or make the national team).

“Then why did they schedule training camp this week?” Tobin mumbled. Again you shrugged.

“There’s 23 of you and only one of me… it’s really not that big of a deal,” you smiled briefly and gave the same speech you had given since middle school, “It’s not like the ‘Jewish Christmas’ even though it happens around the same time some years, my family doesn’t even exchange presents, so I’m really just missing the party they’re throwing on the 18th.”

“That still isn’t fair though. I mean, we get Christmas off automatically, even if we don’t celebrate it!” Christen huffed, throwing her hands up.

“I mean, this isn’t like a new thing. We’re always at camp during this time. And next year the holiday starts in November, so it’s not something that can consistently be scheduled around. I guess it’s just a sacrifice I have to make to be the best right?” You said earnestly, shaking your head. You knew all of the arguments, you had heard them for all of your life.

“But-“ Emily started to protest, but before she could get the words out you cut her off. “Don’t make a big deal guys, it’s fine. Really,”

The team stared at you for a few seconds, several women opening and closing their mouths several times. You shifted uncomfortably under their gaze, breathing a sigh of relief when your phone rang, glad to have an excuse to get out of this situation.

“Ok so we’re totally going to make a big deal out of this,” Lindsey said turning back around to face the team the second you were out the door.

“I’m guessing you have a plan to woo your girl?” Emily smirked, wiggling her eyebrows.

“It’s not to. No. We are doing this as a team to be supportive of our teammate who is part of a traditionally marginalized culture that we need to be more supportive of,” Lindsey grumbled sternly, smiling when Christen nodded in return. “I’m googling “Chanukah for Dummies” right now.

They were going to make this camp different from the others (and if she got to impress you that was just a bonus).

…..

“Umm, why does it smell like something is burning?” Becky asked, walking through the hotel corridor towards the dining room.

“Because Latkes are apparently more difficult to make than I expected,” Kelley said, tossing what looked like a stack of burned hockey pucks into the trash. “I didn’t realize the whole room was going to smell like fried food- do you think they’re going to fine me when we check out?”

“If they fine you, they better fine Em too. The stench from such a little jar is kind of amazing,” Lindsey huffed.

“What did she do, get her sardines or something?” Becky asked, shaking her head, remembering the smell that she couldn’t quite place.

“No. Something called ‘Gefilte fish’”.

“But isn’t that usually for Passover?” Kelley asked, looking up from where she was trying to scrape burned potatoes off her pan.

“They said it was traditional, isn’t that what we’re going for?” Emily huffed, pouting. Lindsey rolled her eyes at her best friend.

“I’ve got music!” Chrystal called, walking through the door in a star-patterned sweater. “It turns out there are not a whole lot of Chanukah songs. There’s a Spotify playlist that’s only 3 hours long, or so, so I supplemented it with a lot of Leonard Cohen and Paul Simon.”

“And I brought the sour cream and applesauce as requested!” Sam called, walking in after her, “also some apple juice and honey bourbon. I know apples and honey are a thing for Rosh Hashana, so I thought maybe we could make some cocktails?”

“I won’t tell coach if you don’t,” Kelley said taking the bottle and pouring herself a shot. “Someone else needs to take over the latke making. My attempts have all either looked like lefse, hashbrowns or just burned.”

“Lefse?”

“I had an ex-girlfriend from Minnesota. It was a potato tortilla thing her family sent her at thanksgiving. The point here is that someone else needs to cook or we are just going to be eating sour cream and applesauce on their own.”

“We could make french fries?” Rose suggested tentatively.

“With bacon and cheese! Those are the best,” Emily exclaimed, only to have Lindsey (gently) slap the back of her head.

“No, Sonnett. She can’t have bacon and I don’t think she’s allowed to have cheese and meat on the same plate…”

“I think if we just batter potato pieces in egg and flour and fry them it would taste nice with the apple sauce and sour cream. And we’ve made french fries before so it won’t be so much of a… learning curve. Though you did a great try, Kelley!” Rose said, patting Kelley’s arm.

“You guys are useless. Did you even look at a recipe?” Megan shook her head.

“If you think it’s so easy you try it.” Kelley scoffed. Megan raised her eyebrow at the woman, stealing the spatula from the defender's hand.

“Tasty made here we come,”

*****

“Happy Chanukah!” came from all around as you walked in. Lindsey was very proud. Not only had she gotten the team on track and ensured that they had all of the stuff google said would make the perfect Chanukah celebration; she had also kept you off their trail until this moment. The shock on your face made all the work on their day off entirely worth it.

The room was decorated in tinsel with a shiny plastic menorah in the center of the table. Several people were wearing ugly sweaters with different “decorations” taped on. A sign on the back wall said “We survived, let’s eat!” Lindsey had decided against hanging up the posters Rose and Mal made saying “Stick it to the (ro)Man!” and “MaccaBEe mine.” The first one because she wasn’t sure it was appropriate, the second one because she knew it wasn’t.

“Ooo who brought the hotdog of the sea?” You asked, biting your lip to suppress a giggle as you walked over to the table to see the food on display.

“What?” Lindsey’s eyes tried to follow yours, utterly confused. They didn’t get hotdogs. They most certainly weren’t on the list that Chanukah for dummies had given her.

You smiled softly and shook your head, pointing to the tan balls that Emily had provided.

“That’s what my siblings and I call it during Passover. Gefilte fish is kinda a love it or hate it thing…” you trailed off, scrunching your nose just slightly.

“And you’re not a fan?” Lindsey smirked, wrapping an arm around your shoulder.

“Umm, I plead the fifth,” You mumbled, shaking your head slightly. It wasn’t your favorite item in the world.

“That was all Emily,” Kelley snorted, clapping you on the back, and you grinned devilishly back at her.

“Well, it was very nice of her to be so thoughtful. She can try a piece with me,”

Emily cringed at the idea, but nodded nonetheless. It was your party and if eating the smelly thing out of a jar made you happy, then that’s exactly what she would do. (She also stealthily shot Lindsey the middle finger while you were surveying the rest of the items on the tables).

“Honestly the sufganiyot is my favorite,” you said, taking a step towards the platter, your lips ticking up at Lindsey’s adorable confused face. “sorry, the donuts,” you clarified, picking up one of the many powdered sugar-covered donuts in the stack, inspecting it to see what kind it was. The Jelly ones were particularly important for the celebration.

Lindsey blushed a little. “We didn’t know if you wanted jelly or custard,” She said hesitantly, watching as your eyes got impossibly brighter.

“Both are amazing, thank you,” You smiled softly at the midfielder, brushing a stay bit of powdered sugar off her pink cheeks. You held her gaze for a moment before seeming realizing you had an audience, and turning towards the rest of the team. “thank all of you,”

It wasn’t the traditional Chanukah you usually shared with your family, but the friends who had become your family made it special nonetheless.

#uswnt imagine #uswnt imagines #uswnt x reader #literalhedgehog

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whatifyoulivelikethat · 4 years ago

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bao | myg | 2

pairing(s): yoongi x reader

summary: Min Yoongi is always late to start work. He’s late in starting a lot of things. Like telling you he loves you.

warnings: rated M (18+) for language; mentions of parental injury/surgery; SO MUCH fluff; non-idol!AU; (slightly more) jealous deliveryboy!Yoongi x hardworking chef!reader ft. bao fiend, next-door neighbor, model!Taehyung who can’t cook to save his life lol

"What's wrong?" Kim Taehyung asked as he bit into his bao. He asked for an extra sweet bun for his manager today. "Is it your dad?" he added, concern laced on his voice.

"No, not really. He has a checkup tomorrow." You gnawed on your lip as he excitedly chomped into his saucy beef bun. "Hopefully he's recovering well." You rubbed your forehead. Day by day, you could see Yoongi’s black eye healing, but you couldn’t help but worry about him. He had promised not to punch anyone heedlessly, but you doubted he meant it. "Don't get injured, Taehyung."

Taehyung raised his eyebrows. "Why would I get injured?"

"I don't know, but don't. I don't need any more stress," you chuckled dryly, not really amused but unsure exactly how you were feeling.

Taehyung tilted his head.

"Are you lonely?"

You raised your head. "Huh?"

"Have you seen your parents in person?"

You blinked. "Well, no. I have to prep, clean, and do errands on my off day. But I video call them often."

Taehyung shrugged. "You used to work at the counter and talk to people all day. Now you're only in the kitchen and the only human beings you see consistently are the delivery guy and I, right? They're all short interactions too." His brown eyes softened, almost parental. "It must be lonely."

You exhaled, feeling the invisible weight of the days’ past. "Maybe..."

Taehyung smiled. "Tell you what. I got a short day this week, so I'll stop by and help out. Just for fun!" He grinned wider now as you paled a bit at the thought. "You don't even have to pay me. I can do stuff!"

"Like what?" you laughed. "You can't cook, Taehyung."

He paused, realizing that was true. "I can clean!"

"You want to clean all day?"

"... I can eat!"

"Min Yoongi, Kim Taehyung."

Taehyung stuck his flour-covered hand out. "Hello! It's nice to meet you."

Yoongi blinked at his hand and gave him a small nod instead. Taehyung seemed to realize it was dirty and wiped his hands on a spare towel before eagerly grabbing Yoongi's hand and shaking it furiously. "I heard you're really dependable, hyung!"

Yoongi raised an eyebrow as his entire body shook with the force of Taehyung's handshake. He turned to your chuckling form rolling dough out into a circle.

"That's the biggest lie you've ever told."

You smiled as you filled the dough circle with spicy pork. "Not true. You are dependable. Dependably late every morning."

You failed to notice Yoongi's apologetic frown, but Taehyung didn't. The younger man tilted his head, observing Yoongi’s dark eyes watching your hands. You pinched the bun into a neat twist before setting it on the tray.

"Taehyung, that's not a circle," you chided playfully, pointing to the, well, blob on Taehyung's side of the counter.

Taehyung let go of Yoongi's hand. "I tried!" he whined childishly. "It's hard..."

Yoongi washed his hands clean as you wiped your hands on your apron. "Let me make lunch real quick while there's a break in orders and you two are here." You bumped into Yoongi as you headed to the sink, his wet hands colliding with your chest.

"Ack, sorry, sorry," Yoongi mumbled, sounding flustered, but you laughed, brushing the water off.

"And that's why I wear my dad's jacket," you mused, referring to the white chef's coat you wore under the apron and over your clothes.

You washed your hands at the sink, staring at the wide sleeves, remembering the call from earlier. Your father was recovering, but it would still be some time before he could work again and maybe not to his full capacity. Your father had protested, saying he felt fine. He was never one to complain about pain, but you knew he must have been hurting for years. If only he had gotten it checked out sooner. You sighed inwardly, but there was nothing you could do about it now. At the moment, you had to feed the two overgrown kids in your kitchen.

"Wow, hyung, you're good!"

You turned around to see Yoongi rolling Taehyung's dough into a circle, tongue resting on the side of his lips, getting a bit of flour onto his leather sleeves.

"Oh?"

You walked up behind him to see. Taehyung's dough was heavily over-kneaded, so the circle wasn't great but it was still a circle all the same. You smiled as Yoongi backed up, holding the wooden rolling pin awkwardly.

"My brother's a chef," he mumbled. "And I've... seen you do it hundreds of times."

You picked up the dough circle and placed it in your palm, cradling it in your hand as you filled it with spicy pork.

"Is it really spicy?" Taehyung asked worriedly.

You shook your head. "No, you should be fine. I remember you don't like your food too spicy." You pinched the top, twisting it prettily as you held it out to them. Taehyung looked it with sparkly eyes while Yoongi seemed embarrassed, eyes shifting awkwardly from the bun to the counter.

"It took three people to make this," you said with a laugh. “Hopefully it tastes good.”

You cut it in half evenly a few hours later, almost closing time. You held out one half to Taehyung and one half to Yoongi, whose cheeks were flushed from running around outside. He had worked hard all day, and you even had clients calling, complimenting on his speed and efficiency. Taehyung, well, Taehyung had been great company, although not particularly useful. A fun change from your usual lonesome day.

Steam rose from the meat and white dough, soft and pliable.

The bun warmed your hands and their faces warmed your heart.

“What about you?” Taehyung said, taking one of the halves from you.

You grinned. “Nah, I’ll pass. I don’t want to get poisoned.”

Taehyung narrowed his eyes. “Hey! You made the dough. All I did was roll it into a circle.”

“Actually, I rolled it into a circle,” Yoongi pointed out.

Taehyung fluffed his cheeks. “I rolled it into an almost circle.”

You recalled the shape of the blob with a scrutinous and amused frown. “Yeah, I don’t know about that.”

“It’s good.”

You turned your head to see Yoongi chewing. The half-bun was still in your fingers, a bite taken out of it. Had he… eaten it from your hand? You stared at him, but he wasn’t looking at you. His long fingers reached out and gripped the half, fingertips brushing against yours. He was still chewing, nodding thoughtfully.

“Not too spicy either.”

Your hand was still in the air. You quickly put it down and turned your attention to Taehyung, who took a huge bite.

“Ah! Hot!”

You laughed, fanning the space around his mouth. “Of course, it is. I just steamed it.”

Taehyung’s jaw wiggled as he tried to blow the steam off his tongue, panicked noises coming from his throat as you grabbed a water bottle and opened it for him so he could cool it off with a gulp of cool liquid.

“Ah, what am I going to do with you, Taehyung…”

You counted out Yoongi’s pay from the day’s total, calculating quickly. This was the easiest part of the day for you. Math came to you naturally. Cooking was much harder, at least when it came to cooking even half as good as your father.

“Do you like Taehyung?”

You had sent Taehyung home with bags full of buns to give to his parents. He had left with a skip in his step and a huge boxy grin, thanking you repeatedly and almost dropping everything. You had to yell at him to be careful at least three times.

