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mulderwearingglasses · 2 years ago

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Stupid Cupid

Summary: When a work emergency prompts the FBI to call in their best and brightest on Valentine's Day evening, Mulder shows up in a tuxedo, prompting Scully to wonder what kind of hot date he had just abandoned.

Scully must quiet the jealous storm brewing within as the two work together to search for a little boy. Scully soon finds all is not as it seems, and maybe this won't be the worst Valentine's Day, after all.

Word Count: 5,325 // Read on AO3

The shrill ring of a phone snapped Scully out of a dream she wished she could continue -- one that she’d been having more often lately involving a certain coworker and the olfactory overwhelm that happened whenever she got near him and inhaled the leather-y, salty, aftershave-y musk that was Fox Mulder.

Groggily fumbling the phone to her ear, she answered with a sleep-thick “Hello?” and grew increasingly alert as she heard an addled Skinner on the other line telling her about a kidnapping of a senator’s kid, how this was of utmost importance, top priority, how the bureau needed their top people on this and how he needed her to get down there ASAP.

It was clear he was surrounded by bustling agents peppering him with questions -- God, was it only 9:30 p.m. on a Friday? It felt so much later, but, then again, it didn’t really matter -- so she just responded in the affirmative and told her boss she’d be right there.

“Agent Scully, have you had anything to drink?” he asked.

“Uh...no, sir,” Scully said, eyes shifting to a half-full glass of chamomile tea on her coffee table. She assumed that was not the kind of beverage her boss was referring to.

“OK, great,” he said. “Please, hurry.”

He said to come as she was -- that everyone had. That time was of the essence.

When the line went dead, she stumbled into the bedroom so she could at least throw on a clean sweatshirt over her favorite New York Knicks t-shirt, which no longer smelled like its original owner but felt symbolic in the same way writing Brad McDonald’s name in her sixth grade social studies notebook over and over felt like it meant something.

She ran a toothbrush through her mouth, which felt filmy and dry in the way only falling asleep on the couch could do, and grabbed her bag, out the door and to her car before her thoughts could even catch up with her.

Cranking the ignition and speeding out of her parallel parking spot, Scully’s mind wandered to her partner and imagined him doing the same dance she was, although his insomniac tendencies -- and the fact that it was 9:30, Jesus Christ, she was lame -- meant he was at least probably awake when he got the call.

As she drove in silence, Scully let her thoughts warm up along with the car engine. It made sense to call in profile boy genius Mulder, but she wasn’t quite sure what her medical know-how could add to a kidnapping case at the moment.

She smiled as she imagined Skinner hanging up with Mulder and taking a beat before calling her, knowing that Mulder worked best when she was around. That they were a team. That they were something special together. That she was with him and he was with her, a package deal.

She let herself have these warm and fuzzy thoughts while she could, knowing that the frantic fight to save a child’s life was ahead of her and all that entailed.

She pulled into the parking garage and hustled up the operation room where she could see a frenzy of activity.

When Scully walked through the door, a room full of curious eyes landed on her and gave her a quick once over before returning to their activities.

Everyone was so...dressed up, Scully thought. Like, really dressed up. Several female agents stood before her in cocktail dresses with updos and pristine makeup. Men wore suits and ties, but the kind they save for outside office hours.

The air was thick with perfumes and colognes.

As Skinner -- who looked just as dapper -- finished up a phone call, Scully stood in the doorway awaiting further instruction and scanned the room looking for -- oh my god, Mulder.

His eyes were already locked on her when she found him toward the back of the room, standing over the printer.

Mulder was dressed in a tuxedo?? A tuxedo! With dress shoes!

When her eyes locked onto his, he smiled and held up his hand in a wave, motioning that he’d be over once the documents finished printing.

Was everyone going undercover? Was her outfit en route? Was this some kind of bizarre-o dream? Why did everyone look like they were about to do some sort of red carpet event when she was clad in black leggings, a sweatshirt and -- oof -- she didn’t think she’d even run a brush through her hair, gone puffy and scraggly from her post-work couch nap.

Her face was barren, having washed off her work makeup before she crashed in front of the TV. Her freckles were on high alert.

Come as you are! Everyone had! And everyone had just happened to leave the opera, or what?

Scully could see Mulder watching her.

His eyes followed hers as the wheels in her head spun.

Finally, Skinner walked to the center of the room, and everyone seemed to snap to attention. He cleared his throat, and the room settled.

“Thank you all for being here,” Skinner said, before launching into a rundown of the facts of the case, the players involved, a couple leads.

Everyone took notes, paying close attention.

“I know this isn’t how you wanted to spend your night, especially on a night like tonight, but I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how critical the next couple hours will be for getting Julian back safe and sound.”

Skinner started handing out assignments.

“Especially on a night like tonight?” Scully mused internally.

She could feel Mulder’s eyes back on her as her eyebrows knitted together in contemplation. With the intensity of his gaze, it felt like he was reading her running inner-commentary.

“Agent Mulder, Agent Scully,” Skinner said, snapping her attention back. “I want you to head to the Hilton downtown. Julian’s parents were there at the Valentine’s Day ball, and I want you to be on scene.”

Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day. Jesus Christ. Of course.

She had been cognizant that it was coming, obviously. The heart-shaped chocolates and sad red rose arrangements were popping up in the drug store and the sitcoms she kept on in the background on the rare occasion she was home at a reasonable hour to make dinner were having their holiday episodes where the lead characters dangled in front of audiences across the span of too many episodes in agonizing “will-they-won’t-they” fashion finally shared a kiss or a candy heart exchange.

Scully didn’t hate Valentine’s Day -- she thought giving the day that much power was worse than simply letting it wash over her. Another Valentine’s Day alone. Another Valentine’s Day where her mom would call a few days prior, an eagerness in her voice that made Dana angry, to ask if she had any plans for the weekend.

Sure, the day was fun when you were freshly coupled or when you were in the second grade and got to make one of those Valentine mailboxes out of a shoe box, but it was now just a day to Dana Scully. Maybe a day where she’d snag a cupcake with frosting that would turn her mouth pink from the bureau’s cafeteria, but just an average Friday, nonetheless.

And on this Friday, she and Mulder had been busy from morning till he cut out a few minutes early, chasing down leads and making plans for a potential mothman reconnaissance mission the two were embarking on next week. She hadn’t had time for the cupcake, hadn’t had time to think about the day or why Mulder had left the office a few minutes earlier than usual.

She’d simply bid him a goodnight and headed home, tired from the long week, and conked out on the couch after noshing on some leftover pizza.

Happy Valentine’s Day, indeed.

And here she stood, surrounded by agents with grand-plans-now-interrrupted. Agents whose ensembles told a story of fancy dinner reservations, dances, theater tickets, parties. Whose winged eyeliner and bobby pinned curls meant they were desired, loved, lusted over.

Whose dress shoes and tuxedo meant Mulder was desired, loved, lust over.

Her stomach lurched. Cheeks burned.

She self-consciously tugged at the bottom of her sweatshirt, tried to tuck a frizzy curl behind her ear.

She could feel Mulder’s eyes burning a hole in her skull, but she couldn’t dare meet his gaze. She could feel her eyes burning, praying they weren’t red-rimmed.

She didn’t want to know who he was with...where...how long.... She couldn’t know. Not now. They had work to do.

“And Agent Bender, please go with Agents Mulder and Scully,” Skinner said. “I know you talked to the parents on the phone earlier. You’ll be familiar to them.”

Suddenly, Mulder’s hand was gripping Scully’s arm.

“Scully...” he said, in a tone laced with guilt, almost as if the next words out of his mouth wanted to be “I can explain” but what was there to explain?

They were not together.

Well, they were quite literally always together, but they weren’t together together. They simply called each other in the middle of the night when one or the other had a nightmare and knew each other’s coffee order depending on coffee chain and had spare clothes at each other’s places and nursed each other back from the brink of death on countless occasions and had broken down in each other’s arms and spent too many a tension-filled evening falling in love in clandestine seclusion on a shitty motel bed over styrofoam boxes of lukewarm takeout.

Agents headed out the door to their respective assignments staring at the Mulder and Scully locked in a grip, parting around them like the Red Sea.

Agent Bender -- a brown-haired, brown-eyed woman who Scully noted always wore lip gloss and was wearing a beautiful blush satin spaghetti strap dress tonight -- sidled up next to the two, eyes darting back and forth from Mulder to Scully to their connected arms and back again.

Sensing this was not the time, Mulder let go and Scully flinched back into herself.

“Um,” Bender said, breaking the tension. “I’ll drive.”

By the time they made the stilted walk to the bureau car lot, Bender had regaled the two with wistful details about her evening cut short: her boyfriend-of-one-month Lloyd had bought her that designer bag she had always wanted and taken her for drinks on some rooftop somewhere in the city. Before she could get a drink in her, Skinner was calling.

“If only I had downed something faster, I could have gotten out of this,” she said, followed by an exaggerated sigh.

“What about you?” Bender said pointing to Mulder as she unlocked the car. “What were you doing ton-”

“While I appreciate the recaps, I don’t think we have time for all this bonding,” Scully said bitterly, cutting Bender off.

Mulder cleared his throat, subconsciously loosening his bow tie.

He opened the passenger door for Scully who stalked past him, throwing the back sedan door open and sliding in with her arms crossed.

“Scully, I -”

“Mulder, you get car sick,” Scully said, briskly. “Get in, take the front, and let’s go.”

Bender looked in the rearview mirror, eyes dancing between a pissed off Scully in the backseat and an anxious Mulder in front a few times before she started the car and took off toward the Hilton.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Mulder’s head was muddled as he flew to the bureau after getting a call from Skinner about a kidnapping.

His thoughts were already in a weird place -- his Valentine’s Day was not exactly what he had expected -- and now a kid case. Kid cases always messed with his head. His mind drifted to Samantha, to the Eve’s, and, as always, to Scully.

He was hoping he might see her tonight. He didn’t know what her Valentine’s plans were. He had tried to suss it out a number of times in the previous weeks, but it seemed like Scully didn’t want to talk about it. Maybe she was already half a bottle of wine deep with some guy she met at the gym.

About 15 minutes after he made it to the bureau and was put to work while Skinner organized the crew, he spotted a tuft of copper hair bouncing toward the operation room, and he felt a warmth spread throughout his bones.

When she stepped through the door, he couldn’t help but smile.

She hadn’t seen him yet, but she looked adorable. Like the version of herself Mulder had the privilege of knowing when they’d had an especially long travel day and she was sleepy and not the pristinely put-together Scully she worked so hard to present to the world.

He liked her when her freckles started peaking through her makeup and her hair got fluffy and she got a little loopy with tiredness. Hell, he liked her all the time.

As she looked around the room, he watched her head cock to the side and her eyebrows furrow increasingly.

When she spotted him, he gave her a dopey grin and waved like a dork before he could stop himself.

Her eyes bugged out at the sight of him. He looked down at himself and remembered he was wearing a tuxedo.

Oh, right.

