#mostly just his classic glares and scowls | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

yuzukult · 3 years ago

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acquitted love || sjn & reader

title: acquitted love pairing: johnny suh x reader genre: fluff, angst, co-workers!au, lawyer!au, one-sided enemies to lovers word count: 8.7k warnings: some language/cursing, brief mentions of sex but there's no actual discussions or explicit conversations of the topic, but generally pg-13 prompt: you absolutely hate johnny suh. but when your boss pairs you two up together for one of the highest profile cases, you’re left working close with your enemy but he doesn’t seem to think that way of you. a/n: tada!! i wrote this for the @/ficscafe fic exchange event!! so @urlocalnctstan , hope you enjoy this !! i tried to write it according to what you put as your preferences, but honestly T_T it was so hard bc i was just not getting any ideas!! hopefully this is something you’d like :D enjoy !!

“God, isn’t he just… so attractive?”

Along with a click on your tongue, you feign a hit in Hyeri’s direction, whose reflexes have gotten so much faster in the past couple years of knowing you and it shows when she cowers underneath your arm. She gifts you that not-so-apologetic smile, full of mischievousness because she knows no matter how annoying she can be, you’ll still love her nonetheless.

“Why do you keep talking about Johnny? You know he’s banned as a topic of our conversations.”

Hyeri rolls her eyes, crossing her arms over her white frilled blouse. You know that she doesn’t actually inhabit any romantic feelings for Johnny, but she has a problem of thinking without the usage of her brain when she sees a hot guy.

Not that you think Johnny is hot.

No.

“Come on, you can’t tell me you don’t think he’s at least an ounce of smokin’ hot.” She’s unraveled her arms by now, poking your shoulder incessantly to grasp onto your attention as you're tapping on the buttons of the copier machine. “I bet if you asked him out, he’d say yes.”

You briefly glare at Hyeri. “You realize that he and I don’t get along, right? He keeps finding stupid loopholes in the system to win his cases. He thinks with his heart, not his head, and sometimes, with whatever that thing was in his pants.” And, not to mention that he walks out the court with that big grin stretched from cheek to cheek, giving the ‘good news’ to your well-respected boss (who you desperately seek the approval of but that’s a different story for another time). And every single time, she gives him that nod of appreciation, that ‘nod of approval’ if you will, when it should be given to you and not to some asshole who fucks his way to victory.

“But he’s so hot—”

You narrow your eyes at your friend, and with a stern voice, you call out, “Hyeri.”

She shrugs. “Honestly, though, he’s hella smart. He’s got a job here, and works under your boss. It’s Park, Kim & Associates—notice how Park is first, because she’s a fucking genius. She only picks the intelligent ones to work under her. Why do you think I’m still working for Mr. Kim?”

Park Seohyun and Kim Gonghyun—one of the biggest lawyers in the region, decided to join together to build their own law firm from the ground up. They were both highly respected in their field; Kim Gonghyun spent years of his life being mentored by one of the most famous judges, and as for Park Seohyun, she was, simply put, admirable because of the obstacles she has overcome to make her dreams of working in law to be real. Being a woman, young, and beautiful, she’s had her fair share of encounters with people who disregard her potential, that is until she met Gonghyun—who, admittingly is an old man who seems like he’d be traditional, sexist, even, but he proves to also make people realize how wrong they are with their impression of him.

But, as Mr. Kim is getting older, he’s gotten a bit… lazy.

In fact, he’s been slacking so much that he’s gotten a new rep in the office—if he was your direct supervisor, or your supervisor was under him, you were on the side of the office where all the easier, uncomplicated cases were assigned. Which meant that there was a slight possibility that your talents and skills weren’t as sharp and exceptional as you thought they were.

And well, Hyeri works directly underneath Mr. Kim.

Hyeri doesn’t want a heavy workload, despite the fact that there’s a plethora of files on her desk, stacked up one onto another as tall as her PC tower, and they were all open and closed cases—needless to say that she didn’t mind it.

“Okay, but you got offered a position under Seohyun. Do you really think you’re not wasting your potential?”

Hyeri scoffs. “Never. At least, not now. I’m still in my twenties, I’d like to enjoy my youth while I can, for your information.”

You quirk a brow. “And does any of that pertain fucking Johnny? The hot guy, so you claim?”

She immediately has her hand covering your mouth and you scowl. “Shhhhh, he works here!”

You bite the flesh of her hand and Hyeri instantly retracts. “You think I don’t know my archenemy works here? He sits directly across from my office—I get the best view of the guy and I’m not even one of his fangirls.”

“You’re not gonna be one of those girls who claim they’re different because they don’t like him but then end up falling for him anyway… are you?”

Your hand goes up and Hyeri crouches down.

“Stop it.”

“Seriously though! It’s the classic e2l love story,” she has her hands gesturing in front of her like she’s making an imaginary rainbow, “Two lawyers, constantly butting heads, accept each other’s differences and learn to love—“

“The fuck is an ‘e2l’?”

“Enemies to lovers.”

“Are you high? Stop spitting nonsense.” This time, you’re waving the stack of papers that finish printing in front of her face. “Meet me for lunch later. But if you keep talking about my archenemy and I falling in love, you can kiss a free meal goodbye.”

Hyeri gasps.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

Maybe. Just maybe, Hyeri might be a tiny smidge right when she says Johnny is handsome. Just a bit though, because she can’t get credit for something like that.

He’s dyed his hair this shade of brunette that sort of reminds you of roasted chestnuts on a cold, winter day, sitting inside of a cooker outside of your childhood home, baking along with some sweet potatoes your mom had gotten from a farmer’s market nearby. Johnny has this focused gaze attached to the screen of his monitor; there’s a dip in the fronts of his brows, lips tightened into a straight line, and constant switching back and forth from the computer while taking notes down in a book that’s laid open in front of him.

You wonder what’s running through his mind, or well, you’re more interested in what files he has sprawled out on top of his desk.

Truthfully, if it hadn’t been obvious enough, you weren’t quite a fan of Johnny Suh and it’s mostly due to his work ethic. He’d been notorious for his reputation of sleeping around—especially with the opposing side—so it’s hard to convince yourself that he didn’t win the case because of his actual capabilities, but it’s because he pulled some strings.

And Johnny doesn’t put much effort into denying it either.

Albeit deep down, you were a teeny bit envious of his confidence. He struts around the courtroom with ease, and when he presents his position, there’s no staggering in his voice—it’s always crisp and clean, weighted with nothing but credence, and never straying from his initial perspective. It’s never a lack of poise, it’s consistently the look he goes for; from the hand gestures and the furrowed brows, to the rhetorical questions in the end of certain statements that has the speculators and jury sitting at the edge of their seat, Johnny had a talent for performing in the courtroom, but that doesn’t mean anything when the way he gets to the success isn’t ethical.

Just at that moment, his eyes lift from the screen and meet yours.

There isn’t any hesitation when you scramble to grab the remote controller, and the shades drop over the windows instantaneously.

“Fuck,” you mutter underneath your breath, tossing the remote onto your desk and shaking your hands after. What if he thought you were admiring him? Maybe he didn’t see. Yeah. It was for a brief second, and with how close your offices were to each other, it would be common to accidentally lock eyes… right?

Interrupting your thoughts, the office phone rings and it nearly startles the living soul out of you. But before you reach for it, your head tilts to the side curiously because the extension number is familiar—it’s Park Seohyun’s, your boss.

What could she be calling for?

You don’t remember fucking something up—but to be fair, half the times, you never really know if you’ve actually fucked up until someone with steaming ears and a crimson face comes storming in. So… did you do something good? Again, you don’t think that’s right either, because other people would’ve made comments about it.

Deciding to swallow your nerves, you pick up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hey!” Seohyun never fails to be bubbly, and you could never mimic her energy. You definitely had to be born with that kind of enthusiasm. “I have a favor. Hop into my office.”

Leaned back in her leather swivel chair, she had her fingers laced with each other while resting over her stomach. Johnny stands beside you (and you do your best to not look directly at him, especially after that weird staring thing), and you both feel like kids being lectured by parents from how still you are. Her office is huge, probably the size of both yours and Johnny’s combined; with ceiling to floor windows, cases of books that line the perimeter, not to mention the humongous ass couch that practically covers the other half of the room, and her desk was so wide, you estimate about four monitors would fit on there with still additional space for work. That wasn’t even the best part—the view of the city looks almost like a generic lockscreen of a Windows computer, and you’re not even sure why she goes home at night when she basically has a penthouse here.

“As you know, I have a favor.”

“Right,” Johnny retorts, mostly as a filler in the awkward silence. “So… what’s the favor?”

She pulls a box from her purse; square, black and made from a leather material with a lock pad stitched into it, something you’ve never seen before, and she slides the passcode in, then it pops the lid open. A key (a… very small one) sits in the velvety cushion, with nothing else occupying the space with it, and it looks comical. She uses this to open the very top drawer of her desk, and as she pulls using the handle, there’s another box inside, but this time, metal instead of leather, but still black.

What the fuck?

It seems Johnny shares the same thoughts, because he sneaks a glance over at you.

“You see,” Seohyun begins, pressing on the digital keys of the box until there’s a beep at the end and the case hisses open. “There’s a lot of security for this. Which means you understand the importance of it.”

Then, she picks up four manila envelopes and lies on the surface of her wooden top desk. “I have a family emergency to attend to this upcoming week. I’m boarding a flight tonight. So I’m leaving the Hwang v. Yoon case to the two of you.”

“Fuck—”

“The what?”

You and Johnny are sputtering out of shock. The Hwang v. Yoon case is the biggest case that the firm is involved in currently, and the only people involved in it have been Seohyun and Gonghyun. It’s been on every social media platform you could think of; from Facebook to Twitter, TikTok to Instagram—there’s even this weird website for emo/grunge teens or strange kids that like writing fanfic called Tumblr, and whatever that is, it’s discussed on there too.

“What about Gonghyun?”

Seohyun scoffs, closing the drawer and dropping the key back into her special box. Where do you even get a box like that? “He can’t handle this alone. So I’m kicking him off until I come back. I thought about letting the two of you work with him, but his ego is so inflated, it’ll get in the way of our chances of winning. It’s easier if it was just me and him, but seeing that things at home aren’t well, I’m going to need you two to step up to the plate.”

The room goes quiet. The only sounds you hear are the muffled noises of a typical bustling office outside the thick walls of Seohyun’s office, and at first, excitement rushes through your blood because Seohyun thought of you taking over a special, high profile case.

Albeit, another realization gets soaked up, and it’s that Johnny also came to mind, and that because it’s such an important case, the two of you would be… working… many… hours… together.

Maybe you should back out of it—but then again, this is such a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Imagine winning this— it wouldn’t be good for just the law firm, it’d be good for you too. Your name, in articles on these big fancy news websites, perhaps even on new channels, talking about how you, this amazing lawyer, won the Hwang v. Yoon case.

But then you’re snapped back into reality when Johnny leans over to take the envelopes from Seohyun.

If your name is on those platforms, so is Johnny’s.

God, this guy just ruins everything, doesn’t he?

“We’ll take care of it, Seohyun. You can trust us,” he says assuringly, a smile tugging on each corner of his lips with that dazzling gaze. “We’ll be at our best.”

Kiss ass.

If you had the option, you wouldn’t be spending your Saturday night here at work, in one of those conference rooms with a long table in the middle, a big projector that displays on the wall, and a random black leather loveseat couch that lines the one corner in case there’s too many occupants.

Especially since the person who’s accompanying you is Johnny Suh.

There’s probably a lot of people who would kill to be in your position (Hyeri being one of them), but you dread it. Not to be that person, but what’s so special about him anyway? What? He’s tall, has some muscles, long luscious hair that he can slick back with that sultry stare—wait, what?

“Alright, moving on…” From what? You guys just started? It’d been clear with Seohyun that the mornings would be dedicated to other cases, but nights would be considered overtime and where you’d zoom in your focus on Ms. Hwang’s justice. “Let’s take a look at the facts here.”

Johnny slips off his blazer, hanging it on the back of one of the chairs as you’re seated in another, leaning back comfortably with an arm resting on the table. He loosens the first few buttons of his dress shirt before folding up the sleeves, and that’s when you notice a little thing in the inner crook of his elbow—is that a fucking sunflower? Is that what he uses to reel girls in? That he’s soft enough to have a pretty little flower etched onto his gentle, silky and supple—

“Okay,” he says, interjecting into your thoughts with a laser pointer in his hand. He taps on the space bar of his laptop that mirrors what’s on his screen, but then, that’s when you realize what’s on the slides.

There’s a collage of pictures, mostly street, casually walking themed ones, but the common factor was that they were of Yoon Changmin, the man you guys were up against. They were all paparazzi-like photos, which begs the question, how did he get pics like this, and why did he get them?

“What’s the point of this?” you ask, voice laced with nothing but suspicion.

“We gotta get into the mind of the enemy.” You wanna get into the mind of your enemy, too.

You gesture to the one image of Changmin with an arm around his girlfriend and a finger up his nose. “Seems like he’s trying to reach inside of his head instead of us. These are just everyday pictures, Johnny. What’s that going to do for us?”

“Well,” he begins, turning to look at the wall of ‘evidence’. “You see—wait, holy shit.”

Freezing in the midst of reaching for your coffee, your head jolts in the direction of your partner. “What? What is it?”

“Holy shit,” he exclaims, “Hoooooooooly shit. Why didn’t I see this before? This changes everything.”

Furrowing your brows, you’ve given up getting your drink and dropped your hands onto the table. “Tell me, what is it?”

“This is a game changer.”

“Johnny,” you call out sternly, and his eyes link with yours before he instantly points to a particular picture with his red laser pointer.

“Look at that.” There’s pride saturated in his words, but when you look at what he’s indicating, your body slouches in disappointment.

Why the hell was he directing your attention onto Changmin’s thighs? Surely, there’s no denying that they were attractive—you recall that his alibi was at the gym that very night of the crime.

“What? He’s guilty for showing off his toothpick legs?” They were lean, you never said they were muscular.

“No,” he retorts, slightly irritated by your response as he rolls his eyes. “Look at his pants.”

“Okay…”

“They’re jean shorts.”

There’s a pregnant pause, but the expression on your face is so loud it can’t be hidden.

Johnny continues, “That’s a fashion crime.” He says it as if it’s an obvious fact known by many. “Not to mention that it’s fucking raw hem. He should be arrested.”

Suddenly, your opinion of him thinking too much with his heart dissipates because it seems like he’s thinking out of his ass instead. Did he win those cases out of pity? How did this guy even pass the bar? How about law school? How the hell did he even get into law school?

“I don’t think—”

“Listen, alright, just hear me out,” he’s got the palms of his hands resting flat on the surface of the table, doing his best to gain your full undivided attention. “Only assholes wear jean shorts. They flaunt that shit around like they own the place, but they’re horrendous pieces of clothing that should not be on a male’s body. I don’t care what you say, what your opinion is, because that is a fact.”

Puffing your cheeks, you feel at a loss. If Johnny is who you had to get this done, it feels like you’re not going to be finding much evidence any time soon.

“Okay, if… if that’s how you want to play it, then show me the evidence—other than those 2012 cut off denim shorts.”

He reaches over to hit his space bar again, then with a wink and a slide change, he leans closer to you and says with that deep, honeyed voice, “Gladly.”

You hate admitting when you’re wrong.

Ironically, you concede and will confess when you actually are, but it doesn’t mean that you enjoy it. For example, when Hyeri claims that the intern Mark had a crush on you, you quickly waved her off, stating something along the lines of, “I’m too intimidating; there’s better chances of him being scared of me than ever finding me attractive.” And then a week later, you owed Hyeri free lunch at that hip ramen place downtown because Mark had approached your desk that very morning with a bouquet of red roses flowers for you, a cheeky grin glued to his face with pools of hearts in his eyes, and ready to ask you on a date because it was the day after his internship had ended. Naturally, it wasn’t fun rejecting that poor college boy.

But, you won’t say you find Johnny interesting or handsome. Or that there’s potential when it came to possibly (just barely the slightest smidge) that you’d ever consider asking Johnny out. He’s your enemy here, you’ve mentioned that a multitude of times, and you stand firm on that very declaration, despite the fact that sometimes when he gets too close, your breath gets caught in your throat and you feel like you can’t get whatever’s lodged in out.

Albeit it’s not the whole “you guys are gonna end up together” comment that Hyeri makes and resulting in you denying it afterwards, it’s that Johnny might… be a decent lawyer.

He’s not the best one you’ve seen; the stupid revelation he had on the first day working on the case about the jean shorts is evidence for it, but it’s the days following that were slowly changing your perspective on him.

When you said, “He thinks too much with his heart more than with his head,” it was 100% correct.

When meeting with potential witnesses, you recognized that Johnny empathizes with people often; when they cry and start panicking from being overwhelmed, he's quick on his feet to put an arm around them, share reassuring words, and have them back to normal in record’s time.

And, well… you? You’re the one making them cry in the first place.

You don’t want to fully take the blame for being the cause of their tears, but people need to hear what’s happening, and the very detail that they can’t even handle this information probably means they’re not worthwhile as a key witness.

Johnny, of course, thinks otherwise.

He believes that these people should have a voice (although you’ve alluded that they might be more useless than helpful), and putting them on the stand with Yoon Changmin there would change the view of the jury to supporting Hwang Naeri.

“Listen, if we get these people to sign the form, we’d get witnesses and it’ll help Naeri,” Johnny claims, frantically moving his arms annoyingly as he talks, trying his best to express the gravity of the situation, “and maybe, maybe, money wouldn’t be how Changmin wins, but how he loses. We can’t have another person with jean shorts walking on the streets of our city like this—they deserve to go to prison.”

You scrunch up your nose. “Why does this always revert back to the jean shorts?”

“It always has to do with jean shorts,” he snaps back matter-of-factly. “Any straight guy wearing jean shorts with that much goddamn confidence has done some wrong in their lives.”

“Right, but I’m pretty sure that the crimes he did are mainly the reason why he’s being prosecuted against.”

“Jean shorts are the windows to the soul.”

“I’m almost 100% sure that eyes are the windows to the soul, but whatever. If you genuinely believe that the women we met today would benefit our case, then… okay. Let’s bring them to the stand.”

On the contrary to you, Johnny doesn’t have a hard time convincing witnesses to testify. You see the way that he works; those kind eyes directed at the participants, the pools of chocolate were sweet, saturated in nothing but tenderness and warmth, then he does that weird thing where he reaches for their hands and cups them before the words that escapes from his lips are enough to swoon them to stand in front of a courtroom.

Maybe, just maybe, there’s a method to his so-called madness.

Aggression and bluntness don’t work, it seems, because when you’re the one attempting to convince these people to go against the man that had done them wrong, they’re less willing to do it. Something about ‘moving on,’ and ‘not wanting to relive those memories again,’ but if it was you, you’d want justice. Then again, not everyone is like you, and not everyone thinks like you, and spending this abundance of time with Johnny is slowly getting you to ease into that perspective.

So… the initial impression you had of him may have been wrong.

And maybe, just maybe, you’re developing some feelings for him, just as Hyeri predicted.

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

His abrupt personal question is enough to have the coffee spill into your mouth to slide down the ‘wrong throat’ because you’re choking, hand on your chest as you’re tackling to regain your breath again and Johnny only stares in disbelief, blinking blankly. “Are… are you okay?”

You glare at him through a hooded gaze. “Well,” you clear your throat once more. “Now, I am.”

“Cool.” He nods, retracting his hand so he could rub your back soothingly, deciding it’s best to stay away. “Are you going to answer my question?”

Quirking a brow, your head tilts slightly in puzzlement. “Why are you asking this?”

Johnny shrugs. “Isn’t it weird that we’ve hung out with each other for a whole week—stayed here for nights and we both don’t know anything about each other?”

Tapping your fingers against the wooden top table, you sigh. Maybe he’s got a point; after all, “Keep your friends close; keep your enemies closer,” right?

“No, I’m single.”

Johnny’s face suddenly brightens, ears perked, and his body straightens its posture in his seat at this revelation. “Oh, uh, I didn’t know that. You seemed busy in your personal life, so I, uh… was just wondering.” He looked anxious, but you couldn’t pinpoint why. “I, um, I’m single too, by the way, in case you’re wondering.” You weren’t.

The plethora of cardboard and plastic boxes scattered across the table was a representation of the night. It’s been long, exhausting, and messy, mostly because it’s a Friday night, the hearing was on Monday, and the two of you were nowhere near close to having enough to present to the court. In fear of disappointing Seohyun, the two of you agreed to stay over the office for the weekend to cram work for the case. There’s no denying that the atmosphere is weirder on the weekends, especially since, well, no one really comes here on the weekends. Johnny had to use the bathroom earlier and ran into the cleaning lady and she nearly shit her pants because she didn’t think anyone was here, so she had music blasting in her headphones.

Johnny is… interesting. He makes you laugh—or well, want to laugh, but you don’t give him that sense of satisfaction—and he’s smart but in his own weird way. He’s not like the other lawyers you’ve met, or any of the law students you attended University with because he’s more lighthearted and free-spirited than the rest, taking life in strides instead of just overwhelming himself in the abundance of stress that work brings.

He’s entirely the opposite of you.

And maybe you could learn something from the guy, but there’s something in you that brews hatred toward him. Possibility that you resent how easy he makes being a lawyer seem when you’re struggling in your day-to-day life to make things work.

But it’s way too fucking hard when he’s just… like that.

Despite all of that, he’s very generous and kind toward you. On rough days, he delivers your coffee order, the one you always get because he remembers what you asked the intern to get for you the last time, and he’s good at identifying when you’re just having that kind of day. You eventually learn he has a photographic memory (fucking show off), so when he saw that crumpled napkin with scribbles of what you want in that dumb intern’s hand, it wasn’t hard to remember. Which, by the way, is how he’s able to get into the most prestigious school for undergrad, manage to pass the bar so easily, and get into law school effortlessly.

And knowing this information sort of angers you more.

You know this isn’t his fault—he’s been blessed with a trait that people desire, one that you also yearn for, but the lucky ones get handed a lot of things in life. You wonder if he’s the type of guy who wins girls easily after matching with them on dating sites because of this stupid ass ‘photographic memory.’ Does he sleep with them right after? Does it ever get serious?

You shrug your shoulders and shake your head. You shouldn’t even let these strange thoughts haunt you, especially when you don’t even like him.

He’s a spoiled brat who gets everything handed to him on a silver platter.

So you’re left counting the remaining days until the trial so you don’t ever have to work with Johnny Suh this closely again.

Okay, well, it’s evident that bad luck is glued to your side because after you win the Hwang v. Yoon case for your law firm with that asshole, Seohyun is so impressed. So goddamn impressed that she insists that all the high profile cases are to be given to both you and Johnny.

To work as a team.

Together.

Jesus, this is Hell for you.

Surely, the promotion and raise that came along with it was definitely a plus, but it has you wondering if it’s even worth it. He’s been your unspoken enemy since the first day, and although you think you’re pretty forthright about your hatred for this guy, he can’t seem to read social cues.

When you’re pushing the double doors into the conference room the two of you often spend working on cases in, you expect Johnny to be ready for another day. But strangely enough, Johnny doesn’t have his laptop out or any of the notebooks sprawled across the table.

“Um,” you slide the strap of your bag off your shoulder and onto the spare chair. “Did you come late or something?”

He takes in a deep breath like he’s been holding back something. “We need to talk.”

There’s worry inscribed into his features; from the crease in between his brows, to his pursed lips, and eyes soaked in concern, almost like he’s got bad news to share and it has your stomach in knots. Was it that the case was thrown out? It couldn’t be, right? You both worked hard, presented your stance to the point that the jury and the judge were in awe with your findings. Sure, you had to cover Johnny’s mouth right before he was about to go off in a tangent about jean shorts, but overall, it was a good win, a hard one to go back on and pull out the wrongs of it. So what was it?

“I’m quitting our partnership.”

You blink. “What?”

He gestures to the room with his hands as if there’s anything out to reference. “This thing. Our work. The big profile cases. The famous stuff. I told Seohyun that I won’t be doing it anymore and she can revoke the promotion and the raise.”

You’re still not catching on. “… Why?” Was it something you did? Yeah, you weren’t a big fan of Johnny either, but were you so bad that he decided to not go through with the raise because of you?

“Because,” he pushes his blazer back, hands sliding into the front pockets of his navy blue trousers. “There’s a policy put into place. Those who are on the same cases cannot have any personal relations with each other that extend past friendships.”

“We’re not even friends?” With confusion written across your face, your head tilts to the side. “I’m not… I’m not catching on here.”

“I like you.”

Startled, the words you want to say are stolen out of your mouth. You’re left with a mixture of perturbation and bewilderment, uncertain where to go from there because Johnny asked for the removal of both a promotion and additional money that could be so good for his career… and it’s all because he has a crush on you?

“You quit the best thing that could’ve happened to you because you like me?”

“Yeah,” Johnny states calmly, sucking in his cheeks for a brief moment. “Ain’t that romantic?”

You scoff. “No. Absolutely not. You’re insane! Why would you do yourself dirty like that? Use your head, Johnny, you’re constantly thinking with that stupid heart of yours, and hate to break it to you, but it won’t get you anywhere.” Combing your hair with your fingers, you let out a sigh. “Go ask Seohyun for the position back. Say you made a mistake and—”

“I’m not asking her for the position back.”

Johnny doesn’t make any sense to you. “What? Why wouldn’t you do that?

“Because,” he laughs in disbelief, not because he thinks you’re funny. “I’m not going to force myself to work with a girl that I keep falling for. That’s self-inflicting, you realize that, right? You’re amazing, but you can seriously be so dense sometimes.”

“I’m dense? You just told one of the best law firms in the city that you don’t want to work on the important cases anymore because you have a stupid crush on your partner!”

“If we were on a team with more people, maybe it’d be different. But it’s just us two. You think I won’t fall any harder? That’s not easy. Every time I see you working, I swear I could be hopelessly in love with you one day.”

Your heart stops for a second.

This is Johnny Suh you were talking about here. One of the claimed best lawyers in your office, one of the most intelligent people that Hyeri has ever met, and Seohyun evidently backs this up because she’s given him so much recognition for his work. He’s the guy who worked with you to win the Hwang v. Yoon case, he’s the one who brought up the stupid jean shorts that seemed so far-fetched at the time, but they were a crucial detail everyone missed—it so happened that when Changmin bought those dumb shorts, there was evidence of at least one of his crimes in that store from the security cameras.

Any cis-gendered male who wears jean shorts can’t be trusted, according to Johnny.

And candidly speaking? You couldn’t even deny that. Your past two ex-boyfriends both wore jean shorts and the one cheated on you and the other one was caught money laundering.

“Listen,” he begins, interrupting your foggy thoughts. “I’m not asking you to tell me you like me back. I’m telling you because you should know, and that I can’t go on any further without letting you know. I’ll, uh, be in my office. Seohyun said she’d find a replacement for me.”

Hyeri is his replacement.

She’s great company and does a good job of helping you with whatever you need, but that was just it. Hyeri followed you, she never led with you, just as Johnny does. Agreeing with everything you say, mindlessly trailing behind everything you do—Hyeri was smart, but she couldn’t figure out how to think for herself when it came to these bigger cases because she’s never been given such a responsibility. But you couldn’t even blame her because it’s what she was told to do under Gonghyun.

“You said that you think Maeri snatched the bracelet?”

“No, I said if you watched the security video that the jewelry store submitted, it clearly shows that Maeri snatched the bracelet. Not that I ‘think.’ The proof is right there, Hyeri.”

She nods, resuming back to her work on the computer. Truthfully, Hyeri felt more like an assistant than a co-worker, someone to bounce ideas off of and to see from a different perspective. And as much as you hated Johnny, he had decent points. He had ways of making you put yourself into the shoes of people you never thought you were; although the guy was obnoxious, at least he actually was… good at his job.

Deciding you can’t take it anymore when Hyeri asks for the tenth time that hour about your beliefs rather than her own, you abruptly stand from your seat.

“Where are you going?”

“Out,” you reply shortly. “I’ll be back.”

It was just a spontaneous thought. It’s after hours, and although there are some people who stay behind to get some work done, you had your doubts that Johnny would still be here. He seems to have a better grip on that work/life balance thing people talked about (unlike yourself), but it didn’t hurt to check his office, right?

It’s a good thing you went with it. Because right across from yours, there’s Johnny.

There’s one single lamp that shines over the tabletop of his desk, and the other sources of light in his office are from his computer screen and the ones from the city skyline from behind him. It has him seemingly angelic like this, so serene, calm, and collected, only focused on what’s laid out in front of him. The sun has gone down, people have gone home, but Johnny remains, hardworking as always, despite your previous observations that he’s a lazy, unprofessional guy who gets everything handed down to him.

With a knock on his glass door, he flinches, head raising up and eyes meeting yours.

Were his eyes always this sparkly?

Opening the door, Johnny drops the pen in his hand and crosses his arms before leaning back in his seat. “What’s up?”

“You’re here late,” you state the obvious, and Johnny only nods in return, without a rebuttal in sight. “You aren’t normally here late. At least, before the Hwang v. Yoon case.”

“Yeah, you’re right. But Seohyun dropped something on my desk this morning. Wanted to work on it. What brings you here?”

Inhaling in a deep breath of courage, your hands bundle up into a fist by your side. “Please come back.”

Johnny raises a brow. “What?”

“Come back,” you reiterate, this time, it’s less tense and releases with ease. Caving in isn’t usually this effortless to you, but something about Johnny makes you feel… comfortable enough.“Come back and work with me again. Yes, I’m not supportive of how you do things—”

“Then let’s go out on a date.”

You freeze. Legs rooted into the floors of Johnny’s office, you’re left immobile and diffident on how to react next. It wasn’t what you were expecting, although you weren’t quite sure what you were hoping to anticipate, but it most definitely was not this.

