#no shade or anything but he clearly watched the whole series

[dawn-lilacbloom]

fujimoto: hey can i copy your homework

the monument mythos: sure but change it up a bit

[brunchable]

𝗠𝘆 𝗡𝗲𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗯𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗣𝗼𝗿𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿

Pairings: PornStar!Bucky Barnes x f!Reader Themes: Sexual Innuendo/humour,Guy next door, situational comedy? If you're not up for a few second-hand embarrassment sit this one out lol. Summary: Your coworker peer pressured you to look up SergeantBarnes in Pornhub, reason? Because apparently you're missing out. A/N: This would make a good mini series. . .but we'll see. I had a dream. . .that he was a guy next door, just wanted to-of course-add a twist to it asdfghjkl.

It was all Amy’s fault. And Trish’s. And okay, maybe you shared a little bit of the blame for caving to the intense peer pressure at work. But still.

You’d been minding your own business in the break room, scrolling through lunch menus, when Amy had sidled up, leaned in with that conspiratorial look on her face, and whispered, “Have you seen him yet?”

“Seen who?” your eyebrows creased as you asked, confused.

Trish popped up out of nowhere, clutching her latte in her hand. “Girl, SeargentBarnes. The guy is legendary—I mean, a literal internet icon.”

You shrugged, feigning indifference while they exchanged a look that practically screamed, amateur. They started talking all at once, dropping cryptic phrases like “too hot to handle,” “you’re gonna die,” and, “you’ll never look at men the same way again.”

So there you were that night, alone with your laptop, curled up in bed and biting your lip as you debated whether to type it in. It’s just curiosity, you reasoned. Research purposes.

Your eyes widened as the screen filled with… well, humanity, in all its naked, unfiltered glory. Your face heated up so fast you could’ve sworn it was the same shade as your throw pillow. Videos lined up like some weird buffet, titles more scandalous than anything you’d ever whispered in confession, and… was that a whole category devoted to delivery men? You slapped a hand over your mouth to stop from yelping, mortified at the intensity of it all. 

“I need to go to church after this,” you muttered, squinting like that would somehow censor the thorough dedication people were showing in their, uh, procreation endeavors.

“SergeantBarnes,” you muttered to yourself as you typed, fingers hovering uncertainly over the Enter key. Then, with a sigh, you hit search, and… oh.

You nearly choked on oxygen. Because there he was, in HD glory, right on Pornhub, with that cocky grin and those blue eyes that looked like they’d been crafted in a lab. And he wasn’t just standing there looking smug—oh, no, he was on a mission, shirtless, flexing, and smirking at the camera like he was the world’s best-kept secret. The scene panned to him sitting on the edge of a bed, peeling off his belt with one hand, a glint in his eyes that seemed to say, this is what you came for.

“Oh my god,” you muttered, equal parts horrified and morbidly fascinated, as he proceeded to… well, get very familiar with his costar. SergeantBarnes was apparently an expert at multitasking, using every muscle, every inch of his well-equipped arsenal. And the way he was delivering lines? He was clearly treating the camera like it was his soulmate.

By minute two, your jaw had dropped. By minute five, you’d set the laptop on your nightstand to “watch responsibly.” By minute ten, you were convinced Amy and Trish had permanently ruined your life.

And the costar—she was practically putting on an Oscar-worthy performance, her reactions so intense you half expected her to start speaking in tongues. Every time SergeantBarnes’s… rod of justice plunges deep inside, she gasps like she was witnessing a miracle. You scoffed, rolling your eyes. Come on, is that really necessary?

As you watched, he gave a low, rumbling sound—half growl, half sigh—that sent an involuntary shiver down your spine. His gaze burned through the screen with a confidence that was practically magnetic, and suddenly, you understood exactly why the costar was gasping. A new, unbidden heat pooled between your legs, making you shift uncomfortably, instinctively pressing your thighs together as if that could somehow stop the flush creeping up your face. Oh no, now I wish I were her, you thought, immediately cringing at yourself.

With a mix of half-laughter and half-horror, you reached over and slammed the laptop shut so fast it was like you were trying to save yourself from spontaneous combustion. 

“Holy—oh, wow,” you whispered, pressing a hand to your face. “Okay. That was a one-time thing.”

Or so you thought.

Except now, every time you even glanced at your laptop, SergeantBarnes was right there in your mind, reminding you exactly why he was internet-famous. It was becoming a bit of a problem.

× × × ×

The next morning, you stumbled out of your apartment, looking like something that had been left out in the rain and dragged through a blender, mentally cursing last night’s “research” session. The world had no right to be this bright, and your regret levels were at an all-time high as you lugged the world’s heaviest box down the hallway.

You were so absorbed in avoiding a complete breakdown that you barely registered the deep, too-familiar voice beside you.

“Need help with that?”

“Thanks, but I got it,” you muttered automatically, barely sparing him a glance.

Except...then you did.

You looked up, squinting in confusion. Because, standing in front of you, in the perfectly mundane hallway of your perfectly mundane building, was him.

You froze, your brain spinning like a buffering screen. Okay, this guy’s insanely handsome. Tall, broad-shouldered, stubbled jaw, eyes so blue they should have a health warning on them. You stared, mentally cataloging each feature, when—wait a minute... WAIT. A. MINUTE.

Your eyes narrowed, suspicion prickling as your brain finally fired up. Is that…? No, it can’t be.

But it was. Oh, it absolutely was. 

SergeantBarnes, the very star of last night’s “educational” viewing, right here in the flesh. And suddenly, like a tractor beam had locked onto you, your gaze dropped right to his crotch, where you’d witnessed things you could never un-see.

This, of course, did not go unnoticed. His brows shot up as he followed your very obvious, very treacherous line of sight, glancing down at his jeans before looking back up at you with an infuriatingly smug grin.

“Uh… nice shoes?” you blurted out, your face feeling like it was on fire. You vaguely gestured to his boots, wishing you could vanish right into the walls.

“Thanks,” he replied smoothly, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “They’re pretty sturdy. But, you know…” He paused, his voice dropping just a hair. “I don’t think they’re what you were looking at.”

Your heart sank as you forced yourself to look up, his amused blue eyes practically laughing at you. Abort. Abort mission. Oh God, we are way past mission failure.

“Uh—no, I just… um…” You floundered, desperately trying to think of something, anything, that might save you from the hole you’d dug. But no words came. Not even the faintest semblance of a coherent thought. Just one long, silent scream echoing in your brain.

“Bucky,” he offered helpfully, sticking out his hand like he wasn’t SergeantBarnes from Pornhub, but just some guy offering to help with a box. “New neighbor, by the way.”

You stared at his hand like it was a booby trap, your brain short-circuiting as it reminded you exactly where those fingers had been. That hand had gripped… things. It had been places you’d only dreamed of, doing things you’d probably need a core workout just to survive. You could practically see the “viewer discretion advised” warning flashing in your head as you hesitated, still staring at his hand as if it might explode.

But, against your better judgment—and every shred of dignity—you slowly reached out and shook it, feeling your own fingers betray you by sweating as they made contact with his very�� experienced ones.

“Uh… hi… I’m… yep.” you blurted, mentally cringing.

“‘Yep’? That’s a good name,” he said, smirking as he let go. “You sure you don’t need help? You seem… a little flustered.”

Flustered? Understatement of the century. If your dignity had been a cup, it was empty, bone-dry, and cracked. You forced yourself to focus, eyes straight forward, pointedly ignoring the very tempting crotch-level view. 

“I’m fine! Totally fine!” you squeaked, cringing at your own voice. Oh God, calm down!

But he just chuckled, that same dangerously cocky smile from last night plastered all over his face. “Alright, Yep. Guess I’ll see you around.”

As he turned to leave, you stood there in the hallway, clutching the box like it was a life raft, heart racing a mile a minute. You’d just had a very public staring incident with SergeantBarnes, your new neighbor, and all you’d managed to say was nice shoes.

I’m gonna need new coworkers, you thought, practically burying your face in the box as you scurried to your apartment.

The door slammed shut with a bang that could probably be heard across state lines. You dropped the box unceremoniously, ignoring the loud thunk as it hit the floor, and whipped your phone out, fingers flying across the screen like you were composing a manifesto.

Guys, you’re NEVER gonna guess who my neighbor is—

You paused, staring at the screen as the rest of the text formed in your mind: THE SergeantBarnes. LIVE. IN. THE. FLESH.

But then another thought stopped you dead in your tracks. Oh no.

You could already picture it: Amy and Trish showing up like rabid fangirls in their “I Heart SergeantBarnes” merch, carrying suspiciously flimsy plates of brownies. Trish would have binoculars. Amy would be taking notes, probably trying to “accidentally” leave her phone number under his door. You shuddered, imagining them cornering him by the mailboxes, all of them acting like they were definitely not the type of women who had his entire catalog bookmarked on their phones.

A horrible realization hit you. If I tell them, this man’s gonna be living a nightmare right next door to me. Not just a nightmare, a Trish-and-Amy-sponsored fan club nightmare, where they might even break into song—probably chanting, “SergeantBarnes! SergeantBarnes!” while he tries to get his groceries.

You looked back at your unsent message and deleted it in one go, feeling weirdly proud of yourself. Yeah, no. I’m not letting them anywhere near him.

Totally altruistic, of course. It had nothing to do with keeping the eye candy to yourself.

You took a deep breath, looking around your empty apartment like you were expecting the FBI to burst through the door at any second. Sure, you’d just been in the hallway with the actual SergeantBarnes, but maybe… maybe you were imagining things. It had been a long day. Moving was stressful. Stranger things had happened, right?

With a surge of resolve (and denial), you dashed to your bedroom, practically sliding across the floor as you went. Your laptop was waiting innocently on the nightstand, and with a quick glance over your shoulder to ensure you were still alone, you opened it up, clicked incognito mode like you were hiding state secrets, and went straight to the website you’d sworn off only hours ago.

“Alright… just to confirm,” you muttered to yourself, feeling your cheeks burn as you typed SergeantBarnes into the search bar, mentally bracing yourself for the flood of results.

And there he was. The whole page filled with him, in various… positions. You swallowed, scrolling until one video caught your eye: “Sergeant Disciplines the Bratty Recruit.”

You snorted, almost slamming the laptop shut. “Oh, for heaven’s sake…”

But curiosity was a dangerous beast, and before you could talk yourself out of it, your finger had already clicked play.

The video started, with SergeantBarnes in all his glory, wearing what looked like the world’s tightest military uniform. His face was as smug as ever, that telltale glint of mischief in his eyes as he muttered something absurd like, “Think you can handle me, recruit?”

“Oh my god,” you whispered, cringing as you half-covered your eyes but peeked through your fingers anyway.

But there was no denying it—the face, the voice, the ridiculous, smoldering look into the camera. There was no escaping it now. It was 100% him. The same guy who was now living approximately ten feet away from your own front door.

As the video continued, your disbelief only grew. This man… this man is next door, could eating cereal right now, you thought, torn between horrified fascination and the urge to laugh. Because there he was, in full “disciplinary action” mode, doing things you could barely process, and here you were, watching it again, just to make sure it was really him.

“Oh, I’m doomed,” you muttered, slapping the laptop shut. You weren’t even sure if you were embarrassed, impressed, or maybe just a little terrified of your own neighbor.

× × × ×

Over the next few days, it was like living in a twisted sitcom. Everywhere you went, he was there, lurking like some kind of sexy, mildly inconvenient specter. It was uncanny. You’d turn a corner, and bam—there he’d be, giving you that polite nod and a smirk that clearly said, I know exactly what you’ve seen.

It started small. You’d step into the elevator, praying for a peaceful ride, and ding! in he’d stroll, flashing that devastating grin. Instantly, you’d stiffen, gluing yourself to the opposite wall, practically trying to meld with the buttons, heart pounding like you were about to pass out. You couldn’t even look him in the eye without flashes of his, uh, “filmography” playing in your mind. Every single time, without fail, you found yourself studying the very clean floor of the elevator as he leaned casually against the wall, the corners of his mouth tugging up.

“Nice day, isn’t it?” he’d ask, all smooth, innocent charm. Meanwhile, you were there like, Oh, totally, perfect day to run into my favorite Pornhub star.

You were in the laundry room, blissfully alone, humming to yourself as you separated your clothes like a responsible adult. Whites here, colors there, delicates—well, you were kind of just tossing them wherever at this point. Then, suddenly, you felt it: a shift in the air, a presence. You froze, the hair on the back of your neck standing up, a sock suspended mid-toss in your hand. Why do I feel like the music should be getting dramatic right about now?

Slowly, as if sensing his approach, you turned. And there he was—Bucky, striding in with a laundry basket filled with a suspiciously pristine pile of perfectly folded, incredibly manly clothing. It was as if he’d just stepped out of some kind of… laundry commercial. Or worse… one of his own videos.

You blinked, eyes widening as a thousand clichés suddenly flashed through your mind. Oh no, why does this feel like the start of a porn? you thought, biting your lip as you realized the two of you were, in fact, very alone, surrounded by washing machines and suspiciously warm lighting. You mentally kicked yourself. Snap out of it! This is laundry. Regular, boring laundry.

Bucky caught your eye, giving you an amused once-over. “Doing some laundry?” he asked, his voice low and casual, but somehow it felt like the most suggestive question in the world.

You opened your mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “Uh-huh,” you managed, trying to sound like a normal human being. “Just, uh… laundry.”

Your face felt like it was on fire as you realized half of your load was underwear, strewn everywhere. Panties, bras, socks—they were all there in their mismatched glory, practically screaming, We’re personal items! Pay extra attention! You yanked your gaze away from the pile, mortified, and flung the sock into the washer like you were trying to disarm a bomb.

You slammed the washer lid down, feeling like you’d just revealed way too much. But Bucky only grinned, strolling over with that maddening swagger. He tossed a shirt into the washer beside you, leaning against it with a smirk.

“Nice sorting skills,” he commented, eyes flicking down to the very obvious pile of bras and lace that you’d tried to hide. “Very… thorough.”

“Yep!” you squeaked, feeling like you might explode. You fumbled with the detergent bottle, struggling to open it as your brain went into full-blown panic mode. Why does this feel like one of those videos? Don’t look at him. Just don’t look. Pretend you’re alone. Pretend this is fine.

But of course, he wasn’t making it any easier. He folded his arms, watching you with a raised brow, the picture of calm while you were desperately trying to load underwear without dying of embarrassment. 

“You know,” he said, clearly holding back a laugh, “usually people try to separate colors from whites.”

“Oh, I do! I mean, I… it’s a system,” you stammered, feeling like you were caught in a lie by the laundry police. “Sometimes it’s… it’s an artistic choice.”

He chuckled, his eyes twinkling with that insufferable amusement. “Artistic laundry, huh? Didn’t take you for the experimental type.”

“Yep,” you said, forcing a laugh as you stuffed in the last sock, your hands moving at lightning speed, desperate to finish and escape.

But as you turned to leave, he held up a stray bra that had somehow escaped your grasp, dangling it between two fingers with a raised eyebrow. 

“You forgot this,” he said, voice dripping with that same mischievous humor.

You stared at the bra in horror, feeling your face go molten. 

“Uh… thanks,” you mumbled, practically ripping it out of his hand and stuffing it into the washer, slamming the lid down one last time before you spun on your heel and speed-walked out of there.

Behind you, you heard him chuckle softly, his voice echoing in the hallway. “See you around, neighbor.”

Yep, you thought, already halfway down the hall, never doing laundry again.

By day three, it got ridiculous. You’d ducked into the mailroom, hoping he was out doing normal human things—maybe mowing a lawn or whatever. But no, as soon as you opened your mailbox, there he was, standing by his own, sorting through a stack of letters. You froze, briefly considering whether you could just flee and come back later for your electric bill.

And then… the grocery bag incident.

You were in the hallway, arms overloaded with bags because, naturally, you’d ignored the cart right by the entrance and had instead decided to carry it all in one go. You were so close to your door when you heard footsteps behind you.

“Need help?” he asked, that voice making you nearly fumble every bag in your arms.

You turned, scrambling to say, “No, I’m good,” but of course, in your panic, one of your bags tipped, and a lone, horrifying item fell out and hit the floor. You watched, paralyzed, as the little bottle of lube rolled out with an audible clatter, spinning lazily to a stop right in front of him.

You could practically feel the heat exploding from your cheeks. No. Oh no. Not like this.

You looked up, meeting his amused, slightly raised eyebrows as his lips twitched, clearly fighting a smile. 

“Uh,” you choked out, unable to form a single coherent sentence. Think fast, make it sound normal, you told yourself, even though every possible explanation was racing out of your head.

He bent down, picking up the bottle with a glint of pure mischief in his eyes, inspecting it like he’d just found evidence of some grand crime.

“Hey, everyone’s got needs,” he said, deadpan, but that twinkle in his eye was anything but innocent. “Don’t worry.” He tossed you a wink, handing the bottle back like it was no big deal.

Your mouth opened, then closed, then opened again as your brain scrambled to form a sentence. Finally, the words tumbled out like a train wreck, your dignity left somewhere back at the grocery store.

“It’s… it’s for my friend,” you squeaked, clutching the lube bottle with both hands like it was a sacred artifact. He raised an eyebrow, looking entirely too entertained for your liking. “She’s, uh, she’s constipated.”

A moment of silence.

“She needs it to… you know, help with a suppository.” You forced a grin that you were sure looked more like a grimace. “She, uh… can’t get things moving. Really jammed up in there.”

Bucky’s face twisted in barely suppressed laughter, and his shoulders shook as he struggled to keep a straight face. 

“Right,” he drawled, nodding with an expression that was one part pity and two parts are you for real? “That’s… thoughtful of you.”

You felt like you were overheating, a human furnace on the verge of combustion. 

“She’s desperate!” you blurted, doubling down on your ridiculous story, even though every fiber of your being was screaming to stop talking. “I’m just being a good friend, you know? Supportive. I mean, she’s the one who’s backed up.”

He nodded again, still fighting a smile, the look in his eyes a mix of amusement and something else that made your pulse race. 

“Sure,” he said, “nothing like helping a friend in need.” He paused, that wicked smile growing as he added, “In my experience, though, there are plenty of other uses for it.”

Your soul left your body.

He held out his hands in mock innocence, chuckling as your eyes widened to saucers. 

“Just saying,” he winked. “Versatile stuff.” 

And with that, he turned, strolling down the hall with a casual wave, leaving you frozen and mortified, clutching the bottle to your chest like a lifeline.

“Gotta… go,” you managed, voice barely a whisper, stumbling the last few steps to your door as you fumbled with the keys, practically falling inside.

The second the door shut behind you, you pressed your back against it, staring at the ceiling and whispering, “I’m never leaving my apartment again.”

Just as you were about to bury your face in your hands and live in the sweet, silent embrace of shame, your phone buzzed. You pulled it out, still reeling from the lube disaster, and saw a text from your friend, Clara.

Clara: Hey!! Did you get the lube?? Need it ASAP, things are… not moving over here, if you catch my drift.

You groaned, staring at the message, letting it sink in that yes, this entire disaster had been real. 

You: Yes. Got it. Never speaking of this again.

Clara: Bless you, you lifesaver. My digestive system owes you a standing ovation.

You rolled your eyes, still red-faced. Clara had no idea you’d just had to explain the entire situation to your painfully attractive neighbor—who now likely thought you were a walking sitcom.

× × × ×

It started subtly—just a little teasing, or so you thought. But it quickly spiraled into a game you could only describe as Bucky Barnes: Merciless Teasing—Extended Cut. Every time you crossed paths, he managed to twist the knife just a little deeper, making you sweat, stumble, and practically choke on your own words.

The first time it happened, you were hauling a huge box out of your car, trying to look capable and independent, when he strolled up beside you, leaning against the car with a smirk.

“You act like I’m a celebrity,” he said, eyebrow cocked. “Every time you see me, you look ready to run.”

You fumbled, nearly dropping the box. 

“Nope! I’m just…uh, busy!” you squeaked, scrambling to walk away at top speed, box clutched to your chest like a shield. But you caught his laugh as you rushed off, making you want to evaporate on the spot.

The next time, you were in the stairwell, headphones in, desperately trying to avoid any more awkward run-ins. Naturally, the moment you looked up, there he was, lounging at the landing like some kind of paid actor in a commercial. You froze mid-step as he raised a brow.

“Look at that,” he said, giving you the once-over, “you look like you’ve seen a ghost every time you see me. Is it something I did?”

You stammered, turning pink. 

“No! Just, uh… headphones! Music! Loud music!” you blurted, before speed-walking up the stairs, praying he didn’t hear the Spice Girls song you’d been blasting. Behind you, his chuckle echoed up the stairwell like the final taunt of a villain.

But the absolute worst came at the coffee shop.

You were in line, looking at your phone, hoping you could just breeze in and out. The moment you placed your order and turned to leave, there he was, standing right behind you, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

“Hey, neighbor,” he drawled, eyeing your coffee cup like it was some incriminating evidence. “Funny running into you here. Or… do you keep running into me?”

Your face flushed, and you tried to think of something clever, but it was like all your brain cells had gone on vacation. 

“Nope! Definitely just getting coffee! I don’t even… live near here!” you babbled, immediately regretting everything.

“Oh, interesting,” he replied, his grin widening. “Because I could swear you live right next door. But hey, if you want to keep pretending you don’t know me, I’ll go along with it.” He handed you your coffee with a wink. “See you around… or not.”

But things took a turn for the mortifying when, one evening, you were pacing the hallway on the phone with Clara, trying to vent without actually collapsing in a pile of awkwardness.

“It’s him, Clara!” you hissed, oblivious to the fact that you were pacing right outside Bucky’s door. “I’m living next door to SergeantBarnes! Can you believe this? I’ve seen everything he has to offer! I’ve practically studied him!”

Clara was howling with laughter, but you were too wrapped up in your frustration to care.

“And he knows, Clara! He keeps showing up everywhere, saying stuff like, ‘You seem nervous’ and ‘You keep looking at me like you know something I don’t.’ I swear, he’s doing it on purpose!” You paused, sighing dramatically. “The man is basically torturing me!”

“Yeah?” Clara snorted. “And what are you gonna do about it?”

“Nothing! I’m gonna hide in my apartment forever! I mean, the guy is—” You froze mid-sentence, sensing a presence that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Please, for the love of all that is holy, no.

You slowly turned, and there he was. Bucky. Leaning against his door, arms crossed, looking like he’d just won the freaking lottery.

“Oh… my god…” you whispered, feeling your soul leave your body. He was watching you with an expression of pure, unfiltered amusement, one eyebrow quirked, lips pulled into that infuriating, knowing smirk.

“Well,” he said, voice laced with mischief. “That makes one of us.” His eyes glinted with barely-contained laughter. “And here I thought you were just a fan of my boots.”

You could practically feel your brain cells going up in smoke. 

“I… uh… well… I…” you stammered, cheeks burning. “Boots… are great,” you managed, wanting to sink into the earth.

“Yeah? Because I seem to remember you looking… elsewhere last time,” he teased, stepping a little closer, enjoying every second of your embarrassment.

“Oh, no! Just… boots!” you squeaked, backing up, practically tripping over yourself. “I really should go… water my… uh… plants!”

He chuckled, savoring every second of your panic. “Good luck with that,” he said, throwing in one last wink as he slipped back into his apartment, leaving you in the hallway, feeling like you’d just gone through a slow-motion car crash.

Back in your apartment, you slid down the door, hands over your face as Clara’s laughter erupted over the phone.

“Boots?” she howled. “THAT’S what you went with? Boots?”

You groaned, banging your head back against the door. “Shut up, Clara.”

× × × ×

Determined to reclaim a shred of your dignity, you strode into the local coffee shop, praying for a quiet morning with zero embarrassing encounters. But, as if on cue, the universe had other plans.

There, right at the counter, was Bucky. He spotted you instantly, his face lighting up with that all-too-familiar grin that had haunted your dreams. There was no escape.

He waved you over, and before you could even think of pretending you hadn’t seen him, he was calling out, “Morning, neighbor! What’s your coffee order again?” His voice was loud enough that half the shop turned to look.

“Oh, um… it’s…” you stammered, but he’d already waved to the barista.

“Got it covered,” he said, leaning casually against the counter, eyes twinkling with mischief. “I’ve got a feeling you like it with extra cream.”

You choked on your own saliva, feeling your face turn crimson as he handed you the cup with a wink. 

“Unless I’m wrong?” he added with a smirk, feigning innocence.

“N-Nope, that’s right!” you managed, grabbing the cup like it was a shield. “Extra cream… perfect.”

He chuckled, gesturing to an empty booth in the corner. “Great. Then you won’t mind sitting down with me for breakfast.”

“Oh no, really, I should—”

He raised an eyebrow. “What, got somewhere better to be?”

You froze, helplessly aware that the entire coffee shop was listening in. You managed a nervous laugh, mumbling, “Well… no, I guess not…”

Before you knew it, you were sitting across from him, desperately trying to keep your eyes anywhere but his face, your cheeks burning as he sipped his coffee and watched you with a smug smile.

“So,” he said, leaning forward, “what’s a girl like you doing watching a guy like me online, anyway?”

Your jaw dropped, coffee cup halfway to your mouth. “I—I wasn’t watching—It was research!” you spluttered, already kicking yourself for falling right into his trap.

He chuckled, clearly reveling in your embarrassment. 

“Oh, sure, ‘research,’” he said, nodding like he totally believed you. “I get it. You know, it’s important to be informed.”

You practically shrank into your seat, glancing around to see if anyone else had heard. “Could you not say that so loudly?”

He smirked, taking a long, deliberate sip of his coffee. 

“Relax, I’m just curious,” he said, leaning in close enough that you could smell his aftershave. “Gotta say, it’s a little flattering to have a fan right next door.”

Your brain completely short-circuited. “Fan? I—no! I mean, not like that… I… I barely even…” You could feel the lie crumbling in your throat as his smirk deepened.

“Uh-huh. Then why did you look like you were about to sprint every time you saw me?” He tilted his head, studying you, eyes twinkling. “And I swear you turned pink the second you walked in here.”

Your hands shot up, covering your cheeks. “I did not! You’re imagining things.”

“Am I?” he said, leaning back with a satisfied grin. “Because it’s like clockwork. Every time I’m around, you look like you’ve been caught red-handed. I don’t mind, you know,” he added, shrugging nonchalantly. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

You let out a strangled laugh, ready to crawl under the table. 

“That’s… obvious,” you muttered, feeling as though you might combust at any second.

“Okay, so since we’re having breakfast together, how about you tell me: any favorite scenes?” He laughed, looking entirely too amused as he stirred his coffee.

You practically choked on your coffee, face flaming as you tried to hide behind your cup. 

“I—I can’t believe you just asked that!” you squeaked, horrified and unable to meet his gaze.

“Oh, come on,” he grinned, clearly enjoying every second. “It’s just small talk. I mean, who better to ask than a neighbor?”

You groaned, burying your face in your hands. “Can we please pretend this conversation never happened?”

“Nope. Can’t do that,” he replied, laughing. “I think it’s a little late for that.”

Just as you were starting to pray for an earthquake to swallow you whole, you glanced up at him, cheeks still flaming. 

“Did you… did you know I recognized you this whole time?”

He leaned back, a satisfied smile spreading across his face. 

“Of course I did,” he said, laughing. “Figured it out the second I saw that look on your face. I just wanted to see if you’d ever bring it up.”

“Oh my god,” you muttered, feeling mortification seep into your very bones. “And you kept messing with me?”

“Of course,” he said, raising an eyebrow with a wicked grin. “I was just waiting to see how long it would take for you to crack. Guess now the ice is broken, huh?”

You couldn’t help but laugh, shaking your head. “You’re the worst.”

He winked, finishing his coffee. “Yeah, but I make breakfast interesting, don’t I?”

You laughed, feeling the last traces of embarrassment fade away—well, at least enough to breathe normally again. But just as you started to feel almost… comfortable, Bucky tilted his head, giving you a curious look.

“So, neighbor,” he said, smirking, “I’ve gotta ask… what’s your name?”

You blinked, realizing with a jolt that you’d never actually told him. In all your attempts to dodge, deflect, and survive the relentless teasing, you hadn’t even bothered to introduce yourself.

“Oh… right,” you mumbled, feeling your cheeks heat up again. “I, uh, guess I never actually said.”

“Nope,” he replied, leaning in with a grin. “I just assumed you wanted to keep a little mystery between us.”

You rolled your eyes, though a smile tugged at your lips. “Trust me, I’m not that mysterious.”

“Really?” he replied, eyebrows raised. “Because all this time I’ve been calling you ‘Yep.’”

Your face went red as you remembered the first time you’d stammered a barely coherent “yep” instead of an introduction. “Oh my god. You haven’t been calling me that in your head this whole time, have you?”

He shrugged, smirking. “It’s kind of cute. Suits you, actually.”

You groaned, but laughed despite yourself, finally holding out your hand across the table. “Alright. I’m Y/N. Officially.”

“Y/N,” he repeated, taking your hand, his grip warm and firm. His smirk softened into something a little more genuine. “Good to meet you, Y/N. Officially.”

His hand lingered in yours for a beat longer than necessary, and for a moment, there was no teasing, no innuendos—just the two of you, sitting across the table, smiling like two normal people who’d just met under… semi-normal circumstances.

Then, just as you were starting to think maybe, just maybe, you could get used to this weirdly charming neighbor situation, he leaned back, that mischievous glint creeping back into his eyes.

“Now that we’re on a first-name basis,” he said, winking, “you can tell me all about your favorite scenes. You know, for professional feedback.”

You burst out laughing, face in your hands as he watched you with a triumphant grin. Yep, you thought, already regretting nothing and everything.

[writeforfandoms]

Island - 1

Find the series masterlist

Here we are with a new series! I know, I know. I couldn't resist. This is a crossover with Ark: Survival Evolved but I don't think you need to know anything about the games beyond dinosaurs. And ice age critters.

You've been on the Island for a long time, and been alone for a while. So when you find a group of four men clearly new to the Island, you figure you'll take them under your wing.

After all, what's the worst that can happen?

Eventual Kyle "Gaz" Garrick x f!reader

Word count: 4k

The first body was easy to spot, laying in the open on his back. He still had his clothes on, at least, sturdy-looking boots catching your eye with a twist of envy. 

The one beyond him was a little harder to spot, in the shade and wearing dark clothes also, so he blended better. 

Pulling Bessie to a halt, you slid down and patted her side, murmuring for her to stay put. A long stick was easy to find, and you approached the first man with caution. His chest rose and fell slowly - still alive. You took a moment to observe him while he was out. Thick, short hair, muttonchops, nose charmingly crooked. Hm. Hopefully he wouldn’t die so fast as the last one. 

Crouching down a little ways away, you used the stick to poke him. Some people, you’d learned the hard way, came up swinging. 

This one didn’t. He inhaled sharply once, after two pokes, his eyes snapping open. They were the most vibrant blue you’d ever seen on a person. 

“What–?” he started to ask, head turning towards you.

“Easy,” you murmured, holding your hands up in a show of good faith. “I’ll answer all your questions, I promise. Here. Have some water.” You held out a skin to him, watching him drink. He didn’t guzzle it, at least, taking two swallows before handing it back. 

“Where am I?” 

“I’ll answer all your questions,” you reiterated, looking beyond him to the second man. “But first I want to see if that guy is still alive.���

He was on his feet faster than you would have expected, taking a couple staggering steps before finding his stride. “Simon,” he murmured, taking a knee next to the other man. “Oi. Simon.”

Simon woke with a low groan, and you handed the water skin to the first man. You could see two more in the bushes, one of them already stirring on his own. 

“You know those two, then?” If they did… a whole group. It had been a long time since you’d seen a whole group dropped in together. 

