#not a lockdown fic should probably be doing a lockdown fic today

[kitkatt0430]

Instead of doing a Six Sentence Sunday today, I think I'll do a short tutorial on copying over fanfic from FFnet to Ao3.

So you've got some old fics on FFnet and you'd like to back them up to Ao3, given the instability of FFnet. And for whatever reason you don't have the original files for the fics, or maybe you have edits to the FFnet versions that you don't want to lose that the OG files don't have. Whatever the reason, you're looking to directly copy over your fic from FFnet to Ao3. And you're looking for a relatively easy way to do so, but Ao3's import functionality doesn't work with FFnet web pages.

Never fear! It's actually a fairly easy process to get your fic copied over from FFnet.

First, head over to FFnet and open up the fic you want to port over to Ao3. You don't need to log in if you don't want to, just so long as the fic in question is yours and you can access the page, then you're good.

In a separate tab, open Ao3 and login, then choose the option for posting a new work.

Now back on the FFnet tab, you should be able to directly copy over the title, summary, fandom, and what little tagging was available on that site onto the relevant Ao3 fields in the tab you have for a new fic. You'll also want to take note of the published date on FFnet and back date the new work in the Ao3 tab.

FFnet may not have a lot of useful tag data, but it's pretty easy to replicate and build off that in Ao3.

Now for the hard part. Which is still pretty easy. Getting the fic body, plus any notes in the fic itself, copied over to FFnet.

While getting around FFnet's lockdown on the text of the fics they host is fairly simple - I'm pretty sure it's entirely css based - you don't really need to do that in order to get the body of your fic copied. And, honestly, even if you do have a work around in place to allow copying of the fic's text... you will probably find the following method a lot easier still.

In the body of the fic, right click the first line of the fic, which should bring up a menu with a bunch of options. On Firefox or Chrome you want the inspect option.

This'll bring up the dev tools with the html inspection tab open and, if you give it a few seconds to load, the specific line you right clicked to inspect should become the visibly selected section of the html.

The selected section of the html should be a paragraph (or <p>) element. You're going to want to right click the div (<div>) element that encapsulates that paragraph and the rest of the paragraphs in the fic body. This'll bring up another browser menu with the option to copy, which will bring up a flyout menu when you select it. From that flyout menu, you want the select the option for Inner HTML.

You have officially copied the html for the fic body. And you can dump that entirely in html format straight into Ao3's html work text editor. Then switch it to rich text for easier editing if you want to fix any spelling, grammar, formatting, or aesthetic issues. I typically try to fix at least the line breaks since it took a long while before FFnet adopted real line breaks and so there are a lot of fics where I have various combinations of dashes, em-dashes, equals signs, and other characters as line breaks. I figure, if I'm bringing the fic to Ao3 then I can try to make it more screen reader friendly in the process.

You can also move fic notes around in order to move pre/post fic notes out of the fic body or basically whatever you want to the fic. Maybe re-read it to determine any additional tagging you want to add now that your fic has access to Ao3's much more robust tagging system.

But that's it. You can hit post and have your fic with all it's original notes, and a back dated post date to reflect when it was actually written, all available on Ao3 now.

It's a pretty quick process, all told, and the only real bottleneck you might encounter is any time spent in re-editing the fic between migrating and posting. Even chaptered fics are fairly easy to migrate with this process, since the bulk of the work in publishing a new chapter is just copying the inner html and then moving any notes to the appropriate location before hitting post.

Anyway, for my fellow fic writers looking to move your old FFnet fics to a more stable archive, I hope this process helps a lot.

[crimeboys]

hiiii cyrus :3 ✂ for the ask game?

✂ - share a snippet from your current/most recent WIP!

clingyduo scene from my spiderinnit fic. warning for spiders lul

“Ranboo’s unflappable, Tubbo, wouldn’t let me through worth anything. So I stole Techno’s keycard.”

“Techno’s?!” Tommy grins, shrugging. Bit of charm. Bit of silly swag. “Oh, you’re dead, Tommy, you’re so dead.”

“Is there a way out of here? So I’m not fucking dead?”

“Lockdown, Tommy! Do you know what lockdown means!”

“Sounds like a suggestion to me.” Tubbo makes a loud noise that could be complete and utter frustration but Tommy chooses to interpret as agreement. “Thanks, Tubs, I think so too.”

“You’re an idiot. You’re actually an idiot.”

“Alright! Is there anywhere? Alternate escapes? Scale the building but down?”

“No!” Then, Tubbo perks up. “Wait! Wait, Wilbur said when he was a kid, Phil took him down a weird, cold hallway during a lockdown and they went and got ice cream!”

“Weird hallway, alright,” Tommy mutters, Tommy thinks. “He say what floor?”

“I dunno! It was a while ago.”

“That’s fine, it’s a good clue. It’s probably down then, eh? Bottom floor maybe?”

“Because hot air rises,” Tubbo agrees.

“What? No, ‘cause most secret hallways are on the bottom floor. That’s just science, Tubbo.”

“I am literally a-”

“There’s no time, Tubbo!” Tommy grabs his arm and books it toward the elevator. It’s down. Because of the whole stupid fucking lockdown thing. “Fuck! Where’s the stairs?”

“This way!” Tubbo says, leading him a little further down the hall. They barrel down the steps, hearing distant shouts over the frankly too-long and far, far too-loud alarm, and by the time they reach the basement door Tommy is pleasantly surprised that 1. They did not fall down and die considering Tommy’s uncoordinated attempts at keeping the tarantula in his hoodie pocket and Tubbo’s insistence on doing the stairs two steps at a time 2. The fact that Tommy actually did manage to keep the tarantula in his pocket, thank you very much! and 3. The door was actually unlocked. Amateurs.

They push through the door and nearly fall over each other, but Tommy rights himself on Tubbo and Tubbo rights himself on a wall. Tubbo shoulder-checks him, just enough to push him off, but grabs Tommy’s arm before he can actually fall. Not that Tommy ever would.

“Should be this way,” Tubbo says, letting go of his arm and nodding his head down the creepy fucking hall that almost certainly leads to Hell.

“And this is where Phil took Wilbur to get ice cream?” Tommy asks, rubbing his cold arms. “Are we sure it wasn’t to axe murder him, and then Phil got cold feet? Like, seriously fucking cold feet, oh my God, why’s it so cold?”

“Heat. Rises.”

“Well that’s just silly.”

Let it be known that Tommy Innit is no pussy, because after a quick poke to the spider in his pocket to make sure it’s alive and not freezing its little paws off and a small little in-place jog staring into the abyss that is this fucking basement, he takes a not even slightly tentative step forward.

Then he stops, laughing nervously at Tubbo, “You know where we’re goin’, you should lead the way, yeah?”

“No clue, actually,” Tubbo chirps. He nods his head toward the completely dark Hellscape again again. “I mean, you’re the one who stole the keycard, right? Leading this grand heist?”

“Oh but Tubbo, my friend, you’re the brains of this operation, aren’t you? I’m just the muscle!”

“So you should lead the charge, in case we get attacked. Great idea, Tommy. Maybe you’re the brains and muscle of this operation.” Tubbo nudges him forward. Tommy hates him. He should’ve just graffiti’d Techno’s office and gotten lunch with Wil.

“My wife died today, y’know! She was with child.”

“Then what have you got to live for?”

With a groan, Tommy makes the sacrifice and starts forward. It gets colder the further they go. He keeps his hands in his pocket, partly to keep them warm and partly to make sure Shroud is too. It gets so dark, Tubbo takes his phone out and turns on the flashlight. Neither really actually leads, sticking right next to each other so their shoulders are pretty much glued together. Tommy thinks he sees light, just a bit, at the end of the Hellbound hall.

[thyra279]

Clan colours

Ended up writing this instead of going to bed last night. For day 2 of the Good Omens Celebrations.

Prompts: Contrast (and Cotton)

"…What?" Not-quite-Crowley-Crowley stared at him, mouth agape, an expression which did Aziraphale's poor old corporation absolutely no favours.

"I said, could you give me a twirl?"

"I'm still a bloody demon for a few hours longer, Angel, I'm not gonna twirl. Do me the favour of letting me die with my dignity intact."  

"Crowley." The sharpness of Aziraphale’s admonishment was swallowed by the  concrete walls of Crowley's living room. Their owner sighed.

"I'm kidding Aziraphale, we're gonna be fine. Just a nice little trip up- and downstairs for us, a cosy heart-to-heart with some archangels and the dukes of Hell." Crowley's voice softened at the angel’s disapproval, sounding oddly mild in Aziraphale's throat. "And then we'll be right as rain."

"I know that, dear. I hope you do too. Have a little faith."

"Erh, 's a bit of a touchy subject for me."

"Have faith in Agnes Nutter, then."

Crowley shifted awkwardly in the foreign corporation. The lofty sniff he managed was more his own. "I've met quite a lot of witches in my time and believe me, most of them are not to be trusted. The things they tried to do to us poor devils. Tricky bunch. Verrrry tricky bunch. Quite a few of them were positively debauched, and that's coming from a demon who's terrifically debauched himself, you know." 

Aziraphale managed to disguise his snort as a throaty sneeze.[1] "Ble- gesundheit. Did I ever tell you about that weirdo with the black cat and massive warty nose up in Staffordshire?"

"You did, yes. Several times a century for the last 400 years. I believe you've told most of the northern hemisphere by now."

"She tried to fly on a broomstick, Aziraphale. A broomssssstick."

"Yes, dear." Crowley mimed vaguely at sweeping the floor and shook Aziraphale's head before falling into bewildered contemplation. Aziraphale took the opportunity to hike up the metaphorical bootstraps of Crowley's unruly corporation to circle around Crowley and his own corporation. It was an odd reversal of their ritual, familiar and disconcerting all at once. The reflection in the dark glass windows at the end of the room belied the oddness of the scene, the undercurrent of worry in both of them. And still, there in the window was the comforting lankiness of Crowley, though a little stiffer than normal. And there, his own slightly stuffier corporation.

Aziraphale turned to look at the real version of it. It had been close to thirty years since the last time he'd really looked at himself. He liked his corporation, always had. It was nowhere near as disarmingly lascivious as Crowley's, yet it had its own charm, a warmth and comfort which easily won over humans and, it seemed, at least one otherworldly being too.

It may have very recently undergone some major restorative work, but it looked more or less the same as it had for the last 6000 years. His clothes, however, caught his interest.

"Are you checking me out, Angel?"

"No, dear, I am taking the opportunity to, ah, check out myself."

"Ah. Can't blame ya, good call."

"Oh hush. I'm taking a look at my attire, Crowley."

Aziraphale's garments told a story themselves, reminders of little not-so-chance encounters and long-planned secret evenings together. Which genre the story belonged to he couldn’t bear to contemplate tonight. 

Aziraphale knew Crowley's clothes, even the new ones, could have recited every tailored line had he had the audience.[2] He had never really paid his own clothes the same courtesy, and now, he may not have the chance again.

The demon stood still, let him survey his beloved khaki coat, find the innocent-looking shoulder that Crowley had blown clean only days earlier. The fraying waistcoat that might seem past its expiration date but had at least another decade in it. He hoped it would get it.

The cotton-blend bowtie he'd started wearing just before that evening in the church when…-

It had quickly become his favourite accessory. He'd tried out a cravat during some years in the 1950s and 60s. It had suited him rather well, he'd thought. And yet, he'd kept coming back to the bow tie, to the beloved lines of the tartan and their soft reassurances around his neck. He hadn't gone a day without it since 1967.  

Heaven’s Dress. He'd rather liked the look and feel of his uniform during the Celestial War (it had been the only part of the War he'd been enthusiastic about). The tartan had seemed like a revelation; a rare surprise in those small days before Earth. After an eternity in strictly monotone fabrics - eggshell, vanilla, ivory or sheer white - the audacity of different shades mashing up together in such close proximity had been thrilling. It had made such a big impression on him that he'd seized the opportunity to popularise the pattern when it arose a few millennia later.

He’d got the chance when he developed Edinburgh in the 16th century. Crowley had been too busy working on Glasgow himself to bother Aziraphale much and so, he’d had plenty of free time.

Now, contrary to popular belief, it was Aziraphale who introduced tartan to Scotland, not the other way round. It had been a simple enough thing to slip in, during his town planning meetings, and the Scots had taken to tartan like, well, like chickens to water or whatever it was Crowley had said. His tartan venture had been quite the success for the Principality.[3] So much so he’d decided to have a go at the weaving himself and reproduce the one he’d seen in Heaven an eternity ago.

And he really had gone in fully intending to weave up the beige-on-beige tartan in honour of Heaven. When he’d looked at the result, however, it had seemed just a little off. After a week's contemplation and rather more than just the angel's share of whisky, he'd realised that Heaven's pattern was bland. It was too beige, lacked any form of nuance or depth. What it was lacking, he’d come to realise, was a bit of contrast. 

And so, Aziraphale had played around a little, had added a little darker shading here and there, then wound a gentle red line from left to right across the pattern. Before he knew it, thin twin red-and-nearly-black lines had slithered up from the bottom of the pattern too, wrapping themselves around the softer diagonals, and Aziraphale’s tartan had come together. It was certainly unusual, but to Aziraphale, it had felt just right. He'd named it Heaven's Dress as he’d set out to do. The blessings and protections he'd wound into the fabric had had nothing to do with Heaven, however.

A rather pointed cough roused him from his musings. "Am I witnessing the dawning realisation that tartan’s really terribly unstylish?" Crowley was looking at him, fretting hands tucked into loose linen trousers.

"Not quite." Aziraphale offered up a little smile at the sight of his tartan now guarding Crowley’s neck. The demon looked at him expectantly, but Aziraphale left out his usual retort.

Eventually, Crowley sighed and crossed his arms. "I do have faith, you know."

"You do?"

"Yeah." The demon looked down at himself. "I have faith in you." He picked up his wineglass and staggered over next to Aziraphale to flop down into his throne with as much flair as Aziraphale's corporation could manage. "Tell you what, Angel. If we make it out of there ali- unscathed and get to Berkeley Square as planned, I'll twirl all the way from there to the bloody Ritz for you, how's that?"

"Very well, dear. You know, I think I'll indulge in a slice of their Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte. When we get there. And we will. I have every faith in both of us." Aziraphale straightened the bow tie and gave Crowley's cheek two quick pets. He set off on a practice saunter through Crowley's cavernous apartment to perform a little stylish miracle where it wouldn't be heard, doubling back on the way out of the door. "I'll look forward to your whirligigs."

“...What?!”

[1] To his knowledge, neither he nor Crowley had ever sneezed in the entirety of their existences, but Crowley seemed too preoccupied to notice.

[2] Aziraphale had found receptive audiences on a few occasions. One time in 1979, in a bar with a bunch of UCL students in SoHo, he'd spoken so passionately on the nuances of black in Crowley's wardrobe he'd been rather alarmed to find he'd accidentally started Goth subculture.

[3] Aziraphale had been really very miffed indeed when the English conjured up the Dress Act of 1746 and banned the use of tartan. He'd made sure to block every subsequent attempt by the English to change their national anthem to anything more stirring than the dull monotony of "God Save the Queen". Even he can see the pettiness of this, and yet he keeps at it to this day.

I’m collecting all my Celebration ficlets over on Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24037873/chapters/57837565 

Inspired by this lovely meta post on Aziraphale’s tartan: https://bluebandedagate.tumblr.com/post/187971072711/a-discourse-on-tartan 

[hookingminor]

4 times his friends posted you on their instagram + 1 time he did - mat barzal

a/n: I wrote this literally back in july so lets just ignore how idealistic this is regarding quarantine but im a slut for some barzy this is all fluff

word count: 4,733

summary: like the title says, some friends (with benefits?) to lovers + a tyson cameo, fluffy summer quarantine fic

tagging @davidpastrsnack​ so kate can get on the barzy train

-

1.

To say the whole quarantine thing was an inconvenience was an understatement. School had ended online, your summer internship was cancelled, and it seemed like your summer would turn into an uneventful couple of months stuck in your apartment in, probably, the worst place to be stuck in during a pandemic: New York City.

Or so you thought.

You’d planned on having the most boring summer ever until your friend, Mat, had invited you to hole up away with him and a few friends in a lake house back in Vancouver. Well, friend was a loose term. The two of you were friends… just ones that kissed occasionally… and sometimes more than kissed. You’d met him about a year ago at a bar while he was out with his teammates after a game. A cliche meeting, but you hit it off instantly. Instead of ending up in his bed at the end of the night (which you would eventually end up at after a couple months), it turned into an exchange of numbers and an invitation to hang out later in the week.

You hadn’t thought anything of it at first, just thinking he was being friendly and wanting to end the conversation, so you were surprised to get a text the next day from an unknown number asking if you’d wanted to go on a bike ride.

Flashforward a year later and the two of you still went on bike rides together. At least, up until the pandemic started.

When the text came telling you to pack your bags for a month or so, you thought he was joking. Surely he couldn’t have meant you to join him in Vancouver over the summer? You were proven wrong when he showed up at your apartment the next day, two coffees in his hand.

“Uh, hi, Mathew,” you said hesitantly, opening your door to reveal your disheveled state, having just woken up.

“Why are you dressed like that? We have a plane to catch in four hours,” he said, pushing himself through your door, uninvited, to set the coffees on the counter.

“What are you doing here? What plane? You’re not supposed to be going out,” you reprimanded him for showing up unannounced and in the middle of quarantine.

“I told you we’re going to Vancouver, I know you read my text. Now let’s hurry up and pack, we gotta get going,” Mat rushed, already on the way to your bedroom.

You followed him after a brief moment once you’d processed what was going on. Mat had already pulled out your suitcase and set it on top of your bed by the time you entered the door. He was in the middle of rifling through your drawers and grabbing random garments to throw into the suitcase when you’d spoken again.

“You’re actually serious about this?”

“Of course I am. What better things do you have to do in a city on lockdown for an entire summer? Honestly, I’m doing you a favor,” he explained easily, turning back to grab more items.

“Oh, you’re doing me a favor? Thank you, Mat, for saving me from a summer of suffering. It’s not like I had other plans to find different internships or focus on my summer classes,” you replied sarcastically.

Mat rolled his eyes. “I am doing you a favor, and you’re doing me a favor by going. I need a hot piece of ass to get me through this, or I will lose my mind.” You slugged him on the shoulder in offense, but all he did was chuckle.

“And anyways, you can still do your classes in Vancouver. Instead of doing them locked in this apartment, you can do them lounged out under the Canadian sun. Preferably in a bikini,” he finished. You slugged his arm again, harder this time.

“In fact, you should take the red bikini, it makes your tits look amazing,” he said, noticing you shuffling through your swimsuits. You rolled your eyes at him but grabbed the red one anyway along with a couple others.

With both of you folding and packing, your bags were ready to go in record time.

“Alright, baby, let’s go.” And so you were off.

A week had gone by in total bliss. As much as you hated to admit it, Mat was right. Vacationing in Vancouver in a secluded lake house was a lot better than being alone in your apartment, even if you did still have classes to do. Mat teased you about it, but he always left you alone for a few hours in the day for you to focus on your work. Unless he really wanted something… like right now.

Mat had joined you laying on the couch while you were in the middle of annotating a book for class. He wiggled his way between your arms, causing you to break your hold on your book. He rested his head on your chest, arms wrapped around your middle, and nuzzled his face into your neck. Joining your hands back to your book and bringing your highlighter to the page, you continued to underline phrases you’d come back to later. A couple minutes passed in silence before Mat started sighing. And then he sighed again.

“What do you want?” you huffed out, closing your book with the pen marking your page.

“Let’s go swimming,” he said, pushing up to his elbows to look at your face.

“I have to finish, like, three more chapters today,” you explained.

“You can do that later. I want to go swimming now,” Mat whined.

“You know you sound like a petulant child right now, right?” you asked, moving a hand to his head, pushing his hair back as he pouted.

“Stop using big words on me. Let’s swim,” he said, rolling his eyes.

You paused to think about it for a moment, “Hmm… okay, I guess,” you said with a smile. Mat returned your smile with one of his own before hopping up to drag you to your room to change. It didn’t take much to convince you to swim. It was a really nice day out, and you didn’t really care to finish reading about 17th century philosophy.

You changed into your red bikini, Mat swapped his shorts for a pair of swim trunks, and threw on a backwards baseball cap. You went out back to join the rest of his friend group, who were in the process of loading up the boat with supplies and equipment.

“Oh, look, if it isn’t Brainiac and the Beast. Are you two finally going to go boating with us?” Tyson shouted from the dock. You rolled your eyes at his nickname they created for you and Mat. It had only been a week in Vancouver, but the chirps about you and school were tired by now.

“Princess here wants to swim in the pool, maybe next time!” you shouted back, pointing to Mat.

They laughed at your response, turning their attention back to the boat and running supplies to and from the house. You turned your attention back to Mat, who was taking off his hat and was about two seconds away from jumping in the pool.

“Mathew, stop!” you yelled out, “Get your ass over here!”

“What is it?” he asked, stopping just short of the deep end. He grumbled before marching over to you.

“You need to put sunscreen on first, dumbass,” you reprimanded. As you turned your back to grab the bottle of sunscreen, he rolled his eyes.

“Don’t roll your eyes at me, Mat,” you said sharply, turning back to face him with a raised eyebrow.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, baby.”

You ignored him, opening the cap and squeezing lotion onto your hands. You gestured him to turn around, and you spread the lotion over it, making sure to rub it into his shoulders.

“I don’t see why I have to put sunscreen on. It’s not even that hot outside,” he muttered.

“First of all, you’re a dumbass. Second of all, heat doesn’t automatically mean the UV rays aren’t strong. And lastly, you’re white, baby, you’ll burn like a sun-dried tomato and being in water only increases the amount of sun you’re exposed to,” you explained, reaching up to rub some on his face.

“Sorry, Miss Meteorologist,” he grumbled, clearly not happy he’d lost this argument.

“One of us has to have brains. We can’t all get by on our good looks and skating ability,” you replied, slapping his cheeks when you were done for good measure.

“Okay, well, if you’re finally done,” you nodded in confirmation, “Let’s go.” He picked you up from under your thighs and ran at full speed towards the pool before you could even process what was happening. You screamed his name in protest begging him to put you down, claiming you hadn’t had time to put on sunscreen yet. He ignored you as he jumped into the deep end, dragging you with him.

You emerged from the water clinging to Mat’s wet body, your hair sopping and hanging over your face like you had come straight out of the movie The Grudge. Mat was laughing at your chaotic look, knowing you were well pissed at him. You jumped higher in the water on top of him to dunk his head under and tried your best to drown him.

It wasn’t until you were relaxing on the couch later that night doing your routinely social media scroll that you saw one of the guys recorded your sunscreen interaction by the pool, you calling Mat a dumbass, and him throwing you in the pool onto their instagram story with a caption “all these two do is fight” with some laughing crying emojis added for effect.

2.

After a long day or hiking, you’d immediately crashed on the couch once you’d gotten back to the house, not bothering to walk all the way to your room. It was only early in the afternoon but you’d been out since sunrise, and dealing with people for hours on end had drained you. The group laughed at you as you plopped your body down onto the couch, curling your head under your arm instead of grabbing the pillow two feet away from you. The rest of them gathered in the kitchen, refueling their bodies with assorted snacks as they started popping open bottles of beer, ready to start the night. It seemed that even an entire day on their feet had not emptied them of their, seemingly endless, energy.

“Jesus Christ, we hiked for, like, six hours and you’re all still bouncing off the walls,” you sighed deeply.

“We’re about to go hit the boat and go water skiing, too. I’m assuming you’re too tired to join us?” Tyson teased.

��I will not be joining you because unlike some people, I need a nap. Now get out of here, you’re all giving me a headache,” you said, pinching your fingers on the bridge of your nose to emphasize your point.

They all snickered but kept quiet as they shuffled around, packing up more food to take outside. You heard the sliding door shut and close a few times as they ran in and out before it was finally silent. You let out a sigh of relief as you took solace in the calm quiet.

That was until you felt a pair of arms shifting you closer to the edge of the couch. You peeked one eye open to see Mat rolling your body over to give him some space as he climbed over your body to nestle himself between you and the back cushions.

“Not going out on the boat?” You asked as he tucked a pillow under the both of your heads and pulled a blanket over your bodies.

“No. They’re exhausting. I need some time for myself,” Mat replied, wrapping his arm around your middle to pull you into his chest.

“No offense, but if you’re with me, you’re not by yourself,” you explained, closing your eyes again as you settled into a comfortable position.

“Yeah, but you’re you. You don’t exhaust me,” he said quietly. You didn’t know what to say to that, so you didn’t answer. Within a few seconds you heard Mat’s breathing even out, and you followed quickly behind him into a deep sleep.

-

A couple hours passed in a dreamless sleep when you heard the sliding of doors and laughter travel through the house. It stirred you from your sleep and you both shifted around, letting out displeased groans.

“Are they both still asleep?” You heard one of them ask from the kitchen. Neither of you wanted to answer in hopes they would leave you two to continue sleeping.

You were sadly mistaken.

“Hey! Sleeping beauties! Time to get up!” Tyson shouted from somewhere above you.

You both groaned out a “Fuck off, Tyson,” without opening your eyes, both of you giving him the middle finger. Tyson laughed to himself and you expected him to keep bothering you, but you heard his footsteps lead away from the couch. You turned over on your other side, tucking your face into Mat’s neck before falling back asleep.

-

When you woke up later that evening, you checked instagram again to see Tyson posted a new story. It was the video of him bothering you two and flipping him off with a caption that said “I get no respect around here :(“

3.

