#not meant as a criticism of jean or anything

[moonstruckme]

hi bae, can i pls request reader who’s recovering from eating problems and is gaining a bit of weight and gets insecure with poly marauders but they just find her more attractive cause of it

fighting demons rn

🫶🏻🫶🏻

Hi sweetheart, apologies for the wait! I was hunting your demons with a crossbow. Thanks for requesting <3

cw: implied past disordered eating, body image issues

poly!marauders x fem!reader ♡ 1.4k words

Your favorite high waisted jeans used to sit just so on your hips, practically hanging off your hip bones. Now, they hug your waist, which you try to reason is where they were always meant to be, but it feels so wrong on your body. Everything about your body feels wrong. You jam your fingers in the waistband, and there’s little give. You’re beginning to wonder if you should even bother with these, when you know you’ll eat and they’ll start to bite into your midsection like a punishment. But they’re your favorite jeans.

James comes through on his way to the bathroom with a careless “Hi, lovie,” and you drop your hands from where they’ve been pinching critically at your waist. 

“Hi,” you echo halfheartedly. 

James pauses, pivoting slightly to give you a curious look. You have an out here, you know. You could fake a smile or feign confusion, and he’d let it go. Perhaps he’d be keeping a closer eye on you today, but James will never push the issue if you don’t feel like talking. 

Maybe it’s the option that makes you think it might be nice to externalize. 

“I’ve gained weight,” you say plainly. There. 

James’ eyebrows shoot up, more surprised at the abruptness of your complaint than the complaint itself. “Well, I should hope so. You’ve been doing really well lately.” 

“It’s just,” you sigh, “my jeans don’t fit.” 

He gives you a quick look-over, then an odd sort of smile. “They look great to me. Do they not feel right?” 

You feel your mouth quirk to the side. A dissatisfied pinch. “They used to feel different.” 

“That’s alright, sweetheart,” he says, going into the bathroom. You hear the satisfying schwick of his deodorant cap sliding off. “Do they still sell those same ones?”

You give a tentative nod as he emerges from the bathroom again, and he shrugs at you, a funny scrunch at the bridge of his nose. 

“Then get them in a bigger size.” 

Not what you want to hear. Not necessarily his fault, either. James doesn’t get it. How could he? The only time James’ body doesn’t look like it was drawn into a superhero comic is the few weeks of off-season where he doesn’t train as hard and gets a bit of pudge around his middle. And even then, it’s a very lovable pudge. James Potter wouldn’t know insecurity if it slept in his bed every night. (Which it does. You do.) 

“That’s not the point,” you say, and despite your best intentions your voice comes out with a petulant edge. “I just—I liked how these ones looked on me before. Don’t you think I look…different?” 

The scrunch migrates from the bridge of his nose to just above it, an unhappy notch between his brows. “Well, yeah. But I mean, I like it.” 

You give him a deadpan look. 

“I’m being honest.” James holds up his hands. “Really, sweetheart, I didn’t want to—I know talking about your body can be an issue for you, so I didn’t want to bring it up, but you’ve been looking fantastic lately.” 

You’re quiet, stuck. You aren’t sure what you’d wanted out of this anymore (validation, maybe?) but you’re not going to get it this way. You only feel bad for putting James in this position. He’s your boyfriend and a good one, he only ever had one way out of this. 

“Sorry,” you say, wrapping your arms around your torso, “I didn’t mean to fish for compliments.” 

“Hey.” He steps into your space, hooking his fingers through your belt loops to turn you towards him. “You’re not asking for anything I don’t want to give. You look amazing, I mean it.” Your eyes fall to his chest and he stoops to follow them, dark brows rising incredulously. “What, you don’t believe me?” 

You sigh. “I’m sorry I brought it up, okay? Can we not—”

“Nope.” James lets go of one of your belt loops but keeps a firm hold on the other. “Sorry, no longer an option.” He begins tugging you out of the room. Your hips follow disloyally, and though you wrap your hands around his wrist, he holds fast. 

“James, come on.” You give a little resistance, but he drags you doggedly onward. You could tear away if you commit to it, but these really are your favorite jeans and James is just as likely to take your belt loop with him. 

In the living room, Sirius is mending a pair of James’ trousers while Remus does the crossword, which involves him reading the clues aloud and Sirius firing off unrelated and too-long words until Remus gets it himself. Remus hears your protest first, brows rising as James brings you into the room. 

“What’s going on?” he asks, somewhat warily. 

“She doesn’t believe me when I tell her she’s lovely,” James says, like Can you believe it? Remus blinks and Sirius’ eyes flit up from his work, one brow quirking.

“That’s not what I said,” you defend. 

He releases you, and you step away, crossing your arms over your midsection. “Go on, then.” James sounds truly encouraging, though dubious. “Tell us how lovely you are, angel.” 

You roll your eyes. It’s difficult not to feel frivolous when they put you on the spot like this. “I was only saying that I don’t like the fit of my jeans now.” 

If you hadn’t had Sirius’ full attention already, you do now. He sets down James’ trousers, beckoning you forward, “C’mere, let’s see.” 

You go to stand between his legs, dread coiled like a snake around your ribcage that only squeezes tighter at the unflinching intensity of Sirius’ gaze while he analyzes your face. 

You look down to escape it, sticking your thumb into the waistband of your jeans. “Look, they’ve gotten small—”

“I can see for myself,” he says softly, moving your hand out of the way and replacing your thumb with his own slender fingers. They’re cool against your abdomen. He slides them around to the side of your waist, tugging experimentally at the denim. “Gorgeous, these fit great. This is exactly where you’d usually want them to be. What’s the issue?” 