“Johnny,” Simon rasped. 

“And Gaz,” the first one said, a hint of relief in his tone. “C’mon, boys, on your feet now.” It took him astoundingly little time to have all of them on their feet. You stood back a little, impressed and a little intimidated. 

They were all big men, clearly strong. You did have Bessie and a weapon, but you preferred not to use them if you didn’t have to. 

“Now,” the first one said, turning back to you. “Where are we?” 

“Welcome to the Island.” You smiled wryly at them. “Don’t ask me how you got here, because I don’t know. I woke up here, same as you lot did. Come on, I’ve got food and more water back at base.” You turned away from them, walking back to Bessie. 

“What the fuck?” One of them, Gaz you thought, exclaimed upon seeing Bessie.

“I know,” you soothed. “She looks scary, but she won’t hurt you. She listens to me.” You patted the big Trike’s nose, grinning when she rumbled affectionately at you. 

“That’s a triceratops.” Gaz was staring at her, unblinking. 

“Oh, that right? I hadn’t noticed.” You grinned, though, to take the sting out of your words. 

“How…?” He trailed off, clearly uncertain how to even phrase that question. 

“I don’t know,” you answered with a little sigh. “Come on, keep up. I’ll explain on the way.” You whistled a short note to Bessie, for her to follow you, and started walking. All four men kept up with you easily. 

“Alright. Well. Like I mentioned, this is the Island. It’s… I don’t know how it’s possible. But it is. Yes, she is a triceratops. No, she’s not the only dinosaur here.” You paused and licked your lips, glancing at your new companions. “This place makes very little sense, honestly.” 

“How did you know to find us?” That was the first man again. 

“I didn’t. Today’s a gathering day, so Bessie and I were just out gathering resources.” You nodded back to the laden bags on Bessie’s sides. “Found you lot by accident.” 

“You’re acting like this is normal,” the Scottish one, Johnny you were pretty sure, said, eyeing you warily.

You huffed soft amusement at him. “I woke up here, same as you,” you answered, smiling a little. “Someone took me in then, showed me the ropes, same as I’ll show you. And you lot aren’t the first I’ve found and taken in. Happens pretty regularly.” 

“What happened to the rest?” Gaz sounded like he almost didn’t want the answer.

“They died.” You swallowed back the memories that evoked. “Not too far from base now.” You glanced at each of them and gave your name. Which is how you learned some of them had other names - Ghost and Soap, particularly. The first one you’d woken was Price. 

“What is this place?” Soap asked, looking around as you walked. 

“Not really sure,” you answered, pausing a moment to look around. Just in case. Never hurt to be on the lookout for predators. “Some forgotten island a mad scientist took over? Some kind of social experiment? Dunno. Doesn’t really matter, anyway.” 

“Are you alone here?” That was Price, those eyes fixed on you. 

“I’m the last of my tribe, yeah.” You shrugged. “But there are other tribes here. I’ll explain more later, if you want. We’ve got to get up here, then around to base.” You led the way, long used to the trek as you headed up the hill. 

Your base was in a nice defensible location, backed up to a steep drop with a solid row of spiked fencing keeping dangerous things out. You pulled open the gate for them, ushering the men through first and then guiding Bessie through. 

“Home sweet home,” you told them with a little smile. It was better than it had been when you’d arrived - you now had several crop plots and berry bushes, a nice paddock set up for Bessie and Watermelon, a separate paddock for Ripper, and a house with plenty of room, even with four new clan members. 

“You did all this?” Soap sounded impressed.

“Goodness no,” you laughed, taking one bag off of Bessie and setting it aside. “No, I’ve had help, most of the time. Some of this was established when I arrived here, but I added the crop plots.” You took off the second bag and ushered Bessie in with Watermelon. “Food first, I’m guessing?” You started for the house without actually waiting for an answer, hauling one of the bags with you. The other could stay outside for a while. 

The four were quiet as they looked around, something for which you were grateful. It gave you a chance to debate your options. You didn’t have enough stew for five people, but you did still have plenty of berries, and it wouldn’t take long to make up a batch of quick rolls. It wouldn’t be a feast, but it would tide them over. 

“You said you don’t know how we got here,” Price said, deliberately making noise as he walked closer to you.

“Right.” You focused on grabbing ingredients for the rolls, sparing him only a quick glance. 

“How long have you been here, then?” 

You actually had to think about it for a moment, head tipped to one side. “Seven hundred and twenty… two days. No. Twenty three.” 

“Almost two years?” Gaz asked, clearly shamelessly eavesdropping. 

“Almost.” You frowned down at the dough, adding a little more water to it. 

“And you’ve been doing this the whole time?” Price made a vague motion to the base.

“Pretty much.” You shrugged, giving the dough one more stir before you separated it out. “I’ve traveled, of course. Read through all the notes I could find. Learned the skills needed to survive here.” You shrugged again. “That’s how it goes here. I’ll be happy to teach you all as well.” 

Price blew out a slow breath. “You haven’t found a way off the island.”

“Of course not.” You rolled your eyes. “Nobody has. I don’t even know if there is a way off the Island. I mean, there must be, the supply drops come from somewhere, but I’ve never seen a plane or anything.” 

“There are supply drops?” Soap’s turn to eavesdrop.

“Of course.” You transferred the rolls to a baking stone, setting them carefully in the oven. Not as nice as a modern one, of course, but you’d only burnt a few rolls before figuring out how to make it work. “Daily, in different areas. I’ve got a big map up on that wall.” You pointed and grinned at the subsequent migration. “Home is the big blue dot.” 

More leisurely, you strolled over to stand behind the men, observing the map. It was a complete map, with bases marked accordingly. 

“What’s this, then?” Soap pointed to a green marker out on the plains.

“The horse tribe.” You rolled your eyes. “Pricks. They’re not particularly friendly.” 

“I take it they use horses,” Gaz said, flicking a grin at you. 

“Yeah. Exclusively. They will trade for carrots, at least, so they can be reasonable.” You shrugged. “Not often, but it happens.” 

“And here?” Ghost pointed to the red dot up between two mountains. 

“The Painted Ladies.” You looked away from the map. “They’re… a little zealous. Have no use for males, of any species. They use the red berries to make a dye and mark everything with it - themselves, saddles, clothes.” 

“That it?” Price this time, examining the map more closely.

“I haven’t checked in a while, but there used to be a tribe down here, between the base of this mountain and the swamp. No idea why they chose there, but it’s not my problem.” You shrugged. “Oh! And hypothetically there’s the sky tribe, built mobile bases on a few quetzal, but I’m not convinced that’s real.” 

You left them to continue examining the map, checking the food and tapping your fingers against the table. Still didn’t feel like enough, not with four of them. So you pulled out an extra slab of meat from the preserving bin, slapping that in a pan with some herbs and a few potatoes chopped up. There. That’d do. 

“There are plates and cups in that cupboard,” you said, pointing, hoping one of them would take the hint. “If you wanna wash up, that’s out back. Just don’t drink the water.” 

“On it,” Gaz said, moving to get the plates and cups. He even found the utensils with a little poking around. Good man. 

Dinner was… stilted. You had gotten accustomed to being alone again, and they were still adjusting. Not that you blamed them - you’d been in shock the first three days you’d been here. They were doing better than you.

Then again, they all knew each other, so that probably helped. And, honestly, they looked like they were military. Big guys like them, combined with the way they’d looked at the map and the way they carried themselves… Pinged as military in your mind. You’d seen their type before. 

You took the dishes out back to clean, waving off their offers. You needed a bit of quiet time to yourself. 

Four new people, all at once. A group. You’d only seen pairs come in before, not a group of four. Honestly, it made you wonder all over again about whoever was running this. What did they want? What was the point of this? 

Maybe there was none. Maybe it was all just an elaborate form of torture. You sure didn’t know anybody who’d made it out alive. 

You snorted softly, shaking your head. No point wondering about it. You had too much to do. 

Especially with four more people to feed. That would be a lot. 

You blew out a breath. Hopefully these ones would outlive you. You didn’t know if you could handle losing any more people. 

“Ma’am?” 

You jumped, startled, and looked at Gaz’s sheepish expression. “Yes, Gaz?” 

“Want me to take anything in for you?” 

You huffed out a little laugh. “Insistent, huh? Yeah, alright, you can take the plates in. I’ll show you where the bedding is once I’m done out here.” 

Gaz nodded, picking up the plates, though he didn’t move yet. “You alright?” 

You shot him an amused smile. “I should be asking you that.” 

He shrugged, looking down. “Big change for you, too,” he murmured, fingers shifting around the plates.

Your smile softened a little. “It is,” you admitted. “But I’m okay. It’s good to have people to talk to again. I’ll make sure to teach you everything you need to know about this place.” 

He nodded, searching your gaze for a few moments before he left. 

They all opted to bunk down together, which made life easier for you. The house was an open floor plan, so you just pushed some things out of the way, gave them bedding, and left them to it. 

You, of course, did last rounds before bed, checking on your three tames, checking the fence, and checking the surrounding area through the slats in the fence. A few pachys, a parasaur, and a stego farther out. Quiet out tonight. Good. 

The few crystals you’d left out all day were glowing softly now that night had fallen, so you brought those inside. The glow was soft, diffuse enough that it wouldn’t keep anyone awake (hopefully), but would still provide some illumination. 

In case any of them needed it. Or you. 

Murmuring a soft good night to them, you grabbed your own bedding and curled up in your favorite corner. It didn’t take long to drop off to sleep. 

You were surprised when they woke at sunrise, same as you. You let them take care of themselves, instead pulling water to boil and working on biscuits. They were easy to make and lasted a few days, although you doubted they’d be around that long. 

“You said there are supply drops?” Price asked, standing to one side while you worked.

“Mmhm. Not in the same spot, but they come down.”

“If you’re planning to go to any today, I’d like to go with you.” 

You straightened after putting the last batch of biscuits in the oven, dusting your hands off. “I’ve got a few questions first. You lot military?” 

“Yes.” He crossed his arms over his chest, watching you more closely.

You nodded. “Good. Think you can trust me enough to keep you all out of the worst of the trouble until you learn the ropes?” 

His lips twitched. “Do we have a choice?”

“Always.” You frowned at him, disapproving. “You never have to stay here. If you really want to leave and try on your own, I can give you some supplies and advice. You’re not beholden to me, or anything like that.” 

He only smiled, apparently pleased. “We’ll follow your lead.” 

You blinked, not having expected that. “Uh. Good.” You ignored one of them snickering behind you and took the freshly-boiled water off the flame. “Right, those’ll take a bit. Let me show you the guns.” 

That got all of their attention, and they all followed you outside to the weapons cabinet. You opened it with a little flourish, grinning at their expressions. 

A few bows and crossbows sat on one side, arrows piled neatly below. Your pistol you picked up, tucking away so they didn’t get any ideas. 

Which still left three longneck rifles, another pistol, and one (slightly broken) assault rifle. 

“Quite a stash,” Soap murmured, going for one of the rifles. 

“They come in some of the supply drops,” you offered, stepping back to give them better access. “And ammo, which is below. The assault rifle is broken, haven’t the foggiest what to do with it.”

“I do.” Ghost picked that one up and stepped away. You let him. Not like he could make it any more broken.

“Please don’t shoot any of them here, you’ll scare the tames, and that will end badly for everyone.” You left them to the guns, going to grab Bessie’s bags again. 

“Not a problem,” Price assured you, taking one of the longnecks. Gaz and Soap each had one as well. 

You nodded once, making sure both bags were empty and in good condition before you hung them on the side of the paddock. You’d take Bessie with you when you taught them how to hunt here. 

You had a feeling at least one of them would be a bit… resistant to eating meat after this. 

The biscuits went over well - Gaz ate four in one sitting. You packed up several more in a bag, along with two water skins freshly filled. 

“Alright,” you murmured, taking them outside again. “Look for blue smoke, that’s usually what they use for the supply drops. Sometimes green. Once in a great while, yellow.” 

“Blue,” Gaz called after only a few seconds, pointing. Towards the beach. Good. 

“Green,” Soap called less than a minute later. You sucked your teeth when you saw that one - towards the mountain. Not good. 

“Right,” you mumbled, chewing your lip. “We’re going for blue first. We’ll hunt along the way.” 

Nobody said a word against your plan, which was frankly miraculous. You got Bessie ready again, whistling for her to follow. 

“You tamed her?” Price fell into step next to you at the head of the group. 

“Her, yeah.” You smiled. “The other two, no. Watermelon was tamed by the guy before you lot - Jasper. Nice guy. Former marine.” You shrugged. 

“And the other?” 

“Ripper was tamed by my mentor, Tom. He left her to me, made sure she knew I was friendly.” Your smile was tinted bittersweet at the memory of Tom. You firmly maintained you couldn’t have had a better mentor. 

Not like you’d turned out to be. 

“How does that work?” 

You huffed, shaking your head even as you continued to scan for danger. “That’s at least a week two project, Price. Gotta learn the basics first.” 

“Alright.” He seemed amused now. “Tell me more about the supply drops.”

You shot him an amused look. “I take it you’re in charge of the boys.” 

“That obvious, eh?” His lips twitched. 

“With that tone of voice? Yeah.” You grinned, though. “Supply drops usually have all kinds of things. Clothes, weapons, ammo, medicine, food. Anything that can’t easily be made here, or requires technical skills that can’t easily be learned. Sometimes notes, manuals, things like that.”

“And they drop daily.”

“Usually, yeah. They aren’t in the same spot every day, so they’re not always close enough to grab. We got lucky with this one on the coast, actually. The coast is less dangerous than the mountains.” You paused to take a quick look around, just to be safe, before you continued on. “As long as you don’t go in the ocean, anyway. Practically everything in the ocean wants to kill you.” 

Quiet fell for a little while as you all walked. There was still a little bit of light forest between you and the coast, and the supply drop. The forest was usually quiet here, but not always. Fortunately, they seemed to note your caution and followed your lead, all without a word. 

You could get used to that. 

“I see the drop.” You blew out a slow breath. Once again, through the forest without incident. And still with plenty of time to let them do some hunting. “Alright, let’s see what we’ve got.” 

Ghost set up keeping an eye on the surrounding area while you and Gaz pulled the top off the crate. 

You whistled at the contents. Small bottles of medicine, bandages, a few splints, another pistol and ammo… And an oiled coat, which you promptly held up to check the size. That would come in handy on rainy days. 

“This is a good haul,” you murmured. Coat looked too big for you. Damn. “Alright, let’s load up Bessie, make sure you cushion those medicine bottles.” 

They worked easily, efficiently. Even if you did catch Soap side-eyeing Bessie when the trike huffed. 

You broke down the crate the rest of the way, tying the pieces together and attaching that to the leather harness. Good. 

“Right,” you murmured. “Hunting next, I s’pose.” You blew out a breath, hands on your hips, looking down towards the water. “We’ll start easy.”

“Oi,” Soap started, indignant. 

“Easy for me,” you corrected with a little grin. “Come on. I can usually find dodos down this way.” A short whistle for Bessie to follow and you started down the beach, letting the others follow at their own pace. 

The beach was usually quiet. At least, here it was. The swamp… much less so. But here? Not a problem. 

“There we go,” you murmured, stopping far enough away that the dodos wouldn’t freak out. Not that they did anyway - they were pretty stupid. “Five of ‘em, that’s good. Right, just aim for the heads. They’re not smart and they’re not fast, I’m sure you can get ‘em.” 

You stood to the side, letting them figure out how they wanted to do this. You were only a little amused when Price approached it in a very military fashion - he sent Soap and Ghost around to the other side to help pen in the big dumb birds. 

Honestly, it didn’t take them any time at all to take down the birds. You whistled lowly. They were efficient. 

“Keep this up and you won’t need me,” you joked, patting Bessie’s side.

“Think we still have a few things to learn,” Price said, falling in step next to you as you walked over to the birds. 

You hummed acknowledgement before you grabbed the first bird by the feet, dragging it over to Bessie. “Might be a nest around here,” you said, glancing at Gaz. “Mind taking a look?”

Gaz was off with a nod, even as Soap and Ghost walked over to help. 

“We’ll take these two back,” you said, attaching the second bird to Bessie’s harness. “The other three we can butcher here.” You shook out the oiled cloth you’d brought with specifically to wrap the meat in, laying it on the sand. 

Fortunately, none of them were squeamish. Unfortunately, you only had two knives. 

It still took relatively little time for you and Price to get the meat done and wrapped up. 

"Found a few eggs," Gaz reported, carefully holding the eggs against his stomach. Three of them. Your mouth watered at the sight. 

"Brilliant." You grinned. "Alright, this has worked out quite nicely for us! I can show you some berry patches on the way back." 

None of them objected, so you got everything situated in Bessie's bags and started the walk back. 

You'd made it most of the way when you heard the little growl. You stopped, hand going to your pistol, and you noted Price doing the same near you. 

But the creature that stepped out of the brush was no threat. The hyaenadon growled softly again, gaze focused on you. 

"Easy," you soothed, both it and the men. "Easy does it." You released your pistol, taking two steps back to Bessie and cutting off a chunk of meat. 

"What are ye doin'?" Soap hissed, confused and a little incredulous. 

"No need to panic," you soothed, stepping forward again, still moving slow. You stepped ahead of Price and crouched down. "Here, sweetheart. Here you go." You held out the meat, heart racing. 

The hyaenadon crept closer, slow, cautious, a little skittish. It sniffed the meat and then, very delicately, took it from your hand. Its stubby tail wagged and it whined a little, chowing down. 

"What is this?" Price asked this time.

"I have been working on taming this darling for weeks," you said, keeping your tone low and gentle. "I think this one is almost ready to come home." 

"Ye can't be serious." Soap again, this time aghast. 

"Of course I am." You smiled as the hyaenadon licked your hand. "Good job," you murmured. "That's a good pup. How about I bring you more tomorrow, hm?" 

The hyaenadon whined again and scampered off back into the woods. You straightened with a satisfied smile. 

"What was that?" Ghost finally, voice a low growl. 

"Home first," you insisted. "Then I'll explain."

[flutteringphalanges]

Aydith

Adam Warlock x Star Lord’s Sister/Reader

Summary: Adam and reader have a baby.

//I started working on one where the reader actually gave birth but put that on hold because I wasn’t sure if I should finish it. I may make this a series because I kinda want to explore dad!Adam more and uncle!Peter and the rest of a the Guardians as aunts and uncles. If people are interested. Anyway hope you guys enjoy! (next time I think I will do present POV and not past, but whatever lol!) EDIT: This is now a series. Here is a LINK to the master-post with links to all of the one shots.

                                             Aydith

You and your older brother, Peter, had practically grown up with Yondu and the Ravengers. Seen things, some being terrible at that. Found a new family with the Guardians. Experienced battles. War. The destruction of whole societies. Planets. But any of those old fears were nothing compared to what you were experiencing now. The heavy, nervous thumps in your heart as you stared down at the tiny being in your arms. Thumps that were equally as terrifying as this strange new feeling of overwhelming, unbridled love. 

Her skin was a brilliant shade of gold--something she had inherited from her father. What little hair she had was more so copper, but that could easily change with time. Even through her golden skin, the rosiness of her cheeks blushed like petals. And her eyes…for the past nine months you had been anticipating they would be his. But the very first time she opened them, they were the most intense shade of_____. Just like yours. She was beautiful. Far, far beyond that. She was yours. Both of yours.

“She’s so small.” Adam’s voice cut through the silence. “Is that…is she okay?”

You glanced over at him from where he sat on the edge of your bed. Everything had been a blur up until this moment. The birth had not been an easy one. A lot had happened. It was certainly unexpected. And the chance that something horrible could have come from it all was a fate no one wanted to think about. But you were safe, and more importantly she was, so in the end that was all that mattered.

“Yeah.” You assured him, watching intently as he gingerly touched one of her clenched fists. “She’s perfect, isn’t she?”

“More than anything in the entire realm of galaxies.” Adam agreed with a small smile, clearly mesmerized. “And she’s ours.”

“Yeah.” You breathed, looking at her. “She is.” Silence fell between you for a brief moment before a thought suddenly came to your mind. “Do you want to hold her?”

Adam blinked, looking at you in almost comical surprise. “I can hold her?”

It takes everything within you to keep from bursting into a fit of laughter. Being exhausted and sore helped with that. “Of course, she is your kid after all.”

“What if I…” He hesitated, glancing from you to the baby. “What if something…”

“You won’t hurt her.” You promised, wincing a little as you lean forward to place her in his arms. “They aren’t as delicate as they look. Or, at least someone told me that…”

Adam took her gently, going rigid when she let a little noise. Slowly, you watch as his posture relaxes. The way he gazed at her, watching with such intent and adoration. You never thought you could love him more until now. You couldn’t help but question what you had done to deserve them both.

“I…I thought I was going to lose you, Y/N.” Adam said quietly, finally meeting your stare once more. “Back on the ship. I really thought…” And the way his eyes have begun to water causes a swell of emotion to find you. “All of us really, and if something had…your brother would’ve never forgiven me.”

“Hey, I’m okay.” You said softly. “Both of us are.” You paused, before adding. “It’s going to take a hell of a lot more to get rid of me. We Quills are pretty resilient.”

Adam chuckled softly, stroking the top of the infant’s hand. “As I have witnessed.”

“You know, she kinda needs a name.” You reached over, lightly brushing your fingertips against the top of her head. “Any suggestions?”

He hummed thoughtfully, adjusting your daughter in his arms. “My mother’s name was Ayesha.” Adam began to talk faster as if he thought you’d interject. You wouldn’t. “I know she committed horrible acts and was not the greatest of all beings, but…she was wonderful to me and I loved her. I…can understand if you are against it, however.”

“It’s a pretty name.” You told him, giving him a smile. “My mother’s name was Meredith. I didn’t get to know her, she died when I was really young. But Peter talks about her, a lot more than he used to.”

“Meredith…” He mused, studying the baby’s face. “That is also a nice name.”

You took a moment to consider the two. One could easily be the first and the second a middle. The problem would be, in that case, which one you would call her. Suddenly an idea comes to mind, one that you hope didn’t sound too ridiculous.

“What about Aydith?”

Adam looked at you with a brow raised. “Aydith?”

“A combination of the two.” You explained, shrugging your shoulders. “We could honor them both…It doesn’t sound too funny does it?”

You watched as he glanced down at the baby, remaining silent for a moment. “Aydith…” He said slowly, as if testing out the name. “I like it. Aydith is a good name.”

You smiled softly, peering down into her little face as Adam leaned over.

“Hello, Aydith.” You whispered gently. “Welcome to the universe.”

[prof-ramses]

Hollow Sorrows Trailer Breakdown LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOO

Obviously, if you don't want spoilers, scroll away. If you've already seen the trailer, LET'S GO!!!

So when we first see possessed Patty, she looks mostly normal, you can't even see her demon teeth through the mask yet. John and Jack probably only came in since they heard a scream and/or struggle coming from the morgue.

So we get a shot of the boys being too chaotic, something Gregor points out and what will likely cause the "bad character development" Pelo ahs mentioned.

Also, since it's 100% what Pelo would do, Costume Bob is the guy in the HF suit. Mark my words.

The scene with the hatz is really interesting to me, since Skid and Pump just annoys Roy for a moment and leave. I think this might be all we get of the hatzgang this time, similar to how Frank only had a brief Appearance in Tender Treats. If my theory that episode 7 will focus on Roy is true, this little scene will be very interesting to dissect when the full episode drops.

We actually get out first proper glimpse at a new character and I think this old man is the very last character in the line up teaser

And there's also a pretty good chance he Roy's grandfather and given the way he reacts to the boys antics here, I can definitely see him being a another reasons Roy's the way he is.

If he actually is Roy's grandpa, then @crossover-enthusiast and I's Roy discussions are going to get really fun pretty soon.

Here, Skid is clearly holding a framed photo, meaning this will almost certainly be the first time his father is brought up directly.

Also, yeah, with Pump's line about "hangover spooky month", it seems my theory about Lila in this episode was at least half right.

Yet more proof that the boys' absent parents will be more of a focus. The trailer as a whole gives me some ideas regarding the Wonder parents, but I feel they're best saved for another time.

The boys get into trouble with the cops and I have 2 theories regarding when, either Gregor tries to get them sent home before going to the hospital, but they talk their way out of it, or they actually do get sent home at the end of the episode.

John's expression here immediately makes we think that something Skid or Pump said reminded him of his daughter. Another plot thread that has yet to be directly acknowledged.

Ignacio watches Gregor lead the boys away, maybe he lives down the street from Skid and Lila to keep an eye on them for the cult?

Either way, I'm surprised his appearance won't take place in the hospital as I previously predicted.

"I will be your guide. And I know your parents would be proud of you."

There's something undeniably sinister about this line, but how sinister hinges on whether Gregor is a cultist or ex-cultist. Whatever the case may be, he definitely knows more about or sees more in the boys than he lets on.

A great title card, and thought the blood everywhere is definitely concerning, I don't think there's anything to really say here, just wanted to get a screenshot of it.

And it would appear the character I've referred to as the cat lady will have the unenviable role of a hapless victim to the episode's villain. But honestly, I'm more surprised by her being at the hospital in the first place and why that never occurred to me before.

The actual progression of Patty's possession confirms to she's possessed by something other than Moloch. And what seals it for me is, fittingly, the eyes. The white of her eyes becomes a more vivid yellow, yet her pupil snot only don't form Moloch's typical spirals, but they're a more vivid shade of baby blue, a color that has never had any significance in the series before. Moloch will mostly be trapped in Dexter before eventually possessing Gregor, I will die on this hill.

AND THE FUGGIN' RELEASE DATE!!!

Alright, that's all, only a month now. We're so back!

[fountainpenguin]

Riddle watches New Wish - Post #14

Lost and Founder's Day

I do really like how the theme song flows, especially at the end where Cosmo and Wanda jump from their human disguises into fairy form.

Ooh, Founder's Day came back from "A New Dev-elopment." Continuity! I like how the title card shows us the hat that Dev and Hazel saw during their treasure hunt.

I'm gonna throw my money down on the Dimmadomes founding Dimmadelphia (or an ancestor).

skdfj, Hazel's so cute when she steals her teacher's hat.

-> Yes, it was the Dimmadomes.

I like how Dev's shades are still gone, but he's still got that smug tone of voice. But today, he has a good reason to be a bit smug for a festival his family is hosting (that his dad had to work over the weekend to pull together). This is gonna be interesting.

I don't trust any of this tech to be good (in the moral sense). Dale literally tried to promote pollution a few episodes ago.

LKSDJFSD, Dev giving out watches that do a bunch of cool technical things and this is the face he makes when he's asked if the watches tell time:

(They do not).

This is the first time Hazel's shown interest in anything related to Dimmadomes' tech (She has a phone case covering any logo and didn't know how to do the dance they apparently made) and now she's gushing over the gift Dev gave her so I'm... hm. Where ya going with this, Hazel?

Okay, so... what the HECK is going on with Dimmadelphia? I'm sure we'll get to learn the real founder soon, but all I can assume right now is that it was Doug himself, hence the hat logo. If that's true, he was BUSY during the 50 years of frozen time.

-> That WOULD justify my Buxaplenty overlap seeing as the train lines would've been crucial for this.

It's gotta be a different ancestor. There's no way Doug would be in Dimmsdale if he'd founded another city. This city's huge. I'll be watching for any indications of "established X year."

Aww, Hazel adores Dev now and is blatantly gushing over him. That's really cute. Local #1 Dev fan:

[cnt'd under the cut - #long post]

I can't believe we didn't get a "Hazel has a bone in her hair" gag when she got shocked by the tech.

omfg, Dev is so desperate to interact with his dad that he's begging to "organize merchandise by tossing boxes back and forth to each other." He's smart. Goober.

Diagnosed child who would play Catch with active TNT minecarts in Limited Life SMP. He would just do it...

Dale, you shouldn't tell your son to "Eat a lizard." That's mean.

Oh noooo, are we about to get "My dreams were crushed many years ago... How old are you?" version 2.0?

-> Note to self, Dev's birthday is 9 years, 7 months, and 14 days before Founder's Day (give or take since he says "pretty much exactly my birthday to the day, which I think implies he's doing math and decides it's the day).

Dev is 9? Lol. Didn't we already have end of the year tests in like, Episode 2? And our implied end of school year dance? Baby.

-> I double-checked and Sadie Hawkins is in November. There were Sneezy Hawkins Dance posters in Episode 1 when Hazel walked in. Those posters hung in school for multiple episodes (I'll keep my eyes out for them in future episodes), which would imply she started school in September or October (Probably not August since she was specially introduced to the class as a new student).

-> If we keep seeing the posters throughout the whole year, I'm willing to wave them off, but while planning the timeline, it's worth noting they exist, we know we're post-2019, but probably not too many years later since that was the most recent date on the gym's championship banner for a school that clearly wins sports games often ("Fearless"), and we've seen multiple waning crescent moons.

-> No snow, but not unreasonable since Dimmsdale was in California.

... I gotta say, I'm really enjoying these recent episodes, but D: Where was this early in the series when I was confused in Post #10 as to where all the underlying trauma vibes were?

We've absolutely shifted vibes from where we were when I wrote that post. Which is fantastic, but I'm surprised we didn't get this earlier. THIS is FOP vibes. THIS is what I wanted and why I was super confused by this show's tone earlier. Yeah, of course I like Dev now... He's shifting the tone back to the OG show's vibes.

I'm wary, but I've approached to eat out of the hand.

Oh no, we scene shifted before Dale could reveal the statue under the cloth. Either he's broken and we're going to see the aftereffects (following Hazel's POV where she's confused as to why he's gone off the rails and turned snappy) or he's gonna find out during the event and he'll break down in front of the crowd. Uh-oh...

...... Okay, now they're just taunting me with the moon. It can't always be a waning crescent!!

The stage looks like Doug Dimmadome.

Please tell me Dale didn't forget to add Dev's info to the ID-scanning robot.

Every time Angela is onscreen she has a new therapy book and I support her.

Wanda: Parenting never gets easier.

-> Please tell me Hazel's parents are about to ask about that and they're going to have to either backpedal or they're going to imply they've raised like 100 kids.

sdlkfj, they only cite Poof. BRUTAL.

-> Cosmo one again giving me "First fairy baby born in 1000 years." Yeah yeah, Westley Periwinkle held the title first, we all know him (/fanfic joke).

Seriously though, it's very funny to me that Poof is never, ever referred to as "first baby born after Cosmo" or "first baby born in tens of thousands of years, or hundreds of thousands." Only first in hundreds OR first in thousands. I can't believe that DANG KID is still haunting me in the new show.

-> Cosmo still confirmed to have been the pregnant parent. I'm glad that wasn't retconned (despite Cosmo's best efforts to scramble and cover up what he said by claiming Wanda was the pregnant one).

Cracking up. Cosmo, I think the neighbors think you're trans but not out about it.

Angela: Where's your son now? :) Wanda: Eh, we don't know. I mean, we forget because we were on vacation for 10k years.

Wanda, WHAT did I say in Post 11 about how you cannot leave that clingy child alone immediately after tearing him away from Timmy?? If Poof shows up and he has abandonment issues and/or clingy vibes, I'm gonna shake you both so hard.

-> Why is Marcus not calling them out for being paranormal creatures? ... That's kind of funny since Crocker would've lost his mind.

I like how Cosmo and Wanda turned their wands into lollipops for the carnival. That's cute.

Uh-oh, the statue's not been revealed yet. I hope Dev isn't onstage when this happens. (I want him to be onstage and suffer).

-> I should note that "Stanky Danky" and "Lost and Founder" are the episodes Dale lists the companies he's in charge of, and I'm pretty sure they're different. I want to make a coherent list throughout the series.