It had been raining all day. Which meant everyone was stuck inside watching movies and eating pizza. It didn’t take long for you to get bored of lounging on the couch, especially when all they wanted to do was watch Fast and Furious movies. You sat on the loveseat you were sharing with Mat, and you distracted yourself from the boring movie by tangling your hands in your hair, French braiding the strands into pigtails mindlessly. You unbraided and rebraided your hair into a fishtail after the pigtails, and then into a regular braided ponytail after that. You let yourself get caught up in daydreams as you stared blankly at the TV when Mat started tugging on your leg. Dropping your braid, you finished tying it off with a hair tie and turned to look at him.

“Let me practice on you,” Mat said quietly.

“Practice what?” You asked.

“Braiding,” he said, shuffling to sit upright. He tried to gently push you off the couch until you got the hint and moved to sit between his legs on the floor.

“You think you can do it?” You asked, ready to offer him a demonstration.

“I’ve been watching you for the past half hour, I got this,” he replied, pulling out your hair tie. You rolled your eyes at his confidence, but let him continue unraveling the strands.

Every few minutes Mat would sigh exasperatedly before pulling out the twists he’d made to start over. Eventually, he’d almost gotten all the way to the end of your hair before he sighed again, clearly fed up by how long this was taking him. You didn’t say anything as he restarted for a third time, going for a straight back braid instead of a French braid.

After another ten minutes, Mat had finally completed his simple braid, tying your hair off with the tie. He tapped your shoulder to indicate he was done, and you pulled the long tail over your shoulder to look at it.

It was a braid.

An extremely loose one where he mixed up the strand order in a couple places, but a braid nonetheless. You turned around to get back up on the couch, and you were met with his triumphant smile.

“Good job, bud,” you complimented, leaving the braid in as you resumed your previous position on the couch.

-

You checked your phone to find a notification of a new story tag. You opened the app to see a picture of you on the floor, staring at the TV while Mat had his hands twisted in your hair and a confused look on his face and tongue poking out of his mouth. Next to your instagram tag was “he’s been knotting her hair on purpose for 20 minutes now”

4.

Your final exams for the summer classes you were taking were in a week. Finals stressed you out more than anything else in the world, and when you were stressed, you did a lot of baking. A lot of baking. After finishing your finals study schedule and nearly breaking down almost twice because of the amount you had to get done, you decided to start baking instead of going to sleep. So, at 3 in the morning when everyone was asleep, you’d  turned on the oven and brought out the bowls.

It began with a few dozen cookies. You figured everyone could at least enjoy the cookies. Who didn’t like cookies?

Cookies turned into muffins, muffins into cupcakes, and then cupcakes into pies. By the time everyone was waking up, it was nearly eleven in the morning. You’d gone to the store twice and had taken a few twenty minute naps while you waited for your desserts baked in the oven. And right now, you were in the middle of finishing off some cinnamon rolls for breakfast

“Oh my god, what the hell happened here?” Mat had asked with a scared expression, taking note of the disastrous kitchen. You didn’t answer him as you were topping off the rolls with some icing.

A few more bodies had gathered in the kitchen and began to fill the seats at the countertop while they watched you with worried eyes.

“What?” You asked innocently, placing the plates of cinnamon rolls in front of all of them. Their eyes followed you carefully as you pulled more goods out of the oven where you were keeping them warm. Plate after plate you set on the counter, all the cookies and muffins and cakes.

“How long have you been up?” Tyson asked cautiously. You swear you’ve never heard him use a softer voice than right now.

“I’m not sure. I never went to sleep, I guess? What time is it now?” You asked, pulling out glasses for orange juice.

“Nearly noon. You seriously didn’t sleep?” Tyson asked. The others had delved into the confections, eyes bouncing between the two of you as they stuffed their faces.

“She’s stress baking,” Mat replied quietly, helping himself to a cinnamon roll.

“What the hell is tress baking?” One of the other guys asked.

“Yeah she does this when she’s stressed. Usually when finals are coming up,” Mat said, directing it more towards you than his friend. You gave him a sheepish look, deciding not to comment since he already answered for you.

Mat was used to your stress baking as it resulted in you showing up at his place in the middle of the night with bags full of pastries in the late hours of the evening. It was always against his diet and he frequently gave most of your desserts to his neighbor, but he could never tell you no when you arrived with gifts.

“Well, I’m all out of flour, so, I’m going to run to the store again to get some more supplies so I can make a chocolate cake later,” you said hurriedly.

You did a quick double check of the kitchen, flashing all the guys a bright smile before heading out the door with your purse in hand, all of them staring until the front door shut behind you.

-

When you came back, you found Mat in the kitchen doing the dishes and nearly all the sweets you’d baked earlier were eaten or wrapped and put away. Maybe there was a plus side to being in a home with five other people.

“Mat, you don’t have to do that,” you said, setting your groceries down and hip checking him away from the sink.

“You’re already stressed, I figured doing the dishes would take away some of that,” he said with a shrug. He continued rinsing out some bowls as you gave him a small smile.

The two of you continued to wash the dishes in silence, moving to clean the countertops when you were done. After half an hour, the mess you’d made was gone and any signs of a baking breakdown had been erased.

It was a shame you were about to tear up the kitchen all over again.

“How about this,” Mat said, noticing the frown on your face at the thought of making another mess, “Let’s have a competition.”

You quirked your eyebrow, “I’m listening.”

“You said you were making a chocolate cake, right? How about we see who can make the better cake,” Mat propositioned.

You raised both your eyebrows this time. You both knew you were the better baker by a long shot. You did have this same breakdown at least twice a year. You weren’t even sure Mat knew how to make anything that didn’t come with box instructions or included possible salmonella-inducing ingredients.

You knew what he was really trying to do. He was trying to distract you from all the stress, and he knew you couldn’t turn down a competition. You were just as bad as him when it came to winning. Thankfully, this was something you knew you’d win.

“Fine, but I hope you’re prepared to lose,” you agreed with a smile.

“I don’t know, I have been practicing my cooking skills lately,” he said, grabbing the bowls he’d just dried off.

“Yeah, I’ll believe that when I see it,” you replied with an eye roll and heavy sarcasm.

You joined him in gathering all the ingredients and materials on the counter, setting up your respective stations. Mat divided the workspace in half, drawing a line in flour which made you laugh. You split the bowls between the sides and set up the ingredients on the second counter just like an actual cooking show.

“Okay, ground rules first. Half an hour to make the cakes, we bake them at the same time, and then another half hour for decorating at the end,” you explained, tying your hair back in a ponytail. Mat nodded at your statement and set a timer on his phone for 30 minutes.

“Ready.”

“Set.”

“Go!”

-

After about two hours, your creations were done. Well, they were supposed to be. Mat’s cake looked more or less like a brown lump coated in frosting and stripes. You’d tried your best to decorate yours with small chocolate roses, but you could’ve turned out a plain cake and probably would have done better.

“I think I won,” you stated confidently.

“You’re not allowed to decide, you’re biased! I’ll make a poll on my story,” Mat said, going to grab his phone.

“You can’t do that, your followers are going to pick yours.”

“Fine, we’ll get someone else to do it— Josty! Come here,” Mat called to his friend passing through the kitchen. He hesitantly walked over to where you were, not wanting to come in the middle of whatever you two were shouting about.

“We need you to make an instagram poll to see who’s cake looks better. Oh, and you’re going to taste test them,” you said, picking up your cake to pose for a picture as Mat did the same. Tyson sighed before realizing you two were serious and he opened his app to take a picture.

He added the photo to his story with a poll asking “Which one is better?” With two options, Y/N’s or Mat’s.

After you set the cakes back down, Tyson picked up a fork before stabbing them to pick out a chunk from each. He ate yours first, nearly moaning at the taste.

“Holy shit, this is, like, the best cake I’ve ever eaten,” Tyson said, shoveling down another forkful. You gave Mat a shit-eating grin.

“Okay, okay, try mine now,” Mat said, displeased. Tyson rolled his eyes before forking out some of his.

“Uh,” he coughed, “it’s a little,” cough, “dry.”

“What? No, it’s not! Let me try,” Mat shouted, outraged, and grabbed Tyson’s fork to try for himself.

It took him two seconds before he was spitting the cake into a napkin.

“Fine. You win,” Mat conceded, throwing a dish towel against the counter in mock fury.

You gloated for another 5 minutes, pointing out Mat’s terrible baking skills as Tyson continued to eat your cake and laugh at Mat.

You won the instagram poll too.

+ 1

It was the last week before you and Mat were flying back to New York. The past month had passed quickly, and Mat needed to get back for the start of training camps. As the summer began to end, the whole crew thought they’d spend one last day on the boat before everyone started parting ways.

It’s not like you were opposed to being on boats, but when all the guys did was water sports and no one wanted to slow down to teach you, it wasn’t as fun.

Today, however, had been quite calm as you sat against the front of the boat, a seltzer in hand as you watched Tyson wakeboarding in the back. Mat was curled up behind you as you leaned back against his chest, tanned skin shining in the summer sun. You reached back to grab the baseball cap off his head, placing it on yours to shield your eyes from the sun. You’d forgotten to bring sunglasses, and you figured Mat could part with his hat since he had a pair.

The day passed peacefully as all the guys took turns until it was sunset. Mat had joined you back on the seat, skin wet from just getting out of the water. He wrapped you in his arms before pulling you onto his lap, pressing a quick kiss to your cheek.

“Hey, Tys, take a picture of us real quick,” Mat said, shoving his phone into Tyson’s chest.

You thought nothing of it, you and Mat had taken many pictures together, and this was no different. Mat rested his chin on your shoulder, his arms wrapped around your stomach as you both gave your cheesiest smiles to the camera. A quick shutter indicated the picture was taken and Tyson gave Mat his phone back.

-

Mat called your name from your bed as you stood in the adjoined bathroom, finishing your nightly routine.

“Hey, do you mind if I post that picture of us on my instagram?” Mat called out.

“The one from the boat? Why?” You asked, drying off your face with a towel.

“It’s a cute picture,” he shrugged when you reentered the room.

“People are going to start talking if you do,” you warned with a cautious tone.

He paused for a second.

“Would that be such a bad thing?” Mat asked quietly, looking up to meet your eyes.

You stayed silent as you climbed in under the covers.

“What are you trying to say, Mat?”

He took a deep breath, “I think you’re amazing, you know that. And we’ve been friends for so long, it kind of feels natural, doesn’t it?” His fingers began tapping against the sheets anxiously as he held his breath and waited for your response.

You gave him a small smile, moving your body around to fully face him.

“It does,” you agreed, “But if you want us to be something more, you’re going to have to ask me on a date first.”

“A date? After I’ve already gotten you into bed? What’s the point?” You knew he meant it as a joke since he could barely finish the sentence without laughing, but you gently slapped his head as he began to apologize.

“I’m kidding!” He said between chuckles, “Will you go on a date with me once we get back to New York and it’s safe to go out again?”

“I’d love to, Mat,” you replied, leaning in to give him a sweet kiss.

“I’m still going to post that photo tomorrow, though,” he said after a short pause, smiling against your lips.

-

The next day when Mat had gone on a fishing trip with the guys, you saw a notification pop up on your phone.

“@barzal97 tagged you in a photo”

You unlocked your phone.

“Isolation isn’t so bad when you have this girl to spend it with”

[amberofembers]

International Herzog Week

A/N: hello! i hope you enjoy this dumb little fic about andrew and his herzog nonsense. 2.6k of fluff, if you’re into that :)

ao3

—

It was the third week of lockdown, or maybe even the fourth – it was hard to keep track of anything related to time nowadays. The days were becoming less discernible and everything seemed to still. The birds still chirped at daybreak but there was a certain quiet that filled the air.

It wasn't all that different from the previous few months and by this time, you had fallen into a comfortable routine at home. The gradual crescendo of your alarm pulled you from the depths of sleep. Unlike most mornings, the sound wasn't jarring but felt more like a gentle tap on the shoulder signaling the start of the day. As you stretched your legs, the duvet crinkled along with your movement and a quiet grumble was heard on your left. Blinking in the sunlight, you turned to face Andrew, whose brows were set in a slight frown as he stirred awake.

"Morning, you," you said softly, your voice raspy from sleep.

No reply was heard from him, but the corners of his mouth turned up slightly as he placed his hand over yours underneath the duvet.

You had gone to bed without him last night, knowing his tendencies to stay up late. He had no fixed schedule to follow and, unsurprisingly, his sleep schedule was completely messed up. Seeing him awake before lunch would be a rare occurrence.

"What time did you go to bed last night?" you asked as you peeled yourself away from the warmth that you both had created under the duvet.

"Four"

"Oh god, your lifespan is steadily decreasing," you chuckled as you draped your legs over the side of the bed.

You padded over to his side of the bed, giving him a peck on the forehead. “You can go back to sleep, I gotta start work soon,” you said gently. He reached out to grasp the hand that hung loosely by your side and his eyes opened to a sliver, just enough to catch a glimpse of your face.

"Morning, love," he said, voice only slightly above a whisper.

"Yeah, morning," you let out a quiet laugh, "go back to sleep,"

“Stay here,” he whined, tugging your hand.

“You know I’d love to,” you huffed, “you’re just rubbing it in now”

You shook his hand off yours in mock anger, letting his hand fall from your grip down to the side of the bed. “Babe…” he pouted. You picked his hand up, giving it a soft kiss before placing it on his chest, “Work awaits, my love.”

As you headed towards the bathroom to freshen up for the day, you peered back into the bedroom. Andrew had rolled himself up in the duvet on your side of the bed, his feet sticking out slightly. Your heart skipped a beat upon seeing his hair messily splayed over his face and the pillow - How lucky you were to be waking up to this every morning.

—

You chose to set up your workstation on the large wooden table in the dining room. There was a study in the house, but the gentle morning light that entered through the big glass windows of the dining room gave it a warmth that was irresistible. Preoccupied with replying and sending out emails and with a few zoom meetings here and there, the morning passed quickly. The initially steaming mug of coffee you placed beside your laptop had gone cold, you realized as you absentmindedly took a sip from it.

“Morning... again” You heard Andrew call out.

You looked up from your laptop, then back at the time displayed at the corner of the screen – 1pm. “Good afternoon to you too,” you said, shaking your head.

His hair was tied loosely in a bun and his glasses were set slightly crooked on his face. He wore a grey sweater that barely covered his torso and a sleepy smile.

“Time doesn't mean anything anymore,” He yawned as he strolled over to where you sat, threading his hand through your hair. You paused your typing, glancing up at him smiling, “imagine if my camera was on.”

His eyes widened comically as he jerked out of frame, “Jesus, that would be awkward,”

You chuckled under your breath, gesturing towards the kitchen “There are some blueberries left, can you finish them before they go bad?”

He nodded in accordance and headed to the kitchen to fix up some food. With the weather deep in autumnal bliss, it was probably going to be another round of oatmeal.

Some clinking of spoons on bowls and kettle boiling sounds later, Andrew emerged from the kitchen, a bowl of oatmeal held in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.

He placed them carefully on the table, plopping down opposite you. You reached over the table to pull the saucer below his cup over, taking a sip of the warm coffee. The bitter liquid felt rough on your tongue as it flowed down the back of your throat. Your nose scrunched up involuntarily.

“That’s what you get for stealing my coffee,” Andrew teased.

“I’ll never understand the voluntary torture of black coffee,” you grumbled, “at least it was warm.”

Andrew pulled the saucer back to his side of the table. A comfortable silence blanketed the dining room. The clicking of your keyboard and the sounds of his spoon hitting the bowl padded the silence while the muted rustling of dried leaves could be heard through the windows.

“Is there such thing as insanity among penguins…” A voice broke the silence.

You sat upright with confusion, looking over your computer screen at Andrew. He was staring intently at his phone, his brows furrowed with concentration.

The voice that came from his phone went on about insane penguins and something about their certain death. As you listened, you stifled in some laughter. What was this video about? Andrew, on the other hand, seemed a little too invested. You watched in amusement as he replayed certain parts of the video.

“Bit morbid for a Monday morning,” you pointed out.

“It’s Herzog,” he said conclusively as he looked up from his phone

“Her who?”

“Herzog, he’s a German filmmaker.”

“Ah…” you nodded. You still had no idea who Herzog was.

“Look,” he thrusted his phone in your direction, leaving you to look at a lone penguin waddling away into the mountains.

“And here, he is heading off into the interior of the vast continent. With 5000 kilometers ahead of him, he’s heading towards certain death,” the narrator of the video concluded.

“Poor guy,” you said as you looked up at Andrew bemusedly.

“Poor lad indeed.” He sighed.

“Why are you watching a video about deranged penguins?” You chuckled.

“I dunno,” he shrugged, “It popped up on youtube.”

“So this is why you sleep at 4 in the morning, huh…”

“No! I was watching American news and ehm… ” He trailed off, his eyes looking upwards in search for words , “...Working.”

“He was a good looking man, that Herzog,” He said as he turned his phone to you, showing you an old black and white photo of a mustached man. You gave him a murmur of assent.

“Thot… Hah!” he huffed a laugh. You stared at him quizzically.

He tried to stamp down his laugh, considering the calm of the afternoon but he was too pleased with his joke. “That… Herzog…. Over…” He struggled out between fits of laughter, “...There”

“Fuck, that was bad,” You offered him smile, “commendable attempt, though”

“No?” He tilted his head forward, looking the slightest bit affronted, “It’s so bad that it’s good, though...”

You shook your head. Andrew frequently made jokes that were questionable at best, and you’d give him shit for it usually, but the smile that was plastered across his face as he thought about his dumb joke was so endlessly warm that any snide remark you had disappeared immediately. His smile had a warmth that filled the room, one that danced over your skin and surrounded you in a tight embrace. You looked at him fondly as he struggled to maintain his composure.

“Oh my god, should I post it?” He said, his voice dripping in childlike glee.  

“No!” you exclaimed, “I swear to god, don't do it Andrew”

He raised an eyebrow almost like he was challenging you. “I’m gonna post it”, he grinned. He tapped away on his phone, smiling to himself.

—

Andrew had finished his breakfast - or lunch - and went to the kitchen to wash the dishes. He’d taken your empty cup as well, a sweet gesture you took a mental note of - remember to do something nice for Andrew sometime today.

As he left the table, you took the chance to check your phone. Scrolling through Instagram, you saw that he had posted a story.

“Jesus christ, Andrew...” you mumbled to yourself, maybe slightly too loudly because you heard him call out from the kitchen.

“It’s good, isn't it?”

“You posted the THOT thing and 20 million videos about the penguins?”

“Yeah, it’s so cool!” He protested, popping his head out of the kitchen door, “and the joy of discovering insane penguins deserves to be shared!”

“Mmm… Morning affirmations with Herzog,” you said, fluttering your fingers.

His eyes widened in revelation, “That’s fucking gold. Hold on, I’ve gotta post that too.” He grabbed the hand towel as he dried his hands briskly.

“Oh no, what have I done...”

“You being a genius is what you’ve done” he looked at you endearingly as he snatched up his phone from the table, “Can I steal the morning affirmations line?”

“Go ahead,” you said, “it’s not that funny though.”

“It’s brilliant,” he beamed, bending down to place a quick kiss on the top of your head. “Think I’m gonna be in the studio today, good luck with work, yeah?”

—

As the day went on, you busied yourself with more work. You would be lying if you said that you stopped to stretch periodically. It was more like forgetting that your body existed for an entire hour while typing in a hunched position until realizing that, wow, your neck ached. You looked at the time - 5pm. As you rubbed your smarting eyes, you decided it was time for a break.

You noticed that Andrew hadn't emerged from the studio yet. He could spend hours on end in that room, either working on lyrics or fiddling with his guitars or humming along to the piano. The studio was one of your favorite places in the house, because it felt so much like him. Notebooks scribbled with odds and ends of ideas strewn on the floor, the thermostat always set a bit warmer than the rest of the house, the sound of music and occasionally his voice filling the room as he tinkered around with ideas.

From time to time, the room would be livelier with musician friends coming over to work on material. You'd stay out of the studio when it got too crowded. Lately, since it’s been just the two of you, the studio started to feel like the most intimate place in the house.

Remember to do something nice for Andrew sometime today, the thought popped back into your mind.

Doting on each other wasn't a typical thing you two would do, it was more small gestures that showed you cared about each other. Those tiny gestures of affection were usually pleasant surprises and received with much tenderness. On one particularly bad work day, you remember how he wrote you a sweet letter and hid it underneath your pillow for you to find it the next morning. When you found the letter and thanked him for it, he blushed a deep red and hid his face behind a curtain of his hair, smiling sheepishly. Thank god, I thought you were going to find that too cheesy, you remember him saying.

Since today was a studio day, you figured he could do with a warm cup of tea. Pulling the sleeves of your sweater down to your palm, you gave your limbs a much-needed stretch and shuffled to the kitchen to make some tea for the both of you.

Precariously balancing two steaming mugs in both your hands, you carefully walked to the studio, trying not to scald yourself with hot tea.

The door to the studio was ajar and through the gap you could hear the faint strumming of a guitar float through the hallway leading to it.

“Can I come in?”

The guitar strums stopped as Andrew chirped, “Yeah, come in! I missed you.”

“I’m only 3 doors down, love,” you said as you pushed the door open with your foot.

“Yeah, but it’s too cold…” His eyes travelled to where you stood in the doorway.

“Tea?” The excitement was apparent in his voice.

You handed one mug to him, nodding, “careful, it’s hot.”

You headed to the small couch tucked into the corner of the studio and set your mug on the table next to it. A wool blanket was draped haphazardly over the couch so you balled it up, using it as a pillow of sorts. He placed his guitar on a rack nearby and stalked over to where you sat, tea mug held tightly in his hands. You shuffled to one side of the couch to give him some space but it still seemed like the couch was far too small for the both of you.

As he sat down, he leaned over and gave your shoulder a gentle kiss, muttering quietly into your hair, “Thank you for the tea, love. Sorry I didn't come out much, I’ve just been trying to hammer out this idea that’s been swimming in my head for far too long.”

“It’s okay,” you said reassuringly. Your hand reached out to his face that was placed near your shoulder, stroking his jaw with slow, hypnotic movements. He hummed softly, leaning into your touch.

“What was the idea about?”

“Herzog,” he stated plainly.

“I hate you, Andrew, I really do,” you said incredulously.

“You don't,” he grinned, “but anyway, it was just a riff that begged to be completed. I don't have lyrics yet.”

“About the Herzog thing, though…” He began, “People aren't getting it.” He seemed equal parts disappointed and humored.

“Of course they aren't!” You let out an amused laugh, “I think you should clear it up. Instagram really isn't fit for weird shit, maybe keep that to twitter.”

“I’m off twitter, though.”

“Suck it up, big man,” you teased.

“Okay fine, I’ll tweet about it,” he sulked, reluctantly unlocking his phone, “What do I even say?”

“Happy international Herzog week, folks!” you joked.

“You are too good at this,” he turned his head to stare at you in awe.

“My god, please don't tell me you're using that too…” He stayed silent, reacting only with a sly smile.

“You’ll have to start crediting me for all those punchlines...” you hesitated, “actually, no, don't. They're not that good, it’s better if people think it’s you.”

He chuckled and gave your side a small shove, “I think it’s hilarious.”

“Can you italicize stuff on twitter?” He asked.

“No… Oh wow you’re going all out, huh?”

“Only the best for your joke,” he said, giving you a playful wink.

You pulled yourself closer to him and draped your legs over his, his sweatpants folding underneath yours. The warmth of your bodies meeting gave you an immeasurable sense of comfort and security. One of his hands rested on your thigh while the other was used to type his very complex tweet. As his eyes stayed fixed on his phone, his index finger absentmindedly drew circles on the fabric of your sweatpants. Melting into his gentle touch, you closed your eyes, making a mental note to maybe move your workstation to the studio instead.

[amysteryspot]

All I want for Christmas is you - Thomas Shelby x Fem!Reader

Request: hiii! can you do modern! tommy and reader spending christmas? thank you!!❤️

Requested by: Anonymous

Fandom: Peaky Blinders

Pairing: Thomas Shelby x Female Reader

Summary: (Y/N) is staying with Tommy during the lockdown and, inevitably, the holidays, but he has plans to make her stay last a little longer.

Warnings: Swearing, Modern!AU and more fluff than what you're all used considering my history with angst.

Word Count: 904

A/N: I know, I know, in theory “Highway to Hell” was supposed to be the last Christmas related fic, but @caelys​ made my heart grow three sizes today, and I’ve received a request for Modern!Tommy, and I miss writing Modern!Tommy, so here we are. I’m sorry if it sounds too OOC, but I was just going with the flow.

Also, I saw that both @blinder-secrets​ and @pollyrepents​ were feeling a little down, so I’m going to dedicate it to them and anyone who is feeling a little low today in hopes that some Tommy fluff can get you all a little better.

Feedback is more than appreciated, especially during the holidays.

(Y/N) = Your Name | (Y/L/N) = Your Last Name

English is not my first language and this wasn’t proofread by a beta. If you want to be tagged in my stories, just send me a message.

“Stop complaining and help me put this up,” she said, making Tommy huff.

“I don't know why you're so keen on it,” he complains but gets up to help her settle things on the table, reserving a space for the tablet so they would be able to do the videoconference with the rest of their families.

They wouldn’t be able to visit their relatives because of the lockdown. They weren’t even supposed to be locked up together, it just sort of happened. (Y/N) had been passing more time at his flat than her own, when the new lockdown was announced, Tommy said that it was easier if both of them were in one place together. She said nothing but counted the unusual request as a small victory.

“I just like to have everyone together, Tom. We didn’t have much of that when I was growing up.”