“It’s just—they don’t—” You feel more and more ridiculous by the second, and you can’t figure out if you’re frustrated with yourself or with them for that. “They used to sit lower, and now I—I just feel like I look weird.”  

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” James insists, seating himself on the coffee table and setting his elbows on his knees. Sirius nudges your ankle with his foot, silent encouragement to sit between him and Remus. You comply. “You don’t look weird, sweetheart, you’re—listen, you’ve always been beautiful, but lately, it’s like—you’re just, you’re stunning.” 

You shrink from the compliment, face humiliatingly warm. “Thanks, Jamie, but you have to say that.” 

“No, he’s right,” Remus chimes in. He sounds so matter-of-fact, as if he’s simply recounting how traffic was on the way home from work today. “You don’t look the same as you did before, true, but it’s not a bad change. You’re just not used to seeing yourself healthy, is all.” 

“Exactly.” James throws up his palms, relieved. 

You consider this. It was warped perspective that had gotten you into this mess. Maybe you’re still not seeing things clearly quite yet. 

Sirius wraps a hand around the inside of your thigh, tugging it over one of his. “Babe, if these jeans are evidence of anything, it’s that you’re finally growing into the size you were always supposed to be. If you eventually have to get a larger pair, then fine. It still won’t mean anything about you. You’re exactly right, understand?” 

You nod, feeling thoroughly chastened, and Sirius grins. His fingertips dig into your thigh as he leans over to kiss your cheek. 

“Honestly, I don’t know how you can’t see it,” James says, looking pleased to have some validation from the other boys. “You’re radiant, lovie, your skin is glowing, you look happier—really, you’ve never been more lovely.” 

“It helps that we know you’re doing better, too,” Remus says, a bit quieter. “Frailty doesn’t suit you, dove. It’s…I love you no matter what, but it does make it easier when you’re kind to yourself. Feels more like we’re on the same team.” 

“Thanks,” you say softly, then once more for good measure. “Thanks, guys.” 

“Told you already,” James says, “you’re not asking for anything we don’t want to give.” 

“You liked it when these jeans fit a bit saggier, showed more skin, yeah?” Sirius asks. You nod with a shrug. It doesn’t feel quite so important now. “We can do that. We’ll get you the same ones, if you want, or another pair that might sit a bit more on your hips.” He gives your thigh a squeeze through your jeans. “Gotta show off this bod, right, babydoll?”

[ameliathornromance]

“Is that him there?”

Wind blasts through the train tunnel, past you and your Orc Boyfriend. Your Orc, raised an eyebrow and followed your finger pointed.

The person you were referring to, a human male with waterfalls of black hair, curling at his shoulders. His eyes were bloodshot and contoured with black rings, matching his dark hair.

The phrase, ‘Love, not hate’ tattooed above his left eyebrow. His scowling at passers by, wrinkled nose and judgemental stare opposed the important sentiment he decided to ink his face with. Sitting on the bench, he jogged his knee to an invisible jig, chain around his neck swaying.

Your Orcs’ eyes flicked from the phone screen in his hand, to the suspect and back to the screen. “Yup.” He tucked the phone away in his jeans pocket. “Now, let me handle this.”

“No,” you put a hand against your Orcs shoulder, stopping him from moving towards the subject. “We talked about this, you always come on too strong. And this isn’t too dangerous is it? It’s just an escort job.”

The Orc wrinkled his nose at you, “don’t say it like that, you make it out to be that we’re some kind of prostitutes.”

You rolled your eyes, “you knew what I meant. I’ll go and make contact, you hang back behind me and step in if it gets to be too much!” And without waiting for a response, you approached the man.

“Hey, Mr Mimac.” You started gently. The last time Mr Mimac had been seen was three months ago in Monaco… Snorting some kind of white powder, surrounded by Fae show girls and gambling away all the money his… ‘law abiding’ father had given him as a 21st birthday present.

God knows if he was on anything now.

But that’s why you and your Orc had turned up. Your duo went by many names in underground spaces: Good & Bad Cop, Brains and Brawn, Summer and Snow – fitting really, considering both of your conflicting appearances & approaches.

Orcs and Humans don’t normally get together like the two of you do. But it’s good to have a balance on perspectives, isn’t it?

Even if you disliked the brashness and ruthless behaviour of your boyfriend, you couldn’t deny that it paid off to have a scary guard dog with you wherever you went. It made you feel safer, especially when dealing with things like this.

Mr Mimac Junior didn’t even spare you a glance, eyes still glancing around the stations platform in the same critical gaze. “We’re here on behalf of your dad, he’s asked me and my partner to bring you back to him. He’s very worried about you.” You explained as delicately as possible.

“Fuck off…” The Junior turned to you, his scowl deepening. “I don’t care what my father asked you to do.” His voice slurred slightly, a strong chemical smell hit you like icy water.

You opened your mouth to respond, try to ease him into coming with you. But there was no time.

“Alright,” your Orc Boyfriend spoke up from behind you. “The lady asked quite politely.” He growled.

Still, Mr Mimac did not move. He sent a glare at your Orc, “so? I don’t take orders from anyone, do you know who I am?”

Uh oh.

“This is how it’s going to play out, hm?” Within an instance, your Orc was in front of you, hands leaned on the benches arm rests, bent down to the Juniors height.

The man’s eyes widened, leaning as far as he could before hitting the tiled wall behind him.