“I—”

“I said my terms,” he retorts, shutting the book in front of him before shuffling up from his seat. He’s leaving, you realize, and Johnny’s ready to head home for the night and you’re not sure if you could handle an entire weekend with Hyeri here. “And, I meant what I said. One date, and if it really doesn’t work out, I’ll stay on the case.”

Chewing on your bottom lip anxiously, the next words that come out are out of character for you. “And… what if it does?”

A soft smile tugs from each corner of his mouth. “Then we’ll figure it out from there. Promise.”

This is… awkward. It shouldn’t be, but yet somehow, it remains awkward.

You’ve spent weeks with Johnny before, and those moments were in a room, in the middle of the night, and alone. Hours and hours were dedicated to work, yes, but it was just the two of you and nobody else.

So why is it so weird being in a five Michelin star restaurant with him?

Maybe it’s the atmosphere. The dim lights, the white clothed tables in lieu of the scratched up wooden one back at the law firm, and instead of leather seats, there’s a neutral beige chaise cushion for the dining chair, slightly less comfortable because it doesn’t recline like the one in your office. Instead of an array of photos and evidence disseminated in front of you, there’s a laminated menu with a multitude of options of what to have for dinner.

Johnny gets the steak with mashed potatoes and string beans, and you order something similar but seared salmon for the main protein. The waitress offers wine, babbling on about the age of the red, where the vineyard is located, and the dryness to sweetness—to be honest, you could care less; you’d rather have gin and sprite with a squirt of lime. A couple glasses of that and you can almost guarantee that the night would end with a deep slumber.

Oddly enough, Johnny seems nervous. Ever since he pulled up in his midnight black Audi in front of your apartment complex, he’s been acting strange. He keeps wiping his sweaty palms off the material of his trousers, occasionally swiping off the droplets that fall on the side of his face.

“Are you… okay?” you suddenly ask, adjusting your dress in your seat. Deciding to go with a black silk dress with a slit up the leg and your hair let down, it’s not a look you often sport but since you’re going on a date (one you haven’t been on in quite some time), you figured it would be nice to at least play the part.

“I’m, uh, honestly, I’ve never really asked a girl out before.”

You quirk a brow curiously. “What? You’re telling me you never asked a girl out before?”

He lets out a bashful laugh with a faint nod, making an attempt to swallow his nerves after. “Honestly, I’ve always been asked out and not the other way around. Not to sound like that guy, but I never really had to put effort into trying for girls. They kind of just…”

“—Throw themselves at you?”

He beams. “Yeah! Like that. I don’t really know how to react half the time, but it makes the whole dating scene a little bit easier.” Geez, he called you dense, but he’s over here acting clueless.

Either way, it feels like whatever opinion you had about Johnny remained true. He never had to try when it came to the dating scene, and you could only imagine what that means for work and the relationships he has with the women in your career field.

“Mm, does that usually happen with work too?”

Befuddled, Johnny leans back in his chair. “What do you mean by that?”

With a shrug of your shoulders, you’re poking the meat of your salmon that falls off easily. After the first initial bite, the fish practically melts on impact when it touches the tip of your tongue, smooth like butter and bursting with flavor that couldn’t be described by any common person because it wouldn’t do the salmon justice. Johnny seemed to put a lot into this date, and you’re left pondering what the point of this was. Did he actually like you, or was he trying to get into your head? “Just seems like you get a lot of special treatment.”

“Are you jealous?”

“In what way?” you snap back.

“Are you jealous of me because I’m getting this so-called special treatment that you think I’ve always had, or were you jealous of the girls that seemingly got my attention?”

You’re left without anything to say.

It was a good observation he made because truthfully, you never saw it like that.

In actuality, you often saw Johnny as your rival. He climbed the ladder in the field with ease, and it wasn’t hard to quickly blame his success on the fact that he was a guy in a male dominated industry, but the fact that there’s a possible interpretation for your hatred may be from these feelings you might’ve been harboring for him this entire time… that can’t be it… right?

“I mean, look at where you are now,” you begin, trying to defend yourself. It can’t be true that the reason you’ve been bitter about Johnny was because of the girls that got his attention, and one of them not being you. “You got a high position from—”

“—From hard work,” Johnny interjects with his brows furrowed. “I didn’t get to where I was because I slept around, if that’s what you’re insinuating. I knew you sort of always hated me, but I’ve always admired you. I like your work ethic, I like your style, even though we’re both on opposite spectrums, I like the way you think and I wanted to know what it was like being partners with you. Getting to be on that case with you showed me more than just who you were as a lawyer, but who you were as a person. I like you, but I’m trying to put my finger on why you hate me so much.”

“So you noticed.” Sucking in your cheeks, your eyes trail elsewhere—from the fork that lays beside your plate, to the glass filled halfway with wine, to the little candle that sits in between the two of you that flickers the way he has your heart when he expresses once more how he feels about you.

“Yeah, of course I noticed. If you like someone, it’s kind to miss details like that about them. So… you really hated me because you thought I slept my way to the top, huh?”

“I mean…” shoulders dropping in exasperation, you run your fingers through your disheveled hair. “All those rumors—”

“Again, they’re just rumors. I worked hard to get here, you know. And I’m kind of offended that you thought of me that way.”

You scoff. “They’re rumors, Johnny, it’s kind of hard to ignore all the office gossip when that’s all you hear. Plus, it wasn’t hard to believe either, with the whole flirtatious act whenever you encounter anyone who’s breathing and has a vagina.”

“I wasn’t flirting.”

“You need a book for dummies that elaborates on what’s flirting or not, because Johnny Suh, whatever it is you do with your body language in front of that chick who sits by the front door.”

“You mean Siwoo? The pregnant one who’s married to her highschool sweetheart? Also, how do you not know our receptionist’s name?”

You throw your arms into the air. “How am I supposed to know her name?”

He tilts his head to the side, genuinely baffled. “Do you… not talk to anyone outside of Hyeri?”

Your silence answers his question.

“I… honestly, I don’t know if I should be offended or if I should be honored. You think I didn’t earn anything that I have now, you think that everything I have was handed to me. On one hand, it’s flattering that you think my looks and my bedroom skills could do that but at the same time… I’m offended because you think I’m incapable.”

“I never said you were incapable—”

“But you implied it.”

Hands falling onto your lap, it’s your turn to gulp. His words come shooting at you, but you’re without a shield to protect yourself, and with the new experience of working with Johnny, there comes the realization at times that Johnny is a hard worker. There are some things that he says and does that aren’t like the people you’ve encountered, and being put on new cases with Hyeri only proved it. He’s thoughtful in the sense that whenever you’d bring up your stance on something, he challenges you with what the defense might counter.

Johnny makes you want to be better. Not just against him, but to brush off the dust on your skills and enter into the battlefield of a courtroom to showcase them.

“Well, if you’re staying silent, I just want to say that I tried,” the crinkle in between your brows makes another appearance because Johnny is great at leaving you stunned and confused. “I really like you. I love how your head works, and I wanna be with someone like that but I also can’t be with someone who doesn’t respect me.”

Why is it that when you’re in that conference room with him, you’re not afraid and never running out of things to say, but now you’re empty handed?

“I’ll pay for dinner. Grab you an Uber. I honestly thought I could overlook those things, and maybe your perspective for me has changed, but I could see it on your face. It’s the same.”

After that date with Johnny, his life turns back to normal.

Yours? Not so much.

Candidly speaking, part of you missed working with Johnny. You were wrong about him, so wrong, and even when you wanted to apologize at the dinner for what you thought of him, the pride in you was like a vicious plague that blackened your insides, preventing you from ever saying those words.

Oftentimes, you’d still be able to sneak a glimpse of him in his office with that same look on his face—full of concentration and nothing else in his mind other than the task at hand.

The cases you have with Hyeri entail a head like Johnny’s. Someone who could question you, to protest against your stance when there could be flaws in it. It feels like deja vu each time you think about it, each time you open a new case file and Hyeri sits there, perched in that seat beside yours, eyes sparkling with what you have in mind next, instead of what she has going on in hers.

Although you’ve tried convincing yourself that maybe, just maybe, what you feel for Johnny is purely professional but when you see him standing by the water cooler with a couple of your coworkers, eyes mimicking the moon crescents in the skies, replicating the ways his lips curl in elation—it was beginning hard to believe that it was all platonic feelings.

So maybe you should be bold for once. Pull off that exterior that displays you as someone who isn’t just independent and assiduous, but someone who’s stubborn and aggressive in getting what they want—and not in a good way.

This time, you’ll show it in a good way.

Or at least, you’ll try.

Johnny is a routine kind-of-guy—he grabs an iced americano every morning at the coffee shop downstairs at the edge of the street, he does his daily 11:00AM drop-by at the water cooler to refill his Hydroflask (which was his prized possession, by the way), and parked in the same exact spot in the parking garage of your building, despite there being an abundance of places he could choose.

That’s why you decide to stand by his car after work that day. Bouncing on the balls of your feet, hands shaking because it’s your turn to feel anxious. That blazer that once fit so comfortably in the morning suddenly feels tight and hot in the afternoon, and the weather hasn’t even changed. Your bag slung over your shoulder weighs ten times heavier than an hour ago, and you can’t stop your jaw from tightening.

Before your thoughts could spiral off all the possibilities of what the outcome may be when you tell Johnny how you feel, he’s already standing there, feet away from you with that dip in the fronts of his brows that you want to smoothen out the crinkles of with the pad of your thumb.

“Hi,” you greet, faint and peculiarly different from your other approaches. “Um, I just… was waiting for you.”

“Hey,” Johnny says back, the first few buttons of his shirt already unraveled, his blazer hung over his forearm and the sleeves are rolled up. “I see that. What’s up with you?”

“Um,” your leg was jittery, hard to control so you spat everything you had to say out as fast as you could before he could see right through you. “I just wanted to apologize. For everything. You’re admirable, kind, and I wish I inhabited those same characteristics you have. I think professionally, you’ve got great ideas, one that could be implemented into mine and what we did together for that case was just… yeah. We could do something big if we put our heads together.”

Johnny nods in agreement. The relationship between you two work-wise was obvious, he knew that much. “And what about… outside of that?”

“I like you,” you choked, barely getting the words out. “More than just coworkers, um, I guess, more than friends but I’m not really sure since you walked out on our first date,” inhaling in a deep breath of courage, you continue on, “and I don’t know how you feel now after I’m standing before you like this, asking for another chance and that I’m sorry.”

He stares at you blankly, and it leaves you unsure whether or not he accepts your apology. “You know why we ended that date early.”

“Well,” you start again, “can we… start over and try again? I promise I won’t tempt you to end the date early this time.”

And with that, there’s the signature smile that Johnny sports that swoons girls, makes their knees weak, and heart clench but this time… it’s just for you.

“I’d really like that.”

#ficscafe #nct fanfic #johnny x reader #johnny fanfic #johnny suh #johnny nct #nct 127 #nct 127 fanfic #suh johnny #gyukultfics #idk what else to tag #hopefully this does well :|

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jinx-jade · 4 years ago

Text

Secret Dreams Chapter 2: Meeting the Wayne’s

Marinette woke from the dream zone, leaving her alone in the empty bed of her hotel room. While Aunt Penny, Uncle Jagged, and herself were staying at the same hotel, Marinette had a separate room from the couple.

When she went to open her eyes the sun was shining directly in them, temporarily blinding her, which was strange since she had closed the curtains last night. Squinting her eyes open slowly to let them adjust to the bright light. Marinette tensed when she could make out the shape of a person.

“Rise and Shine my little rockstar!”

Relaxing, Marinette groaned at her Uncle's childish antics.

“It’s too early for you to have this much energy!” Marinette whined, pulling her pillow over her face.

“Nah, no such thing as too much energy!” Jagged informs her. “Besides we're meeting up with Brucie and a couple of his kids at W.E. today.”

Marinette grinds at that piece of information before quickly replacing it with a scowl. She removed the pillow from her face and glared at Jagged.

“I’m not going anywhere without having some form of caffeine first.” Marinette bargains

“Well then isn’t it a good thing that I got us both coffee?” Penny suggests as she walks in to hand Marinette her cup. “After all, not all of us wake up as energetic as Jagged does.”

“Gasp, Betrayed by my wife!” Jagged cried, placing a hand over his heart dramatically.

“Did? Did you just say Gasp?” Marinette questioned looking a lot less annoyed and more like she was about to explode from laughter.

“I know what I said, little rockstar!” Jagged exclaimed as if it would help his case. Instead of the desired effect, Penny and Marinette burst into laughter.

Penny wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes, “Jagged is right though little star” causing Jagged to preen a bit at the praise. Penny just shook her head at his antics, "We're meeting up with a few of the Waynes to discuss any final details for the charity gala."

Marinette nodded her head before taking a sip of her coffee, letting out a pleased sigh.

"Let me shower and get ready, then we can head out?" Marinette suggested. Penny agreed and dragged Jagged out to let her get ready.

Marinette grabbed an outfit out of her suitcase that she had forgotten to unpack the previous night. Entering the bathroom and locking the door, disappearing until she was ready for the day.

"Well, today seems like it'll be a fun day, huh Sugar cube?" Plagg asks rhetorically, grinning as he abandons his hiding spot.

"You think any kind of chaos is fun, stinky socks!" Tikki argues leaving her spot as well.

Once the kwamis of creation and destruction came out of hiding, the rest followed suit. Most of the kwamis moved towards the mini-fridge to grab their breakfasts. Some of them settled on the counter while others moved to sit on the bed or couch.

The kwamis made idle chit-chat until Marinette left the bathroom. She was wearing a high collar ivory blouse with long frilly sleeves and lace details. The blouse was tucked into her black high waist sailor shorts, with gold buttons and trim. She spends only a few minutes debating whether to wear platform heels or her knee-high black combat boots before deciding to go with the boots.

“Which of us would you prefer to join you today Mademoiselle Guardian?” Kaalki questions with her usual grace and elegance.

“Hmm, maybe you, Tikki, Plagg, and Trixx?” Marinette considers it before nodding to herself. “Yeah, let’s go with the four of you. Unless any of you wish to stay here?”

“And miss the chaos? Don’t be ridiculous, Sugar cookie!” Plagg answers with mock offense. Trixx nodded their head in agreement with Plagg’s statement.

Tikki let out a sigh, “Someone has to keep you from getting into trouble.” Shaking her head in amusement, “Might as well be my luck.”

“As you wish, Mademoiselle Guardian. I have no issues with your decision.” Kaalki informs her.

“All right then! Let’s get going before Uncle Jagged comes to get me.” Marinette makes a face at that, making the kwamis laugh. “Have a nice day everyone. Remember, don’t be seen, and don’t cause too much trouble.”

Each kwami gave their agreement to stay out of sight and not make trouble. Marinette nodded her head, grabbing her small black backpack for her sketchbook, pencils, and the kwamis. After checking that she had everything, Marinette made her way towards the lobby. Once there, she had no trouble spotting her Aunt and Uncle. Easily making her way towards them.

“Ready to go little star?” Penny questioned

“Yup! Plus I’m much more awake after finishing my coffee and taking a shower.” Marinette smiled as they started walking out of the hotel.

Jagged led them to a sleek black car with an older gentleman standing next to it.

“A pleasure to see you again Master Jared.” the man politely clams, only to have Jagged tackle him into a hug.

“Good to see ya, Alfie!” Jagged exclaimed as he pulled away.

“You must be Mrs. Rolling and Miss Dupain-Cheng?” the man, Alfie? Questioned. Receiving a nod from both Penny and Marinette.

“But feel free to call me Marinette. My last name is a bit of a mouth full.”

“And Penny is fine for me, Monsieur.”

“Of course Mrs. Penny, Miss Marinette. Master Bruce sent me as your ride to W.E., and anywhere else you may go during your stay. My name is Alfred Pennyworth, but please call me Alfred.”

Once introductions were over and done with, the group moved into the car. Heading towards Wayne Enterprise.

Marinette looked out of the windows of the car, watching the gothic architecture pass by. Damian had been right about the city seeming dark and gloomy. He was also right about it being the perfect inspiration for her new clothing line, Shadows. Marinette took out her sketchbook and got to work, not even noticing the time passing by.

“We have arrived,” Alfred claimed as he turned off the car, stepping out and opening the car doors for them. “Simply head to the reception desk and introduce yourselves. They have already been made aware of your appointment.” and with that Alfred reentered the car, driving off, presumably, back to Wayne Manor.

They did as Alfred instructed and were taken up to Bruce Wayne’s office. Jagged knocked on the Office door. After a few moments, Mr. Wayne appeared in the doorway.

“Jared, I’m glad you could make it,” he said welcoming them into the office. “Am I right to assume that these lovely ladies are your wife and niece?”

“That’d be a right on assumption” Jagged agreed. “This is my wife Penny Rolling, she’s also my lovely assistant.”

“It’s nice to meet one of Jagged's childhood friends, feel free to call me Penny.”

Jagged continues with the introduction, “And this little rockstar is my niece and designer, Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Wayne. You can call me Marinette, my last name is a bit of a mouth full.”

“Please call me Bruce, there’s no need to be so formal.” Once Marinette nodded her head, Bruce started to introduce his kids. “These are a few of my children. My second eldest son Jason Todd-Wayne, my second youngest son Timothy Drake-Wayne, and my daughter Cassandra Cain-Wayne.”

Marinette smiled at them before taking a seat on the office couch to sketch. She mostly stayed out of the business conversation, only really talking when the conversation had to do with herself. Marinette took time to observe the Waynes for herself because while she trusted Damian with her life, he was their younger sibling and therefore biased.

Marinette observed Jason first. He was sarcastic and would throw in snarky comments now and then. When Jason wasn’t talking, he would be reading his book which seemed to be a classic novel. Marinette let out an amused huff when she realized that Damian’s description was accurate. He’s a book nerd wrapped in spikes and leather.

She noticed that the attention had turned to her, most likely because she had no reason to be amused. Marinette simply raised an eyebrow towards them until they went back to the previously abandoned conversation.

Her observation moved to Timothy, or Tim, who seemed to be exhausted but he easily kept up with the conversation. She noticed that he was holding a thermos for what seemed like dear life. Now the caffeine zombie made more sense. In all honesty, Marinette thought that the caffeine dependence was a “mood.”

The attention once again turned to herself. ‘Must have said that out loud’ Marinette assumed. She simply ignored the attention until the conversation started again. Once the conversation was flowing freely, she went back to her observations.

When Marinette looked in Cassandra’s, or Cass’s, direction, she found that Cass was already looking at her. Curiosity clear in her eyes. It would seem like Damian was right with all of his information on his siblings. Cass was trying to read her body language. Marinette quickly thought of an idea, tensing all the muscles in her body to slowly relax them as she quickly turned her attention to her sketchbook, pretending to be embarrassed.

When Marinette looked back up, Cass looked amused, causing Marinette to smirk. The smirk seemed to confuse Cass, who tilted her head to the side as if trying to look at her from a different angle to get a better read. Marinette simply copied Cass’s movement, making both girls seem confused. Cass continued to change her body language only to have Marinette copy it. A smile appeared on Cass’s face.

“Can we keep?” Cass asked gesturing to Marinette, which made Marinette burst into laughter.

The others in the room looked confused before realization appeared on the Waynes’ features.

“You can’t just ask to adopt people out of nowhere Cassandra,” Bruce said with a sigh.

“Keep?” Cass asked again with her best puppy dog eyes. Bruce simply shook his head, causing Cass to pout.

That seemed to be the last straw as everyone burst into laughter.

_____________________

Marinette collapsed onto her bed with a smile. Letting herself be consumed into the exhaustion from the day. She drifted off to the dream zone once again.

Tag list: @little-bluestar @redbullgivescaswings @stackofrandomstuff @meismu @maskedpainter @nyx-in-line @iamabrownfox @m0chik0furan @jjmjjktth

#maribat #batfamily chaos #Plagg is proud of Mari's Chaos #Cassandra Cain mentally adopts Marinette #Cass is now Mari's sister #cause she said so #damian x marinette #daminette #soulmate marinette #soulmate damian #secret soulmate #romantic soulmates #secret relationship #secret dreams

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elentiyawhitethorn · 3 years ago

Note

feysand blind date

Loving Every Second of It

Fluff//3010 words

Feyre wasn’t sure what she was expecting tonight.

Lucien had set her up on a blind date with a friend of a friend and there was no way it wasn’t going to end miserably. Maybe Feyre would say something stupid and he would think she was weird. Maybe he would decide she wasn’t pretty enough or her clothes weren’t nice or she was just boring. Maybe some other woman who was everything she would never be would catch his eye. Maybe—

“I really hope you’re not still imagining ways this will end poorly.”

Feyre frowned. “Seriously, Lu, this is a bad idea.”

Lucien elbowed her. “You said, and I quote, “I’m done being a lonely spinster who’s too busy regretting my life choices to get laid.” Therefore I, as the good friend I am, decided to get you a date. And consequently, laid. So stop being a bitch. If it doesn’t end well, at least you put yourself out there, right?”

She sighed. “If it doesn’t end well, I will have to endure the long-lasting humiliation and despair for the rest of my life. That’s not something I’m inclined to want.”

“The only reason I’m still here listening to your self-pity is because I know if I leave you’ll chicken out.”

“And because I’m your best friend?”

“Yeah, that too.”

Feyre scowled and crossed her arms. “You don’t say that very convincingly.”

Lucien just smiled and gave Feyre a peck on the cheek. “You’ll have a good time tonight. Just be yourself.”

“But what if he doesn’t like myself?”

“He will. Azriel has good taste in people, as evidenced by the fact that he’s dating me,” Lucien stated matter-of-factly.

Feyre rolled her eyes but allowed a small smile to cross her features. Azriel had only started dated Feyre’s best friend a couple weeks ago, and she’d met the man a handful of times. It was his friend, Rhys, she thought he’d said, that she would be going on a date with tonight.

“It’s time to go,” Lu told her.

Feyre blinked. “Already?”

“Yes, don’t pretend you haven’t been counting the seconds. You’re such a bullshitter.”

A mournful sigh was all she gave Lucien before heading to the door. They had agreed to meet at the restaurant, a fancy, but also homey, little place downtown.

“Wait.”

Feyre almost growled out loud. If Lucien kept distracting her, she was going to lose her nerve.

“I’m driving you to the restaurant.”

Feyre spun around. “What do you mean you’re driving me? I was about to walk out the door.”

Lucien crossed his arms. “Yes, but that still leaves you with dozens of opportunities to turn back around. I won’t risk it.”

Feyre narrowed her eyes, but reluctantly allowed him to take her. The drive was unpleasant—Feyre would never admit it to him, but Lucien had been right. Had she had the option, she would have turned around by the time they pulled up at the restaurant. Feyre’s hands were clenched into fists to keep them from shaking.

She tried to think when she had become so nervous about dates. It probably had something to do with Tamlin. Tamlin was a bastard who had ridiculed and scorned Feyre subtly enough during their relationship that Feyre had begun to think of herself as worthless, entirely unaware it was his fault. She’d dumped his sorry ass after she caught him in Feyre’s own fucking bed with Ianthe, a “friend.”

Yes, that was definitely the cause of Feyre’s anxiety. She was never excessively social or flirty, but she had at least been cool and collected, as many guys noticed. Or they used to, anyway. Now she was scared to go on a single gods-damn date.

“Are you going to get out of the car, or are we going to sit here all night?” Lucien’s dry voice cut into her thoughts.

Feyre glared at him, not deigning to give a response other than a raised finger (try and guess which one) and getting out. She closed the door and turned around, checking her phone for the time before turning it on silent. It was only a few minutes before six-thirty, so he may or may not be there already.

Taking a moment—and making sure Lucien had already driven off—Feyre smoothed out her dress apprehensively. She was wearing a plain blue dress suited for a special occasion, but still simple enough not to be too flashy. Had she misjudged what to wear? Should she have with something more stylish? Or maybe more revealing, showing off more of her legs or breasts?

And her makeup—was it too plain? Should she have chosen better earrings? Should she be wearing more jewelry? Were her flats too drab?

Feyre almost wished Lucien had stayed to make sure she made it in the restaurant. Steeling herself for the inevitable letdown that tonight would be, Feyre went inside.

Before she had a chance to look around, she nearly ran into a man waiting at the entrance.

“Oh, you’re pretty.”

The man raised an eyebrow.

Feyre blinked. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.” She was blushing and cursing herself for her lack of a filter.

Although, who could blame her? The man was dark-skinned, violet-eyed, and muscled, with dark, tousled hair and strong cheekbones. He was wearing an insanely hot dress shirt with the sleeves—the fucking sleeves—rolled up, revealing tattooed forearms. Pretty was a bit of an understatement.

The man was grinning now. The bastard probably had a lot of women telling him he was pretty. Feyre kicked herself internally.

“Well, if it makes it better, I think you’re pretty too.”

Feyre’s face turned an even deeper shade of red. “Um, thanks. I should… I have a date… with um…” She trailed off, the man smirking all the while. And then she thought of something.

“You’re Rhys, aren’t you? I mean sure, there are plenty of other people here who could be Rhys, but I have the worst luck, and telling my date he’s pretty totally qualifies as bad luck. Fuck, I thought we’d at least make it to the table before I scared you away. Oh shit, I’m just making it worse now, aren’t I?”

Rhys, or the random guy Feyre was assuming to be Rhys, smiled. Not condescendingly or rudely in any way, just more of an amused expression. “I am Rhys. Which I think makes you Feyre?”

Feyre nodded sullenly.

“It takes more than a beautiful woman complimenting me to scare me away, don’t worry. Why don’t we sit down?”

Feyre’s face was crimson, she was sure of it. She hadn’t expected a compliment from him after that little incident. She tried to think of what Lucien would say right now. Don’t worry, it’ll be a fun story to tell your kids. Okay, not helping.

Trying to turn off her brain, admittedly without much success, Feyre nodded once more and let Rhys lead her over to a table by the window. It was mostly dark outside, so the choice of seating only allowed to give them some privacy as opposed to being in the middle of the room. Probably not a conscious choice on Rhys’ choice, but Feyre quite liked it.

He also pulled the chair out for Feyre to sit. What a gentleman.

Feyre awkwardly fumbled with the menu, trying not to stare at Rhys’ beautiful face.

“Have you been here before, Feyre?” So much for that.

She looked up. “No, I haven’t.”

“I’ve been a couple times. Of course you can get whatever you like, but I would recommend the braised pork. It was delicious.”

Feyre bit her lip. “It sounds good.”

The waiter came over just then and Rhys asked for the braised pork for himself, then Feyre said to make it two orders.

He left, and the pair was left in silence once more. “So, Rhys,” Feyre said, making an effort not to be entirely silent. “Tell me about yourself.”

He smiled. “I work as an architect. I like reading, sightseeing, and talking to interesting ladies. How about you?”

Feyre snorted. “I’m an artist. I like, well, painting I guess. And jogging. And talking to handsome men, I suppose I should say.”

Rhys full-on grinned. “Tell me about your work. Is it just paint, or other types of art?”

Feyre answered his question, and then a few more. She tried not to talk too much, not wanting to take over the conversation, but Rhys showed such a genuine interest in her passion that Feyre could help opening up. By the time the food arrived, he knew her style, her favorite colors to use, her methods of gaining inspiration, and her opinions on some classic pieces that Rhys seemed to know more than the average person about.

Then the waiter interrupted with their meal. Once everything was served and Feyre had already dug into the pork, which was even more delectable then Rhys had let on, he asked another question.

“If you don’t mind me asking, why did you decide to try out a blind date?”

Feyre finished chewing, using the time to think about how to answer his question properly. “I ended a bad relationship a few months ago, and I’ve been a bit lacking in confidence since then. I guess I’m just sick of spending my weekends alone. What about you?”

“I’ve been searching for a relationship for a while. I’m interested in the idea of spending my future with someone, so when Azriel suggested a date with you, I jumped at the chance.” Rhys seemed to reconsider his words. “Not that I would be spending my future with you, necessarily.” He paused. “I mean—”

“No, I get it,” Feyre cut in, not wanting to hear any more of this. “I’m not the type of person you want to be in a serious relationship with.” She had known all along. Rhys was charming and handsome and smart and funny and there was no reason he would want to spend his life with her of all people.

Rhys’ eyes widened. “No, not at all!” he exclaimed. “That came out wrong. I was only trying to take it back so as not to pressure you. I didn’t know how much you’d be okay with hearing me tell you how interested I was in you after saying I’m looking for a relationship.”

Feyre blinked, surprised to find that it hadn’t been a dismissal. Surprised at more than that. “Oh.”

Rhys smiled, the first signs of nervousness shining through his calm demeanor. “I like you, Feyre. We’ve only been talking for fifteen minutes, and already I like you. And I’m not getting too ahead of myself by claiming you’re the one I want to spend the rest of my life with. Not nearly this soon; hell, I just met you. But I do think you should know what I’m looking for so we can end this before it goes too far. If you’re not ready for something like that, I mean.”

Feyre was stunned. Rhys not only liked her, but enough to tell her something like that?

“I hadn’t really thought that far ahead, but I like you too,” she replied. And she meant it. Rhys was really nice, and very intriguing. She hadn’t considered what she wanted past a date. After all, she had been positive he would diss her by the end of it. But Feyre sure as hell wanted something with this man.

Rhys almost seemed surprised. “I’m not asking for commitment or anything like that. Certainly not on the first date. But maybe you can think over that later, and we can finish dinner now?”

Feyre smiled, still processing his words. “Okay.”

They dug in. There was less conversation than before, both because Feyre was too busy letting out content groans at the taste of the food and from the lingering awkwardness. But they did start talking more toward the end, Feyre snorting into her hand as she heard the end of some ridiculous story Rhys was telling her. By the time the waiter came over and let them know the restaurant was closing now, they’d returned to an animated conversation.

From everything to Rhys’ work as an architect to gossip about Azriel and Lucien to current events and old movies and bad jokes, it had crossed the discussion. Rhys was an exceptional conversationalist.

Rhys pulled out a wallet, but Feyre said, “We can split it.”