Tommy looked up at her, probably recognizing the hint of pain on her voice, and was quick to walk to her, sneaking his arms around her waist from behind and placing soft kisses on her neck and shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs after a while.

“Don't be,” she answers, smiling.

Her family was... Complicated. She grew up almost without contact with her uncles and aunts, or her grandparents. It was only her brother, their parents, and her.

When she and Tommy started dating the prospect of being near them all gathered together excited her to no end, much to his dismay. Most of the time all he wanted was some time away from his family, even though he loved them dearly and made everything in his power to give them a better life.

“Christmas just lost a lot of sense for me after my mom died,” he confesses, in a low tone as if there were more people in the room and he only wanted her to hear it.

“Do you want to talk about it?” (Y/N) asks, turning around in his embrace and pecking his lips quickly, cradling his face between her hands.

Tommy leans in, kissing her more deeply, swaying with her from side to side for a moment, and then pressing their foreheads together.

“No, I just want you,” he said, bringing her in for another kiss, his hands wandering down her body.

“Tommy,” she warns weekly as his lips trail down her neck, and then before (Y/N) can say anything, the song of a videocall being received rings in the room.

They both look at the tablet to see who it is and Tommy groans, cursing.

“Fuck, why it’s always John?”

Laughing, (Y/N) pulls away from him and goes to answer the call, murmuring a ‘behave’ for him before answering the request.

Despite his complaints, Tommy did enjoy himself during supper. Their families were such a wild contrast: the Shelby’s were all loud and outgoing, the (Y/L/N)’s, calm and collected. (Y/N) always questioned herself why the both of them ended up together.

After midnight, when everyone disconnected and (Y/N) was putting the last things into place, having already changed into her sleeping clothes, she walked into the living room to find Tommy laying on the couch. The only source of light in the room being the Christmas lights and the light from the streets that seeped into the room through the thin curtains.

“Common, let’s go to bed,” she called, walking to him and picking up his hand to pull him off the couch.

“No, let’s stay here,” Tommy pulled her down to him, making her fall onto his chest.

They both giggled, as he rearranged the blanket to cover them both, making her rest her head on his chest, their legs intertwined.

(Y/N) thought that she couldn’t love him more than she already did, but when she looked up and found him already gazing back at her, the glimmer of the Christmas lights on his eyes, and that little smirk on his lips, she knew how wrong she was.

She kissed him, and then snuggled closer to him, in an attempt to pick up some of his warmness. They stayed in silence for what seemed like forever, the feeling of his hand gently moving up and down her back made (Y/N)’s eyes grow heavy, and she was already dozing off when she heard him say,

“I think you should move in,” he announced, simply, making her eyes go wide.

“Well, I think I already did,” she chuckled, with all the intention of going back to sleep.

“No, I mean permanently.”

Leaning on an elbow, (Y/N) blinked the sleep away as she stared back at him.

“What are you on about, Tommy?”

“I don’t want you to go back to your flat after this is over. Want you here, all the time. I want to wake up to you every day and go to sleep with you in my arms every night.”

“Tommy,” she called when he moved to pick up something from the side table.

“You asked me what I wanted for Christmas,” he said, opening the little velvet box in his hands, making her gasp and cover her mouth as her eyes filled with tears. “It’s you. You’re all I want for Christmas and the rest of my days. (Y/N) (Y/L/N), would you give me the honor of being my wife?”

“Yes,” she answered, unable to contain her tears anymore as she brought their lips together. “Yes, yes, a million times yes.”

.

Taglist: @stressedandbandobessed7771​ @captivatedbycillianmurphy​ @internalmess3​ @giowritess​ @theshelbyclan​ @peakyxtommy​

[uswnt-keeper]

Focus Isn’t My Strong Suit

Prompt by @cpaeralricey: Can you do a Kelley x youngersister!reader quarantining together and the reader has to to do School online but struggles cause of their ADHD and just lots of fluff and Kelley helping the crazy kid out. Does that make any sense? If not don’t worry about it.

Note before we start. Sorry if this is terrible, I don’t have ADHD so I don’t really know what it’s like, I tried to make this is fun as possible. Also just for future reference I will no longer be writing Kelley, Alex, or JJ fics. (There will be my final Alex post today, but that’s it).

This royally sucked... like to a whole other level of sucking... does that sound weird? It sounds weird, oh well... whatever. That’s not the point, the point is, I’m stuck doing online school, which normally isn’t that bad, but it all kind of happened all at once.

You see, I’d been flown out to visit Kelley, my older sister, in my spring break which happened to be at the beginning of March. I hadn’t seen her in a long time between her traveling for different teams, and I missed her. I miss all of my siblings honestly. Jerry was off doing business man things, and Erin was off hanging with her besties on some beach somewhere. Kelley was the youngest of my older siblings, but shes 32, I’m 16, big age difference there. I’d been adopted by my family at a young age and so, of course there would be an age difference, but they were family and Kelley and I were close.

Anyway, back to my main point of how much this sucked. The nation went on lockdown literally a week into my stay, I couldn’t leave for the airport or anything and Kelley’s games and trainings were suspended after the SheBelieves cup, even the Olympics were cancelled. So I was stuck, but that wasn’t what sucked, I was with Kelley, that was great, but then came online school.

Online school, for someone like me, is the worst possible option. I struggled with ADHD and paying attention in a normal class, but sitting on my own in a room of distractions would be even worse, I mean... how was I NOT suppose to say dream or cheat on a test?!

Not only that, but I was awaiting my prescription, we had to start ordering it so it shipped to Kelley’s apartment in Utah. So with that going on, we were now in late March and we realized it would be another day before my pills arrives... and I was out.

“Kelley!” I yelled from my bathroom, looking at the empty bottle.

Kelley came rushing in, “What, what is it?!”

“I’m out of meds,” I said hyper focused on the writing on the bottle.

“Oh.... OH WHAT?!” She grabbed the bottle out my hands, shaking the orange container around as if she was trying to summon more pills to her.

“It’s just a day, it won’t be that bad right?” I said and Kelley looked at me with a glare.

“When was the last time you weren’t on your meds?” She asked.

I thought about it for a moment, “Uhh, probably before I was diagnosed.”

“So when you were bouncing off the walls?” She asked and I shrugged, walking out the bathroom.

“Look, I have school in like... oh actually I’m late,” I said looking at my phone, it was only 8, but class started at 7:45.

Kelley groaned as I rushed to my laptop, she had moved to the dining table after finding me staring at my ceiling for an entire class, she was fun as a sister, but her feeling of responsibly over me was unbearable.

I logged into the class with my camera off, apologizing for being late and I made up some random excuse. I looked to Kelley who had just walked out of my room, and she rolled her eyes at me and tossed me t-shirt. I muted myself and looked at her confused.

“You forgot to put one on,” she said before I could ask and I looked down at myself realizing she was right, so I begrudgingly pulled in on with a huff.

After my first class, I had my second period, which was a study hall, and I hated it, all I ever did was stare at off into space, which ended up happening this time too. I went through the whole school day, completely unable to focus on anything as I felt my ADHD consume my movements and thoughts.

“Y/N!” Kelley snapped me out of my trance, I realized she sat in front of me, working on something of her own, “Your teacher asked you a question,” she said.

I unmuted myself to apologize before asking her to repeat the question. The one good thing about ADHD was that I often retained large chunks of info if it was interesting enough, so I had the knowledge to answer the question this time.

When I muted myself again I sighed, it was times liked these I hated my condition, it was unbearable and made me miss so much shit.

“You okay Speedster?” A nickname Kelley had gifted me at the age of 4 when I literally couldn’t stop running around, it’s fitting now as I’ve followed in her footsteps and started playing soccer.

“I hate not being able to focus,” I complained and finally, as I said that, the class was over.

“Well,” Kelley started, closing my laptop for me, “Maybe you should walk around or something, get some focus back?” She asked, I sighed again, it was the best idea so far, “I’ll be here if you if you need me.”

I stood up, taking my computer to my room and threw it on the bed. There was no way I could focus on doing yoga or lifting weights, not at all. All I wanted to do was run around, do anything but what I was doing. It was probably about 5 minutes in my room before I rushed out my room, heading to the kitchen to search Kelley’s cabinets.

“What are you doing in there?” Kelley turned after I rummaged for a few minutes.

“Food,” I replied.

“If your hungry I can make you sandwich or something,” she said, looking away from her computer.

“Ughhhhh,” I complained, “A sandwich sounds so boring,” I groaned and she rolled her eyes at me, going back to the meeting she was in.

I left the kitchen, heading back to my room, sitting on my bed feeling restless. I tried writing and reading, I even did some homework, but eventually I got bored again, and I felt antsy. That is, until I found something I could compare to gold.

“No way,” I whispered to myself, pulling two things out from under the guest bed, “This is gonna be so much fun.”

Kelley’s POV

I was worried about Y/N, I knew she would feel bad about her ADHD, usually I’d go distract her, but I was caught in this stupid meeting for another few minutes. I was listening to what my manager was saying amongst the other people there, until something stung me.

I flinched, looking at my arm, then around me and at the floor, finding a... nerf bullet?

There was a click and another one hit my temple this time.

“Ow,” I complained, looking to where I heard giggling.

It was Y/N of course, hiding behind a cardboard cut out of me with a nerf gun reaching around it.

“Y/N, don’t you—“ She shot me again, laughing hysterically, I turned to my computer, “Listen guys, I’m gonna have to go, got something to sort out,” I said and they nodded as I logged off.

Y/N looked at me with a challenge, if this is what she needed to calm down, then I guess a little match wouldn’t be bad.

“It is so on,” I said, reaching into one of the kitchen cabinets.

“WHAT?! You have a nerf gun just sitting in your kitchen?!”

“Never know when it might come in handy,” I shot at her, the bullet sticking itself right in her forehead and she huffed and smiled.

“I’m gonna kick your ass.”

“You wish,” I replied.

Turns out the one round turned into three hours of an intense and heated nerf battle, ending with Y/N surrendering to the couch where sweat fell from her head.

“Alright, alright, you win,” she said exhausted for once and I plopped down on the couch next to her.

“Told you I’d kick your butt,” I said.

“Surrendering doesn’t mean you kicked my butt,” she complained and I laughed.

“How you feeling?” I asked, looking to her now.

“Exhausted for the first time today,” she said with a smile, “Never thought I’d be happy to be tired.”

I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and pulled her in to a hug, “You know there’s nothing wrong with your ADHD right?” I asked and she shrugged, “If you ever feel bad about it, remember that you can totally start a nerf war and it’s completely justified,” I said and she laughed.

“Thanks Kell.”

“Anytime kiddo.”

There was a pause.

“Do you have food?”

“I knew you wanted something.”

She laughed again and we spent the rest of the night eating and watching movies until we fell into a deep sleep.

[biffhofosho]

Common Ground

GIF by hyunubear

Fandom: Monsta X

Genre: Smut, natch.

Word count: 9.9k

Pairing: Kihyun x OC

Trope: Roommates to lovers

Synopsis: With the city on lockdown, Shay’s just looking to keep her sanity… and maybe finally get to know that tight-ass roommate of hers.

The Vibe: Pandemic lockdown desperation, fiesty hard-up OC with serious social withdrawal, workaholic roommate Ki with control issues and a sexy undercut, roommates who are essentially strangers until they’re not, searching for common ground, games with consequences, strip Battleship lmao, dom-sub themes, a bit of humiliation meant endearingly with just as much praise if not more, punishments for misbehavior, keeping quiet at all costs, unexpected feelings thundering to the surface, the start of something beautiful...

A/N: Whoa, before I could get into my Neo Seoul 3 fic or post my next Idol Thieves chapter, I got carried away by the muse. Like, rul bad. Deep in the Kihyun feels, I guess. I’m almost sorry about it. Almost.

It had been a difficult year for everybody, but today in particular, Shay was wallowing. The pandemic was still raging, her unemployment was about to run out, her bank account was dwindling, and there was still no sign of her company reinstating her, if it even survived the lockdown. Not to mention, her dim sum delivery was late, and there were few things as depressing as ice-cold, soggy dumplings. Worst of all, thanks to the never-ending stay-at-home order, loneliness was creeping relentlessly in.

Technically, Shay had a roommate, so, on the surface, she should have had a built-in friend to combat the isolation, but their arrangement was financial, not amicable. Kihyun was only that: a person occupying the same apartment as she was. Eight months into their tenancy, and she could probably count on one hand their number of in-person conversations. That wasn’t necessarily a complaint or a brag—they just didn’t talk, and that was fine because what did two opposing sides to the same coin have to say to each other anyway?

Kihyun was fastidious, the type to zip-tie all the loose cords and use a label maker to organize both their groceries on opposite sides of the refrigerator—including a whole honeydew he’d labeled with his name. He inventoried everything, too. Once, Shay snacked on one of his carrots with the full intention of replacing it on the next grocery delivery, but that same night, he had already added her fifteen-cent carrot IOU to their Venmo.

Still, it kept Shay honest, which was not her natural disposition. It had been her perennial New Year’s resolution to be more organized and aware like Kihyun, but she was lazy—the kind of lazy that made her question whether she had more genetically in common with a sloth than a human. She was the type to fold over a bag of chips and trust the air would just stay out lest it incur a typhoon of expletives on her next binge. Alarms were suggestions, and there was no such thing as an assigned seat on a couch—she parked it where she parked it, and she wasn’t getting up until she was thirty seconds from peeing her pants.

Yeah, Shay was a model human. Frankly, she wouldn’t have held it against Kihyun if he’d asked her to move by lease end, but they’d worked out an otherwise acceptable arrangement. They paid their halves of the rent. They bought their own groceries. They made their own meals and ate in their respective rooms. Excepting the kitchen, the common space was easily the least used room in the house. She wasn’t entirely sure that the TV in there had ever been on. If she saw Kihyun in the kitchen, she waited until he was gone to make her own food, and if she wanted a guest over, she would email him and request a time slot on their apartment calendar to have the place to herself.

It might be cosmically tragic, but it was also the nicest place Shay had ever lived. Kihyun was clean and polite and managed everything, which was fine because she was definitely too unorganized to do it. Once, at one of her old solo apartments, her furnace had gone out in the dead of winter, and she didn’t call the landlord for three weeks because it was just easier to pull an extra blanket over her head. But Kihyun was happy to do it all, and she was just as happy to let him. She remembered a word from science class a thousand years ago for just such an arrangement: symbiosis.

They could have easily finished out their lease this way and maybe even renewed for another if it weren’t for this damn pandemic. All the terrible news outside her walls was one thing, but after two months of staring out her window all day without even work to distract her, Shay was desperate for company.

As she picked up her dim sum from the hallway, she glanced at Kihyun’s door. Closed, as always. With a roll of her eyes, she headed back to her laptop to send her best friend Monique a video chat request. Only a minute later, and Shay’s screen was filled with the cherubic, coffee complexion of her bestie.

“Girl, this is, like, the third call today, and it’s barely past lunch,” Monique reprimanded.

“Shut up, you love me,” Shay fired back through a bite.

“I do, but that don’t mean I want to hear from you every ten minutes, especially when you got a whole ass dumpling wedged in your craw.”

Shay stuck out her tongue. “Wanna bring the other girls into the Zoom?”

“What I want is to take a nap. It’s, like, five hundred degrees in here. I’m sweating my lady lumps off just talking to you.”

“Lady lumps? Girl, no one ever called them that, let alone now.”

“What else am I supposed to call all these rolls and bumps?” Monique protested as she modeled herself like a show pony. “Sweaty as hell.”

“Ah,” sighed Shay. “I miss you.”

“Course you do, but—” There was a banging on the other side of Monique’s door, and she shouted at the top of her lungs, “What!”

Iesha, Monique’s pig-tailed little sister, threw open the door and barked, “Mom said you gotta help me with my science homework.”

Monique’s brows furrowed. “What part of a C student makes y’all think I know anything about science?”

“Then you can learn with me,” Iesha shot back effortlessly before she slammed the door and yelled from the other side. “Five minutes!”

Monique scrunched her face and rolled her eyes. “You see what I gotta put up with? Five hundred degrees, sweaty lady lumps, and I gotta go back to school again. Fuck this virus.”

“At least you have other humans to interact with,” Shay replied.

Her best friend furrowed her brow again. “What about that fine, snobby roommate of yours?”

“He’s not human. I’m pretty sure he’s a calculator or some shit.”

Monique bark-laughed. “Sorry, girl, wish I could entertain you, but I gotta go. Watch some porn or something. S’my favorite time waster. Okay, love you, bye, bitch!”

In a heartbeat, Monique’s screen went dark, and Shay was alone with her dumplings again. As soon as she finished them, she called a couple other friends, but none of them answered, though where the fuck they could be during a pandemic was beyond her. Unless, like Monique, everyone needed a break from her neediness.

Her best friend’s final suggestion weighed on Shay’s mind, but middle-of-the-day porn felt weird, so instead, she took a shower. It felt wonderful, but it hadn’t washed away her boredom or her ennui. A makeover attempt came next, but she didn’t like any of the eye shadow palettes she tried, and her foundation looked cakey, so she stripped back down to her glasses and freckles again. As a last resort, she made it through exactly six crunches before she just gave up and opened her browser.

Shay skimmed down Pornhub’s main page and clicked on a few things until she settled on an over-the-top roommates-to-fuck-buddies video. It was probably not as coincidental as she was trying to convince her mind it was, considering how much she’d been thinking about Kihyun today, but she insisted just so she didn’t feel as bad about it.

It was too hot to bother with the modesty of covers, not that it mattered considering Kihyun had never opened her door let alone bothered to knock. Still, the possibility was there, and that was enough to make her skin tingle and her core ignite. The thought of his handsome, stern face appearing in her door frame while she was spread eagle on her bed was so fucking sexy, she was almost ashamed of thinking about it.

Instead, Shay returned to the ridiculous plot line of one roommate getting stuck ass-out of the dryer while the other roommate took the opportunity to fuck her brains out. Stupid? Hell yeah, but the actors were hot, as was the dialogue, and the dude had a nice dick.

For a moment, she wondered what Kihyun’s dick looked like, but then the actress moaned especially gratefully in Shay’s headphones, and she returned to the scene at hand.

As the actor railed into the desperate woman from behind, Shay felt that familiar tightness spread across her hips, and she focused all of her attention on her needy clit now.

Suddenly, with a snap and a whir, the room went dark except for the eerie light from her monitor, which now featured a grayscale pixelated dinosaur and the horrific words “No Internet” instead of the messy money-shot she was promised. Her high fell away as spectacularly as if she’d been the victim of a good old-fashioned Ice Bucket Challenge.

“Fucking magical,” she groaned sardonically into her pillow.

Now she was frustrated in two ways.

She reached for her phone to hook up a hotspot, but there was that mocking sliver of red battery with its gleeful 3% warning in the corner.

“Fuck, Shay! Get your shit together,” she scolded.

She dug through her side table for her battery backup, but in some continued divine shamefest, the low charge LED was blinking back at her.

Damn her laziness to the darkest depths of Hell!

Shay collapsed onto her bed and stared blankly up at the ceiling questioning her every life choice. When this power outage was over, she was really and truly getting organized, so help her God.

It was already getting stifling without her window unit running, and, with a heavy sigh, she changed into a tank top and her most breathable yoga shorts, which had never been used for yoga anyway.

Shay padded into the living room, wrangling her chestnut hair back into a ponytail as a swell of heat hit her immediately. The soaring summer temps seemed as likely a reason for a brownout as any, and she immediately regretted leaving the lingering air conditioning from her bedroom. The hardwood was toasty under her feet where the butterscotch of afternoon funneled through the windows.

It was so clean in the common space, she would have thought it was for a lifestyle Instagram, though she couldn’t imagine Kihyun had any social media.

Shay peered across the neighborhood as neighbors flung open windows, lounged on fire escapes, and hung out laundry on alley clotheslines. She envied them. She didn’t even have a chore to occupy her.

Okay, that wasn’t true. Her room was a pigsty, but it was way too hot and she was way too lazy to embark on a journey through two weeks’ worth of dirty clothes and dishes.

Instead, she fished through her designated cabinet for a snack as the door to Kihyun’s room opened.

“You forget to pay the electric bill?” she joked when he joined her in the kitchen.

“Of course not,” he answered without looking at her.

“Of course not,” she echoed back.

It was weird, standing in the same room with her roommate. That should have been a stupid sentence, but it was true. Now that they didn’t even see each other in passing on their morning commutes, he had reverted to a virtual stranger.

“How’s it going?” Shay asked lamely.

Kihyun poured himself a glass of water as he replied, “Fine.”

He didn’t even give her the courtesy of asking her the same, and she wondered if he was either a total narcissist or painfully socially inept.

“Pretty hot in here, huh?” she continued, desperate for some human interaction, no matter how pitiful.

Kihyun shrugged and grabbed his water before heading back toward his bedroom.

“Wait!” Shay shouted. The word was out before she had the good sense to think about it.

He stopped and faced her for the first time in months. Fuck, he was better looking than she remembered.

His cinnamon hair sported a sleek undercut that was tousled too suggestively across his brow. A few errant strands shaded his dark chocolate eyes and high cheekbones, and the most irrational urge to comb it back buzzed through her fingertips. And then there was that ridiculously long expanse of sculpted neck just begging to be bruised, especially under his savage jaw line.

Damnit, she was too keyed up for this shit. Why was she torturing herself?

“Wanna hang out?” she asked.

He raised an eyebrow. “With you?”

“Well, you don’t have to make it sound like an insult, but yeah, who the fuck else?”

Kihyun glanced from the couch, back to her, and pursed his lips. “Uh, I guess.”

“What a confidence booster,” Shay replied as she grabbed a beer from her side of the fridge. “You want one?”

“I’m not a beer drinker.”

Guess that explained why he hadn’t bothered to label every can.

“I figured you for one of those fancy wine guys,” she said as she climbed over the back of the couch to get to her seat.

He let out a little sigh. “Are you really that lazy that you won’t just walk around to sit?”

How had she never noticed that cute little lisp of his?

She shrugged. “Yes, but this isn’t lazy; it’s ingenious. Shortest distance between two points or some shit.”

Kihyun shuffled over in his bare feet, and it occurred to her that it was the first time she’d seen him in shorts, let alone a t-shirt—he was almost always in a dress shirt and slacks because he was almost always at work. His legs were thin but toned, and Shay was insanely jealous of how smooth they were.

He sat as far away as possible on the couch, legs crossed, before he tipped his tumbler back for a long swig of water. It appeared Shay wasn’t the only one who was thirsty here.

Bitch, get a hold of yourself, she hissed in her head.

“I’m not a wine drinker either,” he added as he wiped his mouth, which was something that, frankly, should have been illegal.

“I take it you don’t drink then.”

“Whiskey.”

Shay stared at him skeptically. “You drink whiskey?”

“Not often and never enough to lose control,” he replied as his hand raked back those long locks from his face, “but if I’m going to drink, it’s what I like.”

“Yeah, control’s a pretty big thing for you,” she muttered under her breath as she glanced out the window.

“What was that?” His tone was sharp, and it made Shay’s blood race.

“Nothing,” she sang. “So, do you want to play a game or something to pass the time until the power comes back?”

Kihyun stood up as he said, “I think I’m going to—”

“Oh, come on,” she blurted far too desperately. “When’s the last time you had any kind of fun? What’s one stupid game between roommates?”

“I don’t play games,” he replied matter-of-factly.

“No, I know you don’t, unless you call counting carrots a game.”

He narrowed his eyes.

“I’m teasing,” she said with a laugh. “Come on, I’m insanely bored. Aren’t you?”

Kihyun shook his head. “There’s always something to do.”

“Well, yeah, but wouldn’t you rather do something that isn’t a chore?”

“Not really.”

Shay let out a frustrated sigh. “Okay, fine, then roommate-to-roommate, can you please just humor me once? I’m really fucking lonely, all right?”

Well, damnit. That was more than she had wanted to share with the man, but there it was, naked truth and all, still ringing up in the high ceilings. Shay swiveled toward the windows so at least her back was to him and he couldn’t see how red her face was.

“What did you want to play?”

She felt the couch dip as his words hit her ears just right.

“Let me go see what I have,” she mumbled as she headed back to her bedroom and dug around. She was back a few moments later with a sheepish grin. “Okay, so I don’t know how it’s possible that I don’t have a goddamn deck of cards or even a single ping pong ball, but this is what I got.”

She thumped a box on the table and savored how his eyes widened.

“Battleship? What are you, eight?”

“Shut up, I bought it for my nephew who didn’t get a birthday party this year, dick. I’ll buy him an xBox game or something. He won’t care.”

“I don’t want to play Battleship,” Kihyun said.

“Well, neither do I, so let’s give it some stakes.”

His eyebrow raised at this. “Loser pays all of next month’s rent?”

“Dude, yuck. You know my unemployment’s about to run out. Besides, that’s zero fun. What about…” Shay tipped her head back as she tested the waters. At this point, she had already embarrassed herself thoroughly and all her metaphorical cards were already on the table anyway, so she ventured, “Say, Strip Battleship? Every time you sink a battleship, you lose an article of clothing.”

“No,” Kihyun said without hesitation.

“Oh, come on. Afraid I’ll finally find that stick up your ass?”

“Don’t be dramatic.”

“I’m not dramatic. I’m adventurous and bored as fuck. Think about this: even the loser’s a winner. It’s hot as balls in here. Would be a great excuse to cool off...”

He glowered at her, as though he had heard everything she’d been doing just a little bit ago. “Why are you trying so hard to see me naked?”

The question hung in the heavy silence. That was not what she was trying to do, was it? Sure, Kihyun was objectively hot, and, yeah, it was a short walk to his bed, but despite the eight months they’d spent together, they didn’t know each other at all, and, up until this stupid porno she’d watched earlier, it really hadn’t occurred to her before.