“Of course, Taehyung’s my friend,” you chuckled. “He can be a bit all over the place though.”

“I meant in a more than friends kind of way.”

You stopped and looked up from you calculator. Yoongi was leaning over the counter, one arm perched on it, black leather jacket open and revealing his black-and-white patterned dress shirt. You noticed the first couple buttons were undone. Silver chains hung around his neck, decorating his collarbones. His long fingers tapped on the wood, silver rings glinting against his pale skin.

“Taehyung?” You shrugged. “Not really. Never thought of him that way.”

Yoongi gave you a long, discerning look. His dark brown eyes searched yours, hooded by his black bangs. It was making you uncomfortable. Suddenly, you could feel the flecks of flour on your cheeks, the scent of oil and cooked meat hanging from your clothes and hair. You went back to the calculations, busying yourself with bookkeeping.

This silence was weird. Usually, Yoongi was wordlessly waiting for you to finish so he could leave, but for some reason today it felt bizarre. You furrowed your brow as you recorded the day’s sales and Yoongi’s pay, subtracting it from the total.

“That’s good, because I like you in a more than friends kind of way.”

You placed Yoongi’s pay in an envelope and held it out to him. “Here you go. I added a little bonus for helping me babysit Taehyung today.”

Your gaze locked with Yoongi’s.

Then his words really hit you.

You blinked at him and his completely neutral expression. He wasn’t taking the envelope. Instead, he tilted his head, stare penetrating through your soul. Your heartbeat was suddenly in your ears. It felt like your face was right next to the stove, flushed from the fire.

“W… what?”

Yoongi nodded as if this was the expected result. “I figured I should tell you before Taehyung attempts to run off with you.”

You blinked rapidly, the heat increasing on your face. “W… what are you talking about?” you nervously laughed, placing the envelope in the counter and sliding it to him. You shook your head, trying to dissipate the heat. “You’ve gone too far with your jokes.”

Yoongi placed a hand on the envelope.

Then he lifted himself up and over the counter, launching his entire body over it.

You started, pinning yourself back into the wall, eyes widening as his black, thick-soled boots hit the tile floor. He was wearing black jeans again, the ones with a rip on the right knee. He lifted his head, making eye contact with you once again.

“It’s not a joke.”

He looked over to the recordkeeping book and closed it for you. Took the wad of cash that was the day’s sales and tied it in a rubber band, the same way you did it every night. Placed your pen where you placed it every night, next to the pen cup and not actually in it. You watched him, somewhat fascinated that he remembered all these details despite you never thinking about your habits as you did them, either in mid-conversation with him or simply worn out from the day.

Yoongi placed the cash on the recordkeeping book and turned back to face you.

“I’m serious.”

You remembered the moments that you brushed off so easily before. Yoongi’s body hitting yours when you grabbed his cap, the way he felt pushed up against you, breath on your neck. His fingertips touching yours, making you flinch involuntarily. Him eating from your hand earlier that day. The weird silence just now when he asked you if you liked Taehyung.

Your eyes shifted uneasily.

“Well… what I supposed to say?” you asked quietly.

For a long moment, Yoongi didn’t respond. Then he smiled, the smile not quite reaching his eyes.

“Nothing.”

He turned around.

But before he could walk off, before Yoongi could leave and come back in the morning, late as usual, you grabbed his leather jacket and yanked him back, spinning him back around. His lips parted, startled at your sudden movement, and you pressed your lips to his. His eyes widened.

So did yours.

The scent of leather and pine hit your nose. His lips felt soft. He tasted a little like the spicy pork you fed him earlier. It was a nearly a week after the black eye incident and it was barely noticeable anymore, with only small hints of bruising on his pale skin. He healed fast. You quickly drew back and grabbed the envelope, shoving it at him and pushing past, stunned that you did such a thing, hurriedly running to the kitchen. Or would have, if Yoongi’s arm didn’t block your exit, making you jerk back and hit him in the chest.

Now both your hands were on his black and white dress shirt, holding his pay against him.

You couldn’t look Yoongi in in the face. It was too awkward. You just stared at his neck, at the glittering silver necklaces.

“I have eyes, you know.”

You swallowed, grabbing his hand and placing it on the envelope. His fingers wrapped around yours. His other hand came up, tracing the buttons of his dress shirt. You flinched, jerking your head up as your free hand covered the one on his button placket. His silver rings felt cool against your hot palm.

“What are you doing?”

Yoongi cocked his head. You never realized how raspy and sexy his voice was until now. ‘Well, you didn’t want to look at my face, so I figured I would give you something else to look at.”

Your eyes darted from his hand to his face, flabbergasted.

“Don’t… play around,” you muttered, frowning.

Yoongi leaned down.

“I’m not.”

And now he kissed you, closing his eyes and pressing his lips against yours, sweetly but firmly, inhaling. You tried to break away, words tumbling from your lips.

“I’ve been working all day; I reek of grease,” you sputtered, but Yoongi grabbed your head and kissed you again, pressing your body against his, dusting flour onto the black leather, your body shuddering at the closeness, falling into his arms. Lips so soft they felt like pillows, not something you expected from lazy, late Yoongi.

“You smell nice,” he chuckled against your lips. “I love food. I especially love all the food you make.”

He kissed you between his words, light, feathery kisses that made you breathless.

“I should have told you every day,” Yoongi murmured. “Thank you for always packing everything so well and making my job so easy. Thank you for always making food for me and giving me the extras. Thank you for not firing me.”

You laughed a little against his lips. “You would have been fired a long time ago if you worked anywhere else.”

He kissed your forehead, a long, delicate one, far too beautiful to not be romantic. You felt your heartbeat slow to a crawl.

“I don’t want to work anywhere else,” he mumbled, so low you could barely hear him even though you were this close. “I want to stay by your side forever.”

What was this? Your hands tensed under his and he tightened his grip around your fingers.

“A little sudden for simply getting free food from your job,” you teased.

Yoongi lifted his face from your forehead, removing your hands from his chest. He turned them around, palms up, pressing his thumbs into them. Smiled down at you.

“It’s not free,” he said softly. “These hands work hard every day.”

Yoongi looked deep into your eyes.

“I never think the food you give me is free, because I see how much effort it takes to make them as delicious as they are.”

Your vision felt a little blurry for some reason.

“You should bring some to your parents. Your father would be proud of you.”

And for some reason, those words meant more to you than anything in the world.

“Is this vegetarian?” Yoongi asked curiously as he chewed.

“Yeah.”

He frowned a little. “I don’t like vegetables.”

You raised an eyebrow. “What are you, five?”

His eyes narrowed. “I was going to say, but I like this.”

You felt your ears burn. “Oh.”

Yoongi smirked, leaning over to kiss you, smelling like leather, silver rings glimmering in the kitchen lights.

3. smut.

masterpost

#yoongi x reader #yoongi x you #yoongi fluff #yoongi fanfic #bts fanfic #min yoongi x reader #min yoongi x you #yoongi scenarios

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secret-rendezvous1d · 4 years ago

Note

Staying at Spencer’s place but it’s kind of impromptu and it’s definitely just as friends (even though reader and Spence are definitely feeling each other). And maybe reader takes a shower and has to use his soap and for whatever reason he loves the way his body wash smells on you. Bonus points if you have to borrow a tshirt from him to sleep in. Idk why they’re win this situation but the idea of it is eating away at my insides

Okay, this hit me in the feels-

Everything about his home was so organised.

From the books that were arranged alphabetically on the bookshelves that lined the walls of his living room to the way his clothes were organised by colour in his wardrobe. From the way his tall coffee mugs were placed in one cupboard and separately from the small coffee mugs that were in an adjacent cupboard. to the way he piled his plates in different sizes. From the way his fridge was so perfectly stocked with fruits in one drawer and veggies in another to the way he had a neatly stacked section of his kitchen worktop that was full of treats that he tried not to visit too often (but they were more for when YN came to visit him than they were for him to snack on, really).

It was a huge contrast to where she called home.

A home that belonged to a building that was currently under decontamination after one of her neighbours, an sweet yet elderly neighbour who wasn’t quite with their wits and didn’t know the wrongs they were doing when it came to a ‘wholesome’ act, had brought in an infestation of something she had tried hard to forget about after gathering some of her things and leaving for the week they were told - which confused her because she could deal with crime scenes and the bodies they worked with on different cases yet couldn’t deal with bug infestations and rats.

“The sofa’s comfortable, trust me. I’ve got plenty of blankets and pillows if you need them because it can get quite cold in here. The kitchen is right there so if you get thirsty or hungry then you know where to go,” he looks around himself to see if he had forgotten anything and nods to himself, running his palms down his covered thighs, “the bathroom is next to my bedroom. It’s not the en-suite so don’t worry about walking in on me or me walking in on you. But, uh, you already know that.”

She smiles at him and lets her packed bag slip down her shoulder, falling to the floor by her feet with a thud, her shoes placed beside his and forgotten about by the doorway after she had entered his home just moments prior to his little tour.

“How can I trust you?”

“What now?”

“You said I can trust you that the sofa’s comfortable,” she takes a step into his living room and takes a look at where she would be calling home for the next few days - or, at least, until she was given a call to tell her that her home was much safer to live in and move back into - and she couldn’t have chosen any better person, “how can I trust you?”

She turns on her socked heels and looks at him with a eager look in her eyes, a blush on his cheeks as he rubs the back of his neck with his hand, looking any other direction than her face that awaited whatever he was ashamed about. The longer it took, the more curious she became.

“I, uh, I’ve fallen asleep there some nights. When I bring work home and I try to get it done before I go to sleep but don’t quite make it to the end,” he explains and his eyes fall on the black sofa of his living quarters and YN’s eyes fall on the same thing, “it happens, I guess. Overworked, tired, when a case runs late and we don’t get back to the early morning. I’ve napped there so I know.”

She nods understandingly and nervously steps into the space, walking in the direction of the sofa so she could really test out how comfortable it was.

And he was right.

It was comfortable. She sank right into the padded cushions beneath her and behind her, his throw pillows silky and smooth when she touched them, and the blanket he had draped over the back of the seat was woollen and soft against her skin.

“You wanted a shower, didn’t you?”

She nods and he stands up from where he had sat on the arm of the sofa, next to her so he was at her aid for anything she wanted and to answer and show her anything she was curious about, and she felt obliged to follow him to where he was going.

She hadn’t seen his bedroom fully before, only through the open door when she came to pick him up in the mornings, and she was impressed yet not surprised at how clean it was and how everything was laid out in such a way that seemed so perfectly in place. His clothes for the next day were set out on his vanity dresser and his go-bag was pushed underneath so he could grab it and take it when he left for work. And it answered a few questions that she was rather curious about; yes, he did make his bed after waking up and he did clean and dust his shelves when they got a little dusty yet he didn’t take his bin out when it was full and he didn’t keep his bedside table clear and in such an orderly fashion that matched the rest of his house.

“You can just shower in my bathroom. It’s a bit nicer, I decorated it a little better than the bathroom next door and the water pressure is stronger. Helps with the aches and stuff,” he opens the bathroom door, “you can use my soaps, any of my shampoos, whatever you can grab. I know it’s not ideal but I can always go to the shops and by you some or-”

“No, I can do that. I can’t expect you to buy me things when you’ve welcomed me in so nicely,” she squeezes his elbow and steps into the bathroom and, as weird as she know it sounded, it smelled like him. The citrus of his soaps clung to his skin, which was a smell she would occasional get a waft of whenever she came into close contact with him at work, and it clung to the air of the room and it was so fresh and so homely. “Which, I didn’t thank you for.”

“You don’t need to thank me,” he disappears and she doesn’t know where he’s gone until he comes back with a towel and a t-shirt from his wardrobe... which was something she had never seen on him, which was a style she never really thought he owned but was something that made hm seem like a normal person who dressed down when he didn’t need to be dressed up, “here. I have some trousers somewhere but I need to dig around for them. I’ll leave them on the bed and you can get dressed in my room but I won’t be in there so you don’t have to worry about me peeking or-.”

“Spence.”

She interrupts him and he realises how much he had been rambling on out of pure nerves; this was brand new for him and he wanted to make her feel as safe and as happy whilst staying with him as he could.

“Just shout for me if you can’t get the water working or need a new bottle of soap or whatever,” he smiles warmly at her and she smiles back with a glint in her eyes, “I’ll order us some takeout. I don’t feel like cooking and I’m not going to ask you to do that.”

He steps back into his bedroom and leaves her in the bathroom, a sheepish look on his face and a blush on his cheeks - he didn’t know why he was even pinking at the cheeks but she found it cute. He really was such a sweetheart and she was incredibly thankful for him, her friendship with him and how he was with her.

“I’ll be ten minutes,” she informs him and he slowly closes the door, “thank you, Spence. I appreciate this.” xx

#this was purely word vomit #i am so sorry #spencer reid chats #spencer reid imagines #spencer reid fluff #matthew gray gubler imagines

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sapphirecobalt-1 · 4 years ago

Note

“The paint’s supposed to go where?” destiel, for the prompts! <3

The paint’s supposed to go where?” + Destiel, courtesy of @contemplativepancakes. Thank you so much for your patience <3

Rated M(ish). 2.5k

"The paint's supposed to go where?" Dean asks, shooting Cas a look that's half confused, half incredulous, and half horrified, which is one too many halves but Dean's never been good enough at math to care, especially not when his roommate of several years is staring at him like he’s stupid but doesn’t want to say anything out of misplaced politeness (it’s okay, Cas, Dean knows he’s an idiot, no need to sugar coat it).

Cas scrunches up his brows and it’s clear as day he’s confused about Dean’s confusion. "On...your...body?" He asks more than says, speaking slowly and it's a testament to how well Dean knows his best friend that he understands the meaning behind Cas' words. Is this okay? Are you sure you want to do this?

Dean glances back and forth between Cas and the paintbrush in his hand. “I thought you wanted to paint me?” he asks, uncertainty coloring his tone.