Any trace of irritation had gone from Mr Mimac’s face as your Orc continued, “My lovely lady may be polite, but me?” Your Orc Boyfriend drew a sharp breath, air between his large tusks. “I’m not so nice. You’re going to do what the lady says, otherwise your father is going to get a bloody pulp of flesh, and when he asks why you turned up in that state, I’m going to say that you were refusing to co-operate and I had to use some light force… I might just have to even break that pretty little necklace you have,” your Orc flicked a dangling diamond chain from around the man-child's neck.

You stifle a sigh, covering your forehead and blocking your eyes from the scene.

“Now, you’re going to apologise and come with us quietly.” Drawing himself back to you his full height, your Orc looped his thumbs through his belt loop, waiting for the Human to respond.

The man’s eyes darted to you, then back to your Orc. “’m sorry.” Mr Mimac squeaked.

“Better.” Your Orc jerked the Junior standing, the three of you marching out of the train station.

*

Mr Mimac Senior thanked you both profusely as his son was led away by his mother. Mimac Senior handed you a briefcase and sent you both on your way.

Getting back into the car, you cracked open the briefcase. Taking a stack of bills, you examined them carefully as your Orc Boyfriend turned the ignition and turned the car around.

After checking the bills authenticity, you snapped the case closed. The clicking of the cars indicator punctuated the air.

“I told you I could handle it.” You said, quietly.

“You did. He was just behaving like a jackass.” Your Orc replied, checking the lane before pulling out of the drive way. “I’m not going to let anyone talk to you like that.”

Despite the point being lost on your Orc, you couldn’t help the smile on your lips. “Thank you.” You meant it, how could you not? He was only looking out for you. “I feel bad, you’re always doing the dirty work. You should get some time to sit back and handle the easy stuff.”

“You shouldn’t feel bad. Remember what we agreed? I get my hands dirty, you keep yours clean and deal with business.” The car stopped at the traffic lights. "You’re smarter and better at negotiating.”

Engine humming, the streaking of red light illuminating his appearance, your Orc turned to you. “I love you, you know." He held his hand out to you.

You took it, intertwining your fingers with his. “I love you too.”

[carmyberzattosjournal]

Entry 16: Well-Versed Pas De Deux

Screenshot Credit: @neverscreens

Bearblr Promptober Day 16: Bonfire

Summary: Carmy is struggling with menu changes for the next month, his girlfriend (who he calls Darling) reminds him of the bonfire they were supposed to attend, and she does a little thing that gets right under his skin. Smut.

Warnings: Smut, swearing, oral sex (f receiving), fingering, mention of family trauma, mention of The Devil (aka Chef David), fem reader who is a trauma surgeon, she/her pronouns.

Notes: All journal entries will be titled as such and tagged with #cb journal.

Thank you for reading. Thank you to @carmenberzattosgf for putting together this prompt list. If you want to keep following this set of works, you can follow the #cb journal tag.

Also, if random letters or words are white instead of the colors they should be, that's Tumblr being dumb, I've been fighting it for days.

Sideblog for commentary and yapping: @m-z-shoroi

16 Oct 2024

My apartment, now back up to two bad radiators (this is how I’m keeping track of time anymore, how many radiators are still working. These fucking pieces of shit can go burn in hell with the landlord. I swear to God, I’m having nightmares of them breaking at critical moments, this is stupid as fuck. RADIATORS.). I’m at the dining table with three half-formed dishes for the November menu changes staring at me—one of them was the duck with apple glaze that Tina proposed, I’m pretty sure. The others? No idea. This head’s a colander. I don’t know how I do anything, for fuck’s sake. Best chef award, my ass.

“Carmy? Baby?” Darling’s voice ripped me out of my thoughts.

She hovered between the kitchen and living room. Had going-out clothes on, that sweater with the—were they cables? I think they’re called cables—her fleece-lined jeans that she patched the knee of with flannel from a very old shirt of mine, hat. Holding a scarf.

“Hm? Sorry. Sorry, I’m… fuck.” I dragged my hands through my hair, rubbed my eyes. “Sorry, these menu changes are killing me. I didn’t hear a word you said, I’m so sorry.”

She shuffled over, wrapped her arms around me. “It’s okay; it happens.”

I nuzzled her sweater. Took a deep inhale of her scent.

“I was asking if you still want to go to the bonfire.”

Bonfire? My stomach dropped through the floor. Fuck, that was today, wasn’t it?

“Shit.” I looked at the clock. 7:09 pm.

“It’s okay, we’ll still make it on time if we leave in 15 minutes. If you still want to go.”

“I-I don’t, uh—fuck.” Shit. My face flooded with warmth. Shit, I even had it in my calendar, how the fuck did I forget? I pressed the heels of my hands into my cheekbones as if I could somehow physically force the heat back out of my face. Or maybe covering my eyes makes me feel safer, somehow? I don’t know, that’s a question for the eventual therapist (who I feel bad for, by the way. Fucking hell, therapy is going to suck).

Darling brushed her hand up and down my sternum. “Hey, hey, breathe.”

I heaved a breath. My head spun.

“I want to hear about the menu, but if you’re going to go, you should decide now so we can leave on time.”

“I-I don’t know? I don’t know, I need to think.” I didn’t mean to hiss it between my teeth. My face got warmer. Now my chest felt warm, like I’d just opened an oven.

I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to appropriately appreciate the silence Darling offers me. Like in that moment, she alerted me to being pressed for time, but then she just gave me runway to think, to broil under my own skin for a bit and then come to the realization that the sky isn’t falling and that whatever pitchfork crowd I conjured in my anxiety-riddled mind didn’t exist. I didn’t even realize that’s what was going on with me at the time—why I involuted and imploded so ferociously when I perceived myself fucking up. A lifetime of violent retaliation for mistakes meant that even when the logical part of my mind knew that I wouldn’t be pierced with verbal javelins, or have to dodge something thrown at me, or assuage a tsunami of an emotional assault, I got wound up like they were coming. Those cavernous scars ran to the bone. And band-aids and skin glue wouldn’t fix the damage all the way down.