He glanced over. “I’ve got it, darling. Consider it my treat.”

Trying to suppress a shiver at the new nickname, Feyre said, “Really, I can help out.”

“Persistent, aren’t you? Maybe I’ll let you buy me coffee next time.”

Feyre knew he was teasing; there was no doubt he would refuse to let her pay next time. He seemed like the kind of guy to insist. Still, Feyre was more than satisfied with hearing that there would be a next time.

Disappointed with the fact they had to leave, but definitely pleased with how the date had gone, Feyre stood. Rhys walked Feyre out in silence, the latter surprised to find how long they’d been chatting. The restaurant was almost empty.

Feyre pulled her phone out of her purse.

“No ride, darling?” Rhys had raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

“No, my friend dropped me off. He was worried I would flee if he didn’t actually bring me here himself.”

Rhys grinned. “Would you have fled?”

“Probably,” Feyre admitted.

“Let me drive you home. No expectations,” he added hastily at Feyre’s expression. “Just so you don’t have to wait out here. It’s getting cold.”

“Alright,” she agreed, very appreciative.

She’d sent Lucien a text and he had shot back a message letting her know he would be on the way. Feyre swiftly sent another text.

nvm rhys is dropping me off

Then she followed Rhys over to his car, laughing when he opened the door for her with a bow. Feyre wished she was the one driving; it would have been easier to keep her eyes off of him if she had something to focus on.

“Am I really that pretty?” So he’d noticed.

Feyre scowled. “Shut up.”

Rhys chuckled and glanced over, then turned his eyes back to the road. “I had a really nice time tonight, Feyre.”

“Me too,” she said.

The only words passed between them after that were directions on how to find Feyre’s apartment, fairly close to the restaurant. They were a street over when Feyre pulled a scrap of a receipt out of her purse, as well as a pen—Lucien often made fun of her having everything in her purse, but it was useful—and wrote down her number. They parked and Rhys looked over.

“So you don’t have to contact me through Lucien next time,” she clarified, handing him the paper.

Rhys smiled and put the paper in his pocket.

“Thank you for the ride, Rhys.”

He frowned mockingly. “What kind of person do you think I am, darling? Didn’t you know the good guys walk their dates to the door?”

Feyre laughed and mumbled something, getting out. Rhys stepped out of the car as well. But Feyre was starting to get nervous that Rhys was expecting something from her. Tamlin always had, after all.

They reached Feyre’s door and she stopped. But before she could say goodnight, Rhys seemed to realize why she was so anxious. He was too observant for his own good.

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, Feyre. I didn’t walk you here because I required anything of you.”

She flushed. “It’s not that I thought you would, exactly, I guess it just… been a while since I’ve met a nice guy.”

Rhys looked very sympathetic. “I understand. And for you, Feyre, I couldn’t care less if you wanted to drag me in your apartment and have your way with me now or wait a year to so much as kiss me. You’re worth it.”

There was no way Feyre’s face at all resembled a normal color. Or her ears. Or her neck. Gods, she was positively reeling.

“Really?”

“I had fun with you,” was all Rhys said.

Feyre barely noticed herself leaning closer. “Maybe a goodnight kiss wouldn’t be so bad.”

Rhys’ lips twitched and he assessed the sincerity of the statement. He leaned in slowly, giving Feyre every chance to back away, before planting his lips softly on hers.

Feyre melted into the kiss, obsessed with the soft feel of his mouth. It only last a few seconds, and Rhys’ touch remained featherlight. He pulled back, grinning.

“Goodnight, Feyre.”

She leaned against the wall for support. She was probably swooning. “Goodnight.”

One last smirk was all she got before he turned and walked down the hall.

Making it into her apartment, Feyre tried to process what had happened.

She’d met the man and made a fool of herself. Still, he had been nice and showed an interest in her. Then he had said he desired a serious relationship with someone, and she was a good candidate. There had been some more startled deer-like behavior on her part and some more suaveness from him. Then he had been super gentlemanly about not expecting her to sleep with him.

Basically, he was all Feyre could have wished for—and then some.

Feyre groaned loudly, throwing one of her flats at the wall. Then the other. She wasn’t sure why she was angry. Probably just because she’d been so ridiculous tonight. Or maybe it was the pent-up up hormones.

Feyre glanced at her phone, saw about a dozen messages from Lucien telling her to have fun and “be safe.” She threw her phone on the couch and grumbled about what a nosy little asshole her best friend was.

Then she slumped to the floor.

Feyre was going to spend the rest of her life mooning over Rhys and making a fool of herself, she already knew it. And she was going to love every second of it.

Oh, she was screwed.

———

Tag List:

@aelin-bitch-queen // @feysand-loml // @infernoqueen19 // @live-the-fangirl-life // @midsizewitch // @sleeping-and-books // @story-scribbler // @thebonecarver

#feysand #acotar #loving every second of it #my writing

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plant-flwrs · 4 years ago

Text

ruined parties // older brother draco (implied fred weasley)

masterlist!

a/n: i didn't know how to label this without it looking like an incest fic and I just want everyone to know it is most definitely not an incest fic and I don't know how to make it look better why is this my life

i just saw this in my inbox unreasonably late and I loved it sm so I wrote this little overprotective big brother draco fic :) I wanted to thank @gaycatlord-stuff for the message and the meme because I loved it sm and it rly got the juices in my sahara desert brain flowing.

summary: Draco is a relentlessly overprotective brother who ruins all romantic opportunities for you.

(2k)

-----

Sometimes, you wondered how different your life would be as a muggle. You wondered if your wealthy parents would have shoved you off to a nanny rather than house-elves; if you would have gone to a muggle boarding school and studied classic literature for an actual class and not just for fun, which Draco loved to remind you was one of the weirder things about you; if you would have learned to do laundry and wash the dishes and comb your hair without the brush levitating with a flick of your wand.

You wondered, most of all, how Draco would manage to beat up all the boys who showed interest in you as you grew up.

Draco went through his phases of the ways in which he would 'protect' you. He had really enjoyed the bat-bogey hex for a while in your first year. In second year and most of third year, he went with the safe option of the jelly-legs jinx. By fourth year he had matured to more advanced methods of transfiguration. He had managed to turn Michael Corner into a raccoon for at least a whole day when Michael had offered to carry your bag for you in the hall.

Fifth year was bad. He had been taken in by Snape, who offered him a number of tips and tricks in the world of dark magic. You insisted Draco didn't need dark magic, and he insisted that you mind your own business.

Draco was irritable and nearly unbearable by sixth year. He hovered over you like a vulture, sending glares to anyone who even looked at you. Your friends started calling him Bloody Mary because he was always haunting over your shoulder. You knew it was because your parents were putting a lot of pressure on him and his crush on Harry Potter was becoming inhumanely large, but still. It was annoying.

It was even more annoying when Draco seemed to have met a suitable match in Fred Weasley.

You had a bit of a liking for muggle things. The school year was your only chance to inhabit this hobby, with your father removing all your muggle posters from your room the second you left for the train. You took Muggle Studies and begged Dumbledore not to tell your parents. You had mostly muggle-born or half-blood friends, which you also told your parents nothing about. Draco found this all the more reason to 'protect' you.

"You ought to dye your hair," you gritted out, sulking over your breakfast and resisting the urge to kick Draco's shin under the table.

Draco didn't respond, shoveling beans into his mouth with an unamused look.

"Seriously," you continued. "Your hair doesn't match your energy. Black would be very striking. You and your boyfriend would be matching."

Draco kicked your shin under the table, making you regret not taking your chance earlier. Harry was a sore spot for Draco, but Draco had just done a wandless spell on Ernest Macmillan before he could ask you to Hogsmeade, and he deserved it.

"What are you reading?" He grunted, offering an unspoken truce he knew you would take.

You shielded the cover, "Killing your brother 101. Enlightening."

"How far into it are you?"

"Almost done. I'd prepare yourself if I were you."

Draco hummed, unfazed by your murderous threats.

"You finish the notes for Charms?" you shut your book, stealing a piece of cantaloupe from Draco's plate.

"Yes," Draco looked at you eating the stolen fruit unapprovingly, pulling some sort of older brother superiority with just one look at you. Infuriating.

"What's the time?" You abandoned the Charms notes, no longer willing to admit you didn't do them.

"Just past 7," Draco pushed his plate away from him, standing and straightening his tie.

"See you at dinner," you began putting your things away and Draco mumbled a goodbye, setting off for his own classes. You were just shoveling the last of the beans he left on his plate into your mouth when a foreign group of bodies were across from you in your peripheral.

You lifted your head, hunched over the beans and still chewing, to see Fred, George, and Lee.

You squinted, chewing slowly and leaning back as to avoid any sort of tripwire for a prank.

"Malfoy," Fred said pleasantly, which was not how people usually said your last name.

"Big brother leave you by your lonesome?" Lee added, also not taking the cruel tone most would when talking about your brother.

This was odd.

"What do you want?" you swallowed your food, eyeing them suspiciously.

"I thought she was meant to be the better of them," George stage-whispered to Lee.

"We are here to formally invite you to a party we are hosting," Fred continued, unperturbed.

Lee and George watched you, waiting for your reaction.

"Alright," you agreed and stood, joining your friends in the hall to walk to class.

"That was easier than I expected," Lee said cheerfully, visibly relieved now that he was not in your presence.

"I told you," Fred puffed his chest out confidently and place his hands on the table as he stood, "Without Draco around, she's perfect."

The party was in full swing and Draco was drunk. With one guess, you would have to assume it had something to do with the way Harry kept offering to top off his glass, his hand hovering on the small of Draco's back as they talked into each other's ears.

Drunk Draco was a luxury you were not often afforded. Drunk Draco meant living a life of your own, doing things without his watchful eye.

So you also got drunk. Your friends used the term 'waisted' the next morning, but we will say 'drunk' for maturity purposes. And drunk you got!

Fred was always suspiciously close to you, and suspiciously nice once you thought harder on it. You tried not to leave any drink unguarded while he hovered and stayed with friends as often as possible.

You eventually found yourself on a large leather couch in the center of the room. Ron was next to you, stoned out of his mind, and digging around in the pocket of his flannel for more rolling papers. On the other side of you, Luna's head rolled around her neck, falling onto your shoulder and the couch and finally landing on Ginny's lap when she passed out. You watched Ginny stroke her hair, occasionally tracing a line down her nose. Sighing, you accepted the blunt when Ron finally passed it your way.

You were passing it back, sufficiently stoned out of your gourd, when it was plucked from your hands. You thought you had dropped it, jolting back and looking around frantically until you saw those awful, bony, white fingers dangling the now soggy blunt in front of your face.

"C'mon!" Ron groaned, face twisting through the stages of grief as he saw his ruined creation.

"Pot?" Draco said as if he were 40 and with a mortgage.

"Pot," you replied as if you were 17 and at a party.

One of you had an accurate hold on reality. The other held a soggy blunt.

Ron took the soggy blunt and attempted to salvage it, sinking down to his knees to work on the coffee table in front of you. Draco took his seat and set his drink on the table to his side. He didn't drink from it, presumably because of a blunt that had been swimming in it for a moment.

"I thought you were with Harry," you said slowly, torn between wanting to hurt Draco if something had gone badly with Harry and actually wanting to know why he wasn't still with him.

"Yeah, he went up to bed," Draco answered, not sounding pitiful and mournful like he had a habit of sounding after interacting with Harry.

"He didn't take you with him?" you slurred, leaning into Draco's strong and seemingly sober shoulder.

"Shut up," he chuckled, wrapping an arm around your side and hauling you off the couch. You reached into his pocket, finding some loose bills you knew would be there, and slipped them to Ron as compensation before you left.

You felt accomplished, drunk and high, leaving a party after a fun time. It was also a highlight to have given Ron Weasley Draco's drug money.

As per usual, you didn't have a date for Hogsmeade. Your friends were all in Madam Puddifoot's with their dates, gazing over the table at each other like lovesick puppies. Draco currently had you in a headlock while he rubbed his knuckles into the top of your head.

You shoved your heal into his foot, making him release you.

You both returned to your drinks with slightly labored breaths and scowls.

Draco was upset because Harry wasn't at Hogsmeade and you were upset because you were in Hogsmeade with Draco. You would have fallen at his knees and begged him to release you from the chains of this sibling dynamic if he weren't the one buying lunch today.

You ate, still scowling, and walked around scowling, and returned to Hogwarts scowling. You hugged each other, scowling, before bed and went to your respective dorms.

It was hot and there was no wind. Really, absolutely no wind. The water on the black lake was eerily reflective and the trees were unmoving.

You were walking with some friends, charmed fans moving around you as they blew cold air in your faces. You were returning from Hogsmeade with ice cream, very happy from the outing without Draco.

Regretfully, Draco did not seem to be as happy.

Stepping into the courtyard, you felt a drop of your ice cream land on your hand, sticky and cold and messy, and at the same time, you saw Draco hurl himself at Fred Weasley.

Fred sprawled across the courtyard, landing on some poorly transfigured pillows that you guessed were the product of George's wandless magic. His head was cushioned from what would have been a nasty hit on the stone. He squirmed under Draco, long arms and legs flailing against the steady weight Draco was putting on him.

You watched Lee and George leaning against a wall, presumably letting Fred fight this battle on his own.

You decided to do something similar.

You watched as Fred wrangled himself free, both boys tripping over the pillows until George vanished them. In the free space, they circled each other with their hands raised. It was funny to see two pure-blood wizards fighting so viciously without a hint of magic.

Draco took a step forward with his left foot, tricking Fred out to lunge at him from the right. He had Fred's leg and then Fred was on the ground again, grunting in pain. Draco flipped him and pinned him, knee resting on Fred's back and hands holding his arms together. Deciding Draco had enough fun, you walked over.

"Fight Club?" you offered, quirking an eyebrow.

"Did you go to Hogsmeade?" Draco ignored you, panting slightly. Up close you saw he had a nasty bruise on his cheekbone and some blood coming from his nose. Fred must have gotten a few hits in.

"Yeah," you licked your ice cream, "bloody scorching out."

"Hm," Draco hummed, adjusting his grip on Fred's arm and causing Fred to yelp in pain.

"How are you?" you asked politely.

"Alright. You?"

"Alright."

Draco nodded.

"So, what's this about?"

"He said he was going to prank you," Draco said, shrugging and adjusting Fred's arm again on purpose.

You gasped in faux shock, crouching down to look at Fred.

"A prank?" you asked him, smirking.

"No!" Fred yelped when he tried to move his arms.

You looked to Draco, whose eyebrows were furrowed. "I heard you! You said you were going to take her out!"

"Draco."

"Draco!" Fred yelped, finally getting his arms loose and crawling from underneath Draco's grasp.

"Oh my fucking god."

"Merlin," Fred mumbled, looking at your face and then Draco's guilty expression.

"Oh," Draco said simply, head tilting as he added up the moment's events in his head.

"Oh my fucking god," you repeated.

Draco got his feet under him.

"Oh my fucking god!" you hurled your ice cream cone at his back, hitting him hard as he ran. You chased him, narrowly avoiding the trail of melted strawberry ice cream he was leaving through the halls.

#draco #draco malfoy #malfoy #big brother draco #fred weasley x reader #fred has a crush on the reader #draco is an overprotective brother #draco is stupid #draco loves harry #drarry #humor #harry potter #hp #hogwarts

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siriusmydeer · 4 years ago

Note

hey bestie, how about fluff prompt 10 with ron or harry?😁😁😁

the spiral of weather

ron weasley x reader

summary: you and ron share a rain kiss.

word count: 1.7k

warnings: self doubt, insecurity, swearing, weird teenager awkwardness, swearing, kissing, mentions of being sick

a/n: i hate this, thank u isa for inspo without u i would be crying rn, u can so tell this is rons pov by the amount of times i used the word ‘bloody’

ron he had a problem— not a problem, one might say. instead he had a nagging pronouncement that he couldn’t dismiss no matter how much he desired to do so in that halfwitted mind of his.

he had never felt the emotional wave of burn or passion in his lifetime as a teenager, that was till his eyes were strictly met with yours for the very first time. you’d think an eleven year old could possibly decipher feelings of yearning and endearment but, here we are years later.

books, movies, and even life normally if you were someones best friend the relation between the two parties happened to remain completely platonic. unless you were the cobalt-eyed, red-headed boy who happen to be the youngest son of the weasley family.

then that is in fact, not the case.

across the library you were irritatingly endeavouring cormac mclaggen with charms, attempting to explain how to flick your wand in the correct direction of a cheering charm. he took it upon himself to grab your hand and guide your hands together in the motion of his hand holding your hand, that was grasped on the wand.

classic bloody flirt.

ron was coerced persuaded, by hermione to finally catch up on the arithmancy homework that had been buried beneath his four poster messy bed stuffed in a sweaty quidditch bag. whilst hermione was attempting to explain the newest lesson from the class that ron could not be less bothered with.

his gaze could almost set a ring of fire into cormacs left sleeve on how strict his gaze was. the weather out earlier was ideally sunny, idyllic to hang out with your friends outside and possibly for a swim in the black lake. that was rons plan to pose towards you, maybe harry and hermione as well; but mostly you.

now the sky had ombré shades of washed-out dreary grey and depressing indigo. if the weather channel had existed in wizard culture it definitely would’ve called for overcast and a high percentage of downpour.

but when it came to romance hermione could be a bit numb in the head and decided to whisk him away from you, giving yourself a sweet opportunity for a free day that cormac just swooped right in an took it to his bloody advantage.

he was contemplating— he was contemplating so hard his brain could blow to bits if was possible. i mean he was a wizard after all, what wasn’t possible?

hermione clapped her smooth hands in front of his grimaced face, paying almost no mind to her peers that had glared in her direction from the disruption of noise.

“bloody hell, ‘mione! be anymore subtle would you?” rolling his eyes in the direction of the brunette who offered a ‘hermione scowl’ as ron and harry would say, in response.

“be anymore subtle would you?” she mocked. “you look like your about to go over there and snap his neck for godric’s sake! just talk to her, your so oblivious ronald.” she chastised, completely aware of his feelings towards you.

hermione knew? how would she know? who else knew... did you know? was he to obvious? should he have made a move? his brain could’ve been moving atleast a billion miles a minute on his overwhelming questions surrounding your possible reviprocations of feelings.

he looked at the smirking brunette for a moment, extremely bewildered but her bluntness. he raised a scarlet-brow in thought; if he was feeling gryffindor, reckless and impulsive or ron, some-what sensible and hidden.

he was a gryffindor after all.

getting up from his sear, the chair making a a smell reverberate at the sudden friction between the oak-wood floor and the cherry-coloured chair. clacking his shoes against said-oak floor creating a beeline directly to your sat figure with mclaggen.

your brows creased at the noise, diverting your eyes around the library and seeing the towering redhead walking directly over to you. your eyes widened for a moment, your (e/c) irises perfectly clear for viewing.

before you could even stutter out a word he got a grasp on your forearm, rapidly pulling you out of the library and into the somber courtyard. “merlin, christ, ron! give a girl a damn warning first, nearly gave me a heart attack!” your breath extremely rigid at his swift pace when guiding you away from peering eyes of both of your schoolmates.

“do you like mclaggen?” his voice was sputtered, almost like he said the question before he could even muster it as a thought.

if you’re eyes were wide before, now they looked like they were bulging straight from your eye sockets. “are you drunk? high? under the influence? potioned—“

“answer the question!”

“absolutely not, i would rather have offed myself than have feelings for someone else. plus i’m interested in someone else...” you trailed off in sentence, accidentally letting it slip that you in fact fancy someone.

paying no mind to the fact that you basically had confessed your feelings he nodded his head in a forward direction, offering a walk. you shrugged once before keeping in step with him around the courtyard.

“lavender brown, hmm...?” you offered, attempting to create a conversation with him; possibly making it more awkward.

why would he flip if you liked mclaggen? he was... alright looking, played quidditch, and an alright student. i mean there’s no big deal or anything of a sort.

“oh no, i fancy—“ drop.

oh.

oh?

drop.

it was raining.

“we should probably—“

“err, yeah....”

both of you peering up at the gloom sky above, small raindrops quickly pattering down on the both of you. you sped up your pace as well as ron attempting to get shelter in the downpour that was rapidly approaching as the both of you.

the continuous patter on the ground cause a few absent puddles into curvature of the grass surrounding the castle, causing small muddy hollow patch right beneath your left foot.

“oh!—“ you suddenly spoke, grabbing into the nearest surface your hand could grapple at; rons ashen coloured sweater.

his hands caught onto the curvature of your torso, holding you into a dip-position. one of your hands had grasped onto his bicep and the other on the bend of his muscular shoulder.

“well that was... quick?” clearing your throat awkwardly, looking into the sheen-cobalt irises of your best friend.

“i fancy you.” he spoke briskly, nonchalantly telling you how for the past five years he has been irrevocably besotted with you and essentially how he would die without not mowing if you reciprocated those feelings.

that was a bit melodramatic, but you understand the idea.

“you fan— wow that was fast, i didn’t even get a moment to like— think, maybe?”

oh my god, are you an idiot? i mean, who responded like that, like ever? the boy you had single handedly, pined for just admitted that and you say, ‘wow that was fast.’

he madly spun you onto your feet, both of you completely drenched from the recurrent downpour looking upon both teenagers. clothes anxiously sticking to your skin, and attempting to maneuver you hair behind your face.

“ron, why’d you— why would you want someone like me? i mean have you seen yourself, compared to me? ‘m just— ‘m not good enough.” you trailed between sentences, panting like you were out of immense breath but only overwhelmed trying to differentiate your thoughts.

maybe ron had drank to much butter beer, maybe he had an epiphany, but he was truly not taking no for an answer today and did all the work himself. he clasped both of your cheeks in his freckled palms, forcing your eyesight into his stare.

“have you gone absolutely mad? what do you mean, ‘i’m not good enough.’ i mean you’re one of the smartest people i know! and you’re always helping people, you don’t slap me across the face when i’m stupid most— stupid all the time! i mean i’m a bloody git and you still put up with me, i truly don’t know how, but you do! and y’know you make me want to be a better person and all that bloody crap, but y/n, you are worth it! so don’t tell me you’re not.”

the boy huffed in one sentence, trying to prove your worthiness not only to you but what was standing right in-front of you. not only just ron, but the way this would effect your relationship. after all that, even if you rejected him for his sake, the friendship would never be the same. could you take a risk? put it all on the table, for the first time in your life and possibly make something worth it?

you stood there frozen, but your eyes moved erratically to study his face. his pale ivory flesh, slightly down-turned pointy chin, full salmon-coloured lips. the study could go on, how you memorized every micro-detail of the boys face.

normally the scarlet-haired boy would’ve been the one in doubt; over himself, his peers, his schoolmates, his friends, and most-likely his family. but right now he didn’t have one single doubt in his mind, his only thought was wanting you.

you may not have been godric gryffindor himself, but you were impulsive on decisions, even the ones that you were petrified to make. so you kissed the boy, slotting his slightly chapped lips with your smooth strawberry tasting ones.

feeling the new and odd comforting taste of pumpkin juice, and spearmint bleed onto the curvature of your tastebuds. one of his hands taking a grasp at your hip, kissing you with all the vitality he had left. feeling the blearily daze of adrenaline scamper right through his veins, going immediately to his head.

he was completely, and hopelessly in love with you. the amount of intimacy he felt kissing you beneath a brewing storm was unmatched to anything or anyone else.

you pulled away for a moment, seeing how his lips tried to reattach to yours in such a quick paced moment. you snickered for a moment, the dread leaving your system second by second.

wanting to feel the eternal warmth and happiness the boy granted you, were you still a bit unsure, yes. but ron would spend his last dying breath proving himself to you.

“if we stay kissing in the rain, one of us will catch a cold.” your whisper was barely coherent over the boys pants, and the repetitive rain patter that beveled from the sky.

“i’ll take care of you.” he offered with a slanted smile, his vision bleary from admiration.

“‘course you will.”

of course he will.

taglist: @ronbrokemyheart @georgeswh0re @amourtentiaa @famdomhideout @hufflepogue

#harry potter fanfiction #harry potter smut #harry potter #ron weasley fluff #ron weasley smut #ron weasley fanfiction #ron weasley one shot #ron weasley x oc #ron weasley x you #ron weasley x slytherin reader #ron weasley x y/n #ron weasley #ron weasley x reader #ron weasly imagine #ron weasly x reader

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star-dust-shark · 4 months ago

Text

Chapter one: Sugar Glider

Percy’s pov

Being liked is great.

Not being liked is not so great.

It’s pretty black and white, really.

Well, depending on the person. Maybe there are people who don’t like being liked. Maybe they see it as a bad thing.

And maybe there are people who aren’t liked and are satisfied with it.

Percy Jackson wasn’t that kind of person.

He wanted people to like him.

In an ideal world, everyone liked him. He knew that wasn’t possible, but hey.

He could try.

And when he learnt that Annabeth Chase didn’t like him anymore, it basically felt like his world was caving in on him.

Dramatic, he knew, but he couldn’t believe it. One second, his life and relationships felt perfect, the next, he was single, lying on his floor eating ice cream.

Alone.

That word scared him. Being alone was like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without the jelly. Like a… yin without its yang.

He couldn’t be alone. He just couldn’t.

He was Percy Jackson for god sakes. He’d saved the world, what, like ten thousand times? He’d been to tartarus and back, swam in the river styx, and dealt with puberty.

And yet…

There he was, staring up at the ceiling of cabin three, the Poseidon cabin, blinking sleep from his eyes while the morning sun shone through the cracks of his blinds.

Alone.

I mean, really, he understood. Sometimes, you meet someone different. Sometimes that someone is a girl, and hey! Turns out you’re lesbian.

Percy didn’t understand being lesbian, obviously, but he understood that sometimes it just doesn’t work.

He didn’t blame Piper, or Annabeth.

He blamed himself.

If only he’d just been… better.

Stronger.

More… boyfriend-y.

He sighed, blowing hair out of his eyes only to have them fall back down and tickle his forehead instead.

But hey! Why be a pity party? Maybe being single wouldn’t be so bad. Nico had done it for years and he was fine, right?

Mostly, at least.

It was just that everyone had someone.

Leo had Jason.

Piper had Annabeth.

Reyna had Thalia.

Frank had Hazel.

So was he weird? Would he feel like an outcast, hanging out with happy couples? This fall they’d all be sharing hot chocolates and Percy would be staring at his feet wishing the ground would swallow him whole.

“Stop, Percy”, He chided himself. “You’re being over dramatic. You’re fine. Now get your lazy ass out of bed”.

Nope. Not happening.

No matter how many times he tried to push himself up or roll over, his body disobeyed.

Knock knock knoc-

“Urghf” Percy managed slurring at the door, muffled by his octonauts comforter.

The door swung open with a bang, revealing a beaming Jason Grace.

“Goooood morning bro! How’d you sleep, man”? He asked, strolling in and ruffling Percy’s raven black hair.

Percy let out an indignant “murmph” in response.

Jason rolled his eyes and glared down at him.

“You told me you’d start trying to get out of bed in the mornings, and there has been zero improvement”.

“Get off my case. You’re not my mom” Percy said pushing the blankets off of himself and sitting up.

Jason scowled, then smirked.

“Nice shorts” he nodded towards his torso.

“Hey, man, I don’t care what you think. Spongebob is a classic” Percy said, though he felt his face get rather warm.

“Whatever. Anyway, we’re all having breakfast together by the water. Chiron said it was okay”.

“Everyone”? Percy asked.

Jason shrugged. “Yeah, you, me, Leo, Nico, Piper, Annabeth”-

“Nope. Not happening” Percy grumbled, shuffling towards his closet stiffly.

Jason sighed, and Percy didn’t have to see his face to know he was obviously already pissed with Percy.

Though it had been… Percy glanced at the clock.

Only three minutes since Jason had came to wake him up. This was probably almost a record.

“Look, Percy, I know it’s awkward with Annabeth, but if you don’t come, she’s going to blame herself and think you’re like… ghosting her, man. And that’s not cool”.

Percy turned to face Jason to give him a falsely sweet smile.

“Oh gee, thanks, Jason! What great insight, I totally didn’t think of that at all. You’ve made me change my mind! Of course I’ll come, and it’ll all be fine and dandy” he said sarcastically, batting his eyelashes just to piss him off more.

Jason scruched his nose and narrowed his eyes but didn’t say anything.

There was an awkward silence as Percy searched through his drawers to pull out his camp half blood shirt and a pair of blue ripped jeans.

“Look. I’m sorry, okay? I just don’t think I can do it”, Percy said turning to face Jason.

Maybe if he played up a kicked puppy act Jason would let him go.

Jason laughed. A good, long, hard laugh.

“Oh, I see! You thought I was giving you an option. That’s funny. You’re coming to breakfast, Jackson. Get dressed, and if you’re not ready in ten minutes I will barge in here and pull you by the ear even if you’re naked”.

“Gay” Percy mumbled.

“What was that”? Jason asked, turning back to look at him as he opened the door to leave.

“Nothin, just said okay”.

“Hm” Jason replied mutely as he shut the door.

Well great.

Truth was, it wasn’t completely Annabeth. Percy had been… confused.

Confused as in… questioning? Curious? He didn’t know how to explain it.

Like when you’re a kid and you first learn about a cool unknown kind of animal, like a sugar glider or something.

You kinda start thinking about it a lot, and getting curious about it.

Except Percy’s sugar glider wasn’t sugar gliders.

Percy’s sugar glider was Nico di Angelo.

Nico and him had gotten closer ever since Nico had came out and even closer yet after Annabeth and him had broken up.

He kind of thought of Nico as a sympathetic friend, because obviously Nico didn’t really give a shit, he just felt bad that Percy was lonely.

But Percy gave a shit.

He did, honest to the gods. And he never ever thought he’d say that.

That he cared about the weird emo kid with trust issues.

But he did.

Nico was his sugar glider. He couldn’t help but care.