“No, I asked if I could paint on you.” Cas clarifies.

Dean doesn’t know jack shit about art, it’s why he’s a STEM major, but now he’s starting to wonder if he shouldn’t do that either, because really, who in their right mind would trust a person who can’t tell the difference between painting someone and painting on someone with an electrical system? Not Dean, that’s for damn sure.

“You want to...paint on me?” Dean repeats back to him, slowly, and as an added bonus even points to himself as if Cas could possibly be referring to anyone else in the empty studio.

Cas blinks. Then, he nods, patience and exasperation fighting for dominance on his features. In the end, understanding tinged with disappointment wins as he says, “if you’re not comfortable with this, I understand...”

“No,” Dean’s mouth blurts out before his brain has time to process Cas’ comment. “I said I’d help you with your project and I will.”

“Are you sure?” Cas asks hopefully, fidgeting with the paintbrush in his hands.

No. “’Course I am.”

Cas’ face lights up in appreciation and the butterflies in Dean’s stomach flutter up a storm cause they clearly have nothing better to do. Still, the look on Cas’ face when Dean accepts his challenge is enough to put the misunderstanding behind them and let go of his uncertainty.

Until it’s time for Cas to paint on Dean.

When Cas originally asked Dean to help him with his assignment, Dean thought he’d pose for a couple hours and Cas would paint him like a 16th century monarch (never mind that Dean wanted Cas to paint him like one of his French girls). And he was cool with that, hell, he even looked forward to it (spending time with Cas, that is, not holding the same position for who knows how long). Dean even did some stretches and practiced holding various positions for several minutes.

Nothing could have prepared him for Cas scooping up some brown (”it’s not brown, Dean, it’s called ‘Burnt Umber’”, whatever the hell that means) paint on his brush, walking into Dean’s personal space like he owned it (he did, good God he did), and painting broad strokes onto Dean’s pale, freckled chest. Dean shivers the second the cold paint touches his skin and Cas barely gives him time to adjust to the temperature and weird sensation of bristles on his skin before he goes to town painting...whatever the hell he’s painting.

Cas furrows his brows and Dean watches him stick his tongue out in concentration and it’s the cutest thing he’s ever seen.

“So, uh, this paint safe for people?” Dean asks fighting a shiver that has nothing to do with the temperature of the paint and everything to do with the way Cas gently places his hand on Dean’s waist as he paints jagged lines across Dean’s chest.

Cas pauses to look up at Dean. “Of course.” he answers. “I would never ask this of you if I knew it wasn’t safe.”

Dean distractedly nods his understanding, his attention split between the sparkle in Cas’ clear blue eyes and the unfamiliar yet warm feeling ballooning in his chest. He looks away and forces himself to pay attention to his surroundings, afraid he might say something stupid if he continues staring into Cas’ eyes like that.

As far as college level art classes go, this one’s no different than most. It’s got several easels, canvases, paint brushes, and tubes of paint scattered all over the floor, tables, and open drawers. The sunlight streaming from the three floor-to-ceiling windows light up the room more than the dollar store bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. The dark grey walls are littered with murals in various stages of completion: sketched out, drawn, half painted and painted. Dean briefly wonders where the artists are and why they never finished before his eyes land on the creepy skeleton in the far right corner. It doesn’t have eyes, but Dean swears Michaelangel-Bones (as the art students named it for reasons Dean will never understand) stares at him.

Having had his fill of the offending decoration in the corner, Dean turns to face Cas only to frown when he doesn’t immediately spot his friend. Motion captures his attention and he looks down to see Cas, on his knees, in front of Dean, getting some green paint before carefully painting small strokes across Dean’s stomach, one hand on his waist.

Dean’s brain stops working and his heart, doing the exact opposite, pounds so fast he’s surprised it doesn’t beat out of his chest like they do in cartoons. But why would it, when it’s too busy pumping blood down south?

Dean tears his eyes away from the incredibly attractive sight of Cas on his knees and faces Michaelangel-Bones as if the skeleton’s gonna help him keep it in his pants. Although, weirdly enough, thinking about the disturbing skeleton whose not-eyes follow him around the studio actually does help Dean squash down his inappropriate thoughts about his roommate. Just to be on the safe side, he conjures a few very unsexy images (the time he accidentally walked in on his parents doing the horizontal tango, him and Charlie pigging out at the local buffet, stuffing their mouths and making gross faces at one another) all in an effort to get Little Dean under control.

Once his thoughts, feelings, heart, and Little Dean are all under control, he risks glancing down at Cas.

Cas who’s carrying on, painting God-knows-what on Dean’s stomach, casual as can be, completely oblivious to Dean’s internal monologue, seemingly unaffected by being practically face-to-face with Little Dean. He’s staring at Dean’s pudgy stomach with the same intensity as earlier when he was painting Dean’s chest.

All of Dean’s hard (heh) work making sure Little Dean behaves himself almost goes out the window when he notices Cas is sticking his tongue out a little in concentration and Dean wishes he was using his tongue for something else.

Dean berates himself for going down that road before thinking unsexy thoughts again, Don’t think about that, think about the time we didn’t realize Miracle was a girl until she had puppies. He better get his thoughts about Cas under control before he runs out of unsexy thoughts and Cas ends up coming face-to-face with Dean’s feelings for him. The last thing Dean wants is to make things awkward between them by being forced to admit he’s been in love with his best friend for years because said friend notices his boner.

"Done with the front," Cas chimes in. Thank God, Dean thinks, the torture is over. Dean's heart rate begins to slow down a bit and his thoughts settle. He relaxes.

That is, until Cas says, "Now it's time for the back," his voice a bit deeper than usual, giving Dean a nervous yet appreciative smile and Dean's heartbeat spikes all over again.

He returns Cas' smile, hoping he doesn't look as nervous as his friend did while trying not to let his mind run wild with possible explanations for Cas' nervousness.

Instead, Dean focuses on Cas and his friend walks around him, deliberately not facing Dean, squeezes out some light blue and some yellow paint onto his clear, paint-covered pallet, cleans his current brush and gets a new one.

Dean clears his throat. "So, uh, whatcha workin' on?" He asks in an effort to distract himself, fidgeting with the hem of his jeans. It's not that he's not interested in what Cas is doing, whatever it is he's doing, it's just that he really needs a distraction from the heat of Cas' hand on his waist.

"I'm painting a tree on your chest and the rest of the garden on your back." Cas responds just as his brush begins to paint long, broad strokes across his tailbone.

Dean shivers from the touch which only makes Cas squeeze his waist and now Dean's shuddering for a completely different reason.

"Dean, I need you to stay still, please." Cas reminds him, stern but not unkindly, pausing his process while Dean gets himself under control.

"Sorry." Dean replies. Once Dean is still, Cas continues painting across his back. It tickles a little as the bristles leave trails of cold, wet, and slightly slimy paint over his muscles.

Dean feels more than sees Cas’ precise brushing motions, feels Cas’ hot breath heat up the goosebumps adorning his skin and his breath hitches.

Cas stops painting.

Dean looks over his shoulder to find Cas already staring at him. He meets Cas’ gaze and swallows. “Everything alright, Cas?” Dean speaks softly into the space between them, which, Dean notices, isn’t much.

“Dean, I...” Cas trails off.

This close, Dean can see his friend’s dilated pupils and he’s certain his are, too. “Yeah, Cas?” Dean asks softly and tentatively, worried that if he speaks too loudly it’ll ruin the moment between them, pop it like a bubble. He swallows again, somewhere in the back of his mind wondering when his mouth got so dry.

Cas responds by leaning into Dean’s space and all his thoughts about his feelings for his roommate ruining their friendship fly out the window as Cas lightly rakes his nails up Dean’s side, over his shoulder blade, and down his arm.

Dean shudders in response, loving the feel of Cas’ hand on his body, although he wishes the guy would put both hands on him.

Cas’ hand slides down his Dean’s arm slowly, as if afraid going any faster might scare Dean off.

Once Dean feels Cas’ hand in his own, he intertwines their fingers and squeezes his hand as if to say I’m not going anywhere.

The soft look in Cas’s eyes becomes so intense, Dean’s surprised his pupils aren’t heart-shaped like in cartoons. Nevertheless, he returns Cas’ heart eyes and he swears he stops breathing and his heart stops beating in his chest as the world around them disappears.

No more sunlight streaming through the windows, no more Michael Angel-bones staring creepily at Dean, no more cold, wet paint drying slowly on his skin; only him and Cas and the small space between them that keeps getting smaller and smaller until their lips brush.

He distantly hears Cas’ paintbrush clatter as it falls on the floor but Cas runs his now empty hand through Dean’s hair and nothing else matters except closing the all but nonexistent space between them.

He’s not sure who moves first, only that one second there is a space between them and the next second Cas’ chapped, pillow-y lips are on his.

The angle is awkward and hurts Dean’s neck but it’s worth it because the kiss is sweet and gentle and everything he’s ever dreamed of and more.

They part only when they run out of breath and Dean rests his forehead on Cas’. They keep their eyes closed a little while longer, still a bit dazed from their kiss.

After a few moments, Dean slowly turns around. He opens his eyes and takes in the sight of Cas' unruly hair, heart eyes, the tiny blush coloring his cheeks, and his spit-slicked lips. Gazing into Cas' eyes, Dean finally understands what that funny yet warm feeling ballooning in his chest is.

Love.

"I love you," Dean blurts out, his mouth moving faster than his brain can keep up. He looks down at Cas' shirt collar, unable to meet his gaze, afraid of what he might see.

"I love you, too," Dean looks up at Cas' wavering tone. Cas' eyes are watery and Dean wipes the single tear streaming down his face.

"You - you do?" Dean whispers in disbelief. Somebody pinch him because he must be dreaming if his hot best friend actually reciprocates. "L-love me? Like, love me, love me?" Dean clarifies. It's stupid and he's well aware it is but he has to know, he has to make sure Cas doesn't mean it in the friend way.

"Yes, Dean," Cas answers in a steadier voice with a chuckle and Dean's heart soars. "I love you, love you."

Dean wraps his arms around Cas' neck and pulls him in for a desperate kiss.

Cas must have been expecting it because he wastes no time wrapping his arms around Dean's waist and giving as good as he’s getting.

They make out for several minutes, only pausing to breathe, letting their lips do all the talking, their kisses saying everything they've never dared speak out loud.

Eventually, Cas breaks the kiss and Dean whimpers at the loss of contact. As they separate, Cas’ shirt peels off of Dean’s chest, which feels really tacky. Dean and Cas wear matching grimaces as they take in the paint on Cas’ shirt. It’s the mirror image of the tree and grass painted on Dean’s chest except the edges are smeared making it look like a blurry photograph.

Dean stares at Cas’ shirt a little longer before the realization that he ruined Cas’ painting hits him. The color drains from his face as he looks at Cas with wide eyes. “Your painting, Cas, man, I am so sorry —”

Cas meets his look and his grimace gives way to a small smile and he lifts one shoulder in a shrug, as if to say what can you do? “Dean,” he interrupts, putting a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “You don’t need to apologize.”

“But I ruined your —” Dean tries.

“Dean, it’s alright.” He reassures. “You didn’t ruin anything.” A pause. “And if I recall correctly —” he smirks as his cheeks fill with a rosy pink color, “— I am equally to blame for ruining my project.”

Dean glances at Cas’ discarded paintbrush on the ground, rubbing the back of his neck at the memory of them making out moments ago. “Still…” Unconvinced and a bit guilty despite Cas’ reassurance, Dean prompts.

“Besides,” Cas grabs his hands. “I have more important things to do.” Cas gives him a very heated and suggestive look. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

Dean swallows, hard, and nods a response, speechless at Cas’ words. He’s never really seen this side of his roommate and best friend but he is not complaining and plans on taking full advantage of this newfound discovery.

And in the middle of the day, in the middle of the art classroom, he does just that, Cas’ painting long forgotten in favor of doing another kind of project.

#sapphirecobaltwrites #Destiel fanfic #inbox asks #fanfiction prompts #college au #asks: contemplative pancakes #artist cas #model dean

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thevioletjones · 4 years ago

Note

31, because I can’t see it fitting Ian/Mickey easily and know you’re a good enough writer to prove me wrong ☺️

Thanks! I tried. 🙂

Prompt 6: “I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you.”

Ian’s Box of Crap

Being currently unemployed, Mickey didn’t have much of a leg to stand on when attempting to deflect Ian’s demands that he get chores and household tasks done while his husband was out earning an honest paycheck. He wasn’t even allowed to shake people down anymore, let alone pull robberies, or get back into the drug trade. Ian had made it clear that divorce wasn't off the table if Mickey deliberately did something stupid that got him thrown back in prison for a long stretch.

He didn’t much like being told what to do, but what he liked even less was not having Ian in his life. He’d had to go too many years without him in the past, and nothing good ever came during those times. Unfortunately, Ian Gallagher was it for Mickey Milkovich. That meant that he actually had to stay in line and put in the work if he didn’t want to lose him again. Ian wasn’t as soft as he used to be. Never really had been at his core, but the maturity of age had cemented his backbone rather rigidly, and Mickey was actually loathe to piss him off too badly these days.

So he did the bullshit grunt work requested of him, just to keep the peace. He was tired of fighting every day of his life, and what was the point of marrying Ian if they weren’t going to try and make each other happy?

In the past couple weeks, Mickey had done everything from laundry and dishes, to vacuuming and mopping. He’d patched up a couple of big holes in the wall that Frank had made, and fixed the loose parts of the wooden outdoor steps and banisters, both front and back. He’d even gone so far as to babysit the tiny, helpless Gallagher spawn a few times, which had been interesting and somewhat terrifying. Then Ian had given him this look when he caught the scene one afternoon, eyes shining, smile beaming. It reminded him of that brief time they’d helped take care of Yevgeny, which made Mickey’s head spin. He didn’t need Gallagher getting the whole ‘having kids’ thing back in his head right now. Mickey was in no way ready for all that. Hadn’t been the first time, and they’d all seen how that turned out.