Marcus is reading his wife's book at the party, aww. They're so cute.

OH MY GOSH, their ancestor IS surnamed Dimm! I am once again thinking this implies Dale Dimm from "Which Witch Is Which?" - who founded Dimmsdale - is probably also in this family tree.

Wanda's glowing wand is adorable. They're both cute.

So, Hazel has been here long enough she agrees she hasn't "just" moved here anymore, so I'll allow the waning crescents.

Doug Dimmadome struck gold in 1953? I'll be making a note of that. I know that's after both Dimmsdale and Dimmsdale Flats were founded. This doesn't do much for me right now, but it's good to note.

-> This implies he was a teen or adult in 1953, so he's definitely not close to the age of Timmy's parents, who were 10 in the '70s. This checks out; he's got the white hair.

-> Let's say this is 2020 for the purpose of "We know we're after 2019." (2020 - 1953) is 67, and the youngest I'd be okay letting him strike gold is 10, since 10-year-olds do a lot in this show. So, he's at minimum 77 years old during this show, and could very easily be 87 or more years older (87 if he struck gold at 20), if I'm doing my math right.

And again, that's off the assumption it's 2020, which is a little earlier than I'd been brainstorming. I'm okay with this since he had white hair in the OG series, but I'm gonna have to plot out a timeline for Dale's age at some point.

Dale: /evil monologues about his plan to monitor kids' heartrates to figure out exactly what a child want. Me: Dale, have you tried... talking to a kid? Maybe YOUR kid? Standing behind you? Dev, clearly uneasy: Dad, that's so great! You get to help kids right away!! Dale: ... Help kids?

^ Me

Wait, so the drones can waste products and not get yelled at? Dale, maybe you should focus your attention in that area of your business- I think you're losing product.

Why do the drones sound so sad? They're talking like all their friends just ditched them. They're so cute.

I love how he's still wearing the big boots:

Oh no, Dev's on stage and Dale's talking about how the statue "isn't just him" under the tarp and "he can remember when this bundle of joy arrived." Yeah, Dev's about to shatter.

Okay, Wanda's clearly startled that the statue doesn't depict Dev and even Cosmo's starting to sense that something's going on in that family. You two are going to report this, right?

Aww, Cosmo misses his son.

The contrast of Dev crashing and burning while Hazel is enjoying her new hat is very funny to me. Like, we get this sequence of how happy she is and you just know Dev's having the worst day.

Dev: It's Hazel! Of course... Her well-known love of hats! /said not long after Wanda was like "Hazel, I've literally never seen you wear a hat before yesterday, what do you mean you like hats?

That's actually very funny. And cute? When did Hazel and Dev talk about liking hats? Logically, that must've been while they were montaging on the treasure hunt and posing next to those hat-shaped objects for photos.

With Dev talking about the Dimmadomes running a family business, I'd really like to see what Dev's relationship with his grandfather is. Doug was also careless about destroying childhood memories and I don't trust him to be a good dad either, but I'm curious.

-> I actually have no proof Doug Dimmadome is still alive. I wonder if he's out of the picture and if that had a negative effect on Dale, which may be why he's throwing everything into the business right now, and why he loves his boots.

-> I should check if those boots are similar to his dad's. Like, what if he saw his dad die on the day Dev was born and the boots were left to him, so that's why the boots are so important to him that he dedicated a statue to them?

POV, the dad who (presumably) pampered you for life after you'd spent 7 years of torment underground - and you don't seem to have a mother in your life so this is your only parent and only known connection to a world that isn't full of suffering - is dying on the same day your wife is in labor. What do you do?

Aww, Hazel knows Dev well enough to sense that something's up and ask if he's okay, implying they seem to have grown closer from "A New Dev-elopment" when she saw his father scoff at him and opted to change the subject instead of asking about his feelings. They seem to be doing well as friends and I like that.

-> All these crescent moons make me wonder how long it's been since that episode, though since Dale was working on the Founder's Day event on the weekend, I assume we're still in that range of time.

Dev, holding his arm when Hazel asks if he's okay: I... don't have time to get into it.

They're so cute. I love them.

-> I love the focus on Dev right now, but I hope we don't go full steam ahead into Hazel's friendship with him and she sidelines Jasmine and Winn for her new buddy and/or potential crush.

She hasn't seen her friends this whole carnival, which surprises me. Don't do it, Hazel.

What, where did Dev get those shades. He didn't have those .4 seconds ago.

Dev's going to complete his task and give Hazel's hat back to his dad and still get rejected.

OH NO, Dev is trying to lure the scanner drones away from Hazel, but he didn't tell her that so she thinks he just called her a name, mugged her, and ran off. That's hilarious. #You tried.

Dev, you have to talk to people. You can't just assume she knows what's going on. Fool.

I like how Dale also has special eyewear (VR glasses).

I like how Cosmo inexplicably thinks all the Dimmadomes have "Pickle" as a middle name. I think he said that to Dev in an earlier episode, right?

I like how Hazel saved the day by "doing what Cosmo would do" and pressing all the buttons randomly. That's hilarious.

Barry the dinosaur was at the carnival... That's great.

HAZEL'S MAD!!

As she deserves to be- that's the second time Dev regressed to calling her names. She thought they went through this, but now she's like "He's not changing and also I literally just caught his dad in an evil plot of shocking children's brains with electricity. And Dev seems to have been helping."

Yeah... This is gonna go great. Also, his cute little poses:

Oh thank goodness... We are SO BACK, baby! The fluffy episodes were fine, but NOW we're gettin' somewhere!! Time to break some hearts.

"I would hug you, but I do not have human arms or warmth." I love them.

Aww, he likes her so much. Best buddies...

I didn't know this was his phone, I thought it was a retro video game console.

Oh, it's an iPad parallel. It's got a stand and that's why it's big.

I like how my extremely specific "Ed Leadly as Dev's other grandpa" situation just keeps getting worse the more I think about it.

Little Dev: Grandpa Leadly, I learned to write my name! :) Leadly sitting among his pencils as Dev hands him a tablet he typed on instead of pencil and paper: Buddy, rising star, apple of my eye, my little angel... I will pay you 17 million dollars to never do this in front of me again.

Dad who likes flashy and long-lasting things to remind himself how far he's come vs. grandpa who's willing to massively overpay for anything he took interest in for 5 seconds; what arguments will they endure?

OHHH BOY, it's fairy assignment time! LET'S FREAKIN' GO!

It's Poof!! That is not the voice I expected out of him, but maybe I should've because he did love deep voices back in "Certifiable Super Sitter." I accept it.

Aw, he's so ready to play! This makes me so happy... That's exactly what a fairy godparent is here for- Finding miserable kids and turning that around so they get happier memories of their childhoods. That's exciting!

-> Oh, NOW I see why you guys were all messaging me about my "Poof adores his hero Westley Periwinkle and likes naming things after him" lore, sdkjfl. Ahahaha... I'm in danger.

-> "Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Pixies" Poof-Westley interactions looming on the horizon

Interesting choice to change his name? I wonder if that was done for stylistic reasons like the script. I seem to remember the OG show's scripts would say POOF in them for special effects, and I can see how that would be confusing.

Is... is this because he's trying to lie low so he can dodge the attention he was always getting as a celebrity kid? That feels right, seeing as if it was a true deadname to him, he probably wouldn't have introduced himself as Poof before saying "I changed it to Peri, like Periwinkle."

Either that or he's unclear if Dev's heard anything about him from Cosmo, Wanda, or Hazel and he wanted to clarify who he is, though that doesn't seem likely.

Huh. I'm kinda surprised Poof showed up. I know in the past, he was a controversial addition to the show and I half-expected him to be swept under the rug, though I did wonder about it when Cosmo and Wanda were talking about him earlier.

I've always loved him though and I'm excited to have him back. Return of my other OTHER son.

I'm really excited to hear him talk since his talking was limited to "School of Crock" (only at the end), "Fairly Odd Fairy Tales" (which he mostly slept through), and "Certifiable Super Sitter" (which is... unique). I've had to make up his entire personality for 'fics based on what limited understanding we had of his interests. I look forward to learning more about this version of him!

My established version of him in 'fics will take priority over new information. I'm currently still on the line of "Do I want to ignore New Wish in my canon or try to incorporate what I can?"

That said, I'm leaning a little towards incorporating, since I think I can work with most of it so far, especially if we're throwing in "Fairywinkle-Cosma family aren't strangers to time travel right now."

-> I'm not committing by any means, so don't hold me to that, and even if I do, it'll be cherry-picky.

-> One of my canons for Cloudlands AU Poof is that he's a fanfic writer, mainly for a series called Ninja Cowboy (which he chronically leaves unfinished, to Foop's distress since as Poof's opposite, he's addicted to finding out their endings). He also writes Anti-Cosmo x H.P. fanfics because it's the only thing that makes them back off when they show up to bother him.

Point being, I hope he gets to engage in Prime Meridian with Dev. I feel like they'd enjoy writing 'fics together and it would be funny to me :)

-> I'm wheezing on the floor. Poof's early concept name was Dusty. Even though the writers wouldn't have reason to know that was his concept name, it's funny to me that his name was changed to something that's also not that. The man of as many names as voices he can mimic...

That works really well for me since I named his younger brother Dusty, so that would've caused me problems.

I also gave Poof a mullet / ponytail in my teen design, so that makes me laugh. Lemme see if I have his ref sheet...

I do! Plus a bunch more from my files:

Looks like I gave him a tuft kinda close to his extra hair strand! That's fun. I wonder if New Wish Poof also likes sports. Hmm...

I'm gonna have to look up what era suspenders were popular. I specifically designed my teen/adult Poof with a late 60s / early 70s vibe since Cosmo was said to have been designed for the 50s, which is the time period parallel I was treating Fairy World in during that era too (hence Poof's blog tag being #purple hippie dragonfly, which I'm not planning to change because it's for me).

Exciting! I like Poof's staff. I've seen people do adulthood designs for Foop with a staff, but Poof's a new one. That's fun.

Alas, no freckles... but that's not gonna change in his Cloudlands AU design. We are "biological queen bee" all the way here.

Hmm. Foop has freckles, but... we'll see if he ever shows up in this series. I do not expect the artists to remember his freckles since they only showed up when he puffed his cheeks or flushed, but... if Foop shows up without his mustache and goatee, I'mma have questions.

Actually, this is perfectly fine because I always draw gyne fairies with pale freckles unless they're at their peak, and I already set Finley up as more dominant than Poof at school (with Finley suppressing his pheromones so Poof's "locked down" anyway). It looks like they're pretty faint in his ref sheet too. I'm satisfied with this.

No promises I'll work the Peri arc into my canon. I think I have room for it to exist and I don't think I've seen anything in New Wish that directly conflicts with Cloudlands AU in a way I can't work around, but I'm not likely to write 'fics for New Wish right now.

-> I'm not opposed to incorporating New Wish prompts into the 130 Prompts series IF I find any old drafts I end up not liking, but I did a deep clean in early 2023 and got rid of ones I didn't like, so I'm not sure.

I did sketch Hazel for a potential arc cover though, so I can use that if I have reason to.

So far, as long as I can find a satisfying way for Poof to age, I think I can swing New Wish around to fit with Cloudlands AU... unless we get something super specific like Poof-Peri already graduating high school or Cosmo and Wanda confirming they won't have godkids after Hazel, in which case I'll have to ignore that.

I can even work things around if Peri's not with Goldie, because their whole thing in Cloudlands AU is celebrity drama and dating life struggles anyway (iirc, Foop even told readers that Poof and Goldie keep splitting up and getting back together).

-> I've always suspected Poof would get special advance godkid permissions seeing as, y'know... Jorgen literally made him trial test Crocker's Mom as his "godperson assignment" in "Fairly Old Parent," plus Poof was getting on-the-job training his whole life. It's neat to see him!

I hope Poof's better at not burning himself out now. He looks like he's doing okay. He's grown out of his shell!

-> According to my timeline, Erg was Cosmo and Wanda's trial kid while they were still in high school, so it would totally work for me if Dev is Poof's high school assignment.

I'm not expecting that to be stated, but I can work with it.

Thanks for joining me in this liveblog! Looking forward to more episodes :)

[orchidyoonkook]

To What We Were Before, And All The Things After | JJK | Ch. 3

Title: Greenhouse Muses and Surprise Guests   

Pairing: Prince!College Student!JK x Fine Arts Major!(F)!Reader

Series Rating//Genre: (M) | College AU, Mild Royalty AU, Smut, Angst, Fluff, S2F2L, Indiffernce to lovers, sloooowwww ass burn

Summary: You need to think out this whole situation, and where better than your favourite place on campus? The one place where no one ever goes and where you can truly do your best problem solvi—wait who the hell is sitting in your supposed place of undisturbed tranquility? 

Warnings: PG18, heavy swearing, photography jargon (hopefully nothing tooooo confusing, I intentionally over explained a bit for those unfamiliar but a quick google search should clear up anything), euc=short form for eucalyptus “Youke”, art jargon but less, 1 (one) mention of metaphorical murder, and a bit of angst and fluff. I think that’s all?? Hella internal dialogue 

Word Count: 10,804

Release Date: March 2, 2023, 4:00PM

A/N 1: she somehow went from 8k to 10.8k???? Hope you enjoy!!

A/N 1.5: I’m literally so tired of looking at this, I’ve read it at least 10 times in three days. 

Series: Chapter One | Chapter Two

Jungkook’s sitting at a table outside what he considers to be his new safe haven, making a mental note to thank Yuri for showing him the greenhouse cafe—is that its name? He should’ve asked.

He can see himself coming here all the time for quiet morning work sessions. The coffee is great, the snacks are delicious, and there aren’t a lot of people around either—zero—to be precise. So he really considers this a win in his book.

The cafe is just southwest of a medium sized greenhouse, not even a minute's walking distance between the two. He could clearly see all the flowers and plants within from his seat outside. And behind the greenhouse was nothing but a small grass field followed by thick, dense forest.

It doesn’t even feel like he’s on campus. Just free about the world, grabbing a coffee and sitting down to work on a project like anyone else would. Like anyone else could. Another face in the crowd instead of the one on magazines in every corner store, book shop and grocer.

He can dream about it. Take in these small moments, but it will never be his reality. Not really. Even in this little corner of blissful nowhere the barista who served him his coffee knew who he was, addressed him properly, albeit a bit stuttered.

And he can’t blame her. It’s what she’s supposed to do. How she’s ‘supposed’ to react to him. 

He’s someone big and important. Someone people look to and see their future in his hands. Someone who merits reactions when in the presence of others. 

Someone who...

Someone...

So he dreams. And is thankful for what little normalcy he can get.

Taking a deep breath in, he holds it and he shakes his head, dismissing the thoughts before releasing a steady, controlled exhale.

Reset.

The cafe has an awning over its small patio, four tables on either side of the doorway, two that seat four and two that seat two on their respective sides, eight in total. He’s chosen to sit at the table of two furthest from the greenhouse, closest to the cafe. It has more shade, allowing him to see the screen of his laptop better.

Jungkook needed some time alone without anyone finding him, he gave that stupid speech on Monday for many reasons, but one of the most important ones was that he wants to be able to exist in a public space and to do his school work without a crowd gathering.

He’s taking this university thing seriously, and that means doing good work, excelling in his chosen subjects. It requires no distractions and lots of effort.

He doesn’t want to have to be cramped up in his dorm the whole time, too scared to leave for fear of never being left alone. He left that behind when he stepped foot onto the campus.

No more worrying about cameras or security or kingdoms. No more watching and tracking his every step.

This is his time to be a young man, not the prince. Just Jungkook.

And so far? He’s doing okay.

But just in case, he’s also wearing a hat, hoodie and mask for extra protection while editing some pictures.

Old habits die hard.

His Design and Visual Culture professor had given out an intro assignment to the class so he could get a read on everyone’s skill levels and to see where his starting point would be. Professor Hirmer asked everyone in the class to each submit three images: one portrait; black and white or colour, one still life of the photographers choosing, and one image of whatever your preferred style was. Then edit them to the best of their abilities, and submit by noon the following Monday.

Jungkook’s already finished his portrait. He hasn’t really made any friends here yet, so he just took one of himself, which made it easier in the long run because he was so used to his picture being taken.

Slicked back hair, a black tight fit shirt, silver chain and white background made up the shot aside from him. He’d decided on butterfly lighting because he’s always found it to be the most flattering aside from Rembrandt. Don’t get him wrong, Rembrandt’s a nice technique, Jungkook just didn’t want his portrait to be too dramatic.

He got the one he wanted to use in no time, and it required very little editing. Black and white is forgiving like that.

Currently, he’s working on his still life.

A latte with a basic heart design in a dark navy mug sat on the keys of a mahogany wood grand piano. The mug sat on the right side of thirds, and a couple stems of eucalyptus half cover the keys to the left, the tips of it just barely covering the bottom of the mug. He kept his depth of field wide so that most of what was in the frame was in focus, but the primary focus of the entire image is intended to be the drink and tips of the eucalyptus.

Jungkook managed to get one of the six guards his father insisted on him having here to go to a local market to grab the euc stems. Their remains were currently hanging in his shower, smelling wonderful and fresh.

The latte he did himself, a small talent after needing coffee constantly in his teen years to keep up with everything.

And as for the piano? He booked a music room for an hour with one in it. Work smarter not harder.

He’d kept his lighting dark, but gentle, really highlighting the whites of the piano keys while keeping the rich hues of the mahogany and navy present. The eucalyptus is comfortably set in the middle, having some brighter and darker tones to balance it out.

He’s quite proud of it, having created a visually pleasing image that had equal amounts of high, medium and low tones. But he wants the edges of the picture to blur slightly, so he’s adding a very subtly feathered vignette to the image.

He knows most of his peers will likely be doing a traditional still life of fruit or flowers, so he took a risk and made the prompt his own. He just hopes it pays off.

While editing, Jungkook’s simultaneously trying to brainstorm what he wants to do for his third picture. His style of choice is candids, takes them constantly, yet he doesn’t have a single one he wants to use for the assignment.

He likes them best because candids are those perfectly imperfect moments that show who a person truly is, when they’re at their happiest and saddest moments and everything in between. Candids are for when someone’s so caught up in what they’re doing that they look entirely serene in their task, and you want to capture that, forever. A small sliver of them, existing purely as they are.

Nothing fake, nothing practiced, no do overs. Just capturing genuine moments as they happen. A true reflection of humanity without filters or editing.

Jungkook’s thinking of maybe going undercover in the courtyard to snap some pictures of random people to see if that could work when a movement in the corner of his eye catches his attention.

Someone, with their back facing him, is very unceremoniously dumping their tote bag at the table most opposite him; the table for two that’s half covered in sunlight, half shaded.

Clad in loose fitting paint and charcoal covered overalls, a white shirt and bandana, they’re taking out what appear to be art supplies.

Brushes, small metal tins filled with paint, a very chaotically colourful water holder, and painting pad all gather onto the little table. He’s surprised at how they make it all fit.

It seems like he’s not the only one who’s seen this place for its potential.

But when they turn around, it’s…You?

It’s you.

Of all people.

What are the odds?

He wants to say hi, but hesitates, still aware of your conversation from earlier and hopes there’s no harm in a friendly hello between people who are acquainted, regardless of pending decisions.

But Jungkook watches your eyes pass right over him, unaware or uncaring he’s there. His half-raised hand falls along with the smile that’s found its way onto his covered face as you continue into the cafe.

A byproduct of his upbringing is being able to read even the subtlest of body language and facial shifts in people. And in your case, it’s like you’re screaming at him without actually speaking.

He knows from your closed off posture alone that you don’t want to be disturbed. But your expression…it's like a mixture of anger, worry and thoughtfulness.

Jungkook knows better than to interrupt someone when they look like that, and he decides against saying anything, returning to his assignment.

A minute later the bell on the door chimes, signaling your exit. 

Looking up, he notes the cup of warm whatever it is in one hand, a very full looking pastry bag in the other, and a water bottle tucked into your side via your elbow.

He wonders what’s inside the cup. Coffee? Would you drink caffeinated or decaf? Or maybe you’re more of a tea person. But would it be black or green tea? Do you use milk? What about sweetener? He can’t decide but that doesn’t stop the thoughts from racing across his mind.

Why does he care so much?

You settle down into your seat, the shaded one of the pair, and—somehow—place your newly acquired goods on the already jam packed table. Truly a talent within itself.

But a sip from your cup, and a bite of something that resembles a tart later, you wipe your hands on your overalls and pick up a brush, wetting it from the colourful container. Bringing the empty, water only filled brush to the paint pad in front of you, you start.

Your back blocks most of it so he can’t see much, but your eye line is honed in on the greenhouse. And if he had to guess just by looking, you’re focused on the orchid that sits front and center. 

He couldn’t name it specifically, but he can see why you’d want to commit it to paper. It’s pretty—yellow and red, very exotic looking, and he doesn't mean to—doesn’t even realize he is—when he finds himself watching you work instead of doing his own, mesmerized.

Your hand moves gracefully from paint to paper to water and back again.  Occasionally, switching out brushes or wiping the one you had on your pants, drying it or maybe getting the last bits of colour off. He’s fascinated with how you know exactly what to use and where to put what in order for the image to spring to life. Most likely years of practice and muscle memory guiding you.

Sort of how he does photography. Years of experience and knowing which poses and angles to use to really make an image pop. For a moment he wonders if anyones looked at his art the way he’s looking at yours.

When you take a small break, stretching out your back and limbs, Jungkook snaps out of his daze and looks at the clock on the bottom right hand side of his screen.

He’s been watching you for nearly 30 minutes.

That’s creepy as hell Jeon, he thinks to himself, lucky you didn’t notice, and returns his sights to his laptop.

Fuck. What was he doing again?

Staring at the still life in front of him, it takes a minute before he recalls.

Oh right.

Professor Hirmer’s assignment. The third image. A picture of his preferred style—his preferred style of candids. What could he do for his candid shot?

He thinks. A candid shot. Candids. Caaaannnndidddssssss. Caaaaaa—

A lightbulb goes off and he feels like both an idiot and a genius.

Retrieving his camera from his bag, Jungkook glances your way and sees you painting again.

Perfect.

Quietly, he gets up from his seat, moving just enough to be able to see a sliver of your painting and a small portion of your face. You're so focused that you don't even notice him, like nothing outside the page matters. And only for a second does he wonder what you’re thinking about.

Your body is easy to read, it’s your mind that remains a mystery.

The sun’s moved ever so slightly so that your page is now fully doused in sunlight, while you remain under the gentle caress of shadow from the awning.

Smart girl.

But your face is bathed in the subtle glow of your papers reflecting illumination. And it's like you’re the one creating light with every brush stroke.

You look transcendent.

With that sight in his viewfinder, Jungkook takes a few shots in portrait framing, his thumb covering the speaker that lets out the ‘click’ noise of a picture being taken, before adjusting his shutter speed.

These pictures all have you in focus, with the background consisting of half somewhat blurry cafe wall, half very blurry forest green. And they’re okay, they work. But he wants to have your movements and surrounding materials in the image as well, to really show the process of an artist at work. So he switches to a landscape framing and settles on a slower shutter speed to create a longer exposure.

Waiting for you to clean your brush in the water cup before snapping the capture button, Jungkook holds steady as it’s a couple seconds before the image takes. It makes him wish he had his tripod with him because it would make this so much easier, but he can make due if he has too. 

And he has too. Because he doesn’t want this opportunity to pass.

After a few more shots and near leg cramp later, he brings the results of his efforts up on the viewfinder for review. Jungkook’s thrilled to see that the movement in the piece was taken exactly how he wanted. Your arm steady on the canvas, but all your movements prior shown like angelically lit rays due to the angle of the sun, creating an ocean of movement around a steadily focused you.

They’re hauntingly beautiful. 

He takes a couple more like that for good measure, getting in different movements and shutter speeds before slowly making his way back to his laptop and table.

Popping his SD card into his computer for closer inspection, Jungkook sees there’s definitely more than one useful candidate and gets to work on narrowing down his favourite.

He is going to pass this assignment with flying colours. And it’s all thanks to you.

As you arrive at the cafe you notice a guy in a black hoodie, hat and mask with his head stuck in a laptop at the furthest table on the patio. Internally, you sigh that there’s someone else here; it’s almost always vacant and that’s why you love it. No people, no distractions, just you and your work, and your thoughts.

You try not to worry too much about it, doing your best to just ignore him and have hope that he leaves soon. At least he’s as far away from your spot as he can get.

Dropping your tote on the chair in the sun, you start placing all your things on the table. It’s an exact science you’ve perfected over many, many paint sessions and far too much spilled liquid. Countless art projects have fallen victim on this table, some you were able to salvage, but most were added to its body count.

Setting down your paint tins, you still can’t get the conversation with Yuri out of your head. Not leaving the building, not crossing the campus, not all the time it took you to get way over here either, no matter how hard you tried.

You huff.

Was your reaction really that unjustified? Could she not see how insane she was acting? Why did she jump to you being jealous? Why would she even think you’d be jealous?

You have Nel.

A prince isn’t going to change that.

And speaking of, you didn’t even get to tell her about your conversation with Jungkook.

After this fight though…you don’t think you will.

He seems to be becoming a sore spot between the two of you, ridiculous as that is, so you think it best to just not bring it up and deal with it on your own. That’s how you usually do things anyway, and you were only going to ask Yuri as a thinking out loud type of thing, hoping she had some input. But it’s clear now that none of it would have been useful anyway.

Finishing placing your things down—all fitting perfectly, by the way—you dig into your tote for your wallet and head into the cafe, still doing your best to ignore the other patron. Hopefully you can give off enough of a vibe that he takes the hint and leaves.

The bells hanging on the door sound as it opens and shuts.

“Hey YN,” Vivian, the barista, calls at your entrance.

You two know each other well, enough to be on a first name basis. You, being one of—if not the only—regular, and the cafe—being a little out of the way of anything else—not having many students make it a part of their routine.

A comfortable, welcomed sort of exile. One you gladly share with her.

“It’s good to see you,” she says, looking at the window closest to where you sit, “Are we painting again? I saw they switched up the flowers in the greenhouse on Monday. The ones they have out now are so beautiful.”

“It’s great to see you too, Viv” you respond, eyeballing the pastry display. You notice they have your favourite egg tarts in today.

At least one thing is going right for you.

“And yeah, they are,” you say warmly, regarding her comment. “I’m thinking I’m about to get real sick and tired of looking at that orchid they placed front and center.”

Viv laughs, patiently waiting on your order, though she’s got a good idea of what it’ll be.

“Could I get a hot chocolate with whip please?” You ask, and drum your fingers on your legs deciding how many tarts to get—two or three? Two or three?—before remembering, “Oh! and if you still have the not so super secret stash of mini marshmallows that you don’t have here,” throwing up air quotes and a smirk for good measure, “Could you toss a few of those in too? I’ll tip you extraaaaa.”

Viv only gives you a look that says yes they do but that she’ll never admit it out loud, and you’re grateful to her.

You’d spotted them one day by chance in first year and asked if you could have some with your drink. Viv merely stated that they don’t have marshmallows at the cafe while slipping a few in under your lid with a wink. You’ve been eternally appreciative for that kindness ever since, and tip her handsomely for it, but you’ve never known why it was such a secret. 

Maybe one day you’ll ask.  

Coffee isn’t really your thing, only turning to it during exams season, and you weren’t in the mood for tea, so hot chocolate’s always your favourite alternative.

But hot chocolate with whip cream and marshmallows?

Instant mood booster. And you definitely need that after the afternoon you’ve had.

“Anything else?” Viv asks, adding the large amount of whip cream she knows you like to the top of your drink.

“Yeah actually,” you smile, “could I get a water bottle and three of the egg tarts? They’re my favourite.”

Three seemed to be the most unreasonable option, therefore it’s the one you had to go with. And soon, a much too small, very full paper pastry bag finds its way onto the counter, accompanying your drinks.

“I’ll let bossman know about your dragon-like hoarding tendencies with the tarts and see if we can get them in more regularly,” Viv says, unsuccessfully keeping in a giggle at the end of her subtle jab and it makes you laugh too. “I mean, I don’t see why not seeing as you pretty much single handedly keep this place afloat anyway.”

You adore Viv. She’s real and kind, and very much someone you consider to be a bosom friend of sorts. You can tell her if you’ve had a bad day or a good one, and she’ll do the same, no shroud of inane pleasantries. You two having escaped the somewhat awkward ‘you work here and I go here so lets be nice to one another’ worker-customer relationship to a genuine friendship, and it makes the whole experience that much better. 

But it also allows for pulling on one another’s legs, like you do now.

“You’re so mean to me… and lucky I like you for it,” you say, opening your wallet, happy to pay whatever number you’re given plus 30%. The marshmallows and Viv are worth it. “How much will it be?”

She lets you know the total and you hand her a couple of mandatory bills plus a few extra, telling her to keep the change. You’ll lose any coins you have anyway, might as well give them to someone who’ll use them.

Viv says thanks and you make your way back to your spot, hands full and mind feeling a little lighter.

Thanks Viv.

Sitting down, you take a swig of your drink, a bite of your newly acquired tarts and get to work.

Starting with a wet on wet approach: you brush the canvas with water where you’ll eventually put some colour so it bleeds intentionally, and glance up every couple seconds to make sure to get a proper likeness.

It’s a yellow tiger orchid, truly beautiful—you’re a bit of a flower nerd because of your mom, but especially with orchids because they’re your favourite. They just come in so many different forms, it’s hard not to love their diversity.

Dipping into your paints now, you add some yellows in slowly, deciding to think of it as less of a flower study and more of an artistic interpretation so you don't have to use your brain too much. You’ll be using it enough to think through this whole Jungkook thing, no need to get caught up in the details and strain yourself even more.

Carefully put and one by one, more and more colours make their way onto the page and you settle into the calmness of creating. It leaves the open space you need for your mind to finally start working through the whole Jungkook–Yuri, Yuri–You, You–Jungkook situation before immediately correcting that there is no You–Jungkook situation.

He just wants to be friends, and that doesn’t constitute a situation. More of a predicament.

Yeah, that sounds better.

You switch out your brush in favour of a tart after getting base colours down, takinge a hefty bite and chasing it down with more hot chocolate. Damn it’s good, you need to ask Viv what magic she puts in it to make it this amazing.

Another swig and you think it’ll be better to just jump right into your mental debate. Get it over with, hash it all out. 

So that’s exactly what you do.

It isn’t that you do or don’t want to be friends with Jungkook, he seems nice enough.

It’s a matter of if you can be.

Jungkook is probably a very self-disciplined individual—if you knew anything about his upbringing—so it’s not like he wouldn’t understand your drive. He’d probably understand you in that respect more than Yuri does. Why you work so hard, why you don’t slow down. You can’t.

You won't. Not for anyone or anything.

And he can clearly understand social cues so you don’t have to worry about things getting awkward. He would act appropriately, never pushing boundaries—

Using a thin angled brush, you add more yellow to create sharper lines.

—And had he been just Jungkook, you wouldn’t even be sitting here having this ridiculous mental conversation with yourself. Because who stresses this much over a new potential friendship? You certainly never have before.

But that’s the problem, he isn’t just regular old Jungkook.

He is His Royal Highness, Prince Jeon Jungkook.

And as much as his title doesn’t mean shit to you, it sure as hell means a whole lot of something to everyone else.

He’s heir to the biggest kingdom on this half of the planet. On the cover of every teen magazine and online news article. Only child to the King and Queen. 

Powerful. Attractive. Single.

In short, Jungkook has been incredibly well known and incredibly important since the day he was born 24 years ago.