#silly mack thoughts #stardustshark shares #pjo #hoo #toa #percy jackson #nico di angelo #perico #pernico #nicery #gay #mlm #bisexual #annabeth chase #jason grace #fanfic #fanfiction

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animatedrapture · 4 years ago

Text

written portion word count: 700+ (i never proofread so for any errors, i apologize)

you almost laugh at suna’s message as you made your way towards his door. ever the lazy-butt, suna rintarou.

slipping your phone into the oversized hoodie you wore, you twisted the door knob of his apartment open and your eyes immediately search for him as you slip inside. he was sprawled out lazily on his couch, his green eyes flickering from his phone to your direction to see you come in. he doesn’t greet you—instead, he sticks out his tongue at you—teasing and playful as always, expecting you to make your way towards him as you always do.

the way you moved to sit next to him was more calculated than the normal, he knew why, of course. it was the classic and ever consistent way that either of you did whenever you thought the other was about to or at the very least, ready to enter a serious relationship, walking on eggshells.

you settle on the couch. next to him, yes—but a bit farther than usual.

except, suna has always been straightforward with you, said it always as it is. that’s why you know you’re going to get called out if you don’t speak up now when he scrunches his face at you, fox-like eyes narrowing at your face. you didn’t even need him to say the words.

you’re being ridiculous. come closer. spit it out.

“so,” you drawled out. you almost want to cower away from the conversation, ignore it, just see what happens instead of talking about it. you know you can’t, though. because he knows you too well, and hey, let’s not forget you actually asked him last night—albeit drunkenly, but you did.

“you went on a date,” you manage to let out and you try your best to keep your emotions in check, if even on the surface. suna only raises an eyebrow at you and hums, this frustrates you a little bit. only because you know that he knows what you want to ask him and what you want him to tell to you about.

so you scowl and glare at him, and he swears he almost laughs at you being like this. he disguises this by breaking out into a grin, you almost want to slap him for finding this amusing. almost.

“if you come closer i’ll tell you,” he finally says. it sounds like a challenge and in some ways, it kind of is because he knows you’re hesitating right now.

and he knows you’ll keep hesitating around him if you don’t talk about it right now.

“why would i do th—rin! what the—!” you were going to protest. you were, but you don’t finish when he tugs you by your wrist and the next thing you know your body is flushed against his side like you’re cuddling him. you want to move your head to see his face but he locks you in place, his chin resting on top of your head, arms around your waist.

“i didn’t ask her out, she asked me out,” he tells you.

“oh,” is all you can say. silence is what follows.

“well, uh, how was it then?” you feel him shrug against you, then let out a thoughtful hum.

“it was okay, i guess,” he answers.

“are you going to keep dating?” the awkwardness was slowly dissipating and he answers without a single beat.

“nah, don’t think so”

he knows you’re fine when you finally relax against him, face buried into his chest, and an exhale that sounded too relieved that it made his heart slightly lurch against his ribcage.

“but what about you?” he finally asks.

“what do you mean?” you almost snapped your head upwards to meet his gaze, look at his face, but he doesn’t let you. his hand pressed against the back of your head, you whine in annoyance.

“the guy you had lunch with?” he elaborates, he can feel you tense up and he doesn’t know how to feel about it.

“it was just lunch…” exhale, “but uh…”

you don’t finish your sentence when suddenly, he presses a kiss on your forehead and pull away completely, settling in his previous position right before he tugged at you.

you don’t know this, he doesn’t know this either. but at that moment, the both of you contemplate the same thing.

why are we telling each other this in this way?

that’s why he pulled away. it started to become so hard to comprehend, we’re bestfriends, right? just bestfriends.

why does it matter this much?

you’re no mind reader, though. so you don’t know this. neither of you do.

《 masterlist || next 》

[nine: the first mistake]

⚠️ warning: SEXUAL THEMES! ANGST!

fun facts:

♡ suna and y/n are mostly each other’s first everything.

[seven] ♡ he wont admit it but suna’s actually scared of completely*(more on that later) ruining his and y/n’s friendship.

♡ it was y/n’s 18th birthday. y/n was already so sure of what she felt for suna, she has been for a while now. suna, he’s been so hyperaware of y/n lately. he’s not dumb, he considers he has feelings for y/n. love only burns brighter and hotter, so just before the day ended, their bodies are pressed against each other in his bedroom back home. sighs and moans are filling the room, echoing against the walls. it was the first time y/n said the three little words to him in a completely different way. it was also the first and the only time he said it back like that.*

♡ the morning after was painful—no, not because of that. both of you still under the sheets, bodies still pressed together, and his eyes staring right back you. if there was a word for it, it would be something like: tender. soft. warm. but the three words from last night were buried by the same thing the both of you said at the same time, “i don’t want to lose you.” if you look back now, maybe that was your first real mistake together. not the night before, but the decision after. that decision. but falling in love with your best friend was never as easy as they made it seem, made it sound, made it like.

taglist: open!

#suna rintaro smau #suna rintarou #suna rintaro x reader #suna x reader #haikyuu smau #[🍒]sayitback #violet writes #haikyuu #rintarou suna #[🍒] — sayviolet #[🍒]#haikyuu x reader #hq imagines #inarizaki

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wincore · 4 years ago

Text

sour tangerine | huang renjun

pairing: keyboardist!renjun x songwriter!reader

words: 15.3k

summary: ‘i gave up on that sort of music,’ he’d said. but not like this. not when you’re there to grab his wrist and drag him into your ridiculous notions about music that make him want to tear all his hair out. huang renjun falls in love with two words that escape your lips, and now he has to pretend his cheeks aren’t caked in a blush as red as donghyuck’s guitar. maybe he shouldn’t have agreed to joining this band of idiots just for an incredibly cute songwriter.

themes: rock band!au, fluff, (mostly existential) angst, comedy-ish

warnings: making out, alcohol, college kids being college kids

song recs: hello sunshine - wetter // how to love - day6 // today - nell // rooftop - n.flying // what can i do - day6 // red - the rose // i loved you - day6 // leave it - n.flying // baby - the rose

a/n: nct dream 00 line rock band. that’s it. who wants to join my renjun cover literally any song by day6 agenda. if you think this is like a kdrama compressed into a fic i am so sorry but you are correct hsdksh also i do not know what it’s like to major in music or make music so... please bear with me.

special thanks to @insomni-writing for beta reading this ilysm!! and @cinanamon because your support made me actually finish this ily dude <3

With hair dyed blond and a stream of colourful words ready at the tip of his tongue, no one assumes Huang Renjun majors in classical music. Not when he’s threatening Lee Donghyuck by the vending machine, not when he’s pulling an arrogant half-smile by the semester-end results and certainly not when he’s hardly ever seen near an instrument as elegant as the grand piano.

If they heard him play it just once, they’d forget the rest.

He strikes the keys gently, and then all at once in a motion so very unique to him—and you know this, not because you were stalking him, but because you happened to get a very rare ticket to the national level performing arts concert (which you didn’t scam out of someone that time, you swear). Looking pristine in a clean tuxedo and with then dark hair swept to the side, Huang Renjun looked very much like an alien, like the words leaving his mouth and the things he’d do would be so unpredictable.

You were right.

Huang Renjun plays the piano like he’s not of this world.

He plays soft rock tunes even better—which, this time, you know because you were, in fact, stalking him while he spent extra hours in the practice room. From the lazy smile on his face to the way he let himself loose (for once) in a hot pink hoodie he kept trying to cover with his bag all day, you knew he was perfect.

Out of all the miserably planned (and timed) situations you’ve pulled yourself into, this might just hit top 3.

You’re going to convince Renjun to join your band.

Which is easier said than done, because Renjun is just as stubborn as you are, if not more. You’ve never wanted to smack someone so bad and neither have you ever contemplated the outcome of spontaneous fistfights as much. But as frustrated as he leaves you, you know you need him, or your picture-perfect plan will fall apart before you’ve even started to paint.

The first time you’d nudged him in class, he’d sent you a glare as soon as the question left your lips. You’d fought a pout, the warmth on your cheeks popping like firecrackers. But you’re not easily discouraged, no, not really, not ever.

The second time, you’d spread your arms in front of him to get him to stop walking off, looking more of a lunatic than a college student (sometimes, what’s the difference?) and Renjun had pursed his lips and furrowed his brows in an expression more than annoyed.

“Please!” you yelled, catching the attention of fellow students.

Renjun eyed your palms flat against each other, elbows raised in a most comical prayer and announced a “No” just as loudly before briskly walking away.

The third time, you’d sent Donghyuck, your lead guitarist, who you really shouldn’t have expected to perform better than you did. You know they’re friends, so that should have worked better, right? Wrong. Renjun had returned a pouting Donghyuck, complaining nonstop for two whole days afterwards and with a message from Renjun to “in the best of words, fuck off”.

You sigh, glancing at the time on your watch. This is your last time to book him for your ragtag rock band (still unnamed) and you’re going to leave him with no choice. You can do this.

You tiptoe from one side of the corridor to the other, the large windows drenching you in an uncomfortable amount of sunlight. But you are quiet—you know how to be sneaky and you’d be lying if you said you’re not at least a little bit proud of it. Renjun stays at the senior practice room well into late afternoon and if the door was closed fully, you’d be hearing nothing of it.

The old model of electronic keyboards in the practice room, which made you wonder if electric instruments ever rust, now plays ringing clear. It’s not just the fondness with which your school’s beloved pianist plays it but the added charm of his structure, straightened enough to focus but relaxed just as much.

A few minutes pass by in quiet contemplation, as you run through your plan again. First, approach him with a friendly gesture, offer him your strawberry milk or something. Second, block every exit he might seek once you’ve cornered him. Third, spew that long speech you prepared—a pretty pile of words ought to move him. Right? If all else fails, you’re going to call in Jaemin as your secret weapon. The boy can charm a rock, and you hate to be doing that to anyone (even Renjun), but drastic situations call for drastic measures. You take a sharp breath.

Oh, he’s singing now?

You misstep over the marble flooring and the door creaks open a little too loud.

Shit.

The music stops. You take a good second to swear at yourself, well and full, before breathing in and entering the practice room with as much confidence as you can gather.

“Renjun!” you say, grinning wide and arms stretched as if you’re there to welcome him.

Renjun looks at you, surprise smeared across his face. He quickly picks up his bag, shaking his head at you as he makes his way towards the door.

“You- “

Instead of all your brilliant planning, you resort to pulling a disgruntled Renjun into a lonesome corner before he can leave. It would seem more of a threat than an invitation to join, you’ll admit, but right now, you need Renjun to not glare at you with a scowl so obvious. It’s not that his face makes you nervous, it’s the outcome of today’s attempt. The bright afternoon sun reaches his hair and the left side of his face, a warm hue over eyes that look at you with more than just mild annoyance. He wears a grungy dark jacket over his lightly coloured T-shirt and has the audacity to claim he doesn’t do rock.

“Are you trying to kidnap me or something?” he asks, adjusting the strap of his bag.

You quickly smack the wall so your arm blocks his way, though the impact of it makes you wince.

“Join me,” you say, looking at him, determination across your face though the sentence comes off more cult-ish than you’d want.

Renjun takes a step back to look up and take a sharp breath.

“I already told you,” he says, raising his voice, “I don’t do that sort of music anymore.”

“Anymore?”

Renjun groans, lips shaped in perfect annoyance. “Just how long are you going to keep this up?”

He tries to escape you but you take a hasty step closer, his back hitting the wall with a thud. It’s not all that fun, getting people to join your band. It’s even less fun when Renjun’s cologne is a tad too minty for your tastes.

“I’ll do anything!” you say, pressing your lips tight as the pleading grows in your eyes.

“Anything?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes!” You jolt up straighter.

“Then leave me alone forever for the rest of my life.”

Renjun crosses his arms and you frown, a sigh lacing your lips till you bring yourself to look him in the eye again. It’s not yet time to pull out Jaemin, you’re not even sure if that will work, but you might just have something else.

“Lee Chaerim!” you suddenly yell. “You like her, don’t you?”

It’s a long shot but if it works…

Renjun’s cheeks dust pink and he takes a step back, furrowing his eyebrows at you. Bullseye. You fight a snort before he can catch you. Gods, he’s so obvious.

“Wh-what gave you that idea?” he retorts, pitch shooting higher before he recomposes himself. “She’s a classmate, idiot. And don’t yell her name!”

“Star pianist Lee Chaerim,” you wave your hand about. “Who wouldn’t have a crush on her? I mean you’re a close second though.”

Renjun raises his eyebrows in disbelief. “It’s really not…”

“I’ll score you a date with her!” you declare, grinning like a maniac. “If you join my band.”

Renjun sighs, shoulders sagging. “You’re really not going to drop this, are you?”

“Nope.” You shrug, popping the ‘p’ in a helplessly obnoxious manner.

Renjun leans back against the wall, head tilting to look you in the eye as the frown grows prominent over his lips.

“And you think scoring me a date will make me want to join your…band?” Renjun snorts.

You shift your eyes awkwardly. “Well, I didn’t really paint you as the Romeo type either but hey, I don’t judge a book by its cover.”

“(name)?”

“Yes?”

“You’re the most annoying person I’ve ever met.”

“Oh. That’s actually the sweetest thing I’ve heard from you,” you muse before quickly returning to the subject at hand. “Ah, come on. Just give it a chance, please?

“I major in classical music.”

You raise an eyebrow, a smirk crawling over your lips. “And yet you’re more than decent at Queen on the keys.”

Renjun straightens, the crease between his eyebrows deepening. “You’re stalking me?!”

“No, I’m scouting you. All the big companies hire people to do that.”

“You’re impossible.”

“Er, it’s called extraordinary.”

“Extraordinarily annoying.”

“Stop arguing with me!” You stomp your foot.

Renjun mimics you in a rather aggressive tone, the tip of his nose almost touching yours. You pull a face, throwing a soft punch at his shoulder to which he responds with a sharp cry and a glare.

“Fine!” Renjun says, massaging his shoulder. “I’ll give you one week to prove to me this band’s worth my time.”

You feel something akin to surprise before his words register. Worth his time? He's just about as arrogant as you expected.

“Deal,” you say, shooting him a forced smile.

From the light periwinkle of his T-shirt to the blond strands astray against his forehead, there’s a sort of halo surrounding him. You press your lips together before you can laugh at his supposed angelic qualities, before he somehow starts to look as pretty as your friends describe.

“Starting today, I’m your lyricist and composer!” you grin, extending your hand towards him.

“I...You…”

Renjun hesitates before taking your hand in a firm shake, but not before pursing his lips in doubt. Perhaps you could have warned him before grabbing his wrist and so unceremoniously dragging him here.

“I didn’t even join,” he mutters.

“I’m giving you the full trial!” you defend.

Renjun stays quiet before suddenly clearing his throat. “You can- You can let go of the wall now.”

Your eyes trail to your hand and you immediately retract it with an “ah”. There’s barely any distance between your chests, and you suppose you were successful in cornering him—a little too effectively. Renjun shakes his head, quickly walking past you with no gesture of goodbye.

“You’re going to be disappointed, (name),” he says quietly before leaving.

You blink in confusion at his disappearing figure.

Whatever. When have you ever paid attention to words of warning? You glance at the back of Renjun’s head from the second floor’s handrail as he rushes down the stairs, albeit a sort of grace to his movement, and sigh.

Donghyuck owes you twenty. You’re going to be rubbing it in his smug face that you’ve recruited, er, almost recruited the unreachable Huang Renjun. And for a date? He must be far more romantic than you thought. You don’t think you’ll ever understand him.

You take a slow, deep breath reaching all the way to your belly.

Your plan is working out. It’s going to work out—soon you can be writing songs to a rhythm and melody of your choice, for people who can hear the words and dance to it. The world’s gonna sing along to your songs, to the chorus to your ambitions.

“Renjun?!”

Between Donghyuck’s agape mouth and Renjun’s defensive stance, you really don’t know who to approach first. This place was apparently the only room in all of Seoul a bunch of college kids could rent out and while all of you dished out a remarkable chunk from your earnings, it was worth every penny. From the ugly orange wallpaper to the stinky couch, you wouldn’t trade a thing in this room, except for maybe Jeno’s withering plant in exchange for a new one. Poor thing’s been dead for as long as you can remember (courtesy of Jaemin).

“(name) actually convinced you?” Donghyuck asks, exaggerated surprise in his voice before he drops it lower. “You can tell me if you were threatened or something, promise I’ll get you out of this.”

Renjun rolls his eyes, a smile making on to his face anyway. “It’s just for a w—mph!”

You slap a hand over Renjun’s mouth, stepping in to grin victoriously at Donghyuck. “See, Hyuck? I told you I’d make it work. Now, pay up.”

“You bet on this?”

The curtains are drawn shut but the room lights are bright in a strange sort of way, like someone in the sixteenth century discovered electricity early and decided to reinvent candlelight out of it. Late afternoon isn’t as gentle as it is in winter, but you’d rather have patches of sunlight decorating the room instead of the garish yellow lights. The lavender air freshener you sprayed a few minutes ago has already settled in, the previous scent of instant noodles, though delicious, finally gone. You should’ve brought the coffee mix, you think with regret. A productive day needs a productive start, as you’ve always been told. (You might have messed up, but it’s never too late, right?)

You think you should have anticipated a little adjustment trouble after all.

Jeno walks headfirst into the mess—with Renjun choking Donghyuck under his arm while you try to not drop the pile of records from the small coffee table and onto the Dorito dust-covered wooden floor. The recorder is safe, a good few feet away from your mayhem.

“Oh, hey Renjun, didn’t know you’re a part of this,” Jeno says, raising an eyebrow at the boy.

“Yeah, I didn’t either,” Renjun mutters in response, loosing up on Donghyuck.

You narrow your eyes. “Wait, you guys know each other?”

“Yeah, we’re in the same dorm,” Jeno answers, shrugging before he drops his bag onto the couch.

You gasp. “You could’ve just asked him all this time?!”

“Uh,” Jeno drawls out before coughing forcefully. There’s a slight change of air, and your inability to read situations, for the first time, is a major help.

“Hello, trouble children,” Jaemin announces as he enters, his bag thrown in Jeno’s direction, who seems relieved for the interruption.

“Oh, hi Renjun!”

“You know him too?” You’re almost offended at this point.

Jaemin stares blankly in confusion. “Yeah, we’re…all…in the same dorm.”

You throw up your head in exasperation, an annoyed huff leaving your parted lips. “And none of you thought of asking him to join?!”

“We didn’t think he’d ever agree,” Jaemin says, glancing at Renjun discreetly.

Renjun stays quiet, shrugging before he plops down on the couch. “Anyone wanna tell me what we’re supposed to do today? Apart from killing Donghyuck?”

“It’s not my fault you’re so bad at rock, paper, scissors,” Donghyuck retorts quietly.

“You cheated!” Renjun sits up straight, glaring.

You raise your palms like the peaceful negotiator you are, and honestly, all they had to do was decide the lead vocal for the new song, which Renjun vehemently rejected.

Donghyuck gasps. “Renjun isn’t half as innocent as he looks. Watch out (name)—oof.”

Renjun elbows him in the stomach, the resulting expression on Donghyuck making you wonder just how much strength Renjun really has.

“Renjun, Donghyuck. You’re both lead,” you say, finalizing.

“What?!”

The two of them look at you, one with betrayal and the other with an emotion very close to murder. It wasn’t easy coming to the decision, sure, but for this song, you’ll be needing Renjun a little bit more. Is it treacherous of you to have picked out the song most suited to him? You have your reasons, however. You’re not letting Renjun leave without experiencing the wonders of performing at a local pub, and in general, you’re a little iffy about letting him leave at all. You need the keys and you need a chance. You have something to prove.

“Just this song, Hyuck,” you sigh. “You know we switch up things every time.”

“Fine,” he grumbles. “The show's coming Saturday, right?”

You nod when Renjun interrupts.

“Show?!” he blurts.

“We’re performing,” you answer, shrugging. “You know Odd Fruit? In Hongdae?”

Renjun wrinkles his nose, shifting back. “No? Isn’t that a dive bar?”

“Best place for us,” Jaemin grins, resting his elbows against the headrest beside Renjun. “Saturdays are for rock.”

Renjun sighs. “I don’t- I don’t sing rock.”

Jeno raises an eyebrow. “I wasn’t peeping or anything but wasn’t that you in the shower? What were you singing again—”

“Okay, okay!” Renjun sits up straight, heaving a sigh, his shoulders moving with it. “I sing Disney songs in the shower, it doesn’t mean anything…”

“We can do that sort of music too.” You grin, tilting your head. “We can do any music!”

“Yeah,” Jeno encourages thoughtfully, “Even idol music!”

“No,” everyone says in unison.

Jeno mutters something under his breath, sulking as he sinks into the couch and crosses his arms after adjusting his bright red baseball cap.

Renjun shakes his head, recomposing himself. “You want me to perform next Saturday?! That wasn’t in the deal!”

You furrow your brows. “I told you it’s a full trial!”

“That’s over a week!” He throws up his hands in exasperation.

“The trial week ends on Friday and Saturday’s just a bonus,” you reason, crossing your arms.

You don't break the gaze just in case it determines your stand. It’s probably a full minute of glaring at each other before your humble audience intervenes, Donghyuck bursting into laughter and the other two following. You share a puzzled look with Renjun, looking around for an explanation.

“We’re gonna have a blast this Saturday,” Donghyuck says, wiping a tear from his eye. “I can’t wait.”

“We’ll get to practise,” Jaemin says, resting his palm on Renjun’s shoulder reassuringly. “You’re gonna have fun, trust me.”

“I hope so,” Renjun mutters.

That’s all you need to hear.

Renjun isn’t half as disagreeable when he’s focused. His brow line is straight, lips parted gently and eyes almost hazed over as if his fingers over the keys have eyes of their own.

Renjun is also fantastic at perfecting your notes. You always thought he’d be too prissy to work with you, but he doesn’t seem to care about that anymore. With flushed knuckles and long fingers, part of hands that were meant to play the piano—you’d say Renun lives up to the musical prodigy title. The short demo you’d played for him somehow swirled and twined into music so him and yet still you, rock undertones with light blues. You haven’t met anyone who can play with melody like that, besides Donghyuck.

Rock means hope. Undone to be done.

And maybe, part of you is a little disappointed at how well he handles the pre-performance stress. You would love to see a hint of jitters in him for once. Saturday wastes no time in creeping up and while you wish you could say you feel what your band looks like, you don’t. The pre-performance stress is very, very different for you.

Let’s say, you’re not too sure about reviving rock music in Seoul. It’s not very popular and still considered underground, but hey, at least it’s easy on the ears and it is honest, if nothing else. And an honest sound wins, right?

You lock eyes with Renjun, before they're ushered to the centre. There's not much to be said. You smile with a determined nod, holding up both of your thumbs to the boys. This will work out. It will.

And at the very least, you're getting two shots of whiskey on the house.

The place is shabby, but not too shabby for a dive bar. There’s a giant mural… thing of what seems to be the hybrid of a peach, apricot and dragonfruit. You’re not too sure, actually. Just as crowded as you expected, the lights glow dim and the smell of musk and lime keep in check the other foul smells that could possibly emanate from the human body. Lovely. Your fingers play against your lips as they stretch into a smile. It’s the perfect place to play your song, but maybe the jitters have a purpose after all.

There are foreign faces around, quite literally, and it makes you nervous. You settle by the bar, your last words of encouragement drifted off further from you to whatever that excuse of a stage is.

Renjun looks calm as ever. The confidence in him is not what you'd expected, though a bubbling feeling in you suggests it's even better this way.

“You finally got someone on the keys,” a familiar voice calls from behind the countertop.

You turn your head to find Doyoung, arms resting on the table and holding what seems to be a bottle of vodka so tenderly, you’d think it was either his child or an explosive.

“Huang Renjun,” you respond, smiling. “Like the best pianist in our year. Or maybe second best.”

Doyoung laughs. “You kids could be as good as us some day. Need more practice.”

“Hey, old man, it’s not your time anymore,” you say, raising an eyebrow with a cheeky grin. “Maybe you were the best keyboardist back then but…”

You lean in to emphasize as you point at a Renjun furrowing his brows at all the wiring. “That guy’s going to outsing you. It’s the new era now. Etcetera, etcetera.”

“You talk like I’m from a different generation.” Doyoung scoffs, though the corner of his lips twitch. “Still dreaming of making your boyband? Do you guys even have a name?”

You pout. “It’s not a boyband! Okay… technically, it is a boyband. And no, we don’t have a name.”

You sulk for a moment or two at the way Doyoung had called your life’s work a boyband in that uninterested tone. Nothing’s wrong with a boyband. You sigh.

“At least we’re getting free alcohol, eh?” you nudge Doyoung, him being the reason you’re getting to play here anyway. What does a graduated music performance major do in his free time? Bartending, apparently. You haven’t ever really questioned his life choices and you’re not going to start now. Never question your seniors.

“I’m not serving you kids alcohol,” he says, furrowing his eyebrows in disbelief.

“We’re legal,” you argue, crossing your arms.

“Hard to believe.”

You see the smile lines crease on Doyoung’s face and before you can retort, a hum of strings resounds through the place, loud enough for the two of you to catch.

“Sorry,” Donghyuck mouths sheepishly to the two of you, Doyoung responding with an eye roll.

“I didn’t know that demon could get nervous,” he mutters and you laugh at the comedic duo the two of them make.

Donghyuck clears his throat into the mic and you cringe, but not before holding back your laughter at the terror in his eyes. Right then, the keys are struck, and suddenly, music is into motion.

You absentmindedly hum along, smiling to yourself before it strikes you to monitor the crowd. You gulp, a crease in your brows as you look around with the determination of a child at a pet shop scanning for a puppy to adopt.

You give up after a minute or so, the feeling weighing heavy. Reading facial expressions has never really been your thing, especially under lights that don’t acknowledge the purpose of their existence. (You’re not saying this because you have bad eyesight.) Fun varies. Everyone in this place is in a crowd of their own, and if not a crowd, in a dream. Some nod along, some smile but you, you know the song better than anyone else in this room. It has to be worth something.

You sigh. Your desperation gets a notch crueler each drawing year, and yet, the questions still arise. Do you have to be someone? A smiling face at a dive bar is more than enough to be, you think.

You mouth the lyrics, nodding your head along to the baseline you helped make. You think Doyoung chuckles beside you, something about taking self-love too seriously but you can’t hear him over the sound of the band.

Bass. Drums. Keys.

Suddenly, in the moment between heartbeats, your eyes meet Renjun’s.

He sings into the mic full of self-assurance, teeth occasionally making an appearance in a chaotic smile. It's always the little things that make the person. Eyes peering down at the keys, barely keeping open at certain parts and yet you think you see a hint of exhilaration in them.

The riff of the second song starts out loud. This is Donghyuck’s song and this time, it turns heads. You’re not sure in a good way or bad, but it wouldn’t be the first time people have wanted to beat him up in a bar. You snicker to yourself but just then, two guys cheer from the crowd, a red-faced Donghyuck flashing them a grin.

“Ah, Jaehyun and Taeil are here too,” Doyoung notes. You’ve never actually met the two but you’ve heard of them so many times you think you could replace Doyoung as their lead singer.

The song is called Cheers and for good reason.

Donghyuck smiles into the mic, and with a highly anticipated breath, you realize, Renjun is smiling too. Little by little, the night grows more optimistic and into the palms of your youth. Even in this tiny, crowded place. Even in a room full of people you can’t read.

The song ends in time, but not enough for Donghyuck to actually convince Doyoung to give him drinks. It’s not a Saturday night without their fights, and despite that, the atmosphere is warm with spoken words. You think you catch Renjun beam at Doyoung’s compliment, suppressing your own smile at the two..

Clink, splash, clink.

“You know, for someone as excited about whiskey, I thought you’d be better with liquor,” Renjun says, sighing as his hesitant finger pokes you in the forehead.

Your eyes open so suddenly, Renjun flinches and you ease into a smile. “I’m not that drunk. The next shot, maybe.”

That’s not entirely true because you’re sure the previous one just needs a little more time to settle into your gut. Renjun, on the other hand, seems to be better at dealing with alcohol. The peach hue across his cheeks make you want to pinch them and you’ll give it twenty minutes before you lose control and actually do.

The two songs were only three and a half minutes each but they seemed to stretch long enough for you to be pleased with them. You’re not sure about the rest.

“I almost messed up the beat there,” Jeno mutters, resting his head against the bar table. Jaemin shrugs beside him, taking another shot. The two of them can hold their liquor, at least. Donghyuck cannot.

“Was it that bad?” Donghyuck asks, adjusting the red bomber jacket he was so sure made him look cool. “I don’t think it was bad. I mean, we all do embarrassing things once in a while—”

“Does he not shut up?” Renjun wails before looking at you accusingly. “Don’t end up like that.”

“I don’t mope, Renjun,” you snap, your finger unsteady as it points at him. “You better remember that about me.”

Renjun rolls his eyes. “And you’re gone too.”

“Tell me,” you say, your lips tugged into a lazy smile, “you enjoyed it, didn’t you? I saw you smiling.”

Even under the wash of blue light, you can see his cheeks tinge with colour. Is Huang Renjun purple now? Not the crystal clear jewel you’d expected, but these hues are so much nicer on him. He doesn’t always have to be under golden spotlight—he can just bask in the mulberry shades of a nearly sketchy club once in a while.

“Renjun,” a loud whine erupts from beside you, Donghyuck immediately wobbling up. “I can’t believe you actually agreed to play with us. C’mere, let me give you a smooch.”

Renjun curls his lips, desperately trying to fight off Donghyuck clinging onto him for life, and you hear a grunt of pain from Renjun in a pitch you didn’t think was humanly possible. You laugh, clutching your stomach and hear a few strained words from Renjun about how no one ever helps him. Who would help him when he’s providing you the funniest event of the weekend?

Jeno is the knight in shining armour tonight, pulling Donghyuck off but not before the boy lands a kiss on Renjun’s neck, in turn getting smacked in the lips a little too hard. Donghyuck places his hand over his mouth, keeling over with eyes shut in pain and Renjun mutters about how he deserved that. He fits in just fine, you think.