Today, he was supposed to clean out the attic. He told Ian that asking someone outside the family to do it sounded like a bad idea. How was he supposed to know what shit the Gallaghers wanted to keep, and what they wanted to get rid of? What if he made a mistake? If anyone had asked him what to keep from the hoarded piles of shit in the Milkovich house, he would’ve laughed in their face, then set everything on fire. Mickey wasn’t the sentimental type. So did Ian want him to just toss everything?

Ian had rolled his eyes, clarified that Mickey was a Gallagher now, and given him a run-down. Anything that had obviously been made or cherished by a Gallagher kid, any family photos and albums, or small boxes of keepsakes, those stayed. Anything that wasn’t being used by anyone, but could be of use and handed down to the youngest or recently shacked up of them, set them aside to be put in rotation. Anything that worked, but they already had one of or didn’t need, donation box (because apparently they actually sometimes donated shit to the local shelter). And anything that looked completely unnecessary for anyone, throw it in a Best Choice trash bag, but don't take them to the curb yet. Ian would go over everything when he got home to make sure it was sorted correctly.

“So you’re gettin' me to do all this boring-ass grunt work, then you’re gonna have to go through it anyway? What the fuck, man?” he’d asked.

“It'll make the whole thing way easier on me, so can you just shut the fuck up and do me the favor? I’ll blow you later for your trouble.”

“Like you wouldn’t be doin’ that anyway.”

Ian had shrugged. “If you don’t, I won’t.”

“Threatening to withhold sex? That’s a bitch move if I ever heard one.”

“Whatever, deadbeat. You want me to support you, gotta help out when I ask. A blowjob would just be a bonus, because I’m generous of spirit.”

“I’m not gonna forget this hardcore manipulation, Firecrotch. I’ll get my revenge eventually.”

Ian merely kissed him on the nose. “Sounds like a plan. See ya.”

And he was out the door.

“Asshole,” Mickey’d muttered under his breath.

And now, a few hours later, here he was; sitting on the dusty, hard planks of the weird-smelling Gallagher attic, sorting through the memories and forgotten things of the family he’d married into less than six months ago. He’d dawdled as long as he could on the couch, eating junk food and watching his favorite daytime game shows, judge shows, and salacious ‘who’s the baby daddy?’ shows. The only hint of fun left in the remainder of his day was in the bong and the beer he’d brought with him up the rickety ladder. After every box sorted, he’d take a rip or two and chase the smoke with a long swig of cheap alcohol.

The most interesting things he’d found so far were some old pictures of Ian when he was little, his hair a curly mess, and his pale skin covered in dark freckles. His smile was too big for his face, and he looked goofy as all hell. Nothing like the hot hunk of man he was today. It was the Ian Mickey remembered from Little League a million years ago. And maybe he’d set one of the photos aside to keep for himself and taken some pics of others with his phone, so what?

Mostly he’d had to sift through little Debbie’s ridiculous girly shit, and Frank’s completely random assortment of insignificant trinkets with a side of what looked like bondage gear. He’d since moved on to a group of boxes obviously labeled by Carl when he was younger. He recognized the scrawl, occasional backwards lettering, and lack of possessive apostrophes. The words were short enough not to be atrociously misspelled, and consisted of a Gallagher first name in plural, followed by: ‘box of crap.’

Everybody had one, including Fiona, who hadn’t taken it with her when she’d left Chicago, and the kids she’d raised as her own, behind. The most scandalous item in there was a dildo of decent size that Mickey definitely would’ve packed in his suitcase if he’d been the one moving away as a single chick. The thought crossed his mind to pilfer it for his own collection, but he figured that Ian would be weirded out by the association. Sex toys were probably the only thing Gallaghers never shared between them.

Carl had a box of his own, semi-well-hidden compared to the others, and Mickey discovered why when he’d managed to get the copious amount of packing tape off. It was full of straight porn mags with big-tittied women and shaved pussies, underneath an array of dangerous weapons the family had forbidden him to have when he was underaged. He found everything from nunchucks, to throwing stars, to switchblades, to brass knuckles. No guns or attempted homemade bombs, thank fuck. He chucked the porn in the trash pile, cuz nobody needed to see that shit, and set the switchblade aside for himself, deciding to give the rest to Ian to sort out.

He saved Ian’s box for last, opening it up to find a grab bag of old army decorations, tattered paperbacks, comics, a bunch of loose paper covered in scribbles, and a stack of notebooks.

Mickey didn’t realize Ian was such a huge nerd that he’d kept his high school notebooks, but giving a quick flip through the first two revealed they weren’t school-related at all. He remembered Ian going through a phase when he was always writing shit down, ranting about having great ideas he needed to save for posterity. Before he went to the hospital. A manic phase. Probably one of many he’d cycled through, yet Mickey had missed some of those extremes.

Everything had been so chaotic then. He’d pushed Ian away, then gotten the same treatment in return. Their typical messiness pervaded everything back then. And now, he had in his hands Ian’s unfiltered thoughts about what happened back then.

“Fuck,” he said to himself, setting the notebooks down and going for the beer/weed combo again.

There were exactly two ways to go about this: he could put the notebooks back into the Ian box and not invade his privacy, or he could skim through them and hone in on the interesting relevant bits and maybe get a few long-pondered answers. On the one hand, Ian would probably get pissed if Mickey read them. On the other hand, Ian never had to know about it, did he?

It really wasn’t much of a choice… he’d always been curious as to what the hell was going through Ian’s head back in the day. They’d never exactly been great at talking things out, and he didn’t have it in him to try and make Ian relive some of the lowest moments of his life just to give Mickey some peace of mind. Plus, they were always facing some new bullshit obstacle head-on, so the past always just kind of got lost in the shuffle of their present difficulties.

Mickey took a deep breath and opened one of the notebooks again. The pages weren’t dated, and a lot of it didn’t make much sense. There were many lists with lines crossed out, but they didn’t describe things ‘to do,’ more like an endless inventory of concepts and feelings. The thought patterns were totally abstract, and Mickey couldn’t really make heads or tails of them. It hit him sharply in the chest when he realized that when Ian had been out of it, he’d really and truly been fucking out of it. These seemed like the crazed rantings of an unmedicated schizophrenic babbling on public transportation. It pained Mickey to the core, and it scared the shit out of him too.

He flipped through it fairly quickly, then opened the next one. It seemed to be calmer, more legible, and less unintelligible. It was more like a diary with bad poetry sprinkled in, and it only took a few pages for Mickey’s own name to jump out at him among the wall of words. It must have been written during Ian’s lost months, after going AWOL from the Army when he was 17.

He described running away from Chicago, scamming his early enlistment, crashing and burning his way out of bootcamp, shaking and selling his ass as a club boy, snorting, smoking, and swallowing all manner of substances, and crashing anywhere from penthouses to flophouses with sexual favors sprinkled in liberally. It was like the chronicle of a person going mad and coping in all the wrong ways. It surprised Mickey how emotional it made him to read these things in vivid detail. He’d completely forgotten how worried he used to be about Ian. When he was gone, when he went missing again, and when he started doing irrational things that could’ve ended so much worse than they did.

Ian was the one that had to live out all the drama and trauma of his disorder, but Mickey was the one caught on the sidelines, not having a single clue what to do or how to fix it. He’d never felt so useless or helpless in his entire life, even through all the bullshit he’d suffered growing up with Terry as a father. Maybe it was because of his age, or how Ian made him feel a certain way he’d never felt before. He just remembered hating it, and being so fucking sad.

These pages reminded him that through the mania, Ian was a bottomless well of sadness himself.

It was tough text to get through, and more than once, he felt like maybe he shouldn’t be reading it at all. Ian had never intended for other people to see his innermost thoughts, even Mickey. But it was impossible to stop now that he’d opened that floodgate. It was like reliving a part of their shared history through the eyes of his partner in crime. It was too fascinating.

After countless pages of dark tales from the void, Mickey came upon a page that was actually addressed to him. Surely, Ian had never intended to hand it over, but it was his nonetheless.

Mickey— I never had the balls to tell you this, But you’re the only boy I’ve ever loved. I thought you loved me too, But now I’m not so sure. I’m so confused and I go back and forth, Never really knowing what to actually think, Or what the truth is. All I really realize now is that I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you. It took you forever to let me, And now I just do it with anyone, Cuz I don’t fucking care. I just miss you, And I wish you were here. But also, I don’t, Cuz I don’t want you to see me like this. I’m having a great time on my own adventure, But also not. You shouldn’t be a part of it right now. You’re on your own strange journey, I guess. Maybe one day we’ll be on the same road together again, And also for the first time, since we never really were.

Mickey barely had enough time to sniff and wipe away the stray tear that had fallen, when his husband’s voice startled him out of his reverie.

“You’re still up here?”

“Jesus Christ!” he cried out with a visible jolt of his body.

His head snapped toward the attic hatch, where Ian’s dumb red head was surveying the musty space. Mickey let the notebook fall from his grasp, but Ian was already climbing the rest of the way in before it occurred to him that he was about to be caught red-handed with journals that were supposed to be deeply private. He could only flip it closed and grab his beer to polish it off, before Ian was crouching in front of him and taking a seat.

“Can’t believe you actually did this for me, to be honest,” Ian said with a chuckle, glancing at the bong. “Anything left?”

“Baggie’s right there,” Mickey replied nodding his head to the left.

“Nice.”

Ian got distracted with loading a bowl, so Mickey very subtly tried to nudge Ian's notebooks aside with his foot, like maybe if they were slightly farther away, he could claim complete innocence as to knowing what they were.

He watched Ian take a couple hits before passing it to him, and Mickey welcomed the opportunity to temper his suddenly sullen mood.

“How was work?” he asked between hits, before passing back to Ian.

Ian snickered and furrowed his brow. “You never ask me about work.”

Mickey shrugged. “Don’t mean I don’t care.”

“Uh huh.” Ian looked even more skeptical, and finally glanced around at what Mickey had in his vicinity. That sent his brow up high, in a decent imitation of Mickey’s usual expressiveness. “Oh. That my box?”

Mickey gulped and nodded. “Yeah. Just sorting it out. Should’ve just left the whole thing for ya. Sorry.”

Ian’s gaze snapped to his face. “You read stuff.”

It was a statement rather than a question.

“Just a little,” Mickey admitted. “I shouldn’t have. Fuck, I’m an asshole.”

But Ian only shook his head. “Nah, it’s okay.”

“You don’t have to say that. I’d be pissed.”

“I’m not. I promise.”

“Really? You’re not mad?”

Ian shook his head again. “No. Actually, I’m kinda relieved.”

“How the fuck so?”

“It's all stuff I wanted you to know. I mean, part of me used to be really ashamed, maybe still is, but… another part of me always just wanted to be totally honest with you. In a way I haven’t ever been with anyone. Even Lip. But I didn’t have the words to say it, you know? And I know a lot of it is just scary rambling. I don’t even understand what some of it means, but the stuff that’s real… the lucid stuff… it’s depressing as fuck, but it’s the truth. We didn’t always tell each other the truth, but we showed each other. And this was something I couldn’t really show you. So maybe you were meant to find these. Do my dirty work for me.”

“Damn, Gallagher, that’s kinda heavy. These were… kinda heavy. Made me feel shit I’d forgotten about, you know?”

Ian nodded. “Yeah. I haven’t read ‘em in years, but I remember. It’s why I wanted to put ‘em away, I guess. Plus, I didn’t want someone else snooping around and finding out too much. I mean, you never know in this house. It’s possible every fucking Gallagher already read them, but I hope not.”

“Ian…” Mickey started, but didn’t know exactly what he wanted to say. Words of reassurance? It was all in the past, and Ian was doing so well now. He was diligent about his medication, and he hadn’t spun out of control since before prison. Anything Mickey said now would just be cold comfort, since that notebook version of Ian barely existed anymore. Ian was always afraid that it would recur, but Mickey wasn’t. They were truly in it together now, and he’d never let Ian cross the threshold into the uncontrollable. “I wish I coulda been what you needed me to be back then. However impossible it was. Some of it was my fault.”

“It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t even my fault, really. It was some shitty shit that happened to me. I reacted the only way I thought I could. There’s no use in either of us wishing we’d done things differently now. At least we got the right outcome, right? We’re together.” He clasped their left hands so that their wedding rings touched. “Forever.”

Mickey couldn’t help but snort. “Okay, you didn’t have to get that gay about it. I already had to suffer through a buncha your faggy teen poetry. I deserve a break from the high drama of it all.”

Ian laughed, kissed his hand, dropped it, then smacked him on the cheek. “Fuck you.”

“Just say when,” Mickey responded with a smile.

“After we go through all this shit, Romeo. Explain the piles.”

“Well,” said Mickey, pointing to the nearby corner, “Carl has a shitload of contraband in there. Weapons, not drugs. Frank has some shit that might be S&M gear, not sure, then aside from your lunatic journal ramblings, everything else is boring as shit. Oh, and Fiona left a big blue dildo.”

#ian x mickey #fanfic #gallavich #fanfiction #asks #answers

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krastbannert · 4 years ago

Note

Smellershot for the Ultimate Ship Meme?

MAH BABIES! Seriously, I love these two. I will forever be upset that we haven’t gotten a Freedom Fighters centric story that gave us more content for the group, especially Longshot, Smellerbee, and Jet.

For reference, all of these will be completed using the following headcanons:

1. Longshot is a firebender from the FN Colonies (this has absolutely no basis in canon, I just literally can’t unthink it).

2. Jet lives. Because he should have.

(and I’m still sleep deprived so these might be a little insane/weird)

General:

Rate the Ship -

How long will they last? - Till death do they part, and then a tad bit longer.