He watched her hands glide over her hair, tug at her sweatshirt. She smiled at him and waved back, but had a befuddled expression on her face.

A quick scan of the room, and it was suddenly evident to Mulder that one of these things was not like the other.

Everyone but Scully was dressed to the nines. Everyone was coming off of Valentine’s dates....except for Scully?

His heart clenched. He didn’t want her to feel self-conscious. She was easily the most beautiful woman in the room. No one else could even compare.

He suddenly wanted to whisk her out of the room, take her somewhere else and away from the harsh lights and wandering eyes of the operation room.

Scully still looked confused as Skinner began talking. Mulder couldn’t take his eyes off her, but he dutifully took notes with his eyes trained on his partner. He’d been doing it for years now. No sweat.

Suddenly, Scully’s eyes went wide, and a deep rouge overtook her ivory cheeks.

Skinner had given them their assignment at the Valentine’s Day ball.

Oh, shit.

She forgot it was Valentine’s Day, didn’t she? They hadn’t mentioned it at all during the day, had been too busy planning for a mothman adventure in the next week.

She didn’t even ask questions when he ducked out a few minutes early.

He wanted to explain, wanted to tell her everything but she wouldn’t even look at him.

He broke out into a cold sweat which only intensified when Skinner assigned Agent Bender to go with them.

Great.

The woman who practically bathed in cotton candy-scented body spray that gave Mulder a headache whenever he passed her in the hallway.

He tried to get her attention before they left the room, but she refused to meet his gaze and then the two of them were following behind Bender, left to fend for themselves downwind of the lethal sugar aroma.

After a painfully awkward car ride in which Bender talked their ears off about some poor sap named Lloyd who sounded as boring as Bender, the crew arrived at the hotel and transformed into work mode.

Mulder and Scully had worked together plenty of times under awkward circumstances -- fights, petty jealousies, when the sexual tension had gotten too thick and made things weird -- and the work always saw them through.

They worked together efficiently and professionally, communicating as the three of them took statements and interviewed witnesses at the hotel and began the tedious task of watching hours of security camera footage.

The missing kid, 7-year-old Julian, had been in a hotel room watching Disney movies in bed while his 16-year-old sister Carla was in an adjoining room talking on the phone with her boyfriend while their parents danced the night away in the ballroom below them.

“A 16-year-old was having a more exciting Valentine’s Day than me,” Scully thought glumly before kicking herself for having such an insensitive thought.

Bender interviewed the parents while Mulder and Scully talked to Carla.

They sat in a corner of the bustling lobby, teeming with local law enforcement and federal agents, as moonlight filtered in through the hotel’s big windows.

Scully spilled a big splotch of coffee on her sweatshirt as they got settled and cut a glance at Mulder who she expected to be cracking a grin at his clumsy partner, but he hadn’t noticed. His eyes were faraway and pleading.

Scully knew this was exactly the kind of case to get her partner in a funk. She was sure he related to Carla -- a sibling taken right from under their nose. The guilt and shame of it all.

He was being especially kind and careful with his questioning. When Carla started to get emotional, he offered her an olive branch.

“My sister was taken when I was watching her too, Carla,” he said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Your sister...” she said. “Did they find her?”

Mulder looked away, cursing himself for mentioning it.

“They....” he started. “We’ll find Julian. I promise.”

With that, he stood up and left the room for a minute while Scully took over.

When she was through, she reunited Carla with her parents and went to find Mulder, who had wandered to a stairwell in the hotel.

His bowtie was untied, and he was standing with his head hung.

“Hey,” Scully said, softly resting her hand on his shoulder from behind.

He lifted his head and turned around to face her.

“Hey,” he said back, softly.

“You okay?” Scully asked, plucking the bow tie from around his neck and stashing it in her purse.

“I’m an idiot,” he replied, rubbing his face over his hands.

“Well, sure, but we knew that already,” Scully said, a teasing lilt to her mouth, as she rubbed Mulder’s arm soothingly.

Mulder huffed out a laugh through his nose.

“But really, Mulder, you were very good with her,” Scully said. “You have shown her kindness in a dark time, which is not always something you were shown.”

“It is now, Scully,” he said, pulling a flyaway curl from Scully’s head and tucking it behind her ear. “You show me kindness.”

The pair smiled, Mulder’s hand still lingering behind her ear, retracting when Bender barged through the stairwell which suddenly reeked of cotton candy.

She paused, studying the two agents for a moment, before saying “They got him. Julian. He’s safe.”

Mulder and Scully exhaled loudly, bodies sagging in relief.

“Turns out, the kid wandered out of the hotel by himself, off looking for his own Disney adventure,” Bender said. “The hotel clerk who said she saw a man run off with a little boy matching his description has shit vision, it turns out. Must have been his own little screamin’ demon. Those damn astigmatisms, will get you every time. Anyway, Julian was found curled up asleep in a McDonald’s play place a few minutes ago. They’re going to get him checked out, but looks like not a hair out of place.”

“Thank God,” Scully said.

“Yeah,” Bender said. “Can’t believe I ditched cosmos with Lloyd for some kid who wanted to go down the slide. Anyway, local PD has it from here. Skinner’s called us off. I, uh, called Lloyd, and he said he’d forgive me for ditching him if I -- well, I’ll spare you the details, but are you two able to get the car back?”

Mulder and Scully exchanged amused glances.

“We’ll manage,” Mulder said. “Give Lloyd my regards.”

“Thanks,” Bender said. “You two have...plans for the rest of the evening?”

“Coming down from a cotton candy-induced stupor,” Mulder mumbled under his breath, and Scully put her hand over her mouth to stifle a laughter.

Bender, who hadn’t heard Mulder’s quip, narrowed her eyes at the two.

“You two are weird,” she said. “And I’m gonna go. See ya.”

“Mulder!” Scully hissed when Bender was out of earshot.

“Well, I hate that perfume!” Mulder said. “She’s gonna trigger a migraine one of these days.”

“I thought you’d like working with her,” Scully said, twirling her finger around a piece of her hair.

“Bender?” Mulder questioned.

“She’s...” Scully pursed her lips, trying to decide how she’d like to finish that sentence. “Tall.”

Mulder guffawed.

“Yes, her height was refreshing,” Mulder teased, knocking his hip against his partners as they started walking toward the car.

Scully yawned and stumbled into Mulder, her cheeks coloring as he grabbed her side to steady her.

“Woah,” he said, righting her. “Sleepy?”

Scully shook her head vehemently.

“Nope,” she said, a stubborn rigidity to her voice. “Wide awake.”

At least they were about to be alone where he could explain his evening to her in private -- something he wasn’t sure why he felt the need to do, but he did. Very much so.

A light snow had started to fall, so Mulder opened the passenger door for Scully while he took the ice scraper and got to work on the car windows.

By the time he was done, Scully’s head was tilted against the passenger window, and she was fast asleep.

He smiled to himself. She could fall asleep anywhere, any time.

He warmed the car up for her and started heading toward the bureau garage before reverting course. He couldn’t drop her off at her car to drive the rest of the way home. He wasn’t about to have her fall asleep behind the wheel.

His place wasn’t far away. She could have the couch, and he’d make do elsewhere.

The warm car ride must have lulled Scully into a deep sleep. Her gentle snores were accompanied by occasional twitches and murmurs. Mulder kept his hands at ten and two, but his eyes did wander to his sleeping partner every so often.

When he noticed what looked like a shiver run up her small body curled against the side of the car, he shrugged out of his tuxedo jacket and draped it over Scully, enveloping her in his body heat and that Mulder smell.

Reflexively, she pulled the jacket closer and inhaled, a sigh escaping her lips.

“Mulder...” she mewed in sleep.

He couldn’t wipe the cheeky grin off his face.

By the time they got to his building, he didn’t have the heart to wake her up. He knew his partner could sleep through a jackhammer convention, so he hoped that held true because if she woke up through this, she’d surely kill him.

He got out of the car gently opened her car door, letting her dead weight lean on his sturdy body. He cradled the underside of her knees and her back in his arms and lifted her out of the car, making sure to keep his jacket tucked around her. She stirred in his arms and snuggled closer into his chest, another sweet sigh escaping her lips.

Mulder buried his nose in her hair, lightly kissing the crown of her head before hauling Scully up into his building.

In a genius maneuver Mulder was excessively proud of, he hiked his leg and anchored it to the door to help balance Scully on top of while he unlocked his apartment one-handedly, sweeping her into his place that glowed green with aura of fish tank.

Setting her gently on his couch, he repositioned his jacket over her while he drew back to go get changed.

It was only when she lost his body warmth that she stirred enough -- mumbling in protest -- to wake herself.

Mulder turned around once he heard her sleepy groans and watched as her eyes popped open.

With cat-like reflexes, she darted up and looked around, a panic in her eyes.

Mulder rushed over, placing his hands on her shoulders.

“Hey, hey,” he said. “You’re alright. You’re in my apartment. You’re OK.”

She slumped back into the couch.

“What the hell, Mulder?” she said, annoyed. “What's going on?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to freak you out,” he said. “You fell asleep on the way back to the bureau, and I didn’t think you should drive if you were that tired. I just took you here to crash. Is that....OK?”

“I would have been fine to drive,” she muttered.

“I’m sure you would have been,” Mulder said. “Do you want some tea?”

“I -- well. Yes. Please,” Scully said, her expression softening a bit.

“Coming right up,” Mulder said, smiling at her.

As he puttered around his kitchen, a place that felt foreign to him in his own home, he thought now would be a good time to casually bring up what had been nagging at him all night.

“So, I wanted to tell you about tonight --” he started, his back turned to Scully as he searched through his cabinet for some honey.

“Mulder, you don’t need...I don’t...You don’t owe me an explanation,” Scully said, measuredly. “I’m.....happy for you.”

He turned around and quirked his head, inquisitive eyes boring into her.

“Um,” Mulder started again. “I’m...happy for you, too, Scully. I was at the Butterfly Kisses Valentine’s Dance.”

“I don’t need details, Mulder,” Scully interjected, turning red with an envy she couldn’t keep at bay.

“It’s a father/daughter dance,” he said.

That shut her up.

Her head snapped up to look at him as her jaw fell.

Finally, he could talk.

“I was there with Maya,” Mulder said, walking toward Scully, two steaming mugs in hand which he gently set down in front of her and took a seat beside her.

“Maya is nine. She’s the daughter of Joseph Richter. Agent Richter and I worked together quite a bit in my first years with the bureau. One case, there was a serial convenience store robber in town who kept shooting the convenience store clerks. They couldn’t catch the guy. We thought it would be an easy day. Things, uh....” Mulder scratched the five-o-clock shadow appearing on his chin and stared off through his window, the snow falling gently through the beams of streetlights.

“Things didn’t go as planned,” Mulder said. “We, um, well, Agent Richter was shot. We had just switched positions as we approached the suspect. The bullet was meant for me. Richter had a wife and a little girl at home.”

Mulder didn’t notice until now that some time during his speech, Scully had grabbed his hand and was rubbing soft circles against his skin with her thumb.