So you have to sit and think out what would happen if you became the prince's first female college friend. Well… aside from Yuri, but you don’t know how long that’s going to last, given where she thought things were going.

Being seen with him publicly would immediately put you in a spotlight you don’t want. You hate being the center of attention, but that’s the least of your worries.

You worry greatly that you wouldn’t firstly be known for becoming ‘YN, globally renowned painter, artist and business woman,’ selling pieces for more than they’re worth and then some. Galleries from all over the world knocking down your door, begging for your work. Having billionaires auction off paintings you’ve done for charity, being flown around the world for and by people to have you create something for them. Be it portraits or murals or even a performance—

Some burnished red now, with a small thin tip brush to begin the rorschach like patterns on the petals.  

—You wanted to be successful by your own hand, and then and only then would you occasionally speak of your very, incredibly platonic, not at all romantic, years old friendship with the prince, who you’d met in your college years by chance.

But you know that if you say yes, if you agree, all of those worries would prove true. That none of it would happen. None of the future you’ve worked for the better part of a decade on would come to fruition.

Oh no, no, no. That wouldn’t be the case at all.

Why would it? If you said yes, you’d become this week's most hot and trending piece of gossip. You’d be ‘the first girl Prince Jungkook was seeing in college,’ and everyone would ask ‘are you his new girlfriend?’ or ‘just a fling?’

If you said yes, it would be a constant barrage of:

‘Where did you meet?’ ‘Is he a good kisser?’ ‘How long have you been dating?’ ‘Have you met the king?’ ‘Does he like you?’ ‘What about the Queen, does she approve?’ ‘Has The Prince mentioned marriage at all?’ ‘Can we see the ring?’ ‘How many children will you have?’

At the grocery store, the mall, the hallways of your school, your hometown, the bathroom of a restaurant. It would be everywhere all of the time, constantly, and your head is already spinning at all the potential bombardment to your currently nice and relatively quiet life, so you take another snack break and stretch. 

Finishing your first tart and making a good dent in your second, the hot chocolate is half gone at this point. Whip cream and marshmallows having long melted, making the drink extra smooth.

Returning to your painting and back on topic; you’re not dense. You know how the media does what it wants with the people they see as mere puppets. As if they aren’t living breathing individuals with lives outside the very narrow-minded, click bait titled, news articles.

Their ‘reporters’ have absolutely no regard for what they say and how they act. They have not a care in the world for what their claims do to all the innocent individuals whose lives they write about after they’re done with them.

Selfish is the nicest word you can think to describe them. They’re vicious, heartless, vile people, and you have no desire to ever be the object of their attention.

The flowers are springing to life beautifully as you put layer after layer of detail. You add some darker hues, deciding to go with a more vivid red rather than the burnished one from before. Your wet on wet approach is working magic on blending the colours seamlessly for you. It really accentua—

—And another thing! If you did say yes, you could just see it now;

After your successful career launch, you’d always—no matter what you did—always be questioned about your relationship and what could have been with the prince. Or you’d be asked if knowing him is what got you to where you were, if he gave you a leg up, so to speak.

As if you would let him have any hand in making you what you were always going to become.

You didn’t and don’t need his or anyone’s help.

But it would always be, ‘YN? Oh you mean that artist got that much recognition just because she knew Prince Jungkook?’ or ‘YN, the Prince’s ex from college?’ no matter how hard he or you pushed that you were just friends. Because who would listen to either of you after the speculation was already there? After the seed was planted in their minds.

People love secrets and thinking they know all the dirty, gossipy scandals more than anything. Thinking they know more about other people's secrets than they do their own. As if they have nothing better to do with their lives.

Sighing, you drink the last bit of hot chocolate, wanting another one once it’s gone, but not the sugar headache that comes with that. Water then.

Adding some dimension to the petals by using a clean, damp brush to remove some pigment, you can’t help but let your mind wander to the most obvious conclusion that would be made and sink into it.  

You’re almost scared of the social pariah you’d become with every other woman and handful of men on campus. One dating rumor and you're done. Gone. Dismissed.

Or worse. One dating rumor and your popularity will suddenly skyrocket. You won’t have another moment to breathe alone so long as you’re still in school.

Jungkook is the most eligible bachelor on this side of the planet, potentially the whole world. His potential matches are princesses and the daughters of the filthy rich.

Who are you?

No one.

At least right now you are.

You aren’t royal, aren’t of ‘noble birth,’ aren’t a wealthy socialite. You aren’t even an independent, wildly successful career woman yet.

You’re just a scholarship kid who’s only at this school because she worked her ass off for it. Who has to continuously work her ass off for it if she wants to continue to be here.  

And you do want to. You want to work hard and become who you’ve always known you’d be. One invisible, important step at a time. 

From the first sketch to the last brush stroke.

So to summarize.

You don’t want to be the media’s plaything. Something for them to have their fun with and be bored of in a week, the future you’re working so hard to create destroyed before ever seeing the light of day. Fizzled out like a candle in a pouring downfall, only smoke remaining from the once bright and proud flame.

Secondly, you don’t want to be the social outcast or new campus favourite simply because you made a new friend. Having either icicles thrown at you from every set of eyes on campus or clout grabbers following your every footstep, begging for attention. Snubbed from any group projects, crowds parting like the red sea at your arrival, or never getting a moment to yourself again, late to every class due to your own personal assembly.

You’re exhausted at the mere thought of the possibility of either.

And lastly, you don’t want all the possible implications that come with knowing and befriending a man like him. Plain and simple.

What you want is to establish yourself because you worked for and earned it. What you want is to be successful, putting your near decade of practice and studying to good use. What you want is to have media attention, but for your talents, your efforts, and accomplishments.

Not his.

Not because you happened to treat the second most important person in your country like a normal, regular person.

Like he’d asked literally everyone else on your campus to do.

It isn’t your fault you're the only one who has ears that work.

But…on that note…

This is the prince.

And you are his citizen under his family’s monarchy. 

You don’t know if you’re even allowed to say no.

Can you?

He said you could…or was that him just giving you the illusion of choice? Don’t you have to listen to him? By royal decree or whatever it was that forced people to live under the royal family’s rule?

You have no idea, and choose to sit on it some more. There has to be a better solution to this.

You wish you could just talk to Yuri. She’s been your sounding board for the better part of two years now. But that’s definitely a no-go after today. You worry what bringing up anything prince related would do to your friendship right now. You’ve had enough arguments and mental taxation for the time being, thanks.

And if not Yuri…You would talk to Nel…

But Nel’s in a completely different country—a completely different time zone—right now. Already halfway through his night and you don’t want to wake him.

Wait, Nel.

Fuck.

Nel is another thing you have to consider in all this. You aren’t sure how he’d react to any form of relationship you’d have with Jungkook. 

How would he react to the media’s coverage of you with the prince?

Would he believe you when you denied everything?

Five years is a long time.

To know someone. To love them. To trust them. And you both know where you stand. You know where your future lies; with him. And he knows his lies with you.

But Nel is only human, and every human has flaws. No one is perfect. Everyone can have moments of weakness. Every person can feel jealous no matter how secure the relationship.

And jealousy can kill a relationship just as quickly, if not faster than anything else.

Jealousy can make you think things so irrational that it breaks down the wall of trust you built on a foundation of cement and bricks like it was nothing more than two twigs being held up by sheer luck and willpower alone.

A horrible rumor. 

A gust of wind. 

What’s the difference?

Five years of love, trust and communication could crumble to dust because of some asshole with a camera, an angle, and a computer with an internet connection.

You don’t want that to happen. You cannot express fervently enough how badly you never want something like that to happen to you or Nel.

You love your relationship. You love Nel, and you can’t do anything to jeopardize that. Ever.

But surely he’d understand if the heir to your nation's throne asked you to be his friend.

Surely he’d believe you when you told him that absolutely nothing was going on between you and Jungkook and that the media is just having a field day because he was the prince, and you were a girl around his age.

Surely he would…

Surely…

Five years is a long time.

But it’s also short. If you consider that for just over two of them you were long distance 9 months out of the year. And that two and a half more of them were when you were in highschool doing 60 hour weeks while he had football practice before and after school every day.  

When you spent most of your weekends at galleries, or portrait study or cramming for a test.

When he spent his studying and practicing and catching up on all his lost sleep from practice.

Maybe…

Maybe you shouldn’t bring it up to him.

A fire can’t start where there isn’t any kindling…right?

An argument can’t start, mistrust can’t begin, jealousy can’t exist if he just…never knows about it.

If nobody knows about it.

Actually.

Maybe that’s exactly what you’ll do. Just not tell anyone.

It’s not lying, not really. It’s just omitting a very, very small part of your life. 

And it’s not like you’ll be doing anything bad. It would most likely just be Jungkook asking about where to bring girls on dates or if you’ve seen the newest tv show that’s been on.

You’d tell him Azorè’s is the restaurant closest to campus that’s actually nice, and that no, you haven’t, because you don’t watch a lot of TV if you can help it.

That’s not devious, it’s normal friend stuff—just without the immense social pressure and potential repercussions of knowing him and being female at the same time.

Holy Shit.

This might be crazy enough to work.

And this way… this way you don’t have to say no to Jungkook, and Yuri won’t be mad, and Nel won’t get jealous, and you’ll stay out of the spotlight.

This way works out for everyone.

This way solves everything.

You huff, relieved. 

Now you just have to convince the prince that it’s a good idea.

He’s used to omitting things, isn't he? He must because of his future job. Don’t they train future monarchs in the wise and ancient art of social deception and secret keeping—to keep the peace or whatever?

You don’t think it’ll be that big a leap for him.

The longer you ruminate, the more you like the idea, deciding that when you get back to your dorm later, that’s what you’ll tell him. And if he doesn’t like it, well then problem solved all around anyway.

You reach for your hot chocolate, remember it’s empty, and switch to your water instead. Celebrating by mentally patting yourself on the back.

Always trust the greenhouse cafe. The greenhouse cafe is good. The greenhouse cafe is wise. The greenhouse cafe is all kno—

“That’s beautiful.”

You almost jump out of your seat at the voice, knee hitting the table in the process. It makes everything on it bounce and clang loudly and the hand holding your brush that was also nearing your water flies to your chest, leaving a splotch of red paint on your cheek.

“Ow, fuck,” you say, reaching to rub your now throbbing knee. That’s going to bruise. You’re just lucky nothing spilled, you certainly hit the table hard enough.

Looking up to see who your unintentional heart attack provoker was, you blink a couple times before a worried looking Jungkook with big eyes comes into focus.

Though, his worry is brief it seems, as his attention shifts to the painting in front of you, the small smile from the day you met making an reappearance.

Didn’t he just see you jump ten feet in the air? Because of him???

“What the fuck Jungkook?! You scared the shit out of me,” you say scowling, giving him a piece of your mind while your heartbeat returns to a healthier pace. “Didn’t they ever tell you not to sneak up on people in that big, fancy house of yours?”

Jungkook doesn’t think he’s ever heard anyone call the palace a ‘big, fancy house’ before. Another first with you. And he’s about to say as much when his gaze finally meets your own and see’s how upset you are. Right, he spooked you.

The hand not holding a laptop into his side slides behind his neck and he looks away. You swear you can see the prince blushing.

Did you cause that?

Wait.

Stop.

Rewind.

You look him up and down quickly.

Hoodie. Hat. Laptop. Mask around his wrist.

Jungkook was the guy sitting on the patio from earlier? How did you not recognize him? Like at all?

He has the most famous face in the world and you couldn’t recognize it when it was 20 feet away?

Wow.

Actually.

Hat to hide the hair, hoodie to hide the body, mask to hide the face. 

Impressive. He really knew how to blend in when he wanted too.

But he hasn’t even said hi or sorry. And he undoubtedly saw you earlier as you weren’t exactly subtle in placing your things on the table.

So much for wanting to be friends. He can’t even say hello to you?

...or maybe you got lucky and he saw that you really didn’t want to talk to anyone.

Thoughts aside, you won’t admit to him you find his camouflage techniques exceptional. He doesn’t need the ego boost.

Jungkook's hand recedes from his nape and he looks at you again, blush almost gone.

“Ah.. sorry.” He cringes a little. “I’ve always been told I’m light on my feet and I constantly forget when I’m around new people. I didn’t mean to scare you. Sorry, YN.”

So his manners haven’t completely escaped him. 

You give him a hard time as you point a finger his way. “You’re paying the hospital bill if my kneecap’s broken.”

It only takes a second for the joke to land this time, and a small laugh escapes his lips.

“Yeah, that’s fair. You break it, you buy it?”

It’s the first joke you’ve heard him make, and honestly, it isn’t bad. You chuckle.

“Something like that, sure. Here,” you say, holding the canvas up a little higher for him to see. “It’s a Yellow Tiger Orchid. The greenhouse likes to switch around the plants every other week, but these guys are always my favourite. Make for a fun challenge.”

Jungkook's loose hand touches the edge of the canvas lightly, careful not to disturb the still drying paint.

His words are almost thoughtless, entirely too focused on your work as he says, “You’re incredibly talented, your parents must be so proud.”

“Parent,” you correct, not harshly, just so that he knows you’ve only got the one. “And thanks, it stems from my many years of practice and a shady deal with an even shadier witch. All I know is I owe her my first born.”

That smile of his makes a comeback, only bigger and followed by a snicker.

You match it.

“But yes, my mother’s incredibly proud and a large part of the reason I’m here, never once having stopped supporting my goals.”

That’s true. Very true. Your mum never once thought your dreams were out of your reach, only ever pushing you towards them where she could. Placing steps down for you where she was able to.

She signed you up for lessons, drove you to galleries, bought you book after book on all your favourite artists and painting techniques. She got you paints and palettes and canvases, and did everything she possibly could have to get you where you now are.

She’s your number one fan.

And, in true proud mom fashion, she told everyone she could about how her daughter got into RABFA on scholarship all by herself—except you didn’t. You’re here because of all the support she gave during those years as well as your efforts, but she refuses to take any of the credit.

“I’m happy to hear it,” he says genuinely, before hesitating. Looking like he wants to say something but is debating it. “Can I–Do you–,” he inhales deeply,  clearly not used to fumbling over his words.

It’s...cute.

“Would you mind if I sat down?” he finally gets out. “I’d love to see more of your work.”

You think about it only for a second, taking a quick scan of your surroundings. There’s no one around besides Viv, and she’s probably working in the back. Plus, you're pretty sure he’s seen or even spoken to some of the greatest artists of your time. Not to mention, you’d love to hear his input.

“Yeah, sure.”

Instead of sitting on the chair your bag is currently using, he puts his things on the table to your right and spins one around from there, settling down with arms folded over the back of it.

“Thanks.”

You hand over your sketchpad. A perk to using a heavily water based medium is that your painting’s already dried in the time since you first spoke.

Jungkook flips his way through the pages slowly, taking his time in studying each painting as an individual piece. It’s not long before he reaches the one you were working on today. Having just started this pad a month ago, there isn’t much in it yet.

He searches back through to one right near the beginning.

“This ones my favourite,” he says, spinning the canvas around for you to see. It’s a tiger lily painting you’d done late in the summer at home.

Your mother is a notorious gardener, and has several flower beds that could rival a plant nursery with the sheer size, magnitude and variety of flowers in them. 

Rose bushes, dahlias, sunflowers, snap dragons, carnations, tulips, daisies, chrysanthemums, you name it, they were there.

So it wasn’t uncommon for you to spend an afternoon out in the garden sketching different blooms or picking one out in particular to paint.

She’d gotten the bright orange tiger lilies this past spring. They were the first ones you’d chosen when you got home after second year to paint. And then you just didn’t stop. They take up about a quarter of your summer sketchbook.

You couldn’t help it. They were hypnotizing.

“Why that one?”

“It’s my birth flower,” he says, lifting the sleeve on his right, revealing a forearm full of wonderfully inked designs. At the center of it is a tiger lily in matching bright orange hue. “It’s always had significant meaning for me because it’s something that represents me that didn’t come from my lineage, position, or name.”

“Oh.”

You sit there for a moment, stunned, yet to release your gaze from the sight of his arm.

The designs that cover it go all the way up to his elbow and don’t stop.

From an artist's point of view, you’re incredibly impressed with the quality of the work. Intricately placed mixes of black, white and colour. Never one or the other for too long. Strong clean lines. Clear, unmuddied colours. Striking.

Beautiful.

You shouldn’t be so surprised, knowing only the best would be allowed to grace his skin, but still. It was rare you were this taken aback by art. 

The colours chosen on the more visual pieces are gorgeous together. Bright, brilliant, bold. And the few quotes mixed in? Their linework is just… spectacular.

Jungkook doesn’t seem to mind your staring, twisting his arm to show you some of the designs previously hidden from your sight. 

The quality doesn’t lessen.

It’s after you're done intaking the art on his body that you see the strong muscle underneath it. And you let yourself appreciate the discipline that goes into achieving said strong muscle instead of how it makes your mouth water.

Long distance does not help your libido, and you’re only human.

Not that you would ever cheat. You do have a functioning moral compass, and a person you love that you could never do that too in a hundred years.

It's just that you have working eyes... and it doesn't hurt to look every now and then.

To make sure everything’s still working.

It is.

You bring your line of vision back into his.

“I never thought of my birth flower like that before. My mom keeps an entire garden full of them—only child and all.” Like him, you realize. “They’re one of her favourites too. I guess they hold a similar importance to her as yours does to you.”

Jungkook nods as he asks for your birth flower and you tell him. He says he can understand why your mum would be so fond of them, they’re a beautiful and elegant flower, suiting for you.

“Thanks,” you say, brushing off the subtle compliment.

He holds a hand out for the pad and you give it to him, watching as he turns the pages to another drawing before returning it again.

This one’s of your mother, in the small breakfast nook by a window in your home. It’s drawn with dark pencil lead and painted loosely, a slight blending of the two mediums.

She’s drinking a cup of tea and reading a book. It’s one of your favourite pieces that you’ve done recently because it’s your mom, existing naturally.

Not posed for a portrait, or a painting, or a reference, just her enjoying her morning. You couldn’t help but sketch it quickly when you saw her, adding the bit of colour later.

“Is this her?” he asks, taking it in again as if seeing it for the first time.

“Yeah, that’s our breakfast nook. But she reads there more than eats, always saying the window lets in the perfect amount of light.”

“I see where you get it from.”

“Get what?” but he just smiles at you before switching the topic.

“Who do you draw inspiration from, or look up to? I’d guess but I only know the bigger names.”

You inhale, knowing that this answer is always long for you. You get it semi-regularly—it’s a part of being a visual artist the same way asking a musician who they look up to is.

“Well, there’s a couple bigger names in the mix,” you start, “Van Gogh comes to mind first because his work feels like freedom. Lines placed seemingly wherever, yet so meticulously put at the same time. Some aren’t like that, but even then, they still flow like water. I adore his work,” another breath. “Da Vinci. Always. I stand by that fact that he was a genius and I strive to have an ounce of whatever he did. Michelangelo is another. Enough said. The sheer magnitude he was capable of creating was incredible.

“I have a lot of smaller artists I love too. People I’ve seen at local galleries, people I’ve found online, teachers from past classes. Some not nearly as well known artists from a hundred years ago who broke the barriers of art in their time,” you’re smiling like an idiot as you recall all your favourites and how they inspire you.

“I like the people who create and created just because they could, because they loved to. Because it meant something to them to make something with their hands. I mean, look what their passion got them. They all created for themselves, perfected their craft for themselves and that was enough. A satisfying, fulfilling life. I can only hope to have that. But a part of me wants to be one of the lucky few. The ones who shared their art so that others might not feel so alone. They became some of the greatest artists of all time.”

“Also some of the saddest,” Jungkook adds. But he’s looking at you differently now. You can’t put your finger on it but it’s not bad. Something close to curiosity. Or wonder.

“That just goes hand and hand with being a creative person. I don’t know a single one who doesn’t express their pain through their art.”

“Do you?”

“Of course, but those are just for me.”

“Shame.”

That catches your attention. “Why?”

Jungkook doesn’t hesitate for a second before saying, “Because some of the most beautiful things in life are created out of pain.”

You don’t really know how to respond to that.

You know he’s right. People are most likely to bare their soul into their art when they’re hurt, just to get it out. It’s cathartic for them in the same way crying or breaking things is for others.

The most magnificent things can come from that vulnerability, and it isn’t something you ever take lightly when you’re shown.

You’ve heard enough music in your life to know that the most beautiful songs are the most gut wrenching. You’ve seen so many dance performances you know the ones created from anguish and heartbreak are the ones that make for the most delicate movements; the most fragile moments on stage. You've painted enough pieces in grief over your lifetime to know that when someone doesn’t hold back what they’re feeling when creating, it’s the most emotionally provoking when looked at, listened to and experienced by others.

The audience can feel it in a piece. They can feel it in the movement and in the melodies. In the soul of what was created. Of the creator.

“Yes, they are,” you agree, near solemn, and that’s all that needs to be said.

And a moment of comfortable silence later, he hands you back the pad and you pick up your brush to continue with your orchid.

He watches your every stroke. You pretend he’s not there as you add green to the leaves.

“Have you given any thought to our earlier conversation?” he asks. “I know it was only a couple hours ago, so I understand if not.”

Jungkook looks nervous when you wash your brush in the colorful water jar. His face reads like he thinks you’re going to say no, like he’s preparing himself for the rejection but his body language gives him away. He’s wringing his fingers under the table, and his leg won't stop bouncing. 

It makes the corner of your mouth quirk. You thought he’d be better at hiding his tics, being prince and all.

But maybe he feels like he doesn’t have to around you.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the chair, Jungkook feels like he’s sweating buckets. Unknowingly showing every nervous habit he has, but can’t help it. 

He doesn’t tell you that he doesn’t have a lot of friends. Doesn’t have a lot of people he trusts enough to even consider them friends.

Yeah, he’s always surrounded by people. But they were just that. People. He barely knew any of them, and they only ever wanted to be near him for what it said about them, for what being near him could give them.

He doesn’t say how can’t pinpoint it, but that there’s just something different about you. 

So he’s really hoping you say yes.

Because it’s been…a long while…since he’s made a new one.

And it would be really nice too. 

But he’ll respect your decision either way.

Just please say yes.

Mercifully, you end his suffering.

“I have,” a brush stroke—more yellow. You don’t look at him while you speak, focusing instead on what’s in front of you. “That’s actually why I came here. To think. I come here for that a lot, or to get work done. It’s my favourite spot on campus. Secluded, pretty, quiet.”

He silently agrees with every word, but is also impatient. “And?”

You try your best to ignore the stars in his eyes when you look up from your painting.

“And I’ve thought hard about this, Jungkook. I didn’t just once over the idea and choose on a whim, I fleshed out what it would mean for me—what a friendship with you would mean for me, that is,” putting the brush down, you allow your most recent details to dry. “And I have a condition—just one. It's one you may not like, but it’s the only one you’d have to agree to in order for me to agree.”

Jungkook deflates a little, wondering what you could want. Because everyone always wants something. He was just really hoping you’d be different.

His mind runs through all the possible answers he’s used to hearing; money, clout, pictures, gifts, vacations, an audience with his father, donations, sex, power, the list goes on. 

He doesn’t want to think these things about you, but he can’t help it.

After so long… you get used to it.

“What’s the condition?” he asks, bracing himself.

“That nobody knows we’re friends.”

What? He thinks.

“What?” He asks.

You inhale again, wiping your hands on your pants and straightening your back.

Here we go.

“The more I thought about it, the more I realised that being seen with you publicly all the time would not go over well for me and my future. Anyone can be seen with the prince, but one girl over and over? People will talk about me. And it will be about me, because I’ll be the new shiny toy for them to play with. What I’m wearing, if we’re dating, who am I, what do I do, how did we meet, are you interested, blah blah blah,” you flick your hand, cringing at all of it. “I also don’t want my current relationships to change because of it. I don’t want my mother being cornered in a grocery store by a stranger asking about how her daughter knows Prince Jungkook and if she’s willing to give a quote,” you may actually come close to murder if that ever happened. 

“Not to mention the social repercussions. I can deny everything all I want from here into next week, but the second anyone knows we’re friends? I’ll become  either the most popular girl on campus—which is a waking nightmare for me—or the campus leper, which is a close second. And before you say anything to the contrary,” you fix him with a hard stare, unwavering. “You know I’m right.”

He tries to speak but you hold up a finger to show you’re not finished, and take a deep breath. 

Collect yourself YN, sum it up, drive the point home.

“I don’t need nor want that in my life. So if you want me to be in yours, nobody will know except us and whatever royal people need to so I don’t get tackled for being near you.” He cracks a smile at that.

“If that isn’t okay with you, then that’s fine, I understand. It’s probably an ask you’re not used to hearing, but I hope you understand that I have to put myself first and that this is a hard boundary for me. I’ve worked too hard to get where I am and I won’t let anyone get in my way. Not even a prince,” you say. “Not even you.”

Jungkook waits a second this time, making sure you’re finished. Then leans back, deep in thought, eyes still trained on you. 

He’s never been so impressed with anyone in his life. 

It’s been a very long time since he’s met someone with such blatant, hard earned self respect. Such candor and veracity, who spoke to him with confidence, completely unwavered. Let alone a woman. 

He’s so used to the fawning that he’s forgotten he likes it when a girl has backbone. Forgotten he likes a girl who doesn’t bend because he asks her to, who doesn’t need him or anyone to get what she wants. 

She can do it herself.

If he’s completely real with himself, his pants are fitting a little tighter as he remembers. As he continues to stare into your unflinching eyes.

But he dismisses that feeling immediately.

He should have known better. You’ve always been honest with him up until this point, sparing as those moments were. So he shouldn’t be as astonished as he is; you’re the one that has yet to break pattern.

Yuri’d fed him piece after piece of information about you. How you almost never leave your dorm when not in class, how you’re always studying or practicing all hours of the day, how school is your number one priority above all else—she really liked to talk.

He should’ve known you wouldn’t let anyone get in your way—not even him—given how the first time you met, you told him point blank that you would’ve rather been in the library than be forced to see him talk. 

Confident and direct from the very start. Unwavering in your goals. 

Jungkook should have known when you said you had a condition, that you didn’t want anything from him, but privacy for you.

You are young, driven, smart, and beautiful.

He’s never wanted someone to be in his life more.

Fuck.

He shifts in his seat, primarily for comfort, but also to buy a bit more time. You’ve yet to break his gaze.

Yes, it is a strange request, and yes it isn’t one he’s ever gotten before, but he can work with it. He understands your need to not be in the public eye. To not have your image decided by the public for you.

Most importantly, he knows what being seen with him can do to a person via the media. It’s terrifying. They’re like vultures, ready to pick the flesh off of any victim they deem fit.

More than one woman has been slandered off the palace grounds because of it. He also should have considered that before asking, but like he knew—like he knows—you’re smart. There’s no reason why you wouldn’t have thought this through thoroughly enough to weigh upon all of the possible outcomes.  

It was a day full of realizations. On both your parts is what he didn’t know.

So he really, seriously should not be as stunned, surprised and…still partially hard as he is. 

Here you are, staring at him, expecting a reply while his mouth is slightly parted and apparently speechless. It’s rare for him to be given such a harsh truth instead of the immediate yes he is so used to hearing. For someone to have this kind of power over him.

When he’d asked you, Jungkook had just wanted a friend. Someone to talk to, maybe hang out with, share jokes with. Someone to spend time with so his college experience isn’t as lonely as it’s turning out to be.

But where he saw a potential friendship, you saw potential disaster.

Because as much as the title grants him, being Prince isn’t a great thing for everyone around him.

Sometimes it destroys them.

He’s still learning though, that you aren’t just smart. You’re calculated. 

You are a scythe in a field of grass, a gust of wind in a foggy gulf, a sunbeam shining through the clouds on a rainy day.

You think things through to their every possibility, finding the best outcomes and worst fallouts. You did it with his request, and managed to find a solution that works at only a small hindrance to him.

So who the hell would he be if he didn’t take it?

The outside world already knows all of his friends. Granted about 95% of them are men, but that’s what you get when you grow up having the sons of the guards, groundskeepers and chefs around. The other 5% are the girls he met during childhood, the daughters of other royals and titled individuals.

And even then with them, the speculation never stopped. Not after years of platonic friendship. There was always a ‘what if?’ thrown onto them. So he understands that if he starts hanging out with a new girl, the media will go wild. Understands that existing in the same place as you and his social etiquette towards you have the power to make or break you, mentally, socially, even physically.

He understands.

So, everything considered?

Your one condition isn’t so bad after all.

And he has no problems with it.

“Agreed.”

You blink, clearly not expecting him to give in so quickly, or to at least debate it. Your eyebrows scrunch as you sputter, “Just like that?”

He grips the back of the chair, and leans forward again.

“I would never expect you to give anything up or be forced into an unwanted narrative because I asked you to be my friend. Of course I agree. It’ll be nice to have someone I don’t have to worry about the press bashing. To have someone normal, who I can be normal around, and who will, clearly, call me out on my shit or set me straight when I need it. So yeah,” he sucks a tooth, “Just like that.”

You flinch a little at his words. “Wait I lied, I have one more condition.”

He’s intrigued, especially considering the look on your face. “Go for it.”

“You can’t throw me in a dungeon for calling you out. My safety needs to be assured for any and all potential verbal ass whoopings you may receive in the future.”  

A full, loud cackle sounds from Jungkook, eyes crinkling as he says, “Deal.” And holds out his hand.

“Deal,” you say, shaking it and laughing with him. Because you know there aren’t any dungeons in the palace.

And somehow, you know that even if there were, he still wouldn’t.

Chapter Four: Sunday Nights and Lost Memories

A/N 2: we do be getting into though.

A/N 3: I know I’m jumping ahead here but I’m excited for you guys to read chapter 4, it’s one of my favourites so far!

<- Back

[scarletsaphire]

DP Sidehoes Week Day 5: Dani, Self Defense

Trigger warnings for: Dissection, dehumanization, brainwashing, organ harvesting (kind of)

The incision was only slightly over a millimeter deep, carved in the lines of scar tissue that had formed directly under her rib cage. A second set of gloved fingers reached into the incision with forceps, peeling the skin away from the muscle and tissue underneath it. Dani's nerves were set alight with a searing, scorching pain as the free hand began to scrape whatever fat build up had accumulated there, but she did not move or scream. She didn't even look away.

Not that she could have, even if she wanted to. The muscles that allowed her to move her neck had been removed sometime last week, or perhaps only a few hours ago. It wasn't like it mattered. They'd grow back eventually, and then they'd be taken away again, and again, and again, just like they had been a dozen times before. In the mean time, all Dani could do was watch, unblinking and unmoving, as the scientists took her away in jars and vials in bits and pieces.

She didn't blame them. At the beginning she did, back before she'd understood why. She remembered fighting and screaming and swearing that she'd kick all of their asses into next week, and even if she didn't, than someone else would. She remembered screaming and writhing in pain and anger, even after they'd restrained her. It was only after they'd gone through three rooms and double as many agents that they explained it to her.

The woman who had talked was nice. Still in the bright white uniform and black sunglasses, of course, but she'd talked to Dani as if she was a dog or a cat, or maybe even an infant child, if Dani was willing to stretch it. She talked to Dani as if she could understand, as if Dani was anything more than the pile of spare parts she now knew she was.

It was her explanation that allowed Dani to understand what she was. Why her cooperation was important.

"We are alive," she explained, her gaze strong even behind the shades. "And you, simply put, are not."

Dani tried to argue, but the bubbling groan of ectoplasm and blood in her throat silenced her faster than the scientist's words.

"I know that you think that you are, but just look at you." She walked away, pacing a few steps, and then turning back. "Living things die. That is a simple fact. If you were a living thing, than you would not be here to listen to me speak. You are not living. As you exist now, you are worthless."