How quickly did/will they fall in love? - It took them a couple years. They’re children in the middle of a brutal war with an even jankier support system than the Gaang had. They’ve got a lot to deal with already. Plus, Bee has to process the fact that sweet fucking spirits he’s a flaming ashmaker what the hell when did that happen?!?

How was their first kiss? - When I wrote that scene in Ashmaker, it was very sudden and rather frustrated, and right after Bee literally slapped some sense into him (or tried to, anyways). It would definitely be either that, or it just...happens. Just a lazy thing, something that happens as they’re waking up, and neither of them realize it for a few moments. But in both cases, Bee is the one to initiate it.

Wedding:

Who proposed? - Longshot. It was a simple proposal - it just slipped out one day as they were walking together in the same woods they met in, just outside Gaipan. Marry me, he says, quietly at first, then louder when she asks what he said. Bee, of course, says yes.

Who is the best man/men? - Jet. Absolutely, 100% Jet. (Bonus: if he dies like in canon, Jet is still the best man - The Duke stands in his place, carrying a picture of Jet, forever sixteen. Instead of a Best Man’s speech, they have two minutes of silence. Longshot has to leave his own reception because the loss of his best friend is still that painful.)

Who is the braid’s maid(s)? - We don’t see Bee get many, if any female friends in the show. If they become friends at some point, though, it would absolutely be Toph. I have a feeling the earthbender-gremlin and the knife-gremlin would get along very well. Otherwise, it’s probably someone Bee meets in Ba Sing Se, or in Republic City post-war.

Who did the most planning? - Their wedding really didn’t have any planning. They just sorta threw it together one afternoon. Longshot let Bee make most of the decisions because it’s her day, and he just wants her to be happy.

Who stressed the most? - Honestly, neither. They just...knew they were meant for each other. In the moment they were each a little nervous, but they’ve been together so long at this point, that they know: they have nothing to worry about.

How fancy was the ceremony? -

Back of a pickup truck | 2 | 3 | 4 | Normal Church Wedding | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Kate and William wish they were this big.

Who was specifically not invited to the wedding? - There...really wasn’t anyone they specifically didn’t invite, to be honest. After the war, after the dust has settled, after they’ve traveled and grown and matured, they’re more than ready to leave past hurts behind and start a new future.

Sex: Opting out of doing this section

Who is on top? -

Who is the one to instigate things? -

How healthy is their sex life? -

Barely touch themselves let alone each other | 2 | 3 | 4 | Once a couple weeks, nothing overboard | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | They are humping each other on the couch right now

How kinky are they? -

Straight missionary with the lights off | 2 | 3 | 4 | Might try some butt stuff and toys | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Don’t go into the sex dungeon without a horse’s head

How long do they normally last? -

Do they make sure each person gets an equal amount of orgasms? -

How rough are they in bed? -

Softer than a butterfly on the back of a bunny | 2 | 3 | 4 | The bed’s shaking and squeaking every time | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Their dirty talk is so vulgar it’d make Dwayne Johnson blush. Also, the wall’s so weak it could collapse the next time they do it.

How much cuddling/snuggling do they do? -

No touching after sex | 2 | 3 | 4 | A little spooning at night, or on the couch, but not in public | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | They snuggle and kiss more often than a teen couple on their fifth date to a pillow factory.

Children:

How many children will they have naturally? - If they had any at all, probably just 1.

How many children will they adopt? - They’d be the ones to start an impromptu orphanage and take in every kid they can support because no one is going to go through the hardships they did if they can help it.

Who gets stuck with the most diapers? - Bee, because Longshot is dead asleep by 8:00 PM and he sleeps like the dead until he wakes up with the sun.

Who is the stricter parent? - Probably Longshot. He’s pretty chill with most things - he is married to a knife-gremlin, after all - but he’s still stricter than Bee, who doesn’t particularly care if the kid(s) aren’t dead, dying, or out committing felonies.

Who stops the kid(s) from doing dangerous stunts after school? - Both, but only if it’s too dangerous. It’s not like they have any room to talk, considering they literally lived in trees and swung around branches and used jury-rigged ziplines (made by kids) for several years.

Who remembers to pack the lunch(es)? - Longshot is already up, so he does it. Bee, however, is the one to make the food (more below).

Who is the more loved parent? - Smellerbee. She gets in as much trouble as the kids do; hell, she’s the one who gives the kids half their ideas in the first place.

Who is more likely to attend the PTA meetings? - Longshot.

Who cried the most at graduation? - Longshot.

Who is more likely to bail the child(ren) out of trouble with the law? - Longshot, because Smellerbee is probably in jail with the kids (she got in another fight with someone who mistook her for a boy).

Cooking:

Who does the most cooking? - After one too many incidents involving burned soup, near forest-fires, and Jet lacking eyebrows for a month, Longshot was banned from cooking, and the ban is maintained by Bee and the other Freedom Fighters throughout their lives.

Who is the most picky in their food choice? - Longshot grew up in the FN colonies. The boy needs spicy food. Craves it, actually.

Who does the grocery shopping? - They do it together.

How often do they bake desserts? - All the time. After so long living on hunted, stolen, and scavenged food, they both have a sweet tooth that will not be denied.

Are they more of a meat lover or a salad eater? - Meat, mainly because that’s what they’re used to. Salad is just weird.

Who is more likely to surprise the other(s) with an anniversary dinner? - Longshot always remembers things like that, but he doesn’t cook, so when he does get together a full dinner spread, it’s a big day.

Who is more likely to suggest going out? - They only go out when they don’t have a lot of food in the house, or when a friend wants to meet them someplace.

Who is more likely to burn the house down accidently while cooking? - Longshot. Absolutely Longshot (see above). Smellerbee might not be the best cook but she can manage to make food without getting rid of eyebrows or forests.

Chores:

Who cleans the room? - Both.

Who is really against chores? - Neither, really. They’re just so used to doing them that it’s automatic.

Who cleans up after the pets? - Whoever is their at the time.

Who is more likely to sweep everything under the rug? - Considering how long it took him to admit to being a firebender and that he had a crush, it would probably be Longshot.

Who stresses the most when guests are coming over? - They really don’t have guests. Just their really close friends, and they’re pretty much the Freedom Fighters and sometimes the Gaang, who went through the same shit they did.

Who found a dollar between the couch cushions while cleaning? - Longshot did, but he gave it to Bee.

Misc:

Who takes the longer showers/baths? - Bee. She hates being cold, so she stays in the warmth as long as she possibly can.

Who takes the dog out for a walk? - They let the dog roam free most of the time. He walks himself.

How often do they decorate the room/house for the holidays? - They’re not big on decorating. They only do the big ones - Lunar New Year and Winter Solstice.

What are their goals for the relationship? - Honestly? They don’t really have any. They spent so much of their lives just trying to survive, one day to the next, and all they really want is time to relax.

Who is most likely to sleep till noon? - Smellerbee.

Who plays the most pranks? - Smellerbee.

#krast answers asks #@ljf613 #i'll be honest i don't think i've thought this hard about a ship in a long time #but it was a lot fun so thank you #smellerbee #longshot #smellershot

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jean-does-not-have-a-horseface · 4 years ago

Text

Before Dawn: Bonus Chapter (1)

Helloooooo, alright listen, I re read a choice with no regrets and uhm here is this, a little insight on what has happened a little while before our story began, I'm sure you'll want to see some nice bonding with Isabel

Warnings: just a few teeny little mentions of intercourse

@hidehaskak of course here's your tag❤️

Turtleneck

"Yehawhaww" The moment you appeared at the entrance to the roof Isabel screamed at the top of her lungs in great enthusiasm. You stood silent after you spared her a smuggling nod pacing your eyes between the two men that accompanied her, awaiting for a signal of approval. "I knew I could get you to come! You guys don't mind her hanging out with us right? She's a friend."

At that sound the males finally gave in, letting Isabel close the distance between the both of you. Her significantly smaller arms wrapped around your frame in a pure hearted childish manner and seeing that you towered over her you placed your hands on the small of her back, almost too reassuringly to the males' liking. Their unforgiving gazes burned holes in your whole body with much rage built in for ruining their fun for the night.

You knew you were practically unwanted, but it was for Isabel that you stepped foot on this rooftop to begin with. Tired of her never ending pleas to join her and her so called bros as they looked at the stars and talked about everything and anything you had decided to violate curfew and join her, not them, just her, because you wanted to share some more moments with her. This young little redhead was growing on you in the best way possible, you thought she kind of reminded you of yourself in times where you needed salvage or just a friend with whom you could share your piece of mind and heart.

She wasn't like that at first. Isabel probably resembled a rose, it occurred to you, with her godly youthful looks and her thorn like personality. It was a result from growing up in a trashhole like the underground, among thugs, being forced to build a rough personality if she wanted to survive, it was merciless for her and any other girl down there. But the bubbly side of her personality assured you she was much more than a badass teen who could hand you your ass in any fight, she had a pure heart and you longed to help her feel like she deserved post childhood experiences. But for now, it felt as if your roles had reversed. Sure, you were -if not just as her- bubbly and kind but sometimes you were frustratingly unresponsive and ill faced that it worried her until she got to know you. You hadn't put yourself in a place to talk about you trauma to her; she had her own demons and there was no point in burdening her with your abusive background, but you managed to explain to her that most of your weird and uptight behaviors, most things you could dispose of to become a better person, were curved into you in ways you could share yet. And Isabel, as respectful as ever had assured you it was fine not to be able to share.

Most girls would shut her out due to her formal nature as a thug, much like your friends who at first were adamant about discouraging you to befriend her. They had assumed she wouldn't be able to be nice and kind or to talk like them, but you were against any pretentious act behind her back. Maybe it was due to egoistical motives that you wanted to salvage this little girl, because she reminded her of you, and Nanaba, the only person who fully knew about your situation was taking a stand against this at first. She didn't want you to hurt yourself or the redhead in the process of trying to project your condition on her. But you didn't give up. With Isabel as your new bunkmate you had many chances of getting it right.

"Did you bring what I asked you to?" Isabel hurriedly asked, reaching her hands to make a quest inside the tote bag that you carried. You showed no sign of holding back as you let her peak into the cream colored bind, but only managed to cover your ear as her squeks got louder. "Thank you thank you thank you! Sit down, show me!

Isabel shooed Levi and Furlan apart, placing herself right next to the blond man while tapping her hand on her left side. You followed her smile hesitantly and proceeded to sit down to where her hand was rested a few seconds ago, next to Levi. You felt his eyes ravaging your whole form, up and down as if you were some dirty pig that seeked to rub its mud onto him. When seated neatly enough as to not touch him you proceeded to pry open your tote bag and toss a share of it insides to Isabel.

With a determined face she got a strong hold of the grey colored yarn and the pair of slightly thick needles you had managed to recover for her. "Okay show me, show me!"

"Oh what's that?" Furlan peeked his head over Isabel's shoulder to inspect of the situation.

"It's yarn and needles."

"Ahh, Furlan don't interrupt, (y/n) show me how to cast on!"

"See that's the easiest part, sweetheart." You watched Isabel coo at the support in your tone while she puckered her lips to a cute kid like pout. She followed your slow movements as if you were a goddess, showing her how to create new wolds with her strained hands.

Levi, even though he was suspicious of you, a member of Erwin's team who tried to coax her way into Isabel's life, felt somehow relieved to see that beloved expression on Isabel's face. He had overheard her once, taking to her self in the mirror, wishing she had a lady friend to spend time with and it pained him that she had a feeling of such lack inside her. Therefore your presence was a little soothing in their company. He would be lying if he said he personally didn't like it. After all he had thought you were a beautiful company to Erwin in one of the many times he had come across him in the Underground, silently watching him from the shadows. Not that he was a creep to begin with, it was just his lack and a response to the question of whether you can ever see a stranger twice, that you were actually a scout.

"Where did you learn to do this (y/n?)" Furlan was set to break off Levi's thoughts for one too many times tonight.

"Old mothers are adamant about these things, you know, good girl stuff and all."

"Oh." He began with a flirtatious tone that made both Levi and Isabel turn to him wide eyed "Good girl huh? Every Bad boys dream, including min- ah shit Isabel, ouch!"

The squint in Isabel's eyes was something that you couldn't see and you even ignored it as a matter of fact. Isabel was aware of your teeny crush on Levi, she had gotten it out of you one day during training after she had caught you gawking and drooling at him for doing the bare minimum. It was simply natural for her to get overly excited at the fact. Ever since then she had been convinced that him and you would be a perfect match, that you wouldn't have to be so uptight with him after all but you would always brush her off. It didn't torment you just get, even if his cold gaze somehow tickled your heart at certain times you were perfectly fine with hanging out around him. But there was no point in trying to convince Isabel to give up, not when she practically lived off of you and the male duo. Perhaps that was why she had squinted her eyes so hard at Farlan, she didn't want the couple in her head to be broken apart before it even started.

For the rest of your time with them you barely speak. You were fine with standing there and knitting away your project, a grey ribbed sweater that you had accidentally managed to make huge up to a certain point when you didn't find a purpose in casting off and undoing. You wondered if Isabel really wanted to knit or if it was her excuse to have you hang out with the ravenette since she had seemed to long forget about her needles and was fixated on a bottle of booze, talking away about some merchants in the underground flee market. You figured you should take your leave being to alienated to break their usual trio, you couldn't even keep up with their conversations, not that they cared to include you.

"So if you're all about playing housewife what are you doing here?" Farlan's voice calls out to you almost strained from any actual purpose, he probably knew it was kind of rude on the part to not include you after Isabel had invited you.

You remained silent for a few moments, tilting your head back to stare at the jewel decorated dark sky. Finding the right words for your purpose seemed unbelievably difficult and suffocating but it perhaps was nothing compared to their previous lifestyle.

"I didn't want to die." Two of the three almost fall to instant, bubbling laughter the moment your thoughts longer in the air as actual words.