“We lost Agent Richter. I had to tell his wife, Ann. They had only been married a few years. Anyway, I told her that myself and the rest of the agents with us on that case would always be around to help. Sometimes I’ll change their porch light or clean their gutters. This year, Ann called and said there was a father/daughter dance at Maya’s school for Valentine’s Day. She asked if one of us could take Maya. The rest of the guys had dates but I...was available, so. Anyway. I was with Maya tonight. That’s where I was.”

Mulder pulled back and picked up his cup of tea with shaky hands and took a ragged sip, steam masking the hurt played out across his face.

Scully stared at him with big, wet eyes.

“I’m sorry your evening with Maya was cut short,” she said, hiding a tremble in her voice.

“We got through the dance, so that’s good,” Mulder said. “I was just about to take her for ice cream to make up for my two left feet, but luckily her mom was there, too, so I told her I’d take a rain check for some rocky road, scout’s honor.”

Scully smiled softly.

“I bet you made that little girl feel like a princess,” she said, smoothing the collar of Mulder’s crisp, white shirt.

“I hope so!” Mulder said. “She certainly looked like one -- purple, sparkly tutu and all. Speaking of...” he said, scooting closer to Scully. “What happened here, princess?” he said, a teasing gleam in his eye as he pointed to the coffee stain on Scully’s sweatshirt.

“Oh,” Scully said, softly, embarrassed. “I’m a mess. When I walked in...everyone looked so dressed up and there I was looking like...well, like this. I sort of...forgot...what day it was. Lame, I know. When Skinner called tonight, I was actually asleep on the couch, if you can believe it. I’m sure you can. When I saw you dressed like this....and then Skinner said it was Valentine’s Day....Well, I’m sorry I was so unpleasant all night. I just felt.....I don’t know. Silly, I guess.”

Sometime during Scully’s rambling, Mulder had picked up her hand and was rubbing soft circles against her skin with his thumb.

She smiled down at his reciprocated act of comfort.

“You don’t look like a mess to me,” he said, quietly, staring deeply into Scully’s blue eyes.

“No?” Scully questioned, their soft breathing the only sound that could be heard as they gazed.

“No,” Mulder responded, snapping out of the moment after too long of a pause. “Aside from this coffee stain. Take that sweatshirt off, and I’ll pop it in the washer. I’ll give you something of my mine in the meantime.”

“Uhhhh,” Scully said. “No, no, that’s fine. It’s not a big deal.”

“Scully, while I promise it’s better than cotton candy, you smell like a Starbucks,” Mulder said. “C’mon, it’s no trouble. It’ll be good as new in the morning.”

Eyes glued to the floor, Scully grumbled as she tossed the sweatshirt over her head and clamped her arms over the front of her New York Knicks T-shirt.

Mulder tried to fight off a smile.

“Heyyy,” he said, in mock discovery. “I know that shirt.”

He rubbed the material between his fingers.

“Thought I lost it,” he said. “Haven’t seen it in a while.”

“Hmm,” Scully said, busying herself with her tea. “Must have been at the bottom of my laundry hamper. I just did a load this evening and threw something on before leaving the house.”

“Interesting,” Mulder said, stifling a grin.

Scully shrugged nonchalantly, blowing on her mug, followed by a massive yawn.

“Right,” Mulder said, standing. “You’re tired. Let me get you a pillow and some blankets.”

Scully blushed as she realized she was still hugging Mulder’s jacket close to her body. She picked it up and folded it neatly beside her.

When Mulder came back, he looked at the jacket next to her and the goosebumps rising on her arms.

“That’s OK,” he said, handing her a sweatshirt. “You can keep it tonight. I’m sure you’ve got it all warmed up to your liking.”

He picked up the jacket and laid it back over her, placing another fleece blanket on top and lying a pillow on the end of the couch for her.

Scully reclined, settling in under the soft, Mulder-y warmth of multiple items of his clothing.

“Mulder, where are you going to sleep?” she asked, through another yawn.

“Don’t worry about me, Scully,” Mulder said, sitting on the floor with his back propped up against the couch. “I’ve got some late-night infomercials to catch up on.”

He turned the TV on low and heard Scully getting comfortable behind him, snuggling deep into the leather indents of his couch.

Scully wondered if nestling against Mulder’s couch imprint was the closest she’d ever get to cuddling with the real thing. But the back of his head was sat close enough for her to run her fingers through if she wanted, so she was more than content to fall asleep wrapped in his clothes, his scent so close.

As she started to doze, she heard Mulder whisper “Happy Valentine’s Day, Scully.”

She smiled and hummed back to him.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Mulder.”

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feverinfeveroutfic · 1 month ago

Text

The Hungry Lion Throws Itself on the Antelope | Kinktober 2024 | “february ghosts”

prompt: surprise

pairing: alex/portia

word count: 3131

song: “mr. sandman” by the chordettes

I rolled over onto my back in the bed, only to feel Portia’s body up against me. She had her arm around my waist and her head rested upon my chest. I had been her pillow for the night, even as I lay on my back with the pillow under my head. I had my arm around her, and I ran my hand down the crest of her hip. She had such a nice curvy figure, and one where I wanted to never stop feeling her.

I almost couldn’t believe that I was actually there, that I was actually laying in bed with her and she had her head on me.

I did, however, need to get up.

Gently, I shook her a little bit.

“Portia…” I whispered to her. “Portia… hey, doll… I gotta get up.”

She groaned in her throat, and she buried her face further into my chest. But I had to get up.

Gingerly, I tried to slide out from underneath her and towards the edge of the bed: I set one foot on the corner of the mattress and tugged myself away from her. She groaned in her throat again, but she never woke up for even a second. She never awoke even when I slid out from underneath her and inched down to the foot of the bed. I sat there for a second with my bare feet rested on the carpet, and I peered over my shoulder for a look back at her. Her eyes still closed, with a stray lock of lilac purple hair grazed over her face and the bridge of her nose. I showed her a smile, but then I had to get up for real at that point.

I crept into the bathroom, behind the curtains, and I dropped my shorts.

I got about halfway there when I heard the bed creaking a little bit.

“Are you in there, Alex?” she asked me in a broken voice.

“Yeah. I had to almost roll out of bed because the other alternative was to wake you up.”

“You should’ve woken me up,” she said with a sleepy chuckle.

I finished and wiped a little bit, and then I pulled up my shorts, and I slipped out from behind the curtains to wash my hands.

I dried off and stopped right next to the bed, only to find that she had rolled over onto her other side and propped up her head with the palm of her hand. She gazed up at me with a sleepy smile on her face, and I showed her a smile in return.

“Wanna make some challah?” she offered me. “I’ll put on some clothes and a pot of coffee, and we can have a loaf of bread before lunchtime.”

“I would love to make a loaf of challah,” I replied with a soft rub of my belly. “Especially since we’re looking at the Shabbat here in the next day.” I paused for a second. “Today is Thursday, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Tomorrow’s Friday and therefore Shabbat,” I replied with a running of my fingers through my hair. “We’ll have a loaf of challah just in time for the day of rest as its known.”

“Rest, relax, and eat!” she declared, and she sat up. Her purple hair floated down over her shoulders in such light filmy fashion, and more so when she stood up and stepped closer to me for a kiss on my lips. I stepped past her to put on some pants and to give her some space as well.

I thought about going into the kitchen shirtless but then I was met with the shock of cold air from the rest of the house outside of the bedroom. I brushed my hair with my fingers in a haste, and I was about to double back into the bedroom when she stepped out in pajama bottoms covered in purple cats, a black velvet camisole, and a black sweater over her body.

“Man, you work quick,” I remarked.

“Indeed, I do,” she said with a little poke of my belly. I covered myself up with my arms and I stuck my tongue out at her.

I thought of wearing nothing more than a sweater over my body, just so I could unzip and take it off no problem and play with her after the fact.

I kept it unzipped right under my collar bones as I strode into the kitchen. She had began a pot of coffee before I walked into the room, and right then, she was taking measuring cups and a silver bowl out of the far left pantry. I saw she had set up the scale, whereby she placed the bowl down and zeroed it out. I also spotted the big cookbook on the countertop and a glass measuring cup filled with steaming water upon a silicone potholder right next to her.

“Okay, first off, we start off with flour. Three cups to start with.” She gestured over to the middle door of the pantry, and I stepped on over there, albeit with a bit of reluctance because all of this was new to me.

“Okay. Uh… right here?” I showed her the glass canister on the shelf filled with the white powder that looked like flour, but for all I knew, it could have been powdered sugar.

“That’s the one!”

I brought it over to her as if I was bringing her the Olympic torch.

“Three hundred sixty grams to start with.”

She took the can and gradually tipped some of the flour into the bowl. I watched the scale for her, and I told her when she hit three hundred and sixty. She unscrewed the lid on the jar of yeast, the outside of which was covered in a fine film of moisture, and I knew that she took it out of the freezer. The coffee brewed right next to me, and the smell of it was intoxicating me.

“Seven grams of yeast on one side,” she told me as she picked up a teaspoon, “then one and a half teaspoons of salt on the other.”

“Why is that?”

“Salt kills yeast,” she duly replied.

“Oh, I see!”

I watched her put in the yeast on the left side of the bowl, followed by the salt on the right side. She then took the bowl off the scale and switched it off.

“Hand me that can of sugar, Alex,” she coaxed me, and I nudged the canister of sugar closer to her, and she picked out a small cup full of it: she evened it out with a slight shake.

“We also put a quarter cup of sugar on the side with the salt,” she continued. “It’s this plus the egg and the veggie oil that makes it nice and rich, as I’m sure you know.”

“Oh, you bet I do,” I assured her with a sly grin.

“Some of this warm water…” She poured it in, and then she began stirring the ingredients together with a wooden spoon. I handed her a small vessel of vegetable oil, plus the one egg that she called for.

“We’ve got one egg to go inside.” She leaned the spoon against the rim of the bowl for a moment, and she cracked the egg into the bowl first. After a quick wash of her hands, she began stirring again.

“And last but not least, two tablespoons of veggie oil to incorporate within. Olive oil to help us with the kneading.” She nodded to the bottle of olive oil right next to me.

She stirred the dough until it was a bit shaggy, and then she poured a small bit of olive oil onto the counter space between us as well as onto her palm. She schmeared it across the surface of the counter, and then she rubbed her hands together, and she picked up the dough and placed it atop the small glossy rectangle of oil. She pushed on the dough, and she tugged it back towards her. She did it over and over, albeit with a few stops in between because the dough stuck to her hands, but she did it with no problem whatsoever.

She then turned to me with a bit of a twinkle in her eye.

“Wanna try?”

“Yeah, I would love to.”

“Put a little bit of olive oil in your hands and then have at it, big boy.”

I tipped the mouth of the bottle over my palm, and then I rubbed my hands together as if I was putting on lotion. Portia stepped aside to give me room.

“So, push it down and then pull it back like what you were doing?” I asked her.

“Yeah, just like that. Use the base of your palms to push, and then pull it back with your fingers. Use all of your hands.”