And Darling knew that, too.

“I, um. I’m-I’m not sure about going,” I managed. My breaths were short, bit like that time I had pneumonia as a kid, but the burning in my face had subsided.

“Do you want to go?”

How was I supposed to answer that? The apple glaze for the duck could use some brightness. Not acidity. Maybe something herbal? Lemon zest?

Wait, she asked me a question.

“Shit. Uh, I-I don’t know. I mean, it’d be nice, but these fucking menu changes.” I nudged the plates away from me. “Fuck my life…”

She hooked my chin and turned my gaze up to her. “Can I make a proposal, pretty boy?”

Something warm stirred in the pit of my stomach at hearing her call me that again. Fuck, she looked gorgeous. Had this little sparkle in her eyes because of the way the lights came through the blinds, put on lipstick for the first time in a while, and damn if it didn’t make her look like a million dollars. If it didn’t bring out the lively, rich color in her face, the love in her smile. Her necklace—did she say it was some kind of pearls? Vintage?—shimmering white, shifting iridescent tones, landed half a centimeter above the notch between her collarbones as if the best architect in the world composed this masterpiece of visual design.

“Please,” I whispered. Please, you have all of my attention. Every last thread of it. Please, please, for the love of whatever the fuck you believe in, call me pretty boy again.

“Take your notebook with you, hm?” She ran her fingers through my hair. “I’ll drive on the way over, so you can write down any ideas that come up. You might have some ideas at the bonfire itself—you know, the smell of the flames, the food there. And if you need it, you can always head to the car and write in the quiet.”

I took her hand and pressed my lips to her palm. Soft. A bit cooler in temperature. “I should get out, huh?”

“A change of scenery might be helpful for you right now. And I do want to go.”

I nodded, pressed one last kiss to her palm. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

Mother of pearl.

That’s what her necklace was made of.

…..

The bonfire didn’t give me many ideas, but Syd did.

“Is there any other way to brighten the apple glaze?” she asked. “Like do you have to add something?”

Some of Darling’s friends had organized this little thing, some kind of Fall tradition for them. I was her plus one. Upsides: quieter than a big public thing; at night, so plenty of chances to Irish Goodbye into the shadows (is that offensive?); trees nearby, so I could just become a tree man (there’s a word for this. Darling told me, I’ll write it in if I remember. Cryptid. That’s the word) in the middle of it all, I guess. Downsides: more intimate setting, so higher expectation to socialize; at night, so who even knew what beasts and ghouls lurked in the shadows; and the trees were suffocatingly gigantic. I could get crushed by trying to look up at them. Also, several people stared at me like I was a rack of lamb, and it made me deeply uncomfortable. It did start getting a bit raucous about 30 minutes in, and I’d sent a (cryptic, now that I think about it) text to Sydney on the drive over, so she called me at the perfect time for me to duck out and get a break.

So, there I was, about 15 feet away from the bonfire, crouched against a tree to give my back a break, chill of the night air starting to creep under and around my jacket, watching Darling laugh at a good story, meeting her eyes to check in, watching her, meeting her eyes.

“What, like, take something away?”

Like The Devil told me to do?

“Yeah, or, like, maybe try a different type of apple or a different sort of… I don’t know.” She sighed. “We sure we wanna stick to an apple glaze?”

“It’s a solid idea. And it was Tina’s.” I was determined to make it work. She’d done too much for me to not try to make it work. “Finely diced green apples? Orange zest? I could try taking out the cinnamon.”

“What’s that gonna do?”

“It’ll take out the bass note. Cinnamon sits low in the palate, it’s-it’s a bass note. Means we get more tenor.”

“I’m sorry, are you using music terms?” Ugh, I could hear her smiling.

Warmth pricked at my cheeks. I hate that my voice came out so small when I said, “It’s how I think.”

Sydney either didn’t notice or decided not to aggravate the situation. “Okay. So, take out the cinnamon.”

Darling tilted her head at me.

“Yeah. I’ll give it a try. I, uh, I gotta go, Darling needs me.”

“Oh. Yeah, sure. Let me know how menu goes tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

I headed back over to the bonfire. She offered me a s’more—very needed, fucking hell, I just needed some junk food sometimes to reset after sampling duck and bluefin and wagyu so much. Cheap chocolate, half-stale baking spices, half-charred fake vanilla. Caramelized sugar. Sharp snap of graham cracker, the bubbly warmth of melted marshmallow. She swept a bit of melted chocolate from my lip. Sucked it off her thumb.

Had no fucking idea how bad it wrecked me.

Not until we got back home, and I needed to get clothes off and yank her forward by her belt loop and impatiently shove her hands towards my hair. She giggled that saccharine melody, tangled her fingers through my curls, and then screeched in surprised delight when I just picked her up and marched straight for the bedroom.

“Carmy! Goodness!”

My kisses were sloppy because I couldn’t stop grinning. “Don’t wake the neighbors.”

Maybe it was the 4 sips of cheap whiskey I had at the bonfire.

She yanked off my t-shirt and coiled around me, her skin cool against mine, while I made short work of the rest of our clothes.

“God, you’re so warm all the time,” she mumbled, nuzzling my shoulder.