She turned back to face Dani head on. "But you do not need to remain worthless. With our help, you can become more. You can help."

With a wave of her hand, a sickly man was wheeled in. He was not dressed in the customary guys in white uniform; rather, he was wearing a hospital gown. His legs were weak and bony and covered in lesions, and the rest of his body wasn't far behind. He smiled brightly at the woman, with a look that channeled as much hope as any look ever could. "Introduce yourself," she said.

He only glanced at Dani for a moment, before looking away. "Uh. My name is Xander." His voice was not as weak as his body, but he clearly had not been prepared to speak.

"Xander is dying, in the way all living things do. And he will die before the end of the year." With another wave of her hand, a different agent wheeled in a table, a series of vials placed in orderly rows on top of it. "But with this..." She grabbed the closest vial, a soft, muddy brown, and held it out to Xander.

He grabbed the vial and twisted the cap off, before downing the whole thing greedily. The effects were instant. The color returned to his face, the meat to his bones, the strength to his grip. He slumped into his chair further, eyes closing as he sighed in relief.

"And now he will live." She turned back to face Dani. "Possibly for only a few more years, but he will live. All thanks to the samples we have taken from you." She grabbed another sample off the table. "This is your essence, your ectoplasm and blood mixed together. A miracle cure for all of humanity."

She set it back down, and stepped forward slowly, until she was standing next to where Dani was propped. "Do you see what you can give us?" Her voice was soft now, the tone of authority dropped. "Your cooperation is all we need to cure... everything. Humanity will not need to suffer, will not need to go through pain. Fighting us is to fight against the saviors of millions. Is your freedom really worth that much misery?"

At the time, Dani had spit in her face. Now, with months to think it over, she couldn't help but agree. Sure, everything hurt. The feeling of hands and metal inside of her body, tearing her into pieces, was nothing shy of the worst thing she could ever imagine. But it had been... months? Months of pain, to the point of it carrying her far away on an ocean of agony.

She was being useful. She'd never been useful before. Vlad had cast her aside near instantly, and no matter how hard she searched, she'd never found a place for her. Maybe it was a good thing. There was no one to miss her, not really. Danny and his friends might wonder, but she'd disappeared before. They would not dwell on her.

The scientists had finished. They did not bother to stitch Dani back up; the wound would heal on its own by tomorrow. They filed out of the room, turning the light off with them, plunging Dani into darkness.

It was nice, to find her place.

[jananakookie]

Beauty Drabble | Yoongi's girlfriend

Warnings: a little swearing

Word count: 2k

Summary: Yoongi's bumpy flirting attempt is interrupted by someone who makes it even harder for him.

☞ This is a drabble for my Beauty Series

Yoongi's girlfriend

It’s a rather slow day today, and as everybody knows, those are Yoongi’s favorite because it means he doesn’t have to take care of too many customers and can pass time in a way that’s more to his liking like taking care of the plants, rearranging things or - his favorite - sleeping in the back of the shop until you find him and yell at him for letting you do all the work by yourself. 

Today is a little different, though because he has to take care of new deliveries that come once every two weeks. He’s the one who is usually in charge of it while you take care of the other things regarding the shop, and that’s fine with him. 

It is probably the only physical activity here in the flower shop that he doesn't mind doing and where he takes the initiative every time and beats you to it whenever you offer to do it instead.

And although he has argued with you many times about his true intentions, he maintains that it's only because he took care of it before you got here and that he has a certain system that he doesn't want you to mess up.

It definitely has nothing to do with the fact that the supplier is extremely cute, and he likes to spend time with her. No matter how many times you tease him about it. You have no idea, okay? It has nothing to do with her. Or her beautiful smile. Or her pretty eyes. 

“Okay, I think that would be all then. I just need your signature, and then I’m on my way again,” Sunyoung smiles, watching Yoongi’s every move as he reaches for the pen in his jeans pocket and quickly scribbles his name down on it like he always does. “Unless there’s something else you want to talk about.”

Halting for a moment, Yoongi looks up at her in disbelief. Did he just mishear?

If he didn’t know any better, he’d think that she was flirting with him just now. But that can’t be. Can it? 

He can already feel his ears getting hot while looking at her kind and big eyes looking at him with that beautiful smile still lingering on her lips while she’s waiting for him to say anything and probably for him to man up and stop looking like he’s peeing his pants just because a pretty girl is talking to him. Holy shit, it’s been a while, huh?

However, before he can even muster up the courage to speak, a loud scream of his name comes roaring through the whole shop before he’s almost run over by a tiny monster clinging onto his lower half, startling not only him but Sunyoung as well. 

“Yoongi! Daddy brought me here! Are you happy to see me?” 

He looks down to see Hyejin's huge Bambi eyes staring at him, red cheeks puffed out while she tries to blow some hair strands out of her face that have gotten a little too long, and he can’t help but grin at his little heroine and ruffles her hair. Sunyoung is still just standing there, watching the scene unfold in front of her, and she looks confused and amused in equal measure

Admittedly, the sight of Hyejin almost made Yoongi forget about her, had she not decided to speak up again. 

“And who might you be?” Sunyoung giggles, watching the little unknown girl cling to Yoongi as if her life depends on it.

For the first time since coming here, Hyejin seems to notice that there is someone else with them, and she irresolutely detaches her arms from around him to slip her little hand in his instead. 

“Hello, I’m Hyejin,” she politely introduces herself with red cheeks. “I’m Yoongi’s girlfriend.” And despite her having turned shy at the sight of the new, unfamiliar woman, these words leave her mouth very clearly, making Yoongi’s ears turn an even darker shade of red as he picks the girl up.

Why does she always have to introduce herself like this? 

Sunyoung gasps as she looks at Yoongi with feigned surprise and a slight frown between her brows. “Girlfriend, huh?” She asks teasingly, making him clear his throat in embarrassment. “You never told me you had a girlfriend, Yoongi. I must say, I’m quite surprised to hear about this.”

“Ah, well… to be fair, I thought I got dumped,” he shrugs, playing along as his eyes wander from Sunyoung to the little girl in his arms. “You haven’t spared me a visit in a while, little heroine. I almost thought you don't like me anymore.”

Hyejin dramatically gasps, shaking her head immediately. “I wanted to come so many times, but no one wanted to bring me here, and daddy said I’m too small to come to the flower shop alone!” She groans, frustration clear on her little face. 

Sunyoung can’t help but coo at her cuteness when yet another person comes walking around the corner and joins them, making himself known by clearing his throat.

“Hey, young lady. I told you to wait by the counter for me,” Taehyung sighs, giving Yoongi an apologetic look. “Yoongi is working, baby. He doesn’t have time for you right now.” 

“Ah, it’s okay. She didn’t do anything,” Yoongi smiles, sending Hyejin a little wink while she tries to hide from her dad in his embrace. “Tae, this is Sunyoung. Sunyoung, that’s Taehyung, he’s ___’s boyfriend.” He quickly introduces the two while setting Hyejin down again for her to look at the pretty new flowers that have just arrived. 

Taehyung sucks in a breath when he hears her name, hiding his surprise behind a kind smile when he shakes her hand. “Nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you already,” he then says, making Yoongi’s eyes go big. 

Great, now she’s going to think he talks about her to his friends which is not the case at all! 

“Oh, you have?” She asks, of course looking surprised because why the hell should he have heard about her? 

Yoongi will just have to kill him later.

Fortunately, Taehyung catches on, coughing before chuckling lightly. “Ah yes… from ___,” he evades, offering her an uncomfortable-looking smile. “She said that you’re the best when it comes to delivering new... stuff. Very punctual and very... neat and... good,” he explains, trying to save the day by talking absolute nonsense. 

Yoongi mentally slaps himself, cursing him for being such a blabber mouth and also cursing you because it's clear as day to him that you and Taehyung are talking about his crush on Sunyoung behind his back. And he doesn't like that!

“Ah, yes. It’s my job, so…” Sunyoung offers him a humble shrug, not dwelling too much on his weird behavior - much to Yoongi’s relief. 

“Alright, if you excuse us then. Hyejin and I have to find ___because we originally came here for her, so… we will leave you to it then,” and just like that he’s gone, taking a whining Hyejin with him in a rush, probably to give Yoongi and Sunyoung some privacy because Hyejin usually always stays with him whenever they make quick visits to the shop. 

“So,” Sunyoung chuckles, looking at Yoongi when they’re finally alone again. “Looks like I met your girlfriend,” she jokes, stressing the word with a giggle, which makes Yoongi shake his head in disbelief with a timid chuckle leaving his lips. 

“I hope you’re not too disappointed,” he hears himself say before cringing internally at his low attempt to flirt. 

Sunyoung looks surprised as well, but it’s quickly covered by a teasing smile as she tilts her head a little. “Hm, I mean… It’s a bummer, really,” she says, mustering a small pout onto her lips. “I sometimes had a feeling that you were flirting with me, but maybe that was just my imagination playing with my head. Wishful thinking or something.”

Her words almost make Yoongi choke on his own saliva. Sunyoung has always been pretty straightforward, but Yoongi never got the impression she was actually interested. He always thought it was just her personality but… wishful thinking? That has to mean something, right?

“I—I mean… You might not be wrong about that,” he quickly says, silently cursing himself for the way his voice comes out. So weak and high-pitched. Ugh! Kinda reminds him of the way Taehyung behaved before you two got together. Fucking embarrassing!

He can see a smirk spread slowly on Sunyoung’s lips, but she quickly covers it with a careless shrug as she turns around. “Oh well. Guess, I’ll see you in two weeks then. Bye!”

His eyes immediately grow wide as she turns around, ready to leave. What exactly is she trying to do? 

“Wait!” He calls after her, making her stop and turn back around with a content smile on her full lips. 

Oh, alright. She’s playing with him.

But you know what? He’s up for it. 

“Or… maybe we don’t have to wait that long?” He stutters out, clearing his throat in embarrassment. He’s never been that good with asking someone out, and he could kick his own ass for being so goddamn awkward, but there’s no turning back now. 

He’s pretty sure this is just Sunyoung’s way of giving him a chance to finally make a move. She obviously noticed him having an interest in her, but not having the balls to ask, so this was it. This is his chance. 

Raising a brow in question, she looks at him, obviously waiting for him to say the words. 

“You're not going to make it easy for me, will you?” Yoongi mutters in defeat, hearing Sunyoung's little giggles ring in his ears while she shakes her head. He groans, growing pretty annoyed with himself before mustering up the courage to finally ask her.

“Would you like to go out sometime this week?”

Sunyoung smiles brightly as soon as the words leave his lips, nodding her head and thankfully not letting him wait for an answer, at all. Yoongi is beyond relieved.

“You already have my number. Just call me when you’re done for today, and then we can work something out.” 

And then, after calling a cheerful goodbye to you, Hyejin, and Taehyung throughout the shop, she leaves while he’s left standing there with a stupid grin on his face and a light blush adorning his cheeks. 

However, the moment is quickly over again when a loud noise directly behind him brings him out of his daydream. Unsurprisingly, he only needs to look around the corner to see what's going on.

“What the heck?! Were you spying on us?” He barks, catching you and Taehyung looking at him wide-eyed, obviously being caught red-handed, while Hyejin stands next to them with her arms crossed and a displeased pout on her face. 

You and Taehyung both immediately shake your head, giving him a stern “No!”, whereas Hyejin simply barks out a loud “Yes!”, balling her little hands in frustration and a little jealousy. 

The sight is cute enough to momentarily let Yoongi forget about the actual issue here.

You try to muster up an apologetic smile while Taehyung frowns down at his daughter, murmuring a silent “little snitch” under his breath, which of course does not go unnoticed by you and earns him a punch to his upper arm. 

“We didn't mean to spy,” you chuckle uncomfortably, nudging Taehyung to say something as well, whereas Yoongi just stands there in front of you with a bored look on his face.

“Yea, we just... we uhm...“

“Spare me,” Yoongi sighs, interrupting Taehyung's jabbering and gradually walking towards Hyejin to try and appease her. 

[pure-garbage]

The Valkyries' Wrath Ignites! Technique Rooted In Boundless Rage!

Chapter Warnings: Violence, Gore, Death, Angst

Lana cut down two guards on her way to the platform, leaving the other straw hats to deal with the rest. Even more of their crew arrived and the escalating chaos ramped up exponentially as Usopp fell through the roof. Limbs began sprouting up like flowers around the hall, heralding Robin's entrance.

Cami pressed up against the glass bubble that held her captive, wide, terrified eyes pleading with Lana for help.

"What a stupid aquarium," Lana grumbled, looking for a way to open the damn thing. In the seats, the skirmish was heating up. Guards kept coming, fanning out to engage her crew while the crowd panicked and ran for the exits. As the place cleared out, it became obvious that there were a handful of people remaining in their seats, unbothered by the conflict. Lana spared them a glance, but couldn't figure out who they were.

She didn't have attention to spare puzzling over it.

"Filthy pirate! That's my merchandise!"

The voice of the auctioneer was just enough warning for Lana to avoid a bullet. It hit the tank, but bounced off harmlessly, flying away with a keening whistle to lodge somewhere in the ceiling.

"You scum!" Lana roared, rage overtaking her as she rushed the slaver. She'd watched, shaking with fury, while he spent the last hour trading in lives like they were any other commodity. Of all the adversaries she could have faced, she knew immediately this one would be the most satisfying by far. "Just because someone's too weak to fight you off doesn't give you the right to take everything they have!"

'Shot, left!'

She dodged and pressed forward.

'Again!'

She was on him now, her speed and foresight dragging a startled gasp from the gaudy man who had clearly bitten off more than he could chew by provoking her.

'Knife!'

Lana shaved, reappearing behind the man before he could pull his weapon. There was no honor in killing an opponent from behind, but she didn't consider the loathsome creature a man, much less a warrior. As far as she was concerned, he could die like a dog. She didn't mind helping him meet the end he deserved, not in the slightest.

She thrust her dagger into his side and lunged, dragging the blade with her. She turned her body as she went until she was face-to-face with him. He gaped at her like a fish while his guts fell to the floor with a slosh and a series of splats. He dropped to his knees, clutching his opened belly as blood poured from his mouth in place of words. Lana's shadowed face was the last thing he saw, scarlet light glowing in her dark eyes as her lips turned up over sharp teeth in a disdainful snarl.

"Consider yourself lucky, slaver," she told him, her voice low and shaded by fury. "If I wasn't so short on time, I would have killed you much more slowly."

He collapsed into his own blood, vacant eyes reduced to little more than a mirror for Cami's horror as the mermaid looked on.

"Too far?" Lana asked as she turned away from the slaughter. Cami couldn't even bring herself to speak. Lana fought hard to keep her wrath in check, her ire yearning toward the cowering girl before her.

'So weak... how can she live with herself? Doesn't she want to be able to help herself? Or is she satisfied to be saved by people like me her whole life? She's looking at me like I'm a monster... maybe I am.'

Lana's rage was bleeding into the air around her, spreading out like poison. Blood dripped off her dagger, the soft plips at her feet entrancing in their irregularity. All she could see were Cami's wide, fearful eyes and the demonic figure reflected back at her from their depths.

'That used to be me. That helpless girl, too weak to save herself. Too scared to even try... she should be grateful. I would have done anything to have a monster rescue me when I was in her place.'

"Lana! What are you waiting for?!"

Sanji's voice broke the reverie that had momentarily consumed her. He was calling down from the seats, still fighting even as he took note of the fact that she was frozen in place, locked in an intense staring contest with the mermaid she was supposed to be setting free.

As Lana came back to herself, to the present moment, she was startled by the magnitude of her own animosity. Her hatred was so vast, she felt like she could drown in it. She didn't want to, it didn't make sense, but Lana couldn't stop herself from hating the girl in front of her. She hated the reminder of what she'd once been and all the time she'd lost to her own weakness. The treatment she'd endured because she wasn't strong enough to free herself from her oppressors.

"Aren't you even going to struggle?" Lana demanded. The mermaid shrank back from the fury of the woman who was supposed to be saving her. "It's just glass! Won't you even try to break it?!"

"I- I tried! It's too thick!" Cami cried in her own defense. "I can't do it!"

'Weak... she's so weak, but that doesn't mean she deserves this. No one deserves this.'

Lana started to get a grip again through the fog of her anger. She knew better than to think she had any hope of single-handedly toppling an institution like the slave trade in Sabaody. She could burn this auction house to the ground. Another would be built in its place.

"We can only save ourselves," she growled through clenched teeth. "I'll save you because you're Luffy's friend, but what after that?! You and everyone else in this rotten archipelago... you're on your own after this! I can only worry about my crew!"

Lana knew enough to realize the true source of her apparently boundless rage was her helplessness in the face of such evil. The roots of this practice reached deeper than those of the mangroves upon which it made its home. The real enemy here wasn't a slaver or an auction house or any one greedy, kidnapping scumbag. It was the bottomless, intrinsic human capacity for exploitation.

Of a mind with her lover, Lana wanted to hold the belief that there was nothing she couldn't cut if she tried hard enough, no force in the world she couldn't bring to heel with indomitable will. The injustice so flagrantly on display in Sabaody shook her ability to cleave to that fact. No matter how strong she got, not matter how much she trained or how unbreakable her will, was there anything she could ever do to break such an interminable evil?

Lana took one breath to steady herself, unable to quell the tide of her wrath.

'I can use it instead,' she reasoned.

"Don't move, Cami," she warned. "Not even one inch. I don't want to cut you."

Lana had seen Zoro use aura manifestations before to devastating effect. For all the training they'd done together in aura control, she'd never tried the technique before herself.

'If Zoro can channel a demon, maybe I can evoke something lighter.'

"Anger can be wicked or righteous," Lana mused aloud. Her words were quiet, but they resonated across the platform as the battle raged on. "A heart can be pure or tainted. A warrior can be true or corrupt. Even the balance of right and wrong can be shattered when these forces clash."

She grasped her dagger with both hands, planting her feet and pointing the blade to the ground. A blue-white glow surrounded her fingers, bursting forth to envelope her weapon with flame-like tongues that writhed and flickered.

A pair of spectacles watched her from the shadows behind the stage, waiting to see what happen. The man tipped back a flask, draining it to the last drop and tucking it safely back into his vest.

"Valkyries' Wrath," Lana declared, christening her new technique. The light shot down, spasming and contracting along the path of the blade's tip until it nearly touched the ground. The knife gave the impression of having been extended, steel wreathed in shimmering, pulsing power that audibly vibrated through the air of the auction hall. "Sword... of Salvation!"

Lana shifted her stance and swung the conjured greatsword, striking clean through the tank on impact and sending a shock wave through the room.

"Not bad," the bespectacled observer noted.

The top half of the spherical aquarium slid toward Lana, who stood firm. She executed one more mighty slice, cleaving the dome in two. The pieces rolled to either side of her, crashing and finally shattering after so much abuse.

___________________________________________________

<== Previous Chapter

Next Chapter ==>

== First Chapter ==

[darkjanet2]

Sonic Adventure 2: Sonadow

Disclaimer: I don't own Sonic the Hedgehog. SEGA owns video games, comic books, TV series, and movies. This is going to be my second fanfic of Sonadow. I do hope you enjoy this story.

Chapter One: Project Shadow

San Francisco, Ca 1:30 PM

It was a peaceful day in San Francisco. The sun was shining, the wind was rustling through the trees along Main Street as people strolled down the street.

A blue streak zoomed down Main Street and headed straight toward the city. It was a blue hedgehog named Sonic, the heroic hedgehog that had saved countless lives over the years. Sonic zipped across the street toward his destination. He stopped by the hot dog stand and wanted to get himself a treat.

“Hey kid, what would you like for your hot dogs?” A tall, skinny man with an afro and a mustache stood behind the stall. He smiled at the hedgehog, and his eyes sparkled happily. “Your favorite is my special hot dog, right?”

“Yep! I’d like to have a chili dog if that’s okay.” Sonic replied.

He nodded, “Comin’ right up, buddy. Here ya go.” The man handed Sonic a chili dog and gave him his money. “Have fun on your way.” The man winked at Sonic as he put some money into the register for his chili dog.

He chomped up his chili dog and headed off toward where he needed to go next. After a few minutes of jogging, he stopped at the park across from the city center, which housed the park for many families during the summer months. The park was full of children playing and laughing. Most parents were out with their kids. Sonic sighed heavily when he thought about all of the adults around the town who didn’t realize how special life is, even though they lived it every day.

Sonic sat down on the bench overlooking the pond. His eyes scanned the pond, watching the fish swim by and listening to the birds sing on the oak tree nearby. He felt so relaxed, sitting under the shade of the tree, enjoying some peace. He sighed peacefully and let his eyes close as he took in this moment. He felt someone sitting next to him, he cracked one eye open to see this pink hedgehog in a red dress. It was Amy Rose.

“What are you doing here, Amy?” asked Sonic.

Amy shrugged her shoulders, “Just hanging out here. I just wanted to take some time to relax and not think about anything stressful today. You know, just take a break,”

“Yeah, I guess so. How’s it been lately? Are you happy?” Sonic asked. His eyes were still closed, but now he could see Amy clearly.

Her short hair swayed back and forth in the breeze, and her emerald green eyes sparkled softly in the sunlight. She was beautiful in everything she did. Even though she wasn’t really the most attractive girl in the whole world, she still made other girls swoon. The same went for Sonic, too.

"Well, I'm happy because we can get married," Amy said with a smile, her cheeks turning slightly pink, "And you can be my husband." Amy wrapped her arms around Sonic's shoulders and gave him a tight squeeze, causing her skirt to flare out.

"Uh, Amy, shouldn't we talk more about this?" Sonic blushed nervously.

"No, I need to tell you this. I want to marry you because I love you," Amy leaned in closer and tried to kiss Sonic on the lips. But, Sonic moved away slightly, causing Amy to stop kissing him.

"Why are you moving back? We should kiss!" Amy whined.

"You're moving forward!" Sonic insisted. “We can only be together if you don’t move forward. I’m sorry, Amy. But I can’t do this anymore…” Sonic slowly got to his feet. "I've gotta go. Bye, Amy…" he ran off as fast as he could, leaving Amy alone.

Amy sat there in stunned silence. What happened? Why was Sonic rejecting her? Wasn't she pretty enough for him? Or maybe he just didn’t care. But why wouldn’t he care about her? Amy couldn't help but start to feel hurt. Maybe he liked another girl. Maybe he never loved her in the first place. All Amy cared about was being together with him forever. That was all she ever thought about. And suddenly he broke up with her.

She started to sob as tears filled her eyes. She didn't understand.

Sonic went to Tails' house, hoping his brother would have some answers to this problem. Sonic knocked on the door, Tails opened the door, then stepped aside, letting Sonic inside his room.

"Hey, Sonic," he greeted his friend.

“Tails, I messed up again. I messed things up between me and Amy. I’m not really sure what she wants me to do,” Sonic said in a worried tone.

"What happened?" Tails asked.

"She said she wanted to get married, but I'm not doing that," said Sonic.

"Wow... you really screwed yourself over big time, didn't ya, dude?" Tails sighed, trying to figure out what to say next.

"Do I have another choice though? I mean, I could always run away again, but I’ve already lost everything once. And now this. I can’t keep running from something that’s going to end eventually..." Sonic looked down.

"Look, Sonic," Tails began, "Amy's probably gonna be real mad at you, but I'll try to make sure she doesn't hate you forever. And, well... she can be immature sometimes, I’ll admit. But you have to give her a chance, dude. Don't bail on her just yet."

"That's easy for you to say, Tails. You've known her longer than me. I'm just scared... scared that I'm wrong for her. If it was anyone else, I'd consider marrying them. But Amy... She's different, Tails. She makes me happy. And she deserves better. But I don't want to screw our relationship up." Sonic shook his head sadly.

"I know how you feel, bro, trust me. But I'm sure this will blow over soon. Just give it some time," said Tails.

Sonic nodded, "Yeah, I guess so,"

Suddenly, there was a loud boom outside followed by several flashes. Tails frowned and turned toward the window as the flashing continued. There was a huge explosion in front of the building. It appeared to be coming from the direction of Central Park. There was a huge robot destroying their city, destroying everyone in sight. They could barely escape alive after that. The robots were everywhere. Everyone seemed to be running as far away from them as possible. The robots blasted everything within their path. The buildings collapsed into piles of rubble. Cars were smashed, and houses were destroyed.

Sonic and Tails got out of the house, and see the figure inside the robot. It was Eggman, the villain who had done such terrible things to the earth for the last six years. He flew above the destruction, his robot hovering above the ground. The robot fired its laser beam into the streets. Buildings crumbled and collapsed into dust.

"I'll stop him. Tails, watch over the town while I go fight him," said Sonic.

Tails nodded and smiled brightly, "Okay! Be careful out there!" Tails waved as he watched his best friend leave through the door.

Sonic used his super speed to run across the street toward the robots, he rolled himself like a ball and smashed these robots to pieces. Sonic jumped back onto the sidewalk and ran along the sidewalk looking for Eggman. It was clear that he had already taken control of the entire city. Sonic could hear screaming and people crying for help. People and animals were fleeing the area while some stayed in their homes or hid somewhere until the robots left. Eggman noticed him.

"Stupid, little hedgehog! I have come here to destroy you, but now you won't let me!" yelled Eggman.

Eggman shot another blast of lasers at Sonic. He dodged the laser blasts and landed on top of an abandoned car. He leaped up to the roof of the car and climbed to the roof. As Eggman fired his laser attack again, Sonic ducked behind an overturned vehicle.

He saw that Eggman was preparing for another blast, and quickly leaped across to the opposite side of the roof. Once again, Eggman fired at the hedgehog and Sonic jumped up, grabbing onto the sides of the metal tube as he swung himself toward the top of the machine. As he reached his destination, he jumped to the top of the death egg bot. He punched the top of the machine and punched a hole, letting out smoke. Eggman shot the hedgehog, but nothing happened. A large hole appeared in the side of the death egg bot.

Eggman cursed angrily as he glared at Sonic. Then he blasted a giant blast of fire toward Sonic, blowing apart the death egg bot. He dodged the blast of fire and landed behind Eggman. He used a spin dash and hit Eggman on his back. Eggman stumbled and fell forward.

Then Sonic kicked him straight in the face and sent him flying backward. Before Eggman could regain his footing, he was met by Sonic, slamming his fist into his chest. Eggman flew backward through the air and crashed against the wall. His robot crashed into the wall as well, shattering completely.

"Give it up, Eggman. You're beaten," Sonic said as he stood proudly in front of the evil man.

"Ha! Do I look defeated?!" Eggman screamed hysterically. Then, Eggman pulled out of the remote and pressed the button to summon E-18 Guerra-Hard. In an instant, he was launched directly toward Sonic. Sonic gasped and quickly hopped back out of the way, avoiding the attack entirely. Eggman pressed his remote to activate his egg mobile to escape before he could be destroyed by the powerful force of E18 Guerra Hard.

"We'll meet again, Sonic. You'll wish you were dead when I find you!" Eggman fled the battle zone.

As Eggman disappeared, Sonic confronted E18 Guerra Hard. The robot shot at Sonic, which he easily dodged.

"I'm not afraid of you! You won't kill me that easily!" Sonic laughed triumphantly.

E18 Guerra Hard blasted out more laser blasts, which Sonic easily avoided.

"This is too easy!" Sonic exclaimed as E18 Guerra Hard fired another laser blast right at him.

E18 punched Sonic in the face, knocking him back against the wall.

"Oww.." Sonic winced in pain, holding his bleeding nose.

As E18 Guerra Hard prepared to punch again, Sonic leaped away and slammed into it hard. E18 stumbled backward, Sonic used his super speed to launch himself onto the robot, punching it in the center of the robot. He kicked it hard and sent it flying to the wall.

Sonic rested his hands on his lap, panting heavily, still feeling slightly dizzy. It took him a moment before he regained his composure and started to walk toward the exit where the dome was cracked open. Suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks as he recognized a certain green glow behind him.

"No way!" Sonic yelled.

E18 still stood up to its feet, ready to fight.

"Oh, give me your break!" Sonic complained.

The robot ignored Sonic's complaint and prepared to fire at the blue blur.

Sonic didn't have time to fight this condemned robot. He had to get out of the dome.

"Sonic!" he heard Tails yell. He turned around and saw Tails flying toward him with Amy right beside him, both of them riding on a Tornado.

"Amy! Tails!" he exclaimed in joy as he was happy to see them.

"Sonic, take this!" he shouted as he threw a power ring at Sonic he caught it, and Sonic began to power up his energy core.

Sonic rolled himself into a ball and used a spin dash to destroy E18 Guerra Hard with Sonic's powerful spinning attacks, he broke through the abdomen of the robot, causing scrapes and metals to fly all over the place. The circuit began to surge dangerously, causing sparks to shoot out of the machine, as the robot crashed to the ground, completely lifeless.

Amy and Tails flew off of the Tornado and ran toward Sonic if he was alright.

"Are you okay? Are you hurt?" Tails asked in concern, as they came closer.

"Only a few scratches, but I'm okay. Thanks, guys," replied Sonic happily.

"Anytime. The citizen is safe now. Where's Eggman?" asked Tails.

"He escaped. He said he would be back. So... I think we should probably get home soon," stated Sonic.

"Sonic, if you want to walk home with me, we should get married," said Amy excitedly.

"Huh? What? Oh… No, no, we can talk about that later. We should really go before anything else happens," Sonic said nervously as he looked at Tails. "Right, Tails?"

"Well, yeah. I guess you're right," Tails said, sounding a bit uneasy.

-Meanwhile-

Dr. Eggman returned to his lair. He tapped the keypad to open this door and enter his laboratory. The light turned on revealing many computers and machines filled with all kinds of data. It appeared that many projects were being performed at once. The two minions were Orbot and Cubot, they were standing nearby, watching him in anticipation.

"How are things progressing?" he questioned.

"Very smoothly, Sir. Everything is going according to plan," said Orbot.

"Good. Now, the plan to eliminate Sonic has been completed. Now we need to prepare the next phase of our plans. After this, the planet will belong to us!" declared Eggman, as he walked towards one of his computer screens. He looked over several pages of notes in his hand. "But first…. We've got work to do."

"Yes, sir. What would you like us to do, sir?" asked Orbot as he glanced back at Cubot.

"Well… First, we've got to finish the project that yesterday," Eggman told them.

"What kind of project did you start, Sir?" Cubot inquired curiously.

Eggman grinned evilly, "Project Shadow."

"Shadow…?" echoed Orbot quietly as he blinked confused. "Sir… How is that even possible?"

"The hedgehog was able to figure out how to use my technology to repair himself. He managed to get a hold of me, but then he attacked me. That's why we need to get rid of him. If it wasn't for him destroying my robots, this wouldn't have happened," Eggman explained.

"But that is just an old idea, Sir. There is nothing left of those robots except piles of ashes," Cubot reminded him.

"Exactly. I'm going to build another one. But that hedgehog is going to help us destroy him. So you two are going to help me build new robots, and make sure they have as much strength as the previous ones, " ordered Eggman, placing his hand on his shoulder.

"Of course, sir," answered Orbot with a nod.

"So where are we headed to?" asked Cubot.

"To the Prison Island. Prepare my new Eggship and prepare for takeoff. We must leave now," said Eggman.

[underground-secret]

The Hunter and the Witch~ Dean Winchester x f! reader

Halloween Edition~ Can be read as a stand-alone

Description: Halloween special baby!!!! Reader tries to convince Dean to go to a halloween party with her even though they're on their way to Stanford to get Sam.

Warnings: This takes place before they get to Sam's college so we are going back a little but that's okay. Purely two idiots who clearly like each other but won't do anything, they already act like a couple, banter, flirting??? This is super self indulgent, can you tell what my favorite holiday is?