I did just that, and it stuck onto my hand a little, even with the oil on my skin. A push with my palms. A tug back with my fingers. It was trickier than it looked.

“Ooh, it’s warm,” I remarked as I leaned down over the countertop.

“Yeast likes warmth,” she said.

“I like warmth, too.” I moved back and looked on at the dough under my hands. It stuck onto me like glue, much to my dismay, but I trusted the olive oil schmeared inside of my palms. “Just keep kneading it like this?”

“Almost like that,” she advised me, and then she placed her hands onto my thighs and nudged them back a little bit; I moved my legs back so I was a little bit lower along the counter’s edge. One of the problems with being so tall. “Put your back and your body into it. Feel the dough.”

“Feel the dough and become the dough,” I quipped, and she giggled at that. I tried it some more, and all the while, I put my body into it just as she had suggested.

“This is quite nice, actually. I can see this being very therapeutic.”

“You really have no idea,” she assured me.

“Therapeutic and good exercise, too.”

“My dad knows a guy who’s a baker. One of his specialties is handmade bread, and kneading bread is literally how he stays in shape.”

“Wow. I guess after all of the food we’ve eaten so far—all the food I’ve eaten so far—I can probably keep fit this way.” I chuckled at that, and I persisted with the folding of the dough back and pushing it forward on the counter’s surface. I pushed down on the dough with all my might.

“Picture me with kind of a chubby belly and toned arms,” I told her at one point with a sly smile, and she flicked her eyebrows at me.

“I wouldn’t say ‘kind of’,” she said, and she brought her arm right underneath my own, and she patted me on the belly, and I flinched back from the feeling. “A very cute belly with toned muscular arms and long gorgeous hair down to your waist. You’d look like Jesus.”

“I’d be Jesus minus the beard,” I pointed out. “Unless you’d like for me to grow one.”

“You’d look really, really cute with just a little bit of scruff on your face,” she confessed. “A tiny bit of fuzz around your chin and your lips. I imagine you going down on me with it, too.” I stopped and pinched my eyes shut and let my mouth fall agape from surprise at that. I stuck out my tongue at her, and she giggled at that with her hands clasped over her mouth.

“Give you just a little bit more of a tickle down below the equator, eh?” I teased her.

“A tickle and a pinch, too,” she joked, and I burst out laughing at that. I kept going, and all the while, I put my arms more and more into it. It gave me such strength and such power, and it felt as though I was doing the workout of my life.

“So, how long do we do this?” I asked her, slightly out of breath.

“About ten minutes,” she replied without batting a lash.

“Ten minutes!” I gaped at her.

“Or longer if you’re a novice,” she continued.

“And I am a novice,” I said, and I pushed harder on the dough. But it was the strangest thing in that I could feel the dough sticking to my hands not as much the harder I kneaded and the more I did it, too.

“How do I know when it’s done?” I asked her, and I thought of unzipping my sweater.

“When it feels like the inside of your arm,” she replied. “Or like porcelain. Let me see…” I held back for her to have a check, whereby she ran her fingers over the top of the dough. “Getting there.”

I kneaded a few more times, and then she gave it a feel again.

“Yeah, there we go!” I put my hands around the sides of the dough as if I was bearing the Holy Grail filled with a sacrament.

“Now we put this into this bowl here—and I’ve already put a tiny dollop of oil in here,” she said, and she showed me the big light purple glass bowl with a fine layer of olive oil down on the inside.

“And you’ve schmeared it a little bit around the inside, too,” I remarked.

“So it doesn’t stick and it can rise up in one fell swoop,” she explained. Carefully, I picked up the dough with both hands: its softness made me think of how my belly was going to feel if I stayed there long enough, much to my amusement. I lay it down in the bowl, right upon the slight pool of olive oil. Portia took the square of plastic wrap and placed it over the top of the bowl.

“Then what?”

“We let this rest for an hour,” she replied, and she tucked the bowl of dough into the oven and closed the door. She wiped her hands together and showed me a smile. “After an hour, we come back and check to see if it’s risen at all.”

“And what do we do between now and when the hour is up?”

“Hang out,” she said. “I like to clean up my mess, too.”

“You want me help you?” I offered her.

��If you’d like to,” she assured me, and I did in fact help her out with it. Afterwards, we headed back into the bedroom to keep up the warmth for an hour before we checked on the dough, tucked away in the safety of the oven.

“Okay, let’s see…” Portia opened the door and showed me the bowl, and sure enough, the dough had billowed up. She took the bowl out of hiding, and she placed on the counter, and she took off the plastic wrap.

“Now. Have you ever had your hair braided?”

“Me? No.”

“You should,” she suggested, and I couldn’t help but chuckle at that.

She had me sprinkle the top of the counter with a fine layer of flour. Using a flat sheet of metal, which she called the pastry cutter, she had me carefully slice the dough into three right atop the flour. She also had me roll them out into long rolls more than a foot long.

“How’s this look?” I asked her.

“Beautiful!” And then she rolled the strands a bit longer, and she pinned the ends furthest away from us together.

“Could you get me one of the cookie sheets from the cupboard up over the fridge, please?” she asked me, and I did just that for her. “There’s also a silicone sheet in there, let’s use that.” I set the sheet inside of the cookie sheet and held it out before me.

“Where do I put this?” I asked her.

“On the stove.”

I put it down right as she was finishing the braiding part. She tucked in the ends with her palms, and then, carefully, she carried the loaf over to the baking sheet.

“Now, what?” I asked her.

“Then we let this rest again inside a plastic bag for another forty minutes. Before it’s done resting the second time, we’ll come in and fire up the oven. I’ll make us a little egg wash to brush over the top of the plait around then, too.”

“Let me do that,” I told her with a clap of my hands, and a cloud of flour billowed up before my face. I spat it out, and she laughed at that. She doubled back to another cupboard for a big plastic grocery bag and i watched her in amazement as she tucked the cookie sheet inside there.

Let it rise for some more time so it could look like a proper challah.

Portia turned to me with a twinkle in her eye. “Question. Poppy seeds or sesame seeds?”

“Ooh…” I paused for a second with the tip of my tongue upon the edge of my top row of teeth. I noticed her looking at my teeth, too, and I squinted my eyes at her. “…sesame. Why?”

“Once we get the egg wash on there, I’ll sprinkle some seed on there. Make it all the more authentic.”

“That’s beautiful, and definitely sesame seeds. Poppy seeds will work, too, but sesame’s better in my opinion.”

Another sitting around the heater for a bit longer, and then I volunteered to make her the egg wash. Maybe I was just a simple guy but I liked mixing the egg in the little bit of water with a fork, and more so when she came back into the room to switch on the oven.

With a pastry brush, she schmeared the egg wash over the top of the bread, and then she sprinkled the seeds over the top.

“Then we bake for twenty-five minutes to start with. If it’s not done yet, we’ll go for another five.”

The oven made a dinging noise to tell us it was ready. She tucked it onto the top rack and turned on the timer. All the while, I held back with my hands on my hips.

“Now, I’m Jewish. Our holidays for the most part revolve around eating or fasting. And yet I’m actually surprised as to how much I’m enjoying this.” She turned to me and put her arms around my waist. “I’m surprised as to how much I’m enjoying this. I love making this loaf, and I love the fact that you chose to make challah with me, too.” Portia stood up on her toes to kiss me, and a shiver ran down my back.

A good Shabbat, without question.

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kisskissbanggang · 1 year ago

Text

Jumpspace Renegade - ep. 13 ✨🚀

[3.8k words, 15min. read - Stray Kids Multi Fic, Scifi!au, Choose Your Own Adventure - Minho x Fem. Reader, Seungmin x Fem. Reader, Chan x Fem. Reader - SFW/Smut in Other Chapters/SOME Spice - Navigating Feelings, Platonic(?) Intimacy, Surprisingly Sweet, Surprisingly Intimidating, Time to Question Some Ethics, Emotional Vulnerability is Hard, Ominous Plot Hints, Forming Alliances, Loyalty Crisis, Delicious Banter and Flirting and Tension, We Finally Left the Ocean Planet, Mentions of Drugging, Always Check the Tags]

[Episodes on Fridays 7pm pst, Polling closes Saturdays 7pm pst]

[Series Masterlist | Come Say Hi!]

The scent of seawater on your skin was bittersweet while you patted a towel over your damp clothes, still dripping in your cabin. To tell the truth, you were so mad that you were surprised you weren’t steaming. Your impromptu swim left you feeling a little filmy to the touch. So now you weren’t just considering venting all your garbage to Minho, but maybe taking a shower as well, just leave the salt air behind and move on.

But you were still really pissed.

Much to your chagrin, Minho was right. Jisung was such a dick. But was Minho even in a place to talk? You figured he must’ve been wondering what was going on in the time it took for him to get locked in his cabin until it was almost time to launch. As far as you were concerned, asking first was simply a courtesy. You surveyed the room, remembering that Chan had dramatically sealed the hatches to Minho’s cabin. Both the access under the port and the one in the closet would be off-limits. You could just let yourself in, but that seemed intrusive. And what about the cameras? The security cameras around the ship helped you get into hot water with Chan in the first place. If you could avoid the cameras, that’d be even better.

You checked out the closet again. The hatches may be closed, you figured, but that wall inside the closet was still shared with Minho’s cabin, and may even be the closest to it, judging by how it was recessed. You changed into some dry clothes once you were no longer soaked, and then approached the closet. When you pressed your ear to the furthest back wall, there was no hint of activity, but you also weren’t sure what you were expecting. You tapped your fingernail against the brushed metal surface and waited.

Half a minute passed, and a tap responded to your own.

“Hey,” you grinned, “you got a minute? I want to try something.”

“Try something?” Minho repeated, amused. “Sure, just let me kick out all my dinner guests.” His voice was surprisingly clear through the wall, or at least clearer than you’d expected.

You hung up your towel and remembered to put on your sneakers again, sullenly remembering that you’d be re-entering artificial gravity soon. The garage was cold and empty when you poked your head into the alcove that contained your and Minho’s cabins. Sure enough, there was the camera, out in the top corner of the workshop, furthest away from you. For a moment, you wondered how you could temporarily disable it, when the ship rumbled to life. This was a good development, you realized. Chan would be too busy monitoring the launch to be watching the cameras.

The keycard was slipping between your sweaty fingers while you tiptoed over to Minho’s door. Sure enough, it beeped open right away.

God, Chan was dumb. Of course the keys were universal.

But, you internally admitted, you did take advantage of a pretty dire situation to not so much steal the card as keep it. The key working on all the locks could very well be an open secret.

Inside the cabin, you expected Minho to be lounging on his bed, since that was what was on the other side of your wall. Instead, he was inspecting his chin in the mirror inside his closet. “I’m kind of glad I never could grow a beard like I used to before the Marines,” he nonchalantly remarked. “I haven’t been able to shave in days since I got grabbed at the spaceport–”

“Well, you were right,” you blurted heatedly. “I’m pissed at Jisung.”

Minho looked at you, his eyes lit up. “Is that what you’ve been up to?”