"And you came here out of all places?" Levi sternly inquired without ever initiating some sort of eye contact.

"I wasn't top of my class, but even if I was I wouldn't go in the MP. I don't want to live a full life as a bastard you know and Garrison, let's say I have my reasons as to not going there."

Something about that bastard themed sentence caused curiosity to twitch inside Levi's chest but he didn't quest on it, oversharing wasn't in his plans to do so with a practical stranger, even if deep down you didn't exactly feel like one. He couldn't be explain that feeling but he could certainly understand what it was that made Isabel so attached to you. Something about your aura was like fresh, dripping honey, unprocessed yet sweet and endearing and overpoweringly strong to the flavor.

"You're not a bastard you had parents right? You just talked about your old mother."

Conveniently, Farlan's words allowed you to shut up and look away, further away from the former thug trio and into the vast horizon that laid before you. You contemplated what was it that enamored everyone outside the walls. With all that death, the scouts corpses that rot every where, you didn't have anything against the walls or life inside, taking down Titans and following orders was therapeutic enough to you as long as you came back to an eventual cup of milk tea and your knitting and embroidering projects. You couldn't bring yourself to give a damn about your future, but you liked fighting for the future of others, maybe somewhere there was a child, just like you, who wanted to get away from an abusive household and start a new life or pick up on experiences they had never lived. These people deserved not to feel caged inside the walls and plus, the nature of the Titans was very much appealing to you due to Erwin and his constant pep talks.

"Wait so how did you end up in Erwin's squad if you're mediocre?" Farlan pushed again, not wanting to let you stay silent for what's worth it.

"Don't forget I'm a veteran. I've outpassed the years a scout is expected to live so Erwin decided to move me to his squad, Mike insisted since we were from the same district."

"Oh so you fucked your way up huh?"

With the corner of his eye Levi watched as your eyes widened in shock. He couldn't possible know about your past, but you didn't seem the tyoe to go around and fuck your superiors so you could earn a higher rank. You were too ignorant to anything, it was prominent that you didn't care about even receiving your own room for serving well all these years.

"How dare you! As if it's something to open your legs for!" There it was, sweet confirmation that you indeed were ignorant.

"Good girl and all huh?"

"Sure."

There was something tense in the air as Farlan flirted, the subtle roll in your eyes, the unusual monotony of Isabel's voice, even Levi has seemed to bring his shoulders towards his collarbones in any attempt to distance his mind off of the unrequited nature of scenery. You weren't flirting back, momentarily he wondered if you even knew how since the sheer blush on your face betrayed your otherwise distinctive spitfire. You acted more childish than Isabel, in a way that you probably didn't realise caught Levi's attention because he didn't mind to spare you a glare, he'd rather keep it to himself.

____

Next time, it was supposed to be Farlan who approached to help you get your foot out of the muddy hole it was stuck to, Isabel squealed profanities at him, but it was Levi who had managed to push past him and the redhead, exposing his self to the cold pouring rain to run towards you. Just how stupid of your team was to leave you in the pouring rain to make your foot in your own?

His mind was at gaze as he sprint, random thoughts filling empty apathetic species that begged for overthinking to take over them. He knew Farlan didn't really like you, he was just trying to such to their plan and keeping you close was in sole purpose of getting closer to Erwin but for Isabel is want like that. She really liked your company, even he enjoyed some of your company at times and they weren't taking any chances with using you.

Moreover and much to his despise, he found himself in a very murky situation with each extension of his foot to your location. Fuck did you really have to look like that? With one leg stretched, toned bottom swaying in the air, strong veiny hands gripping on your knee, mud on the tips of your fingers and hair wet, making wild moves as you flipped your head upwards to get it out of your face. He twitched at the way a small tress stuck to your chapped lips, almost as if you were a goddess of water, a Nereid, as if you were made to be in this drenched state. Small droplets traveled from your chin down your exposed neck, hiding inside the base of your soft grey turtleneck, it was indeed a magnetising scenery, an alluring unraveling play to his eyes but he dared to rip his eyes away. He wondered if anyone could perceive this scene the way that only he did.

"Tch, try not to get that filth on me." He spoke as his sleek palms wrapped around your torso in delicate force, fitting almost perfectly. He closed his eyes. What the fuck was he even thinking? He wasn't even going to stay here for long.

"Wouldn't dream of it, but I beg of you to help before I get sick"

From a distance Isabel watched with teary eyes. A soft feeling of happiness engulfed her whole, not letting her give some form of attention to Farlan who clicked his tongue.

"Whatever Farlan, Levi is finally going to get some action for once. It's not like it's interfering with our mission!" Her brows forrowed at his sight. "He likes her, can't you see?"

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that if you don't actually tell him"

Her eyes harded at what Farlan had said. Of course, she knew Levi would deny ever laying his eyes on anyone but she wanted to be there to watch him experience falling in love, hell even falling out of it. Farlan should plainly accept that Levi is not always going to be hang up from their group. Sticking together even after their time at the military was a given, but wanting to have lovers and relationships now that they could enjoy their lives? Isabel was eagerly excited for it.

She watched you and Levi as you freed your leg from the muddy puddle, flying over by the force you had both been laboring and falling on too of each other, Levi's face was contorted in anger, fumingly red as he tried not to tell at you and she was definite about his feelings towards you.

Outside and laid with his back in the mud, Levi felt startled in a way he hadn't experienced before. He could faintly feel the tips of your breasts on his chest and he guessed you were using cloth binds since the impact wasn't enough to get him beyond a little flustered, but he could admit that this was embarrassing. He was angry, for being muddy that is, god knows just how much he despised mud and the smell of filthy rain but there was something about the way you straddled him and it touched a little flicker inside of him that told him it was alright to be muddy for a few more seconds, as long as he was underneath you. Despite his lack of experience in romantic or tense moments, he only had had sex a few times that he could count on one hand and he had despised each one for being disgustingly filthy, he definitely could sense the electric field in the air around you.

But as soon as the moment occured and you took your glistering eyes off of his, you pushed strength into your arms, digging your palms in the dirt to lift your self up and he was once again his normal self. With a click if his tongue he slipped from underneath you, denying your open hand that seeked to offer him a little help. He wasn't here for a sappy little romantic adventure, he was here to find those documents and kill Erwin, you were merely getting in the way of his brain functioning properly.

#aot #levi x reader #levi ackerman x reader #levi #snk x reader #aot x reader #shingeki no kyojin #levi ackerman #attack on titan #captain levi #levi imagine #levi fanfiction #levi x y/n

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sanstropfremir · 4 years ago

Text

it’s the episode 8 review!!! how many episodes is this show supposed to even be?

the stages from the episode feel like such a grab bag.... i still don’t understand why they didn’t put all the skill stages together, and then did the normal two episodes of the third round. i guess it makes sense that they didn’t want to have six stages in one episode and then three in the other two, but eh.

feeling kinda average on these as a whole, there’s a lot of good elements going on here but probably because of my own preferences (i don’t listen to ballads or blackpink) none of them really hit all the buttons. hopefully this will be a shorter review because i'm only going to do a quick rundown of the vocal stages; i dont really have that much to say about them because they are (intentionally) not very stage picture focused. i'll do the normal stage breakdowns for the other two though, even though i won’t rank them because we still need to see the other four!

vocal stages

sf9 + tbz + ikon

not much to say here other than wow, that’s RED. glad to see some more specific use of spotlighting and i always love when they light things on fire. i do wish they had fill lit with a brighter amber so we could actually get a bit more detail on their faces, especially because there’s six of them. i appreciated the simple blocking and only using one of the ‘stages,’ this stage didn’t need to be anything complicated and it wasn’t. i don’t love spinning camera shots because they make me a bit ill, and i'll forgive the constant cutting because it's a vocal stage and there isn’t any other real movement that we should be paying attention to. not my favourite of the two, i found it visually a bit too repetitive and complex at the same time. always love a crushed velvet suit though, so bonus points for that.

atz + skz + btob

i was braced for the worst and i dont know what kind of miracle happened but it was listenable! like i said, not a ballad fan but i could listen to eunkwang all day. i love a good plinth for a ballad stage, they’re one of my favourite devices in kpop design and i especially love it with a good groundlevel fog. glad they kept it black and white for the first half of the stage, it was in line with the blooming flower projections, and it made a very clear colour arc. they kept the visuals clean and simple with very little blocking at all, a very smart choice for this stage. not sure why they decided it would be the chanel time stage, which i disapprove of because i don’t like chanel, but i do love eunkwang’s shirt with the cameo buttons and the massive turnback cuffs, very 17th and also 19th century. i know they never do it because they dont read on stage normally but yes absolutely more thin chain pendant chokers on men, thank you! i also liked that there was emphasis on a more traditional lighting scheme, there weren't any crazy concert effects, just some good directional beam spotlights and the rear stacks in the climax.

third round stages

ikon

costume

the first look for them is definitely my fabourite of theirs so far. there’s enough variation in the jackets that the base layer of tshirt and jeans don’t look too repetitive. and i do love a good statement jacket. my favourite is probably donghyuk’s because i'm a sucker for fringe always.

i don’t like the backup dancers costumes, but given the way i’ve reacted to every other all black outfit for this entire show i don’t think anyone was surprised about that. these ones particularly irk me because they’re very matte; there's pretty much no texture or pattern differentials to define the shape of the limb, which makes them disappear when theyre all grouped together (mostly on the women). i think they probably were intending to make a statement/emphasis on the hands because of the sleeve cutoff point, but there were so many arm movements that were just totally missed because the costumes were just black voids. most egregious parts are here, with the female dancers up center. i can barely tell what the movements are unless i’m paying specific attention to them because there's so many black shapes. maybe it was the point for it to be an indiscernable writhing mass, but it wasn’t my vibe.

don’t love this styling on lisa. i hate peeptoe shoes in general but peeptoe boots are the worst offenders. they make you look like you have duck feet, no matter who you are. especially with a flat cutout like that. a universally unflattering shoe, and i would know, i worked in a shoe store for two years. this whole look is just pg-13 rihanna cfda awards 2014 and really nobody should try to run up against rihanna.

also i have to mention this because it’s actually really bothering me, but lisa’s backup dancers are serving very allgemeine ss looks and i do not like it. generally when we see ‘military’ uniforms in kpop theyre usually modelled off older styles (pre wwii) of western uniforms that usually aren’t in circulation, and they’re usually non-matching and embellished in ways that are deliberately not military. i know logically that it's a budget constraint+they’re backup dancers+current trend thing but the clean lines with only button detailing and the all black and that specific harness shape? it hit my brain the wrong way. i mean, technically those uniforms are designer because hugo boss did them, but the uh..... girlboss move didn’t land for me.

this is my PERSONAL OPINION please for the love of all that is holy do not come yelling at me about this. it’s all under a cut, you chose to read the post.

set

very glad to see some busy kitschy sets! this is a massive build, since there’s essentially three full sets here: the temple, the jungle, and the first tiny room. and all of them are very heavily decorated.

the starting room is just five walls on casters (wheels), that have been set into place with the cameraman and ikon inside at the start, and then once they exit the walls can be easily struck and rolled off set. simple, smart, and convenient!

i missed it the first couple times around but glitching out the projections in the temple for a split second was a neat little trick.

the silver and polygonal nature of the tiger/panther/cat(?) head is a bit disconnected from the gold and the aesthetic of the rest of the stage for me. the difference between the original room set and the jungle tracks, but the cat head isnt able to make the same leap for me. i'm also not a fan of mixing metals so maybe that’s why.

the tiger/panther/cat(?) head is a fun physical transitional device; i'm a big fan of tunnels and small transitory spaces like that and if they’re well dressed like this one they do so much for establishing place and mood.

i'm very sure i’ve seen this style of polygonal animal head with laser eyes before....i cannot for the life of me remember where or for what. i know wang yibo did a panther stage for sdc3 that had a human formation panther with green laser eyes, i wonder if i'm just crossing wires.

OH nevermind it’s because it looks like the witcher medallion. wires were definitely crossed.

lighting

using purple/teal lighting for the jungle was a smart choice because purple is the direct compliment to the gold and also is much more flattering on humans than green. green is one of the colours that humans can see the most variations in, so when something is green when it's not supposed to be (like human skin), we register that very quickly and associate it with unease and sickness. you know how old fluorescent lights have that greenish tinge that kinda makes you feel ill? it's your cone cells and your brain recognizing that you’re looking at things that are not supposed to be green.

very clean colour arc, i love to see it.

sound

it’s.....fine? i don’t listen to blackpink and have no opinions on their music other than it's not my type. i dont really know what the thematic connection to the visuals is, which is not strictly necessary in a lot of cases, but i don’t particularly care for the conflation of ‘savage’ and a (presumably) precolonial religion that’s assembled from stereotypes of real colonized cultures. you can come at me about how ‘it's not that deep’ all you want but i am here specifically doing an in depth analysis, and i gotta point it out. i'm not here to pass judgement on you if you didn’t realize or don’t care or whatever, i'm just saying that it's important to consume content with a critical eye. what you do with that information is your own personal choice, but you should be aware of it at least.

staging

they took a big risk eating popcorn right before singing, and we definitely got some residual mouth noises of them trying to clean out their teeth. eating on stage is difficult in general because you have to make sure it's not going to dry out the performers mouths, because they dont have access to water and it takes WAY longer to chew and swallow something than you would expect. there’s a LOT of testing that goes into making stage food and guaranteed it’s not made out of what it looks like or what its supposed to be; i worked on a production of amadeus were we did literal weeks of testing amalgams of different desserts to make sure that salieri could actually eat the ones onstage without totally drying him out, because fun fact about that show, salieri doesnt leave stage like, at all, so there was no way to get him water. poor bloke.

i thought the blocking of this was really smart. the long take from the ‘normal’ room and transition into the jungle was super slick, even if that weird circle the camera did while pointed up at the ceiling was unnecessary and pointless.

bobby’s ‘acting’ was extremely funny and that’s the only way people are allowed to act surprised now. edvard munsch scream style only.

the pacing is a bit off and this time it wasn’t mnet’s editing that fucked it up. as fun as it is to have a feature, clearly she wasn’t allowed within proximity of the rest of them for covid or other yg related reasons, but it made for some extremely long transitions, especially the one out of her verse. it kills the momentum of the stage in that beat, even though they manage to pick it up after.

this is a very simple little narrative arc that’s easy to follow and doesn’t require any extra explaining. which is exactly the kind of arc that groups should be doing at this stage in the game. this is a good formic step up for ikon!

i thought the turning off of the monitor at the end was fun and a good callback to them watching the videos at the beginning of the stage. a nice clean way to make it circular.

skz

costume

FINALLY something different on the skz boys! these were mostly fun eboy looks for them, and i like it on the basis that it's not the same as the last set of costumes.

bang chan out there with his thigh OUT and a (fake) bridge piercing? LOVE to see it. great work.