“You wanna… not do that?”

Renjun pulls the shot glass away from you, and you frown at him.

“So tell me,” he says, leaning in a little closer to be heard over the song. “Why did you want me to join your band so desperately you forgot your own dignity? I’m not saying you had any to begin with but…”

“Look, Renjun, I don’t give away embarrassing secrets when I’m drunk,” you warn, poking him right between the ribs. “Even if it’s not embarrassing. Or a secret.”

“Right. You’d do that sober,” he sighs, arms a polite distance from you when you try to stand up.

“Now you tell me—”

“You didn’t even answer me.”

“—did you have fun?”

Renjun pauses, taking a moment or two as he scans your face. The light dances across his features, gentle eyes and parted lips, across the dark jacket over a white shirt that has turned fluorescent under the lighting. You forgot how fun this place got beyond midnight, when they play beats to dance to for a crowd that seeks nothing more than fun.

“Yes. Yes, I did.”

Renjun might be trying very hard to stop the smile over his lips but you can see it in his eyes. And perhaps, people are only seen when they are true to themselves.

“Huang Renjun!” you yell all of a sudden, voice still drowned out in the delicate discordance.

Unfortunately for Renjun, you yell directly into his ear and he responds with a violent recoil, hand flying to his ear involuntarily. He probably cries out too but the music is deafening, something you enjoy rightly so. Or is it the alcohol? Should you have stayed sober for Renjun’s sake? Right now, you don’t even mind the strong minty scent wafting from Renjun—in fact, it’s welcoming, even.

You wobble onto his chest before tentatively pushing yourself away. You curse at yourself. You weren’t supposed to get hammered. How much did you drink? You can’t even bear to look at the bill right now.

“You know what? I’m not having fun right now,” Renjun speaks into your ear and you jump. There’s a hint of a smile on his face.

You sit back down on the bar stool, pouting at the fuzz blooming inside your head. No more words for tonight. In all honesty, why doesn’t anyone ever let you dance?

“Oh no, you don’t.” Doyoung pulls the bottle of whatever-alcoholic-beverage out of your reach. “Do you even know how expensive that is? You’re going to have to pay.”

You think you sober up a little, sitting straight. “Oh no. I don’t have money. I’m not cleaning the place again.”

A sort of unspoken arrangement passes between Doyoung and Renjun, who you’re sure have never met before. You know Jaemin’s dragged Donghyuck home, the same way you’d drag your pet cat away from the kitchen and Jeno is the only one with a driver’s license and Doyoung’s trust (hence, designated driver). Which leaves the two of you.

Renjun heaves a sigh, pulling you up by the shoulders. “You’re going home. Or whatever dumpster you came from.”

He proceeds to mutter something about Jeno being late but in the moment, you flash him a grin, walking perfectly away (at least, you think you do) and out into the night. Renjun follows, flustered by your absolute lack of restraint as he somehow manages to stop you from tripping over the sidewalk.

“You didn’t dance,” you complain, looking at him.

“You didn’t let me,” he retorts. “Look at you. You’re as bad as Donghyuck. Babysitting him is difficult enough.”

You grumble before agreeing. “Okay, fair. Next time, no drinking. Unless it’s free.”

What college student would have the audacity to turn down free drinks? Huang Renjun should not have been this good at holding his liquor. Needlessly, your thoughts are incoherent—not too good for a songwriter, right?

Huang Renjun has a lighter touch than you thought. He has a polite hold over your shoulder, in a way friends do most often, and you might feel like you could have been friends with him forever, but you can never tell what he thinks. Sometimes, Renjun really is extraterrestrial. In the way he talks, in the way he looks at things and in the way you almost believe he’s going to do something unspeakably outrageous someday.

You feel a certain sprout of warmth in your chest as he sits quietly beside you in the noisy car Jeno loves to drive. Must be the alcohol, of course. Of course.

And sometimes, you come up with words fit for a song. To fall asleep in last night’s clothes and wake up with tomorrow’s dreams—all part of the grand plan, part of the crusades of youth, nothing more and nothing less. That sounds like something you’d love telling your family when you’re old and grey. You laugh to yourself, pulling the covers over your head, not knowing how you even ended up here.

It smells minty.

With that one fleeting thought, you doze off in your unwashed bed sheets and faintly lemon-scented pillows, shades of plums and oranges and cherries of the night twisting into midnight black.

Playing at Odd Fruit is now a thing. Your thing. The band’s thing.

As if you needed any more reasons to stay over at the bandroom, now that Donghyuck and Renjun bickering keeps everyone up all night. You’re not blaming them, of course, when you join in the fun too. The day Renjun’s nostrils stop flaring and his eyebrows don’t furrow into an oddly adorable expression will be the day he’s finally set free from your ‘ill-treatment’.

Tap, scratch, tap.

Donghyuck fiddles with the strings of his guitar, while the rest lay slumped in any clean bit of space they could find, like runners after a marathon. Which is funny, really, considering you were the one running errands and cleaning up the damn place and it’s yet still somehow trashed. You could be having a little more energy, you always could.

However, the lengthened nights have left you in a state you’re rather afraid to be in. Your eyes don’t grow any more determined when it’s time for end semester tests, you don’t grow any happier at the thought of graduating. There are so many tunes to find, so many words to scribble—just how will you catch up?

Fun is a perfectly valid reason to do things but it’s only so long before the rest of your feelings each grip you by the limbs.

“We need to do something more,” you say, pacing the room. “Something that’s a little more eye-catching, you know?”

There’s a pause.

“Make Jeno play the drums shirtless,” Donghyuck suggests.

Jeno sighs, still not having figured out how to respond every time a scandalizing proposition escapes the boy’s mouth. At this point, most of you have considered duct taping him over the mouth but it’d never work. Renjun’s tried.

“Why do we even need it?” Renjun asks, eyes on the ceiling as he lies back on the couch.

“To improve!” you say, shoulders hunching.

“I don’t need improving,” he mutters, neck angled to the side in contemplation.

“Yeah, you should see Renjun at the dorms,” Donghyuck snorts. “I don’t think he can get any better.”

Renjun furrows his brows. “What?”

“You play the keys in your sleep, Renjun,” Donghyuck says, almost distastefully. “You keep tapping and tapping against the study desk. How the hell do you not wake yourself up?”

“And you snore,” Renjun mumbles, glaring at him. “How the hell do you not wake yourself up?”

“Guys,” you interrupt. Your lack of sleep throughout the exam season has not left you any better than this. “More important matters at hand.”

“Why are we so stressed anyway?” Renjun sighs.

There’s another pause in the quiet afternoon. You’d think it’s comforting even to have the same fear lingering beneath each of your noses, that same existential grasp ready to pounce—all within the comfort of the same room you share. All those late nights sharing ramen have meaning after all, as do the utter messes all of you make on Friday evenings as the boys try to practise, as does every Saturday night performance and every Sunday afternoon spent trying to watch the same movie on a tiny phone screen.

“How about we each look for inspiration?” Jaemin pipes up, eyes still a little lost.

Everyone turns to him and he straightens ever so slightly. “Me and Jeno can come up with a beat, (name) and Renjun can look for a melody and Donghyuck—”

“Can fuck off?” Renjun suggests helpfully.

Donghyuck pouts, crossing his arms. “Hey I’m—”

“Yeah, maybe Donghyuck can fuck off,” Jaemin says, fighting a smile. You raise an eyebrow, wondering which one of Donghyuck’s antics finally got on Jaemin’s nerves.

“This is harassment,” Donghyuck mutters before sinking into the couch beside Renjun. “Well, good for me! I get a day off—”

“No, you don’t,” Jaemin disproves. “You’re cleaning up this place.”

Donghyuck lets out a gasp. “All by myself?”

“Well, you trashed the place all by yourself,” Jeno reasons.

You tune out the bickering for a few moments. There are important matters at hand and no one seems to be listening to you. You play with your fingers absentmindedly when the thought arrives that maybe you should declare your secret little project. The song you wrote with Renjun in mind, that is. You should admit that it’s really just a nicer way of saying you wrote a song for him.

Astounding, isn’t it? This should be the part where you feel your pulse quicken. It’s just a song and the nights spent with him on the keyboards, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes has given you a head full of rhythm and song. It’s just a song.

You’d do anything for a good song.

But first, you need your audio converter fixed. The damn thing’s been generating noise all on its own, when it’s clearly your job.

“I need to go to Yongsan,” you say, picking up your bag. “We can find inspiration along the way, can’t we Renjun?”

“Why do we need to go—”

“Oh, get me some replacement strings for my guitar,” Donghyuck chirps.

“And a new pair of drumsticks,” Jeno says, awkwardly scratching the back of his head. You sigh. He really needs to stop breaking those. Where do drummers get such unparalleled rage on a drum set?

You walk over to the door before turning back and sending a pointed look at Renjun.

“I… have to?” he asks, and the look in his eyes almost makes you pity him. If anything, he’s having it worse than the rest of you are, with balancing the weekly gigs and practising for his piano recitals, though he never studies like the rest. You feel sorry but clearly, not enough.

“Yes,” you reply hurriedly. “Quick, get up, come on, we’re wasting time.”

“Okay, okay! Don’t pull my shirt!”

It’s so easy to get Renjun to do things these days. You bite back a smile as he fixes his collar, features still disgruntled by your (over)enthusiasm. His bag is cuter than you thought for someone who dresses punk (“It’s not punk,” he’d snapped, after re-dyeing his hair yet again.), with three different moomin keychains hanging against a baby blue hue.

You should know better than to let yourself think about someone so much.

The subway is absolutely lovable when it isn’t rush hour.

Skyscrapers nearly aren’t as looming as they are on rainy days, but you make your way through a still busy city, the heart of it beating like a snare drum with each passing moment. A little rain cannot stop Seoul.

Renjun walks beside you explaining how you should really look into this new underground artist you’ve already listened to three times this week because of him. He never seems to understand that you are, in fact, capable of remembering the things he says.

“I wrote a song about you,” you say abruptly.

Very smooth.

Renjun raises an eyebrow. “Like as a gift? A fan song? I’m so flatter—”

“No, stupid,” you interrupt, shifting your eyes upon irrelevant surrounding details. “It’s not about you. I just thought you’d like it.”

You pause.

“Yeah, it’s a little bit about you. A gift for joining. You can sing it to yourself in the shower or something.”

“You know, I feel really offended when you call me stupid.”

You glare at him. His ears are tinged red but right now, you’re a little more than done with his insults. Sure, you make mistakes—like dropping a full open can of soda on your own lap or submitting the wrong assignment to the wrong professor—but at least you’re not cynical Huang Renjun, incapable of making mistakes at all. It would be much more infuriating if you hadn’t seen Renjun drooling in his sleep or vigorously wipe at his nose after having snacks too spicy for his own good. You suppress a retort.

You reach the subway entrance taking slower steps than usual; but time is not a constraint here.

“It’s not a diss track, is it?” Renjun asks, suddenly doubtful.

You can’t help your laugh (and horrifically, snorts), in turn evoking a smile in Renjun.

“No, it isn’t,” you assure, before grabbing his wrist and skipping down the steps, Renjun’s panicked voice yelling at you to slow down.

“Can you not do that?” he complains, massaging his wrist at the subway platform.

“You made it through without tripping,” you reason, sticking your tongue out at him.

He reaches out to flick your forehead but you cover it just in time, a grin blooming across both your faces at this childish playfight. The train arrives with an almost soundless screech and you hop on slowly with anticipation in your footsteps.

“So what is it about?” Renjun asks, leaning forward to rest his elbows against his knees.

“You,” you respond, nonchalant.

“Very informative.”

The noise of the trains keeps the moment engaged, chuffing throughout as busy as they are.

Renjun lets out a barely audible gasp. “It’s not a- It’s not a love song, is it?”

You laugh, amused.

“Renjun, I knew you were arrogant but not this arrogant,” you tease.

He flushes hotly, and there’s that feeling again—that maybe you’re wrong. Maybe you don’t have anything else to hang on to and music is the only ledge left.

You wrinkle your nose before shaking yourself off the feeling. Rainy days always do this.

“Besides,” you say, “I’m still going to score you that hot date with star pianist number one, aren’t I?”

“Not number one,” he begins before hesitating. “That’s… not necessary but thanks.”

You punch him swiftly and he responds with an oof, clutching the ball of his shoulder.

“Don’t be shy,” you complain. “That’s not fun.”

“Well, I’m not fun,” he retorts. “I don’t need to be. I like having a working brain.”

You send him an exaggerated hurt look, hand reaching to pull at his cheek before it gets swatted away. Somehow, in this exact moment, you find a new tune and it doesn’t seem to be the end of your search. You contemplate saving it in your voice memos but you figure a noisy subway train is the last place to record. Besides, you don’t want to lose the look in Renjun’s eyes when he’s talking about how impressive the new relocated concert hall is.

“It’s called Not Feeling Spring,” you say when the train doors open to your station.

Renjun raises an eyebrow, somewhat disbelieving, although you’re not sure of what.

“You’ve definitely packed some insults in there,” he accuses.

You look at him, defeated. “Trust me.”

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

Step, step, splash.

“Ew,” Renjun says, shaking his foot after landing on a particularly damp part of the sidewalk. They really should have evened out the path when laying the pavement. But unfortunately for Renjun, he’s already stepped onto rainwater in bright yellow converse.

It’s not just his shoes that look like daisies could bloom over them either—there’s paint over his denim jacket in pictures you’re aware that Renjun himself painted. A nice little touch, but not a very smart choice for a garment. How unlike him, you think to yourself when you hear him sigh and complain about the weather.

“So this is your famous shop?” Renjun asks, eyeing the discoloured walls of the store by the shop.

“You’re doing your thing again,” you reply, face souring.

He looks baffled. “What thing?”

“Your thing. The one where you act all cynical.”

“I’m not cynical.” He crosses his arms.

“Great, you’re even cynical about being cynical.”

Inside is, of course, as warm as ever. The walls are vibrant red, in stark contrast with the exterior and you think you see Renjun’s face grow pinkish. You smile at the man behind the counter, in his late fifties and smile still somehow as bright as yours.

“What’s the problem, dear?” he asks, glancing at your laptop. “You know I can’t help with software issues.”

“I know,” you say, “But I’ve tried every guide on the internet and there’s still unnecessary noise.”

He clicks around your screen for a few seconds.

“Have you tried getting a better mic?”

“Uh.”

Renjun snickers beside you before promptly apologizing at the two pairs of eyes on him. You didn’t bring him here just to embarrass yourself in front of him. Your cheeks flush as you tell the man you’ll come another day with your mic, before heading to the supplements aisle. Renjun follows you quietly, silent laughter yet still etched over his face and he looks away when you glare at him.

“Are you sure you wanna buy the wooden drumsticks?” Renjun asks, picking up the carbon fibre ones instead.

“Jeno loves the wooden ones,” you defend. “And you really think those are within my budget?”

Renjun shrugs, keeping them back in place.

“Feels like I’m shopping for babies,” he mutters.

There’s a second’s pause before he straightens, a particular discomfort in his being. “Not- Not like my babies or something. I- I meant—”

“I know what you meant,” you say, trying very hard to hold in your laughter.

“I don’t like that face you’re making.”

“You don’t always have to explain yourself,” you smile before heading to the counter.

The scent of rain makes you nostalgic. You step outside with Renjun and into the sound of rain against pavement. It’s wet and damp, and your hair clings to your skin in that horrific discomfort of humidity, truly one of the worst cruelties of rain. You make a face but an idea strikes you smack across the forehead.

You gasp.

“This can be our stage!” you declare, spreading your arms.

Renjun pulls your arms down. “Don’t block the sidewalk!”

“Sorry.”

You shove your bag onto Renjun, bewildering him even further. The sleeves of the jacket he rolled up, fall into place again as he raises an eyebrow at you.

“This,” you say, waving your arms about, “Should be a stage.”

“Huh?”

Renjun looks unconvinced at your flailing and you sigh.

“The rain!” you say, trying to sound as enthusiastic as you can. “Isn’t it romantic? You’ve never thought what it would be like playing in the rain?”

“Uh, inconvenient?”

You groan. “Come on! Picture it for a second.”

You give it a moment before showing him what you mean. Renjun bursts into laughter at your air guitar performance, suddenly unaware of the pit-a-pat.

“It would be nice,” he says, his teeth poking against his lips. He places the bags under the shaded entrance of the store before stepping into the drizzle.

Pitter, patter.

Renjun flashes you a goofy smile, shaking the water out of his hair only for the rain to come in stronger. With raindrops caught on eyelashes, you can only think of the soft, rising melodies that come in movie scenes like these, except it’s a lot more uncomfortable than they show it to be. You smoothen your hair, getting slightly frizzy due to the raindrops. You’ve always wanted to do things out of line and out of regularity and it’s not just because of the price sticker spelling ‘youth’ that clings to your back—but now, is it selfish to just want to stay under the rain?

In a way it feels just the same as ever; like singing barefoot on an asphalt road, cooling rains and people around, without a care each. You tell Renjun about the time you were stranded by the bus stop under heavy downpour for so long, you decided to walk home with pneumonia a step behind you and he tells you that you’re an idiot. It’s nothing unusual but it makes you smile when he laughs at you.

The rain slows again before you can start to shiver, chest rising and falling with each breath that fills your lungs.

“I have a song!” you declare, eyes shining. “A love song. We’ve never done a love song.”

“A love song?” Renjun asks, laughing almost. “You want to write a radio love song? Why?”

“Because, Huang Renjun, there’s not a thing in the world that isn’t made for love.”

Renjun pauses before wrinkling his nose. “Don’t preach me.”

The clap of thunder startles the two of you out of calm. It’s not so much the screams that left your mouths simultaneously as the looks you get from passersby. Renjun looks at you the same time as you look at him, his ears red and eyes nervous.

“Lightning doesn’t- Lightning doesn’t strike in the middle of the city, does it?” Renjun asks, eyebrows furrowed and lips parted, like a hare stranded in the middle of a busy road.

“I don’t know!” You respond, pulling him by the sleeve to the nearest cover. “I don’t want to know.”

Renjun grabs your hand and you realize with a thump in your heart the effect of it. He pulls you to the side, saving your jeans from the fate of getting splashed by muddy water courtesy of an oncoming car.

“Ooh, quick reflex,” you say, despite the clanging of cymbals inside your ribcage.

He shrugs, picking up the bags and shoving yours to your chest.

“Ow?”

“Don’t look at me like that. You know why.”

“You know, you’re not as grumpy as I thought you were. You’re still petty, though.”

“Thanks.”

When you’re back to the bandroom, you find Donghyuck snoring on the couch with an even more worn out Jaemin sitting cross legged on the floor and his head against Donghyuck's knee. Jeno looks like he’s in a world of his own, tapping away at his phone in a game he seems to be losing at.

“Why are you guys wet?” Jaemin asks, cracking an eye open. “Had some life-changing experience?”

“Not really.” You shrug. “Why do you guys look dead?”

“I am dead,” Donghyuck mumbles in his sleep to which Jaemin shakes his head.

“He didn’t even do the entire cleaning…”

You hope the skip in your steps isn’t too obvious. You have a song and this time, it feels pure in a way that you haven’t made before.

“I hope you guys came up with a beat,” you call.

“Uh, about that—”

“I have a new song!” you announce bouncing on the balls of your feet.

Your declaration is met with a bunch of smiles. Soon enough, everyone in the room is up and to their positions in a matter of minutes.

Music isn’t about being eye-catching, considering the eyes have nothing to do with it anyway. You signal Renjun who in turn, clears his throat.

A strum of guitar string. Four notes on the keys. Bass. A beat on the drums.

“One. Two. Ah, one, two, three, four!”

The cafeteria is jam packed at three a.m so it’s a good thing you brought Renjun here an hour early. So, your top secret, full resistance, avant-garde mission? Your new song and the one for Renjun, of course.

“So this is top secret,” you whisper when he sits down from across you.

“I’m sure it is,” he snickers.

You pass your notebook to him, scribbles neater than usual. (That’s only because you rewrote the song in a new page.) You start your laptop, waiting for the screen to load as Renjun goes over the lines.

“My dreams and I don’t get along,” Renjun reads aloud before furrowing his brows.

Ah, I hate people.

I hate my friends too.

And I love saying that which isn’t true.

“Oh, very funny, (name),” Renjun scorns, crossing his arms. “Is that what you think of me?”

You chuckle to yourself. Maybe it was a little petty, but you love the look on Renjun’s face when he’s annoyed, nerves a second away from being completely fried. Just for fun. This was just for fun.

Somewhere along, however, you can’t deny the essence of him you’d so hopelessly wanted to capture in the melody, in rhythm and timbre, orchestral almost. It’s each note of the piano he plays to himself late at night in the bandroom, each featherlight hit on the cymbal and the song you hum to yourself on the bus ride to classes every morning.

It’s a love song.

You break into a sudden coughing fit at the thought, Renjun flinching before offering you his bottle of water. Somehow, the gentle hand on your back trying to ease you gives you yet another reason to support your unwanted epiphany. That’s just ridiculous. It’s something natural between friends, isn’t it? Yet, you’d gag at the idea of writing Donghyuck into a song.

You calm down and meet Renjun’s eyes, the glint of something familiar making you pause.

“Water?” he offers, and you straighten.

“I had the stupidest thought,” you say, trying to laugh it off.

You can’t do it. You can’t make light of it with him.

“When do you not?” he says, a soft smile on his face.

You smile awkwardly in response, avoiding his eyes as you rub circles on the soft flesh between your thumb and forefinger.

It’s quiet, much more than not, distant buzzing of the 3 a.m. university cafeteria crowds drifting through the space between you and him.

“Do you ever- Do you ever think about doing it?” Renjun asks.

You blink before feeling warmth on your cheeks.

“Doing what, Renjun? That’s a little too private to ask. I mean, I could answer, of c—”

It doesn’t take long for him to burn bright vermillion at the cheeks.

“I- I didn’t say that,” he defends, stuttering over the words. “I was talking about making music. Do you ever think about it or do you just do it?”

“Oh,” you respond intelligently, the embarrassment making you flush harder. Funny, you used to laugh the loudest at these sorts of mistakes. “I don’t- I don’t know. I think about it after I’ve… made it?”

You scratch the back of your head awkwardly.

“You… do like it, don’t you?” he asks, something akin to worry in his eyes.

You hum, smiling. “Of course I like it, Renjun.”

No. The truth is, you don’t even know how it makes you feel. The truth is, you do feel sick listening to your own song over and over again. Have you run far enough? Do you have to be running for this?

You seem scared. Is that what he wanted to tell you? You can’t be that easy to see through, you resist. When he held your hand earlier, could he feel it shake?

You’re so afraid that all of this is for naught that you can’t feel it anymore. You hardly make music for yourself, for no one else to hear. Is that what you wanted? When you wrote Not Feeling Spring, were you searching for something you desperately wanted or something you lost? You’re only twenty and you’re aging.

You snap yourself out of the whirlpool of questions to a drowsy Renjun playing with the bracelet around his wrist, lost in his own circle of thoughts.

“I wanted to give up on this,” he whispers suddenly. “I wanted to give up on music.”

You hold your breath till he looks at you, a strange sense of vulnerability that makes you want to reach over the table and share some of the warmth your palm offers.

You’ve already drawn the conclusion.

“You’re not alone,” you say, leaning in with the widest grin.

Renjun rolls his eyes. “Are you saying that to comfort me? It barely has any effect. Thanks, th—”

You shake your head, standing up abruptly and scrambling onto the tabletop. It’s the perfect time to be a little ridiculous. Renjun looks around, alarmed, tugging at you to get down which, unfortunately, draws even more attention.

“Raise your hand if you’ve ever wanted to give up on music!”

There’s a moment of pause before laughter erupts, followed by a few cheers and almost as many raised hands as you’d expected. Some of them tell you to get back to your date, or focus on completing overdue assignments—friends and friends of friends. They are music students, after all.

Renjun looks around the place, rosy hued in the face, though he isn’t as angry as you thought he’d be.

“I almost never started,” you say, giggling as you resume in your seat. “Giving up came so much later.”

Renjun laughs. You don’t even have to make music out of it.

“I tried to give up the piano,” he admits, still flushed. “But I couldn’t break the habit of playing against my desk. Even then.”

You smile, resting your chin against your palm. “That sounds just like you. Now tell me, when did you discover flumpool?”

Renjun frowns and you feel an uncharacteristic thump in your chest. You want to draw your finger against his cheeks and the space between his brows, against the strained lines—the thought of it much more scandalous than the action itself.

“I didn’t- My parents didn’t- ugh.” He hesitates. “Look, everyone hated my style of music. My parents, the neighbours, their dogs.

Your eyes soften as you sit up. “I’m sure they didn’t hate it—”

“No, trust me on this one.”

Suddenly the honey tint of his voice is dripping a dangerously low baritone. It doesn’t sound like him and it sends a shiver down your spine, a certain coldness you never thought would seep into you. It is the loneliness of curbed dreams, after all.

“I thought I should’ve given up on music altogether. Became, what, a doctor? A lawyer?” Renjun sighs. “Whatever I do, it shouldn’t be music, right?”

He heaves a sigh in sync with you. There’s a passing moment in between where you can clearly see the apple of his eye, shining a daunting amber and a warmth you can only feel over coffee tables in university cafeterias at midnight.

“But you’re here now because this is the closest you can be to music?” you offer, your smile sheepish.

Renjun laughs, your eyebrows furrowing as he tries to stop. “No. No, classical music was the last option on their list—but it was on the list.”

You smile, although it is small and gentle. And—unlike anything you’ve felt since you jumped onto the adulthood train.

“They like it now, though,” he beams, shoulders relaxing as if rid of a burden.“I mean- They said- They said they’re proud of me.”

When someone decides to confide their happiness to you, it is just as precious.

You look up, eyes bright as you finally get to ruffle his hair. “Well, I’m proud of you too!”

Renjun coughs indiscreetly, shaking his head before facing you. “Th-Thanks. It’s… good to hear.”

“Say it back,” you demand, making Renjun laugh.

“I’m… proud of you,” he says with rose-tinted cheeks.

The midnight chatter grows louder when the two of you pause. A symphony of voices through the area, higher pitches and lower, baritones and trebles. You wonder what people talk about most when you are quiet. You have friends—it’s not like you’re alone, per se. But everyone seems to be running, away from something or towards something. Your bones feel heavy for a second as you stir the coffee. Is it selfish to just want to get to know someone? Neither of you moving a muscle, with laughter that isn’t carried away by the wind.

“I didn’t think I’d be good at anything apart from classical,” he says, reluctance in his mouth. “Sorry about all that ruckus I caused when you asked me to join.”

You raise an eyebrow, nose wrinkling at the apology. “Renjun. It sucks when you apologize.”

He groans. “You’re really annoying, you know that? I was being nice.”

“I know,” you say, grinning. “It was all forgiven a long time ago. Can’t believe you had to say it out loud.”

“Oh, pardon me,” he says, voice rising. “I was taking into consideration your below average understanding of social cues.”

“You’re going to get smacked.”

That night, when you leave Renjun at the intersection to your respective dorms, you have yet another unwanted epiphany. He waves you goodbye with a smile, pale blue T-shirt hanging loose on his shoulders and you wave back as ardently as you can against your prominent heartbeat. Huang Renjun has the kindest eyes you’ve ever seen.

Some days, you take the bus together to and from classes. It’s not like the dorms are far but walks are considerably less fun when you’ve barely rubbed the sleep dust out of your eyes and class started ten minutes ago. Besides, you’re not letting the student bus pass go to waste.

Rattle. Rattle. Woosh.

You yawn and it quickly spreads to Renjun beside you. Classes are over and there’s no practice today. You can hear a popular song play through his earphones and tilt your head to look at him, a suppressed smile on your face. Renjun does a double take when he notices you, a little flustered as he quietly offers the other earbud and you put it on with a short word of thanks.

It is a track by one of Seoul’s favourite bands and you’re not going to lie, say you haven’t fallen prey to its charms. A catchy baseline, engaging drums and attractive vocals—you stop yourself. When was the last time you enjoyed a song without deconstructing it piece by piece? You sigh and Renjun shifts beside you, though no words part from his lips.

Absentmindedly, you find your head drawing nearer to his till they bump once and you startle away, only to laugh at each other. Is this another useless epiphany of yours? That Renjun has a lovely laugh—these are getting out of hand.

You look out the window instead, skyscrapers shiny and metallic as always and with little to offer. Unwittingly, a pout climbs onto your face at the prospect of feelings bubbling up right when you’re setting Renjun up on a date. He doesn’t know, of course. It’s meant to be a surprise and somehow, the little voice in your head won’t stop yelling at maximum volume inside your head about how wrong this is. Is it selfish? To an extent—nothing ever is purely selfless and you haven’t lived long enough to question. So why are you even bothering with this whole surprise?

Because you don’t want to think about the feelings. As if they’re things to be thought about. As if you can throw them away into the trash bin like a crumpled piece of paper.

An elderly couple boards the bus, sharing a large shopping bag as they take slow, careful steps over the aisle. Renjun responds almost at the same time you do, getting up so quickly Renjun has to hold on to the strap so as to not trip over you. The couple thanks you and you nod politely, trying not to bring attention to the earphones tangled around your necks.

You take a step closer in an attempt to separate the wires but it only makes you lose balance, Renjun clutching the cloth at your back so you don’t faceplant right into him. The other hand hangs overhead on the strap, grasping so tight his skin has turned red.

He glances at the old couple once, blood rushing to his cheeks at something and he turns his focus back to you.

“The- The wires- We should—”

Young love isn’t what this is. How silly. There’s enough of that all around.

“That’s what I was trying,” you interrupt. “Wait.”

You use your hands to pull the bud from your ear, trying to figure out how the loop even coiled this way. Renjun’s hand pushes against your waist at the sudden jerk, your soul almost leaving your body at the unexpected feeling of falling down. You breathe out, cheeks getting warmer. This isn’t quite uncomfortable, though.