You were about to answer, go on a full tirade, when the ship rumbled underfoot again. According to the view outside, the ship was taxiing to the one boost lane in The Hatchery. The intercom must’ve been muted or deactivated in this cabin, because you could hear it muffled in your own room next door, beginning the countdown, but not in here. Minho sat on his bed.

“So you’re pissed at Jisung,” he echoed you. “What’re you gonna do?”

“I don’t know,” you answered truthfully. “I don’t know what it’s going to be like at Sentury yet, or even how long we’re going to be there, so–”

You were interrupted twice. First, Minho blinked at you, clearly confused.

Then the ship launched. You didn’t quite internalize what that countdown was for, you realized.

Minho caught you when you went flying, breaking your fall onto the bed and preventing you from slamming into the back wall.

He was a little distracted, judging by the way he softly smiled. “You smell like the ocean. Did you have fun?”

“I loved it,” you smirked back.

“So, wait,” he interrupted with a shake of his head, getting you both back on topic, “I thought this was all going down at Victory Meridian.”

You watched clouds slowly turn into space outside Minho’s window. “That’s not exactly what I heard,” you clarified. “How did you get Jisung to spill anyway? All I remember is you left the port authority before us and ended up back at the ship after us.”

Minho shrugged. With how he’d caught you, he was now basically lying beside you in bed. “Jisung was being cagey so I pulled over into an alley and Hyunjin kept watch.”

Your apparent look of horror made him pause.

“Calm down; I didn’t hurt him. I just gave him an idea of what could happen if he didn’t talk.”

“Fine,” you accepted. “So he talked.”

“Well, he clearly didn’t tell me the truth,” Minho huffed, agitated.

“I don’t think that’s the case,” you argued. “At least not entirely. Jisung told me this is going down at Sentury but the payday would be in Victory Meridian.”

Minho stroked his chin. Annoyingly, from here, he looked gorgeous in the light of the jumpspace stream. “Interesting,” he ruminated. “Anything in particular?”

You were about to answer him, tell him all about the nightclub and the safety deposit box but – at that precise moment – the door opened.

Chan stared at both of you, a tray of food from the galley in his hands. He didn’t yell, he didn’t curse; he only raised an eyebrow. The captain simply walked over to Minho’s desk, roughly set the tray down, and returned to the heavy cabin door, tongue poked into his cheek in clear frustration. He silently waited, leaning against the door with his arms folded until you warily climbed out of Minho’s bed. You were about to leave when he stopped you, expectantly waiting for you again with a hand outstretched. At this, you pulled out the keycard and spitefully dropped it into his hand.

Satisfied, he let you exit before he swung Minho’s door shut and went on his way, not even taking any time to berate you.

“Hey!” you stopped him. “Don’t you want to know what was going on?”

“No,” Chan stubbornly replied while he headed back toward the galley. “I was just wondering what you were up to since you weren’t on the bridge for launch. Sorry for interrupting.”

You almost scoffed when Chan roughly closed the workshop door behind him, and you returned to your cabin. There was a tapping sound at the back of your closet. When you approached and tapped in return, the noise stopped.

“Hey,” came Minho’s voice. “Be careful about this lead, okay? We don’t really have enough info.”

You wondered if Jisung was being careful, if that had ever been a thought in his mind when he told either of you any of this, when your stomach voiced a wretched grumble at you. Chan had been holding a tray of food, so it must be time to eat, and now your hunger caught up with you. But the thought of sharing space with either of those assholes, Chan or Jisung, was killing you. Especially Jisung. You wrinkled your nose at the conclusion that leaving to grab food would probably mean running into the pilot’s stupid face.

As if he read your mind, your intercom crackled on. “Hey,” Jisung greeted, “I know you’re pissed at me, so I just wanted to tell you I already grabbed my food.”

You felt a little ridiculous, side-eyeing the intercom as if it were Jisung himself.

“I meant it, by the way,” he added. “I bet you already talked to Minho somehow. And if you did, I’m sure you figured out I didn’t give him the whole story. I really did tell you first, just like I wanted to and just like I told you.”

There were those feelings again. You really did hate how much this complicated things.

“Hey,” came Jisung again. “You know I can activate the Talk button on your intercom, right? I better hear you leave in the next ten seconds to go get some food or I’m going to annoy the shit out of you.”

You rolled your eyes and pettily blew hard into the receiver on your intercom when you walked past it, swinging the door shut behind you for good measure to make sure you provided a good racket on Jisung’s end. Passing through the workshop, the seal of the galley door blew more chilled air at you and you were thankful you changed into some dry clothes, but now you were living with crunchy, salty hair. By now, you were bemoaning the idea of having to spend time around anyone when you’d already had such a long day. Thankfully, however, it seemed everyone felt similarly, with Hyunjin breezing out of the kitchen carrying a plate and heading right back downstairs. Jisung was upstairs, and you assumed Chan was too, and it made sense to you that Felix and Changbin were nowhere to be seen. Jeongin was busy washing dishes, assumedly having also helped take over cooking duties since Felix was indisposed, but he seemed to hear you nonetheless. He peeked over his shoulder, waving when he caught sight of you and drying his hands so he could hand you a plate he apparently had saved for you, just like Felix had begun to do.

And despite all this, you were surprised when Seungmin emerged from the kitchen behind him, his glasses still smudged with Azure and dressed down into a sweatshirt with some joggers.

For a mortifying second, you wondered if Seungmin still liked you.

Of course he didn’t, not after Chan humiliated you at the beginning of the day, outing your escapades to everyone but especially to Seungmin, the one person who cared, apparently.

“Hey!” the navigator acknowledged you, eyes lit up and everything. “I was just thinking about you.”

Oh?

He sat down in the booth in the common area and waved you over. You tried to compose yourself while you sat down beside him.

“So, how was your meeting?” you tentatively asked, even though you thought you might know the answer already. Minho had mentioned something about the navigator likely dealing with some minor memory loss.

Seungmin self-consciously laughed into his coffee. “I wish I remembered it.”

“You don’t remember?” you implored. “What do you remember? From anything? From this morning?”

He held up his hand, thumb meeting his fingertips to make a “0”. “Nothing,” he chuckled. “I’m betting you already know what happened, because Chan told me when I woke up the first time, and he made sure to tell me that everyone knows. Well, I mean, everyone but me. I remember yesterday, at least. Changbin and Felix are fighting? The last thing I remember was hanging out with Jisung and Hyunjin after we landed.”

“Changbin and Felix aren’t fighting anymore…” you dazedly informed him, trailing off while you wrapped your head around this. Assumedly, from what you could tell, the last events Seungmin recalled were the two of you getting frisky on the bridge during landing and then getting ready for customs afterwards. Nothing from that morning. Nothing about Chan outing you. Seungmin didn’t know you slept with almost half the inhabitants of the ship.

If you wanted, apparently, you were in the clear. You didn’t obliterate your chances with Seungmin.

He still liked you, and it was obvious from the way he was eager to hear more.

“What?!” he laughed. “What do you mean, they’re not fighting? This was, quite literally, the worst fight those two ever had.”

“Well,” you laughed, still trying to ground this whole revelation about Seungmin’s memory, “Felix got tagged when we were on the surface–”

“WHAT?!” Seungmin blurted again, gobsmacked.

It went back and forth like this. First, you informed Seungmin about Chan’s ridiculous punishment with the gun. You did fudge a detail or two in your retelling, mostly leaving the sordid cause of the whole debacle out of it. Instead you opted to frame it as simply Chan getting back at you for talking to Minho since you came on board.

“What a dick,” the navigator commiserated. “I don’t know what he has against you, but Chan is such a dick sometimes. It makes sense that you’d talk to Minho; he’s the first person that you met on board and you both got picked up on T’kaarm. I assume there’s some mutual interest there.”

You could think of a couple reasons Chan had it out for you. First and biggest of all was how he did not trust your interactions with Minho. That was pretty justified, but there was something about it that felt a little… personal. But that wasn’t what stood out to you most.

For some reason, it never really occurred to you that Minho hadn’t been detained long when you stumbled into the Ambler in the first place, but that instead he’d only recently been bagged. It suddenly seemed strange that you’d never run into him before then, but you pushed past this, instead regaling everything that had gone down in The Hatchery for Seungmin, from Minho saving Felix to all of you finding Jisung when you went to go spring Hyunjin out of jail. You did decide to leave out Jisung’s lead, however. Like Minho said, there still wasn’t much information surrounding it. Nevertheless, Seungmin was enraptured, following every word you said until you decided to share what Changbin and Jeongin could recall of his meeting with his clients.

Seungmin’s cheeks rouged for a minute. “I wouldn’t put it past me to mess up a drop like this,” he explained. “I’ve been a little stressed ever since I realized I needed to get those guys physical charts so I’m not surprised that I probably made it look like I was about to pull something. Can’t say I’m even mad. But Azure? I haven’t messed with that stuff since Academy and I hated it.”

“I’m glad you’re alright, though,” you worried. Feeling a little brazen, you reached for his glasses and used your shirt to wipe the remaining blue dust off the lenses. It was admittedly hilarious, feeling bashful about this when the last time you’d been close like this had been spent with you and Seungmin engaging in much more than innocent little gestures.

“I’m glad you’re alright, too,” he smiled. “Sounds like you’ve had a crazy day.” He had the kindest eyes behind those glasses. You mused for a second that this must’ve been what it was like to date normally.

In a moment that caught you viscerally off guard, Seungmin combed your hair back behind your ear with his fingers.

“You still smell like the ocean,” he sweetly observed, inadvertently echoing Minho from earlier and making your heart thump embarrassingly in your chest. “What else are you doing tonight?”

“Me?” you dumbly asked. “I was thinking a shower. Crazy day and all, like you said. And you?”

“Oh,” Seungmin shrugged flippantly. “I was thinking of turning in... Still pretty tired.”

This whole exchange felt incredibly loaded. Was Seungmin trying to see if you’d proposition him? He was expectantly lingering in the booth, his arm slung on the back of the seat where he faced you. You came to the realization that this might’ve even been an opportunity to kiss him.

But was now even the time?

You may have had a clear slate, but of the seven souls on board besides you and him, you still had the knowledge that you’d fucked three of them.

Not to mention they all knew, too.

Literally the only person who didn’t know was Seungmin.

Jisung’s remark that Seungmin was an all or nothing kind of guy was gnawing at you.

And you didn’t know how to feel about that.

Which, regrettably, meant you had to leave this be.

“I should let you get going to bed then,” you begrudgingly decided. You managed to put on a gentle smile, but that didn’t stop Seungmin from looking a little crushed.

Fine. Maybe you could cut it halfway.

You leaned forward, softly kissing his cheek. “Goodnight, Seungmin,” you smirked. You pulled back before he got any ideas.

That same, warm smile returned. “Goodnight, Nova,” he bid you farewell, watching as you slid out of the booth and got up to your feet.

You giddily headed back to your cabin, caught between feeling like you got away with something but also feeling the rush of having any sort of positive effect like this on a guy like Seungmin. And it wasn’t even like you were lying; you did still want to shower, the idea of some warm water really on your skin to clear your head was sounding especially refreshing after the whole day.