I found a few moments to slow back down. To just enjoy how her skin felt on mine, how her body fit perfectly right in my hands. Traced over the round of her hip, the curve of her thighs, palmed at her perfect tits.

“No, no,” she said, pulling back to smirk at me. “You’re supposed to be fucking me right now.”

I kissed her. “You’re cute.”

“You’re hot.” She untangled herself from me and flopped onto the bed, stretching her arms like a satisfied cat. Faint light spilling in from the windows cast these deep, pitchlike shadows over her form, highlighting, in breathtaking contrast, every feature on her face, every facet of her architecture. Should I have thought about it any further, I might’ve absorbed the sight longer, embedded it in my mind, attempted to recapture it at the end of my pencil, but her giggle drew my attention.

“Now rail me already.”

I appreciate her bluntness so much.

She tensioned fistfuls of my hair when I trailed wet kisses up the inside of her thigh. Draped her other leg over my shoulder with practiced ease. This is a familiar dance, a well-versed pas de deux. One where I paint my hand up and down that thigh on my shoulder to soothe her when my lips finally meet her cunt, and she lets out that whimper that cinches the tight, burning, merciless heat of arousal deep in my navel. Where she breathlessly begs and whimpers and whines my name when she’s wracked by an orgasm on my tongue, more so when she’s ruined under me with her legs tight around my waist, tight enough to leave bruises along my hip bones, for me to feel sore when moving around the kitchen the next day—reminders of her, like the scratches I’d get, the lipstick stains I’d guard under my clothes and that I’d try to keep around as long as they’d last.

Maybe it was just love, by the way.

That’s an option, you know, Carmen. You just love her that much.

“I’m so close,” she mumbled. Her fingernails worried sore spots on my scalp, but I couldn’t find it in me to stop her from doing it. She was so tight around my fingers, so wet on my tongue, so hot—I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it. I don’t want to get used to it.

I withdrew my fingers, and she tugged particularly hard on my hair. “No, no, don’t stop,” she wailed.

“Ow, baby girl, too hard.”

She let go immediately, pet my face to apologize. “But I’m… oh…”

I’d crawled onto the bed. She pulled herself up towards the headboard, coiled her limbs around me and yanked me down into a starved kiss.

“Fuck me already, please, pretty boy.”

Who was I not to oblige?

[makeitmingi]

The Cat and Dog Game [Chapter 6]

Genre: Romance, Fluff, Comedy

Pairing: Yunho x Reader (y/n)

Characters: Chef!Reader, RestaurantOwner!Yunho, MaitreD!Hongjoong, Waiter!Yeosang, Waiter!San, Waiter!Mingi, SousChef!Seonghwa, SousChef!Wooyoung, PrepChef!Jongho

Summary: Yunho's dream was to open and run his own restaurant. But he doesn't know anything when it comes to cooking. Until you came along and accepted the job, bringing with you a small crew. How will the black cat tame the energetic golden retriever?

Word count: 3.2K

"Where's (y/n)? Did she have dinner?" San asked first.

"Oh, she's just taking a breather. Hwa hyung already kept a portion of food for her." Wooyoung waving him off, taking another bite of his own food.

"Is she okay?" Mingi asked.

"Yeah, don't worry about her." Jongho replied. Well, if your friends were saying not to worry, who was Yunho to worry? Why was he even worrying? It's the guilt he felt from his comment before dinner service. You just started working together and he didn't want to cause any bad blood on Day 1.

"Hey." You entered the kitchen, your hands tucked into the pockets of your jeans. Yunho's head perked up at your voice. Your nose and cheeks were slightly red.

"Yah, did you not wear a jacket out?" Seonghwa frowned, leaving his food and coming over to you.

"I'm fine, Hwa." You leaned away from him before he could touch your face.

"You're going to get sick. Come, have your dinner before we start prep." Seonghwa led you over to where the group was. You opened your mouth to say something but Seonghwa shot you a look.

"Thanks for the food." You mumbled and took a bite, although everyone could sense your reluctancy.

"So, how was the dinner service?" You asked.

"It was good. The customers love the food, the feedback was all good." Hongjoong smiled, giving all of you a thumbs up. Wooyoung and Jongho hi fived.

"They liked the roast chicken, infusing western and Korean flavours. The cioppino was liked as well, reminded them of a non-spicy haemul jjigae." Yeosang added. Seonghwa wrapped an arm around you, patting your back as you smiled at each other.

"And a lot of people ordered one dessert each, they like the Western and Korean option." San grinned.

"Finally, Mr Owner, any words of wisdom?" Mingi grinned, drawing all attention on the taller male who had been silent so far.

"Uh... Well, I guess thank you to everyone here. I would say the first day of this place was a huge success, more than I'd ever imagine." He smiled nervously.

"The people like the food, they like the options of Korean flavours and Western flavours, even in combination. Even for the desserts. I think we should continue like we did today." He finished.

"We will try to make dishes that incorporate more Korean flavours, of course." You nodded.

"You're not mad?" Yunho winced, realising he said that out loud when it was meant to be an internal question.

"Why would I be mad?" You blinked in genuine confusion.

"Because of what I said earlier about the food possibly being too fancy. I was afraid that it was offensive or something. I think you all cook amazing, your skills are definitely more than I could ever imagine having, and the food is 100! It's just that this is my first time doing this and I'm afraid and nervous." He blurted.

"Yunho. None of us took what you said personally or to heart. You're the owner and our boss, we follow your direction. I'm personally grateful you were honest with us." You raised an eyebrow.

"Really?"

"Told you." Mingi slapped Yunho's shoulder.