When you look up to meet Renjun’s eyes, you feel something faint, a hint of something you can’t quite put your finger on.

“There,” you say, the wires all out of their miserable twining.

Renjun barely nods, the music still blasting loud and clear through the buds. His hand still holds the strap for balance, and the other still holds you, for reasons private.

There’s a warm flush over his face when he mumbles about crowded buses and the afternoon heat, eyes averted to every corner but you.

You laugh. Renjun is adorable when he least expects to be. And when you least expect him to be, he’s even terribly attractive. You swear by the way he’s looking at you, if you leaned in a little further, he’d let you kiss him.

Wait, what?

You sober up quickly, in a moment of clarity you do not wish to have. You’ve never felt the weight of the feelings this intense. Yours isn’t the name he should be calling out so affectionately. Her. Anyone else. You were so sure of it. Huang Renjun’s fleeting interest in romance doesn’t involve you—cannot involve you.

That’s why you’re doing him (and yourself) a favour. Besides, you promised it anyway, didn’t you?

You gulp.

When did you start explaining yourself for everything you do?

Step, screech, step.

“Where the fuck are you even taking me?” Renjun complains from behind you, light on his foot. “You said it’s not too far away.”

“It’s a surprise!” You stop walking to cross your arms.

“I hate it when you say that.”

How would he react? You think he’ll get a little angry, maybe scowl at you or even yell a little. You haven’t been able to look him in the eye longer than two seconds for about a week now.

“Ta-da!”

You stretch your arms to point towards the new cafe in town. Renjun looks at you and then the cafe and back again.

“You’re taking me on a coffee date?”

You choke on air, coughing before you can clear your throat and clarify.

“Not- Not me. Remember I promised you a date with—”

“No.”

“Yes! Wait, is that disbelieving no or are you saying you’re not going to go?”

Renjun closes his eyes and sighs, as if dealing with a toddler. “I’m not going. Why didn’t you say anything? I’m not prepared or anything!”

Something takes a tumble and falls inside your chest. You smile at him nevertheless.

“Don’t be shy now. She’s waiting, come on.”

Renjun shifts his weight from foot to foot, but it seems equally uncomfortable on each. He peers intently at you, looking up and down your face before pressing his lips together.

“Have fun,” you wish.

You push Renjun towards the door and he hesitates, some part of you expecting a little more resistance. He shrugs, although he seems to be holding back a smile. This isn’t the time, you tell yourself.

You turn on your heel before you lose your final excuse to be able to say that you are not completely enamored with Huang Renjun.

The afternoon would be more peaceful if it weren’t for Donghyuck and Renjun yelling at each other. This time, you’re not to blame.

“That’s not how you tie a bow tie!” Donghyuck complains, though Renjun won’t let him anywhere near.

“I know you’re trying to get back at me for drawing on your face last Saturday,” Renjun yells back. “But this is the pre-annual concert. You’re not fucking anything up.”

Donghyuck grumbles before settling down. Four music performance majors and yet none of them know how to do a bow tie—if it weren’t for you, Renjun might have ended up with his usual askew one. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking, and you’d just rather not look at him too long anyway.

Formal white shirt, a much debated black bow tie and polished black dress shoes on Renjun aren’t strange to look at—in fact, they quite suit him when, despite its striking colour, his hair is parted neatly to the side. But they’re all so out of place in the bandroom, monochrome against messes, that you start to wonder if you simply think too much about him. That all of his colours and melodies are just there for you to notice.

It’s not true, of course.

But when did you become a cynic?

“I’m going out,” Donghyuck says, huffing, “Why are they taking so long to buy ramen?”

Oh no. No, no, no. You try to mask your panic. Is one person enough to check up on Jaemin and Jeno? Would it be weird if you left too? Before you can answer those questions, you and Renjun are the only ones left in the room. You stand awkwardly by the couch, Renjun a few feet away, smoothing out the creases on his shirt.

You clear your throat, bringing his attention to you.

Nice going.

“So how was your date?”

You had to ask that, didn’t you?

The voice in your head has never been so loud before. When your question goes unanswered, you look up from the highly interesting floorboards to Renjun trying very hard to fight a snort.

“We talked about the recitals, extra lessons. Joked about you being an idiot.”

You furrow your eyebrows. “What?”

“Chaerim’s not interested in guys.” Renjun laughs. “I thought you knew!”

There’s a pause.

“Wait, you were serious about setting me up with her?”

You stare a little too intensely at the space between your feet. Why would you choose now of all times to be coy? You keep yourself from swearing out loud.

“I- I didn’t know, okay?”

You feel the heat over your cheeks, the sound of everything other than your own heartbeat drowning out. A few more seconds pass and you worry more.

“Don’t set me up on dates,” Renjun says, a sigh leaving his lips. “It’ll never work out.”

“What? Why?”

Renjun falters only to cover it up. “I- I… Why do you keep avoiding me?”

You can’t answer that.

“Setting me up on a date, never looking at me when you talk to me—are you going by the book or something?”

You hold your breath. He’s not misunderstanding and it only makes matters worse.

“All that because you don’t want to be in love with me?”

“Renjun, that’s not—”

“So what is it?”

You look up from your restless fingers and regret it almost immediately. The way Renjun looks at you, it damn near breaks your heart. His nose is a pale shade of red, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down with undecided words.

“Am I- Am I dreaming everything up? Just tell me you don’t like me. I thought I made myself obvious.”

You can feel your pulse against your eardrums, ready to burst open any second.

“Renjun. It’s not about this,” you say, voice strangely low. “It’s about music—It’s always about music. I can’t risk anything.”

“Risk? What risk? You’re afraid you’re going to stop making music when you’re with me?”

“No—”

“You just want your songs on the Billboard charts?

“And what if I do? I just want to be heard—”

You can barely breathe at the lack of distance between the two of you. Renjun looks straight into your eyes and you remember why your heart has been hammering in the first place.

“So it isn’t about music.”

You fall silent. It’s not wrong to want to succeed. But it’s never been about that. You were preparing yourself for a race while you repeated your love for it that was never there. Music is not a race and so, it is not the race you love.

“I didn’t want to be rich or famous,” Renjun says, voice lower than usual. “I don’t want to be rich or famous.”

But a musician does not want to be forgotten, does he?

For once, Renjun is fearless and you are not.

“There are worse things,” Renjun says, breath against your cheek and a rapid pulsing in your wrists. You look from his eyes to lips before breathing out slowly, eyelids growing heavy despite yourself.

The sudden bang makes the two of you jump away from each other.

Donghyuck kicks the door open, hands occupied with steaming instant ramen cups and Jeno walks in with the sprite.

“Jaemin’s paying and we forgot our wallets,” Jeno offers an explanation when you raise an eyebrow.

You clear your throat awkwardly as the two scrutinize you with eyes you’re not yet ready to meet. You know you’ll never hear the end of this and better yet, you can pretend it never happened.

“Aren’t you supposed to get going?” Jeno asks, struggling to balance this month’s entire supply of ramen while Donghyuck holds the top of the pile.

Renjun responds with a soft ‘yeah’, eyes glancing at you once before he grabs his coat.

“I’ll see you for practice then.”

With that, the sounds inside your chest draw to a deafening close.

You’d think Doyoung would perform with his own band at his brother’s wedding.

(“I don’t want to work on the day my brother gets married.”

“I thought you work as a bartender?”

“Oh, dear.”)

You’re not complaining, of course. The longer you spend in the bandroom, the more suffocated you feel. You can’t meet Renjun’s eyes and neither can he meet yours. You rejected him, for fuck’s sake. It cannot get any more awkward than that. Any distraction will do.

This might be the first time you’ve been to a wedding on a Thursday night. At the very least, you’re happy about it being an outdoor wedding, the cool night air refreshing you the moment you step into the garden. It’s fairly large and you know Doyoung’s brother is an actor, but it never really struck you how wealthy that meant.

“There’s a chocolate fountain?!” Donghyuck gasps, walking towards it before Jaemin grabs him by the collar.

“Stage. We’re being called.”

Donghyuck massages his neck before he decides to give everyone an unnecessary pep talk.

“Look, Renjun, you better sing like that’s your ex, who you’re still in love with, getting married,” Donghyuck turns to advise a deadpanning Renjun.

“I- what? You should do that yourself.”

You smile at them encouragingly, smacking Donghyuck a little too hard on the back (you need payback for him “borrowing” your lunch on Monday) and stand at the sidelines. Donghyuck’s guitar seems to be the brightest thing in the venue, followed by Renjun’s hair. Unfortunately for Jeno, they couldn’t get the whole drum set in and the puppy dog look on his face when he sees the box-shaped cajón might have affected you some other day.

They perform as usual, if not more enthusiastic to be in front of a crowd that isn’t drunk or worn out or both. The love songs you wrote came to be useful, after all. The muse of them, however, stands out even now.

This time, your heart skips a beat to meet Renjun’s eyes. And he doesn’t take them off you the entire performance.

The soft vibrato of his voice doesn’t fade easy, the crowd clapping along to the song with encouraging laughter. You move to the drinks table—it’s a good thing the wedding has a no kids rule because there’s alcohol you haven’t heard of at the bar table. Or maybe it isn’t a good thing. You’d love to see the look on Doyoung’s face when some rebellious twelve year-old chugs a shot of vodka. The thought makes you giggle.

You keep your word, even if you were drunk when you’d said it. You didn’t drink at any of the gigs, mostly because Doyoung wouldn’t offer anything for free, but a deal’s a deal. This doesn’t count, does it?

You take the shot after a few moments of contemplation. You’d ordered it on impulse and whatever dare of whim you have left in you.

Unbeknownst to you, the songs had stopped about five minutes ago, enough time for Renjun and the rest to appear at your side.

“Doyoung never said there’d be alcohol,” Donghyuck says, not trying very hard to hide the sparkles in his eyes.

Renjun doesn’t say a word, not even at the obvious flush over your cheeks from the drinks.

“I need to go to the washroom,” you say, wobbling as you stand.

“Woah, (name),” Jaemin says, steadying you. “Take someone with you.”

“I’ll go.”

You avoid Renjun’s eyes, even now. Looks like shame isn’t as easy to wash away as it seems.

You can’t hear anything apart from your pulse, a rather disarming thing to have to listen to when it’s for long enough. You walk wordlessly to the building, locating the washroom after a few twists and turns and Renjun waits patiently for you outside.

It’s always bizarre to see yourself in the mirror of a public washroom, especially with alcohol in your system and a flush over your cheeks that you think makes you look cute. You rinse your face and dry it before you exit.

Renjun leans back against the wall, eyes glazed over in thoughts he spills only occasionally. He looks gentle in the fairly lit hallway, under lemon-coloured lights.

“Renjun,” you call absentmindedly.

He straightens immediately and for the first time in a while, you stare at each other for longer than four seconds.

“I don’t want you to feel awkward around me,” you begin. “I didn’t- I didn’t mean—”

“Cut it out.”

You feel a drop in your heart at the harshness in his tone. Even so, you don’t feel any less drawn to him.

“Don’t be like that,” you say, voice nearing a whine. “You know I’m not any good at this. I… I have so much work to do.”

“Are you so insecure that you can't trust yourself?” he hisses, and somehow the truth of it doesn’t lessen the euphoria of proximity with him.

“You have pretty eyes, Renjun,” you say, but his eyes are not what you’re looking at.

Renjun looks down, sighing out heavily. “Stop this, (name). Don’t play.”

You smile. “This isn’t a drama, you know?”

It really isn’t, but the touch you're craving has been collecting, drip drip drip, and now it’s ready to boil over in a climax befitting any stupid drama. There should be a soundtrack to go with it, right? Renjun’s face so near to yours, lips full and pink, and heartbeat erratic under dim lights. Temptation has never been a sin to you. Then, what are you afraid of?

For a moment, Arctic Monkey’s Snap Out of It loops in your head.

“Can I kiss you?” you ask, the last shred of your senses fallen apart.

He falls silent, at a loss for words you don’t want to hear.

You can’t blame the alcohol. It’s not that you wouldn’t do this sober—it’s that you would definitely do this sober, and all would be ruined just like that. So now, while you’re under the thinly veiled excuse of being drunk, you might as well say it.

“I want to kiss you,” you repeat, bolder.

Oh, sudden proximity can make you aware of so many things. For instance, Renjun has changed his cologne, less minty and more citrus. You aren’t even looking at him when you lean closer, pressing your lips softly and yet carelessly against his. You feel returned pressure and for a moment, the wash of numbness.

Renjun pulls you away by the shoulder, eyes wide in panic.

“I- I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Why are you apologizing? God, I hate you. I could listen to you speaking forever.”

You bury your face in Renjun’s neck and breathe in. He gives in almost too soon, a hand gently resting against the back of your head while his arm wraps around your waist.

“Let’s get you home,” he whispers.

You feel him shift, the rhythm of his pulse loud in his jugular, and somehow it makes you breathe a sigh of relief. The night fades little by little into the chatter of crowds, to the the hum of a car engine and finally, to the inevitable quiet of your own bedroom.

It’s a Friday. They’re supposed to be nice.

Of course, it would be were it not for a list of things. One: your fading hangover. Two: the vague regret of a drunk kiss. Three: your friends you can’t tell a word to. You might just die of shame before the autumnal existential dread settles in.

“Do you guys have any idea whose number this is?” Donghyuck asks, holding the handkerchief open for the rest of you to see. “I don’t want to be accidentally related to Doyoung hyung.”

The night is bleeding into the evening outside as Jaemin stands up to flip the light switches. You stay curled up at one side of the couch, Renjun by the keys as he tries to figure out a tune and a state of calm that would be perfect if you weren’t falling apart inside. The bandroom always made you feel at ease, but it doesn't seem to be working its charm now.

“You drink too much,” Jaemin states. “You would’ve remembered if you didn’t have an entire bottle of soju.”

“I wasn’t the only one,” he defends, sending you a pointed look. You roll your eyes. Donghyuck never did learn to take the blame.

“Didn’t Renjun and (name) leave early?” Jeno asks innocently. “What were you guys doing for so long by the washroom?”

Renjun presses on several of the keys at a force too hard, the haphazard symphony bringing everyone’s attention to him.

He awkwardly clears his throat. “Home—the dorms, er. We went back. Taeil hyung drove us.”

You don’t know about the atmosphere, but you could definitely cut something with a knife right now. Your eyes shift from person to person, nothing unusual about them except for the two of you.

“Does anyone want to come get ramen? I’m hungry,” Jaemin suggests quietly.

Jeno shrugs, getting up.

“I just had a cup of ramen,” Donghyuck begins before breaking into a smile. “Too much ramen can never hurt.”

“I’ll pass,” you say, ready to fall asleep any moment, if it somehow alleviates the messy scribbles in your head.

“Me too,” Renjun says, back to playing out the tunes softly.

Your fingers tap against the armrest of the couch, occasionally scratching it out of boredom. The atmosphere is still just as thick but you can't say much about it hanging there.

“You’re not sleeping,” Renjun says suddenly, more of a statement than a question. “You look tired.”

“Yeah.” It’s all you can manage.

“Is your hangover gone?”

You cough when you try to answer, getting more nervous with each passing moment.

Renjun slowly walks towards the coffee table, picking up the bottle of water to offer it to you. You utter a short ‘thanks’ and before he can get back, you tug at his sleeve. Your breathing is sharp but you don’t react much when he sits beside you, legs outstretched in front of him.

“Your roots are showing,” you note, hand involuntarily reaching out before you stop yourself.

Renjun sighs. “What’s wrong? You don’t- You don’t have to—”

He clears his throat.

“—You don’t have to pretend around me.”

There’s a rustle of cloth as he shifts to turn to you, eyes concerned when they look over.

“I’m just...sad,” you admit, the feeling weighing down when you do. “What, you never have days like these?”

Everyone does, don’t they? The truth is, sometimes you get a little sick listening to your songs. If you don’t hate it at least once, is it worth it at all?

The monthly breakdowns have taken a hard turn now that you don’t have much to do. No exams, no more weekly gigs due to Odd Fruit’s renovation and most importantly, hardly any inspiration. You don’t know how to do things unless you’re on the run. It’s so stupid.

You speak of dreams and yet, yours feel void.

“I do. A lot, some weeks.”

Renjun hesitates. You know he’s dying to talk about last night, he’s never been the sort to let feelings rot inside his stomach. But how do you tell him that despite knowing life’s full of ups and downs, no one’s bothered to explain to you which is which? You’ve never lived life with clarity.

Sometimes life hands you tangerines instead of lemons. Sometimes they’re still as sour.

You look back at Renjun, heart churning with feelings you don’t understand. From wide eyes to his full lips, there’s a way you can’t help but stare. It wasn’t the alcohol—you still want to kiss him. Maybe you should start with an apology, maybe those are meant to be said out loud sometimes.

“I’m sorry I… I ‘m sorry I kissed you,” you say, finally. “Without warning.”

You wonder how you turned into this. Head over heels for something that might not even be real.

“I’m not mad,” he mumbles, “Just don’t go around kissing strangers.”

You let out a short laugh, rubbing your arm. It’s not like you to explain yourself but for him, you’d spill every single thought that crosses your head. Does he know that? You’d never let him but now—you can’t say you mind.

Quiet.

“I- I may not always know what I’m doing, Renjun,” you start. “I want things and I don’t know how to get them. Sometimes I don’t even know what I truly want.”

There’s a short pause when Renjun draws nearer.

“You want to make music,” he says with certainty, gaze trailing over your eyes, then nose, then lips. “You want to have fun…”

Your heartbeat quickens despite everything.

“...And right now, you want to kiss me.”

It’s partly the confidence, and partly the fact that his lips are less than three inches from yours, that you close the gap without hesitation.

It’s different—of course, it’s different this time. There’s no goddamn alcohol and the amount of clarity you can taste with your mouths pressed together is more than you’ve ever had. All the sounds in the world fall silent, replaced by the rhythm of your lips moving against his. Renjun’s hair is soft and he hums when you run your fingers through them, not song enough but still full of melody.

You pull apart after a few minutes, breathing heavily before you push your lips against him again, rising to keep your leg on either side of him. For a moment, there’s a sinking feeling and then a soaring one, and it evens out to the mellow drumming of your heart against your chest as Renjun holds your waist with the same delicate desire as ever.

The second time you pull apart, Renjun breaks into the widest smile you’ve ever seen on him. You can’t help but reciprocate, burying your head against his shoulder.

“I think you should get off me.”

You pull back, frowning severely.

“Oh, that’s very romantic,” you huff, eyebrows furrowed as you move to sit beside him, crossing your arms.

“Hey.”

You look at him and he takes your hand in his, thumb rubbing over the back. Somehow, the gesture calms a part of you down, a part that hasn’t been calm for a very long time. You smile without realizing, leaning in for another kiss when the door slams open.

You yelp, clutching Renjun’s hand harder with just about the same force he does.

“Jeno.”

You turn around to see Jaemin glaring at Jeno on his knee, Donghyuck fallen over his leg and both of their faces scrunched in pain. Jaemin shoots the two of you an embarrassed smile, scratching the back of his head.

“Did you guys know this room isn’t all that soundproof? I can’t believe the neighbours didn’t complain.”

The tip of Renjun’s ears flare red, and he points an accusing finger at the three of them.

“You were spying on us!”

Jaemin clears his throat but Donghyuck snorts before he can say anything.

“You’re still holding hands, lover boy.”

The statement flusters Renjun further but he doesn’t let go.

“Look, did the two of you think we’re stupid?” Donghyuck continues. “God, we thought your pining romance would, like, break up our band or something.”

You flush deeper, averting your eyes.

“You cry at romantic comedies,” Renjun provokes.

Donghyuck stutters something incomprehensive before crossing his arms indignantly.

“We’re glad you’re dating now!” Jaemin butts in. “Ah, I can’t wait for all the love songs. The two of you do great on those!”

Renjun turns a brighter shade of red. You’re not going to be the one to tell Jaemin that he’s not helping at all but you sigh instead, resting your forehead against Renjun’s shoulder.

“Ugh,” Donghyuck makes a gagging sound. “Does this mean you’re going to be all heart eyes in here? Right in front of my innocent eyes?”

He shuts up when he receives four glares all at once, the air turning dry.

“I’m guessing you guys didn’t buy any ramen,” Renjun says, sighing.

“Shall we go?” you ask, looking at him.

He nods, smiling at you.

“You guys don’t mind us crashing your date, do you?” Jaemin says, wrapping an arm each around the two of you.

“I’m not complaining.” You shrug.

“I heard there’s a new flavour. Tastes like crap apparently,” Renjun says.

There’s collective laughter and Renjun beams, walking over to the door with you in tow. Every once in a while, you don’t mind peeling off the layers of a tangerine, especially since winter is near.

You were right, Renjun did change his perfume to something more citrus-y. It’s the little things that build up in simplicity and it’s the little things that give everything flavour, from songs to journeys.

Crackle. Shrrk. Rustle.

“Dream,” you say, the noodles slipping through the chopsticks.

The others look at you quizzically, as if you’d suggested the most ridiculous thing ever.

“That’s the name. Our band!”

Under the convenience store lights, it somehow makes sense—and that’s one of the only moments of clarity you need.

#nct dream scenarios #nct renjun #cznnet #neowritingsnet #renjun x reader #nct dream x reader #nct dream imagines #renjun fluff #nct dream fluff #nct scenarios #nct imagines #nct dream #moonwrites #anyway hope you guys have fun this is way longer than i intended for it to be i am mad #and i know i only recommended songs from idol bands but it's always good to check out the krock scene lol!!#rock band!au #tw:alcohol #so this wont show up on tags heart been broke so many times </3

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years ago

Text

sequel to A Sick Thought (aka the Mo Xuanyu & Wei Wuxi-cat fic)

“Did I do something to make Hanguang-jun not like me?” Mo Xuanyu asked.

Jiang Cheng wasn’t expecting the question, so he reacted as usual – incredulous glare with a side order of ‘who are you to dare talk to me directly?!’ – which to nobody’s surprise was massive overkill for a shrinking violet like Mo Xuanyu, who quailed at once.

“I’m sure he likes you fine,” Jiang Cheng said hastily, trying to make up for it. He hadn’t had much practice at trying to be not scary in years. “What makes you say that?”

He wasn’t really good at making conversation, either, but he was the only one here right now. They’d all been taking shifts to support Mo Xuanyu with spiritual energy per the doctor’s recommendation for treating the mercury poison that was still affecting his mind, and Jiang Cheng usually volunteered to take the late night-early morning shift because Lans simply weren’t properly functional at those hours until their official wake-up time hit.

Also, it was the one time he could generally guarantee Wei Wuxian would be either busy or napping and he wouldn’t have to deal with – any of that.

He knew he’d eventually have to deal with Wei Wuxian, but…not yet.

Right now, he turned to look at Mo Xuanyu, who was lying very still, covered in acupuncture needles to the point that he resembled a pincushion; he had very large eyes that suggested trembling even when he wasn’t, and that irked Jiang Cheng, somehow, when he’d already made an effort not to be scary.

“He doesn’t seem happy when I’m around,” Mo Xuanyu explained.

“That’s not about you,” Jiang Cheng said gruffly. “Hanguang-jun just doesn’t like anyone. You wouldn’t believe it based on his righteous reputation, but he can be a real ass to people.”

Jiang Cheng supposed that the ice-block must like someone, given how often jokes were made about him looking as though his wife had died, but he’d never seen it in person. When they were young, Lan Wangji had already been stern and cold, with occasional bouts of being snappish – especially towards Wei Wuxian. There’d been a few months during the Sunshot Campaign when he’d been a little softer, during the time they were looking for Wei Wuxian together, but he’d gone straight back to asshole right after, sticking his nose into everyone’s business and harassing Wei Wuxian for his demonic cultivation. And once Wei Wuxian had died, he’d gone into seclusion for years on end, only to come back as his current glacial self –

“No, that’s mostly just to you, I think,” Mo Xuanyu said. “He’s very polite to all the juniors, everyone in the Lan sect…even Jin Ling.”

Jiang Cheng really hated that his first thought was at least I’m unique because being the only man Hanguang-jun is consistently rude to was a stupid prize to be happy to win and he knew it. He didn’t even like Hanguang-jun enough to care what the man thought!

“But I really do think it’s something about me in particular. Recently I’ve noticed that he seems to scowl when I’m around –”

“There’s a time when he’s not scowling?”

“…I mean, actually scowl, as opposed to being expressionless?”

Jiang Cheng tilted his head to the side, reviewing instances in which he’d observed the two of them, then nodded. “That might be the case, actually.”

Mo Xuanyu sighed, sounding almost relieved by the confirmation. “I don’t know why! I didn’t think I behaved all that badly when we first met, and I never met him at Koi Tower before –”

Jiang Cheng didn’t like to think of Mo Xuanyu and Koi Tower.

He’d only ever seen Mo Xuanyu distantly, a wallflower even when decked out in Lanling gold, and Jiang Cheng hadn’t been in Lanling for very many visits during the short time Mo Xuanyu had been there – a few years, maybe, half a decade at most, and most of that time Jiang Cheng had been focused on his sect or his nephew to the exclusion of everything else.

Still, his first up-close view had been truly disturbing.

All the more so because Jin Ling clearly hadn’t realize that it was so disturbing, because Jin Ling – his Jin Ling – thought it was somehow normal for what had once been a perfectly ordinary, if shy, man to suddenly become a lunatic, raving with fits and terrified of everyone dressed in yellow…

(He’d have to have words with Jin Guangyao about it, whenever he found the time. Had they done something wrong in raising Jin Ling? And who was it that had so tormented Mo Xuanyu while he was there? Surely Jin Guangyao would know something…)

It was all extremely uncomfortable, and doubly complicated by the fact that Jiang Cheng himself had been driven to the edge of a nervous breakdown when he heard Wei Wuxian’s voice again after all these years. He’d dreamed of his shixiong coming back, back the way he used to be before the war had ruined everything; he’d had nightmares of him coming back, too – not again I don’t want to have to kill him again please no – but somehow the idea that he’d come back as a cat had just been…too much.

They said only the worst sort of people reincarnated as animals.

Later, of course, he learned about the body sacrificing array (he’d nearly been sick at the thought of Wei Wuxian’s familiar gaze looking out at him from Mo Xuanyu’s big trembling eyes, the actual man’s soul gone who-knows-where), and the fact that someone had taught that and only that to Mo Xuanyu, intending on squeezing him dry and then discarding him to use the shell…

It was sickening.

He should have paid more attention.

“- and anyway I can’t figure out what it might be.”

“Well, think over what the instances that you saw him scowling were, and figure out what there was in common,” Jiang Cheng said. Circulating spiritual energy into another person was tiring, but not necessarily mentally stimulating – it wouldn’t be too much to devote some time into the puzzle of the mysteriously scowling Hanguang-jun. “Were you at a particular location?”

“No. Once I was at the dining hall, once walking through the field, a few times in here…”

“Were you doing anything in specific?”

“I don’t think so? I don’t really – do anything.”

That was certainly true. Maybe they should be encouraging Mo Xuanyu to pick up a hobby.

Jiang Cheng thought about it a bit more. “Would you say Hanguang-jun scowls at me?” he asked.

Mo Xuanyu was caught by surprise and failed to hide his smile – it was a surprisingly cute smile, broader and more full-fledged that Jiang Cheng would have expected from such a shy person. It transformed his whole face: his eyes crinkling at the sides, his cheeks dimpling, his nose scrunching up.

Really, surprisingly cute.

Was that what Mo Xuanyu would have been like, if it wasn’t for the poison and the abuse?

“Yes, Sandu Shengshou,” Mo Xuanyu said, his eyes twinkling a little in his amusement. “Hanguang-jun always scowls at you.”

Jiang Cheng felt a stupid little spike of pleasure, which, damnit, he does not care. Stupid prizes were not worth winning – he just had to keep reminding himself of that.

“Well, that’s something, then,” he said, deciding not to think about it. Much like he was not thinking about Wei Wuxian: very purposefully. “That means it’s not you he doesn’t like, because then he’d scowl every time, instead of just sometimes. Is there anyone with you during those times?”

Mo Xuanyu pursed his lips when he thought. “I don’t think so?” he said doubtfully. “It’s usually just me and Wei Wuxian…it couldn’t possibly be Wei Wuxian, though. They like each other.”

“You think so?” Jiang Cheng asked, surprised. “Why?”

“Well, I mean, they’re always together, aren’t they? Unless Wei Wuxian’s with me, Hanguang-jun is always keeping him company – in the library pavilion, in the dining hall, in the cold spring…”

Jiang Cheng was starting to get flashbacks to his teenage days. “Surely you mean that Wei Wuxian is the one keeping Hanguang-jun company?” he said, because that sounded much more likely. “Or, well, pestering him?”

Mo Xuanyu shook his head. “Hanguang-jun brought him a little bit of meat from the town outside,” he said. “He must have gone there especially to get it, since there’s no meat in the dining hall here. And he even let him have a jar of some wine.”

That – did not sound right. Whether from the perspective of what Jiang Cheng knew about Lan Wangji, or about Lan sect rules, or even, well, general guidelines for what was appropriate to feed to a cat.

“You’re sure?”

“Mm. Here, come to the window, I’ll show you.”

Somehow Jiang Cheng found himself on the bed next to Mo Xuanyu, shuffling around carefully so that he could look out the window without being too obvious about it.

Just across the way, Lan Wangji was standing guard at one of the central areas of the Cloud Recesses – judging the time, he would have just finished up the last leg of his patrols, having presumably utilized his considerable willpower to stay awake until this hour. As they watched, a faint wind picked up, ruffling Lan Wangji’s hair and causing the ends of his forehead ribbon to gently flutter.

The picture would have been one of the classic cultivator, lonely but righteous, standing sentinel on behalf of others, except for the fact that Wei Wuxian was crouched right behind him, red ribbon and black tail and all, trying his level best to leap up high enough to catch the ribbon.