The act of grabbing your toiletries was automatic, drifting through time and space and only coming back into consciousness long enough to note that Seungmin already went back upstairs by the time you retreated into the central head on board the ship. Your shower shoes did a terrible job as usual keeping you magnetized to the floor, but all that mattered was the soothing sensation of physically washing off all this action so you could recenter yourself for whatever was coming next.

Mainly, there was the headache of this lead that Jisung had given you. Club scenes were never really your thing, but you figured they were pretty similar anywhere you went. Assumedly, if there was a hidden treasure, someone had to hate whoever was keeping it enough to spill where it was being kept and how to access it. In a club or casino setting, this was almost always some employee, but you could figure it out if this was someone in management, too, or even someone connected on the outside.

And, of course, there was the bigger headache. Did you even want to work with Jisung on this?

He stole your shit and risked losing it and went to jail for it – all for this lead.

But he also made sure to only tell you the whole truth.

Allegedly.

Following this trail of thought, something Minho had said earlier suddenly stood out to you, plain as day, lit up in neon lights:

Hyunjin was standing watch while Minho coerced Jisung into telling him the partial truth that he ended up getting.

What exactly did that look like?

Keeping watch in an alleyway could’ve meant that Hyunjin had been meters away… or maybe right next to them.

Your mind raced when the seal of the door to the washroom hissed, making you jump.

“Hyunjin, that better not be you. I know you hate jail but if you’re wasting the filtration system again I’m gonna–”

Of course.

You and Chan stared at each other, the captain walking in on you for a second time. His eyes blew wide open upon this realization and he clapped his cybernetic hand over his eyes before he turned around. Unlike you, who preferred to walk in and out of the showers fully dressed, Chan only wore a towel secured around his hips.

“Do you want to say sorry?” you jeered. “Not very fitting behavior for a captain, walking in on a lady.”

“Some lady,” scoffed Chan. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on between you and the bounty?” He still wasn’t looking at you from the doorway to the shower stalls.

You turned off the water, leaving the annoying hum of the vent as background noise for this confrontation. Chan’s Adam's apple visibly bobbed when you grabbed your towel near the doorway, taking your sweet time to dry off.

“You’re too paranoid, Captain,” you coolly dismissed him with a roll of your eyes. “I thought we were friends. Or at least potential friends, as you phrased it. Why are you so convinced something is going on?”

“Look,” he huffed, a hand still covering his eyes, “I need to know. Not even as a friend, not even as a potential friend, but as Captain. This guy is fucking dangerous and I need to know if anything is putting my crew or ship at risk.”

“Your ship?” you immaturely questioned.

“Jisung’s ship,” Chan grumbled. “And just because you fucked the guy doesn’t mean you know him.”

You reached for Chan’s cybernetic arm. He stubbornly closed his eyes instead, wrenching them more tightly shut when he felt you hook your used towel on his fingers. “Likewise, handsome,” you refuted. “I don’t know you because we fucked, just like you don’t know me. What’s so dangerous about him anyway?”

“You’re impossible,” the captain bit back, glaring at you until he caught sight of you still standing naked in front of him. He shut his eyes again. “I’m just asking for some fucking respect and loyalty if you’re going to be on the crew.”

“And who says you don’t have it?” you laughed, taking extra long to pull on your clean clothes. “Who says I’m not playing him?”

You finished getting dressed and teasingly pulled at Chan’s own towel. He dropped yours and immediately saved his from falling, eyes flying open in the process. There was that look again, like he could eat you alive and enjoy every minute of it. For hating being called a pirate, he pretty firmly embodied the reputation such a title would have.

But maybe the role of bounty hunter and intersystem trader carried similar connotations. Chan seemed like just as much of a scoundrel as Minho did. You respected it, at least a little.

“If that’s the case, Miss Nova,” mocked the captain, rolling his neck before he squared his shoulders across from you in the doorway, “if you are playing him, then why not make an alliance? Not to the crew or anything, just to me. Just so I know you actually have my back, no matter what you do, or who you fuck.”

Lucky for Chan, he finally cracked you. You hadn’t considered that the captain would hit you with the exact proposition Minho had, and you needed to think about this. A hint of a smirk tugged at Chan’s lips. If you took him up on this, you could approach the whole arrangement exactly like you were with Minho: say yes, and do whatever the hell you want later if it came down to it. But, obviously, there was the very real possibility that this could all blow up in your face.

#lee minho x reader #kim seungmin x reader #bang chan x reader #stray kids fanfic #stray kids x reader #ALWAYS CHECK THE TAGS 💕#OOPS ALL TENSION #search your feelings you know the author craves chaos 😌

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4sidestvtelugu · 6 months ago

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Filmy Friday: Top 10 Blockbuster Movies of Katrina Kaif

#katrina kaif

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vajabtuunimist · 10 months ago

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Ülejäänud 26.01 Barbari mötörocki kontserditest-

Boners - Tahaks öelda Eesti trash, aga ma ei saa, sest tehniliselt kõla on ju viimistletud. Esimeste lugude järgi ei oska kosta, kas seal on ka rohkemat, kui trashi algtõed ja helimehe hea töö, aga eks aeg näitab.

Senikaua kuni oma arvamust koostan channelin BSH energiat ning arvustanud kõike mis annet ei vaja.

Tundub, et ühist teemat bändiliikmete välimusel pole, mis arvestades, et tegemist on Eesti trashiga vast pole ka paha. Natukene tahaksin naerda rütmikidra soengu üle, aga selles võib osa olla lihtsalt mu kadedusel, sest olles valge naine ida-euroopast kes on terve elu Harjumaal elanud, ei kannaks ma kauboi mütsi lihtsalt välja. Üldiselt on bändi aestethic nagu nende muusika - juurtega sügavalt dad-rockis kinni, võin lausa kihla vedada, et filmi Grown Ups kostümeerija on nende vendade pealt šnitti võtnud.

Erilist äramärkimist vajab ka frontmani Sinatralik mikker, mis austatud autoril tekitas kohe tunde, et olen siiski kõrgklassi keikal.

Ps. Sa tead et läheb actioniks, kui frontman pintsaku eemaldab.

Nüüd tagantjärgi oskan kirjutada, et Bonersi vanad teevad head muusikat ja bändi kõla üle mul vingumist ei ole. Kõik instrumentalistid teadsid mis nad teevad ja tegid seda hästi, laulja channelis oma sisemist Hetfieldi ning lavalt käis läbi ka lause "Käbil on kannel raisk", ehk minu arust oli õnnestunud kontsert.

Edasi läheb juba raskemaks, nimelt oli õhtu järgmise bändi ajaks kestnud juba nii mõnegi hea tunni, ehk austatud autor hakkas väsima, nõnda ei saa ma kahjuks edasistes kirjatükkides teile lubada erilist filigraansust.

No more fridays -

Lust on kuulata ja möga nänni kus lõik on muusikud. (Postskriptum 2p hiljem - eh?????)

Aegumatud rock n roll rütmid, love it!

Faraday - lege

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rastgeleticaret · 1 year ago

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Korku filmi Barbarian'ın video oyunu uyarlaması geliyor

Kadının yakındaki otellerin tamamı dolu olduğu için bir gece de olsa orada kalmaktan başka seçeneği yoktur. Bu tek başına bir kabus senaryosu ama film bu noktada gerçekten çılgın yönlere gidiyor. Film ilk bakışta, bir video oyununa dönüşmek tuhaf bir seçim gibi görünüyor ancak olan tam olarak bu. Yeni Regency Pictures ve Friday the 13th: The Game ve Evil Dead: The Game geliştiricisi Diversion3…

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kurtlukiraz · 1 year ago

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Deli Bir Cuma Gecesi (Friday Night Plan) Film konusu, filmi, konusu, oyuncuları, imdb, fragman, izle, yorumları, Netflix, film yorumu, ekşi lügat, imdb puanı, izle, 2023, olacak mı, ne vakit benzer biçimde aramalarınız için herdembilgiler'u takip edin. Filmin türü: Güldürü – Hüzünlü Filmin süresi: 1 saat 48 dakika Film konusunda 1 Eylül 2023 tarihinde netflix 2023 yapımı Netflix Hindistan yapımı filmidir. Filmin yönetmen koltuğunda Vatsal Neelakantan'ın kalmakta olduğu filmin senaristliğini tekrarla Vatsal Neelakantan kalem aldı. Bu lise komedisinde Babil Han (“Qala”), Medha Rana (“Londra Dosyaları”) ve Juhi Chawla (“Bhoothnath”) başrollerde. Deli Bir Cuma Gecesi Film Konusu Filmin konusu: sürekli olarak didişen iki kardeş, bir iş gezisine çıkan anneleri eve dönmeden senenin en deli partiye gizlice katılmasını göstermek için el ele verir. Anneleri bir iş gezisine çıktığında, çekişen iki kardeş, o dönmeden önceki senenin ve yakıcı partiye gizlice katılmayı göstermek için bir araya geliyor. Deli Bir Cuma Gecesi Film Oyuncuları Bu lise komedisinde Babil Khan (“Qala”), Medha Rana (“London Files”) ve Juhi Chawla (“Bhoothnath”) başrollerde yer alıyor. Babil HanAadhya AnandJuhi ChawlaMedha RanaAmrith JayanVyom Vyas – TürkRia ChaudharyNinad KamatAditya Jainn – Mezar Film Fragmanını burada seyredebilirsiniz;

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gundemburadadedim · 1 year ago

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kashmirmonitor · 2 years ago

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WATCH: Bride absconds after firing bullets at wedding

It’s filmy! A video of a bride firing bullets during her wedding ceremony has gone viral on social media. The incident occurred on Friday at a guest house at Salempur village, in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras district. In the viral video, the bride and groom are sitting on the stage during their wedding ceremony. A young man standing on the side held a revolver to this bride, and she fired four shots…

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jungle-angel · 1 year ago

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Sticky Faces (Miles Miller x Reader)

Summary: It’s a hot night and you and Miles don’t feel like heating up the house, so your only option is to go on a little adventure

Miles let out an exhausted groan, hating the fact that it was the Friday before Memorial Day and that the thermometer outside was already reading close to one hundred. Already, there were reports of wildland fire crews making their way deep into the wooded areas miles away from Lake Tahoe and wealthy out-of-towners from the cities were making their way too and from California and Nevada.

He stuck a rag full of ice on the back of his neck, shivering as the coolness hit his reddening skin. Miles felt pretty awful, knowing the kitchen staff were probably roasting and Dan was probably chewing out the lazy stoner teenagers for not doing their jobs.

“Hey!” chuckled a familiar voice. “Hey, wake up! Wake up!”

Miles lifted his weary head to find his father standing right before him. “Jeez Dad, did you have to wake me up?” Miles mumbled.

“Hey I didn’t want you falling asleep on the job,” Otis answered him. “Besides, I’ve had a day from hell myself.”

“How?”