Shay idly spun the box with a finger just to give herself something to look at other than Kihyun’s pretty face. “That is not it. I’m just trying to kill some boredom here. Are you really going to tell me regular old Battleship is going to entertain us otherwise?”

“Of course not—”

“No, of course not, see? And wouldn’t the potential of being totally naked be objectively more exciting?”

“Objectively, but—”

“Well, unless you can suggest something fun that doesn’t involve finances, I say we play. It’s not going farther than a little humiliation between roommates. Besides, we never see each other anyway, so who cares?”

“You’re quick with the excuses, aren’t you?” he said with something that looked dangerously close to a smirk.

Shay frowned despite how fucking adorable he looked. She didn’t appreciate him needling at her motives. Was it her fault she’d been knuckle-deep in an almost-release when the power cut out? Her body was still thrumming, and the heat and his sexy throat were only making it worse. At least if she got a peek at the goods, her brain wouldn’t have to romanticize something that wasn’t there.

Yeah, and what if it lives up to the imagination, girl? Ever consider that?

Shay kicked her libido in the face and unpacked the game.

“Fine, let’s just play normally. Just know I’m determined to destroy you anyway. Prepare for humiliation, Ki,” she said, helping herself to a nickname because an uptight guy like him needed one.

He cleared his throat, and when she glanced up from her board, she noticed his eyes were a notch darker, though that could have been the afternoon sun dipping behind the brownstones.

Even if they didn’t know each other well, Shay had a sense of Kihyun’s meticulous character, so she tried to pick the most illogical pattern she could. She clustered a number of her ships together, leaving oceans of open water to lure him away. When she was finished, she glared at him over the rim of her glasses and challenged, “Let me know when you’re ready for your whooping.”

He said nothing though his furrowed eyebrows spoke volumes. He opened his gameboard, too, and laid out his fleet in silence.

When he was done, she asked, “You know how to play, right?”

“Red pegs are for direct hits, white pegs are misses. Speaking of,” he dug into the little tray of pegs and scooped up a handful. “I think you gave me too many.”

He dropped them before she could catch them all, and they scattered all over her board and the cushion.

“Geez, you could have waited,” she griped.

“Sorry,” he replied, but he didn’t mean it.

The game was on.

Shay sneered at him as she said, “After that little stunt, I should make you go second.”

Kihyun smiled. “But you’re not going to.”

“It’s conditional. You’ve gotta talk with me in between strikes.”

“Fair enough.”

She bit her lip to hide her smile before she gave him the go-ahead nod.

“H1,” he said without hesitation.

“Damnit!” she wailed. “Are you fucking kidding me? Your first move? Ugh, that’s a hit.”

They marked their boards as Shay strategized. She tried to get into Kihyun’s head, but she couldn’t make it past those black vortexes in his eyes. He was studying her right back. She had to derail his momentum fast.

“So, what do you do when you’re not here?” she asked. “A6, by the way.”

Kihyun smiled and shook his head, and she sighed at her miss. His thumb pinched his bottom lip as he considered his next attack, and he said, “I catalog and review real estate leases for an acquisitions company. You?”

“That sounds awful.”

“I like the repetition,” he replied.

“Makes sense. And me? I don’t do anything now,” she lamented, “but when our company was open, I was a production assistant for local musicians. No gigs to book these days.”

Kihyun hummed, but she couldn’t tell if he was interested or just strategizing. After a moment, he said, “H2.”

Her heart sank with her littlest ship.

“You sunk my ship, you dick.” Shay thought he’d laugh or at least celebrate, but instead he stared at her—and not in the usual way he had been, alternating between inquisitive and confused, but dark and commanding. Her voice was gummy in her throat as she managed, “What?”

“You wanted to play Strip Battleship.”

Despite the heat in the room, her skin iced over. “Yeah, but you didn’t!”

“I changed my mind.”

Panic set in. Sure, this was her idea, but when she’d imagined it, she’d pictured him first to lose a shirt. She had four ships still floating but only three items of clothing left after this.

Kihyun smirked again, and now her cheeks warmed. As if he could read her mind, he said, “You can start with the ponytail. We’ll get to the rest soon enough.”

Shay swallowed hard, both at his confidence as well as the instruction. She pulled out the ponytail holder as her long brown tresses spilled down her back. In an instant, the temperature rose about a hundred degrees.

She did her best over the next few plays to land a single hit, but while she was learning more and more about Kihyun’s regimented life, she was also losing ships by the second. He’d figured out her strategy almost immediately, and now she was two ships and a shirt down with a third already primed with two of its three slots full.

“What do you do for fun?” she asked as she gnawed on her thumbnail.

“I clean and organize—”

“I said fun, Ki, not more work.”

“That is fun for me, but if you don’t accept that, how about cooking? I like doing that.”

“I never see you cook,” she said skeptically.

He shrugged. “You never leave your room.”

Shay blinked. He said it as though it bothered him. She wondered if she had left, if he’d have cooked for her, but then she thought about it, and he’d probably have charged her for the meal anyway.

Her eyes drifted back down to her game board as she mumbled, “Figured I’d get in your way. B9.”

“That’s your first hit,” Kihyun said, though there wasn’t an ounce of concern in his voice. And why should there be when she was about to lose yet another precious article of clothing. “By the way, you wouldn’t. Be in my way, I mean. You pay for half of this place, too, and I wouldn’t live with you if I didn’t like you.”

“You like me?”

Why the hell did she sound like a middle schooler talking to her crush? Jesus, she was lonelier than she thought.

Kihyun’s only answer was a “D3.”

Shay exhaled dramatically. “What’ll it be?”

“Lose the shorts.”

It shouldn’t have felt so risqué considering she was still essentially in a bikini, but the act of shimmying her tight yoga shorts over her hips and down her thighs made her feel totally naked. Well, that and the way Kihyun watched her do it. She swallowed hard.

Desperate to even things out, Shay fired off three more shots—all misses—until she finally landed a hit, and in the meantime, her fourth ship was sinking.

“A9,” she said, giddy.

“Your first victory,” he said with a smile that made his strong cheeks even more pronounced. “Congratulations.”

Shay rubbed her hands together, but before she could demand his shirt, Kihyun eased out his diamond studs she hadn’t even noticed he’d had in.

“Hey, no! No, no, no! You’re losing the shirt, buddy,” she protested, but he shook his head.

“I have more ships than I have clothes, and I let you take out your ponytail first.”

“Damnit,” she hissed. “I did not think this game through.”

“You did not,” he said with a light chuckle, “but I’m having fun.”

Shay rolled her eyes. “I’m sure you are.”

“C6.”

“Oh, Holy Mary, mother of God, fuck!” she cried.

Kihyun didn’t bother to hide his delight or his eagerness as his eyes flickered to her red bra. She wrinkled her freckled nose at him before she turned around and undid the clasp. She used her left arm as a basket for her ample chest, and when she felt as secure as she could, she turned back around and hunkered down behind her board.

“I think that should count as clothing,” he joked, motioning toward her makeshift arm-bra.

“Piss off, Yoo,” she griped as she planned her next strike.

She kept her head low and her eyes distracted as she continued through the motions, but she should have known it was inevitable. Within two more moves, he’d hit her biggest ship, and she was still firing blanks. Wow, 2020 really fucking hated her. Kihyun was so dead-on, it was unnerving. Excepting her obvious state of undress, Shay felt very exposed, and she hugged her chest tighter.

With a light throat clear, she said, “Probably should have asked this in the beginning, but you got a girlfriend?”

“No, not for a long time. Apparently, I’m difficult to live with. G5.”

Shay snorted as she put the third peg in her ship. “You? Nah. So… how do you blow off steam? B3.”

“Hit.”

Too little, too late for her.

It took him a moment to catch the meaning of her question, but when he did, Kihyun’s eyes widened. “Oh, well, some people have friends with benefits. I have acquaintances with arrangements.”

She raised an eyebrow. “That’s a new one.”

“We don’t talk or hang out. There are no expectations beyond the obvious, so there are no misunderstandings. Purely functional. G6.”

Shay should have expected such a matter-of-fact answer from him, but something about it depressed her. At least with friends, there was something more personal than the brief act of sex. Even a good one-night stand had passion and electricity. She frowned.

“You make sex sound like a library, except instead of checking out a book, you’re checking out a partner.”

“It’s nothing like that,” he retorted, although she could tell from the way his eyes flickered that he was thinking about it now. “What would you know about it anyway? You’re not in a relationship either.”

“How do you know?” she barked.

Kihyun turned around and glanced to their door surveillance system. “It’s always a different guy.”

It wasn’t an accusation, just an honest observation, but it did remind Shay of her lingering single status since she’d moved in. She gaped at her roommate and rolled her eyes. “Nosy asshole. And anyway, I’m just saying that sex is better when you’ve got a connection, not something you’re checking off a checklist.”

Kihyun tilted his head to catch the buttery glow of the evening sun in just the right way to bring out every hint of smugness. “Just for that, G7.”

Shay threw her head back and whimpered as she slipped the final peg into the final ship.

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Go ahead, say it.”

“You sunk my battleship,” she mumbled.

Kihyun closed his gameboard and folded his hands in his lap as he waited for her.

Shay struggled to figure out a way to remove her underwear without waggling all the goods in her roommate’s face, and she settled on a sideways stance and a one-handed shimmy that offered only an outline of her tits and ass.

“You know,” she pouted as she shuffled her other hand in front of her core, “you won that game suspiciously quickly.”

“It’s easy when I can see the reflection of your board in your glasses.”

Shay had a sudden flashback to those hastily dropped pegs at the beginning of the game, and she saw the true breadth of Kihyun’s devious nature. She thought about punching him, but that meant removing one of her protective hands.

“Cheater!” she bellowed into their living room.

He shrugged as he appraised the full swells of her hourglass. “Doesn’t matter. All that they’ll see when they look back on this day in the history books is that I won.”

“What a Machiavellian thing to say. You’re evil.”

“And fully clothed.”

Shay huffed and reached for her tank top, but Kihyun stilled her wrist with a strong grip. Her throat went dry. Her breasts were still safely cradled in her arm, but she’d had to sacrifice one hand, and now her naked pussy was on full display.

But Kihyun, to his credit, wasn’t ogling her body. He was staring into her eyes, and in so many ways, it was worse. His gaze was piercing, and Shay felt the irrational urge to kneel before him.

“I didn’t say you could get dressed yet.”

It wasn’t just an urge to kneel now—she thought her legs would give out under the weight of his smoky voice. He released her wrist and she stumbled back. “Kihyun, what—”

“Weren’t you the one complaining about the temperature in here? Leave them off.”

Nakedness aside, Shay had a much, much bigger problem now, and if she wasn’t careful, it would ruin the couch.

“It’s cooler this way, isn’t it?” he continued, a ribbon of silk under all that smoke in his voice.

She shrugged timidly and focused all her attention on finding a spot as far away from him as possible.

He shook his head. “You can’t sit naked on my couch.”

“Are you kidding me right now?” she shouted, cheeks blazing crimson as she wondered if he could see her leaking sex.

Kihyun just smiled. “You can sit on my lap though.”

At first, she thought that maybe she hadn’t heard him right, but he uncrossed his legs, his shorts rising just a bit higher, and patted his bare thighs.

“I should go,” she said slowly though she found her feet striding to him instead of her bedroom door.

“Why? I thought you wanted to hang out?”

Shay nodded numbly, lost somewhere between shock and a lust so overwhelming, it was disorienting. She sat side-saddle in his lap so she could keep her knees pressed together despite how urgently they begged to be parted. Her ass fell naturally into the crease between his thighs as her hands tightened around her chest and waist.

“Let’s just relax,” he said as he moved both of her hands to the sides of her thighs, baring all of her to the evening honey pouring through the windows. “Isn’t that more comfortable?”

“I guess.”

The tips of his fingers ghosted down her back while the top of his thumb traced her rigid spine. Goosebumps peppered along her whole body and her nipples tightened. Kihyun marveled at them. “Maybe you are cold after all. If you want, I can warm you up.”

Her breath came out much shakier than she’d hoped as she managed, “Okay.”

He flattened his whole searing hand along her back to smooth away the goosebumps, and Shay sucked in a sharp breath. His palms worked from her shoulders down to the swell of her ass and then around her rib cage to graze the sides of her breasts, growing bolder with every sweep.

“You smell good,” he murmured.

The only way to maintain some composure—and, with it, some of her dignity—was to keep her eyes firmly on the brownstones across the street. “I just took a shower.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

And just like that, the last of her dignity went flying out the window.

Kihyun grabbed her stiff shoulders and pressed them down to release them. “I said relax, Shay. Here, let me help.”

He placed one of his hands on her mid-thigh, not curling around it, just resting warm and comforting like a blanket.

“You feeling warmer now?” he asked.

Warm wasn’t the word. Incinerated was.

“Yes.”

He inched his hand a little higher. “And now?”

“Warmer.”

His thumb bumped her mound, but still his hand rested innocently enough. “What about this, Shay? Does it make you hot?”

“Yes,” she said, but it came out more like a hiss.

“My thighs are getting soaked,” he observed. “Why would that be, Shay?”

Christ, the way he said her name was like a teacher scolding a student. She felt filthy in the most illicit way, and another rush of warmth raced to her sex.

“I would like an answer,” he said, and she shivered.

“Your hands—they feel really good.”

“Oh, so it’s my fault?” he said sharply, though now that innocent hand on her thigh was anything but. He stroked her folds as he massaged her leg, and with every stroke, more humiliating slick seeped out until his fingers were as glossy as her lower lips. Kihyun hummed. “I can be very nice to you, Shay, but you have to be nice to me.”

“Please be nice,” she whimpered, her body hunching over at his relentless teasing. But the hand on her back was now on her shoulder, keeping her posture nice and tall and her breasts high and perky.

“It wasn’t nice when you teased me about the carrots,” he said evenly, his fingers still sliding smoothly up and down her wet seam. “It wasn’t nice when you kept these pretty tits away from me after I earned them. Seems to me you weren’t very nice to me after all. I don’t think I need to be nice to you either.”

His hand disappeared from between her legs, and she glanced murderously at him.

“Shay.” She could hear the warning in his voice clear as glass. “I think it’s time for you to get on your knees.”

Desire rocketed through her. She couldn’t remember ever being so turned on. Usually, she was the one in charge, mostly because she had to be; otherwise, the guys she fucked around with would use her for their own end and leave her unsatisfied. Even then, Shay wasn’t a submissive person by nature, but in Kihyun’s hands, it came so naturally. There was an intense sensuality to his orders—each one a promise of pleasure for both her mind and her body. There wasn’t a single part of her that wasn’t stimulated by his voice.

Trembling, Shay slid off his lap and onto the floor in front of him. He looked down the bridge of his nose and straight to her heart. She sat on her heels, her hands in her lap, and stared right back.

“You make a lot of messes around this house. It’s time you start cleaning them up.”

His gaze slid to the slick puddles on the top of his thigh, and he spread his legs for her.

“Are—are you serious?” she asked.

“It’s not nice to question me,” he reminded, and a new river of wetness slipped down the inside of her thigh.

Shay inched between his parted knees and looked up. Kihyun didn’t move a muscle, yet his eyes were as firm as a spanking. She looked over to his glossy thigh and opened her mouth. She sucked gently, laving her tongue over his skin and tasting her own stickiness. It was shameful and humiliating and really, really fucking hot.

Kihyun didn’t make a sound.

After another minute, he said, “That’s good enough.”

Shay sat up and glanced at the bright red oval on his thigh that would no doubt bruise in the coming days. She thought about Kihyun walking around his room with her brand on him, picturing her mouth there again, so close to his cock. Maybe he’d touch himself.

The thought of a man with this much control stroking his own dick to the memory of her made her dizzy. She studied him as he leaned back on the sofa like a lord on his throne and ventured, “Did I do a good job?”

Kihyun’s eyes hardened, and she worried she’d done something wrong. Maybe he’d take himself away from her and they’d go back to being symbiotic strangers again. Just the thought paralyzed her. But to her relief, he said, “You’ve made another mess, Shay. Take care of it.”

He pulled down the lip of his shorts, and even in the lengthening shadows, his cock bounced out, rigid and leaking. She went to remove her glasses so they wouldn’t get in the way, but Kihyun grabbed her wrist.

“No,” he said, “leave them on. They’re cute.”

Shay didn’t need to be told twice. She pushed them up the bridge of her nose as she pressed her breasts against his thighs and slid his shirt up over his taut stomach. She couldn’t help it; she bit her lip, and for the first time, she heard Kihyun grunt.

Emboldened by his reaction, she wrapped her hand around the base of his cock and pumped his length. His skin was so hot, and the strength of his hard-on fed her vanity. She wanted to please him, so without another thought, she took him in her mouth.

Kihyun brushed her long tresses from her face and over her shoulder so her lewd act was on full display for him. She savored the tip of him first, lapping up the precum before she could get in trouble for not following another order.

He was salty and smooth, and surprisingly, he tasted really good. Shay had never particularly enjoyed giving head, but there was something about Kihyun that made her hungry for him. He watched her intently, as though he was going to grade her performance after, yet there was a softness to the edge of those espresso eyes as though he couldn’t believe she was going along with his instruction.

“Take me deeper, Shay. I know you can.”

Immediately, she opened wider and let him farther into her mouth. Her sucking grew louder and messier as she worked his base with her hand in time with her mouth.

“Just like that,” he said dreamily. He ran his fingers back through her hair, and she hummed into his gentle touch. She hadn’t expected it, but it made her skin prickle. Softer now, he said, “That’s a nice girl.”

Shay whimpered as her lips tightened reflexively around his shaft. Kihyun laughed. “It’s easy to be a nice girl when that nasty mouth is stuffed full of cock, isn’t it?”

This time, her cunt tightened along with her knees. Her thighs were so sticky, it was embarrassing. She thought about running into the bathroom to clean herself up, but she knew she’d get in trouble for that, too. Nice girls didn’t leave their roommate’s poor hard cock hanging unloved.

How was he sinking into her brain so fast? This was insane. It was like he’d hypnotized her with that soothing voice of his. She could have blamed it on her loneliness or her sexual frustration, but Shay knew it was neither of those things. She needed Kihyun’s approval—she craved it. She wanted him to stay with her.

“All right, Shay, that’s enough.”

She released him and sat back as she looked from his wet, red cock to his firm, brown eyes. “Did I do okay?”

“With a wicked mouth like yours, I knew you’d be great at sucking cock.”

He didn’t say anything further, and Shay figured if she wanted some relief from this unbearable ache she’d have to take over after all. She stood up and moved to straddle his lap, but Kihyun cupped her soaking sex full on and shook his head, his eyes black as the oncoming night.

“You don’t get to set the rhythm,” he warned.

Shay let out a frustrated breath. “I need you, Ki.”

He pressed his lips together as though he were struggling with something, but all he said was, “I know.”

She was frantic and pissed off and so fucking needy for a good dicking down, and all he wanted to do was torture her. She rubbed her pussy into his hand as her head kicked back from the sumptuous friction. “Can’t you please just put that big dick into my tight pussy and fuck me raw already?”

In one swift motion, Kihyun pinched her clit, sending her pitching forward onto his shoulder. He placed his mouth next to her ear and said, “You’re not in charge here. I earned you, so I’ll do what I want with you. You don’t get to ride me.”

“You’re lucky I’m lazy anyway,” she grumbled, and he scowled.

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to address that. You need some discipline, Shay. I don’t want to hear from you unless you don’t like something, understood?”

“Yes,” she backpedaled instantly.

Still, Kihyun smacked her breast so hard, the sound reverberated off the exposed beams overhead, and a scarlet handprint appeared immediately on her tan flesh. “What did I just say? I’m tired of your backtalk. You are not to make a sound, even when I’m fucking you hard. If you can’t handle that, you can go to your room alone. Now, I’ll say it again: do you understand?”

Shay nodded, a prick of a tear in the corner of her eye as her chest throbbed along with her pussy. The mark on her chest stung, but not as much as the fear of not getting fucked.

She caught a hint of a smile, maybe relief that he hadn’t gone too far or maybe it was joy at finding someone who accepted this side of him; whatever it was, it was hot.

Kihyun released her sex and traded it for her wrist, and just as he did, the power kicked back on. The room flooded with light and beeps as the appliances whirred back to life. She stood there spotlighted in the nude, and he relished a long examination of her peachy nipples and well-trimmed pussy. He hummed.

A moment later, and he was dragging her back to her room, and for a split second, Shay panicked. She’d been a good girl, right? She hadn’t made a sound! Had he changed his mind now that the power was back on and he could go back to his business? She tugged on his arm and gaped at him, eyes wide with anxiety, but he smiled again, this one definitely amused.

“Aw, is my little pet worried I’m going to leave her un-fucked?”

Shay nodded furiously, and he traced the line of her jaw.

“Why would I do that? I’ve got such a nice girl here, don’t I? Nice girls get special privileges. Nice girls get to cum.” She looked at him with such relief that he laughed. He pulled her into her room and let go. “On the bed, nice girl. Hands and knees.”

Shay complied instantly. She waited on all fours, ass out and eager, but Kihyun didn’t join her. When she glanced back, she found him staring at her computer. The monitor was still on, and now that the Wi-Fi had rebooted, her porn video had refreshed. It was paused, but that didn’t matter. The video title was in big, bold letters, and he gravitated right to it.

“‘My Roommate Fucks Me After I Beg Him for Help,’” he read in his smoothest voice. He clucked his tongue. “And here I was, thinking you were such a nice, innocent girl when all along you just wanted me to put my dick in you. That’s a naughty girl, Shay. You’ve been very selfish, keeping your beautiful body from me for so long. That’s not very fair, is it?”

She shook her head.

Kihyun spanked her ass with the same ferocity he had her tit, but it was even louder in her cramped bedroom.

“And this room is filthy. Nice girls put their things away so when I come to fuck them, I don’t have to scold them for being lazy.”

He spanked her again, four more times on the same cheek. Each blow was like fireworks along her skin, sending tingles down her leg and to her core. Shay swallowed every cry because she had to and because, despite the pain, she hadn’t felt so alive in months. Every minute that ticked by became more unbearable, and her orders to keep silent were becoming increasingly difficult to follow.

She glanced over her shoulder and found Kihyun standing there in the corner of the room, just staring at her glistening, inflamed cunt and her reddening ass. Through the loose fabric of his basketball shorts, she could see how vicious his hard-on was, but the man had the self-control of a god.

Shay was on the verge of tears when, finally, he approached the side of the bed. Instead of climbing on and fucking her, as she expected, he came over to her face, tilted her chin toward him, and kissed her.

He was surprisingly gentle, placing soft kisses over her lips just to see if she would kiss him back, and something about it made her want to cry all over again. Gradually, his kisses grew more passionate, and his tongue quested for hers. It was electric, more than all the other teasing and scolding, like a light turning on inside her that had once been burnt out. She forgot she was naked in the middle of a well-lit room. She forgot the pain on her rear and her chest. There was only Kihyun and his kiss. This time, a tear did slip from her eyes.

Finally, he pulled back, and his gaze skirted to that traitorous droplet. He wiped it with his thumb and said, “You’re a good girl, Shay.”

With that, he undressed, and she could finally appreciate how handsome his form was. He was lean and wiry, with an attractive tone to his stomach. He wasn’t muscled like some of the guys she’d messed around with, and his knees were gangly, but he was so beautiful—the perfect combination of all the best things.

“I want to fuck you now,” he said.

She nodded, every nerve ending firing at just the promise of his touch.

Kihyun climbed onto the bed behind her and slid one finger into her pussy. Shay winched her eyes shut and bit her lip, nearly breaking the skin, before a moan could escape. He dragged the pad of his finger down the front of her walls slowly, as if he were mapping her from the inside out. She trembled and gripped the sheets as tightly as she could.

“No one has ever responded to me the way you do,” he murmured as he withdrew his finger. As if to prove his point, he swirled it around her swollen clit and sent her pitching forward into her pillow. She couldn’t hold back her whimper, but either the pillow swallowed the sound or Kihyun took pity on her because he kept going until she was a shuddering mess.

Just before the knot inside her frayed, however, he stopped. He placed one hand over the rosy print on her ass, and she winced, expecting another spank, but instead, he rubbed it slowly. The tenderness was as erotic as his orders were, and she pushed back into it. The tip of his cock bobbed against her dripping folds, and Kihyun let out a slow sigh.

“Back on your hands, Shay,” he reminded, and she reluctantly left the safety of her pillow.

The head of his member roved up and down her slippery seam and slapped against her clit a few times for good measure. She held back her needy mewl just in time, but it was killing her. She didn’t think she’d ever been this quiet in her whole life—she’d been kicked out of libraries before, for fuck’s sake—and now she was being asked to hold back just how good he was making her feel? It was too cruel.

At last, he centered himself at her entrance and pushed in.

It was sinful and sweet, like a stolen chocolate-covered cherry during a month-long fast. Nothing had ever been more delectable. Behind her, even her disciplined roommate was succumbing to their connection. He let out a little hum that ended in a forceful grunt, and all Shay wanted to do was kiss him again.

But there was no time for that. Kihyun delved deeper into her, inch by inch, until he reached his hilt. He waited there, letting her cunt squeeze him as it adjusted to his size.

Thanks to the pandemic, Shay hadn’t been fucked in months, so maybe she was being dramatic, but no one had ever filled her up better. Even the bigger dicks she’d experienced hadn’t stimulated her like Kihyun’s did. She was ravenous for him.