"There's nothing to be worried about. Trust us, we have faced worse insults and criticisms from others before." Jongho laughed.

"Told you." Yeosang mimicked Mingi and slapped Yunho's other shoulder, making Yunho shove his friends away for slapping him with a scowl on his face.

"Please be honest with us. We always look for improvements and ways to be better." Seonghwa smiled.

"We're tougher than you think." You chuckled. Yunho blushed, feeling a little immature now and he felt like he just embarrassed himself in front of you. You noticed how his ears had turned bright red as he looked away with a small pout.

"Alright! We need to start preparing so if you aren't going to help, please step aside." Wooyoung put his hands together with a big smile. Hongjoong and San helped do the remaining dishes.

"Wait, stop. Don't go." You stopped the others mid step. They all froze, turning to you.

"Think of what we can serve tomorrow. We haven't decided that." You said, looking at the 3 chefs, who nodded in agreement.

"But we don't know anything about cooking. I don't think we can offer anything remotely helpful." Mingi rubbed the back of his neck. You grabbed your notepad and marker.

"That's fine. Yunho believed he was bad at cooking but he made the berry tuile." You pointed out.

"She has a point. If Yunho can make something that nice, we probably can too." Yeosang shrugged, making Yunho glare at him and jab his side considering Yeosang was also a bad cook. Yunho would argue that Yeosang is actually a worse cook than he was since he actually burnt the bbq last time.

"Do you know how to make a quiche? I always love quiches." Hongjoong said from his spot at the sink.

"Good idea. We should do something savoury, maybe 2 savoury items?" Seonghwa looked at you. You nodded slowly and looked to Yunho for comments but he didn't say anything.

"Let's do a quiche and a galette. Kimchi, bacon and cheese quiche. Galette can be mixed vegetables with goats cheese top." You thought out loud.

"A galette is like a french pizza but it uses flaky pastry instead of pizza dough." Jongho explained.

"Ohhhhhh." The 5 nodded.

"That sounds good. I like the quiche idea with the kimchi. I'm still not sure what a galette is but I trust all of your tastes." Yunho said. You let out a small chuckle.

"The last baked good, open faced apple danishes? Then we paint apricot jam over." Wooyoung suggested. You wrote that down.

"Now, cakes." You tapped your marker against the metal suface.

"Actually, some customer today were saying they liked that seashell cake because it was good to have on the go with coffee. So maybe we should have a cupcake or muffin sort of item for them to have on the way to work." San said.

"Yes, I did hear people say that. Maybe blueberry muffins? They seem like a nice breakfast muffin." Yunho grinned, his eyes sparkling again at the though of fresh muffins.

"No, no. You need to have chocolate muffins." Mingi wagged his finger at his best friend in denial.

"No, Mingi ah. Blueberry muffins are better, especially with that crunchy, sugar crust on top." Yunho frowned, crossing his arms.

"Chocolate muffins are the best. Everyone loves chocolate muffins, even better with chocolate chips inside. Warm, chocolate muffins." Mingi argued.

"While you two debate on that... For the full cake, let's do a carrot cake." You asked.

"I was thinking matcha cake and we use the leftover strawberries from today." Seonghwa said. You nodded, writing the ideas down. There seemed to be some sort of voting that happened between the 5 because it seemed like chocolate muffins was the decided. Plus, Mingi was doing a happy dance.

"You do know you're the owner right?" You tilted your head, raising your eyebrows.

"I-I know that! But if the rest think that chocolate muffins will be more liked then maybe it is better to do that." Yunho said, concealing his sad tone.

"Okay then. Let's start prepping the pastry dough. We're doing it for quiches and galettes." You instructed.

"We're going to need a lot of butter and flour." Jongho snorted and went into the walk in.

"Let's split. Two people make dough for galettes and the other two will make for the quiches." You said, taking the equipment and putting them into the freezer temporarily.

"Why are you putting the mixer stuff into the freezer?" Yunho asked.

"We don't want the butter to melt so we're making everything as cold as possible. The more pieces of butter we have in the dough when we bake, the more steam and flakiness we get from the pastry." You explained to him. He nodded his head.

"You guys can head back and rest for the night. We'll lock up when we are done here." Seonghwa said to the 5.

"Yeah. We've all had a long day." Wooyoung agreed.

"That's okay, we want to watch." Mingi smiled. You all looked at each other and laughed. Jongho and Wooyoung weighed everything out before you and Seonghwa retrieved the cold mixer parts.

"Looks like we'll need to do it twice. This isn't going to fit into our Kitchen Aids." Jongho sighed.

"It's fine. It's just the initial mixing stage anyway, we'll do the final incorporation with our hands." You said.

"I'll get the cold water." You went out to the front, coming back with two containers of ice water. Once the butter, flour and salt/sugar were crumbled, you and Wooyoung slowly added the cold water into the mixer for the doughs to come together. Jongho helped you to manually bring the dough together.

"Let me." Seonghwa said to Wooyoung, who poured the crumbles onto the metal work surface. Seonghwa gathered it all with his hands, pressing it together.

"Here." You threw some flour and handed them the rolling pin.

"Woahhhhhhh." The 5 said in awe at the way you threw the flour onto the dough and work surface.

"It's like those professionals on television, the way they throw the flour and make it into a cloud. It spreads so evenly." Yeosang said.

"They are professionals!" San elbowed Yeosang. It was amusing, like demonstrating things to a group of kindergarteners. Jongho and Seonghwa rolled the dough out and did two book folds.

"Do you not knead the dough?" Hongjoong asked.