“Working the pits at the NASCAR track all week in a hundred degree plus weather,” Otis explained. “Stepping on the tarmac made my boots almost melt.”

Miles made a disgusted face as he and his father bitched about their day. When he was finally good to clock out, the rotating desk clerk came to take Miles’s place. What a fucking relief at last.....!!!! Miles thought on his way out.

Back to the rooms he went, relieved that he had the next two seasons off and to himself. The only thing he hated was that he, his mother, father, you and Benny had to hang around the hotel while you were busy packing the last of your things up to move to the Miller land in Montana.

The rooms were quiet as could be, the low hum of the fan going while one year old Benny lay asleep under the blue, bronze and white knit blanket that Miles’s mother, Kathy, had made when he was born. He looked adorable as he lay asleep on yours and Miles’s bed, his little fists on either side of his head, sucking away on his pacifier and his little tufts of light blonde hair clinging to his forehead.

Miles smiled and quickly slipped into your shared bathroom, turning on the cool water in the shower, letting out an obscene groan as the water cooled him down.

“Miles?”

“In the shower (Y/N)!” Miles called out.

He hurriedly soaped himself up and rinsed off before wrapping a clean, white towel around his waist, stepping out into the hot, humid bathroom to find you rinsing your face in the sink. The bright smile that was on your face when you looked up at him was enough to make Miles blush, his face, his neck and his chest going red at the sight of you in a filmy, lilac colored sundress.

“Hi handsome,” you purred as you wrapped your arms around each other.

“Well hello Mrs. Miller,” he chuckled as he pressed a sweet kiss to your lips.

You gladly returned the kiss, reveling in the cool warmth of Miles’s body. You rested your head on his broad chest, the soft beat of his heart nearly putting you to sleep before a noise pulled you both from your sleepy state.

“Here,” you said. “You get yourself in some clean clothes. I think that branch finally broke off the tree and hit the porch.”

Miles laughed a little and gladly pulled some clean clothes from the dresser, throwing on a pair of khakis and a peach colored button down with short sleeves. A sleepy little coo caught his attention and sure enough, there was little Benny, pushing himself up with his little hands, his face meeting Miles’s own and a little giggle erupting from the one year old.

“Did you have a good nap?” Miles chuckled, picking him up.

Benny’s little head came to rest on Miles’s shoulder, still sucking away on his pacifier as Miles dug around for a little t-shirt for Benny who had fallen asleep in his denim shorts.

You came back in, your face reddened from the sun and a thin layer of sweat coating your face and neck. “Stupid branch,” you muttered.

“Did it hit the porch?” Miles asked.

“Finally,” you answered. “Can’t get it off but we’ll wait.”

“Good, because I think little man here is getting hungry,” Miles half laughed.

You groaned with annoyance. “Miles, it’s too damn hot for this shit.”

“I was thinking something entirely different.”

You gave him a puzzled look, wondering what your husband could possibly be cooking up in his brain at a time like this. All the restaurants within a five block radius were either closed or packed full.

“There’s a little corner store where the summer camps all go for ice cream,” Miles explained. “And I think this little guy is overdue for his first one. Dad’s crabby, Mom’s been treating heatstroke patients all day long.....so why not? Nobody has to heat up the house and cook.”

And you, yourself, had begun to think that Miles’s brilliant little idea was a brilliant one.

You gathered up a little bag and a picnic blanket while Miles slipped a little white t-shirt over Benny’s head and put his tiny sandals onto his feet. Once you found Otis and Kathy had returned from working at the hospital, the three of you journeyed right down to the corner store that the summer camps frequented during the season.

You picked a shady spot under the trees in the grass, spreading out the blanket before you, Miles and his parents all got their pick of what they wanted. You and Miles couldn’t resist the thought of a grape flavored popsicle with huge chunks of blackberries in it, especially for Benny.

“Well, this beats heating up the house,” Miles remarked after he had stolen a lick of Benny’s popsicle.

“Better than having to take stuff out of the freezer too,” you laughed.

You and Miles shared so many laughs that you couldn’t have possibly counted them all. Miles teased Benny by stealing one lick after another of his popsicle, the little one’s hands and face already covered in dark purple smears of juice. Miles’s lips had turned purple from the juice, the two of you laughing as you teased each other, exchanging sticky kisses with one another before Benny began to do the same with the both of you.

And you couldn’t have asked for a better start to your summer.

#miles miller #miles miller x reader #lewis pullman #lewis pullman x reader #bad times at the el royale

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whatsonmedia · 2 years ago

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Film Friday: This week's top 5 Movies!

The movies in this week’s Film Friday mix genres like science fiction, action comedy, thrill, and adventure drama comedy. Get ready to make your weekend worthwhile by watching some of the best movies that WhatsOn editor Tama has chosen for you. 1. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania American superhero movies Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Scott Lang/Ant-Man and Hope Pym/Wasp are two characters from Marvel Comics that are featured in the film. Marvel Studios produced the movie. Early in February 2021, filming in Turkey got underway. Along with Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne, Scott Lang and Hope Van Dyne travel the Quantum Realm. There, they encounter odd species and go on a journey that defies their preconceived notions of what is possible. The movie, which serves as the first installment of the MCU's Phase Five, was released in the US on February 17, 2023. https://youtu.be/ZlNFpri-Y40 2. Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist Nicolae: The Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist Christian thriller movie was based on Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins' The Rise of the Antichrist, the third book in the Left Behind book series. It follows Left Behind (2014) and has an entirely new cast the globe falls into anarchy and millions of people vanish. And the charismatic leader who leads the U.N. becomes the only source of hope. But does he make you hopeful about the future? Or is the end of the planet near? On January 26, 2023, as part of Fathom Events, it was theatrically released as a constrained four-day run in a few locations. It was directed by Kevin Sorbo. Starring in the movie is Corbin Bernsen, Neal McDonough, and Kevin Sorbo. https://youtu.be/dFlu7dmHQ_g 3. Eternal Spring In 2022, Jason Loftus’ Canadian documentary, titled Eternal Spring (Chinese :), will be released. The movie focuses on Changchun’s broadcast television stations being taken over by Falun Gong in 2002 and China’s ongoing persecution of ethnic and religious minorities. It is based on animation by Chinese artist Daxiong. In March 2002, followers of the banned spiritual organization Falun Gong took control of a state TV station in China. Their intention was to refute the government’s account of their method. Following this, police raids take place all around Changchun City, forcing Falun Gong practitioner, comic book illustrator Daxiong to leave. On March 15, 2022, the movie had its world premiere at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. After then, it was shown at the 2022 Hot Docs. https://youtu.be/5XpGpbaiz4Q 4. Mission Majnu Mission Majnu is a Shantanu Bagchi-directed spy thriller movie in Hindi from 2023. The filmis based on made-up events.It is a made-up account of an undercover operation carried out by India during the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War. An undercover Indian snoop undertakes a dangerous mission to reveal a clandestine nuclear weapons program deep within Pakistan. The movie's planned theatrical run was scrapped, and on January 20, 2023, it was made available only on Netflix. https://youtu.be/paGeUDKRVeE 5. Pathaan Siddharth Anand is the writer and director of the 2023 Hindi-language action thriller movie Pathaan. It is the fourth entry in the YRF Spy Universe and Khan's follow-up to Zero as a lead actor (2018) The Indian government revokes Article 370, which accords Jammu and Kashmir special status, in 2019. A cancer-stricken Pakistani army officer named Qadir is affected by the news and intends to wreak revenge on India. He enters into a deal with Jim, the head of the covert terrorist organization "Outfit X." On January 25, 2023, Indian Republic Day weekend, Pathaan was released in India in IMAX, 4DX. Critics gave Pathaan mostly favorable reviews. https://youtu.be/vqu4z34wENw Read the full article

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squarwell-breakingnews · 2 years ago

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Bolly Buzz: Taimur's 6th birthday bash; Janhvi's Telugu debut with Jr NTR - Times of India

Bolly Buzz: Taimur’s 6th birthday bash; Janhvi’s Telugu debut with Jr NTR – Times of India

It’s Finally Friday… so you know what that means right? It’s time to get all things filmy. Lucky for this bee, B-town was buzzing about the latest films, trailers and casting news. Stick around and we’ll tell you all about Kartik’s rumours project, Janhvi possibly making her Telugu debut, and some real-life drama with Rakul Preet Singh being summoned by the ED. Here are all the biggest headlines…

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feverinfeveroutfic · 2 months ago

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Tijuana sunrise | kinktober 2024 | day i.: “treacle”

pairing: lars ulrich x oc

prompt: masks

word count: 3369

song: “ghost town” by shiny toy guns

The rhythms thumped along before me in such rich and deep succession that I was already feeling every inch of the party. This was my first time at a place like this, and as a result, I had no idea as to what to expect, but I was told to have my mask ready once I pulled into the driveway outside of the mansion. I had been there before in the past, many years ago as a child out trick-or-treating, and back then, it was the governor's mansion; nevertheless, I still expected to find the Secret Service guys roaming about in there whilst in costume.

I had showered and scrubbed myself down with the one soap that smelled of coconut and hibiscus flowers, especially since I had no idea as to how this was going to go about, and especially since I was going to be hidden away inside of a mask. I remembered the one mask that I had made in my old art class some odd years ago, one that I had made so in the odd chance of me wearing it, I could bring it out of hiding. I had tried my hand at plaster and ceramic with the outer shell, but I lined it with plush velvet and satin on the inside and ensured that the string attached could fit around my head. It was rather similar to a Ghostface mask with the blacked out eyes and mouth, except it lacked the elongation and it was meant specifically for my face: I had also crafted out a serpent to rest upon the crown, and I was eager to don it for this evening, a few days prior to Halloween.

The mask rested in my lap as I drove down to the very heart of Carson City, which always was a huge deal during the entire month of October: the decorations went up like clockwork on the first of the month and they came down during the Day of the Dead. I took the next turn down to Carson Street, which, even at four o'clock on a Friday afternoon, lacked the first signs of rush hour or even people going to a party such as this. My hope was that it would be dark enough by the time things fired up for the night.

The trees stood strong and high over the roof of the car, and the butterflies thus fluttered in the pit of my stomach. This was going to be my first party in a long time, and my first Halloween party for much longer than that. I also had no idea as to what to expect, either: the Halloween parties I often attended were for kids, where everyone dressed up and played these innocent games with each other. It was all meant to be in good fun with each other; when I saw girls in these low-cut tops and dresses, dresses that seemed a bit too snug on their figures, I couldn’t help but look down at myself and wonder what I was missing with this gauzy gown all around my body. The top buttons could be undone, however, and I left the top three open: the gown was thin and filmy to where it resembled to the faint veils of lingerie, but the sides were loose enough to hardly show anything on my chest.

There was a strange comfort in the obscurity, and yet a part of me wanted to show off more, especially from under that thin fabric.

It was a Halloween party. I had to relax and maybe have a bit of fun for the evening.