Jiang Cheng briefly closed his eyes. “That idiot.”

Mo Xuanyu elbowed him lightly. “Open your eyes, you’ll miss it!”

Jiang Cheng felt absurdly proud over the fact that Mo Xuanyu had apparently gotten over his fright well enough to do as much as that, and opened his eyes.

His eyebrows went up as he watched Lan Wangji – still stone-faced as always, but (and it was perhaps a trick of the light) a little softer than usual – lean down to rub behind Wei Wuxian’s ears, and to pull out a bit of dried fish from his sleeve where he’d clearly been keeping a stash.

He even crouched down to better speak to him, taking in account that Wei Wuxian was, while moderately porcine for a cat, now much smaller than him.

There was a great deal of staring happening.

It took nearly the length of two incense sticks for Jiang Cheng to actually process what he was seeing.

“Hanguang-jun likes…cats?”

“No,” Mo Xuanyu said, his lips twitching. “He likes Wei Wuxian. Isn’t it obvious?”

It was, in fact, a little obvious.

“When you say like –”

Mo Xuanyu reached out his own paw and patted Jiang Cheng’s arm in sympathy. “Trust one cutsleeve to know another,” he said, and then he left his hand on Jiang Cheng’s arm.

“But when did they even start?” Jiang Cheng asked, honestly bemused. “They were always at each other’s throats before! And – and he’s a cat now. Don’t tell me that Hanguang-jun has some sort of – some strange – I’ve heard things about catboys –”

Mo Xuanyu burst out into giggles. “Where did you hear about that?”

“An old acquaintance with bad taste and a penchant for sharing it,” Jiang Cheng said, since obviously Mo Xuanyu wouldn’t know who Nie Huaisang was. “It’s not that, though, is it? They must have – before.”

That would explain Lan Wangji’s decade-long mourning for a dead wife, he supposed. Also his seemingly inexplicable resentment of both the Jin sect and Jiang Cheng personally.

“I think so.”

Jiang Cheng was going to murder Wei Wuxian for not telling him that he’d apparently run off to have a whirlwind romance with Lan Wangji during the time he’d been the Yiling Patriarch – that was the only time when it was possible, since Jiang Cheng had been there all the other times, and he was pretty sure they didn’t get together before that.

If only because Wei Wuxian wouldn’t have been able to resist boasting about it.

In fact, it was a little strange that he hadn’t done so now, cat or no cat – it wasn’t as if everyone didn’t know he was planning to cultivate towards a human form as quickly as possible, so why wouldn’t he –

A horrible thought crossed Jiang Cheng’s mind. “Does Wei Wuxian know? Does he – does he like him back?”

Mo Xuanyu pursed his lips. “You know, I’m not sure?”

“I thought you said cutsleeves could tell.”

“Well, the whole cat thing has been throwing me off a bit.”

Jiang Cheng covered his eyes with a hand. “I don’t think I can deal with this. The cat thing was bad enough…at least it explains your issue.”

Mo Xuanyu, who’d finally removed his hand, blinked. “What?”

“Wei Wuxian is a perpetual headache that exists for the sole purpose of tormenting me,” Jiang Cheng explained because really it was the only logical conclusion at this point. He wished that he loved the man (cat) a little bit less; it would make every bit of it much less agonizingly personal. “But apparently Hanguang-jun like that sort of thing, so whenever Wei Wuxian is spending time with you...”

“…you think he’s been drinking vinegar? About me? Hanguang-jun?”

“Why not? You’re open about the fact that you cut your sleeve, Wei Wuxian is already protective of you, and it’s not as if you’re not cute – it make sense that he’d be worried, especially if he’s been pining all these years.”

Mo Xuanyu had turned pink. “Cute,” he said dazedly, reaching up and pressing his hands to his cheeks as if that would help cool them down. “Uh –”

“Don’t do that,” Jiang Cheng said irritably, reaching up and catching his hands. “You’re covered in needles that you really shouldn’t be moving around – here, lie back down already.”

Mo Xuanyu obediently shuffled back into place, and Jiang Cheng returned to his previous place as well.

“I’ll need to talk to Wei Wuxian about it,” he said mournfully. Even after everything that had happened between them, it was his duty as Wei Wuxian’s only living relative to make sure the idiot wasn’t getting involved in something he shouldn’t. “I don’t want to talk to Wei Wuxian. He doesn’t even like me anymore.”

That was the problem, too.

“Uh, Sandu Shengshou –”

“Just call me Jiang Cheng. Everyone else does.” He was pretty sure he hadn’t even heard his courtesy name without a heavy dose of sarcasm or cringe-inducing toadying at any point in the last five years, and his title was far too formal if the goal was to be less intimidating. “What, do you have an idea on how to make it easier?”

“It’s just a thought.”

It couldn’t be worse than any of Jiang Cheng’s. “I’m listening. What is it?”

“Have you considered…catnip?”

#mdzs #jiang cheng #mo xuanyu #wangxian #lan wangji #wei wuxian #my fic #my fics #jiang cheng is the king of mixed signals and obliviousness #having no idea if someone is trying to flirt with you is the number 1 trait of yunmeng #a sick thought #wei wuxicat

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bosspigeon · 3 years ago

Text

Carabosse et la Fee des Lilas

Prompt: 💋Drag

Pairing: Adam/Male Detective, Bonus Found Family Vibes~

Words: 5,346

Summary: Tina spends some quality time with Arlo and Unit Bravo as they prepare for Wayhaven's first real Pride festival, Tina torments her best friend and his maybe-boyfriend (as is her god-given right), and Arlo has a big think about his favorite role and what that role allowed him to explore~

CW for references to transmisogyny and implications of past trans/homophobia

Sometimes, Tina wonders if Arlo missed his true calling. His hands are surgeon-steady as he pencils delicate patterns onto Felix’s cheeks, outlining with white eyeliner in preparation to fill them in with bold colors and glitter. Tina almost can’t wait for her turn, even though Felix looks like he’s in real, physical pain with the effort of holding as still as possible. She’s no stranger to that struggle herself.

Neither is she a stranger to Arlo’s forceful, if toothless, threats, overcome as she is by fondness when he growls that he's going to draw a mustache on Felix’s face with permanent marker if he doesn’t stop bloody bouncing.

It’s pretty fun to watch from the outside. Sure, when you first sit down when he’s like this—all sharp and snappish and “stop moving or I’ll chuck you out the window”—it’s hard to keep still, but Arlo’s got this sort of quiet intensity to him when he’s focusing on something that’s oddly meditative. He’s just a soothing presence, really. Like a capybara or something. He’s friend-shaped.

Whatever weird magic it is, it’s definitely catching, because Felix looks less like he’s about to burst, like he did when Arlo was putting down the foundation, and more like he’s enjoying the attention. Tina’s not sure how long it’s going to last, seeing as Felix has given her a run for her money in the “manic energy” department, and he’s nowhere near as caffeinated as she is at any given time, but for the time being, he’s (mostly) still and quiet.

There’s music playing, quiet enough that the broody one (she knows his name, but it seems to bug him when she calls him "the broody one," which is funny, so—) only grumbled about it for a few minutes when Arlo turned it on, and even seems to enjoy sitting close enough to Arlo’s stupidly fancy stereo system to, she guesses, feel the rumble of the bass through the floor. Vampires are weird.

Anyway, it’s Arlo’s usual sad goth boy nonsense, but as quiet as it is, and with its intense instrumentals and rumbling vocals, it’s pleasant background noise more than anything.

Nate (the handsome and charming one, because of course all Arlo’s vampire friends are handsome, so she has to differentiate between them somehow) is rifling through Arlo’s bookshelf like it’s his job, and visibly struggling to pick something to read, because Arlo’s sitting room bookshelf (the one she found at a yard sale three hours away and lashed to the top of her sedan with every single bungee cord she could find at the local hardware store because it was coffin-shaped, for god's sake) is where he keeps all his weirdo occult stuff to, quote, “make people who pop by unannounced leave faster.”

And then there’s the big, handsome, stupidly fit blonde Arlo still won’t call his boyfriend, even though they’re so obvious it’s sickening, and she means that with all the love in her heart. He’s sitting in the armchair by the bookshelf, positioned so he can look like he’s reading one of Arlo’s old music magazines and totally isn’t taking advantage of the perfect line of sight of Arlo perched on the end of his coffee table so he’s not too tall to work on Felix, sitting in a chair from the kitchen. Tina sure hopes he doesn’t think he’s subtle, being a super special vampire secret agent and all.

He seems to notice her eyeing him, at least, and keeps his attention pinned firmly on the magazine, though he is definitely not reading a single word. Nate keeps browsing, the Broody One keeps brooding, Arlo keeps working, and Felix starts to hum. Arlo gives him a sharp look, but it doesn’t seem to be moving his face in any major way, so he just rolls his eyes and keeps tracing pretty patterns onto that unfairly smooth, dark skin. Do vampires do skin care? They probably don’t even need to, and that’s probably one of the reasons people like to villainize them. It always comes down to jealousy, doesn’t it?

She sighs, loudly enough that every eye in the room turns to her, and while she did not expect the sudden attention, she knows she can at least use it to entertain herself. She homes in on Adam, and smiles when she finally looks at the magazine he’s still valiantly pretending to read. There’s a familiar man on the cover, and while she can’t be bothered to remember his name, she grins. “Oh, hey! Arlo, he’s reading the one with the guy who looks like you!”

Arlo doesn’t even look up, but he huffs out a laugh and rolls his eyes again. He’s going to give himself a headache if he keeps that up.

The comment does exactly what she wants it to, which is draw the attention of all the other vampires. Arlo even begrudgingly pulls the pencil away from Felix’s cheek so he can take a look, and he immediately bursts out laughing.

“Arlo!” he exclaims, slapping at Arlo’s knee. “You didn’t tell us you had a twin!”

Nate chuckles (warm and rich and handsome, if a sound can be called handsome) and turns from the shelf to study the magazine curiously himself. Even the Broody One peers over to see, a little smirk curling his permanently-scowling mouth.

“Considering he was born in the sixties, I definitely don’t,” Arlo drawls. “Tina’s been making that joke since we were kids. She’s just happy she’s got an audience who hasn’t heard it twelve times a week since she first saw my old Type O Negative poster.”

“Some jokes just get better with time,” Tina says archly. “Like a fine wine.”

“And some jokes age like milk,” Arlo fires back.

Adam tilts the magazine so he can look for himself, and his dour expression clouds over even more, brows furrowing and mouth twisting. He peers up at Arlo, studying him, then down again.

Got you. “Yeah, you’re right,” Tina says, nodding sagely at him. “Arlo’s much prettier.”

It has exactly the reaction she was hoping for. Arlo drops his eyeliner pencil and makes a strangled noise, glowering at her with his cute freckly cheeks going all red, and Adam, who is a good bit paler than Arlo, goes pink from the crewneck of his just-this-side-of-too-tight tee shirt to his hairline. Tina wants to punch the air as the other vampires snicker at them. Well, except for Nate. Nate’s not a snickerer. He chortles. It’s adorable.

“Speaking of pretty!” Felix crows once they’ve all had a laugh at their fearless leader’s expense. He points to his own face with both hands, dancing in his chair, and Arlo sighs and rolls his eyes again, bending to pick up the dropped pencil. Luckily, the tip isn’t broken, so he can get right back to work, once he’s given the young vampire a moment to get his wiggles out. He settles, sitting on his hands and pursing his lips when Arlo gives him a dry look. He hovers back in with the pencil, and then Felix blurts out, “How’d you get so good at this anyway? Well, I assume you’re good at it. I haven’t seen it yet.”

Arlo doesn’t say anything. He just looks at him, pencil poised, until Felix pinches his mouth shut with a quick little apology. Once Arlo’s satisfied his canvas is actually going to hold still and keep quiet, he gets back to it. “My school was pretty small, especially compared to the bigger-name performing arts schools out there,” he says after a moment of quiet focus, tracing the outline of a heart around one of Felix’s eyes. “Our department didn’t really have a huge budget, and workspace was at a premium too. We didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for performances before someone else had to use the theatre, so we all did our own makeup at once, for the most part. Sometimes we’d help each other out, because we all had our strengths and weaknesses.”

He pulls back the pencil, squinting critically at the heart like it’s not completely perfect. “Demi was the best at laying the groundwork, and at matching colors to our costumes and complexions. Viv was the best at coming up with concepts and making sure we looked like a matching set. Wendi could do insane prosthetics, and was the best at bullying our department head into giving us the money for them. I had the steadiest hands, so I always did the eyes and the details.”

“Was Wendi the one who did your Dracula look?” Tina gasps. “That one was so cool!”

“Dracula?” Felix blurts. Tina doesn’t miss how the others perk up with interest too.

Arlo glares at him, and he shrinks back with a sheepish little grin. “Yeah, we did Dracula, uh… second year, I think? That was when Tilly transferred in and started doing our choreography. She’s the one who got Professor Dacey to let us do less classical stuff and start branching out a bit.” He glances briefly at Tina, staunchly ignoring the way Felix pouts at him for dividing his attention. “And, yeah, Wendi did the prosthetics for that one.”

“She’s got to be magic,” Tina asserts. “She managed to make your sweet, mopey face look so scary.”

Felix and Mason both snicker at that, and Arlo’s mouth goes all lemon-sour pinchy, like it always does when she calls him a sad puppy man, or any variation thereof.

“Take a lap,” Arlo says to Felix. “Don’t touch your face.” He jerks his head at Tina when Felix bolts to his feet and starts zooming around the flat to get out some of his energy. “Your turn, if you’re done being a comedian.”

“I’m never done,” she says with a sunny smile, but she bounces over to take Felix’s place in the chair and closes her eyes serenely so he can start on her makeup.

“And, God, do I know it,” he grumbles under his breath, knowing full well she can hear him, and so can everyone else in the room, too.

“Do you have pictures?” Felix hollers. He’s dipped into Arlo’s studio, and he’s making no secret of rifling through the desk in there, drawers slamming and paper rustling.

Arlo tips his head back so when he sighs, loud and dramatically long-suffering, he’s not blowing his breath right in Tina’s face. She appreciates the gesture. “Bottom right drawer,” he calls back, resignation thick in his voice. Given how long he’s been putting up with Tina—and Felix might just be Tina’s second platonic soulmate (Arlo, of course, being the first)—he already knows that keeping quiet is just prolonging the inevitable. Tina opens her eyes briefly to see Felix come sailing out of the studio with a thick leather-bound album held triumphantly over his head.

“Oh, I haven’t seen that in years!” she coos happily.

Arlo bops her on the forehead pointedly with a sponge covered in foundation, and she closes her eyes obediently.

She hears Arlo’s antique sofa creak as Felix plops down onto it, rifling through the plastic pages. “Aw,” he whines, “no baby pictures?”

“I can’t imagine him ever being a baby,” Mason snorts, and he sounds closer than he was before. Tina knows better than to open her eyes while Arlo’s in the zone, though. He’ll bop her with something less soft than a sponge next time. “I figured he’s just always been a giant.”

Felix laughs, high and chiming. “No wonder Agent Priestley’s always so sour, then,” he says. Tina giggles, and it becomes an inelegant snort when Arlo bops her again on the nose.

“Ask Rebecca if you want to see my baby pictures,” Arlo mutters blandly, and Tina can feel the weight of his attention. “I doubt she has many after age two, and the ones before I’ve barely seen.”

Tina’s not a super-special supernatural secret agent, but she tries with all her might to will someone to change the subject before things get weird. Now’s as good a time as any to learn telepathy.

Felix, heart of her heart, interrupts what’s shaping up to be a real prize winner of an awkward silence with a loud gasp. “Woah!” he exclaims, and pages crinkle as he presumably holds up the book for Arlo to see. “Who’s this? Did you do her makeup too?”

Arlo’s hair rustles as he turns his head away from her, and then the hand on her cheek freezes. Tension radiates through every inch of his body, practically leaching into hers. She cautiously opens one eye, and sees Arlo sitting up impeccably straight, stiff as a board and staring at Felix like a deer in the headlights. He swallows so hard she can see his throat move. “Um,” he says, stilted and strange. “Yeah. I did.”

Tina opens both eyes and squints at the photo album. Oh.

Felix looks at the sudden strain in the way Arlo is sitting, the tightness of his posture, and looks quizzically down at the picture again.

Tina remembers that performance. She remembers Arlo dancing (ha) around the subject when she asked him teasingly if he was going to be playing the prince, who was the lead, was he excited to kiss a pretty girl?

She can’t remember the character’s name, not so many years after the fact, especially since they were all weird classical nonsense, either Latin or French or some mishmash of the two. But she remembers the costume. She remembers waiting with bated breath to see Arlo onstage, to stand and scream and cheer obnoxiously loud in support of her best friend. She shot to her feet the second she saw his obvious silhouette rise from a feather-bedecked black chariot, head and shoulders taller than anyone else onstage. The music swelled, lightning flashed, and then when the spotlight hit him, she was so stunned she plopped right back into her seat with her jaw on the floor.

Arlo’s always been one of those guys that straddled the line between pretty and handsome. Long, lustrous hair and eyelashes she would kill for, cheekbones that could kill, a defined jaw, a proud nose, and intense eyes she could only call sultry—if she hadn’t known him since they were both weird, gawky brats, she’d probably be half in love with him before figuring out she wasn’t his cup of tea. But seeing him onstage was always an adventure. He threw himself into whatever character he played, put his everything into them, from the costume to the makeup to the performance. He just became the character, and in a way that was so very Arlo, all that intensity and focus channeled into an act that completely stole the show, in Tina’s humble and completely unbiased opinion.

Carabosse! That was her name!

Carabosse was no different.

Arlo’s makeup was flawless, ghost-white foundation giving him intense Morticia Addams vibes, contouring that made his cheekbones look absolutely unreal, bold black (or maybe really dark purple?) lipstick and shiny, smoky eyeshadow that made him look ethereal and wicked, with a daggerpoint cat-eye that she spent an hour begging him to teach her after the show. When he turned his head in a sharp, birdlike motion to look down his nose at the dancers playing the King and Queen, she gasped at the way his hair rippled down his back, shiny-black and woven with actual feathers that trailed back from the ornate metal circlet resting on his brow like a bird’s crest. The costume was breathtaking, too, a tightly corseted bodice and a high collar, a dramatically billowing skirt and trailing, feathered sleeves that flared like wings whenever he moved.

And the way he moved! Arlo’s dancing changed with every role, whatever he felt would suit the character. One of her favorites was always his Hans-Peter (she had a soft spot for that one, and had ever since she was little—one of the first Christmas gifts her stepmom had ever given her was little storybook version of The Nutcracker that came with a CD) because his dancing was so stiff and stridently mechanical, he looked like a real toy soldier come to life. But his villains moved with a slinking, predatory prowl she’d only ever seen in monster movies, and never in something like a ballet. His Carabosse was as beautiful as she was terrifying, and it was incredible to watch. She wanted to fling herself at him after the show and babble at him endlessly like she always did, but she spent a solid minute staring at him slack-jawed, until he shifted awkwardly and looked down, and the confident intimidation of the Wicked Fairy sloughed away to reveal Arlo underneath.

He almost melted into the floor with relief when she finally startled to babble.

She puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes, and he takes a slow, deep breath, offering Felix a strained smile. “Take a closer look, mate,” he says quietly.

Felix does. He looks up and squints at Arlo, and then back down at the photo. Tina has to bite her lip so she doesn’t laugh when he looks over at Adam, still holding the magazine with that metal singer that kind of looks like Arlo on it, and then back at Arlo. His mouth drops open into a little o, and he shoots to his feet and shouts, “No way!”

Mason was allowed his name back briefly, but he goes right back to Broody One when he grimaces at Felix and slinks pettishly back to his corner.

Arlo’s shoulders are practically around his ears, but he tries to keep smiling. “Yeah. Sleeping Beauty. Fourth year. I was the Wicked Fairy.”

“He was amazing,” Tina declares, shoulders back and chin tipped up challengingly. “The costume was insane, but the way he played her was absolutely, ridiculously badass.”

“You look awesome!” Felix blurts, still gawking down at the photo. He flips to the next page, and squeaks happily when he finds more pictures, from different angles, showing off the costume, the way Arlo loomed over the other dancers, the way he commanded the stage. Tina should really find out who took the pictures and send them her thanks, because they really put in the work. “Your makeup, your dress, your hair! How’d you even do that?”

Arlo laughs, and it sounds so utterly relieved, Tina’s heart breaks a little. Arlo’s always been sensitive, and for someone who dresses and holds himself the way he does, he worries more than he lets on what people think of him. Especially people he cares about. She squeezes his shoulder again, and he bites his lip when he glances back at her and smiles hesitantly.

“A lot of wire, and enough hairspray to choke a bloody cow,” he says, twisting around and slinging his long legs over the coffee table so he can face the sofa. “I think we bought every bag of black feathers the craft store had, and then spent an entire weekend painting them with this stupidly expensive embossing powder. We had to get, like, ten pots of the stuff, because the craft store only had pots the size of a quarter.”

“I admire your dedication,” Nate says pleasantly, strolling over to peer over Arlo’s shoulder. They tighten just a bit before relaxing slowly. “That costuming is superb. I’ve seen professional productions that weren’t half so detailed.”

“That would be Viv’s work,” Arlo laughs, looking down at the pictures fondly. “She took whatever cheap garbage the department had for us, raided the nearest clearance fabric rack, and worked her magic. The employees at that little craft store loved and hated us in equal measure.”

Arlo is still tense, but he’s loosening up little by little, and with him Tina does too. The easy camaraderie is soothing, and she knows how much Arlo cares about his vampire friends, so it’s got to be a huge weight off his shoulders to be able to let his guard down around them. He deserves that. He deserves to be able to be himself.

Adam standing up draws Arlo’s attention like nothing else could, and he freezes like a startled rabbit again looking up at the burly blonde vampire as he approaches the sofa. He looks a split second from bolting. Tina sits up straighter and gives Adam her most daring look, squaring her shoulders to make it perfectly clear she's ready to fight the second he opens his mouth. She’ll definitely lose, sure, but she’ll make as much trouble as she can before she goes down.

He reaches out, his hand hesitating before it touches the album’s glossy page, and he looks up at Arlo with a questioning tilt to his brows. Arlo looks like he’s barely breathing, but he nods, and Adam slips one of the pictures from its sleeve. He straightens his spine, shoulders back, holding the photo and studying it carefully. His face is impossible to read, about as expressive as a bloody brick wall. Tina’s vibrating with nervous energy. She’ll fight a vampire, though. She will.

When Adam does finally speak, his voice comes out so softly Tina almost doesn’t hear it over the adrenaline rushing through her. “You look… striking.”

Striking. Oh my god.

She wants to laugh. They’re ridiculous.

“Thanks,” Arlo chokes out, his cheeks and ears going red this time.

Oh my god. Tina covers her mouth with both hands. Arlo glowers at her. It’s a lot less threatening when he’s blushing like that. “I didn’t say anything,” she mumbles against her palms.

“Your face,” he hisses, and she yelps.

“Oh! Shit!” She pulls her hands away, and he grabs her by the chin to check the damage with a click of his tongue.

Tina thought things would get better once Arlo actually kissed the man (and maybe got a leg over, but that’s only her business when she can finally get Arlo to actually talk about if the big, beefy Adonis is as missionary-with-the-lights-off as he looks) but at least they’re not just staring longingly at each other from across the room and then getting all sad about it anymore . Thankfully, Felix seems to be an old hand at clearing up the weird tension between the two of them, chiming in a delighted, “I’ve never seen you look so scary!” as he rifles through all the pictures from the Sleeping Beauty show. “I mean, you’re pretty scary when you go all furry, but also, you sort of just look like a big lanky puppy, because it’s just you, you know? This is someone else! Who is she! She's so cool!”

Arlo sighs and turns around to fix whatever Tina’s ruined with her foundation, and throws himself back into dolling her up. Thankfully, the actual festival’s not for a while yet. She complained about the unnecessarily early start when Arlo suggested the time, but now she’s glad he’s such a persnickety prick about scheduling. “I had a lot of fun with it,” he admits, shrugging his shoulders. “The original script notes said to get, y’know, sort of silly with it, but I wasn’t a big fan of that angle for a character like her. Yeah, I wanted to be campy, but not in the way…” He purses his lips. “Okay, well, Nate probably knows this, but a lot of classical ballets that have a female villains do this thing with them that I hate.” He frowns deeply, patting at Tina’s chin with gentle ferocity. “ An evil female character is supposed to be sort of… sort of a cautionary tale, I guess? Like your typical bitter spinster crone, the old hag, or the wicked stepsisters, things like that. So they’ll specifically cast a male dancer and put them in bright, gaudy facepaint and garish costumes that are supposed to be cartoonish and ugly, that you're supposed to find funny, to show you that this character is bad because she’s indelicate and mannish, and that’s why she’s evil.”

His mouth twists around the words, and he looks up, back at the vampires, leaving Tina a moment to really appreciate that Arlo’s comfortable enough with them to do what he’s only ever really done with her—which is ramble about something he’s passionate about. It’s always fun to watch. He turns back to her, and she just wishes his hands weren’t occupied, because he’s a big hand-talker otherwise. “I got the role because the professor thought it would be funny to stick me in a role like that, being so tall and, y’know,” he gestures vaguely to his faded old band tee and dark jeans, the thick leather cuff around his wrist. Tina doesn’t see what he really means, seeing as he looks cozy and content right now, but she gets what he’s going for. “He was expecting me to be awkward about it. The big, tough guy doing drag as the creepy crone caricature.” He huffs. “I talked with Demi about it, and we decided to say fuck that.” He sits up straighter, tilts up his chin, and looks down his nose at Tina.

She peers up at him, wide-eyed, and suddenly wonders if this is how Demi felt, playing Aurora when Carabosse looked down her nose at her like an insect under her heel.

“I thought Carabosse deserved better,” Arlo says fiercely. “If I was going to be a villain, I was going to be a damned good villain. I was going to tower over all the delicate, dainty little princesses and fairies, and I was going to be fierce. Professor Dacey wanted Aurora, and Candide, and Florine to be the epitome of sweet, delicate femininity, the ideal damsel in any classical show. Carabosse is supposed to be the complete opposite. You’re supposed to root against her, not want to be her. She’s a threat to the idea of womanhood, of the ideal feminine. She’s bold and selfish and she takes what she wants. I leaned into that. I even danced en pointe for parts of it, even though Carabosse isn't supposed to, and between the rehearsals and the actual performance, I thought my feet were gonna fall off, but it was worth it.”

Arlo smiles, and Tina is thrilled by the wickedness of it. She thinks she even sees just a hint of fang. Arlo’s been so careful about showing his teeth, ever since he told her what happened to him, why he disappeared for so long, so it's somehow special for him to feel like he can show her even a hint of what he’s become.

“Professor Dacey was pissed, afterwards, of course,” Arlo laughs, but there’s an edge to it. He seems to shrink. From Arlo to Carabosse to Arlo again. He looks down at his hands as they work on Tina more than at her face. “He didn’t, y’know, say anything he could have gotten fired over, but he did rail about being left out of planning and the budget and all that rot. Got even madder when Demi pointed out we’d spent our own money on the costumes. I think if he was tall enough to look down on me, he would have.” He snorts, a bitter curl to his mouth. Tina thinks of it painted bold, dark purple, thinks of how it would look with those teeth behind it. She wonders if he’d let her do his makeup for the festival. She’s not nearly as good at details as he is, but she’s no slouch either.

“You should have let me put raw fish in his hubcaps,” Tina mutters, just to make Arlo laugh. It works, and she beams at him.

“Would have been a waste of fish,” he mumbles, sucking his teeth. He finally picks up a bright eyeshadow palette and starts waffling over colors. He’s quiet while he deliberates, but after a while, he sighs. “I liked being Carabosse,” he says, like it’s a secret. Like he’s trying very hard not to be ashamed.

“I wish I could have seen it,” Adam says, almost dreamily. Tina could scream. “I— We could have, I mean. All of us. In solidarity.”

“Smooth,” Felix whispers.

“I’m sure it was a phenomenal performance,” Nate adds helpfully. He’s taken the album from Felix to flip through to some of Arlo’s other shows. “The passion you have for your characters shines through in just photos. It’s quite impressive.”

“You should have gone pro,” Tina mutters. “You’d be a household name by now.”

Arlo snorts and bops her with the brush. How many bops is that now? She’s certainly on a roll today. “And who’d keep you in line back here?” he teases.

Tina squints up at him and sticks out her tongue. “Like you’ve ever even tried to keep me in line, you big softie. You love the chaos, just admit it.”

“I’ll admit you to the hospital when you do something stupid and get yourself hurt again, how about that?”

They bicker like children back and forth while Arlo finishes her makeup, a wash of pink, purple, and blue eyeshadow and matching lipstick, overlaid with a lustrous sparkle to her cheekbones and a cute little black heart-shaped beauty mark under one eye. Felix gets a bi flag heart to match her eyeshadow around one eye, and then the rest is a sort of confetti splash of sparkly stars and hearts in every color. Even Nate goes for the bi eyeshadow (Bi-shadow? She should have been saying that this whole time!), making him, Tina, and Felix a matching set, and Mason consents to a very simple pan flag on his cheek. Tina suspects Adam only allows the eyeshadow treatment so he can have Arlo cup his face all tenderly, but she keeps the thought (mostly) to herself. He looks good in pastels, she thinks when she sees the finished blue, pink, and white.

Arlo draws a little heart under his eye too. The heart in Tina's chest almost explodes with warmth.

And then Arlo disappears into the bathroom, leaving the rest of them to entertain themselves while he gets ready on his own. They go through the album some more, and Tina tells them all about her favorite shows, because she went to every single one she could manage, and got Arlo’s school friends to send her videos of the ones she couldn’t. Tina Poname is Arlo Priestley’s number one fan, and that will never change. Not even now that she's got some competition.