"Not for this dough. Kneading the dough activates the gluten in the flour and creates chewiness. You would want that for bread but not for pastry like this. You want to avoid creating any chewiness so we don't touch it." Seonghwa explained.

"This 'book fold' just creates more layers of butter. If we were doing croissants, we would do it a few more times, that's how you get the layers in a croissant." Jongho added.

"Woo and I will wrap it." You and Wooyoung went over to wrap the slabs of dough, writing on top of the plastic to indicate the use.

"That's it. We'll roll and blind bake them tomorrow morning." Wooyoung said.

"Thank you for teaching us." San smiled kindly.

You did the washing up with Jongho while Wooyoung and Seonghwa cleaned the work surface of butter and flour. The 5 other boys waited for all of you to be done.

"Let's go." Seonghwa grabbed your coat for you. Yunho watched as Seonghwa helped you put your coat on.

"Goodnight. See you all tomorrow." Mingi waved, along with the others. The 4 of you bowed and waved before heading to Wooyoung's car. Yunho and Mingi went to Yunho's car while San and Yeosang rode with Hongjoong. Mingi played the music, waiting for Yunho to start the engine.

"So, how do you really feel?" Mingi asked.

"What do you mean?" Yunho chuckled, confused by his best friend's sudden question.

"It's just the two of us, it's the first day of opening your own restaurant. You can be honest on how you really feel after today. It's okay to hate it." Mingi said.

"Hate it? I don't hate it. For from actually... I honestly thought it was going to be a disaster but it wasn't." Yunho blinked.

"I guess we fit well with the kitchen team then." Mingi said. Yunho hummed in agreement.

"They're professionals, they've worked in so many restaurants before. So I was worried that they would see how much of an amateur I am and quit but they didn't." Yunho confessed.

"Yunho ah, you need to have more faith in humanity. See? (y/n) said they weren't made when you were honest with them." Mingi teased.

Yunho rolled his eyes, knowing that Mingi was making fun of him. But it was Mingi's way of comforting Yunho. You were right, you were tougher than Yunho thought. Something bloomed in Yunho's chest, a whole new feeling of excitement.

"Well, I hope we have a long partnership with them." Yunho said with a soft smile. Mingi turned to his best friend's side profile, raising an eyebrow in suspicion.

"You're ever so positive." Mingi chuckled.

-

When Yunho walked into the cafe the next morning, he was smiling, coffee cups in hand for his kitchen crew to thank them for a successful first day. But his smile dropped slightly when he noticed only 3 people working in the kitchen.

"Where's (y/n)?" Yunho blinked, handing out the coffees.

"She told us she'll be coming in late today so we started first." Jongho shrugged, taking a sip of the coffee.

"I noticed (y/n) making a drink for you yesterday so I assumed that you are not a coffee drinker... Is a berry smoothie okay?" Yunho turned to Seonghwa.

"Yeah, that's fine. Thanks for noticing." Seonghwa blinked, stunned that Yunho took note of that.

"So... (y/n) is okay?" Yunho cleared his throat.

"She is. If not, Seonghwa hyung wouldn't be here now. He would be busy nursing her." Wooyoung teased. Seonghwa turned to glare at the younger male. He took a sip of the smoothie and continued working on what he was doing. Yunho just stared in confusion but nodded his head.

"Hey, sorry I'm late." Right on cue, you walked in. There was a container you were cradling in your hands. But no one could see what was inside, there was tin foil covering it.

"Morning." Yunho followed you in while you were putting your stuff in the small locker room.

"Hey." You replied.

"Are you alright?" Yunho asked, twidling his thumbs. After putting your bag in the small cubby, you turned around to face him, raising an eyebrow.

"Why wouldn't I be?" You asked back. Your questions back made Yunho flustered.

"N-No reason." He smiled shyly, rubbing the back of his neck. You hummed and grabbed your apron from the rack, tying it around your waist. You dug into your bag to take your knives out.

"Don't worry about me being late, I told the boys I'll stay back later to clean up after them, make up for however late I was." You spoke. Yunho wasn't worried about that, he knew that you would work schedules out with your team better than he could.

"Also, here." You shoved the container you were carrying into his hands and walked out, not wanting your team to wait any longer.

"Wait, what is-" Yunho stopped when he opened the container and saw fresh blueberry muffins inside. Touching one with his finger, he felt how they were still warm.

'Since blueberry muffins didn't win the vote.'

Was all your scribbled on the post it note that was stuck to the side of the container.

"Yunho ah. Why are you just standing there?" Mingi walked into the small space, appearing behind his best friends. He curiously peeked over Yunho's shoulder.

"Are those muffins?" Mingi asked and reached out for one but Yunho slapped Mingi's hand away, quickly closing the container.

"Ouch! What was that for?" Mingi hissed.

"Those are mine. Get your own." Yunho frowned, holding the container to his chest like it was a treasure chest filled with gold. Mingi looked at Yunho but held his hands up in defeat. Clearing his throat, Yunho went out to the front, where he was alone. He grabbed his coffee and tore open a muffin to eat.

The burst of gooey, slightly tart blueberry, coupled with the crunchy top and warmth of the muffin was the perfect accompaniment to the coffee he had.

"What's Yunho doing sitting there?" Hongjoon asked after seeing his friend sit at one of the booths.

"I can tell you what he's not doing, and that's sharing his muffins." Mingi scoffed. Hongjoong cast the taller a strange look.

"I'm going to kitchen to steal samples." Mingi said and entered the kitchen. San was already snacking on the off cuts of the carrot cake that you were cutting, wanting to edges to line up to frost.

"Hey, I want some too!" Mingi said.