Slowly, he pulled out and then, just as slowly, pushed back in, long, smooth motions that threatened to tear whines and begging from her lips. He didn’t begrudge her the soft panting she made, but maybe that was because he was making the same sounds, too, or it was simply too hard to hear over the squelch of her drenched cunt.

As Kihyun picked up speed, the room became a blur. Shay tried to focus on anything to distract her from how good it felt when he stretched her wide, but no amount of lip-biting could dam the moans swelling in her chest. Her elbows gave out, and she fell into her pillow and strangled out a tiny cry.

He took her more ferociously now, quick and deep and perfectly smooth because there was no part of himself that he didn’t control. The friction ignited a fuse in her walls that was quickly burning up.

“Don’t cum,” Kihyun warned. “It’s not your turn.”

But how could she hold back a freight train of pent-up frustration just ready to spill? Shay wedged her eyes shut and bit into her forearm, but it wasn’t enough. She couldn’t hold it.

Kihyun pulled out and it took every last atom within her not to scream.

“I said it’s not your turn,” he snapped. “On your back.”

Shay rolled over and spread her legs, and he settled between them immediately. He brought his cock back to her cunt, but instead of watching himself slide back in, he caught her gaze. With a firm thrust of his hips, he drove inside her.

This angle gave Kihyun all the ammunition for his continued torture that he could possibly want. One sinister hand grabbed a handful of her tit while the other rubbed her flushed clit. In a matter of moments, she was on the verge of release again, but still he grunted, “Don’t you dare cum.”

Shay shook her head violently and grabbed at his wrist, but he shook her off.

“This pretty pussy has to wait.”

He spread her legs as wide as they could go as he gnawed on his lip. Fuck, he was gorgeous.

“So wet, so wet,” he murmured. “God, I wish I could—”

But he cut himself off and pulled out, and with a cry more desperate than she would have ever expected from a man like him, Kihyun shot his load all over her little landing strip of hair. Pearls of ivory splattered against her belly and all over her mound as he pumped through his release with little grunts of ecstasy.

His panting slowed as his eyelids drifted shut, and after a moment, he climbed up beside her face.

Breathy and tired, he said, “Clean me up.”

Shay opened her mouth, and he slid in immediately, letting her suck him clean of all her mess as well as his. He gasped as she sucked the head of his sensitive cock and scolded her to go easier. When he was satisfied with her work, he backed off, and with eyes still black as coal, he added, “Now, clean yourself up.”

He placed her fingertips over the milky white mess between her legs and guided one of her fingers through it before he led the glistening bead back to her lips.

“Do a good job, and you get to cum.”

Her shock faded away as eagerness replaced it. Her pussy was throbbing and her limbs were tired from the perpetual haze of near release, and the only thing that mattered right now was his promise. She swept her hands through his spilt seed and fed it all to herself. Dignity was a thing for bad girls anyway.

Beside her, Kihyun smiled. “You’re special, Shay.”

She grinned around her sticky fingertips before she finished sucking them clean, and then she presented her hands for his inspection.

“What a nice girl. Now, let me make my nice girl feel as nice as she made me feel.”

Kihyun laid down beside her, his sweaty body pressing against hers. His hand settled between her legs as his mouth settled over hers. He kissed her again, his tongue seeking entrance immediately this time. He could taste himself on her tongue mixed with her essence, and he sighed.

While he kissed her fervently, his middle finger slid between her pussy lips and drenched itself in her honey. A moment later, it was joined by a second finger, which slid in just as easily. His fingers were so much longer than hers, and they could reach much deeper into her. They curled up into her wall, beckoning her release forward for the final time.

He broke their kiss to slide down her body and watch as his other hand worked her clit in time with his finger fucks. He studied each circle his fingers made to target the special spot on her clit made her thighs tremble, and when he found it, he worked it again and again.

“I want to watch you cum, baby. Show me how sexy you look unleashing all over my fingers. Nice girls show their lovers.”

Kihyun’s words were all it took to send her catapulting into ecstasy. She squirmed and bucked into his grasp as his fingers fucked her through her release. Stars danced behind her eyes as a long moan of his name tumbled forth, unable to be held back any longer.

“Wow,” he whispered, entranced by her shivering pink heat and the sound of his name still ringing in his ears. “Beautiful.”

Shay collapsed onto her bed, not an ounce of strength left in her. Most of her orgasms were faked just to end lackluster sex, but this one was still traveling through her body, sending little spasms through her belly and down into her toes.

Kihyun hummed, that small smirk on his face. “I made this mess, so I’ll clean it up.”

In a flash, his fingers were in his mouth, each digit meticulously sucked clean, before he slipped his head between her thighs and rolled his broad tongue over her folds with the same precision. Despite her mewls and jerks, he held her fast and licked her until he was sure she was clean.

When he was done, he slid beside her and draped an arm over her stomach. With an astonished laugh, he said, “You can speak now.”

“Holy fucking hell, finally,” she blurted, and they both smiled. “Fuck, that was insanely good, Ki. We could have been doing this the whole time? Fuck. Why didn’t you ever knock on my door?”

She expected a quick barb or some other wit, but instead, only the white noise of the window unit answered. She turned toward him. His brown hair had fallen into his eyes as his chin rested on her shoulder.

“You live a lot more than I do,” he replied quietly. “It’s… intimidating. You’re intimidating.”

Shay laughed. “I’m intimidating? After all that shit you just pulled?”

But Kihyun was dead serious, his hand tracing her throat as his voice softened even further. “You’re not afraid of the world or being a part of it. I’m not comfortable unless I’m controlling it, so I keep to my corner.”

Shay brushed his hair back and smiled. “Well, you can come to mine whenever you want. I’ll show you around. Maybe you’ll like what’s out there, and if you don’t, you can bring me back to your corner, and I’ll let you boss me around for a bit—within reason. But you should know, I don’t want to be one of those books you check out when you feel like it.”

Kihyun considered her words before he answered, “I thought you liked that. With those other guys—”

“Not with you, okay?”

His hand curled around her waist and squeezed lightly. “Okay.”

Shay’s heart buoyed, and suddenly, the prospect of another few months of lockdown didn’t seem quite so daunting.

“But before we do this again,” he said warily, “we’re cleaning your room.”

“We?”

“I—well, yeah.” Those high apple cheeks were polished bright pink, and they were so cute, she let out a hum.

“Ki?”

“What?”

“You can sleep in here tonight if you want.”

He sat up on one elbow and looked down at her. “Is that what you want?”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t, you dope.”

He held her for a minute, his eyes closed as well as hers, and then suddenly, he blurted, “How about my bed instead? I think we need to wash your sheets.”

“Fine, your bed,” she groaned.

“But shower first.”

“Oh my god, you’re so demanding.” A flash of a pout danced across his features, and Shay waved it off. “I’m just teasing, Ki.”

He stood up and offered his hand to her, but as soon as she took it, he tugged her naked body to his, and she could feel his fresh hardness against her hip.

“You know what happens to girls who tease me.”

[smol-and-grumpy]

Confidentiality - Chapter 1: The Conference Call

Pairing: Jensen Ackles x Reader

Summary: Four months. Four long months that she’s been hiding in lockdown. So when everything starts to go back to normal again, she’s going back to work as Jensen’s handler for the first Supernatural convention after the pandemic.

Chapter Warnings: A little angst, a dash of fluff

WC: 1703

A/N: For this fic, let’s pretend Jensen is single and the pandemic was over and done with after four months. Also I’m sorry ugh, it’s been a while since I wrote Jensen. 

Beta’d by: @dean-winchesters-bacon​​ <3

Series Masterlist ~ SPN Masterlist

Become a Patron ~ Buy me a coffee

It’s Monday and Y/N is sitting in a darkened room as she starts up her laptop for today’s work meeting. She had drawn the blinds already, hiding her surroundings from her workmates.

The light on the nightstand illuminates the room enough for the people in the video call to see her features. That’s all they need to see, really. 

Logging onto her laptop with her password, she clicks open the email client, and selects her calendar. The cursor travels over the highlighted block and she clicks on it, searching for the login link to the Zoom meeting. 

It’s 4.56 PM, she still has four minutes left. Wonders if she should click on the link and let the computer connect or if she should wait. She’d hate to be one of the first ones because that’s always awkward. She would spend time talking nonsense with whoever was as eager as her to join a meeting too soon. 

4.58 PM. Now is a good time, probably. Not too early and she’d hate even more to be the last one. 

Moving her mouse over the link, she clicks on it and a window with the meeting pops open. There’s another click and then she’s there, her laptop camera lights up with a green light, signaling that she too can be seen. 

Seeing herself on screen is not something she enjoys. She nervously rights her hair, arranges it so nobody will notice the hickey that she tried to hide with concealer ten minutes before. It’s a fresh one, one he just gave her an hour ago, even though he knew full well that she’s going to have a meeting. It's her own fault because she had let him, always gets so fucking weak when he nibbles at her throat.

Y/N joins as the six people are talking about something. Nonsense, she guesses. She doesn’t really listen. 

There should be ten people in the meeting to discuss the upcoming Supernatural Convention. The first convention after the lockdown. 

“Hi,” she says and waves, because that’s what every newcomer does and she’s greeted with Hello’s and Hi’s back. 

But there’s one guy already sitting in there, looking like he owns the whole fucking internet, and she doesn’t know how he does it with the lighting but he looks downright pretty. It’s not really fair. 

“Hey, Y/N,” Jensen greets her by name. Of course he does, because he likes to rile her up. He’s also the only one who’s so abso-fucking-lutely cheery. “How are you?”

She smirks, “I’m fine, thank you. I hope you are too.”

Keeping it professional, that’s what she can and will do.

“Good,” Jensen nods and opens his mouth to say something more but he gets cut off by her boss who’s taking the lead. 

Y/N doesn’t say much, doesn’t have anything to say anyway during the first ten minutes of the conversation. Lowering her face, she takes notes because it’s a prep meeting where they get informed how it will work out and to see how the spirit of the people involved is for the upcoming convention — which she’s really excited about. It has been a while. 

Jensen and Jared do a lot of talking, as they want to know the details on how to make the experience great for the fans after everyone’s been holed up for so long. And she loves that. She always loved how they actually really care, unlike other show’s leads. There are some points that still need to be talked through and Y/N just sits back and watches. She could watch Jensen talk for days, it’s really mesmerizing. 

His hair is long, his beard too. Jensen’s new look is completely different from Dean. It makes him look softer, and rounds up the edges of his jawline. The graying of his beard doesn’t make him less attractive, and that’s also something that she thinks it’s unfair. She hopes they will let him keep it for the convention. Hopes that he won’t let them talk him out of it because ‘some fans might want to meet Dean and not Jensen’. It’s going to be another month until they go back to filming, so it’s actually feasible. She’s sure that apart from a select few, the majority of fans would love to take a photo with this look and she can’t blame them one bit.

It’s going to be weird when the look is gone. Honestly, she needed some time to get used to it herself, but it has really grown on her. Maybe she’ll mourn the loss — just a little.

“So, let’s recap,” Gina, her boss, says and Y/N snaps her mind back to reality, “Jared’s flying in on Friday already because you want to visit some friends, right?”

“Correct,” Jared nods his head in approval. “You did book the hotel for three nights for me, right?” The question is directed to her co-worker, Julian, who’s responsible for the boys' travel arrangements. 

“Yeah, I did,” Julian says with a nod of his head.

Gina nods, “Good, so Jensen, I see that you’re flying in on Saturday evening as per usual?”

“Yes.” Jensen says. He looks into his screen and licks his lips. She hates that she knows that he’s looking at her.

“I want you girls to be there on Friday evening at the latest? We’ll also go for dinner on Saturday and go over the Sunday schedule.”

“Uh, yes. I’ll be there,��� Hannah and Kristin say in unison. Kristin is responsible for Misha but since Misha is also attending Sunday, she sits into the meeting as a formality.

That’s Y/N’s cue.

“I-I’m, uh, sorry, I’m still in the middle of booking my flight but yeah, I’ll be there on Friday.” 

It was a huge issue with Jensen and they’d argued today about the flight. He doesn’t want her to leave until the last possible minute but now she has the confirmation that she has to be there on Friday already.

She sees Jensen raising an eyebrow and hates him for it because he distracts her.

“Okay,” her boss nods, “Jared and Jensen, I’ll have someone picking you up.”

Jared smiles, “Okay.”

“Great,” Jensen huffs out. She can see that he’s a little irritated about something.

The others don’t seem to have noticed, but she does. Jared notices as well, but apart from him clearing his throat, he doesn’t say a word.

“Right, I need to hurry to another meeting. Boys, I’ll see you Sunday!” Gina addresses the boys before waving goodbye, and disconnects. People in the meeting follow her and disappear one by one.

Y/N too, disconnects and is about to shut down her laptop when a skype call interrupts her.

Ugh.

It’s Jensen.

As soon as she picks up, her screen lights up and the view of his face almost blinds her. Honestly, it’s like staring into the sun. Nonetheless, she rolls her eyes because of the things he pulled in the meeting. 

“Why are you rolling your eyes at me?” He asks, seemingly oblivious. 

She groans with another eye roll, “Because you tried to distract me the entire conference call!”

“Excuse me? I wasn’t the one who was trying to undress you with my eyes.”

Y/N cocks an eyebrow, frowning at him. There’s a beat of silence until he groans.

“Fine, alright, I did. Sorry, okay? And why didn’t you say that we’re going to fly in together on Saturday like we said we would?” There’s something about the way he looks and she detects disappointment. 

“As far as I remember, we did not settle on that because you ended up distracting me again and gave me a fucking hickey. And besides,” she sighs, “Nobody should know.”

“Would it really be so bad, Y/N?”

“Jensen, are we really going to have this conversation over Skype?”

“Fine,” he scoffs and stands up abruptly, walking out of the frame. 

Great.

Abandoning her laptop, Y/N proceeds to walk to the window to open up the blinds again. Walking back, she switches off the only other light source, and as if on cue, the door opens.

“Shall we have the conversation face to face instead?” Jensen asks as he barges in, walks to the bed of his guest room, and sits down. He rubs a hand through his long hair, scratches at his beard before he looks at her. 

“I rather not have it at all, but yet here we are, huh?” She strides over to stand in front of him and Jensen looks up, his features are so fucking soft, it makes her weak.

“Why don’t you want them to know? And I’m sure they would let it slide if you flew in on Saturday instead of Friday. You’re only responsible for me anyway and we’re a good team.” His hand reaches out for her, tugs at her wrist, uses his strength to pull her onto the bed with him. 

Y/N lands on her back with a squeal and Jensen takes the opportunity, looming over her and looking down at her. Her hand goes up, strokes his hair back, fingertips tracing along his beard.

“Because the only reason I’m still employed is because you let them put in the contract that you want me as your handler and no one else. They would absolutely hate it if they found out I was fucking their talent.”

Jensen chuckles, his nose touching hers, “That’s not true.”

“What’s that?”

“If anything, it’s me fucking you.” His irresistible smile makes Y/N melt a little before he kisses her. 

He lingers too long, kisses her too softly, too sweetly, knowing what effect his kisses have on her. 

Pushing at his chest, she makes him break the kiss, “I should look for a flight.”

“No,” he chuckles and pecks her lips.

“Jensen!”

“Okay, fine,” he pushes himself up, “but only because I have an interview scheduled.”

Right, he does. It’s going to be an hour long.

“You want me to make dinner to have it ready when you’re finished?” She asks while she sits up and walks over to her laptop.

“Nah, I’ll eat you,” Jensen winks before he walks out.

Chapter 2

Please share your thoughts with me, I’d love to hear your feedback.

[cobaltusami]

May I request some naegiri, with lee!makoto, cause we all know that Makoto is babey

Hi! Yes, Absolutely! I love Naegiri, and lee!Makoto Is super adorable! ^^ Makoto Is sweet sunshine child who must be protected.

I had fun writing this! for some reason my mind immediately jumped to Angst/Comfort for the topic.

I’m also sorry If this isn’t long enough, This Is the shortest fic I’ve written...

This takes place either right after the school went Into lockdown before the killing game started or in the middle of a non despair AU, It’s open for interpretation :)

Hope you enjoy!

Words: 1395

Characters: Lee!Makoto, Ler!Kyoko

SPOILER WARNINGS FOR THE FIRST GAME AHEAD

Weight of the world

“Good morning.” Kyoko greeted her classmates as she entered the dining hall, met with greetings in return she scanned the room, she noticed It was more quiet than usual this morning. Her purple eyes fell on an empty chair, one that was usually occupied by… 

“Where’s Makoto?” She asked.

“He said he wasn’t feeling well.” Sayaka answered, hand In front of her mouth as she spoke. She swallowed her food and set her fork down. “He said something about a headache.”

Hmm… That’s not like him. He doesn’t ever skip breakfast. 

Kyoko lingered for a moment longer before wordlessly going to the kitchen and preparing a plate of food for Makoto, Grabbing a bottle of water on her way out. “I’m going to go check on him.” She said over her shoulder as she made her way to his room.

She pressed her elbow against his doorbell and waited patiently.

Inside the room, Makoto groaned and pulled himself out of bed.  “Just a minute.” He called to whoever was standing at his door.

After realizing he was still In his pajamas, He quickly pulled on some jeans and a t-shirt before shuffling over and opening the door. “K-Kyoko?” 

“May I come In?” She asked politely. He nodded and stepped aside so she could.

She set the plate down on his table and turned to him. “I wasn’t expecting you to get dressed, You must be feeling a little better.”

Makoto’s cheeks flushed. “Uh, Not really. I just thought you might appreciate It if I answered the door wearing pants.”

Kyoko smiled a bit to herself In amusement. “I know that Sayaka said your stomach was hurting, But I brought you some breakfast. I think you should try to eat some of It.” 

She purposely threw out the incorrect ailment, trying to trip him up.

Makoto, Being a terrible liar, forgot what he told Sayaka to get rid of her this morning. So he just nodded and went along with it. 

“Makoto. What’s really wrong?” She asked, Stepping closer to her boyfriend. “You can tell me.”

“W-What do you mean? I just--”

“You told Sayaka you had a headache, And then just agreed to telling her you had a stomach ache.” 

Makoto bit his lip and looked away, knowing better than to lie any further to the Ultimate Detective. “Alright. I’m sorry for lying to you, But I just didn’t feel like eating and I didn’t want everyone to make a big deal out of it.” 

Kyoko put her gloved hands on his shoulders and guided him over to the bed where they sat down. “What’s bothering you?” She asked, setting her hands in her lap.

“I don’t… It’s just…” The brunette looked away from her warm gaze, biting his now trembling lip. “I feel… Hopeless.”

His eyes filled with tears as the feelings he’d previously pushed aside came festering back. “I’m supposed to be the Ultimate Hope, But I feel so…”

“So full of Despair.” She whispered.

He nodded, blinking away the tears.

“It’s hard being locked up here, I know. I can’t imagine the weight on your shoulders, You feel like you always have to uplift everyone and give them Hope. Even when you yourself don’t feel Hopeful.” Kyoko started, prompting tears to spill down his cheeks. “You feel alone, Isolated. You might even be angry to an extent that no one can see past that to your pain.”

She took his trembling hands in hers and stared Into his eyes as if searching the contents of his very soul. “But you aren’t alone, I’m here. And I see your pain. Your feelings are valid.”

Makoto wrapped his arms around his girlfriend and cried into her shoulder.

Kyoko ran her hands over his back in a comforting manner, not saying anything else so he had some time to process his feelings.

After a few minutes he calmed down and pulled back, wiping the tears away from his face. “S-Sorry about that…” He meekly apologized.

She offered a small smile in response. “It’s okay. Do you feel any better?”

“Yeah. I’m feeling better now.” He mustered up a smile and went to stand up but was pulled back down.

“No you aren’t.” She saw through his lie yet again. “I don’t like being lied to, Naegi.” 

She spoke In a stern voice, However there was an unnerving edge to her words. Something that resembled playfulness.

Something that resembled ‘Makoto’s in trouble and about to get wrecked.’

“I-I’m sorry Kyoko! I didn’t even realize I was doing It!” Makoto panicked, His words flooding out like a waterfall. A very panicky waterfall. 

Kyoko pushed him down and straddled his legs to stop him from getting up and running away. “I think you need to be taught what happens when you lie to a Kirigiri.” She smirked, shoving his shirt up.

“W-Wait! Can’t we talk about this-- Pfft n-no! Kyohohohokohoho!” He dissolved into a fit of giggles as he felt her gloved fingers scribbling all around his sides.

She smiled, The air In the room felt ten times lighter now that he was laughing. “Sorry, But no. We’re done talking for now. Now you get to laugh and think about how unwise It is to lie to me.”

“I’m sorryehehehe!” He giggled, writhing underneath her. He didn’t try to stop her though, subconsciously he must have realized he needed this attention right now.

“It’s too late for sorry, Makoto.” She teased, fluttering her fingers across his stomach. “Does this tickle?”

Makoto squealed and arched his back, which only pressed her fingers further into his ticklish stomach. “KYOHOHOHO!”

“Yes, Makoto?” She asked innocently.

“IHIHIHIT TIHIHICKLES!” He whined, covering his quickly reddening face.

“Does It?” She smiled in amusement. “I had no Idea.”

The smooth texture of her gloves tickled like hell, and she was well aware of this. Kyoko wasn’t even tickling that fast or hard but Makoto was damn near In hysterics, Especially when she suddenly dipped down and blew a raspberry on his belly.

The Ultimate Hope screamed, Unable to form words as he laughed his heart out. After the third raspberry, He began pushing at Kyoko’s head In an attempt to escape. “KYOOHOHOHOHO! PLEHEHEHEHEASE STAHAHAHAP!”

“Hmm. How can I be sure you really want me to stop?” She asked coyly, Dipping a finger into his belly button. “You keep lying to me, So for all I know… You want me to keep going.”

Makoto girlishly squealed and tried to suck in his stomach. “I’M SOHOHOHOHORRY FOR LYING TO YOUHUHUHU!” 

“I don’t know, That could be another lie…” She smirked, Wiggling her finger faster. “Are you really sure?”

“YEHEHEHES! I’M SOHOHOHOHO SORRY!” Makoto cackled, Tears slipping down his cheeks for a second time today, Though this time It was for a happier reason. “PLEHEHEHEASE! I CAHAHAHAN’T!”

Kyoko pulled her hands back and climbed off of her giggling and panting boyfriend, coming to rest right next to him. “Are you feeling any better now?” She asked, turning over onto her side to look at him.

Makoto nodded slowly as he wiped his tears away with the heels of his hands and pushed his shirt back down. “Yeah… Thank you, Kyo.” He turned his head to look at her for a moment before leaning closer and planting a soft kiss against her lips. 

“You’re welcome. Just remember, You may have a lot of weight on your shoulders, But you don’t have to carry It alone.“ She smiled, her cheeks tinting a pale pink. “Now come on! Let’s go get some breakfast.” 

Kyoko got out of bed only for Makoto wrap his arms around her waist and pull her back down into the bed with him. “Can’t we just stay here for a while? I’m kind of tired…”

She giggled as he nuzzled into her neck and closed his eyes, gently she pushed him back. “No. I’m hungry, And you haven’t eaten either.”

“You can have the plate of food you brought me.” He offered.

“Nice try. It’s cold by now. Come on, Get up. Everyone Is probably wondering where I am.”

She had to practically drag him behind her, but at least he had some life back In him.

While things may still be super tense and stressful for Makoto, It comforted him to know that he wasn’t alone, And didn’t have to shoulder all of this responsibility alone.

[pynkhues]

Hey! Someone made a post just before rewatch today, and while they’ve deleted it now (although I was sent a screenshot of it, so I suspect others might have been too), I know most people who do rewatch have probably seen it and I would like to talk about the context of it.

Feel free to ignore this post, because it’s definitely personal fandom drama, and something I wish could’ve stayed private, but it’s also something that’s weighed heavily on me the last six months and I feel the need to talk about it now because quite frankly I’m being lied about. Those lies are something that has substantially contributed to me pulling away from the fandom over the last six months, posting less fics and answering less asks. Hell, it’s even made me contemplate deleting my blog and fic and leaving the fandom a few times now, and I just really need to get it off my chest so that I can hopefully put it behind me.

There’s a person in this fandom who’s been more or less relentlessly lying about me for the last six months. It’s somebody who has subtagged, gaslit, boycotted, and spread lies in DMs, public posts and tags, and while I won’t name them, I don’t think it’ll be particularly difficult for anyone to work out who this is.

She’s accused me often and tirelessly of calling her a bitch, which never happened and I have the screenshots of our chats to prove it, calling me (as a person) and my opinions shit publicly on her blog (again, I have screenshots of this), accused me of harassing her (after our friendship deteriorated, we had two dm conversations before I blocked her because of her aforementioned lying), telling everyone she blocked me when it’s the other way around (and I’m shocked she doesn’t remember relentlessly tagging about that after it happened too), and accusing me of policing fandom opinion. Her friends have called me in private DMs a ‘master manipulator’ and ‘disturbing’ and ‘exclusionary’ and accused me of playing the victim when all I’ve done is tried to keep my mouth shut or reach out to smooth things over (although again, I’ll admit when all this started back in August, I struggled with the former, but I haven’t subtagged in months, a courtesy that has not been extended back to me).

I originally fell out with this person because I told her I was struggling in the midst of Melbourne’s 111 day lockdown – one of the harshest in the world – and needed a break from the negative tone of her posts and tags (something I told her after she slid into my DMs to ask why I unfollowed her, not a conversation I ‘harassed’ her with, again, I have screenshots, so I’m not sure why she’s lying about this). I told her this wasn’t necessarily an unfollow forever, just for right now, and she told me she still considered us friends. Within hours, I was rewarded with my effort to protect my increasingly-fragile mental state with a relentless effort on her part to vilify me and victimize herself which after a few weeks led to me blocking her.