(copy-paste every thing i’ve said about backup dancers wearing all black)

the backup dancers that were dressed as bystanders/extras were great! they should have kept that with all of them because it would have given a little more shape to the choreography and establishing what function the backup dancers were supposed to have.

set

that is meant to be a giant rice cooker on stage, right? i think so because it's a god’s menu mashup? if that's not a rice cooker i have NO idea what its supposed to be

there’s only two large setpieces here, which was a smart way to go. i LOVE the subway car doubling as the truck, even if the truck itself makes no narrative sense. what a fun way to double the use of a single big piece. you’ll be able to see the way it moves in the full cam but it splits down the centre and there entrance doors at the back with attached stairs that bang chan and the dancers use to climb up.

lighting

not a whole lot happening here. i like the cool white leds in the subway car and the contrast with the more warm tones of the outside, which is good atmospheric establishment, but i can't discern a visible arc.

not a fan of these projections; they’re in line with what we’ve seen from skz so far, which is: extremely literal. i dont think they’re that distracting, but they’re not to my personal taste. they really should have kept the comic panel theme that they did for changbin’s first verse, because that was inventive and fun to watch! and a great atmospheric indicator! i would love to see a bit more experimental projection use but it's hard when they don’t have a lot of time to build these stages and the lighting team is definitely working remotely.

sound

i love that they made the choice to do some actual talking, it’s a good gimmick and it works for the deadpool/comic book/fourth wall break theme, but australian accents take me the fuck out i am so sorry i cannot listen to either felix or bang chan speak english without laughing uncontrollably.

i don’t like this arrangement but i'm not surprised about that, given my predilections. i'm also tired of skz shouting STRAY KIDS in every performance they do. i know on music shows it's probably more relevant and yea producers tags are a thing but we’ve been watching this show for nearly two months at this point. we know who you are, you can stop yelling. be more creative with it!

staging

my biggest issue with this stage is that it doesn’t have a payoff. there is an arc here: they’re stealing the truck, but why are they stealing the truck? who are they stealing it from? who are they fighting against? it's kind of important in a stage where the theme is stealing and fighting someone that you tell us who that is. in both of ateez’s previous stages were they were both stealing (rhythm ta) and fighting (wonderland), they made sure to show us who the villain was. there needs to be tension for a big blowup climax to actually pay off. whether it be against a a balloon arm kraken or a fascist government. this stage could have reached that next step if they’d just done a little bit more exposition.

there were a lot of fun choreo moments here, and this is probably my favourite choreo of theirs so far. i thought the whole first bit in the subway car was excellent and a very fun play on those viral videos that we used to see roll around every so often of dancers doing routines in subway cars.

did it need the guns? not in the slightest. more on this point later. i could talk more about weapons and weight here, but i’ve done that several times already.

like with the tbz game of thrones stages, theyre relying a little too much on the audience's preconceptions of the source material in order to carry the theme. the guns are there because deadpool likes guns, but they don’t actually use the guns for anything? the most we get of the stealing segment is felix and the safe, which admittedly is a great bit with him leaping over and under the ‘laser’ lines (theyre likely led strips). because comic books are by nature procedural and deeply tied to narrative, it's unsatisfying when there’s no tension and no payoff.

HOW did we manage to get two stages that are blackpink covers with remote/tv static gimmick and durags? i know the slot machine of kpop tropes is not very big but surely the probability of hitting triple sevens on this one was pretty low. i’m pretty meh on both of these stages overall. skz was unsatisfying but i loved the choreo in the subway bit so that bumped it up a little ahead of ikon’s in my personal preferences, but i'm reserving my actual rankings for next week. assuming we get the other four stages next week and they dont do something stupid and only show two. which they very well might. i’ve stopped trying to understand why mnet does things the way that they do.

as always the ask box is open, drop your comments/questions/personal opinions, i love to hear ‘em! but don’t be rude just because some of this is touchier subject material.

#kingdom #ateez #btob #ikon #sf9 #the boyz #stray kids #military uniforms are a weird one and i always find it a bit....(squiggly face emoji) when they get used in kpop stages #everybody is one of the exceptions because its used as a direct critique #but this is a very personal opinion as someone who has done a lot of historical research on military uniforms in particular #so im hyperaware of that kind of thing #be cool about this one people please and thank you!#im so glad this came in under 3k #kingdom review #kpop analysis #text #ive had to write a lot of deeply critical art practice analysis in the last week and i would like to sleep

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sickfic-with-kiko · 5 years ago

Note

Maybe someone from a couple of your choosing could get sick on their first real date and they’re mumbling apologies whilst caretaker just wants to get them home in one piece? Bonus points if sick character denies it up until the last second and then slumps into their date and/or throws up on their shoes. Idk the main thing is comfort!!!

I chose SakuAtsu because I desperately need more Sakusa content in regards to sickfic. Don’t read this one if you don’t like vomiting, folks.

Sakusa had started dating Atsumu three weeks ago.

He’s not sure how he’d managed to fall for him, or how he’d managed to get a confession out of him. Atsumu, as it turns out, was rather shy when it came to dating. Upon a small amount of questioning, even Sakusa had more experience than him.

He doesn’t really mind. It’s refreshing, and it betrays his expectations of what Atsumu would be like to a partner. He wonders why he’d even made those assumptions. He’d only ever seen him glaring at fangirls who didn’t shut up during his serve.

And now, sitting at a table in a small antique cafe, Sakusa is waiting for Atsumu to meet up with him for his first date.

Going out together as busy high schoolers is hard. Hyogo and Tokyo aren’t exactly neighbouring prefectures, and to emphasize it once more, they’re extremely busy . Schoolwork to be done, practice to be attended. There’s not enough free time, they only realise when they need it.

“Hey! Uh, sorry, did you wait?” Atsumu hops into his line of vision, pulling out his phone to check the time. “You’re so early, Omi-kun!”

Sakusa shrugs. It’s the result of a lot of preparation on his part, dressing appropriately after being laughed at by Komori (“You’re not meant to wear that school jersey, you dumbass!”), grabbing some spare masks and making sure he was feeling completely fine.

He had no problem with completing two of them. But feeling fine is an extremely rare occurrence for him. Something always seems to be up with him— his head hurts, his shoulder feels unwell, his eye is twitching in the wrong manner. It’s all in his head, he’s heard from every possible person. It doesn’t make the wrongness disappear.

“...I didn’t wait.” Sakusa says, picking up the menu with a small frown. “I’ll get some yokan.”

Atsumu’s eyes blow open. “Yokan? Wow, are you a granny?” He teases, in his thick kansai accent. “But it’s cute, Omi-kun. Unexpected.”

Sakusa feels the blood rushing to his face, but glares at him instead. “Cute? I think you need a doctor’s appointment. Something is up with you.” Cute should be used on small animals or fancy decorated cakes, not a sullen high schooler like him.

Atsumu looks at him with his smitten eyes, smiling. “Is it that weird, to call your boyfriend cute? We’re dating, right?”

“Yes. It’s pretty clear that we’re… partners.” Sakusa rolls his words around in his mouth, as if they’re little pebbles that get in his way.

They order their food and drink, and chat for a bit until it comes. Sakusa can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong, but he ignores it for the sake of his date. It’s the one thing he can’t ruin. No matter what.

“Omi-kun. You have a little something there.”

Atsumu wipes the corner of his mouth with a napkin. He doesn’t try to be suave or flirtatious in doing so, surprisingly. He just grins at him like he’s seen something special. Sakusa’s heart jumps, doing a somersault.

“...Thanks.” Sakusa murmurs. He feels… boring. He isn’t sure what Atsumu sees in him. He barely talks about anything interesting, and it’s not like he has the looks or personality. And even if Atsumu is annoying, some could find that endearing.

“How’s volleyball been? Is it fun?”

There isn’t really anything else to talk about, besides volleyball. It’s that, or studies. And Sakusa knows very well about how much Atsumu hates studying. There’s nothing else for them to focus on, really.

“It’s been a busy few weeks,” Sakusa answers. “I have to make sure my team will be fine without me, after Spring High.” Maybe mentioning that was a bad idea. A dead weight sinks into his stomach, forcing something up to his chest.

“You’re really responsible, aren’t ya?” Atsumu says, slurping on his strawberry milk. “I’m sure my team will be fine. But maybe I should look out for them a little more.”

Sakusa shrugs. “Maybe.”

After a short pause, Atsumu finishes his drink and stands up. “Come on. Change of scenery. We'll go for a walk around here.”

Sakusa can’t help wondering if he’s done something wrong. Had he said the wrong thing? Had he said too little? He lifts himself up, his chest thumping worriedly.

They exit the cafe and head down the street, down to a quiet park. It’s a warm day, but Sakusa can’t stop trembling periodically. There’s something strange going on with him. He can’t let it ruin his date.

“...Omi-kun, you okay? Did I do something to make you mad?”

Sakusa shakes his head quickly. Bad idea. A wave of dizziness overwhelms him, and he realizes. It’s not all in his head, like it usually is. He’s actually, truly sick.

“No. Not your fault.” Sakusa can only mumble, sitting down on a nearby bench before he loses footing. “I’m fine.”

“Ya sure?” Atsumu says. “You looked a bit... out of it.”

Sakusa bites his lip out of frustration. He can’t be seen through. Atsumu isn’t meant to be perceptive like this. Everything is his own fault. He hates how he ruins everything. He’s horrible—

He pulls himself out of his brain. “...Sorry. I’m making everything worse. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Atsumu reaches over to him, and pulls back when he touches his shoulder. “Is it just me, or are you hotter than usual?”

“It’s just you.” Sakusa mumbles, waving Atsumu’s hand away. “I’m not sick. Leave me alone.”

“I never said ya were,” Atsumu raises his brows, and Sakusa realises he’s screwed up. He wouldn’t have done something so stupid if he weren’t sick. Now that Atsumu is catching on, he feels even worse.

He starts to shiver. It’s too cold, and he feels sleepy. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine, Atsumu.”

Atsumu grabs him, when he ends up unknowingly slumping against him. “But Omi-kun, you have a fever! Yer not fine! You need to rest, or else you’ll get worse!”

“But our date. I can’t be the one to ruin it.” Sakusa whispers, and Atsumu sighs softly. His arm wraps around him tighter, his grip comforting and warm. He snuggles closer, shutting his eyes.

A soft kiss is planted onto his cheek. “You didn’t ruin anything. It’s okay. I love you all the same, sick or not.”

Sakusa feels like the luckiest man on earth. The possibility of someone like him getting a boyfriend is slim, and yet he’s somehow winning so much at life. He returns the hug, while Atsumu strokes his curls softly.

“Come on. Let’s get you home.” Atsumu pats him on the shoulder, helping him to his feet. “I can take care of you, okay?”

“Okay,” Sakusa mumbles, too sick to care. They have to walk to the train station, for that to happen. His face is reddened beneath the mask, and he’s aware of how hot his breath is. To stay standing is a chore.

With every step, something in his stomach seems to grow heavier. His mouth is watery, and he stops mid-step to press his hand to it. He can’t walk anymore. If he continues like this, he’ll be sick.

“Omi-kun? What’s wrong?” Atsumu peers into his face, and Sakusa crouches down at the exact same time with a groan. “Does it hurt somewhere?”

A sick hiccup comes out of his mouth. There’s no time for him to react, before it turns into a gurgle. When he inhales shallowly, a thick rush of liquid rises to his throat. “Oh, fuck, I…”

Atsumu rubs Sakusa’s back in gentle strokes. “Aw, man. You really are sick, huh?” He murmurs, staying by his side and showing no sign of disgust. Sakusa is starting to wonder if he’s a saint. He knows that if anyone close to him was as sick as he was, he would take off running and not even look back.

But there’s no way of thanking him. If he opens his mouth even slightly more, he’ll surely throw up. He holds his knees tightly, bracing himself for the inevitable. A bead of spit dangles from his lip. There’s a strong sense of anxiety in his chest, because he hates how he’s so sick, hates how disgusting he looks.

“There’s nobody here. It’s just you and me, okay?” Atsumu reassures him in a soft voice. “And I promise I won’t tell. Just let it happen, and I’ll take care of everything.”

A strained cough tears out of Sakusa, and the pressure in his chest squeezes tighter. He can barely breathe. Every wave of nausea brings him closer to throwing up. A choked gag rises to his throat, and his stomach takes it as a cue to let loose.

Vomit flows into his mouth, splattering onto the pavement with a sick-sounding retch. He screws his eyes shut so that he won’t have to see, but the smell is overwhelming. As soon as he takes in a breath, a second wave of vomiting hits. He can’t believe this is happening.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. You’re doing fine.” There’s a comforting hand rubbing Sakusa’s back. It belongs to Atsumu, whose day he’s sure he’s ruined. He’s sick, and not even in a cute way. Instead of just sneezes or a mild fever, he’s emptying his guts loudly without a shred of dignity.