When Arlo comes out of the bathroom, they all look up in sync, and he stands there, shifting anxiously from foot to foot under the attention, and lifts his hands in a stilted shrug. “So?” he asks, smiling nervously. He’s changed clothes, too. Tight pants, big boots, a mesh-sleeved black shirt underneath his patch-and-pin-covered denim vest. His wrists jingle with chunky bracelets, and his hair is braided neatly over one shoulder. But his makeup is what really steals the show. That insanely sharp cat-eye, of course, but one eye is done up in blue, pink, and white, and the other in yellow, white, purple, and black. He smiles timidly. “I, uh, I couldn’t really decide on just one,” he says, sticking his gloved hands into the pockets of his vest. “I’m, um, I’m not sure which one’s really right for me yet, I guess?” He shrugs again, and Tina watches delightedly as Adam stands up slowly, his eyes on Arlo with such an awed intensity she wonders if he even remembers there’s other people in the room. Arlo keeps babbling as he approaches, the words tumbling nervously from his black-painted lips. “I sort of like matching with you, Adam, and I know they’re both fine, but I—”

Adam grabs him by the lapels of his jacket, yanks him down to his level, and silences him with a kiss. Tina throws her arms up in the air with an impulsive shriek of “WOO!” that Felix echoes even louder. They high-five over Mason’s head, and he looks like he wants to throw them both out the window. Nate sits by with a pleasant little smile, which only fades when he takes note of the clock.

Adam and Arlo are still kissing, Arlo’s hands cupped around the vampire’s cheeks and Adam clinging to his vest like he'll drown if he lets go. Tina thinks she might see a hint of tongue when Nate loudly clears his throat.

They break apart with an indecent smacking noise, and Tina yelps out a sharp laugh when she sees Arlo’s black lipstick smeared all around Adam’s mouth.

Nate crosses his arms and smiles dryly at them. “Why don’t you two go fix your faces,” he suggests. “The rest of us will make sure the car is packed for the festival.”

“Um, yes. You— We—” Arlo fumbles for a bit, touching his smeared lips, his eyes just a bit dazed. He and Adam look at each other, and then flee for the bathroom together.

Tina’s never been more excited for a festival in her life.

#the wayhaven chronicles #wayhavensummer #pride in wayhaven #tina poname #adam du mortain #a du mortain #felix hauville #f hauville #specialist agent mason #specialist agent m #nate sewell #n sewell #oc: arlo priestley #pidge writes #HELLO I AM FINISHING THIS AT 3:30 AM #I HAVE MY FIRST DAY OF MY NEW JOB TOMORROW #WISH ME LUCK #this turned out WAY longer than i meant it to but god was it fun #i hope you guys like it as much as i liked writing it #arlo playin w gender expression via ballet is my everything #the costume designs for carabosse can be SO GOOD #but some of them are SO BAD #ballet is like that #its very uuuuh traditional wrt its aesthetics and gender roles #and arlo and his friends were all like 'but what if not'#anyway title is v last minute bc *shrug*#tina gets to be the lilac fairy #i did so much reserach into this ballet y'all #the only thing i didnt do was watch the whole thing #tho i DID find it on yt so i could later....

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writtenonreceipts · 4 years ago

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Thank-you for 100+ followers! Here’s a little thank-you fic, I so appreciate the the support. ~5.7k words. Rowaelin.

Sometime Around Midnight

Three years ago when he would have a day off, Rowan found himself hiking in the mountains. Two years ago when he would have a day off, Rowan found himself pacing the hospital halls.

Currently when he would have a day off, Rowan found himself at work.

He no longer knew what a day off actually looked like and that was fine with him.

“What are you doing here?”

Rowan looked up to see his longtime friend and co-bar owner, Fenrys come in from the storage room. He had a clipboard in hand, his gold-blond hair hanging in long, loose curls around his shoulders.

“Working,” Rowan replied. He wiped down the metal table before him where he’d accidentally upended an entire tub of maraschino cherry juice. Thankfully there’d been no actual cherries left so there wasn’t much lost there, but the mess was still annoying.

“Go home, Rowan,” Fenrys said. He jabbed the clipboard his direction as he came behind the bar and examined the on the floor stock. “You haven’t taken a day off in two years.”

“Not true, last week you and Lorcan forced me to go camping,” Rowan said.

“Forced being the choice word of that sentence,” Fenrys replied. He leaned back against the bar and examined his friend. “C’mon man, she wouldn’t want to see you like this.”

Rowan slapped the cleaning rag down on the counter and scowled. “I guess we’ll never know, will we?”

It didn’t take much else for Fenrys to surrender. But Rowan could see the mixed look of anger and disappointment in his friend's eyes. It was easy enough to ignore when one of the regulars came in and ordered his drink.

Rowan poured the man his whiskey, neat, and went back to cleaning up behind the bar. It was only eleven in the morning and it was already proving to be a miserable day. Especially given the fact that Rowan was haunted by that damn piano with it’s strange cadence. And even though Rowan knew next to nothing about classical music there was something about the way that the chords were struck that told Rowan someone one was sacrificing their heart and soul to whatever god might be listening.

And Rowan found himself wishing that he could be the one to say that he was there.

Not long after that, Lorcan came in for the start of his shift. It was a strange time, but he was taking classes at the local community college and the later afternoon and evening shifts worked best for his schedule. Not that Rowan minded working around his friend’s schedule. It was what he did. What they all did for each other.

With his ever-present scowl Lorcan shuffled behind the bar and pulled his shoulder length hair back into a bun. He greeted Rowan with a grunt and started on making sure there were plenty of clean glasses to be prepared for the rest of the night.

“You could go home man,” Lorcan said quietly as he leaned against the bar. “You’ve been working non-stop all week.”

All week. All year.

It all rolled together in one fat miserable existence.

Rowan merely shrugged. “Nah. I can’t leave you here alone.”

“It’s a Tuesday,” Lorcan said. He rolled his eyes. “What’d’ya thinks going to happen?”

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But if Rowan went home all he would do is stare at his phone, the tv, the wall. He didn’t sleep much anymore despite how exhausted he was. Besides, Rowan didn’t want to owe Lorcan anything.

“Shut up and go wipe down tables,” Rowan growled. He leaned down and grabbed a bowl of limes from a mini-fridge beneath the bar. He had a feeling they would need them at some point that night.

And hours later, he was right.

It was near closing time, one in the morning, and a woman with golden hair twisted into an intricate braid atop her head stumbled in. She slid into a barstool with easy grace and immediately ordered an entire bottle of tequila.

Rowan stared at her.

She was beautiful, there was no mistaking it. With her large, golden blue eyes, full lips, and sexy black dress that dipped into a sinfully low v--Rowan had a hard time looking away from her.

“You do know we’re closing soon, right?” he asked even as he lined up a few shot glasses.

“Shut up and pour,” she said.

Rowan was never usually one to take orders from someone else, particularly when that someone was out looking to get blackout drunk. And yet, when she stared at him with those sharp eyes and hard tilt of the chin, he decided that listening to her might not be a bad thing. So, he poured.

The woman slammed back two shots before snatching the bowl of limes he’d cut earlier. Without even hesitating, she began sucking the slices dry.

“Feel better?” he asked.

She flipped him off and grabbed a third shot. She didn’t seem at all affected by the tequila which in and of itself was a phenomenal feat. But Rowan recognized the drinking and the behavior for what it was. She was trying to forget.

One o’clock in the morning in the middle of the week and she was ready to lose herself to anything and everything.

“Riddle me this barkeep,” the woman said as she twirled one of the shot glasses between her fingers. “Why do men make promises they have no intention of keeping?”

Rowan watched her, somewhat concerned.

She truly seemed far to put together for a bar like this, a neighborhood like this. Far too attractive to be alone, even pontificating on the idea of being alone. And yet, as she downed another shot and sucked on another lime--Rowan had a feeling that this was who the woman really was. Confident and self-assured.

He poured her a glass of water just to be safe.

She scowled and glared at the offending drink.

“I do know how to handle my liquor,” she said. She gave him a pointed glare.

“Whatever you say, Princess,” he replied with a growl. “I’d just rather not spend half my night cleaning up after you.”

“You are a cranky old buzzard,” she said. Her full lips jutted out in a scowl and Rowan had a hard time tearing his gaze from them.

He needed to focus on something else. “Buzzard?”

“Your shirt,” she said pointing with a lime rind. “Those look like hawks. And hawks are assholes that pick and mother-hen everything. Buzzard.”

Looking down at his shirt, Rowan frowned. Indeed, the button up had birds in the design, but he didn’t think it was that noticeable. Or at least not enough to comment on. Even for a woman who most certainly was well on her way to getting wasted.

She grinned at his silence and plucked a cherry from behind the counter. Watching him, the woman ate the cherry and kept the stem between her fingers.

“But I really would like to know,” she said, “why make promises that you don’t keep?”

Rowan shook his head. Maybe he should just let her drink herself to oblivion. It would make it easier to call a cab for her. And he had a rule not to get involved in these deep philosophical-like talks. They never served anyone well.

“It’s probably just me,” she said, so quietly Rowan almost missed it.

But her phone buzzed from where she set it beside her. She glanced at it, laughed loudly, and shoved it away.

“Maybe I should try celibacy for a while,” the woman said. She stole another cherry and sighed. “Because this dating thing is not working very well.”

Rowan waited until she’d gulped down half the glass of water before pouring her another shot.

“You don’t talk much do you?” the woman asked.

Rowan noticed then the distinct tint of her eyes. Gold rimmed with blue. Or blue rimmed with gold. One of the two. Whichever it was it was distinct enough that Rowan had a much harder time looking away this time.

“I try not to mingle with the crazy.”

She gave an affronted huff.

“Or the emotionally distressed.”

A snort. She dropped the cherry stems into one of the shot glasses. “Cranky old buzzard.”

“I’m not old,” Rowan said.

She laughed at him, a triumphant sort of gleam in her eyes.

Rowan wished he’d carded her just to prove a point. But he recognized her now, at least partially. She’d come in once before months ago with someone that could have been her brother. Lorcan had carded back then. He carded everyone mostly so he could have a greater opportunity of throwing someone out.

The last time she was here this doom and gloom cloud raging over her had been absent. All she’d been was carefree.

She finished her water and nodded to the tequila.

“I think you’ve had enough,” he said, “besides, I should be finishing closing.”

Rolling her eyes, the woman picked up her phone--a call flashed on the screen and whoever it was had her grinning broadly.

“Dorian!” she cried into the phone with a happy lilt to her voice.

She was definitely drunk.

Rowan grabbed the dirty glasses he’d poured her and collected the lime rinds and cherry stems.

“Where the hell are you?” A voice demanded on the other line. Loud and on speaker. The woman made no effort to take it off speaker.

“Ugh, you’re too loud, asshole,” the woman groused. She tried to snag the unattended tequila, but Rowan managed to slide it out of her grasp. It earned him a pout, but he didn’t really care.

“Where are you?” the man on the other end repeated.

“The Cadre.”

A loud, very crude curse sounded. “Are you trying to get alcohol poisoning? This is how you get alcohol poisoning.”

“Buzz kill,” the woman sang into the phone. She grinned at Rowan. “You should come get me. It’s way past the bartender’s bedtime.”

She hung up the phone without waiting for a response.

“You know,” she said, “this place is so close to my apartment. But I never come here.”

“You must live in a crappy part of town,” Rowan said before he could stop himself. But she didn’t seem to be at all offended. In fact she laughed.

“If only you knew,” she laughed. Her demeanor turned serious and for a moment, Rowan thought that she might say something more profound, something that would help him better understand her. Because there was something entirely different about her. And not just the confident way she held herself or overtook a room. But something.

It wasn’t long after that when the door to the bar opened and a young man entered. He was tall with thick black hair and a lean build. He held himself well though and the well-tailored suit only helped exude more confidence. Or perhaps it was the woman at his side. She was shorter, lean, and had long bone white hair that curled in loose waves. Her golden eyes examined the bar with amusement.

“Dorian!”

Slipping out of her stool, Rowan’s once companion, ran over to the man with surprising agility for how much she’d been drinking the past hour.

“Are you kidding me?” Dorian groaned as he caught the woman. “I thought you were with Sam.”

“Nope,” the woman popped the “p” with a loud smack of her lips and giggled. “But I found another broody man to keep me company instead.”

The woman cast a bright, beaming look over her shoulder to Rowan. And in all honesty, he didn’t know what to make of it.

The man, Dorian cursed, and passed the tipsy blonde over to his companion who rolled her eyes and said something softly to the other woman.

Dorian approached the bar and pulled out his wallet and handed Rowan several bills. More than enough to cover the drinks and a tip.

Rowan glanced at Dorian more than ready to tell him off for whatever statement he wanted to make in front of the women.

“Thanks for letting her in,” Dorian said, his voice soft. There was such sincerity in his words, that Rowan accepted the cash without realizing what he was doing. “And making sure she was safe.”

Rowan shrugged. “I was about to call a cab.”

“Still,” Dorian said. He knocked his fist on the bar and backed away. “You’re a hopeless drunk Galathynis.”

“It fits, seeing as how I have a hopeless fiancé,” the blonde replied. She paused. “Ex-fiancé.”

The doors of the bar shut behind them as they left and Rowan followed after making sure to lock up. It had been a long night and he had no idea what to make of the woman who’d just left.

Once on a dare, Rowan shaved his head. He’d been drunk when he actually did the deed because being sober for the event was not an option. His fiancée had asked him to shave his head for her. No. That was a lie. She would have never asked him to do that for her. But he knew he should have. She would have loved it.

Two years after, Rowan still kept his head shaved.

If pestered about it, Rowan would just say it was easier and more manageable this way. Anything to get out of mentioning Lyria. Anything to get out of thinking back on her.

When he saw the woman from the bar next it was at the bar. At a decent hour this time.

Well as decent as the hours could be for a grunge bar such as The Cadre.

It was nearing ten o’clock on a weekend and all the usuals were there. Rowan expected it to be another regular night without anything exciting happening.

But then he spotted the woman with golden hair and distracting eyes come in. She was alone, again. But this time she wasn’t in a black dress with her hair perfectly braided in that crown along the top of her head. Tonight, she wore black leggings and a long flannel shirt over a white t-shirt. Her blonde hair hung in loose curls down her back.

And again—damn him—Rowan about found himself speechless. It wasn’t something he was used to. Not since Lyria.

“Well, if it isn’t the Buzzard,” crooned the blonde as she sidled up to the bar.

“Are you going to drink me out of tequila again?” Rowan asked warily.

She flashed him a grin. Yes. She probably would.

Because Rowan had learned a long time ago how to read that grin. Ferocious and cold. The kind of grin that would take no prisoners and show no mercy.

As she ordered her drink, Rowan quickly became distracted by the late-night rush. A college game had just finished up and post-drinking was required. Not to mention it was the middle of the summer and everyone seemed desperate for escape. Even to a place like the Cadre.

And still, all through the night, Rowan found his gaze wandering to the end of the bar where the woman had set up. She spent her time nursing a drink, taking shots, and declining any offers to join anyone.

“You’ve been staring at that woman all night,” Lorcan said, coming up beside Rowan. The broad-shouldered man edged a palette of clean glasses onto the bar and began putting them away.

Rowan grunted and looked distinctly away from her. He threw a towel on his shoulder and sidled past his friend to grab a new bottle of vodka from a shelf behind him. Lorcan rolled his eyes but said nothing. Nothing until the woman changed seats and came to an open space near the center of the bar.

She leaned against the bar and examined both men.

“Well you both seem to be enjoying your night,” she said dryly.

“It’s a Saturday with a bar of grumpy old bastards,” Rowan replied. Lorcan snorted back a laugh. Whether in agreement or making a statement, Rowan wasn’t sure. Either way, he’d make sure to punch his friend later.

“Then you’re right among friends,” the woman said. She looked so serious as she said it that Rowan almost missed the sarcasm lacing her words.

It was Lorcan who laughed first and helped himself to a tequila shot before pouring one for the blonde. She offered him a silent toast and downed the drink.

“I’ll get you another drink in a minute,” Rowan told her. He still had to finish a few orders for another table of some ass-hat executives at a table near the back corner.

“Okay,” she said.

And then she was swiping cherries. Again. Perhaps it was Rowan’s fault for leaving the container up on the bar. Rowan narrowed his eyes at her. She smiled; her lips stained with that saccharine syrup.

She said nothing else, but leaned against the bar with nonchalance and yet her eyes seemed glazed over as she watched people slowly filter out. It wasn’t that late, barely past midnight and a Thursday. Yet as the hype simmered out from the baseball game, the bar still remained busy.

As she nursed her second drink--despite the gleam in her eyes at the start of the night, she’d paced herself very well—the woman finally accepted a glass of water.

“I do not need any food,” she told him after he’d asked again. Her lip curled a moment. “Unless you have cake.”

“Cake?”

“Cake.”

Rowan stared at her. She puckered her lips.

“No,” he said slowly, “no cake.”

“Then no food.”

“You’re just going to sit here and drink all night?” Rowan asked.

“I’m in good company.” She turned those brilliant eyes on him and for a moment Rowan felt as though he were staring through the universe as it collapsed in on him and he were left bereft in that unknown sea.

And then she blinked.

“Besides, it’s not like there’s anyone waiting up for me.” She threw a cherry stem down on the bar with a scowled. “Sorry, I’m sure you love hearing about everyone else’s problems.”

Rowan shrugged indifferently, even as she leaned forward on her elbows to watch as he shook drinks for a couple a few spaces down.

“You’re the perfect bartender,” she declared, “you don’t talk, you’re surly, and that whole brooding bastard look is working really well. And I could say anything and not even faze you, couldn’t I?”

“Nothing surprises me anymore,” Rowan said. He delivered the drinks as he finished them and returned to find her with more swiped cherries while texting someone.

She quirked an eyebrow at him before finishing the last of her drink. She slipped out of her stool with much more ease that he would have expected.

“I wonder if you have it worse or better than the rest of us,” she said, smiling around a cherry stem.

And that image of her imprinted its self in Rowans mind long after she left.

Maybe, Aelin realized, she had an addiction. The kind that made no sense. The kind that gripped her with nothing more than coincidences and overthinking. One that didn’t even require her to consume anything other than the sight of one person.

And she did not like it.

She didn’t even know the bartenders name. All she knew was that he worked practically all the time at the rundown bar down the street from her apartment. It made sense that she’d never been there before. Sam didn’t really like the bar scene after all. Said it was just too much. And Aelin had known that. Hadn’t really minded it because they had other ways of spending time together.

But that damn bar was like a stain on her mind. It would not leave her alone.

So yet again she found herself there.

Too late or too early, she didn’t know which. What she did know was that she probably shouldn’t have gone to the bar. It wasn’t anything more than the fact that she really should be sleeping. Or pounding down Lysandra’s door demanding a last-minute slumber party and not taking no for an answer.

But here she was instead.

When he looked up and found her entering the bar, he gave her a trademark scowl. Aelin told herself that there was softness to his eyes. No brief flicker of joy. Just a scowl. Because she was a pain in the ass.

His silvery blonde hair was styled to stay out of his eyes and Aelin found herself desirous to run her fingers through it and see it messed up from it’s usual grace. He wore jeans and a non-descript black shirt. The style, combined with the lighting of the bar made his green eyes all the more vibrant.

“If you’re here to swipe cherries you can leave now,” he said.

“Just as cheery as ever, eh Buzzard?” she said.

He gave her a glass of water and left her alone for a few minutes. It wasn’t much longer until he came back and began slicing limes.

Aelin watched him work in silence. Despite his large hands he handled the knife deftly and cut perfect slices. Aline was tempted to ask him how he’d learned to handle a knife, but figured he’d make her drink more water.

“Can I get a real drink now?” she asked.

“No.”

She scowled at him. “Why not?”

“It’s nearly two in the morning.”

“So?”

He looked up and stared at her. His pine green eyes were unreadable pools.

Whatever he saw in her was enough for him to grab a glass and a bottle of whiskey. He set the items before her silently.

Of course, as soon as she got what she wanted she didn’t want it.

Again.

Aelin stared at the amber liquid in the carefully cut glass jar.

“Do you think we have multiple shots at happiness?” she asked.

The man grunted.

“You’re as interesting as your friend.”

“I’m not having a conversation with a drunk.”

“I’m not drunk,” Aelin said defensively.

“You’re in a bar at three in the morning,” he replied, “besides, I don’t do soul searching conversations.”

“Oh of course,” Aelin said, “because that would mean actually connecting with someone. I forgot; men don’t do that.”

He scowled at her. “I barely know you. Besides, I make it a general rule not to cross the bar like that.”

Aelin ran a finger over the rim of the empty glass, eyes still set on him.

“I’m hardly a stranger, I’m here often enough,” she said.

“And yet I don’t know your name,” he said. He tilted his head just barely to the side and Aelin found that the angle exposed his collar bone. Black ink swirled along his tanned skin. She thought she recognized some of the symbols as Celt or some sort, but then he shifted again and her view was lost. Which was highly disappointing. He had nice skin.

“You already act like you do,” she said, finger still gliding over the glass cup. “Princess.”

He snorted, unconvinced and rolled his eyes. Aelin found herself grinning. She didn’t know what it was, but she liked being able to make him break that stoic wall of his.

“Aelin,” she said finally. “My name’s Aelin.”

He blinked those glorious pine eyes at her. When he said nothing, Aelin wondered if he would go back to ignoring her or whatever it was he did.

“Rowan,” he murmured, eyes still fixed on her.

“Hello, Rowan,” she said, “now tell me. What is your understanding of finding happiness?”

For reasons that she could not explain, Aelin found herself returning time and time again. She pried information from Rowan like she was trying to pull lies from a faerie. Impossible.

But how she tried.

She learned his last name was Whitethorn. His tattoos were in fact Celt. He co-owned the bar with a friend. All of his friends worked at the bar at one point or another, one night or another. He didn’t tell her what the tattoos meant—though Aelin had an idea of who they were about. Based mostly on what Rowan didn’t say and how easily he avoided certain conversations.

She learned other things too. He was left-handed. He had a dimple on one cheek. There was a freckle on his ear. He knew the words to most of the 80’s songs that blared on the speakers. He had secrets. He wanted to believe in happiness for one.

And she wanted to know more.

“You jumped out of a two-story window?” She asked in disbelief one night

Throughout the summer when she wasn’t at work or handing out with her friends, this was where she was. Far more often than she wanted to admit. Especially the fact that being here around him made Aelin feel...safe. And far better than that first night she had stumbled across this place.

“You would have done the same thing,” Rowan said. His eyes were far too wide that Aelin couldn’t stop laughing despite the somewhat serious nature of his story. “I’m pretty sure my Aunt has murdered someone before.”

“So you thought it was a good idea to break into her house?” Aelin sputtered. Tears of mirth were brimming in her eyes as she stared at him.

“I really didn’t want to streak through the college quad,” Rowan said with a grimace. “It was below freezing that night.”

Cackling loudly, Aelin took a slow sip of her plain orange juice. It was ten in the morning and she wasn’t needed in work until after noon. Oh the joys of a damned internship. It was better than the old place, but certainly not as reliable.

“Your turn,” Rowan said, pulling away from the bar as he grabbed a clean rag to give a general wipe down to everything. “Stupidest thing you’ve ever done?”

Aelin hummed. “I don’t know…”

He pointed a finger at her. “We had a deal.”

“Well when you put it that way,” Aelin drawled, a faint blush rising on her cheeks. “I accidentally started a brush fire out behind my house.”

“Now the question is if this happened years ago or last night,” Rowan mused.

“Buzzard,” she said.

“Fireheart,” he replied.

She rolled her eyes at him as her phone buzzed with a text and her boss's name popped up on the screen. Aelin sighed, knowing just what it would say. “Well, as much as I enjoy telling you all my darkest secrets, they need me to go in early.”

“Told you the plain orange juice was the better idea,” Rowan said.

“A lot less fun,” she muttered and dug a few bills from her purse. She met his eyes and smiled. “I’ll see you later.”

Her heart fluttered when he smiled, briefly, back.

When Rowan realized that Aelin was probably destined to never leave him alone, he resigned himself to that fact.

Really it wouldn’t be bad.

Not with her smile. Her laugh. Not with the insistence she had that he and Lorcan add chocolate cake to the bar menu or make the bar pet friendly. Not bad at all when she would come simply to talk. Simply to sit. Simply to be.

Until one night she came in, far too close to closing. It was too the point that Rowan had been about to lock up that she came up to the doors, reaching for the handle. They stared at each other for far too long before Rowan let her in.

He said nothing as she made her way behind the bar and grabbed the vodka and went to her usual stool. He said nothing as she took a swing, cursed, and drank again.

Despite everything that he knew about her--she was ambidextrous, her parents were dead, she loved playing the piano, she couldn’t her tongue--despite all of this he had never seen her like this.

This was different from that first night she came tumbling into his life, nearly six months ago now.

“I should be getting married,” she said after a third drink.

She set the vodka down heavily and leaned her head against the bar and sighed heavily. Slowly, Rowan came to sit beside her. The first time really that he had done so. They usually spent their time separated by the bar with enough distance that he could keep his emotions at bay.

Now, Rowan was far too close to her. He could smell the lotion she used, smell the night on her, see tears in her eyes when she finally looked up.

“Or, I would already be married,” she amended. “Married and on my way to Mexico, though I wanted to go to Ireland. I’ve never been and I think I have family still out there, but going to Mexico would be cheaper and warmer. But Ireland has the ocean too, and history, and…well it’s different. Apparently too different.”

Her words stilled as her chest heaved from everything that came tumbling out in too quick in procession like a piano solo that raged out of control and now that she’s finally caught up to herself, she doesn’t know where to go.

So she looked at him.

“He broke off the engagement without really telling me why, other than it was too soon and too much and everything else he could think of.”

The tears rolled slowly down her cheeks and she looked away from him, out over the empty bar with its scuffed floor and mismatching furniture. There was a bulb out over head that cast them in semi-shadows, enough that things feel quieter and gentler.

Rowan waited as she collected her words, her thoughts. He waited and remembered all the questions she’d asked him in the past about broken promises and happiness and everything in between. He wished he’d answered her sooner.

“Aelin,” he began slowly.

“Was I not worth it?” She whispered. Her words were aimed at the empty space. At the nothingness of the bar that reminded Rowan of how long the nights could get. “Was I not worth the fear and change of it all?”

Between the wondering of how they came to this and the wondering why she trusted him with her fragile words, Rowan was convinced he would do something entirely too stupid for words.

But when her gaze returned to his, Rowan found he didn’t care.

So he reached out, cupping her cheek with one of his hands. He could feel her tears on his skin and could feel how her chin trembled with restrained sobs.

“I thought, I thought,” she said. Her voice was ragged, abused and the words fused together. It was enough to make Rowan lean forward, enough for him to lean his forehead against hers.

They sat that way for a long time. Long enough for Aelin to get a hold of her staggered breathing and reign in her thundering heart.

Rowan remained silent not wanting to disturb the silence that settled around them. He ran his thumb across her cheek, catching all the tears that fell from her eyes. Aelin didn’t reply immediately. She merely closed her eyes and learned further into his touch. The soft sigh that left her lips was almost Rowan’s undoing. How long had it been? Only a few months and he was already enthralled by her and the way she had held herself together for so long.

“Aelin.”

Her eyes fluttered open and Rowan was convinced she could have petrified him with that gaze. The tears that lingered there only enhanced the gold rimming her pupils.

For a moment, Rowan thought he had overstepped his bounds, had done something she wasn’t comfortable with. Hell, he was just a bartender. Did she even consider him to be a friend? She probably didn’t even reciprocate the feelings that he had been developing for her. He made to pull away when she snatched a hand up to hold his hand in place where it still rested against her cheek.

Rowan’s heart stuttered in his chest at the movement and continued to stutter the longer they remained there. He wet his lips before speaking, knowing full well that it could potentially be a terrible idea. She’d never talked about that first night she came in. Never explained much about her ex-fiance or why they’d split up. And Rowan never pried. Mostly because he didn’t feel like it was his place.

“You’re worth all of it. All of it and more.”

He watched as the words sunk in, as she slowly blinked.

“You barely know me,” she whispered.

“I know enough,” he answered honestly. “You have a heart of fire. You’re strong. Confident. Unforgettable.”

Still clutching his hand, Aelin turned away from him, gnawing on her bottom lip. When she looked back at him, Rowan could see uncertainty in her eyes. The same uncertainty he felt in his own chest.

Rowan leaned forward, drawing closer to Aelin. They were separated by mere centimeters. All it would take was for Aelin to tilt her chin up and capture his lips with her own.

The uncertainty that had been in her eyes was wiped away with determination and she rose up to meet him with a firm press of her lips. Rowan could still taste the vodka lingering on her mouth as she opened to him.

Her hands immediately went to his hair, pulling through the strands. The touch sent a shiver of pleasure through him as his own hand wandered down her waist. They didn’t break contact as they rose from their seats and in a fluid motion, Rowan lifted Aelin onto the bar top.

Aelin arched into him as Rowan explored the planes of her skin with his mouth. There was something electrifying about this woman, about being so near her, kissing her. And he would be perfectly willing to spend the rest of his life doing this.

When they finally broke apart, both out of breath, they touched foreheads and merely stared into each other’s eyes.

Until Aelin hummed, fingers threading through his hair again.

“You know, you should at least buy me a drink first, Buzzard,” she said.

Rowan chuckled lowly. “Whatever you say, Fireheart.”

thanks for reading dears! my ask box is always open. I’m probably going to try and bust out some holiday drabbles for the next two weeks then move on to my other updates.

tags: @tottenhamboys20 @morganofthewildfire @aelinchocolatelover @more-espresso-less-depresso-xx @aelinfeyreeleven945tbln @bamchickawowow@ladywitchling @ireallyshouldsleeprn @courtofjurdan

#aelin #rowan whitethorn #rowaelin au #rowaelin #throne of glass #throne of glass fanfiction #appreciation fanfic #thank-you #aelin and rowan

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