Every olive branch I’ve extended by including her in fic recs and even today’s thank you for the rewatch banner has been snarled at and twisted (the irony too of knowing that if I left her off that banner, it would be seen as an erasure and an attack). She’s painted me as a performative, two-faced bitch while having the audacity of accusing me of calling her the same, which I have never done. The most I have ever accused her of is behaving badly, which quite frankly, I stand by.

I am exhausted.

And for the record, I don’t know this because I stalk her blog. I see her posts still in reblogs (blocking only removes from your feed - if you check people’s blogs, you can see the reblogs of people you blocked), and numerous people send me screenshots of the things that she says that are clearly about me.

I’m not talking about this now for any sort of witch hunt or pity, I just want her to stop, for all of our sakes. It might be beating a deadhorse at this point for me to repeat this, but it has been six months now, and the thing that was supposed to preserve my mental health has instead set off this chain of nightmare events. All I wanted was space and for her to have an ounce of accountability for her negativity, and what I’ve gotten is relentless lies spread about me and harassment (which is fucking ironic given she’s just accused me of the same when literally the only way I’ve even acknowledged her in the last few months was in a fic rec and today’s banner).

I just needed to get this off my chest, because existing in this fandom and trying to hold my tongue while she’s made post after post and sent message after message in an effort to shape a narrative around me simply because I unfollowed her and then blocked her, has been really fucking hard for me. I’ve tried to keep this private, because I didn’t – and still don’t – believe it should concern anyone else in this fandom, but again, this is not a courtesy that’s been extended back to me, and the thought that she will just keep doing this (which she has proven - again - six months, and that’s not including the times I tried to talk to her about it before I unfollowed her) is just really, really exhausting. 

I guess the point of saying all of this is that I’m tired of letting her spread lies about me in thinly veiled posts, I’m tired of her saying that nobody includes her and then posting nasty shit about me when I try to simply acknowledge her as a contributor to this fandom, I’m tired of her twisting things that are supposed to be fun and good into another way that I’m a performative, two-faced bitch, and she’s trying to like - - escape my clutches? I don’t know. The mythology of her lies has evolved a lot over time. 

Mostly though I’m tired of letting her have power over me, because I’ve let her spread lies and ignored it in the hopes of making the space better for everyone else, but honestly? It’s making it worse for me.

So there, I’ve said my piece. I know she’s already been successful in changing some people’s opinions of me, and who knows, maybe they’ll see this and question some of what she’s told them, maybe they’ll just see this as me playing the victim again, I don’t know, the latter is certainly not my intent. 

I just wanted to defend myself, because I think I deserve that. 

Here’s the screenshot of her post today if you want it: 

And oh, here’s just one of the posts she made after I blocked her in August. There were and are a lot more, but I don’t feel any desire to share those. I’m just using this of evidence of just one of her lies and some of the shit she’s said about me.

I’m over it.

[captain-aralias]

Life stuff

this feels kind of weird, because i’ve never used my tumblr like this, but i would have written something on my livejournal, and i want people to know - i just dont want to have to tell people about it, or really talk about it at all. 

but i also wanted to write this, idk. 

(TW: impending death of a parent)

my mum has cancer. 

it’s a rare form of cancer, called peritoneal cancer, which is similar to but different from ovarian cancer - i think it mostly gets diagnosed (like my mum’s) when it’s too late to do anything about it. all the treatment has been palliative only i.e. letting her live as long and as comfortably as possible.

she was diagnosed in september last year - about a year ago, a few months after running the ‘virtual’ london marathon on the isle of wight, where she lives, and obviously deep in lockdown. 

as someone undergoing chemo, she was deemed extremely vulnerable to covid, and so she spent most of the early pandemic isolating. she also said she didn’t see any point in my brother and i visitng her, particularly given the risks, because we could talk via facetime - which is fair enough - all of which meant my brother and i didn’t go to visit her until May this year, after she’d done the first lot of chemo and was already doing much better again. 

a few months after that, we found out that while she’d responded really well to the chemo, her cancer wasn’t responding at all to the maintenance drugs that were suposed to stop it coming back, so she came off the drugs completely. medical advice was basically chemo is as effective whenever you do it, so you might as well enjoy your life for a while, we’ll monitor it every month, and when things start to get too bad, we’ll put you back in chemo. 

it’s friday tomorrow - so two fridays ago, i saw my mum in london after she’d just seen hamilton with her partner, graham. both of them loved hamilton. her hair had grown back, she seemed pretty normal. about a week later, she was in A&E - and she’s been in the hospital all week. she’s got a total bowel obstruction, which means she can’t eat and hasn’t eaten since last week.

now in a weird situation where there are a few tricky, difficult options (including being moved off the island back onto the mainland to a bigger hospital) that will mean that she stays alive long enough to get the chemo, which will probably get her back to hamilton-watching strength, or ... she could die really soon. like, in a few days. 

we can’t visit. her partner can’t visit because covid - there’s this really sad-making photo of him looking happy on the phone through a window to my mum, also on the phone, inside the hospital. 

i feel...

???? :( :( :( ....

i guess this is the main point of the post. i’m not writing this crying, i’m writing it pretty neutrally - because my brain isn’t really processing it right now, and mostly doesn’t process it. 

i did cry earlier today while on the phone to various people, and then i went back to work. i hate crying, i hate being sad, and i dont like people comforting me, because it makes me realise that i have something to be sad about. 

i’ve known she had cancer for a year. i haven’t been able to hang out with her most of that time. i would say, we are fairly close, although not nearly as close as some families. we don’t talk every week, but we talk regularly, and have seen each other regularly. 

i’m so incredibly privileged that nothing that bad has ever happened to me, even though i’m 35. i’ve never been to a funeral, which seemed like a major life win and now i think was a mistake, i should have gone to funerals for people i card about less to help get used to it. 

the literal only comparison i have to how i feel is when my cat Anton died suddenly  about 3 years ago - i handled it with a mix of not thinking about it, being intensely sad for as brief a period as i could, and probably by thinking about how sad my girlfriend was about it, and sort of sidestepping my own feelings in comparison. 

i remember when my last remaining grandparent died - and i was about 14 or something - i wasn’t sad for myself, i was only sad for her my dad being sad. for ages, i worried that i was not going to be sad enough about this - and i still sort of am. 

but i also passionately hate the idea of being sad and i know i’ll look to avoid it as much as possible, and try and get on with my life. 

i know my mum dying isn’t about me - when people write after death it’s about the person who died, obviously. that makes sense. but this post isn’t about my mum, who is a very cool person, much cooler than me - it’s about me. because i am self-obsessed and this is going to wreck my life for a while.

it’s weird, because i can see it on the horizon but it’s not happening yet. and i dont know whether that’s good or bad - i feel like it’s good, in a way. someone ages ago told me that the grieving period starts when you get the news. that seems very true to me - but also, i know that it’s going to ramp up, and so i’m like in the expectation of true grief right now. 

it’s sort of like she died, but also is still going to die, but also i can magically still talk to her. which is really nice, in a way, it’s like a second chance, because i know i didn’t reach out enough before she had cancer. and i’m aware enough of my own actions that i know this is what’s been going on in my head the past year - i should reach out more, because she has cancer, but i dont want to make it seem like i’m reaching out because she has cancer, even though she knows i know she has cancer....... and also, i’m busy writing this fic. /o\

the fact that she seemed to recover (even though my mum insisted on saying ‘i am not recovered, i’m going to die soon’ like several time as a day as a disclaimer) also totally messed with my head, because i knew logically - ok, it’s happening. but also, things seemed so normal when we speak. even when i called her today, and she hasn’t eaten for a week, it seemed normal. 

btw - i realised this week i had no idea how cancer killed people. my mum is a scientist and has looked up all kinds of things about what’s killing her; i’m clearly a simon snow and didn’t want to think about things i can’t help. if you’d asked me, i’d have said like... it poisons you or something, or blocks bloodflow to your brain. not what i think will actually do it which is.... starvation. or being too weak to survive being pumped full of the poison that is intended to kill the cancer. (that one i guess i could have predicted.) man - cancer sucks. i mean, we all knew it. 

(i failed to get into cambridge university at interview stage, many years ago. the man who interviewed me gave me some extremely memorable feedback, which is that i needed to dial back the ‘defensive irony’ - which i thnk in that context meant i put myself down and tried to make a joke of everything. i remember when i got the phonecall to say Anton, my cat, was dead, i literally did not know what to do with my voice - because my instinct was to try and make the vet feel better, and also to present myself as bright and capable, and yet this unexpected and devasting news had just come through. rainbow wrote something sort of similar because she’s a good writer, for shepard as he tells penny about his curse. i feel like that.) 

what else did i want to say? 

i thought i had more time. ‘hamilton’ will probably always be tied to this moment in my mind, because of how much i’ve spoken to my mum about it in the past few weeks (i sent her the remix - she liked it, she listened to it in hospital while trying to drink more than 100ml of fluids) but yeah - this is basically a line from hamilton here. whatever. don’t make me feel my own feelings, let me just quote things. i dont like my own feelings. (no, i dont want to go to therapy - they’d make me talk about my feelings all the time, i’m british for god’s sake.) 

i’m 35 - my mum is 68. i didn’t think she’d die this early or that i’d have to deal with this yet. but then i also don’t think bad things are ever going to happen to me - because mostly they haven’t, see above. i wear a mask and am double vaccinated because i’m not an asshole, but i dont really believe i’ll get covid because bad things don’t happen to me. i didn’t think my mum would die - maybe ever, but definitely not yet. she’s been retired a decade after teaching (science) and has enjoyed it. 

i thought i had time to not have kids yet - which is the other thing (like hamilton) that this moment is really tied up with for me. i feel like 35 is getting quite old, but also not that old to still not have kids, but intend to maybe have them. my feelings about kids were basically like - up until like 25, i thought, yes, definitely. i mean, before i had a realtiosnhip (22-ish), i just assumed i would probably have a het marriage and have kids etc, like people do, but after that we were still talking, yes, children at some point. 

didn’t prioritise it for a few reasons - none of my close friends had children until quite recently, so it just didn’t seem like an urgent thing in the way that it probably does for people with different friendship groups. waiting to be settled enough in a job to be able to take maternity leave without it feeling like a rip off for my employer. waiting for a good time in erin’s PhD writing cycle. and then pandemic. and then a few years ago, maybe as i turned 30, i thought - maybe we won’ have kids, because we still haven’t - and i vocalised that to erin. 

also, i know a lot of people are gay and have children, so it’s not like it’s a thing that is impossible at all, but it’s much much harder if you have to leave your home and your relationship in order to get a child. it has to be a very very conscious decisions. i have friend who are men who have good genes, but we’re not so close i want to ask them for their sperm/to be involved however remotely in making a child - and (i was surprised to discover) (what a lot of things i dont know anything about) you an’t really just buy sperm, it’s not truly legal except through a clinic. and it’s extremely expensive to get inseminated in a clinic, and the NHS don’t really do that, so you do have to pay it. i thought kids would be expensive after they were born, but not before. and i REALLY wanted a house, much much more than - i think even today - i’ve ever wanted a child. i REALLY wanted a house - and now we have a house, and it’s pretty good. but - that’s where the money went, until the pandemic - thanks pandemic - so now we do have some disposable cash at last, because i didn’t commute. 

but now erin is worried about climate change - and wheher it’s right to bring more children into the world, and other things. and.... i think i do want to be pregnant, it’s what i’m planning for - don’t leave this job (which admittedly i also really like, and pays me well - i dont thin i need to leave) because next stop maternity leave, but..... 

i don’t know whether i am thinking, time ot have kids because my best friend just had a baby (the baby’s name is horatio - for real, i actually love this name) (i also haven’t seen her or the baby except over skype, because anna - my friend - is, like my mother, also scared of pandemic) and my brain is like - ok, well, if anna is doing it, i guess the time is here 

AND - i know there’s a large part of me that was like, gotta be pregnant and ideally have the baby before my mum dies so she gets to see that she had a grandchild. my brother and i are both queer, btw, in case you were wondering - he’s considering whether he wants to transition right now (but is still happy with he/him pronouns) and - you may find this astonishing, but i genuinely don’t know whether he’d consider himself ace, or has been in relationships. he’s very private, he has OCD and is in therapy - but anyway, he’s probably not having kids anytime soon (i think!) and graham - my mum’s boyfriend/partner of 10+ years. -has grandchildren, but my extremely middleclass white (but definitely not conservative voters, always 100% not-tory) parents ended up with me and my brother.... and i don’t know, as i say, i don’t know whether my brain is saying ‘have kids before it’s too late’ - although i know by now that it will be too late. even if my mum recovers from this, this time, i don’t think i can produce a child before she dies - and she isn’t asking me too, she’s not like that, but i would have liked her to be there. i thought she would be. 

so - i’m thinking about that. also, about getting a dog. i really want a dog - although i don’t want to upset the three cats (one we’ve had for eight years or so, the other two we got after Anton died). it’s ALSO really hard and expensive to get a dog. you’d think with all these ‘a dog isn’t just for the pandemic, a dog is for life’ type adverts around, that it would be easy to adcidentally get a dog - i’ve looked! you ccan’t get a dog unless you have no cats and you’re super experienced and can take a dog with lots of trauma or medical problems, or you’re willing to pay thousands of pounds. like - even for a regular not even pedigree dog - at least a thousand. pedigree dog - several thousand. i dont want a puppy either - i want a dog. 

and - this is embarrassing to admit, but i’ve alrady told erin - i genuinely had a phase of being super annoyed when i’d read fics where someone just ‘got a dog’. it’s not that simple!!! it’s fiction, it doesn’t matter - chill out. the baby thing too - although weirdly not fics where magic meant it was possible to get a baby, weirdly it was smut. i had a brief week or so of crazy (and i don’t think i am that crazy) where i’d read about fictional semen and just be like - wtf, it’s so hard to get hold of that shit. (it’s not real, this isn’t real semen being wasted, calm down - and i dont even really know if i want kids, i might just think i do.) 

the other thing about the bad thing being soon but not yet (but also being all the time, but not if you dnt think about it) is that i’m thinking - should i prioritise writing my remix now, in case my mum dies and i’m too sad to do it, and then i didn’t do my remix? i was definitely thinking this while writing classroom politics (i hope my mum doesn’t die becaue i dont want to be too sad to miss the deadline) and in the run up to AWTWB .....

today i wrote a list of things for work that would need to be picked up if i have to unexpectedly stop working, either because i’m too sad, or because i have to do funeral stuff, or .... i guess legal stuff about settling the estate. (i guess this happens to a lot of people, too, but it’s also a bit of a mindfuck that my brother and i will inherit her house and a bunch of cash when she dies - i’m pretty well off, my brotehr does virtual reality theatre stuff so really isn’t - we’ve talked about how much easier both of our lives will be with a huge injection of cash, and how we dont know what to feel about that) (great news, dogs and kids are really expensive! time to find out whether i really wanted to spend my money on those.) told people i like at work that it’s coming, and that i dont want to talk about it. and mostly just... carrying on with life, really. until it happens. 

it’s so weird how easy it is to carry on most of the time.i know my mum’s partner is not doing nearly so well - he has to cope with an empty house and he’s retired. i’ve had periods - including right now - where i wake up every morning and check my phone to see whehter someone called me or texted me to tell me it’s over. but most of the day i’m actually really fine. i even had an ok day today. and i don’t know whether i want that to be the case, or whether i shouldn’t let myself do that. i dont know what i should prepare for in terms of where i’ll be - will i want lots of stuff to distract me (this is my guess) and work is very good for that, or i will want to clear time and space because i can’t operate and dont want people to offer me comfort. (FYI - this post isn’t written to make people say anything to me, i definitely dont want to talk about it, so please don’t feel you either have to comment or check in on me - i don’t really want you to. it’s enough to have written it, in my own time, in my own space.)

i think i wanted to write this post in a way because i thought i probably wouldnt want to write it after my mum died - because i probably wouldn’t want to say anything about it at all, for a few years. 

my mum keeps telling me about the show ‘jane the virgin’ - which she’s half way through. shhe asked me to give it a try, so i did (she often tells me about shows on radio 4, which i rarely listen to. i thouht i had more time.) i’ve watched an episode (because she has cancer, i should listen to her recommendations)(but i dont want her to know that’s why i did it) and i do quite like - it’s light and frothy and well cut together (although about kids and artificial insemination, of course). i guess in a worse case scenario where i’m too sad to work or write, i will probably watch a lot of this show - which is incredibly not sad - and feel sad about how my mum never finished it. 

BUT ALSO SHE MIGHT BE OK. for a while. 

i dont know how i feel, blargh. anyway. this was a long post. i think i wrote it mostly for me. feelings are weird. covid really sucks and so does cancer. 

going to order some chicken and watch inuyasha.

[queen-bunnyears]

Chapter Four ~ Boxing Day

Pairing: Harrison Osterfield x Reader, Tom Holland x Reader (not at the same time)

Summary: Every year with Christmas Tom, his brothers, some friends and you rented a house in Scotland to celebrate the holidays and New Years Eve with a lot of friends. Last year’s christmas you and Harrison had something special going on, and this year he brings his new girlfriend. Chaos ensues.

Am I ignoring corona christmas lockdown in this fic? You bet your ass I am.

This is way too fluffy, but I am a big softy today. 

Wordcount: 2,1k

Warnings: alcohol, accidental slicing in a finger, cursing, kissing.

Chapter three - Epilogue 

26 December 2020

“Morning dreamy, wanna have some tea?” The scent of strong tea hit your senses, and you slowly got up. Tom stood next to the bed, in his sweatpants and tank top, a cup of tea in his hands. His hair was wet, he obviously just had a shower. He looked good. God your brain should turn itself off.

“Yeah thanks Tom,” you took the tea from his hands, sitting up against the headboard you slowly sipped your tea. Tom sat down next to you, being unusually quiet. You set down your tea to ask him what was the matter, but his hands attacking your sides made it obvious. A scream escaped your lips as you tried to get away from his tickling hands. You were out of breath and laughing hysterically by the time you finally escaped. The plush carpet felt soft, somewhere in the struggle you had fallen off the bed. Tom’s head stuck over the edge of the bed, as he had managed to stay there when you fell down. 

“You okay?”

“Yeah, fine. I’m gonna get you back though,” you launched yourself back onto the bed, trying to tickle him, but he was way too strong for you, and moments later you were squirming again under his teasing tickling fingers. You were both laughing as you almost fell off the bed again. When you started to near the edge you decided to take him down with you, both of you tumbling off the bed into a heap on the ground. 

“What the fack is happening here?” you and Tom looked up to see Sam and Harrison standing in the doorway. 

“It sounded like someone was dying, of having the weirdest sex ever,” Sam said.

“So you thought let’s check?” Tom laughed. When the heaving of your chest had slowed down a bit you felt like you finally got some oxygen again. You got up and sat down on the bed again. 

“Don’t worry guys, I still have my clothes on,” 

“Well,” Tom said, eyeing you up and down, “Can you really call that fully clothed?” You looked down at your sleep shorts and big shirt and shrugged. 

“I am wearing a bra Tom, that is so much more than you could have asked for,”

“Yeah only cus you didn’t want to take it off last night, because you were drunk,” he shot back and you laughed. Sam cleared his throat. 

“Well we leave you to it then. Breakfast in thirty minutes, you coming to help y/n?” 

“Yeah I’ll be down in five,” you replied, scurrying off the bed to go to the bathroom. You grabbed your clothes, but you didn’t miss Harrisons pained look when he closed the bedroom door.

“So, you and Tom having fun?” Sam said. You looked over at him. His face was awfully neutral. 

“What exactly are you asking Sam?” 

“Well, all I know is that you and Tom seem very close, much closer than last year,” He said, cracking an egg into the pan. You ripped the plastic off the big slab of bacon. 

“Well yeah, we have gotten a lot closer this year. I spent some time in Orlando for work when he was filming there so we saw each other a lot. And he came to visit me in New York, remember,” you said, carefully cutting strips of bacon, “Plus the summer holidays, but you were there right?” 

“Yes I was,” he said, “And Harrison? Have you seen him this year?”

“No, not really. I called him several times but we never really spoke,” you said. You resumed working in silence, and you started to wonder. Did something change with you and Tom? You had always been  close with him. The clowns of the group. But last year something had changed. After you let go of Haz you and Tom seemed to get closer every time you saw each other. You were so deep in your thoughts you didn’t notice you had cut into your hand until Sam took the knife out of your hand. 

“Y/n, you okay?” only when he asked you, you felt the stinging pain in your hand. A big part of your hand was red, and it was a miracle the bacon seemed to be fully clean. 

“Yeah I’m okay. Let me just,-” you put your hand underneath the tap, turning it on to let some cold water run over your hand. 

“I’ll call Harrison,” Sam said. Harrison was the one with a first aid certificate. Moments later he and Lily came into the kitchen. Lily quickly ran up to you, examining your hand. 

“I am a nurse, is it okay if I look at it?” she asked. 

“Yeah sure, it’s probably nothing big though,” you said. 

“It isn’t,” Lily said, taking the first aid kid from Harrisons hands, “But you were cutting raw meat, and it shouldn’t get infected.”

She put disinfectant on the cut and opened the plaster box. 

“Wait, do you guys really have dinosaur bandages in your box?” she asked. You snorted. 

“Yes, it’s my kit, and I noticed everyone gets happy when they get a dino bandage. So I got them, and trust me, it works like a treat,” Lily laughed with you, and wrapped your hand in some bandage. 

“Here you go, and be careful dear. You don’t want to cut your hand off,”she said, turning around and grabbing Haz his hand, “Come on Hazzi, let’s go upstairs, I wanna shower before breakfast.” 

Harrison stared at you, and then followed Lily. You cooked the bacon, put all the fresh bread rolls on trays. Tuwaine got into the kitchen and helped you and Sam set up the table. 

“Hey warrior, what did you do?” Tom was hardly understandable, his mouth stuffed with bread and nutella. He pointed at your bandage, and you felt your cheeks burn.  

“Cut myself while cooking,”

“She was completely zoned off,” Sam said next to you. You rolled your eyes.

“It was not that bad, I am fine,” you rolled your eyes to Tom, who looked way more worried than he should. “Really Tom, I am,”

Boxing day was tv day. Every year a series or movie was chosen to watch, lots of spiked hot chocolate and snacks were prepared. Basically movies and day drinking. Harry had brought the collection of Sissi movies. Three long old movies, perfect for the occasion. All the couples shared couches, and soon you and Tom were left alone. You made do with a lot of pillows and a blanket on the ground. In between the first and second movie you had to go to the bathroom, so you got up. In the hallway you bumped into Harrison.   

“Haz,” you said, putting your hand on his arm. He looked up. “Can we talk?” you asked, gesturing to the empty kitchen. 

“Eh yeah sure?” 

“Are you okay Haz?” you asked, when you were in the kitchen, shutting the door behind you. When he didn’t answer you continued, “I feel like something is weird, if you get what I mean. Did I do something wrong?” At your last question he finally met your eyes. 

“No Y/n, no. I am the one who is acting weird. I don’t know,” he said, “Actually, I do know I think.”

“Then please tell me. I worry about you,”

“It’s just. I feel weird about you. Weirdly possessive. I shouldn’t but you know,” he let out a small breath, “You are a bit of a weak spot for me. I love Lily but I care about you and,”

He stopped talking and put a hand on your shoulder. 

“I am being stupid. I just want you to be happy. I made a choice and I am very happy with Lil but. I miss you,”

“Haz I,” you didn’t know what to say.

“I miss us being friends so I am angry at everyone here who is your friend,” he raked his hand through his hair, “I suppose that’s it,”

“We can be friends Haz, please,” you said, cautiously wrapping your arms around him in a hug. “Just contact me somewhere during this year. I would really appreciate that,”

He laughed in your hair. “Will do, I promise.”

“Now I would love to hug you a bit longer, but I really need to pee,” you said, breaking free from his arms. 

“Always the charmer aren’t you,” he replied, a big smile on his face, “Wanna have some extra spiked hot chocolate?” You nodded and walked to the hallway again. 

“Y/n?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Thank you for asking,” his face is flushed red, and you smile softly. 

“No problem Haz. I missed you,”

The last two movies flashed by you. You wouldn’t be able to tell anyone what you had seen, it was all a blur. What wasn’t a blur was your mind. You were lost in your thoughts. Tom gently nudged your shoulder. 

“Hi, is everything alright?”

“Yeah just super tired. Like I-really-gotta-sleep tired,” you murmured, smiling sleepily to him. The booze, cooking and all your feelings had drained every last bit of energy from your body. Tom said nothing, but he scooped your body up and carried you upstairs. He put you on the bed, laying your pyjamas next to you.

“Go, sleep. Harry cooks tonight, he said something about pizza. You have done enough,” he softly stroked your hair. With a soft kiss on your head he left the room.

You woke up in a mess of blankets, pillows and your pyjamas that Tom put on the bed but you had drifted off before you could put them on. The door opened and you looked up. 

“Did you sleep well?”

“Like a damn baby. God I was so tired, how did you guys deal with me?”

“We love you,” he said laughing, easily catching the pillow you sent flying his way. “Did you talk to Haz? He seemed a lot more at ease,”

“Yeah we talked, he told me he missed being friends. Everything is fine now,” you told him. He stood in the door, and you sat up in bed. 

“Well, now we are here,” he said, “I have a Christmas present for you.”

“What? We never do Christmas presents?” you said, your mind was still a bit foggy from your sleep. 