It doesn’t ever seem to end. Wave after wave of liquid pours out of him like a faucet, leaving him at the mercy of his stomach. The heaving puts pressure on his eyes, and tears slide down his cheeks one after the other. He wants to go home.

Atsumu hands him some tissues, grabbing a few coins out of his pocket to buy a drink. “Let’s try and head to the station. Ya feel okay?” Sakusa nods, wiping his mouth and spitting bitter slime into the tissues.

The ground is spinning beneath his legs. He can barely focus on standing up, and there’s a lingering ache inside his head. “...Atsumu. Can you call my parents? I don’t want to puke on a train.”

“Sure thing. Drink some water, you need it.” Atsumu tosses a bottle over to Sakusa, as he hands him his phone. “Will your mom pick up, do you think?”

Sakusa nods, wobbling over to a low wall and leaning against it. He uncaps the bottle of water, swallowing some of the liquid. It makes everything slightly better, once his mouth is no longer lined with drying vomit.

Atsumu shuffles beside him after a few minutes, giving his phone back. “I called. They’ll be here soon.”

“...Sorry I made you take care of me.” He murmurs, guilt and stomach pain eating at him. “I want to make it up to you, when I’m better.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just thank me. And when ya take care of me someday, I’ll thank you!” Atsumu snickers, patting Sakusa’s back playfully. “Come on. We’re boyfriends. This shit was gonna happen someday. It just came sooner than expected, right?”

Warm arms wrap around Sakusa, as he leans into Atsumu and shuts his eyes tightly. “You’re a good boyfriend, Atsumu. I love you.”

“Love ya too.” Atsumu ruffles Sakusa’s curls, noticing how hot his body is to the touch. He needs plenty of sleep and care, so he can shake off whatever nasty sickness he has. “Rest well, okay? You deserve it.”

#sickfic #sakuatsu #sakusa kiyoomi #Miya Atsumu #haikyuu #emeto

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summersubin · 5 years ago

Text

tutoring sessions

- yeonjun x taehyun

- 2.5k

- yeonjun doesn’t like that his new tutor is younger than him but he really can’t fail this class. besides, the sophomore is really pretty. he can’t stay mad at him for long. (cr: taejunaus on twitter for the prompt!!)

- a/n: i wrote this a while ago but didn’t get around to posting it here~ this is on my ao3 summersubin and i also posted it on my twitter hyukasnose!! please check out taejunaus on twitter, their aus are really good and i enjoy reading them a lot <3

TUTORING SESSIONS, read the pink flyer pinned to the announcement board in the school hallway. it fluttered with the breeze of students passing by in a hurry on the way to their next class. yeonjun, however, stood perfectly still, his school books in his arms, and stared at the innocent flyer with a conflicted expression on his face. his books lay heavy in his arms.

he never wanted to admit it to himself, but he needed a tutor. it wasn’t that he didn’t try hard, but the work in his classes just seemed to pile up so quickly on top of him that he was becoming worried he would never escape from underneath it. he felt the pressure of a million assignments weighing on his chest, and with all of his work to do, he was falling behind with learning the new material in his courses.

so, begrudgingly and with narrowed eyes, yeonjun reached out his hand, shuffling his school books into the crook of his other arm, and ripped one of the slips of paper with a phone number scrawled on it from the flyer. he slipped it in his pocket, and then decided to make his escape, hoping nobody had witnessed him. he turned, ducked his head, and walked quickly along with the other students, easily blending in with the crowd.

later, when school was over for the day, yeonjun pulled out his phone and the tiny slip of paper came with it. he almost dropped it by accident, its pink color catching his eye. he was on the bus now, and as he was sitting in his seat he placed his phone on one leg and the phone number on the other. he hesitated for a few moments, feeling like an idiot as the bus jostled him around in his seat, going over bumps in the road. finally, he rolled his eyes and picked up his phone in his hands, quickly typing up a text to the number listed from the flyer and sending it before he could talk himself out of it. he would call, but he was feeling far too self conscious already, and he didn’t need a whole bus of people listening in on his conversation.

yeonjun repeatedly glanced at his phone anxiously, and found a reply from the owner of the flyer coming through in a matter of seconds. so taehyun is his name, yeonjun thought after his new tutor introduced himself. he sounds nice enough. and he was nice, speaking to yeonjun in possibly a more formal tone than he expected, but he was fine with that, as long as it wasn’t overbearing when they were finally face to face.

they agreed to meet later that afternoon in a local cafe. bring some money if you want to. i always find coffee keeps me motivated to work, taehyun had said. the wifi is a bonus, too. yeonjun laughed at that. taehyun told him to bring his own supplies, which yeonjun was already pretty much expecting. it wasn’t like the flyer had specified exactly what kind of tutoring taehyun was offering, so he just assumed taehyun would be on board for whatever. it was funny, yeonjun thought, that he couldn’t seem to remember anybody by the name of taehyun in his class.

when yeonjun walked in the front door of the cafe, he was greeted by a warm gust of air that smelled of coffee and bread. he carried his schoolbooks against his chest, the weight feeling familiar in his arms. taehyun said he would be in one of the booths, so yeonjun didn’t worry too much about not being able to find him. he figured he would know him when he saw him. for a school night, the place seemed to be unusually busy. a low hum of voices filled the air and bounced off the well decorated walls, a gentle yellow glow from the lighting casting itself on the customers.

biology, he desperately needed help in biology. he could never seem to cram all the vocabulary into his brain and keep it there. it liked to ooze out like goo, and yeonjun wished he could pack it all together in there and secure it with duct tape. math, too. the formulas always ended up confusing him, and the second he thought he got it completely, he would move on to solve the next problem and find himself completely and utterly lost. he mulled over these things in his mind as he walked through the cafe, knowing he would probably have to explain them to taehyun if he wanted any help.

yeonjun was walking past the booths that sat just beside a giant wall of glass, passing each one booth by booth and wondering if he had arrived too early for their meet up. and then he stopped in his tracks. in front of him was a boy sitting in a booth only a few feet away from him. he was hunched over in his seat as he scrawled something into a little notebook on the table in front of him. the seat opposite of him was empty, yeonjun noted when he glanced at it. this is… taehyun? yeonjun thought, feet freezing into the ground.

his hair was caramel brown, not quite long enough to fall over his eyes but enough that it just brushed his eyebrows. the warm lighting complemented his honey tanned skin, and he held his pen between his fingers delicately as he wrote. he was in a cream colored shirt, and subtly something in the back of yeonjun’s mind flickered with the thought of how good it looked on him, how well he seemed to blend into the warm atmosphere of the cafe. the thing was, though, that by the looks of taehyun, he couldn’t have been any older than yeonjun. in fact, he had a younger look to him. upon thinking this, yeonjun had the realization that the reason why he couldn’t place taehyun in his mind earlier was because he wasn’t from his class. he was almost certainly a year younger, if not two, and this thought alone made yeonjun consider turning back and going home, pretending as if he had never arrived. being tutored by a sophomore… yeonjun thought, and nearly winced at the idea. he had gotten himself this far, but he didn’t know if he would be able to take another blow to his pride like that. however, just as yeonjun was raising his foot from the ground to turn around, the head of caramel hair in front of him suddenly raised up, and he was caught in the stare of big, round, captivating brown eyes.

taehyun gave him a once-over, taking in the sight of yeonjun’s schoolbooks and setting his pen down gently. he sat himself up in his seat, and then settled himself, closing his notebook shut.

“you’re here for the tutoring, right?” he asked, and yeonjun felt something strange twinge inside of him at the sound of his voice. he nodded meekly, feeling awkward and out of place. taehyun paused for a moment, and then eyed the seat across from him in a sort of wordless gesture, turning his gaze back to yeonjun.

yeonjun walked over timidly, regretting for a moment not leaving when he had the chance. as he was putting his books down on the table, he cast a few side glances at taehyun’s face.

“you’re not in my class, are you?” he asked hesitantly, adding, “what year are you… sophomore?” he looked at his books feeling a bit pathetic for a moment, hoping that he was only mistaken. he didn’t want to come to a sophomore for help on material he hadn’t even taken a class on yet.

“is that a problem?” taehyun interjected, and yeonjun lifted his head at the hint of aggression laced in his voice. he stared for just a moment, taehyun’s wide brown eyes trapping him under their glare, and suddenly he was embarrassed.

“no, no, it’s not,” yeonjun was mumbling without thinking, quickly sitting down in the seat of the booth and reaching a hand behind his head to scratch awkwardly at his neck. “i just didn’t recognize you, that’s all…” he trailed off. it wasn’t a lie of course, but it certainly wasn’t all either. he could feel a hint of warmth beginning to blossom on his cheeks and wished it would cut it out already.

“so, what do you need help with?” taehyun asked, and yeonjun subtly shifted uncomfortably in his seat under the boy’s scrutinizing gaze. he couldn’t help but feel the itch on his skin from coming to someone younger for help, but as his mind drifted back to the mounds of homework waiting to be completed by him, he clenched his teeth and knew he would just have to bear it. passing his classes was his only option, and if taehyun was the thing that would help push him to that point, then so be it. besides, spending the afternoon with this kid…..it probably…. yeonjun glanced up quickly between his thoughts and met taehyun’s patient eyes. probably wouldn’t be that bad.

he blinked away his thoughts, looking down and spreading his books across the table between them. “biology,” he blurted out. “and my math class…” and then taehyun was nodding, flipping open his little notebook and reaching for his pen. he started writing some things down.

“what are you writing?” yeonjun asked, palms flat against the solid cover of his biology textbook.

“just some notes. it will make things easier to keep track of.” taehyun muttered absentmindedly, not halting his movements. yeonjun watched him, eyes glued to the way his hand produced small neat handwriting onto the paper.

“i can’t remember anything in biology,” he continued, still observing taehyun as he skipped a line and began writing more. “it’s like it makes sense, but it never stays in my head.”

taehyun nodded shallowly, and yeonjun got this weird feeling like he was talking to his teacher. this kid was way too serious and precise.

“and your math class?” taehyun asked suddenly, lifting his head from his notebook. yeonjun paused. maybe it was the lighting or something, or the cozy atmosphere of the cafe, or maybe just his nerves messing with his perception, but something about taehyun’s face looking up at him like that made his stomach flutter. “um,” yeonjun uttered, wiping his palms against his pant legs. “yeah, basically the same thing. i always understand it in class but when i try to do it on my own…” he shook his head.

taehyun nodded again, quickly jotting it down. “okay,” he said, dropping his pen. “i’ll see if i can help.” and then he did something that yeonjun wasn’t at all ready for. he smiled softly, eyes crinkling a bit at the corners. oh, he’s cute, was all yeonjun could think, and he breathed out a laugh, returning the smile but looking down as he did so. what is wrong with you? he thought to himself.

taehyun reached over and picked up his biology textbook by the corner, half dragging it across the surface of the table until it was in front of him. he flipped it open, skimming the table of contents briefly before looking back at yeonjun. “what unit are you on?” he asked, and yeonjun’s brain was lagging. the thoughts coming in one after the other now, flitting through his mind about how pretty his tutor looked sitting there, and how embarrassed he felt, and how awkward he was acting.

“unit 6, i think,” he murmured, and thought he heard taehyun laugh the tiniest bit at his uncertainty as he found the page number and flipped to it in the book.

they sat there for the next few hours, yeonjun taking taehyun’s sincere advice on how he could study better but often finding himself distracted by the calm timber of his voice. taehyun had an excellent way of explaining things, and the more time he spent listening to him, the more yeonjun wondered how he could possibly be a sophomore. he watched the way taehyun’s expression grew focused when he was explaining more difficult concepts, like when they went over his math formulas together. he cursed his heart for the way it skipped ever so slightly every time he got an answer right, every time taehyun applauded him for doing it correctly on his own. he just knew there was a warm redness in his cheeks, for how long it lasted he had no idea, but he felt so strange being tutored by someone like taehyun.

by the time they were done, taehyun had a good few pages in his little notebook about things they had accomplished, things they needed to work on still, and how yeonjun should proceed with his classes. yeonjun had a good amount of notes as well, filling the pages of his notebooks with as many practice problems from taehyun as possible, knowing he would need them later.

“we can meet… next week if you want? here again?” taehyun asked, and yeonjun found himself once again pulled into his round brown eyes, thinking for a moment that he saw a flicker of hope in them. “yeah,” he responded, biting at his lip. “sounds good.” taehyun’s gaze flickered downward for a split second, and then back up again. he nodded again, and began to gather his things together. then he paused, and suddenly groaned, bringing a hand up to his forehead in frustration.

“we never got any coffee,” he said in a disappointed tone. “it completely slipped my mind.” he shook his head slowly.

yeonjun laughed, a bright and airy sound, and couldn’t help the smile on his face from forming at how genuinely upset taehyun seemed to be. “me too,” he snickered, and watched as taehyun looked up at him and dropped his hand. he began to smile too, a bashful look gracing his features at his own reaction.

“um, do you want me to buy you one? we can still order…” yeonjun blurted out before he could think. “i can stay for a little longer…”

taehyun’s eyes widened just barely, his mouth opening to speak and then closing again. “oh,” he said, gaze dropping down and raising back up. “okay,” he said quietly.

yeonjun smiled wide in response, laughing awkwardly. he asked for taehyun’s order, and taehyun gave it to him, still looking a bit taken aback. as yeonjun walked away to order their drinks, he could feel taehyun’s curious gaze on his back. the smile on his face wouldn’t seem to fade, but little did he know how much trouble he was in now. after all, he had a lot of studying to do, but when he would finally get around to it during the days to come he would find himself unable to focus or concentrate. his mind would be way too preoccupied thinking about his tutor that was annoyingly younger than him, and how pretty he looked under the warm lights of the cafe that afternoon.

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