This can be read as a stand-alone/one-shot or as a part of the series (up to you.)

Tag list: @jesllianaquilesrolonsworld @okayiamkassandra @fablesrose @ada--44 @bonkydarnes @star-yawnznn @crazyunsexycool @onlyangel-444 @seninjakitey @mystic-mara @mxltifxndom @stilesxreid @chaotic-luvrs @tiggytaylor @deanwasscaredbyacat @imaginexred @daisychaingirl

Word Count: 3,389

Halloween Drive

(Master list)

The golden morning sun streams through the passenger window of the Impala, casting soft beams of light over the dashboard. Outside, orange and yellow leaves dance to the ground, their descent slow and graceful, as if savoring the last moments of fall.

We won’t see trees like these for a while….I think. Despite all my hunting trips, I’ve never been to LA, or California in general, but I doubt their autumns could compare to the likes of Maine or Massachusetts where it feels like you stepped into another world. But for now, even though we’re still a couple of states away from where we need to be, fall still lingers, holding on in its final, beautiful breaths.

  The window is down, and the crisp air sweeps across my skin, weaving through my hair like a cool whisper. The leaves crunch as the wheels of the car roll over them, an earthly scent filling the car. “You seem particularly perky today,” Dean remarks. I glance over, and he’s already watching me, his green eyes glinting with curiosity.

  A wave of excitement surges through me, making me want to leap out of the car and sprint into a pile of leaves. “That’s because today is the best day ever, like, the best day out of all the days,” I reply, grinning so wide it feels like my face might burst.

  “Yeah?” he asks, his smile tugging at the corners of his lips, soft and teasing. His eyes drop, lingering briefly before they lock back onto mine. The sunlight hits those eyes just right, making the green glow a shade lighter, “And what day would that be?” Whether he’s humoring me or not is unclear. But, with a smile like that and the way his eyes shimmer, it does not matter. “It’s Halloween!” I beam, my excitement rivaling the brightness of the sun. He chuckles, his voice gravelly, the smile still lingering on his lips as his eyes shift back to the road, “Is that right?”

  “Yes, it’s Halloween, the best day ever! Therefore, we are obligated to do something, because frankly, that's just the rules,” I ramble, my excitement bubbling over. I feel antsy like I need to skip around to burn off the energy. 

  “Alright, sweetheart, slow your roll,” he says, chuckling,  “You’re practically bouncin’ in your seat.” 

  My eyebrows furrow in protest. I am certainly not bouncing, it’s just my veins buzzing with anticipation. But I can’t stay offended or grumpy on a day like this, so I quickly return to smiling. “I’m just really excited,” I reason.

  “I know you are,” he replies, his eyes twinkling, “I think you love Halloween more than any kid does.” And he’s certainly right.

  “Can you blame me?” I counter, “It’s Halloween, as in Halloween!”

  “Right,” he chuckles, a low, warm sound. “Are you always this excited on Halloween?”

  “What do yo–” Then it hits me. “Oh my god, have we really never spent a Halloween together?” I could’ve sworn we had. 

  “Nah, always around it. You were excited then, but this…” He glances at me, a playful smile spreading across his face, “This is a whole new level.” I must have confused it with those times we spent together indulging in candy and baked goods while watching slasher films. Those were good times, perfect times even, when the darkness fell and a bitter chill washed over the town and he’d show up at my doorstep as if the wind had brought him to me. They were stolen moments, times he wasn’t busy with a hunt or when he could break away from his Dad to spend the night with me. I don’t remember when the tradition started, but I know he always tried to make it, so it didn't matter if it wasn't on the holiday itself. My excitement around the holiday never wavered, either. Whether it was months or days before, or even days after, it always lingered, eagerly awaiting the next year. “Well, now you get to experience just how insufferable I am firsthand,” I remark with a grin.

  “I’d say adorable, but that works too,” he replies, grinning back, and I can’t help how my stomach erupts with butterflies.

  “What do you normally do on Halloween?” I ask, ignoring how my cheeks feel warm despite the cool air hitting me. I’ve somehow never thought to ask him, always too caught up in our fun together around the holiday. He shrugs, “Nothin’ really, just eating candy without your company.”

  I scoff, “You seriously never went to a party or anything? That seems like you’re scene.”

“Sometimes. Depends,” he answers vaguely.  

Stupidly I ask, “Not even to find a good hookup? Because no night is better than Halloween. In the wise words of Cady Heron, ‘Halloween is the one night a year a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.’”

  “Yeahhh,” he grins stupidly, and it’s obvious his mind is wandering. He could be thinking of those hypothetical hookups, or girls in slutty costumes. I suppose I can’t blame him.

  I hit his shoulder playfully, “Reel those thoughts in, cowboy.” The old pet name slips off my tongue before I can stop it. He seems to blink out of his daydream, returning to reality. “Speaking of slutty, what were you gonna be this year?” he asks, lifting a hand from the steering wheel to rest on the back of my seat, his fingers brushing my shoulder.

  “Oh, so you’re assuming I was gonna dress like a—” I tease, but he cuts me off with a knowing look and a quirked eyebrow, “Okay, fine. Guilty.”

  I lean down, digging through my bag at my feet until I find my little digital camera. “Lucky for you, I took pictures when I first tried on the costume.” I power it on, scrolling through past images until I find the photos I took in the mirror. I might as well consider a job in photography with how good they came out.

    “Bam! Little Red Riding Hood,” I announce, flipping the camera around for him to see. His eyes leave the empty road to focus on the little screen, and I know I look good. My makeup was dark, and my hair full. The costume itself has a detailed deep red corset with delicate white ruffles on top, pulled tight enough that my breasts nearly spill out entirely. The fluffed-up skirt, adorned with the same red and black details, barely reached mid-thigh. All topped together by the short cape that spilled down my shoulders, reaching the same length as the dress.

  His gaze drifts down the photo and then back up, incredibly slowly—or at least it feels that way as I hold the camera up. He flicks his eyes to the road, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. Maybe his butt is falling asleep, how long have we been driving? His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, and then he wets his lips before speaking, “That’s a good costume.” He seems to notice the drop in his voice with the way he clears his throat.

  “Right? I think it’s super cute,” I say, fiddling with the camera, “I was gonna do a duo costume with my friend, but she had to cancel because of work, which is so lame. But, I guess it works out considering what I’m up to.” I glance at him again, but he seems far more focused on the road now than he was just minutes ago. His knuckles whiten against the steering wheel. “You alright there?” I ask, studying the tension in his jaw.

  He shakes himself out of his thoughts, his voice gravelly as he responds, “Yeah, yeah.” A short silence hangs between us before he suddenly jumps to a new topic, “You hungry?” he asks. “Because I could go for some grub right about now.”

  I laugh, choosing not to question his sudden shift in demeanor, “Sure.”

  The small dinner is quiet, but it brims with the spirit of Halloween. Bats dangle in the windows, swaying gently with the breeze each time the door opens. Decorative pumpkins sit on the island bar, and scarecrows and witches rest on piles of hay by the entrance, welcoming the guests. The place has a cozy, homey feel, though it lacks the bustle of life.

  The smell of coffee is strong as it wafts around the room, utensils, and dishes clinking as nearby people eat.  It’s a peaceful kind of morning.

  There’s an older man hunched over the bar, cradling a steaming cup of coffee. He absently pokes at his plate of eggs and toast, his movements slow, unhurried. A waitress with graying hair moves from table to table, her steps steady as she pours refills with a soft smile.

  The bell above the door jingles, and the quiet becomes interrupted by two sandy-haired boys rushing in, their little legs carrying them past us in excitement. The younger boy, no older than five, sports a tiny cowboy costume, his fake holster hitting against his side as he beelines towards the booth behind Dean. His slightly older brother follows, struggling to keep his own cowboy hat in place as they tumble into the seat, giggling all the way. A woman, their mother it seems, trails behind them. Her messy blonde ponytail bounces as she laughs, catching the eye of the waitress. “They insisted on wearing their costumes,” she explains, her eyes crinkling with warmth. The waitress smiles in return, placing a hand on her shoulder with a sparkle in her eye that reads of familiarity and community. 

  Life could be so beautiful. People could be so cute. 

  I shift my gaze back to the man in front of me, but Dean’s already looking at me, his green eyes peeking over the top of the menu. There’s something there—-something I can’t quite place. “Looks like you’ve got competition, cowboy,” I say, folding my arms on the table, nodding towards the boys behind him. He glances over his shoulder at the kids in the booth, his lips twitching into a slow grin.  He looks back at me and confidently declares, “I can take them.”

  I laugh, shaking my head, “You are horrible.”

  “What? You don’t think I’d win?” His expression is serious, but the slight curl of his lips gives him away.

  “Mm,” I hum, though my laughter breaks it, “I don’t know, a 2 v 1 seems a little difficult.”

   He taps his fingers on the table, feigning deep thought, “Right, right,” he mutters, biting his lip, “And they’ve got those water pistols.”

  “Yeah, some real competition,” I say, trying to hold back my continuous laughter. He just makes it so easy to laugh.

  “I can still take them.” he shrugs.

  “I can't believe we are talking about beating up children,” I shake my head, our stupidity staring back at us.

  “You started it.” he points out, raising an eyebrow.

  “Okay,” I scuff as if I’m insulted, “Well….not really! I meant in cowboy-ness.”

  “Cowboy-ness?” he repeats, eyebrows raised.

  “Uh, yes,” I say, doubling down.

  “Alright,” he leans closer, elbows on the table, “I’m not ‘cowboy’ enough for you, is that it?” he asks.

  “You’re plenty,” I answer, leaning closer, “cowboy.”

  He chuckles, tongue in cheek, “You wanna play that game, sweetheart?”

  “And what game would that be?” I ask. 

  “Hello!” A cheery voice greets. We both pull away, startling back as if we got caught doing something we shouldn’t have been doing, “My name is Sharon and I’ll be your server today.” My eyes flicker up to her, an older woman with blond hair, “Can I get you started with any drinks?” she asks. I look to Dean to see if he wants to go first but he nods at me instead, “Can I have a hot chocolate with whipped cream and cinnamon?”

“Good choice,” she smiles, scribbling it down on her notepad, “And you, sir?”

  “Black coffee,” he answers. 

  “Great! I’ll be right back with those,” she pockets her notepad and spins away.

  “Okay, a serious topic now,” I start, driving the conversation away from whatever was happening before Sharon came, “You. Me. Halloween Party. Yay, or Nay.”

  He scuffs, “You? A party?” disbelief rolling off his tongue.

  “Yeah,” I say like it’s obvious. 

  “But you hate parties,” he points out, “You get overwhelmed by all the people.” 

  “Okay, yes. But it’d be a Halloween party, which is different…a little,” I reason, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. He gives me a knowing look, “I’ve been to them before!” I add.

  “And how long did you last?” 

  I purse my lips, knowing he’s right. It sucked how well he knew me sometimes. “Okay, well, if I can usually make it an hour or sometimes more if I really push myself.” I may love Halloween but parties are not my scene. The idea of it always sounds cool, but going to one never lives up to my expectations. Though, my expectations are probably quite high. And, of course, he’s right. I do get overwhelmed by all the people and noise. There’s only so much Halloween music and decorations that can make up for that. And, in the case of non-holiday related parties, there’s only so much slutty music that can make up for it. Plus, enjoying that kind of music at home is far more fun. “You can’t say that staying at a Halloween party for a little while, then going to a motel and finding some terrible horror movie to watch while consuming a sickening amount of candy doesn’t sound incredible,” I point out.

  “Hate to bust your bubble, sweetheart, but we won’t be stoppin’ at all.” 

  “Huh?” 

  “Sorry. But we can make it to Sam today if we don’t stop more than necessary.” 

  I study his face in disbelief, scanning his features, “Stop lookin’ at me like that,” he says.

  “I’m sorry, I’m just making sure you're you because when have you ever been the type to not dilly dally?” I remark, quirking an eyebrow.

  “Dilly Dally? Really?” he muses. 

  “Doesn’t matter what you wanna call it,” I shake my head, “You like to have fun far more than focusing on whatever the task at hand is.”

  “Alright, maybe that's true–”

  “It’s insanely true” I butt in.

  “But, the quicker we get to Sammy the quicker we find my Dad,” he finishes.

  Of course now, of all days, he’s the logical one. “I don’t like how good of a point that is.”

To say I’m disappointed would be the understatement of the year. But, it feels wrong to be even a little bit upset when, given the circumstances, we shouldn’t stop to have fun. I might not like John Winchester but he is their Dad and I did agree to help find him. So, I really shouldn’t be upset, or disappointed. It makes total sense to skip out on celebrating Halloween given the situation. I should be fine with this. 

  Totally fine with it…..

  I am so not fine with this.

  But, that’s selfish, isn’t it? It feels so wrong to want something at a time like this, let alone something indulgent. So what if Halloween is my favorite holiday and I spend 364 days waiting for it to happen again? This wasn’t the time to be selfish. I cannot be selfish. I’ll keep pretending it’s whatever because it has to be whatever. The open road is ahead of us and we’re one too many hours away from Stanford to complain about some holiday. And it is just some holiday…right?

  This sucked. 

  Would it be appropriate to throw a fit? Because it feels like ‘throw a fit’ time. 

  No. It’s okay. You don’t have to celebrate a holiday to appreciate it in all its glory. Yeah.

  It’s not disappointing and it’s not sad. Not at all. Not one bit. Everything’s okay. The world will keep spinning.  “You’re pouting,” Dean suddenly says, breaking the silence that had settled between us since we got back in the car.

  “I’m not pouting,” I correct, eyeing him from my peripheral vision. 

  “Then what's with that bottom lip?” He replies, eyes slipping away from the road to look at me. I correct my face, keeping any potential pouts away. “Why are you looking at my lips?” I throw back without thinking. He scuffs, rolling his eyes, “You’re ridiculous.’

  “Hey,” I whine, eyebrows scrunching together.

  “There’s that pout again,” he points out.

  “Leave me and my pout alone,” I argue,  hitting his arm. Except he doesn’t react to it at all, not even a flinch. Maybe I should stop pulling my punches. “So you admit you were pouting,” he smirks.

  Now he’s doing this on purpose. I give him an unamused look that I hope he can see from his peripheral, “You're going to make me lose my mind…hope you know that.”

  “Not the worst thing a guy can hear,” he shrugs with a smug smile.

  “Now you’re the one being ridiculous,” I mock, but his stupid implication makes my stomach flutter in the most pathetic way possible. 

  “‘You wanna tell me why you’re upset?” he asks, putting us back on the intended conversation.

  “I'm not upset,” I answer.

  “If this is about the Halloween thing, I’m sorry.”

  “No, I know. And it makes total sense, I’m not upset,” I assure. He looks at me then, eyes studying my face for the truth. I don’t know what he finds but it must be enough for him to accept what I said since he returns his eyes to the road.

 An orange hue settles on the horizon, the sun on her descent. As she dips down, so do the hours left of the day and my spirits. While everyone else got to celebrate the holiday, I couldn’t. It’s been hard to stay in a good mood. 

  At least the drive has been nice. That’s a positive thing I can focus on. It’s been nice to feel the cold air on my skin, to intake the crisp smell of leaves and nature. But, it also makes me long for what I can’t have. 

  The hours dwindle on. Halloween dwindles on.

  It’s just one year I’d be missing, it’s not the end of the world.

  Maybe I should take a nap. That's sure to make it better, or at least make me feel I’m not missing out on anything.

  It’s not a difficult task to accomplish as I fold my arms across my chest, curling into myself. My eyes flutter close with the soft drive—the soothing motion of it, the crisp air, the chill that bites at my skin…..

…..

….

..

.

  My eyes open, blinking impossibly slowly as they adjust to being awake again. Sleep clings to my brain, wanting to pull me back under the waves of rest. I stretch my aching limbs with soft sighs, something soft slipping down my shoulders….

  Wait.

  I blink rapidly, forcing my brain to work and catch up. The soft thing skims down my arms, I peer down at it through squinted eyes. A blanket. It’s a blanket. A soft white blanket with pumpkins on it…

  What?

  “Dean?” I call, my voice dripping with the remains of sleep.

  “I’m right here, sweetheart,” he answers smoothly. He’s still driving, hands steady on the wheel. I sit up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Near darkness cloaks the car now, the only guiding light being the headlights. “Wha—where did this blanket come from?” I ask, but my brain is not finding a logical solution.

  Dean clears his throat, “I, uh, bought it…for you.”

  “You did?” I ask, a soft, dopey smile on my lips. I take the blanket in my hands, the soft material all warm and wonderful. When did he buy this? Why did he buy this? I have so many questions, but they are all outweighed by the warm, fuzzy feeling in my heart.

  “You were cold,” he explains, “You were shivering.”

  “So you stopped out of your way to get me a blanket?” The smile on my lips and the flutter in my gut is uncontrollable.

  He keeps a stoic face like he won’t show the vulnerability of his care. “Look in the backseat,” he directs, mumbling.

  I give him a questioning look but do so anyway, twisting in my seat. A grocery bag sits there, its contents spilling out enough to identify it as a bag of candy and a DVD of some sort. My heart stutters, my mind working to compute this information while remembering to breathe. Right, I have to breathe. “No…” I say, turning to him slowly, “You didn’t.”

  He shrugs, a slight smile pulling on the corners of his lips, “It’s Halloween.”

  “Dean Winchester, if you weren’t driving right now I’d tackle you in a hug,” I admit. That familiar pump of excitement flowing through my veins again. 

  “I know it’s not the same—-”   “Are you kidding me?!” I cut him off, “This is incredible, it’s amazing—-You’re amazing!”

  “Watch what you do to my ego, sweetheart,” he teases with that easy charming smile.

  “I might regret giving you an ego boost later but right now….” I shake my head, “This is perfect.” 

  Is it possible to be in love with someone twice? 

  His smile softens, and after a moment’s pause, he makes up his mind. He signals, guiding the Impala off the long stretch of road and onto the gravel shoulder, the car coming to a gentle stop. “If I make you wait any longer you might explode,” he remarks, his voice warm. 

  I don’t waste another second—grabbing my laptop from my bag and my new blanket, I’m out of the car in a heartbeat, excitement bubbling up inside me as I hurry around to his side. I shift eagerly from foot to foot as he takes his time sliding out of the driver’s seat, teasingly slow. But, the moment he’s up, I practically leap at him, wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling him down to my level. His hands instinctively find my waist just as my lips meet his cheek. I press a soft kiss there, feeling the warmth beneath my lips, the yearning in my chest only growing. Pulling back just enough to catch his gaze, I beam up at him before peppering his cheek with quick kisses.

  I pull away for good this time, laughing. I move too quickly to catch his expression, but as I slip into the backseat and beckon him over, he pauses for a moment before joining me. Once inside, he guides me into place, settling us comfortably with his back against the door and me sitting between his legs. The blanket he bought me is draped over us, and my laptop balances on my lap.

  He already has several pieces of candy stuffed into his mouth, the wrappers discarded carelessly around him, when I slide the DVD of Jeepers Creepers into my laptop.

  Maybe today didn’t start perfectly, but right now, here together, nothing else matters.

[hausofmamadas]

So I watched this silly lil movie on the suchest of larks like i can’t even lie when I saw the trailer in theaters they played it for Dune 2 bc Alamo Drafthouse understood the Austin Butler assignment I was pretty much, “oh that movie gonna be dumb asf” and now my psyche’s being taken hostage by yet another criminally underused side character and yet im grateful for the scraps bc that Side-Character FreeRealEstate never fails to produce wonderful treets like this

═

The best and worst thing was that everyone was just somebody who knew somebody.

Oh okay so you’re gonna start this off with some musical, lyrical words of poetry music to mine eyes and ears, here, right out the gate, okay i see how this is i understand I’m a goner now, sick

They’d ask, understandably so he supposed, why some kid who had to hang onto the back of someone else for dear life had his own set of colors to wear.

LOLALSKDFJSKDJFKSJ THSI SFUCKING MENTAL IMAGE IC ANNOTTTS SDKS the way this hadn’t even occurred to me like he doesn’t have his own bike so how tf did he get all the bike pics like i know irl danny lyon actually was a club member and had his own bike but the movie really was giving very much “im a tourist” in terms of danny’s involvement but arguably a more important question to be asking ourselves and Ofc the first think I started asking myself next bc i am a child is whose bike was he on. My vote’s for cal bc i feel like there's a solid argument to be made that he's prob the least no-homo about it, yknow i mean dude’s californian by way of canada so like he seems most apt to be marginally secure in his masculinity skjdk 

“He’s a friend of ours. Good kid.’’

“He takes pictures—can’t ride and take pictures at the same time, now can he?”

“He’s one’a us, the fuck’s it matter to you?”

And this is what meant by you and I on the same wavelength bc the way Johnny thinks about this kid as like fun summer pet project and refuses to take shit from anyone for letting this rando follow them around shoving a camera and/or microphone in their faces while they’re just doing trrryyyyying to enjoy the casual mud wrestling and trrrryyyying to get as piss ass drunk as possible before the sun goes down is just so correct. And idk exactly what i’m extrapolating this from bc i’m p sure danny and johnny don’t interact in the movie, not once, but still this just feels yes. 

Danny was smart enough to know that Johnny’s vague, and slightly aggressive, answers to people outside their own club probably saved his ass on more than one occasion … The frustration came from being on the receiving end of those answers that didn’t do much to answer anything. He wondered if Johnny even knew that he was doing it.

ONCE AGAINNNNGSKJD WITH THE ACCURACY BC BY GODODDFKSJKDFJ the fact that danny simultaneously recognizes the value and the limitations of johnny’s A-Few-Words-Shy-Of-An-Actual-Caveman series of nods and grunts and grumbles def seems like something he’d pick up on just by the very nature of sitting around and watching everyone. And like it’s true, like when Johnny talks, he never really says anything …? Zksjdfk and I don’t mean that as shade, it’s just true skdjsk 

“I got a question.” Johnny chuckled. “You always do. That’s kinda your whole thing.” “Yeah. Not, um,” he cleared his throat, “not for the book.” Johnny’s eyebrows shot up at that … 

SSKSKSKSKSyou always do that’s kinda your whole thing, is so Johnny, I’m like scrubbing the movie to make sure this interaction didn’t actually happen bc i can legit hear it so fucking clearly and am lowkey mad that wasn’t an exchange that was in the film bc robbery and theft

Danny nodded to show that he was paying attention, hoping that it would get Johnny to keep talking. He should’ve known better than to hope for that, since Johnny only ever seemed to carry a conversation in three-to-eight-word segments before passing the baton back off again.

AGAINSKSKJK just these subtle little roasts in his head about Johnny’s verbal capacity skdjk got me nodding my head vigorously bc yes, 1000% spot on characterization for both of these guys, i’m kissing it, i’m stomping it into the pavement, i’m chucking it across a field in a spiral like a football, i’m snapping it with my fingers in a z-formation, i’m bowing at it’s altar, you get it

“She’s sweet,” Betty said, still looking at Johnny. Danny turned and looked at her. “What?” Betty finally looked up at him, giving a small nod. “She’s a nice girl.”

PFFTKSJFKSJNOOOOOOSTOPPSDKSJ BC OFC BETTY, PRESUMABLY THE LONE WOMAN IN A 30 YARD RADIUS,  WOULD PICK UP ON THE BODY LANGUAGE AND SUBTEXT OF DANNY ASKING THE QUESTION AND SIMULTANEOUSLY HAVE THE GRACE NOT TO LOOK AT HIM AS SHE’S LETTING HIM KNOW SHE KNOWS, YKNOW?

They’d chat sometimes, but never with a microphone between them. The conversation they were having now felt even more off the record.

It is kinda crazy danny got so many interviews with Kathy but none with Betty, like he seemingly never interacts with her or Johnny, i just now noticed that and once again, i cry robbery bc why were we deprived so except oh wait, here tay is supplying us all with the nutrition we require

“If you want to know what her deal is, I’d suggest you ask her.” There was a levity to her tone that had Danny smiling despite the blush warming his cheeks. He cracked a full grin at that. “Yeah, maybe.”

GODDSKJDFSKJ I CAN SEE THIS SO OOOOOSOSODFSOOOOOO CLEARLY IN MY HEAD bc no i could talk about this for a trillion years, bc on of the first things taht drew me to danny as a character in the first place is the way he somehow manages to be kinda laid back, even a little shy without seeming like a doormat or a pushover? Or tbh like a complete wimp Like he’s not overly brimming with self-importance or charisma but there is something so disarming about him, like a reserved sorta confidence maybe? and like it makes sense how else do you convince a group of 1960s blue collar greasers to let you follow them around on their bikes for 3 years and not be soemwhat charming/disarming, right But there’s def …. Idk i hesitate to say awkwardness, bc that even seems too harsh but like there’s a reservedness to him that is captured so accurately in this exchange here. Like he’s embarrassed but he’s also not pretending like he’s not embarrassed or that he’s not askking what he’s asking, if that makes sense??

“Came to find your models, right?” Wahoo joked, but the proud smile on his face said that he was hoping Danny would humor him.

SKFSJK wahooo pretending like he’s not the most America's Next Top Model of the bunch, more ready for his closeup than ever is the most wahoo thing there ever was and i have no solid supporting arguments or examples for this except that it's justa absolutely what would happen imsosorrysdkfjs 

Something about the concentration on your face, the furrow of your brows, had Danny fighting the urge to pick up the lens and snap a photo of you.

HHEREREERERRRRRREEEEEEWEGOOOOOOOOOOSOKDKJFKSJ GOT ME OVER HERE SCREAMING “DO IT, DO IT, SNAP THE PIC, DO IT DANNY” BC WITH HOW CONCRETELY AND VIVIDLY YOU’VE DESCRIBED IT, YOU JUST KNOW IT’S A GREAT PHOTO WAITING TO BE TAKEN LIKE I JUST KNOW YOUR TALENT COMBINED WITH OUR BOY'S TALENT WOULD'VE PRODUCED AN AWARD WINNING PHOTO LIKE THAT ONE COUPLE AT WOODSTOCK OR THAT COUPLE KISSING IN THE PARADE AFTER WWII do yall remember that or is that just me

Danny was watching you with that little perma-grin on his face and Cal was seeing the whole entire thing.

LITTLELELKSDJFSKPERMAGRINONHISFACE IM FUCKIGNSLDKFJSLKJD INCONSOLABLE BC THAT’S FUCKING EXACLTY WHAT IT IS SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS he fr has a perma-grin like even when he's not smiling he's smiling it's in those cute lil squinty eyes

“Here,” Danny’s lighter came to life on the first try, his hand cupping to shield it from the non-existent breeze. 

As a former smoker, it’s crazy to me that you’re a non-smoker for how well you describe smoking and i know that seems like such a weird thing to pick up on but it really does go a long way in terms of immersion if you’ve ever been a regular smoker. Liek i can always tell in movies or tv shows, in terms of the actors, who’s a chronic smoker, who’s occasionally smoked, and who’s only just now for the first time lain eye on the herbal cigarette in their hand on this movie set bc they hold it in the most awkward and unnatural way like they’re an android holding a carrot and pretending to smoke, and like the last category of ppl will take me out of the story for second looking at you Taissa Farmiga in S1 of american horror story sksksksk it doesn’t ruin it ofc but for a split second i’ll remember this is A Movie or A Show. And I’ve found this does sorta translate to reading too, in the sense that i havne’t seen smoking written badly but there are little details like this cupping your hands around thing that I’m like “oh yeah, that is totally a thing” and like you’re so right. Wind or not, you will always find us cupping the flame like we’re lighting the fucking olympic torch in the midst of blizzard-like wind conditionsSKSKSKSK 

But there was a sweetness to his face that the rest of these guys didn’t have. Didn’t mean that they weren’t nice, of course, but living rough gave people a roughness about them.

Living rough gave people a roughness about them -> once again, pure fucking BARRRRRRSSSSS OKAYYYYYYYY we did not come here to play, I see. But also so true, like even with his little loaner vest he borrowed from Cal which i just decided now bc why not give him his spare if he’s gonna be riding on the back of his bike all the time now skdfjsk and his cigarette and sunglasses, like he looks like he’s taking a field-trip forsure skdfjskjd like he’s vacationing at livng rough, these guys are permanent residents KSKSS

Danny laughed, shoulders relaxing at the apparent success of his introduction, even if he wasn’t really the one introducing himself.

Ngl i’m obsessed with the fact that danny’s the bug everyone wants to study with a magnifying glass, like he’s kinda a fun novelty act/sideshow/traveling exhibit to the point that he really needs no introduction, or atleast doesn’t need to make his own SKSKS 

“Like these boys don’t have big enough heads already.” Wahoo spoke up, pointing at you with no actual malice. “My head is perfectly sized.”

PFTSKJDFSKSKSJKJSSKJ THIS SHIT HAD ME CHORTLINGSKDJ BC ONCE THE FUCK AGAIN, BANTER IS SO SPOT ON

Cal gestured to the trunk of the car where you were sitting. “Sit down, man. Come on. Stay a while.” Danny chuckled and shook his head at Cal’s lack of subtlety, but he still looked over to you to see if you were going to protest it at all.

This is neither here nor there but i do have a personal hc where i decided that danny and cal are liek basically besties i.e. cal’s considered getting danny a sidecar so he doesn’t have to hang off the back of the bike and this is just furthter secondary source material that i will now be co-opting to support this thesis SKSKSKSKSK bc the fact that in addition to Betty, cal’s the only one to pick up on danny’s little crush is the most perfect, precious, undercover homie-4-lyfe behavior to me skdfjskskskskjd

Suddenly he was thinking that he should light his own cigarette just to have something to keep his hands busy. He didn’t have the security blanket of a microphone between you now.

Awwwwww i love this so much just the fact that like ofc he would feel kinda naked without the tape deck and the microphone, liek there’s no purpose in taping Reader bc it’s not book-related but danny hasn’t really had many occasions to just talk to someone for fun in this environment, like i imagine once again with no evidence or proof beyond speculating with wild and reckless abandon and maybe even just making shit up entirely, actually mostly just that everything is fodder for this particular project he’s working on even if he does enjoy the conversations he’s had. Idk i just thought that felt appropriate and Made Sense

“New York? And you decided to come here?” You motioned to Cal and Wahoo, who were now both trying to reach in and grab beer bottles for themselves while moving as little as possible. “For them?”

PAAFTSKJFSKSKSKKSKKSKSK this was the most savage but accurate roast of the guys, like i’d never fucking considered that’s what he did until reading this but taht is literally what this man did skdjfsk 

He shook his head. “I didn’t think this was an interview.” He dragged his hand down the side of his face, fingers running through his beard. “Would’ve prepared better.”

The way you just have his mannerisms down so well and describe him so effortlessly is like an actual crime ... i just wrote and ratified and passed the legislation for this actually i know, i really can do it all and have determined the commensurate punishment is solitary confinement, during which you are required to just nonstop produce danny fic to sate the inevitable physical dependence I am already, in real time, as we speak, developing. So like ……. You’re welcome and i expect a copy of the novel on my desk at noon next monday, August 47th and 29 o clock sharp. thankyouuuuuuosooiiiiiimuch 

It only took a couple seconds for Cal to get up and wander off in a completely different direction, leaving the two of you with some comment about having seen some guy with a bike that had carburetors he wanted to take a closer look at.

SKSKSKJSKJ FUCKING CALSKDFJSK like i can’t tell if this is him getting the hint or just being Cal Look-At-The-Shiny-Thing-Over-There getting fr distracted by someone’s carburetors or both but i would maybe die for him? and definitely would klll for himskdjsk 

“How long before you go back to New York?” He shrugged. “At least ‘til I finish school—got a few more years. Why?” You shook your head. “Just askin’. Making the interview go both ways.”