“Yeah I saw something that I wanted to get you so I figured, let’s call it a Christmas present,” he rummaged through his suitcase, finally sitting down on the edge of the bed with a small wrapped box. He gave it to you. You softly shook the box. 

“It isn’t gonna explode right?” He shook his head. You tore the gift paper from the box. A small jewelry box laid in your hands. You opened the lid, and nearly dropped it. 

“Tom, this is beautiful,” you exclaimed. He let out a breath, the nervous look on his face disappearing. Inside the box was a pretty ring, one you had been fawning over at Covent Garden months ago. You had decided not to splurge back then, and had regretted it not even moments later. “From that day in Covent Garden right?”

“I bought it when you left. You were so sad that you left it so,-” you threw your arms around him. 

“Thank you so much,” 

You got out of the hug and took the ring from the box. It fit your pink perfectly. You looked up at Tom, to find him staring at you. 

“Tom,-” he pressed his lips on yours in a searing kiss. His hands flew to your face, and you were shook. Tom was kissing you? You kissed him back, but as abruptly as he started, he broke the kiss. 

“I am sorry,” he murmured, getting up and stumbling away, heading towards your door. 

“Get back here and kiss me again you asshole,” you said, getting out of the bed as well and taking large steps towards him. He met you halfway, your lips collided. If you thought the first kiss had been good, boy you were corrected now. Tom's lips seemed to melt together with yours, his hands seeming to find a weak spot in your neck immediately. When his tongue brushed yours you were sure you died and went to heaven. The world could come crashing down around you, and you wouldn’t have cared. 

You knotted your hands in his shirt. His touch felt like fire, igniting a warm feeling in your chest. He gently pushed you back until you hit the bed. You let yourself fall onto it, taking him down with you. The same bed you had been play fighting in this morning. But now Tom was kissing you and you never wanted it to end.

Epilogue 

[musette22]

As it's Chris' birthday today, what's your Evanstan headcon for how they are spending it? We don't know if Chris is still in LA (as far as I know), do you think he might be back in Boston to be with his family? That would mean Seb could easily visit him now that the lockdown in NYC is over. Or would he fly to LA to celebrate with his bf? (He hasn't been seen in NYC in the last couple of days either, right?) Or will the only hang out virtually? I would love to know what you are imagining 😊

Hello darling!! So yesterday, I said I probably wasn’t going to write any Evanstan for a while, but then I woke up this morning and had a lovely little Evanstan headcanon fantasy about Chris’s birthday - as you do - and then I thought screw it, let’s write this thing. So here’s a little drabble (well, it should’ve been a drabble) about how Chris might have spent his birthday 😘

A/N: This is just a nonsensical little fantasy scenario that doesn’t actually make any sense, but the idea made me happy, so I hope it’ll make you guys happy too! Don’t look too closely, please, there’s some overlap with previous fics and this was all written very quickly and hasn’t been edited properly because it’s late where I am and I need to sleep lmao 🙈 Sorry about that!

Happy birthday, Mr. America 

*********

Chris likes surprises, generally speaking.

Not the nasty kind, like when a part unexpectedly falls through, or someone gets angry at him out of the blue and he doesn’t know what he’s done wrong. But he likes it when exciting things happen and shake things up a bit, like when he’s having a lazy day alone at home, and a friend suddenly shows up on his doorstep to tell him, change of plans, we’re going bungee jumping. When that happens, Chris will happily drop whatever he’s doing and jump in the car, because that’s the kind of thing that makes him feel alive.

So when he arrives at the Evans’ family house today, on his birthday, and is greeted by a chorus of Surprise! and Happy Birthdays from a bunch of people he hasn’t seen ages - literal years, in some cases - Chris is delighted and touched; excited to see familiar faces and catch up with his friends and family.

That excited feeling lasts for a solid few hours, until his Aunt Melanie corners him and starts telling Chris about her Pilates instructor. This isn’t the first time she’s tried to set Chris up with whichever wonderful girl she’s most recently met and feels would be perfect for Chris, but this time she’s really hammering on about how she just can’t understand why a good-looking, successful young man like him hasn’t found a wife yet. She no doubt means well, but that doesn’t mean Chris is about to go on a blind date with her Pilates instructor.

When he’s finally managed to excuse himself under the pretense of needing a bathroom break, he sneaks off to the back of the house, to his dad’s old study. As soon as the door closes behind him, he lets out a sigh of relief and leans back against it for a moment, catching his breath. He loves his family to bits, but there’s no denying they’re a lot. There’s a sofa in the study, a wide, navy blue one, and Chris lies down on it, stretching himself to his full length. He closes his eyes, hoping to nap for a couple of minutes, but no dice. His aunt’s comments play in his head on a loop, causing something uneasy to stir in his stomach.

The thing is, she’s right. He should already be married and have a couple of cute kids to dote on. He’s wanted to have a family and settle down for a long time, ever since he got done with sowing his wild oats and calmed down a little. He’s the long-term relationship kind, and there had been a few girlfriends with whom he thought he definitely could see a future.

That had been Before, though. Before Sebastian Stan had waltzed into his life and upended everything Chris thought he knew for certain, complicating everything in the best and worst possible way. After the initial shock of developing feelings for another guy wore off, Chris had simply accepted his infatuation as a fact of life, and it had become something he carried with him always, but never acted on or even spoke of. He wouldn’t know where to start. It was clear there was something between them, though. The way Sebastian looked at him sometimes… It had to mean something. For the longest time, they’d danced around each other, always just shy of outright flirting, and there had been a few times when Chris really thought something might finally happen between them. But it never did.

And now it never would. They’ve hardly even seen each other, over the past year, after they stopped working together. Sure, they kept in touch from time to time, but there is only so much keeping in touch two work friends can plausibly do before it gets weird or necessarily has to turn into something else. And Chris thought he’d accepted that, more or less.

But then last week, he and Scott had gotten drunk together – like really, stupidly drunk. At around 3 in the morning, Scott had put on The First Avenger so he could make fun of Chris in his skin tight leggings, and then suddenly Sebastian’s face had been right there on his TV screen: larger than life, young and handsome like he’d been when Chris first felt that tug in his gut when he’d looked at him.

And Chris, whose brain-to-mouth filter unfortunately ceases to exist entirely whenever he’s had too much to drink, had just blurted out, “I think I’m in love with him.”

Initially, Scott had thought Chris meant that Steve was in love with Bucky. 

“Well, clearly,” he’d slurred. “They’re soooo gay, oh my god.”

And instead of using the misunderstanding to cover up for his unfortunate drunken slip-up, Chris had slowly shook his head and corrected, “No, with Sebastian. ‘M in love with Sebastian. Have been for a long time, I think.”

He’d passed out not long after, possibly his subconscious’ way of trying to protect himself against the barrage of questions from Scott that Chris had been in no state to answer in that moment. Inevitably, Scott had tried to talk to him about it the next day, but Chris – hungover, embarrassed and annoyed with himself for opening his big mouth and spilling this secret that he’d managed to keep for close to a decade – had told Scott to leave it and that he didn’t want to talk about it. Nothing was ever going to come of this now anyway, so it was much better if they could all just forget it ever happened.

Scott and he had gone to dinner at their mom’s that night, and of course, Lisa had instantly sensed something was off. Unfortunately, Chris never did stand a chance in hell against his mother, so when she took him to aside after dinner and outright asked him what was wrong, he’d had no choice but to spill the beans. Besides, if he didn’t, Scott would probably have found a way to guilt him into telling Lisa, eventually - they’d always shared everything with her, after all.

Lisa had been so loving and understanding, just like Chris knew she would, and despite the aching in his chest, he was grateful and a little bit relieved to know he wasn’t keeping something this significant from her any longer. But in the end, it didn’t change anything. Of course, Lisa had asked him why he didn’t just go for it, told him to just go for it, call Sebastian and ask him out for dinner, but Chris had dismissed all her suggestions. It just wasn’t going to happen. Certainly not now, not anymore.

She’d dropped it, eventually, but Chris is under no illusions that he’s heard the last of it.

Since then, he’d tried to put the whole fiasco out of his mind, but then Aunt Melanie started badgering him about his marital status and it had all come rushing back again.

Just when Chris about to give up on trying to nap and head outside to get some fresh air instead, there’s a knock at the door.

Chris sighs, rubbing his eyes. “Come in,” he calls, not bothering to get up because it’s probably his mom coming to check on him. “Hey, mom,” he says, when Lisa’s head does appear around the door.

“Hi, sweetheart,” she replies, smiling. She opens the door a little wider. “There’s someone here to see you.”

“Oh?” Chris says, sitting up a little straighter for whatever friend or family member his mom wants him to meet so urgently, but then Lisa steps aside to reveal –  

Sebastian.

Sebastian is here. In his mom’s house. Standing right there, looking a little apprehensive and unsure, but still so fucking gorgeous it makes Chris’s heart stop for a moment inside his chest, before it starts up again at double speed.

“Hey, Chris,” Sebastian says, and it’s his voice, he’s really here, in Chris’s dad’s old study, speaking actual words at him.

What the fuck.

Chris gets to his feet so fast he feels a bit lightheaded, lightly swaying on his feet before he manages to get some semblance of a reply. "Hi. What- Sebastian. What are you doing here?"

Sebastian’s eyes flicker to Lisa for a moment, looking at her a little uncertainly. She gives him an encouraging nod.

“Um,” Sebastian starts, turning his eyes back to Chris again. “Lisa, your mom, invited me to your surprise birthday party.” He licks his lips nervously. “So, yeah, happy birthday. And, um. Surprise.” The last word is accompanied by a dorky little wave, and Chris is just. Speechless.

Literally, can’t form any words speechless, which is highly unusual for him. When he just keeps standing there, staring a Sebastian like he’s some kind of fata morgana, Lisa rolls her eyes and nudges Sebastian with her elbow.

“Well, go on, then,” she prompts, nodding in Chris’s direction. “He won’t bite.” Then, the look in her eyes turns mischievous, and Chris has half a second to think oh no, before she adds, “Unless you like that sort of thing, of course, but then he'd ask first. I raised him well.”

Sebastian makes a strangled sound, but starts towards him nonetheless, and before he really knows what’s happening, Chris is holding Sebastian in his arms. Holding him in his arms and burying his face in the crook of his neck and breathing him in. Sebastian’s arms go around him, too, a little tentative at first, but growing tighter, more secure, the longer the hug lasts. 

And it lasts, much longer than a casual happy birthday hug between friends is supposed to last, but Chris can’t for the life of him bring himself to let go. He knows he’s clinging, that he’s got his nose pressed to the spot below Sebastian’s ear and that’s probably far too intimate, but Sebastian’s arms around are wound tightly around Chris’s waist and his cheek is presses to the side of Chris’s face, and he’s not letting go either.

Finally, after what feels simultaneously like forever and the blink of an eye, Sebastian inhales shakily, his chest expanding against Chris’s. With Herculean effort, Chris makes himself pull away. But, of course, that brings with it the complication of being able to see Sebastian’s face, flustered and glowing, eyes shining with something unnameable. They’re so close then, their faces only an inch or so apart, and when Sebastian’s eyes flicker down to Chris’s mouth for a split second, Chris’s restraint breaks.

He lunges forward, and Sebastian does the same, and their mouths crash together awkwardly and suddenly, they’re kissing. Really, actually kissing. 

Chris’s hands fly to Sebastian’s face, holding it like it’s something precious, causing Sebastian to make a small, desperate sound that reverberates throughout Chris’s entire body. When he licks at the seam of Sebastian’s lips, Sebastian parts them immediately, letting him in, and Chris is drowning. Drowning in the kiss, in Sebastian’s taste, his smell, the little sighs he’s making against Chris’s lips, like he’s just as overwhelmed and stupefied and happy as Chris is, while they cling to each other like they’re each scared the other’s going to disappear if they dare to let up for just one second.

Eventually, though, they have to break apart for air. Chris presses their foreheads together, unwilling to put any more distance between them than is strictly necessary, still breathing the same air. When Chris eventually opens his eyes, he finds Sebastian looking back at him in a way that makes his knees feel suddenly weak.

"Hi," Seb says, voice low and husky.

"Hey," Chris replies, his hands on either side of Sebastian’s face, thumbs idly caressing his cheekbones.

Sebastian giggles, a light, happy sound that makes his nose do that scrunchy thing it does, and Chris wants to die. He groans, pulling Sebastian back in by the back of his neck –

And then Lisa clears her throat. Sebastian startles; he’d evidently forgotten she was still there, or maybe assumed she’d have left to give them their privacy, but that just goes to show Sebastian doesn’t know Lisa very well – yet.

"Well,” Lisa says, a grin in her voice. “I'll leave you two to it then, let me know if you need anything.” She pauses, before cheekily adding, “Anything at all."

“Yes, thank you, mom,” Chris says quickly, keen to spare Sebastian any further embarrassment. Sebastian’s hiding his face in Chris’s chest as it is, arms still wound around his waist, and Chris is literally about to pass out from how fucking cute that is.

Holding up a placating hand, Lisa finally retreats, closing the door behind her.

Once they’re alone, Chris steers Sebastian towards the couch, sitting down and pulling him into his lap. Sebastian lets himself be guided, straddling Chris’s thighs and giving him a coy look through his eyelashes. Chris blows out a slow breath to center himself a little, bringing up his hands to settle on Sebastian’s waist.

He knows they’ll need to talk about this at some point, but right now he can’t think of a single way to express what he’s feeling, and what this means to him. Right now, all he can do is stare at Sebastian in wonder, relishing finally getting to look at him the way he’s always wanted to: unabashedly, fondly, and very appreciative of exactly how tempting Sebastian’s lips look – especially after having been thoroughly kissed. By him.

“Fuck,” Chris breathes, overwhelmed, leaning in again to catch those pretty pink lips in another kiss.

Sebastian responds beautifully, opening up right away, melting into him. His arms wind around Chris’s shoulders, fingers scratching gently through the hair on the back of Chris’s head, making him shiver.

It’s sweet, at first; lips sliding together lazily, slow and lush, but eventually, the kisses turn a little dirtier, with nipping teeth and teasing tongues. When Sebastian bites Chris’s bottom lip a bit too hard, pulling on it, Chris literally goes cross-eyed for a second. The hand that found its way into Sebastian’s hair tightens instinctively, pulling his head back just a little.

“Oh,” Sebastian breathes, eyelids fluttering, and Chris instantly feels all his blood rushing south.

He can’t believe it. He can’t believe he has Sebastian here, in his lap, looking like innocence and sin wrapped into one, looking at him through heavy lidded eyes like it’s Chris who’s something to be desired. And Chris wants. He wants so bad, with every fiber of his being, to have Sebastian right there and then, but he has just enough presence of mind left to know that they can’t rush this, can’t make any rash decisions they might later regret if they don’t talk about what’s happening first.

Words still seem impossible, however, so instead, Chris takes one of Sebastian’s hands in his and presses a kiss to the center his palm, hoping to convey with that one gesture everything he wants to say but can’t.

When he looks back up, Sebastian blinks at him, his eyes wide and stunned, before he suddenly grabs Chris’s face between his hands and starts planting breathless kisses on his cheeks, his eyelids, his forehead, and even his nose. Chris lets himself be kissed, basks in it, feeling like his heart might burst, and when Sebastian finally presses his lips to his mouth, Chris seizes the opportunity to deepen the kiss. Despite Chris’s best intentions, it turns heated again in no time. Without his permission, his hands slide under Sebastian’s shirt, stroking the smooth, warm skin of his back, while Sebastian mouths at Chris’s jaw, then trails a path of kisses down the column of his neck.

“Seb,” Chris groans, hands tightening convulsively on Sebastian’s waist. “Sebastian, wait.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” Sebastian pants, lifting his head to look down at him. He’s disheveled, his hair a mess, pupils blown, his lips red and a little raw from mouthing at Chris’s beard. He looks stunning.

“Jesus, you’re beautiful,” Chris says honestly, touching Sebastian’s left cheek.

Sebastian ducks his head turning his face into Chris’s palm, but he’s smiling, which makes Chris smile, too, then they’re just smiling at each other like a couple of dorks.

Chris shifts their positions to get more comfortable, tugging at Sebastian until they’re both lying on the couch on their sides, face to face. Pulling him closer, into his chest, Chris swings a leg over both of Sebastian’s, and Sebastian takes the hint immediately, snuggling into Chris and tucking his head under his chin so they’re full on cuddling.

“Best fucking birthday present ever,” Chris mutters into Sebastian’s hair, his hand tracing idle patters on Sebastian’s upper arm. In reply, Sebastian presses a kiss to Chris’s chest, over his heart.

Somehow, they snooze for a little while, just drifting in and out of consciousness, neither of them seeming to want to untangle themselves from the other, until after an indeterminate amount of time, there’s a soft knock at the door.

Chris hums questioningly in reply, not wanting to wake Sebastian, and the door opens cautiously. Lisa pokes her head in again, and the moment she sees them, all wrapped around each other like that, she covers her mouth with her hands, cooing softly.

“Happy Birthday, baby,” she whispers, her eyes shining with affection and pride.

“Thanks, mom,” Chris whispers back, blinking back tears. “Love you.”

From where he’s half asleep on Chris’s chest, Sebastian murmurs, “Love you, too.”

[kileyrose-2003]

Tina’s Tuesday Night Mini Fic Pt. 1

Word count: Who cares? Lol

A/N: Hi lovelies! I am back!! First thing, I know. You're probably saying Kiley, wtf? It's not Tuesday. I know. Life happened. I've had a busy past few days and a final today. Anyways, this was something I did with @merci-bitch when the U.S originally went on lockdown. It was a fun way to keep me busy and get my mind off of stuff. We both decided to restart this about a week ago. So, I dedicate this to my dear friend Tina. Love you hun and hope you enjoy this! And please, if you haven't been to her blog to read any of her work, go do so. She works so hard on what she writes and is amazing.

Pt. 2 will be coming next week

To everyone waiting on fics: I'll get there. Eventually. And I'm not going into reasoning. But anyways, love you all and I hope you have a great day!

"...This is the greatest show!" You slammed your hands down on the piano keys and breathed in sharply. "God damn it, Jenny!"

"What?" You let a groan and handed her the sheet music. "Look there at that line there. Do you see that note?”

“I can see, can’t I?” Her bright green eyes lost their cool shade of arrogance when she seen how pissed you look. "Not F!” You pointed to the paper in her hand. “D! You hear that note there?" You pressed down on the key repeatedly. "D!"

"Sorry." The red head smiled at you impishly. "No, you're not. This is the fifth time we've done this and yet you still insist on doing this your own way." She sat next to you on the piano bench and gave your shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Well, I think the change makes it sound better.”

“Phineas liked it better this way,” you seethed through gritted teeth. “But what does he know of art?” You could feel your face slowing turning a distinct shade of cherry red and you bit down on your tongue.

"He must of known something with how much you tried to get in his pants," you mused to yourself.

You rolled your eyes. You loved Jenny to death but how you couldn't stand her at times. You tried and tried so desperately to get along with her and compromise when she was like this but no matter what you did, she was stubborn and so..cold at times.

Sure, Jenny was a bit of a snob but she was a genius when it came to music and you respected that. She was what inspired you to take up music in the first place.

Your childhood was far from easy. Before you even joined the circus, you were bounced all over the place. You never belonged anywhere. From the deteriorating cottage in a small, seaside village in Sweden to the cramped one bedroom apartment in London that no one would dare walk past at night. Your father was no where to be seen and your mother was an actress, always struggling to meet ends meet. She was never home, but that wasn't always a bad thing. That meant you got to explore.

That was how you got to hearJenny sing for the first time. Hiding out in the musty attic of an old Swedish theatre. Even before she hit extreme levels of fame, her voice was like a siren's call. Drawing you in further and further in. It still was in a way. She was so beautiful and even as much as she pissed you off, you loved watching her sing. Like the time at the palace. She was eye candy in that dress, the way it hugged her hips and how the bust showed the slightest bit of clevage when you looked at her at just the right angle-

"Stop it, Y/n!" You told yourself. "She's not interested in you."

Or was she? The way she looked at you when you spoke to Phineas was always with such contempt or such jealousy. You could never understand why though. It was her who tried to steal Phineas away. Not you. He was a close friend who gave you a chance when you had nothing and you never so much as even thought of eyeing him in such a manner. Phineas clearly wasn't interested in her or any other woman but his wife. He pushed her away numerous times. Jenny had no reason to be jealous of you. Yet, she was.

‘But it is of me or others though?"

One could never be sure with Jenny. Sure, there was a bit of a rivalry between the two of you when it came to music. But she was your friend. 'Very clingy for just a friend,' you noted.

'That's normal though, isn't it?'

Maybe you were just over thinking things. Besides, the relationship between the two of you seemed to be getting better lately. Ever since the scandal went public, it seemed the two of you were spending more and more time together.

You were the only one who listened to her side of the story, held her when she cried, made sure she wasn't drinking her emotions away, and tried to help her through it. Even as much as she pissed you off. You warned her in the first place not to seek out Phineas but despite the nasty arguments, the constant bickering she became your friend. Maybe even your best friend. Which you got alot of shit for.

Nobody liked Jenny and you were starting to get the feeling you weren't so popular anymore either. Everyone thought after the affair went public, the two of you would of left. Her name as well as yours, was slandered all over the paper simply because you associated with her. You had been called it all. The ring leader, the mastermind, the mistress to the two.

But neither of you resigned. Yet. Part of you wondered how long it would be until either would receive letters of negotiations to end your contract. But either way, you knew Jenny wasn't leaving without you. She promised you that.

'So maybe she does like me.'

Then that small voice came in the back of your head. 'Or maybe you just want her to like you back.'

Either way, you couldn't let that haunt your conscience for now. Even as much as you'd like to visualize a future with her, it wouldn't work. You could feel the heat pooling into your cheeks as you came back to reality and bit down on your lip. Jenny's hand was lingering up and down your back, rhythmically making shapes with the tips of her fingers. Damn her and her touch! You shouldn't be feeling this way.

"Are you okay?" You shook your head and covered your face with your hands, trying not focus on all the pain you felt inside. "No. No, I’m not."

You felt tears burning in the sides of your eyes. "This isn’t working!” Jenny furrowed her brow and tried to move your hands away from your face. “What do you mean?” She was trying to be gentle even though you could tell from the look in her eyes she had no clue what to do.

“This..all of this!” You ripped the sheet music out of her hand and flung it on top of the piano. “Something's got to give,"

She rolled her eyes as if she seen it all before and stood up, walking hastily over to the ice bucket. "Do you not have what you want?" She opened up a bottle of red wine. "Fame? Recogniton?"

"It's not enough and I don't know if I even have any of that anymore." Jenny eyed you as she poured the liquor heavily into both glasses. "I'm not liked here, Jenny."

She handed you your glass and sat down next to you. You eagerly took a sip of the wine, just wanting to forget everything for a little while. "That's not true. I like you." She leaned in closer to you.

You cracked a small grin filled with cynicism. Maybe even a little bit of hostility. Never had you felt so much love and hate towards someone at the same time. "We could both leave." Jenny's voice pulled you out of your head.

"And go where?"

"Back to Sweden with me for the time being." You noticed the intensity in Jenny's eyes growing and she reached out and grabbed your hand. You could feel her nimble gently squeezing into the palm of your hand. "You know I care for you, Y/n."

"Do you?" You tried your hardest not to sound sarcastic, you were still a little mad at her. But god! How close she was to you. You could smell her expensive perfume, see the slight hint of a shimmer radiating off of her lips. "You're fiery and you don't take my shit."

This couldn't be real. You had to be dreaming. "Jenny, this...there's a possibility this couldn't work." You tried to scoot away from her, a little intimidated by the proximity between the two of you.

"We can try to make it work."

"How?" You eyed her skeptically. "Let me take you out. Let me show you I can make this work." You furrowed your eyebrows. "Why? Need a new fling after Phineas?" You teased.

Jenny wasn't amused by that all. If anything she was pissed but she smiled anyways. Seeming to stoop down to your level with a smile that was sickly sweet. "More like a date."

"And why should I do this with you?" She let go of your hand and placed it on your thigh. "Because I probably understand you alot more than you think." As you looked into Jenny's eyes, you found some level of sincerity mixed into those deep lustful orbs. You wanted to trust her so badly.

"What do I have to lose?" You thought.

Everything. Everything to lose.

"Fine." You gave in, despise everything in your mind screaming not too. "But you have one shot and one shot only."

Jenny nodded and leaned forward to place a gentle kiss on your cheek. "And it won't take me more than once to impress. After all, I already made your career." You felt the hair on your arms stand straight up as her hands lingered on you, gently squeezing your hips.

"I'll see you tomorrow at 6. Sharp."

"Yeah," you watched as Jenny walked away, her hair flowing behind her like a beautiful sheath.

You felt a pit growing in the depths of your stomach. What the hell had you gotten yourself into?

[smolbeandrabbles]

Innocence - Andrew ‘Pope’ Cody x Reader (Animal Kingdom)

@mandy23b​ @wltz-bby​ @happyskywhale​

GIF CREDIT: X

‘This is gonna be one hell of a night, I know you want it...’ ~ Kim Petras, There Will Be Blood.

Author’s Note: Basically, this is a fic in response to #ThatOneFic on AO3. I got a little bit of ‘if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em.’ syndrome and then decided I was better than that.  Could have written the one that’s in my drafts, but doing my Director’s Cut and then talking to everyone about it really got me like... 

Why not start some probably not very good smut with murder, after all? 😉

Can I disclaimer myself? The notes for this (written, as tradition states at like, 3am) are just pure filth. And I was horrified reading them back. So yeah, you’re not... getting that, but you’re getting remnants of what it could have been...