I climbed out of the car and let the wind twirl my hair about behind me. I had dyed my hair a light lilac purple coupled with a plum-colored streak on the side of my head for a bit of depth. Once I closed and locked the door, I set the mask upon the crown of my head.

I had no idea what to expect out of any of it, but I went ahead to the mansion’s entrance like any other guest. The jack-o’-lanterns sprawled about the front porch were arranged about in a fashion that made me think of bottles of booze, given some were tall and elongated like the necks of beer bottles, while others were the color of lush, freshly pressed wine or creamy white, akin to white wine. Small skulls and accompanying bones dotted those front planters under thick layers of black paint and sparkling orange and white glitter; I noticed that some of the skulls had wilted flowers on the crowns while a few others had top hats on. This was no kids’ party, especially when I caught the unmistakable smell of pot once I reached the doorway.

Those thundering rhythms followed suit, and I was wading into the deepest waters faster than I could have ever realized before, and faster than I had ever anticipated as well.

I never quite learned how to swim, and so I knew I was going in without something to keep me afloat should I ever find myself drowning at any given moment.

The lights held down low in a rich violet color: glitter dusted throughout the air, and more so when I slid the mask on over my face. It was as if a slight cloud of it found itself into the fine lining by mere circumstance. No one knew me. No one recognized me, and I knew that no one would ever recognize me for even a second. I had on that gauzy dress and yet I could walk about as if I had been stripped down completely naked. A girl in a nurse outfit showed me a smile and caressed against my upper arm, to which I nodded at her. It took me a second to realize that my chest was exposed from under the fabric: my breasts were still tucked away inside there, but the space between was hanging out in the open.

But my face was protected. My chest held way out in the open but no one could see my face.

I then vouched for the drink bar on the far side of the front room, as well as the sight of the menu on the edge of the bar itself. My first party in a long while, and as a result, I had my eye on the vampire’s kiss; a few people were drinking zombies, in all of their bright blood orange glory in those bulbous glasses. But the vampire’s kiss, the rich blood red elixir of raspberries and champagne served in what appeared to be a margarita glass with a ring of scarlet sugar dusted around the rim, that was the one that caught my eye.

I took the glass from the bartender with a quick wink out from under the mask, and I nearly stumbled out of the way to the other side of the room so I could be alone with the drink.

The white foam on the surface. The juice of the berries. The way it made me think of blood. The taste of blood on my tongue. The caress of death on my tongue as well.

I kept the mask perched upon my head and I let the shadows sweep over me: no one knew who I was, and no one could figure out as to whom I was, either. I lingered back and sipped on the vampire’s kiss.

Something about lingering there in the shadows with a glass filled with something that resembled to fresh blood and a mask perched upon my head that sent me to a whole new level. I had no idea what to expect up to that point but I took a glimpse down at my bare chest, followed by the glass in my hand, and I thought about taking a lost soul under my wing.

I sipped on the kiss some more, and I thought about finding myself something to eat and then investigating the rest of the haunted house before me. Something to eat to balance out the kiss of alcohol in my hand.

A little drink every now and again never killed anyone, after all.

With the mask tugged down over my face, I walked across the smooth stone checkerboard floor and the mouth of the stairwell on the other side of the room: through the holes of the mask, I noticed the cobwebs and the illuminated sugar skulls adorned over the banister. With my hand on the banister, and careful not to trip or drop the glass, I made my way up the steps. It was a bit tricky given the length of the gown around me, but I took the most cautious of steps all the way up to the landing before me.

Two girls dressed as witches were already making out there before me, while another girl dressed as a nurse was coming close to a guy in a double-breasted suit and hair greased back into a slick pompadour.

I lifted my mask again for another sip, as well as an adjusting of the gown at my chest: I daren’t have a malfunction while my face was covered all the way up the stairs.

I put the mask back on and pressed onward to the next stretch of stairs in front of me, still with my free hand on the banister. Once I saw what was up there, I could head on back down in search of the food. There had to have been something to eat in there. All the while, the thumping sound of the floor before me grew louder and more thunderous with each and every step, as if I was about to uncover a dirty little secret, the secret of the house,

I soon reached the next landing and the second floor of the mansion, which smelled of musk and sweat. I turned to the right of me to find myself in a vast room lined with white stone Ionic columns that extended up towards the high ceiling. The music was much louder than the type downstairs, such that I could feel it in my bones.

I still there on the edge of the room as I marveled at the sheer amount of leather before me. The leather and the chains, and I knew that this was far more than a mere costume party that gave adults the chance to dress up for the night. But then again, through the strobing lights, I spotted a few people in costume beyond the pillars before me.

I pressed my back against the wall as I realized what was happening, at the exposed boobs, the dicks and asses out in the open, the sheer amount of stylized leather and shiny shimmering chains…

They approached me wrapped in a crushed black velvet gown and a white Kabuki mask with what appeared to be a bullet hole painted on the forehead and spatters of blood on either side of the face. They stood at a rather short height, and I could scarcely tell if I was face to face with a man or a woman as a result. But they put their arm around me and guided me into the heart of the room. Through the shadows cast down by the pillars, I could make out all manner of people stacked upon each other, all of them involved in something that I could only describe as an orgy. I trembled from under the gown from the sight of it, and yet, I had the mask over me. I could hide away from the rest of the world with this whole entire party.

I was hidden away, complete with a berry cocktail in one hand.

They led me through a clear path in the ravaging darkness towards a small room tucked behind one of the biggest pillars.

I dared not look over my shoulder at the room behind us, but rather to the cozy little room there.

A room all to ourselves, with nothing more than a small bed tucked in the far corner, a spindly cherry table with a heavy brass lamp, and a window with the shades open to behold the setting sun over the Sierra Nevadas. It took me a moment to realize the person had long smooth brown hair down past their shoulders, which flowed around their shoulders as they reached behind me to nudge the door closed.

I reached up to take the mask off, but I was stopped by the feeling of their hand on my wrist.

“Keep it on.” The high pitched, scratchy voice that for a brief moment I believed came from the lips of a woman. But when I reached out to feel the breasts, I only felt a flat chest. A flat sturdy chest followed by broad shoulders and long, lanky arms.

“Why did you bring me here?” I asked him.

“To keep you out of there,” he replied. “A ghost like yourself needs to save your tits for someplace private like this, away from the hardcore brutality and the orgy of drugs out there.” He then gestured for me to have a seat on the edge of the bed, to which I obliged, still with the glass of vampire’s kiss in hand.

“Gorgeous drink,” he remarked as he sank down next to me; he spoke with an interesting accent, one that almost sounded German but therein lay another nuance inside of there.

“It was either that or the zombies,” I told him in a muffled voice. I hesitated in telling him my name, because I knew that the mask proved to be a means of why he brought me there.

“You and me, we should have a moment alone together,” he suggested. “Some time away from the chaos out there.” He inched closer to me, such that I could smell the soft soapy cologne that lined the side of his neck. “Mind, I don’t want to do anything that you don’t want to do. You are the one who is in control.”

“Touch me,” I beckoned him, and I reached to the side to set the glass of vampire’s kiss down on the table next to the bed. “Start with my legs, then move up to the rest of my body.”

He moved his hands up from my knees to my thighs: his skin was soft and smooth, and from behind the mask, I caught a whiff of something sweet and sugary, almost like that of a candy store. It smelled so strong and rich that I could almost taste it.

And it took me a moment to realize that the scent came from his hands as well as his shoulders; I nudged the gown off his shoulders and revealed his chest to the incoming darkness all around us. His skin seemed to glow as if it had been crafted out of titanium; my eyes wandered down to the crest of his chest and down to his waist. He only wore snug jeans from underneath that black silk.

I lifted my gaze to his mask. Through the shadows, through the eyes of the mask, I made out the sight of green eyes staring back at me, as green as a breath of spearmint.

He nudged the side of the gown away from my chest, to which he exposed my left breast, and he ran two of his fingertips around the rim of my nipple, which in turn sent a chill up and down my spine like the pull of a zipper. I leaned back onto the bed so my breasts could be fully exposed to him. A part of me thought that he was about to look underneath my mask, but he was more focused on my chest, which at that point was hanging out all the way in the open. With nothing more than his fingertips on the rim of the areolas, he beckoned them into these tight points ready for action.

“Onto my stomach,” I coaxed him. “Slowly. And gently.”

He stroked the inside of my breasts down onto my belly, which in turn sent more shivers up my spine. I could feel myself moistening from the sensation. I couldn’t help but lean onto my back more. I was ready for him to have a taste of me.

And yet, I had no idea if it was the vampire’s kiss talking or if it was the fact we were only a few feet away from a huge drug-laden sex party surrounded by pillars in the vein of Ancient Rome, but something came over me.

We were going to do it in the missionary position.

So he believed, anyways.

Before he could reach the waistband of my underwear, I clasped onto his wrists and stopped him dead in his tracks.

“What are—” Before he could get another word in, I pushed him onto his back. I kept the mask on, and he kept his on as well. The gown was nearly falling off me, but I had not a care in the world. I had a taste of blood and I wanted more. I wanted the sweetness to fuse with the iron.

I unbuttoned his gown only to find that he was not only commando under there, but he was already nearly fully erect. I reached down to help him.

I stuck one finger into the hole and ran it about in small circles. His skin tightened and turned bright pink right before my eyes.

We were both ready.

With the gown partially open at my legs, I climbed up and took my spot down on his erection. I ground down on him with the thrust of my hips. He was in almost all the way but I knew I could make him come more than that. And I knew that I could make myself come more than this as well.

I lifted up and, with my head bowed, I lifted up the mask and put my lips around him. All he could see was the mask staring back at him.

I moved in at a slow, deep, deliberate pace, until the tip reached the back of my throat. I could feel a bead of it on the back of my tongue, and I swallowed it down.

Before I stood back up onto my knees, I put the mask back on. I stood before him, there on my knees as the tip of his dick bled with those fresh glistening pearls, and as the gown drifted off my shoulders and my chest. Those eyes, from behind the mask. Those eyes fixed onto me.

I reached down, and I lifted my hood. I touched my clit with two fingers, and I gasped at the feeling. A bit more force and I reached the top quick.

“May I try?” he offered with a break in his voice.

“Please,” I begged. With his dick still out, he rolled over to me with his arm out. He joined me in touching the head of my clit.

I could feel myself drooling at the feeling. My nipples tightened as far as they could go.

He touched me on the left and my back arched. I tilted my head back and let out a soft moan from the back of my throat.

Still with his dick out in the open, he picked himself up and leaned into my body.

“Keep your love hidden away, min elskerinde,” he breathed to me from behind the mask. “In the realm of harsh sex and slamming things into their bodies, let us keep this a secret.”

“I couldn’t ask for anything better,” I whispered to him. “May I ask your name now?”

“Call me Lars,” he whispered right into my ear.

“Lars—I’m Portia,” I replied.

“Plucky Portia…” The edge of his mask brushed against the side of my neck. I never wanted to let him go, but I knew we were going to have to go our separate ways once the party was over. But I knew I was never going to forget him, his gentleness and the sweet smell that wafted off his skin away from the insanity.

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