Making the interview go both ways and mayhaps making sure this guy is sticking around MEEETHINKSS??????? cuz lbr I know that’s exactly why I’d be asking if i were in Reader’s position skjdfks

“I almost took one of you earlier,” he confessed without thinking twice about it, “when you were trying to light your cigarette.” “Something about me lookin’ pissed off felt photo-worthy?” He was still just smiling, nodding. “Something, yeah.”

GODDFSLKDJFA;LSKJDF;ALKSJDF;LAKSJDF;LAKSJD;CLKASMJ;OASJDFOPIJASPOIFWJEPOIJK as if I couldn’t go complete fuckin institutionalization-necessary insane for this man, you somehow manage to make me love him????? More???????? Bc even tho i was screamin for him to take the picture it just occurred to me that like he prob didn’t do it bc he hadn’t asked first and something about that respect is justskdjfkljslapaspodfijp2ijoq03o turning my brain into actual soupy mush so that it's now sliding out my ears and my cats are licking it off my face now like it's a churu treat and im not even sorry for how grossly hyperbolic that is bc it's metaphorically true okay

“Photos go both ways too,” you quipped with a grin. He hesitated for a moment, but he handed his camera over to you … “Not usually on this side of the lens” … 

OKYAOKAYOKAYOKAYOKAYOKAYAYYYYYYYNOEVERYONESHUTUPFORASECOND bc I legit have a thing about this, like being on the other side of the lens, in my kath/danny thing I’m working on and shit you not, the scream I screamt as I chucked by phone across my bed like a hot potato BC THIS IS JUST SOOOOOO UM YESS??? and i wrote a similar thing of like there being a back and forth in an interview, give-and-take sorta thing and it's too hard to explain here but all of that is to say. it’s as i’ve screamt and will scream a thousand times more, this man is in. your. gotdamn. bones. ya hear 

You must’ve been lost in your thoughts long enough to make him wonder, because he gave just the tiniest tilt of his head as he laughed, and that was when you snapped the photo.

THETINIESTTILT OF HIS HEAD, BROOOOSDFKJSLDKFJLSKJDF ICAN SEE IT SO CLEARLY, I CAN SEE IT LIKE I’VE FILMED IT AND IT’S INFURIATING??????????? THAT I CAN’T BC IT SHOULD EXIST????????? 

Handing the camera back to him, you said, “Gotta let me see that one too.” Danny chuckled and nodded, red blooming across his cheeks again. “I’ll make sure of it.”

So, i assume this means pt 2 is gonna be him….. Showing them these pics as a pretense to see Reader again, right? bc…… i mean im not gonna not say i’ll be sitting here, staring into a void of nothingness waiting for you to write more of this true delight of a fic and like…… i'm also not saying this is live surveillance footage of me waiting ..............

but it is. so like no pressure, I’m just dying inside waiting, it’s totally fine no shhhhhh don’t worry about me I’m like sooiiiiiiiiiii great and well-adjusted about it

Off the Record

Danny Lyon x F!Reader

Warnings: 18+, language, drinking, smoking, no use of "y/n"

Word Count: 3.5k

A/N: thinking about danny and his cute lil smile always

The best and worst thing was that everyone was just somebody who knew somebody. Anytime a person tried to ask about anyone else, the immediate answer was just who they happened to know, or be married to, or be related to. They were always someone’s friend, some guy that this person knew.

Danny knew that it wasn’t just him that was getting those answers. He knew that people from other clubs would ask Johnny about him, ask who this kid was following them around with a microphone and a camera. They’d ask, understandably so he supposed, why some kid who had to hang onto the back of someone else for dear life had his own set of colors to wear.

Johnny always answered the questions by giving as little of an answer as possible.

“He’s a friend of ours. Good kid.’’

“He takes pictures—can’t ride and take pictures at the same time, now can he?”

“He’s one’a us, the fuck’s it matter to you?”

Danny was smart enough to know that Johnny’s vague, and slightly aggressive, answers to people outside their own club probably saved his ass on more than one occasion. He knew that, was thankful for it too. The frustration came from being on the receiving end of those answers that didn’t do much to answer anything. He wondered if Johnny even knew that he was doing it.

The crowd at the Dayton picnic was massive—bigger than any gathering that Danny had been to so far. There were plenty of people to talk to, more photo opportunities than he had rolls of film. He’d been making his rounds, making sure not to stray too far from the pack that the Vandals had shown up as.

He had the camera strap around his neck, but he didn’t let it hang and rest against his chest. He was still holding onto it, ready to lift it and snap just the right photo at just the right time if the opportunity presented itself. He was scanning the crowd for just that opportunity when he saw you. You were sitting on the closed trunk of someone’s car, maybe it was yours, not that it mattered to him right then. Your legs dangled over the edge of it, boots swinging slightly in front of the license plate. You had a beer in your hand and a grin on your face as you listened to whatever conversation was happening in front of you, the guys all sitting on the ground around one of the dozens of coolers that people had shown up with.

Danny made his way back towards the crowd, keeping you in his peripheral as he walked up to the table that Johnny was sitting on, Betty sitting on the bench in front of him between his legs. He snapped a quick photo of that before approaching to talk to him.

He slunk up to the table, leaning against it but not quite venturing to sit on it the way that Johnny was. He cleared his throat quietly first and then spoke up. “Hey, Johnny?”

Johnny turned to look at him, one hand on Betty’s shoulder, one hand holding a cigarette. “Yeah?”

“I got a question.”

Johnny chuckled. “You always do. That’s kinda your whole thing.”

Danny smiled, giving a shrug as he nodded. “Yeah. Not, um,” he cleared his throat, “not for the book.”

Johnny’s eyebrows shot up at that but he didn’t say anything. Danny couldn’t help but to notice the fact that even though most everyone else wasn’t paying attention, Betty had tuned into the conversation as well. What had originally felt like a bit of a silly question to ask, now suddenly felt much more embarrassing and he hadn’t even spat out the words yet.

He fiddled with the camera in his hands for a moment, cleared his throat again even though there was no need to. “Who’s, you know,” he nodded over in your direction, still perched so nicely on the trunk of that car, “over there on the car. With the boots and…” he trailed off before he made a fool of himself more than he already had.

Betty did him the courtesy of not looking directly at him, which is something that Danny was thankful for even if he didn’t say it. But he could tell by the smile stretching across her face that she knew exactly what was going on.

The same couldn’t be said for her husband, though. Johnny looked over at you, knit his brows in thought for a moment, and then shrugged. “Ah, she’s, you know, she’s one’a Gina’s friends I think.”

Danny nodded to show that he was paying attention, hoping that it would get Johnny to keep talking. He should’ve known better than to hope for that, since Johnny only ever seemed to carry a conversation in three-to-eight-word segments before passing the baton back off again.

“Right,” Danny said, fighting the urge to twist the strap of his camera. “What’s the—”

“Hey!” Johnny called out, cutting Danny off when he saw an argument starting to break out across the lawn. He gently patted Betty’s shoulder, a cue to let him get up. Whatever Danny was going to try and ask him became the least important thing as he took off to try and mediate the mess that was happening.

Danny stood there beside Betty, both of them watching as Johnny stalked off to try and shut down whatever it was that was happening. Considering that Corky was one half of the argument, it couldn’t have been anything too extreme. A nuisance, probably, but nothing that would result in any fists being thrown.

“She’s sweet,” Betty said, still looking at Johnny.

Danny turned and looked at her. “What?”

Betty finally looked up at him, giving a small nod. “She’s a nice girl.”

Danny nodded as he took in what Betty was saying, the look on her face. He and Betty knew each other, of course, but she didn’t ever seem too keen on interviews. He got some photos of her, some of her with Johnny. They’d chat sometimes, but never with a microphone between them. The conversation they were having now felt even more off the record.

“If you want to know what her deal is, I’d suggest you ask her.” There was a levity to her tone that had Danny smiling despite the blush warming his cheeks.

“Right. I just,” he chuckled nervously, “you know.”

Betty laughed as she grabbed the beer bottle that Johnny had been drinking out of. She took a sip before saying, “Put that microphone to good use.”

He cracked a full grin at that. “Yeah, maybe.”

They both turned to look at Johnny, and whatever the argument had been must not have been that important because it was all done and over with now. Johnny and Corky were walking back towards the table with a couple men from a different club in tow. Danny went to lift his camera up to try and snap a photo but before he could press the button, Betty spoke up.

“Go on. There’s a hundred of these guys runnin’ around here today.”

She didn’t say it, but Danny still heard the unspoken, “So use your film for something worthwhile instead,” that was thinly hidden at the end of her statement. He knew that he’d never stop kicking himself if he didn’t take her advice, because it wasn’t as though she was typically one to be doling it out to the guys in the club. So, he let his camera drop back to his chest, and gave Betty a tiny nod of thanks before turning and heading back over towards you.

The guys noticed Danny approaching before you did. Cal and Wahoo were both camped out, half-sprawled on the ground around the cooler. They were watching Danny, smiles growing as they thought up their greeting remarks. Meanwhile your focus was trained on the cigarette between your lips, or more precisely, the lighter you were trying to flick to life to light it. Something about the concentration on your face, the furrow of your brows, had Danny fighting the urge to pick up the lens and snap a photo of you.

“Look who it is,” Cal spoke up with a wave.

“Came to find your models, right?” Wahoo joked, but the proud smile on his face said that he was hoping Danny would humor him.

Danny chuckled, shaking his head. “Almost outta film. Gotta be careful with it.”

They both made sounds of offense that quickly dissolved into laughter. “This fuckin’ guy,” Wahoo muttered, shaking his head.

There was a beat of quiet, the chatter of other groups around keeping it from falling into real silence. You still hadn’t gotten the flame of your lighter to catch. Wahoo’s hazy focus had drifted to other things. Danny was watching you with that little perma-grin on his face and Cal was seeing the whole entire thing.

He chuckled, sitting himself upright, palms flat on the ground now. There was a knowing glint in his eyes. “Danny, you met—”

“Shit,” you muttered, not meaning to cut Cal off but accomplishing that anyway. You shook your head before angrily pitching your lighter as far away from you as possible. You were about to give up and shove the cigarette back into your pack too when all of a sudden there was another lighter being held up in front of you.

“Here,” Danny’s lighter came to life on the first try, his hand cupping to shield it from the non-existent breeze.

You looked at him, your skepticism shining through for a moment before you leaned forward and lit your cigarette off the tiny flame he was offering you. You nodded as you pulled away, smoke slipping from between your lips as you said, “Thanks.”

He smiled as he tucked the lighter back into his pocket. “Welcome.”

Cal spoke up, not willing to let this die out with a three-word exchange. He looked at you, dopey smile on his face. “This is the guy we were tellin’ you about. You know, making the book.”

You turned and looked at Danny then, really looked at him. Maybe you should’ve known that’s who he was. Not that you tried to make a habit of judging based off looks, but he didn’t seem quite like the rest of the guys in the club. Sure, he was wearing the colors, he had his own little gold earring in his ear, tiny bit of scruff coming in. But there was a sweetness to his face that the rest of these guys didn’t have. Didn’t mean that they weren’t nice, of course, but living rough gave people a roughness about them. Danny didn’t look like he had that.

“You’re the one makin’ these guys think they’re pretty enough to model, then?” you asked with a laugh.

Danny laughed, shoulders relaxing at the apparent success of his introduction, even if he wasn’t really the one introducing himself. “Yeah, that’s me.”

You gestured to the two men on the ground in front of you. “Like these boys don’t have big enough heads already.”

Wahoo spoke up, pointing at you with no actual malice. “My head is perfectly sized.”

You rolled your eyes with a grin as you tapped the ash off the end of your cigarette. “Why don’t you lay off the beer for a couple hours and then we’ll talk about it.”

As the laughter among you was starting to quiet, Cal gestured to the trunk of the car where you were sitting. “Sit down, man. Come on. Stay a while.”

Danny chuckled and shook his head at Cal’s lack of subtlety, but he still looked over to you to see if you were going to protest it at all. A smile curled the ends of your lips before you took another drag off your cigarette. You saw the way that his cheeks started to turn pink, but you decided that you’d be kind enough not to say anything about it. Instead, you made a small motion with your hand to the empty side of the trunk, a wordless confirmation of Cal’s invite.

He sat down next to you, camera now in his lap because of the way that the two of you were sitting. He was looking around, trying not to just stare directly at you. It was cute—so was the way that he was still holding onto his camera like he’d be ready to use it at a moment’s notice. You leaned back slightly, bracing yourself with one hand against the car while the other held your cigarette. You smiled before initiating a real introduction, something a little more informative than the commentary Danny had been greeted with. At least this way he’d actually learn your name.

“So,” you inhaled off your cigarette again before continuing, “what do you do when you’re not on the back of one of these guys’ bikes?”

Danny chuckled, looking into your eyes for a moment before he went back to looking at everything else about you too. Suddenly he was thinking that he should light his own cigarette just to have something to keep his hands busy. He didn’t have the security blanket of a microphone between you now.

“I’m in school.” He held up his camera for a moment. “Photography.”

You smiled, nodding. “Makes sense.” You pulled a final drag off your cigarette before flicking the butt of it away. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

He laughed, the tone of it asking the question of, “That obvious?” without him having to say it out loud. “No ma’am. I’m from New York.”

Your eyes widened, the last tendrils of smoke slipping past your lips and into the air as you reiterated it back to him. “New York? And you decided to come here?” You motioned to Cal and Wahoo, who were now both trying to reach in and grab beer bottles for themselves while moving as little as possible. “For them?”

The smile on Danny’s face was warm, a little bit of a sparkle in his eyes. “It’s been fun. I’m glad I’m here.” He paused. “What about you?”

You chuckled. “I’m from around here, yeah. Not, you know,” you gestured to the field, “here. But back home.”

His cheeks darkened. “Yeah, right. No, I meant, um, what do you do? When you’re not,” he mimicked your gesture from a few seconds before, “doing this.”

Whether it was because you’d been smiling so consistently, or because your smile had just kept growing, you weren’t sure, but either way you could feel the ache starting in your cheeks. It wasn’t enough to dampen your expression. “This how all your interviews go?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t think this was an interview.” He dragged his hand down the side of his face, fingers running through his beard. “Would’ve prepared better.”

“Probably still should have!” Wahoo piped up.

You rolled your eyes at him. “Make yourself useful, will ya? Grab us a couple’a beers?”

He groaned dramatically. “Gonna make me get up?”

You nudged him lightly with the toe of your boot. “Yeah, I am.”

You let the silence stretch for as long as it needed to while Wahoo grabbed beers for both of you. He grumbled the whole time but you also caught the fact that he was trying not to laugh. It was too much fun giving each other a hard time. You were waiting for him to dramatically throw himself back onto the ground, but instead he headed off to where some more of the guys were sitting. It only took a couple seconds for Cal to get up and wander off in a completely different direction, leaving the two of you with some comment about having seen some guy with a bike that had carburetors he wanted to take a closer look at.

Once you took a swig of the beer Wahoo had handed you, you got around to answering Danny’s original question. “I work at a diner across town from The Stoplight.” You chuckled at his slightly confused expression. “That’s what I do when I’m not doin’ this.”

He laughed, nodding. “Right.” He toyed with the bottle between his hands. “How’d you meet these guys, then?” He chuckled. “They don’t seem like the diner types.”

You could feel how ridiculous and cheesy your grin was but you couldn’t stop it, either. “No, no they’re not. Not anymore, anyway.” You paused, bringing the bottle to your lips. “Gina did my nails a couple times. We got talkin’ and she asked if I wanted to grab a drink.” You laughed and shook your head at the mild ludicrousness of it all. “Didn’t think that she was gonna take me to the other side of town and into a biker bar, but it turned out alright.”

“Seems to be a common theme,” Danny commented with a soft laugh.

You shrugged. “Yeah, kind of. But I think it’s, you know, it’s ‘cause they’re just guys. They’re guys with bikes. And yeah, they’ve got,” you gently tugged on the hem of the vest he was wearing, “matching outfits and loud mufflers. But they’re alright. Just…don’t’ look it when they’re all traveling like a pack of wolves together.” You paused and saw that starry look back in his eyes again. “Now this feels more like an interview.”

He held his hands up in surrender. “No microphone. All off the record.”

“Real reassuring, thank you,” you joked, allowing your shoulder to press up against his. You paused. “How long before you go back to New York?”

He shrugged. “At least ‘til I finish school—got a few more years. Why?”

You shook your head. “Just askin’. Making the interview go both ways.”

There was a flutter in his chest when he saw your smile, the glint in your eyes. He turned his torso so that he was facing you more directly. “If we’re interviewing, then I need to take your picture.” He set the beer bottle down on the trunk and lifted the camera instead. “For the book.”

“Mhm,” you hummed, letting it dissolve into laughter as he brought the camera up in front of his face. “For the book, I’m sure.” You watched as he lowered the camera just slightly, enough so that he could look you in the eyes. “What do you want me to…?”

He shrugged. “Whatever you want. It’s your picture.”

You rolled your eyes. “It’s your book.”

“I almost took one of you earlier,” he confessed without thinking twice about it, “when you were trying to light your cigarette.”

That got a loud but genuine laugh out of you. “Something about me lookin’ pissed off felt photo-worthy?”

He was still just smiling, nodding. “Something, yeah.”

You were laughing, rolling your eyes as you rested your beer bottle on top of your leg, not caring about the condensation soaking into your jeans from the bottom of it. “You are somethin’ else.” Just as you tilted your head back up to look at him again you heard the click of the camera. Your face instantly felt warm. “Do I at least get to see it before you go sendin’ it places?”

“I’ll let you see it,” he promised with a nod.

“Alright. Guess that’s fair.” Setting your bottle off to the side, you wiped your hands off on your jeans before motioning for him to hand the camera over to you. “Let’s see that.”

“What?” he asked, a confused laugh tumbling past his lips.

“Photos go both ways too,” you quipped with a grin.

He hesitated for a moment, but he handed his camera over to you. He saw the way you were practically giddy as you held it carefully in your hands.

“Not usually on this side of the lens,” he said as his gaze diverted off for a moment.

Your smile softened. “I’m sure you’ll do just fine. You can do whatever you want, remember?”

He laughed and shook his head at you. In his time following the Vandals around, he’d come to realize just how easy it was to feel so close to people. There was an immersive nature to the club and the people in it. Still, he found himself getting a little bit of the wind knocked out of him as he looked over at you, watching the way you carefully turned his camera over in your hands to look at it more closely.

You felt the way that he was watching you, and for a moment you thought that he was just making sure that you weren’t about to drop or break one of his most prized possessions. But when you actually looked at him, and saw the wistful expression on his face, those worries instantly faded away.

Lifting up the camera, you pressed your eye to the viewfinder. When you filled the frame with Danny, a little glimpse of chaos in the far-off background but all the real focus on that quirky little smile on his face, you felt like you were starting to understand why he was content to follow these guys around like this. You must’ve been lost in your thoughts long enough to make him wonder, because he gave just the tiniest tilt of his head as he laughed, and that was when you snapped the photo.

Handing the camera back to him, you said, “Gotta let me see that one too.”

Danny chuckled and nodded, red blooming across his cheeks again. “I’ll make sure of it.”

(divider by @saradika-graphics 💖)

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[ronearoundblindly]

Autumn Is Healing (Oct 3rd)

Flufftober Day Three--Thick as Thieves

drabble for steve rogers x super soldier!reader (see previous or series)

Summary: Having the same Hydra training has its perks. You and Bucky take on a challenge from the team. No warnings just fluff and humor. WC ~1k

“You are not psychic,” Sam scoffs. “No. No way.”

Bucky leans back on the couch in the common room. “Not psychic, but we could do it. I know we'd get every one of them right.”

“You’ll cheat. You know all the cards.”

“Make them,” you say casually. “Yeah, Sam, how about you make them? That way they aren’t predictable.”

“Seems fair,” Nat mutters, pointed and loud to make sure Sam is outnumbered.

“I’m not betting on that,” Sam grunts.

Clint raises his hand, Natasha, too. “We will.”

You glance at Bucky. You’re not excited about being bet on, but it is a kind of fun party trick and one of the only non-harmful uses for intense Hydra training. “For or against us?”

“If Sam’s against, then I’m all for it,” Clint waggles his eyebrows.

Sam tightens his arms across his chest, lips pursed. “They’re gonna cheat. Probably use morse code.”

“Agreed.”

The whole room turns to see Steve leaning in the doorway.

“I’ll be on Sam’s side.”

Your shoulders drop. Against you? Steve doesn’t think you can do it? That hurts until you see a wicked little smirk tip the corner of his mouth.

“Ok, Rogers. Thank you.” Sam relaxes. “What’s the prize?”

Nat stands to get paper and pens. “I say we make the cards first. We can figure out the wager when we see the difficulty.”

“How about each of you makes a card, traditional or a shape, and we’ll both guess two?” You’re nervous to suggest it, but it would be enough to prove Bucky’s point. Steve watches you carefully, taking the offered pen from Nat. “What? We don’t wanna be here all day.”

“Ok, but you have to get all of them right. No winning on a fluke.” Sam points to the kitchen. “Go over there, cheaters, no peeking!”

Bucky and you sigh, leaving the quartet to start their cards.

You and Bucky keep your hands behind your back. It’s all about body language and eye contact.

Sam insists that Bucky turn away when you are shown your first card, so there’s no chance Bucky could see its reflection in your eyes or something. He’s clearly skeptical but nervous about losing.

Nine of spades.

Ok. That’s pretty straightforward. First, you glance down to indicate darker. Black not red. Shift your eyes to the left for an odd number but keep your gaze slightly higher than horizontal. Not the highest but close to a royal. Finally, you blink slowly, smoothly, to match the smooth shape of the suit.

“Nine of spades,” Bucky blurts, “easy.”

You can’t help but laugh as Sam can’t find anything to critique as disqualifying.

Next, Bucky gets shown his first card.

He snorts immediately then gets serious and stares right at Steve.

“Square,” you yell.

“WHAT,” Steve shouts, “oh come on!”

Nat and Clint and Sam are in stitches.

“He’s not even the one who wrote the card,” Clint howls, “but they got you, Cap.”

It’s Steve’s turn to look at you a little disappointed, cheeks tinged pink above a forced frown. “I’m not a—“

“Next,” Bucky calls.

Sam shows you a neat, near-perfect circle that’s been meticulously shaded.

Ok, slightly harder, but you’ve got this. With an open stance, you relax first your neck, then your shoulders, then your diaphragm, softening your expression till your lips are slack. Round. You’re going around your body with manipulations. You sway back and forth gently, making the gesture three-dimensional.

“Sphere,” Bucky says with slight hesitation, but he’s still right.

Everyone seems fairly impressed, but you just look over at Steve and grin at his sly use of depth to make that difficult. You don’t break away from watching him (as he watches you, too) until Buck’s been shown his second card.

The room goes quiet although you and Bucky can’t speak or make noise to help each other.

He squints his eyes without blinking.

Fuck, it’s not a number or a shape, but he does then blink quickly. It has points, so none of the letters with a curve. That narrows it down significantly. A tick-up with his head means it’s a capital. Uh boy. This is gonna be tricky. That’s fifteen options. He looks to his left so it's not a vowel, and his gaze is not quite to the floor degrees so it's early on in the alphabet.

“Sam," you gripe, "did you write the letter ‘F’ for Falcon?”

Nat and Clint erupt in belly laughs on the couch.

Sam fumes. “The hell, you two?! That’s freaky.”

Steve covers his mouth with his hand, but from the look of his tight cheeks, he’s smiling under there.

Sam kicks at the back of the couch. “Man, I’m gonna go broke on this.”

“Wait, no,” you rush forward, panicking that this might actually make Sam dislike you a little bit. “That’s not necessary. What was the amount?”

“Losers have to take you two out to dinner at the most expensive place in the city,” Clint announces proudly, “and since you super soldiers have appetites like hippos, that’s bound to cost a pretty penny.”

Bucky strides over and tries to lean into Sam. “Aww, Sammy, if you wanted to go on a date so bad—“

Sam pushes Bucky off, but he’s failing to hide amusement. “I still say you cheated.”

“You put your own initial on a card,” you interject lovingly. “I’d say you made it easy, but no, you just made it obvious.”

“One more round,” Sam says with a finger up in Bucky’s chuckling face.

“No,” Nat and Clint jump simultaneously.

“Fair is fair, Sam.” Steve shrugs, licking his bottom lip before glancing up at you through his lashes. “I owe this lady a dinner.”

“I’m going to eat so much steak, man,” Bucky cracks as he swings an arm over Sam’s shoulders. “If I go on a run right before, I could easily eat a stack of filets.”

As the others all gather back on the couches, lounging to figure out their next distraction, you touch and smooth over your hair, blocking Steve’s unrelenting stare for a second.

“Nice job,” he whispers before heading to his seat again.

You stifle a shit-eating grin. “Thanks, loser.”

dividers by @silkholland; banner by @flufftober

[Day Two; Day Four]

[Chronological Next Part]

[Main Masterlist; Light Masterlist; Ko-Fi]

[imagining-in-the-margins]

The Birds & The Bees (S.R. | Pt. 4)

Summary: Reader has a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, which her Professor is hellbent on making a little bit better. A/N: If y’all thought you hated Kyle (bathroom bitch boy), just wait until you meet the new antagonist (of the female variety) here... I hope you all enjoy! 😚 Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader Category: Slow Burn (NSFW, 18+) Content Warning: Sexual themes/fantasies Word Count: 6.3k

MASTERLIST | Series Masterlist

——————————————————

Einstein once attributed his genius to his childlike sense of humor. Studies performed since then have largely proven his point — funny people tend to have higher IQs, which makes sense when you consider the cognitive and emotional intelligence required to produce humor.

Spencer Reid was no exception. The only problem was that his humor was so remarkably niche and impossibly specific that barely anyone could understand the punchline. He insisted to me that he’d gotten better over the years, which I only barely believed… until he told me a joke that hadn’t left my mind since. A joke that he described as ‘just crude enough to make it palatable to the layman.’

"Caffeine and Viagra are both phosphodiesterase inhibitors,” he’d said — a slow start if there had ever been such a thing. But I held on to hope, hanging on the ecstatic, guileless smile he wore. And boy, was I glad I did, because what he’d said next broke me into a frankly embarrassing fit of giggles that returned with the memory every time.

“Which explains why both of these drugs keep you up all night."

The poor barista stuck working the busy early morning shift eyed me like I’d grown two heads when I once again devolved into laughter for no apparent reason. I almost felt embarrassed about it, but then I reassured myself that if she’d heard Dr. Spencer Reid tell a drug-induced-boner joke, she would also laugh about it forever.

I’d been thinking about him a lot lately. Not in a perverse way, either, despite his increasing comfort in breaching such topics in my presence. It was more like I’d started to infuse him into my every day, finding him in whatever way my brain would allow. While I made my way to his office, I breathed in the soothing scent drifting from the cups that were precariously perched in flimsy cardboard.

The smell took me back to quiet moments in his office. The kind of simple serenity that accompanied silence between two people who need not speak to share ideas. Where the second you looked away, you felt their eyes follow you, like the universe couldn’t maintain its structural integrity without one of you looking at the other.

It was intoxicating and alluring; so easy to lose myself in. Something I knew was dangerous for a number of reasons.

For example, when I am not paying the utmost attention to my surroundings, I have a tendency to lose track of where I am and what I’m doing. I also tend to… drop things. Especially hot and otherwise dangerous things.

Things like the two cups of coffee that finally became too much for shallow, defective cardboard.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I screeched as I became acutely aware of every place where scorching hot, drenched clothing hung on angry skin. Normally, I would at least try to sound more dignified while on my way to work, but it hardly seemed like it mattered anymore.

I was too busy hurriedly tearing at my shirt and dropping everything else I was holding. I’d gotten three whole buttons on my shirt popped by the time I remembered it wasn’t technically necessary. I dropped my bag immediately at the thought, tugging on the hem of the shirt and trying to bring it over my head.

Unfortunately, I still hadn’t regained my grace, and in the muddled mess of fabric, I’d also grabbed hold of my undershirt. Which meant that whoever was walking through the empty halls of the early morning in academia would find me, with my stomach exposed and clothing dripping while unintelligible curses flowed freely from my lips.

I expected most people would probably just turn around and leave. I probably would’ve. The giant splatter of coffee and the absolute idiot slipping in it were beyond saving.

But there was at least one person who saw the mess and stayed.

I smelled his cologne before I felt his hand was pressed over the bare skin of my lower back. Despite the fact my skin was burning, it welcomed the warmth of his touch. My body stopped at his command, waiting for him to break me free of the paradoxically frozen state I was in.

He pulled the shirt back down, just enough that I could see him when he wrapped his cardigan around my shoulders and started guiding me into his office, which I’d somehow managed to almost walk straight past in my daze. I wished that I could go back there, to the imaginary world where he hadn’t just seen me half disrobed and cursing while covered in the coffee that I’d meant to give to him.

Spencer’s hands left me once the door was shut, probably trusting, or at least hoping, that I could figure out the mess on my own. Oddly enough, I didn’t notice any signs of him staring at me. Like he only felt comfortable looking when I was clothed.

I tried not to think about it. Once I did manage to free myself of one of the shirts — without further flashing my boss — the anxiety brewing inside of me burst out in the form of frantic shouting.

“Hi Professor! I’m so sorry, I spilled the coffee!”

“Yeah, I... saw the puddle,” he mumbled, throwing a cursory glance back at the hallway before his eyes met mine with a terrifying level of compassion, “Are you alright?”

“Besides the boiling liquid on my skin and the horrid embarrassment? I guess,” I mumbled back before shouting, “Shit! This is why that woman sued McDonald’s! Why do stores serve coffee like that?!”

Spencer didn’t really say anything. In fact, he kind of just stood as frozen as I had been, staring at everything around me rather than meeting my eyes again. But while he seemed somewhat cool and composed, I continued to tug at my clothes to try and avoid the friction. It was then that he cleared his throat, covering his face just like he’d done when he saw me in an arguably more provocative position the week before.

Arguably, I said. I should have known that Spencer would win any argument. I should have considered why he was making such a point of not looking at me while I clawed at the white undershirt turned beige. But I didn’t. Not until I looked down to inspect the state of my skin.

I realized then that Spencer had been trying to figure out a way to inform me that not only had the coffee turned my shirt a different shade — it had also eliminated the opacity.

He could see my bra. Spencer Reid, my boss, was trying not to stare at my very clearly visible bra.

“God, this is the worst Monday of all Mondays!” I whined between half-sobs, “and Mondays are already bad, Professor!”

There must have been something else in that cry, too. Something akin to permission. Enough for him to step closer, managing to avoid looking at my chest in the process. I’d entirely forgotten that he’d wrapped me in his cardigan until he pulled it tighter around my shoulders like his own version of an embrace.

“That they are, Bunny.”

If my skin had been heated before, it turned to flames at the use of the nickname. It was honestly a pure work of magic that the liquid on me didn’t turn vaporize the second I’d heard the word.

Bunny?

I pushed the thought away as quick as humanly possible, focusing instead on the way my clothes were going from uncomfortably hot to frigid as a result of the usually refreshing air conditioning. But when I was once again reminded of the obvious undergarment, I sighed.

“I can probably ask a friend to bring me a replacement shirt, or just go to class like this,” I thought aloud, “No one really looks at me, anyway...”

Spencer’s response came immediately, his hands flying up in protest as he shouted, “No!”

I wasn’t quite sure how to reply to that, or even which part of the statement he was objecting to, so he was met with a wide-eyed, slow blinking stare.