Added 800 words during the editing process because he needed it. I’ll fight for my vision of Andrew one fic at a time...

Innocence - Halestorm

Disclaimer: AK nothing to do with me / Part inspired by my own Director’s Cut analysis of Andrew & further fic research / lyrics & gif not mine

Small ‘need to know’ info: David is a policeman, and readers oldest brother.

Premise: When a drugs deal goes awry on the wrong side of town, and the police on the case, Andrew has one place to go. You’re used to this behaviour, but there is something about that dangerous side of him you just can’t resist - and you don’t want him to hold back...

Words: 5639

Warnings: Swearing / Sex / Sinday/Sunday Smut / Drugs references

____ You see it from the outside You're running toward the wall Swinging from your blind side But you don't know me at all I've been here too many times before And your tears don't mean a thing I only come when you scream Is this what you wanted Did I make your dreams come true? You're sitting in a corner Wondering what you got into And you ache for things you don't understand That your tears don't mean a thing And I only come when you scream, I told you Child, don't follow me home You're just too perfect for my hands to hold If you choose to stay, you'll throw it all away And I just want to take your innocence There's no such thing as fate Only yourself to blame You never walked away Child, don't follow me home You're just too perfect for my hands to hold If you choose to stay, you'll throw it all away And I just want to take your innocence

---

The scent of bleach filled the apartment; opening the front door gave you nothing more than an instant headache. You were lucky it didn’t make you gag, and you stood blinking for a few minutes – surely the feeling of your eyes stinging was only phycological?! Slipping your bag from your shoulder you exhaled deeply, followed by an inhale you instantly regretted, groaning and dragging a hand over your face. There could only be one culprit. What the hell had he done this time? He was probably long gone by now, tidied away and back home “ANDREW!” This was certainly more a cry of frustration to yourself; it wasn’t like you’d actively get mad at someone so volatile. This time you were met by an answer, coming from vaguely the direction of your bathroom. “Okay. But it wasn’t my fault this time.” You jumped immediately, dropping your bag, hand to your heart. “Geez! Are you incapable of giving me anything other than a heart attack!?!” Instead of being verbally answered, the man himself appeared; the white shirt and black slacks were ill fitting. Like he’d just grabbed the first possible thing he could from some shelf or other. Judging by the sizing, they were likely your brother David’s. Your eyes instantly narrowed; only one reason Andrew wouldn’t be wearing his own clothes. “What the fuck did you do?” He held both his hands up, the attempt to stop you from jumping to conclusions clearly not working by your unimpressed face: “Got caught in the crossfire, that’s all.” You folded your arms, daring him to pull the other: “Oh yeah, my whole apartment smells like bleach because you got caught in the crossfire.” His face was deadly serious: “You can’t expect me not to retaliate now, can you.” Your body’s instant reaction to that was to move away from him, but your jerk away was not followed by a step back, “So you did kill someone.” His eyes flicked over your shoulder for a split second, “Not exactly.” “Andrew!” “Would you rather I was dead?” He touched his hand to his chest, immediately making you defensive. “Don’t say things like that--!” Of course not, you never liked thinking that it was a distinct possibility. The corporate world of the men you used to date – of the man you almost married – was a million miles from the one standing in front of you right now. Andrew turning up here unannounced was not unusual, but it usually meant something had pushed him here. It was that thought that prompted your next question; “What happened?” “Drugs run gone wrong.” Too blunt. You opened you mouth, eyes going point a-z - you weren’t really looking at anything, you just didn’t want to look into his eyes when you knew all they’d show was how deadly serious he was – “You know, sometimes I wish you’d be just a little more subtle with me, Andrew.” You shook your head “But, I know that’s not your strong suit.” He gave a shrug, “You asked. Usually you don’t want to know.” “Yeah well, now I wished I hadn’t.” You indicated to your bathroom, “What state is it in?” “It’s fine.” You pushed passed him with a huff; “I’ll be the judge of that!” You couldn’t actually stand in there for more than a few seconds at a time, but when finally you deemed it safe, you couldn’t help but conclude that he was right. Even if he was on thin ice. “How much damn blood was there for you to need that much bleach?” Andrew gave you a single slow blink; “I like to be thorough.” There was an edge to his voice that sent a shudder up your spine that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Yeah, you knew that. “Did you come all the way up to my apartment in blood stained clothes?!” “Not exactly.” “This I don’t want to hear.” “I know there’s cameras. I know the blind spots and trust me, no one saw me.” That was about the only thing he’d said so far you did trust. Andrew was far too good at this – if he said no one saw him, then no one saw him. Or they were already sworn to silence. “And your clothes are where?” Because if they weren’t in a dumpster about 6 miles away, you’d throttle him yourself. “Oh no, you-” “It better not have been a shirt I liked!” This blink meant nothing, and his face remained stoic. So it probably was, now doused in someone else’s blood. Vital evidence, of course. You sighed and stepped towards him, “The police?” “Drug land wars. It’s gonna look like exactly what it was.” “Promise me this isn’t traceable?” “It wasn’t our side of town. But you know that means nothing.” “A…Andrew…” You took his face in your hands, beneath your fingertips the tiny litter of scars you could still feel, but not see. His body was littered with such marks – you doubted he’d ever consider healing properly before he was off to the next big ‘adventure’. “Tell me you’re gonna be okay?” He placed his hands gently on your waist, but shook his head, “I can’t. You know that.” Andrew would stretch the truth, perhaps even lie by omission; but never blatantly. Not to you – not to someone who cared about him in the way you did. You shook your head, fingers holding him a little firmer before you placed your forehead to his: “I’m just glad you’re safe.” It was all you could say, but you meant it. It could have been his blood all over someone else’s clothes, with their significant other now holding them the way you were holding him. Instead they were likely getting news that the person they loved was dead, and you got to feel Andrew Cody breathe. He wasn’t holding you like a man who loved you, you weren’t even close. You weren’t about to unpick his feelings right this second, but you knew exactly what that meant.   “You can’t stay, can you?” He shook his head again, slowly, detaching himself from you. “Not today.” Not I’m sorry, not I love you, just not today. His brothers were at the scene, but Andrew was the one that was in trouble. You wondered if that meant he should be staying – or if he thought staying would put you in danger. This was meant to be his safe house… then again, maybe he needed to get back to his family. Andrew had a knack for disappearing by coming to you – for exactly that reason, no one would think to look for him in this part of town – if the Cody’s didn’t know where he’d got to, they’d be facing chaos. You weren’t about to tell him that his presence god-knows-how-long later dressed in someone else’s clothes probably would only add to that. “If you need me…” “I’ll come back.” He only gave a single nod, those blue eyes telling nothing but the truth. Andrew let you steal a single kiss before he was heading toward your front door, he opened it without a word, pausing only to half raise his hand to say goodbye. You wanted to tell him you loved him, it didn’t seem like an appropriate moment, and with a last lingering look your apartment door closed, leaving you alone. You let out another breath, this time loud as it built into a groan, hands running into your hair: ‘What the fuck am I doing!?’

***

You weren’t exactly in the know on this type of thing, and living across Melbourne in your apartment, you saw Andrew by arrangement, or when he chose to see you. Crime in Melbourne didn’t interest you until it had to – and half the time it was only because he forced your hand. A shoot out on the wrong side of town attracted the attention of the police. The Cody’s weren’t in favour with the police at the best of times, so this only made the cops go haywire. You were none the wiser, but the boys knew it. The law would be all over them – Baz was surprised that they weren’t already, and to counteract this, quickly managed to set a plan in motion. Although it was enacted with an air of panic. “Alright! This time we take no chances, its lockdown. We can’t go anywhere; we move slow and cautious and don’t do anything.” Baz stilled and thought for a moment before turning to his friend, the most likely candidate to get into the wrong kind of trouble. They’d all been there, sure, but it was Andrew the police would come down hardest on. “If we do, we gotta stay put – if necessary, hide. Pope, that means you-!” Craig and Darren immediately began arguing about “How can the house be safe!?” and Baz had the job of reasoning about alibis and how they usually got out of this with help from Ezra, commonly - without evidence - nothing went anywhere… and trying to knock some sense into their panic. Andrew wasn’t hearing any of this, instead he just sat calmly, eyes on a fixed spot – staying here wasn’t his only option. In fact, it was an option he’d rather not take. He stood, wandering off to his bedroom, exiting barely a minute later with a bag. At this point the others realised that he was in fact, leaving, and their yelling after him didn’t cause a turn back. Andrew Cody left without a word. “Andrew!! POPE! Where the HELL do you think you’re going man?!” Baz was too preoccupied with his friend to bother holding the other two back, and yet they didn’t attempt to chase their older brother. He knew the answer that Andrew wouldn’t give; “Y/N.” Darren turned to him with wide eyes; “Is that even safe-!?!” Baz thought that was doing you a disservice as a head strong city girl, you knew what you were getting into. You knew who Andrew was. “Man, I don’t even know where she lives. It’s perfect. After all, who is gonna ask a girl - who barely knows the names of three drugs - where the hell Andrew Cody is. She’s the last place you’d think to look...��

They all heard the car engine start, and as it pulled from the drive they were left in silence. “Should we stop him?” “Nope. It’s not worth it. Pope’s made his choice, best he lay low and out of it for now.” Craig tipped nearly his entire body as he mused his thought; “How did he even get her anyway!?!” Baz frowned, “It’s not about how he got her,” Although he was sure he knew the answer to that,  “it’s about how he’s keeping her.” “Fear?” Baz was almost worried that that was Darren’s gut answer and shook his head firmly. “No. No that’s not it. Pope wouldn’t hurt her.” “You sure about that. He’s got pretty violent tendencies...” This particular incident was a case in point. “No. Because she really WOULD leave.” Unless it was truly accidental; you’d kicked him out for drugs – he lay a hand on you (in a way you didn’t like; he’d seen the scratches and bruises that often adorned your hips that you seemed to like showing off sometimes) Baz wouldn’t think you’d be incapable of calling the cops yourself. That wasn’t a thought he liked. “Oh, she loves him, dearly…” “So what is she to him?” There was a tone of disgust in Craig’s voice, Baz gave him a significant look, “At the very least, a safer space than he’ll ever have here.”

** Weekends alone were nice. You liked waking in someone’s arms, you liked wasting your time on nothing, maybe you’d be treated to a walk somewhere, but it was likely that if Andrew was staying the weekend, you’d not leave your apartment. But alone you could very nearly sleep the whole thing away, eat whenever you wanted – maybe do a grocery store snack run, see your friends at all your favourite Melbourne coffee bars, take your car up to your parents for the weekend to see the kids… but staying under the covers with nothing but your dreams was the priority.   And given that the smell of bleach was finally completely dissipating from your apartment, tonight was the best you slept in days. However, when you woke this morning you weren’t alone. Which was fine either way, your boyfriend had a key and this behaviour wasn’t uncommon, but he was not beside you in bed. Rather, standing at the foot of it staring at you. Andrew Cody wasn’t even blinking, and the only thing that would indicate that he wasn’t a statue, was the rise and fall of his chest for every breath he took. He’d been here for a while, simply observing your sleeping form, your movements and your breathing; Andrew didn’t want to wake you when the dreams seemed good. He didn’t scare you, or make you jump. If anything his presence made you feel a little safer, but by the indication of your clock it was nearly midday… what was he doing here? You flattened yourself out onto your back as you stared right back at him, but his eyes didn’t hold yours very long, raking themselves down your body. The fluctuation of his breathing changed, and you could read that like a book. This man was clearly DTF. And although you couldn’t possibly believe that Andrew would make the journey across the city just for that, it wasn’t out of Andrew’s remit. “What?” Your voice was still soft as you pushed yourself up with your arms so you sat. “Andrew? Baby, what?” Your pulse was elevating to meet the look on his face, the hunger in his eyes. Clearly your body was more than happy to read the signals of his and be roused from its dreams to give signals of its own. Your tongue danced across your bottom lip as you lowered your gaze to the rest of Andrew’s body. You couldn’t deny that you could feel the rise in your arousal and this time, as his eyes came up to meet yours again, your body tingled under the weight of his stare. You wanted him right now too. “C’mere.” You encouraged him, tipping your body back to rest on your hands, head inclined. Andrew didn’t need more than that invitation, crawling onto the bed, hands either side of you. You could hear his breathing now, and he was close, but still not touching you. You continued watching the way he was still staring at your body, the change to the colour of his eyes – he was putting too much thought into this and it was torture. Andrew inhaled you, and you could almost feel the heat coming from him. For a moment you realised you’d been forgetting to breathe, and as you did so your body gave a throb, stomach knotting deliciously. The scent of him covered you. With Andrew this close you didn’t think there was any going back from that. “Do you want me? Andrew? Babe? Do you want me? You can say it...” He still wasn’t looking at your face, and although his head movements were neither confirmation or denial, they were indecisive. With no verbal reaction, but consent certainly needed in order to continue, you closed that gap, grazing your lips to his cheek you nudged his head back just enough to ghost his lips. “I want you, too. Baby, I need you.” If he wouldn’t consent verbally, you would simply let him know you did. He immediately let out a growl, pushing you back into the sheets. Even if you expected kisses, you didn’t expect them to be this harsh and it was very nearly shocking – was Andrew only trying to hold himself back? He pinned you down; knees by your hips, feet between your legs. But you didn’t struggle against him, hands shooting to his shoulders and through his hair – Andrew didn’t pin your wrists. You could feel your hips widening for him – knowing immediately that you wanted him to do whatever the fuck he wanted to you. Shifting himself so that you were still pinned, Andrew pulled your underwear down your legs, discarding them. All the while his lips were still on yours and he wasn’t affording you much breathing room. Some would say this was too close, but this was just where he liked to be. His hands ran smoothly back up your thighs and your hips wiggled underneath his, looking for anything. Andrew answered you sooner than expected, clearly he wasn’t in the mood to wait for this, and slowed his hands to part your thighs just that little more. You immediately moaned into his kiss as Andrew ran his index finger teasingly through your folds. You knew he wouldn’t stop there, and you had to leave his lips in order to draw enough breath to whine as he circled your clit slow. Andrew freed you from being pinned just so you could feed your legs into a more comfortable position whilst still giving him access to you; already flushed, you knew he wouldn’t have to do much to work you up. Dipping his fingers into your arousal as he brushed his thumb across your clit, it wasn’t long before he pushed a finger inside you and even shorter before another joined it – widening you for him. You weren’t even sure you were fully awake yet and your mouth to brain filters hadn’t kicked in, hands shaking as you undid the buttons on your own shirt. “Fuck baby, I need you inside me. Oh, baby please, fuck me, hard. Harder. Edge me, tease me, make me yours.” Clearly neither of you were quite sure where that had come from by the look on his face, but if Andrew thought that was what you wanted, that was what he would give you. Andrew knew what the way you were talking was doing to him as he undid his belt and jeans; it was weird to hear out of your mouth sure, but you were only succeeding in turning him on even more. He removed his fingers from you and thrust in with more force than you expected – causing you to cry out again; not entirely in pain. He growled, lips to your neck as his nails dug into your hips, you pulled his body closer, locking your legs behind him. You drew Andrew deeper; but that was exactly where you wanted him. Here we go with another set of bruises I luckily never have to explain… No trips to the beach for another week, then. If this was back at his, if he’d have called you and asked you to come over – which wasn’t often but it did happen - then this would have to be quiet, and you got the feeling that he was going to be so rough with you that it would be impossible to be silent. But also Andrew liked it when you weren’t – he liked hearing the sounds that he was capable of drawing from you. For just a second he placed his head against yours, and that single kiss was gentle; you thought you were already breathless, perhaps in anticipation, but still managed to say it: “Baby, I will be as loud as you want.” It didn’t take long before you were blissfully sighing his name, moaning and arching you back into him and the travel of his hands. You had to admit you were insanely turned on, but also, in your house you could turn the volume to 10, because that’s what he enjoyed. Andrew didn’t hurt you when you had sex, it wasn’t something that occurred to him; sure he held you tight enough to leave marks and scratches, but he wasn’t actively hurting you. So him being this rough was an unusual experience. But Andrew also didn’t usually talk, beyond the occasional phenomena of his own quiet sighs, and his whispers of your name. So, you weren’t sure if you had unlocked or awakened something in him that was always there, but he never knew you wanted, or Andrew was simply playing into your request – but the threatening growl in his voice as he spoke basically had you doing as he commanded on the spot, “I’m gonna make you cum over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and then when you can’t take it any more I’ll finally cum for you.” You whimpered your ‘what!?’ in such a way that it didn’t even sound like a word – your fingers clinging onto him and tangling into his shirt for dear life as he continued his reckless rhythm inside you. You felt too high on the feeling of him fucking you, but you would take him at his word – that was exactly what Andrew was going to do, unless you told him to stop. And he would, if he didn’t want to hurt you, he would. He'd be out the door faster than he could apologise if not. Did you want him to stop, was the question? Instead you responded in kind; “Fuck me Andrew. Do whatever you want with my body, it’s yours.”

Andrew didn’t say anything unless it was worth saying, unless he meant it (at least sober) - that was like an unwritten rule. Although maybe with you like this he wasn’t entirely sober, ever. But it felt so heat of the moment and foreign to him - what he was telling you wasn’t calculated… it wasn’t even truly blunt information but it turned you on. And that clench of your muscles around him was something that he could feel. The same way he could feel your pulse under his fingertips, and your warmth: that was your life, your heartbeat and it jumped with your excitement. The sound of it with the ticking of his watch; everything was suddenly so sensory to him. It ran wild the harsher he was with you and the harder you panted; desperate to take on more air. He didn’t have to associate that sound with life, either, he knew that noise when taking it. Andrew wasn’t sure if he was supposed to find that sexy or not; but he thought he did.

Every little sign of your body was all he needed; Andrew could pay attention to that minutia of detail, whether it be the sounds you made, or the shake that you fought so hard against, the movement of your body under his, how it felt to have your fingertips glide over him, for your lips to press into his skin, smaller tensions of resistance… but also how it felt to be inside you - how being a little rough and talking a little dirty seemed only to make you wetter, a little tighter, a lot more desperate for him - as if suddenly all your senses had heightened too. Maybe this was just something you both needed. But all of this was bringing you pleasure - that’s what mattered most. That Andrew was bringing you something positive; HE was doing this to you. He didn’t know why you stuck around; he gave you plenty of reason to leave. But you proved a point, even if really you knew you were only proving it to yourself; that Andrew Cody could make a positive impact on people’s lives. You wanted nothing more than to desperately confirm to him that he wasn’t just some tool his family could use for violence without mercy. Andrew could be this for someone; a life partner, needed, wanted, loved... And it wasn’t just you - but the way your whole family felt about him; Andrew deserved a real family.

He watched the sweat dance on your skin for a minute, acutely aware of the way your nails were digging into him; “Andrew, PLEASE, give me more-!” You weren’t just a someone though. You were you. You of all the damn people in this city, let alone the world. You could have anyone you wanted - you almost got married. Whether that man be long gone or not, occasionally it crossed Andrew’s mind that if it wasn’t for him coming into your life, your absolute fascination with him, the fact that this was practically an affair… you would be married right now; in some extravagant mansion in some fancy part of Melbourne. But you weren’t, you were with him - having loud rough sex in your apartment in a moment where you were thinking things didn’t get much better than that. Andrew proved to you that you didn’t have to settle for what you thought you wanted - but you could just as easily find what you really needed, even in the most unexpected of places. For Andrew, he couldn’t help but admit there was an excitement about the potential of corrupting someone not from his world, nor should have ever crossed the line into it. And yet here you were, beneath him.

He didn’t go back on any of his growled promises; and every time you came it felt different. Because this wasn’t just about one thing – not just the physical act; it was how you were feeling about him, and how Andrew felt for you. How he listened intently to what your body was telling him and changed it up - how you vocalised what you liked (and maybe when he got a little too rough). Emotions might have been hard to find in Andrew Cody but they were buried there somewhere, and they were real, and sometimes he gave you a glimpse of them. Even if it was just the look on his face right now, as you came for him again, and again, and again… The slight sympathy in his features as you begged him to cum for you, in short sharp breaths that he could really barely register as a sentence: hot and flushed and sweaty and spent… but his; completely his. Heart, Body, Mind and Soul. And Andrew didn’t need to look at the marks across your skin to know it.

By the time he did finally come undone inside you, your energy was completely drained, body shaking beneath his. You were both drenched in sweat and breathing hard – but every second had been worth it – and your body was singing from every single high you were still on. You couldn’t be sure you were even down from the first yet. You weren’t sure if your mental note should be: we should really do this again, or, we really should never do this again! So you’d put a pin in it for now, far too tired to do more than sift your fingers through his hair as he lay quietly on your chest listening to your heartbeat. Whatever that decision would be, you couldn’t help thinking on the fact that you wanted this more often, you would keep Andrew here if you could… If you thought that was ever possible. One day you’d work up the nerve to broach him moving in, for now you lay still and quiet. Now wasn’t the time… Now you just wanted to get lost in the way he made you feel. ** You had barely left the bed all weekend, if only to shower. (Which hardly ever turned out as innocent as it sounded). Usually exhausted, but hardly something to worry about. Andrew took good care of you. But he really had worn you out and after he’d set you on the sofa, so that he could change your sheets and tidy up, Andrew returned to your sleeping form. He tilted his head to watch you; remnants of that afterglow remained, smile on your face as your body curled up. Although you were tired you looked content, no worries.  Exactly how Andrew wished he could keep you. You were with him though, so that certainly wasn’t easy. He stooped, arms under your body as he pulled you into him. You groaned gently as he tipped you, head against his chest. Andrew gave pause again as you immediately sought the warmth of his body with a sleepy hum. His head gave an involuntary little shake as he carried you back to your bedroom. Depositing you back on your bed to curl up once more, Andrew stopped in the doorway only to make sure you had settled, before he closed the door on you and continued his tidying. *** Andrew thought about simply leaving, maybe it would have calmed down at home, maybe he could find somewhere else to lay low… But, although you’d talked this weekend you’d never quite broached the subject of why he was here. It wasn’t something important to you, he supposed, it wasn’t something you’d ask probably because usually you’d get a blunt answer. You didn’t need to know. And yet maybe this time you did. You were still sleeping when he re-entered your bedroom, and Andrew settled on the bed to watch you this time. However, your body didn’t stir, as it had when he’d arrived; you were relaxed and peaceful. Andrew knew you enough to know that you slept pretty light usually, but you seemed a lot deeper in this time around. He was right, you were exhausted. Through good things, at least. He placed his fingers gently to your neck, searching for the run of your pulse… when he found it Andrew applied increasing pressure, it changed under his fingertips; manipulated by his exertion on you – but when he did this, he could feel it stronger. That was your life under his fingertips; something that he could so easily take from you. And that thought almost scared him, you walked a razors edge - balanced constantly - and yet never seemed to let it faze you. You stood up to him without fear that he could turn around and kill you, even though Andrew knew how aware you were of that possibility. Andrew supposed you just never let it cross your mind. That you wouldn’t allow yourself to believe that your relationship could ever end that way. He would keep it to himself, of course, but Andrew had an uneasy feeling this relationship would only end when one of you was dead. Uncomfortable with the applied pressure, your body woke you; Andrew withdrew his hand fascinated with the way you took on more air as you awoke. It really would be that easy… You stretched slowly and turned to him, “Oh… my god. I-” you glanced to the clock, “…I’m sorry.” “You needed it.” Andrew gave a nonchalant shrug. “I thought you might leave.” “I considered it.” He was still being blunt, you weren’t all that sure Andrew would recognise the difference and let you down softly: “…I might need to overstay my welcome.” You pulled yourself up, taking his hand in yours, “You are always welcome here. What happened?” He would take his leave, if there wasn’t a reason he couldn’t return home. “You know.” “The same as before? So the police are after you?” You said it with an undertone of ‘I told you so’. “Appears that way.” “And you’re gonna tell me what it’s about?” That was a rare event. “…I told you.” He indicated, “But-” and shuffling over to his things he presented you with a large polished wooden box. You were immediately unsure you were going to like this, and opened the lid cautiously, only at the last second realising now your fingerprints were on this thing. ‘David would scream at me!’ You blew out a breath at the contents, unable to quite raise your eyes to his. The entire box was filled with drugs, of various types, surely you couldn’t name them all, but pills, needles and powder were all present in various shapes and colours. Spoils of war? The darker patches of brown you could see around the edges of the box were saying blood to you. You were silent for a long while, before you said the first thing you could really think of, “This... is a lot.” A lot for me. “I know.” You weren’t sure he let your sentence settle enough for him to really know. You became sad for a minute, fingers dancing across the surface of the box as you closed it, unsure of what to do. What you were supposed to do with this information now. Andrew continued, deciding to take the leap of: “I can’t be what you want me to be.” You raised your head, with a blink and looked at him; clear and true, dead in the eye: “I don’t want you to be anything.” You had never wanted him to be anything, you knew exactly who he was. “You might be what they say you are, Andrew.” Not that you would know, being so out of the loop. But you’d seen enough, in your opinion far too much, “But that is not ALL you are.” I know you... I. Know. You. You could think of nothing else than to gather him to you, you didn’t care if he reciprocated or not – it was something you needed to do. Even if it was only for yourself. You buried your head in his shoulder, lacing yours fingers with his. Andrew wasn’t looking at you, he wasn’t even really giving you anything back. But he wasn’t pulling away from you either – and that was just as important. You rubbed his arm affectionately, running up to his collar. Those blue eyes trailed to yours; and you held him there. Your voice was gentle, voicing the only thing that really mattered to you in this moment – his own safety. “Stay as long as you need, we’ll get through this, we always do.”

You always would.

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Thank yoooooou for reading! 💙💜