“I-I mean, I have a shirt you can borrow. I don’t want to subject you to any further embarrassment,” he explained at a significantly more appropriate volume, “You can just wear my extra shirt.”

He turned away from me before I could respond, shuffling through something hidden beneath his desk that created more questions than answers for me.

“Why do you have an extra shirt?”

“Go bag,” he said in the most nondescript manner. It wasn’t necessarily abnormal, either. The question I’d asked didn’t spark any concerns in his mind, but it also wasn’t the question that I felt needed to be asked.

What I really wanted to say was caught in my throat. My hands clamped together in front of me tighter than my jaw that resisted opening to make way for the thoughts that felt more scandalous than they should’ve been.  

“U-Um, Professor don’t you think—“

“Here you go,” he offered with a smile. I took the large, plain black shirt with a hefty dose of caution, my hands shaking along with my broken voice that still couldn’t finish the sentence from before.

Spencer finally noticed the struggle on my face, and I watched his body move from comfortable to defensive in a matter of seconds. Like he was worried he’d done something wrong in trying to be kind.

He hadn’t, but I felt like I had.

“Won’t people... you know?” I mumbled, motioning a hand between the two of us, “I’m showing up to your class at 8AM wearing your clothes…”

I thought that the words alone would be enough. I thought that the gesture was overkill. But Spencer was still staring at me with his head cocked to the side and his eyes narrowed in thought.

I was going to have to say it.

Won’t they think we’re having sex?

There was no way I was going to be able to say it.

“Aren’t you concerned about people getting… the wrong idea?” I blurted out, instead.

The confusion on his face shifted to a clever little self-assured smirk so fast that I almost missed the transition. My stomach flipped from the sight, but then he spoke again, and what had felt like it was filled with butterflies turned to rocks.

“I’d much rather them gossip about something that’s not happening than watch the young boys ogle you instead of paying attention.”

It wasn’t the words, but the way that he’d said them. Like they were silly, like the idea of us being together was so preposterous it could only be entertained by people he perceived to be children.

I was foolish, too.

“Don’t worry about them,” he said with a wave, “Just worry about making this Monday a little bit better.”

“O-okay. Thanks,” I whispered, turning and running from the room only to be reminded of the mess I’d made. But the pool of tawny liquid on the floor wasn’t the most disastrous thing anymore. That honor was reserved for the state of my heart, begrudgingly continuing to beat despite being broken.

Scooping up my bag that I’d abandoned before, I tried to allow myself to be happy about the little things. For instance, the fact that the shirt Spencer had handed me was probably the softest thing I’d ever felt in my life. It made sense, considering the sensory issues he always described.

Still, I waited until I was in the safety of a bathroom stall before I buried my face in the fabric. It smelled just like him, a mixture of freshly done laundry and vanilla. Much better than the cheap, burnt coffee that covered me. Funny enough, that sort of smelled like him, too.

By the time I slipped into his clothes, I had almost forgotten his joke entirely. I was too lost in the joy of sweater paws from his cardigan and fabric that felt like a hug. Or at least, what I’d imagined a hug from him would be like.

The energy it provided me was a better pick-me-up than any cup of coffee had ever been. I kept my squealing as quietly as I could, bouncing in place just like the nickname he’d chosen to let stick. But before I returned to him, I felt something. A small, noticeable weight in one of the cardigan pockets.

If I’d thought about it for longer than five seconds, if I’d reminded myself that they were his clothes and not mine, I would’ve let it be. I wouldn’t have pulled the little object from its safe hiding spot. It would have stayed locked away, leaving me none the wiser of its presence.

But I didn’t think about it, and then there I was, holding onto the sobriety token I should’ve seen coming.

Not that it was a bad thing; I already knew Spencer had a history with drugs. He’d mentioned it in passing in class and was deeply involved with a number of volunteer programs around the area. At one point, I’d even taken it upon myself to research his history.

That research, while I regretted it now, feeling that it violated his privacy some way or another, led me to a second conclusion. As my thumb ghosted over the embossed number five, I realized that Spencer had been sober since he was released from prison.

My heart swelled with pride and relief that felt shameful. I didn’t want the token to have such a profound effect on the image of him I’d already crafted in my mind. Lord knew I didn’t need any more reasons to idolize him. And, at the end of the day, I’d only discovered this information by happenstance.

Part of respect, I decided, meant ignoring the way that fate seemed to push us together. If Spencer ever wanted my opinion on his sobriety or strength, surely, he would just ask. So, I slipped the chip back into the pocket and made my way back to him without worry for what it meant.

While I had no worries, Spencer was another story. I’d barely even made it through the door when he saw me. All of the papers he’d been holding immediately fell from his hands the same way the coffee had fallen from mine.

“Oh no! My clumsiness was contagious!” I laughed, bolting over to help him only to find his face an unhealthy shade of red. He chuckled back but said nothing else as he scrambled to pick up the loose-leaf that had splayed itself all over the floor.

Once we were back on our feet and as collected as we could be considering the circumstances of the morning thus far, his eyes met mine again. His cheeks were still flushed, unable to focus on anything specific and choosing to traverse my body the same way his hands had on Halloween.

“Sorry,” he mumbled in a way that made me wonder if he knew I could hear him, “I was distracted by how unfair it is that you look better in my clothes than I do.”

It was my turn to be flustered, but Spencer didn’t let the moment drag on. He tore himself away from me in every sense of the word, marching past me and halfway exiting the room before he found the courage to look at me again.

“Are you ready to head to class?” he asked as if it were an option.

I suppose to him, it was. For a second I imagined what the future would hold for us if I’d said no. What would he have done if I begged him to stay with me, instead? What if we rebelled against expectation and remained locked away in his office until we grew tired of one another? What if we never did?

My mind filled with fantasies of Spencer’s hands freely feeling my skin the way his clothes could. I could hear soft, breathy sounds of desire shaped like my name. For all of my inexperience, he would still find me intoxicating. He would grow drunk on me the same way a child finds endless joy in sweets that really ought to make them sick.

Then again, maybe he had grown used to the sugar. Maybe he wanted something more mature, a bitterness like molasses that was only earned from years I hadn’t had yet.

Regardless, I couldn’t really get into any of that. Instead, I just flashed a very awkward thumbs up to the man fifteen years my elder when I droned, “Sure am, Professor man.”

As stupid as it felt to do something so juvenile, the smile he gave was worth it.

“Alright then, Bunny,” he answered with his own little peace sign, “Let’s hop along.”

——————————————————

It hadn’t even been a week since I saw her, scantily clad in the plush, socially acceptable equivalent of lingerie. It’d been even less time since I admitted my own weakness to her. I’d replayed the memories of her visceral responses to my touch enough times that I should be sick of it. But there was no tiring of her.

I considered deleting the photos she’d sent me, convinced that it was cruel to keep them when she’d only sent them while inebriated and undoubtedly exhausted beyond belief.

But when I woke up in the morning, my stomach still reeling from the knowledge of what I’d done, all that she’d sent was a curious collection of emotes and a very brief note.

“Oops!” she’d written, “Bad bunny?”

I put that phrase out of my mind immediately, unable to handle the way it incited the desire for destruction in my veins.

“I’m always glad to hear that you are safe.”

That was the end of the conversation, and I was grateful for that much. Even the few words we’d exchanged would haunt me until I saw her again. Of course, the torture ended there, but only for a few seconds before it was replaced with other images and words.

It’d been hours since I’d found her flailing about half-naked in the hall while uttering rushed curses that sounded too crude for her lips. It’d been hours since I felt the soft skin of her lower back and became lost in an entirely different set of fantasies.

It’d been even less time since I saw her standing at my door, pulling on the sleeves of my sweater and staring at me with nervous, shifty glances. Completely unaware of just how beautiful she was in her simplicity. How much more torturous it was to see her wearing my clothes than any lustful suffering that lingerie or nudity could elicit.

I thought that it would get better throughout the day, but it didn’t. It only got worse.

I’d stepped out of my office for barely half an hour, but I returned to find her curled up on the plush chair. Her shoes were slipped off, revealing colorful socks that clashed with every other neutral color she wore. It somehow made me want her even more.

I stayed stuck for a few seconds longer, watching her with bated breath and shameless admiration. She was so caught up in the papers on her lap that she didn’t even notice my presence until the door clicked shut. It was then that she turned to see me, allowing a smile to blossom across her face despite eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“What’s all of this?” she asked, gesturing to the collection of bags hanging from my wrists.  

“Did you know…” I started before my heart stopped at how she always leaned forward with excitement whenever I started a sentence that way, “that food is one of the best ways to solve a terrible Monday?”

“Which scientific study did you get that from?”

I paused again, debating telling her the many studies that would support such a theory, but then decided against it. Instead, I sought out her laughter and childlike joy that always brought out the best of her.

“Garfield,” I answered.

Sure enough, the office filled with the melodious sound of her happiness. I moved as quietly as I could, thinking back to when I was younger and thought of how powerful bottled laughter would be if I could capture it. Hers would surely right so many wrongs.

“You don’t have to take it if you don’t want to, but I figure it’s the least I could do.”

She approached me to assist before I’d even made it to my desk, and although I thought her hands were far too soft to be bothered with something like this, I allowed her to help.

“You could do nothing, you know. It was my own fault.”

“Yeah, but I wanted to.”

She laughed again, shier and shrinking into the sweater as she tried to find her place in such a domestic activity as sharing a meal with me in private. I thought of how it was a taste of my dreams.

Because as often as I did fantasize about her, undone, bare-skinned, and defenseless to my desires, I just as often envisioned her just like this. In fact, I found those fantasies more dangerous. They couldn’t be written off as mere lust. They were another, scarier thing.

“Well, lucky you I am an exhausted, broke grad student, so free food will always win me over,” she muttered, half-sarcastically but just sad enough to bother me.  

“Duly noted,” I said.

I hid away the promises I wanted to make. That if she were mine, she would want for nothing. That I would give her everything she needed to bloom. That I would prune away any neighboring flower that dared get in her way or block the sunlight. There would be no need to worry of predators or pollinators intruding, because she would belong to me and only me.

I would be her earth, her rain, and her sun. I would be surely and shamelessly selfish.

Her shoulders rose with a cheeky, excited little giggle once she had collected her food. I wanted nothing more than to let her enjoy it to her heart’s content… but there was a problem.

“Nuh-uh, no way,” I chuckled before she had a chance to return to the chair with her precarious paper plate, “Get in the other chair.”

Her face scrunched up, bouncing back and forth between the two seats in the room like she’d heard something so strange that it must have been a mistake.

“Wh— your chair?”

“I will not have you ruining another shirt today,” I explained. It caused the confusion to quickly shift to an embarrassed frustration within seconds. Just as she opened her mouth to protest my teasing, I continued with something I knew would tie her tongue until she could no longer argue.

“If you’re so worried about what they’ll say when you show up in my shirt, just think of how they’ll talk if they catch you wearing nothing.”

That stubborn little thing still tried. Her mouth floundered, strange sounds of protest starting but never finishing until she gave up. She sulked over to the seat with an odd amount of self-satisfaction. She settled into my space as comfortably as she always did. With an ease that was almost unsettling to my tired, tortured heart.

Swapping places with her for that little bit of time was a good idea. I hadn’t expected that it would bring me as much serenity as it did. My usually busy lips kept their focus on the food, opting to listen to her ramble about any and everything that came to mind.

It wasn’t until she was fifteen minutes into an explanation on her paper that I realized how little I’d tried to learn about her life outside of me. Whether it was self-preservation or narcissism, I’d never decided. But what I was certain of was that it had been a brutal form of self-sabotage.

Because as I sat there, watching her clumsily, excitedly swinging her fork and proving my point that it had been a good decision to give her the desk, I saw her for in a different light than before.

She was not just a beautiful, mysterious flower peeking through the concrete. She was the trembling giant, the clonal colony of thousands of quaking aspen trees. An extravagant network of roots that flowed far beyond the seed that started them.

This sprout might be new, but her soul was ancient and celestial, wise and immortal.

“Who knows?” she sighed, coming to a natural conclusion of a story I had almost missed while lost in daydreams and metaphors, “Maybe one day I’ll be a professor, too.”

“You’d be good at it.”

For once, it felt like she accepted the compliment without a fight. I considered it progress all the way up until she shot back a thinly veiled taunt.

“Thanks. Means a lot from someone who has 4 stars on rate my professor!”

“Don’t forget the chili pepper,” I jokingly returned.

“Not sure I’d get one of those.”

I knew that my disagreement wouldn’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things, so I opted for a slightly-self-centered flattery instead.

“Just show up in that outfit,” I said with a nod that barely hid my actual intention of focusing my eyes on the rest of her, “you’ll be golden.”

“You gonna let me borrow it in ten years?” she hummed.

It was a dangerous proposition, an implication that made the pitter-pattering in my chest unbearable. Rather than chasing her down the rabbit hole of fantasies, I just chuckled before I answered, “You know how to find me.”

Then it happened again. Her face slowly changed, growing from a cautious optimism to a yearning. A subtle hint of words left unsaid. And although she wet her lips and set down her fork, the words never came out. They stayed stalled in her throat, and there was no discernible way for me to drag them out of her without hurting the both of us.

When a loud knock resounded through the room, the thought ended altogether.

“Come in,” I grimly announced, recognizing the intrusive sound as the death rattle for whatever might have been said.

As the door opened, I realized the same time (y/n) did that we had forgotten that the rest of the outside world wasn’t familiar with our dynamic. They didn’t have the backstory of how she’d perched herself on my chair with her shoes off and wearing my clothes.

Torn between scrambling to take more socially acceptable positions and the knowledge that our hurry would make us look even more suspicious, we both opted to remain frozen in place like deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming train.

When the door opened, however, I was somewhat relieved to see someone I found completely unthreatening. My closest colleague, a woman that should really terrify me all things considered, seemed mostly perplexed when she found a young girl in my seat.

She quickly turned to me, drawing out her words as she asked, “Oh. I’m sorry, am I... interrupting something?”

“No, what can I help you with, Candy?”

“I was hoping we could talk about my current paper proposal.”

She paused, and I took the moment to follow her glower to the flower still stationary behind my desk. (Y/n) stared back, seemingly frightened by the presence of the other Professor.  

“If you’re busy with... office hours…” Candy muttered before turning back to me, “we can always set up a meeting for a better time.”

Before I could address the possible tension or implication, the girl at my desk sprung to action, clearing off any sign of her presence as she spoke.

“You know, I actually need to get going.”

“Are you sure?”

She didn’t look at me when she answered, “Yeah, I’m sure your papers are more important.”

If I’d turned back to Candy, I might have seen the condescending scowl that was driving her away. If I’ve had any inclination or desire to look at Candy, I would have realized that (y/n) wasn’t trying to escape from her connection to me. She was just trying to get out of my way.

It didn’t make it any harder to watch her leave. I took solace in the fact that she held tighter to my cardigan, trusting me to keep her warm by proxy as she ventured back into the real world. The world where we couldn’t be in peace.

“Thanks for the advice, Professor,” she said before she left, “You were right. As usual.”

One last smile was shared, somber but sobering. A necessary break from the intimacy of the moment.

“See you in class.”

The office felt so much duller without her radiance, but my disappointment would have to wait. As much as I actually didn’t mind the world knowing how my heart hurt from her absence, I knew that it was best I didn’t let it impact her academic career.

“Sorry again for the intrusion,” my colleague said in a much happier voice.  

“It’s not a problem at all.”

She must have noticed the way it sounded like a lie, because her tone quickly shifted back to a slightly disgruntled confusion.

“I didn’t realize she was your student, too. What class is she in?”

It was juvenile, really, the way my heart fluttered so ridiculously at the mere mention of her existence. The excuse to discuss her again.

“Oh, did she not tell you?”

Candy just shook her head with a blatantly false smile.

“Unsurprisingly modest,” I laughed, making my way back over to my seat and running my fingers over the wooden armrests like it would be the same as touching her ghost, “She’s my TA.”

“Oh… I see.”

“She was the only one who would put up with me,” I offered with a chuckle. Self-deprecating humor was the only reliable personality trait I had. It was also, unfortunately, one that most women in my life despised and refused to let sit.

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

It sounded less sweet coming from her. I wrote it off as a product of the differences in their species. While the hummingbird of a girl who’d just flittered away was used to only drinking the sweetest, purest nectar, the bird of prey who’d entered relied on the work of others to gather the sweetness before they were devoured.

That wasn’t to say she was cruel; hawks are as much a miracle of nature as hummingbirds. I simply related to one more than the other. I understood one while the other remained a mystery. And I loved mysteries more than myself.

“So, you wanted to talk about your paper?”

“Oh! Yes,” she chirped, passing the packet over to me now that I’d found my way back to what she probably deemed my rightful place. “The conference is coming up so much faster than I anticipated, and I would love to hear your opinions on my first draft.”

I’d already started to read the first page when she spoke again, uncharacteristically bashful and anxious, “Since we’ll be presenting together, I figured...”

“Yeah, no problem at all,” I interrupted, not wanting her to dwell nor expand on the thought of us doing anything together any more than necessary, “I can send you mine.”

It felt curt, blunt, and off putting when I said it, but she didn’t take it as such.

“Wonderful. You have such a unique voice when you’re writing. It’s very refreshing.”

Immediately, a memory appeared at the forefront of my mind and led to a laugh that I couldn’t contain. Candy seemed pleased at the sound, and I felt the need to explain.

“Thanks. (Y/n) likened it to Ray Bradbury at one point, although in different and less flattering words.”

I could hear her clear as day, quoting my words with an overdramatized effect before laughing, ‘Pack it up, Bradbury, you’ve got more science stuff to explain.’

Of course, we both found her laughter-ridden explanation of the ‘meme’ far funnier than the original joke. She was probably the only person in the world who never seemed bothered by explaining everything to me ad nauseam.

“She is... certainly a choice as a TA,” Candy strained upon scrutinizing the smile that had returned to my face for the first time since (y/n)’s departure, “Will she be joining us at the conference?”

But then the guilt returned, wiping the smile from my face and replacing happy memories with deviant thoughts and fears.

“Oh... you know, I haven’t asked her.”

“That’s perfectly alright! I think we’ll do just fine without her.”

“Right...” I whispered, glancing back down at the stack of papers in my hand before setting it in the tray designated for (y/n). “I’ll have her look at your paper just in case.”

A lull in the conversation stretched past the point of comfort for both of us, and I glanced up at the woman I actually felt guilty for ignoring in place of fantasies that would probably never come to be. She hadn’t even done anything to warrant my disregard. She was an attractive woman — as beautiful as she was brilliant, really — she had worked very hard to garner my trust and academic collaboration. At one point, I had considered her one of the few potential candidates for something more than a purely academic partner.

But there was something about the way she looked at the honeyed girl that made my hair stand on end. A defensiveness and instinct that couldn’t be ignored.

“Is there anything else you need?”

“No, that was all,” she said as she broke from what I presumed to be her own daydream, “I hope your semester keeps going well.”

“Thanks, I hope yours does, too.”

I meant it, despite the aforementioned concern. I wished her well in the semester for both selfless and selfish reasons. I wished her well because she deserved it, certainly. But the other reason, the larger one, was that I hoped she would remain distracted. I hoped that she didn’t notice the way I would slip away from her affections to chase those from a more interesting challenge. One that remained mysterious, with hair covered in pollen and lips sweet with ambrosia.

“I’ll talk to you soon, Dr. Reid.”

I failed to respond to her again before the door shut because my hands were already busy with rekindling contact with another.

“I have a proposition for you, Bunny.”

“Sounds ominous. I’m in.”  

The fact that the response came before I could even shut off the display was so characteristic of her that I had to laugh.

“You haven’t even heard it yet,” I observed, to which she once again immediately responded, “Your point being?”

“I’m afraid this is an obligation that does require some expansion before agreement.”

Her response was slower, then, and I could almost see her with a slight panic and overwhelming curiosity that grew stronger by the second.

“Ominous and vaguely unsettling,” she said.  

I considered drawing it out further, letting her imagination truly run wild with the possibilities. But then I realized that if she thought hard enough about it, she might reach the same place that had immediately come to my mind.

“Would you like to attend the upcoming conference with me?” I relented, almost stopping there but then frantically tagging on the conditions I knew would be most likely to cause hesitation. “You’d have your own room, of course. The department and I will help with funds.”

But, as it turned out, I didn’t need to be worried.

“A cheap weekend away from school where I get to be a nerd with you?” she sent with another set of small, smiling faces I was only just starting to understand, “Of course I’m going to say yes, Professor!”

“Perfect. I’ll arrange it.”

“I can’t wait!”

Although I felt the same, I forced myself to end contact again. I put my phone out of reach to prevent myself from spoiling any more of my fantasies than I already had. I didn’t need her to second-guess the possibilities of a weekend away together now that she’d already agreed to it.

The thought alone sparked guilt anew. Through the entire interaction, I’d infused each word with a charge that shouldn’t have been. Each line was far more provocative than it needed to be.

It was just an academic conference. Most people found them terribly dull, not to mention physically exhausting. It would not be a time away like most couples dreamed of because we were not a couple in any sense of the word.

Yet… I couldn’t help but feel that perhaps there weren’t as many differences as one might think. Because while yes, most people would be bored, I didn’t think Bunny would be. Clandestine meetings made between conference meetings sounded exactly like the kind of dreams we would share.

I believed it so strongly that my mind had already drafted several narratives that would suit her. I pictured her and I sharing company in public, unafraid of public displays of affection — innocent, childish kinds, of course — because we were miles away from those who might care.

That drunken, lust-inducing, half-lidded gaze from the week before would return. Except this time, I would taste the wine on her tongue, my hands sliding not over fluffy fabric, but the same skin that I’d felt for the first time that morning.

Behind our door, I would teach her so many things. Things that she would have begged me for. Things that others would see written on her skin in the shape of my fingers and mouth. Things that she would carry with a straighter back and dripping down her legs.

I didn’t just want to destroy her. I wanted to break her so that I could build her back with gold-laced lacquer. She would be my kintsugi creation full of sugar and honey, just imperfect enough that the sticky residue of her sweetness would slip through the cracks to coat everything she touched.

And then she would touch me, and I might finally feel like I deserved anything at all.

——————————————————

| Part Five |

[sunkissedpages]

instead of you [part eighteen]

pairing: [best friend’s brother] tom holland x college!reader

summary: you didn’t expect to spend your summer pretending to be your best friend’s girlfriend- then again, you didn’t expect to fall for your best friend’s brother, either.

warnings: swearing, mentions of +sex

word count: 2k

series masterlist

“Sam and I will take the bunk beds.”

The room was a decent size. It was definitely bigger than Sam’s dad had made it sound. A large window on the back wall flooded the space with natural light and offered a view of the city below. By the door was a small fridge and a countertop with a sink and a couple of burners built in so that guests could cook their own meals. There was a queen sized bed jutting out from the western-facing wall and built into the adjacent wall were two twin-sized bunks, one on top of the other, making the room feel... cozy.

Harry and Tom traded looks with each other.

“Kidding.”

The boys visibly relaxed and chuckled awkwardly.

“If I ever have to share a bed with Tom again it’ll be too soon,” Harry sighed.

“Is that any way to treat your big brother?” Tom scoffed.

“I’m taller than you.”

“For now.”

“The fuck’s that supposed to mean? You’re twenty-five, you’re done growing.”

Tom shrugged. “Yeah, but I could always make you shorter.”

“Oh, what are you going to do, cut my legs off?” Harry challenged.

“I never said that.”

“Jesus Christ guys,” Sam said, finally cutting in. “Can we not threaten each other until we’ve had at least a few hours of sleep?”

“Whatever,” his twin grumbled, kicking off his shoes by the door.

Tom slung his backpack onto the top bunk and pulled his sweatshirt off over his head, exposing a strip of his stomach in the process. You looked away instinctively, hoping that you hadn’t drawn any attention to yourself while doing so.

“You always get the top bunk,” Harry whined.

“Yeah, because I’m older.”

“That’s not fair!”

“My brothers are actually ten years old,” Sam explained to you, raising his voice so that you could hear him over the bickering.

“No, I think ten-year-olds know how to take turns,” you said dismissively, not missing the glares from the other two Hollands.

“You’re right,” Sam agreed. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and sighed. “Reminds me of the family vacations we used to take. The six of us used to share one hotel room when we traveled.”

“Four boys... I don’t know how your mom did it.”

“None of us do.”

“I thought we were going to sleep,” Harry muttered from where he was already laying down on the bottom bunk, clearly irritated.

“Give us a minute to settle in, dude,” Sam shot back before dropping into a whisper. “It’s going to be a long week.”

You shook your head, putting your hands on his shoulders. “Everyone’s just cranky because they’re tired,” you reasoned. “We’ll get some sleep and then grab some food and then maybe they’ll be in a better mood.”

“You don’t know them like I do,” Sam warned.

“That’s true, but won’t they tone it down since I’m here?”

Sam snorted. “Wishful thinking.”

You rolled your eyes. “Whatever, I’m going to hop in the shower. I feel gross after being on a plane for so long.”

“I’ll go after you,” Sam replied with a nod. “Let me know if you need anything.”

You thanked him with a kiss under the watchful eyes of his brothers who both groaned in protest.

“Oh, fuck off,” Sam growled against your lips.

“By the way, sharing a bed doesn’t mean you get to mess around because I don’t want to hear that shit.”

“Harry!” Sam and Tom shouted, Tom going as far as throwing a pillow at his younger brother from the top bunk.

“Just being honest! We heard you going at it like rabbits when you had your own room, and I didn’t say anything about it then-”

“Harry.” To your surprise, it was Tom who cut him off, raising another pillow in warning. Thankfully, Harry took the hint that time and shut up, crossing his arms over his chest in annoyance.

You smiled to yourself with the knowledge that your little Easy A stunt had worked, and looked over to see that Sam was wearing a matching smirk. He winked at you before turning to glare at his brothers.

“On that note, I’m going to shower,” you said, mostly to Sam, and made your way over to where you had dropped your suitcase by the door.

You gathered a set of pajamas to change into and then wandered into the bathroom, quietly closing the door behind you. It was one of those rolling doors so you had to be extra careful not to knock it off its hinges or the track and cause even more noise than necessary. You set your change of clothes on the counter next to the sink and began to undress, leaving your worn clothes on the floor.

The shower was kept in a room separate from the room with the sink and vanity, something you had read was common for Japanese washrooms. Inside the second room was a bathtub with a complicated looking panel next to it. With a closer inspection you determined it was used to fill the bath with water and customize the temperature. The showerhead was secured to the wall just to the side of the tub which meant you would have to hold it while you showered, but you didn’t mind. You were used to holding the showerhead for... other reasons.

Your shower was quick. You didn’t want to take too long when you knew other people were waiting for it. You were drained too. Even as you dried yourself off with a towel you could feel your arms start to get heavier.

You wrapped your hair in your towel and put on your pajamas shortly after, trying not to cringe at the way the fabric clung to your still-damp body. Usually you wouldn’t get dressed in the bathroom right after taking a shower because it was always so humid and sticky, you’d go out in the bedroom to do it, but as Sam’s girlfriend the latter wasn’t an option. So you dealt with the discomfort and ventured back into the main room.

It was dark now. Someone, you assumed Sam, had pulled the blackout curtains shut so that the daylight could no longer stream through the window. Harry was already fast asleep, but Tom and Sam were still awake, scrolling through their phones on their respective sides of the room.

Sam was perched on top of your bed, resting comfortably. He wasn’t underneath the covers, probably because he knew you didn’t like to share a bed with someone who hadn’t showered.

He smiled when he saw you and pushed himself up onto his elbows.

“Shower’s all yours,” you said.

“Thanks.”

You watched him rifle through his suitcase for pajamas and then eventually disappear into the bathroom before finally flinging yourself onto the bed. You still needed to take your hair out of the towel and brush your teeth, but you took a moment to just. Lay there.

Tom didn’t acknowledge you, hadn’t so much as looked at you since you came out of the bathroom, but you still found yourself looking over to him.

At the airport he had seemed at least a little concerned that he would have to share a room with you. Even in the cab to the hotel he kept sneaking glances at you when he thought you weren’t paying attention. But now he looked completely relaxed and you were second guessing yourself. Maybe you’d been projecting. Maybe he hadn’t been anxious at all.

You, on the other hand, felt like you hadn’t been able to exhale since Dom had announced that you’d be sharing a room with Sam’s brothers.

It had dawned on you as soon as you stepped into the hotel room that you’d never be able to let your guard down. Before this point you had at least been able to take breaks, retreat to your hotel room with Sam and be yourselves without worrying that one of his family members was around. You hadn’t needed to keep up the act 24/7, but now you had no other choice. It was only for a week, but you knew it was going to be exhausting. You weren’t even sure that your current performance was believable, and that was without all of the more intimate interactions couples had in private. The good night kisses, the cuddling in bed together, falling asleep in each other's arms, the good morning kisses, all things you’d have to take into consideration. Most couples you knew moved in harmony, like they were one person, half of a whole. You and Sam were more like the hands on a clock. You were always moving in the same direction, and once in a while you’d overlap, but more often than not you were facing each other on completely opposite sides of the clock. It was what made you such good friends. Best friends. But what would make you terrible lovers.

To be fair, a lot of people misunderstood your dynamic, which you had been using to your advantage. They assumed that since you were always together you were basically the same person- and they weren’t necessarily wrong. You and Sam spent a majority of your time together. You knew each other well enough to finish each other’s sentences, to voice aloud what the other was thinking before they even said it.

The vibration of your phone next to you disrupted your train of thought. It was a text from Sam.

Can you come here rq? I need help lol.

Confused, you pushed back the covers and stood up. You dropped your phone back on the bed and walked over to the bathroom, keenly aware of the way Tom stiffened in his bed.

You rolled back the door and found Sam standing in his boxers next to the tub.

“What is it?” you asked, shutting the door behind you.

“How did you figure out the shower? I can’t get the water to be hot.”

“This is what you called me in here for?” you said, exasperation dripping from your voice.

“Yes! I don’t want to take a cold shower.” He said it like it should’ve been obvious.

“Did you try messing with the knobs? That’s how I figured it out.”

Sam’s cheeks turned a faint shade of pink as he pursed his lips, thinking about how to answer.

“Not all of them,” he admitted.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Sorry?”

“It’s the one on the left, dumbass,” you said and twisted the knob for him.

“Thanks,” he mumbled sheepishly. “I just didn’t want to fuck up the shower or anything.”

Men, you thought to yourself shaking your head.

“I’m going to bed,” you told him. “Before your brothers think I’m in here giving you head or something.”

“Let them think what they want,” he said, shrugging it off.

“I want to preserve what little amount of respect they have for me, thanks.”

Sam just chuckled and thanked you again as you let yourself out into the room with the sink. While you were there you hung up your wet towel and brushed your teeth with your finger and the toothpaste the hotel provided. You were too lazy to go get your toothbrush out of your bag.

“That was fast.”

You jumped, hand racing to your heart when you realized it was just Tom. He was still in his bed, but had rolled onto one side so that he could talk to you.

“You scared the shit out of me!” you hissed.

“Sorry.” He didn’t sound very sorry. “What did my brother want?”

God damn it, Sam.

“Why do you ask?”

Tom shrugged. “Just wondering.”

“He needed help figuring out the shower,” you explained.

“Glad he has you for that.”

You narrowed your eyes at the boy in the top bunk. He was trying to get under your skin. Why?

The ball was in your court. You could be the bigger person and let it go, or-

“He has me for a lot of things.” You pushed your tongue against your cheek so that there was a visible outline and brought your fist up to your mouth, moving it back and forth subtly so that he’d get the idea without being too obscene. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?"

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