"Here, have this." San held a small piece out to him. Yeosang stood by Jongho's side, watching Jongho fan out the apple slices on top of the pastry.

"That's so pretty." Yeosang complimented. Jongho nodded with a hum.

"I'm not cutting through, just scoring it so the sides around the apple slices will puff up but the middle won't." Jongho explained. Once he lined up all the apple danishes on the tray, he did a light egg wash on the exposed pastry and put the tray into the oven.

"What are you doing next?" He asked.

"I have to thin out this apricot jam to brush over the apples when it is done. It will give a nice shine and sweetness." Jongho explained.

"Who is making the quiche filling?" You asked the kitchen as you were whipping up the cream cheese frosting for the carrot cake. Wooyoung raised his hand.

"Let me just put the matcha cakes in the oven before starting on that." He said.

"Jongho, when you're done with the apricot glaze, you can start slicing the strawberries that will go in the cake." You instructed.

"Sure." Jongho nodded.

"I've started the chocolate muffins. We still need someone to put the galettes in the oven after the apple danishes come out. The vegetables have been prepped and sliced." Seonghwa said.

"I'll do it after frosting my cake." You replied. After having your 3 layers of carrot cake, you frosted them with the icing.

"What icing is this?" San asked.

"Cream cheese icing. The same as the one on the red velvet cake." You took a plastic spoon from the cup and scooped out some to let him have a taste. But before he put it in his mouth, he put some of the cake crumbs on top to have it together. He ate it and let out sounds of happiness.

"So good!" San said with a big smile. You chuckled and started the frost the cake. You were not the best at cake decorating so you just topped it swirls of the frosting, it looked pretty in a rustic way.

"Let's put this in the fridge." You brought the tray to the smaller fridge and put it in there.

"What am I working on next?... Oh, galettes." You said and grabbed the metal containers where Jongho had sliced the vegetables.

"Have the aubergines been sweated already?" You asked.

"Yes. Done and rinsed." Jongho replied. Sometimes, aubergines could be bitter so you usually sprinkle salt on them to draw out the moisture and rinse off the salt afterwards.

"So what's in here?" Yeosang came up next to you, looking at the sliced vegetables.

"Zucchini, yellow squash, bell peppers, onions and aubergines. So we'll bake this then crumble some feta cheese over." You said.

"That sounds good and I don't even like vegetables." Hongjoong chuckled from the doorway. Mingi and San seconded. It slightly amused you that these men were so open about their distaste for vegetables like children.

"We'll make you like vegetables for as long as we're here." Wooyoung joked.

"Yes, we're good at making vegetables tasty." You smiled.

~

Series masterlist

[maybege]

The App - Part 1

Summary: The App tells you who your perfect match is. But when Josh, your perfect-match-alpha, introduces you to his boss, you start to realise that the numbers are not always right.

Pairing: alpha!Boba Fett x fem!omega!Reader

Wordcount: 6.9k | Rating: E (18+ only!)

Warnings: Modern AU, A/B/O dynamics (scenting, knotting, etc.), older man/younger woman, implied age gap, Josh is an asshole, technically some (primarily emotional) infidelity

Happy November! This is an idea I had a few days ago and it would not leave me so I used that burst of creative enegery to bring it down on (digital) paper. I am really so very excited for this story and I hope you enjoy it too! Please let me know in a comment or reblog what you thought and whether you would be intertesed in a second part!

masterlist | crossposted on AO3

The first time you met Boba Fett was a catastrophe.

You were sure you had never been so nervous. After three months of dating Josh, he had invited you to a get-together with his friends from work and you were eager to make a good impression. You had sought out your prettiest summer dress, the skirt falling to your knees and printed with a flowery pattern that made you happy every time you saw it.

Josh had not really said anything when you asked him whether he liked it but at this point, you had learned that if he did not say anything, that usually meant he approved. He just wasn’t very communicative that way.

His colleagues, on the other hand, were very communicative.

“An app, huh?” his boss, Boba, had echoed when Josh had answered the age-old question of So how did you two meet?

He looked very unimpressed.

“It's scientifically proven to get the best match,” you repeated the words Josh had said on your first date, “The studies have shown that omegas and alphas best match up through a variety of aspects –“

“That’s no way to meet your mate,” he said, interrupting your empty repetition of words you did not even know the meaning of. Still, you did not appreciate him criticizing the way you had met Josh. Like it was somehow less than. Like it was wrong.

“Where is yours then?”

“What?”

“Your mate,” you clarified, holding your chin up in defiance and, “Where are they?”

The man chuckled, clearly not offended at your words. His laugh was a warm sound making you feel like the sun was shining on your skin. “Nobody wants an old man like me, princess,” he got closer as he said it and you inhaled sharply, trying to ignore the scent of pinewoods and smoke, “Don’t need an app to find that out.”

You did not look away from him, you knew that was what he wanted. He was just dressed in jeans and a flannel over a t-shirt that hugged his body. His very large body. It did not take you long to gauge that he was not as sculpted under his clothes as Josh was. He did not have the six packs and the pecs and all these other muscle groups Josh kept talking about whenever he went to the gym. No, Boba Fett was not a bodybuilder.

But was strong nonetheless. His shoulders were broad, his arms thick and his belly made him look much more comfortable than Josh ever was. But Boba Fett did not want to be comfortable for you. He wanted to intimidate you and, in a way, he succeeded because you felt unsteady like your world had shifted just enough for you to get dizzy. But you were not about to let this man ruin the first chance you had to impress Josh’s friends, so you kept looking. And so did he.

Someone called your name. You blinked, trying to forget the brown of his warm eyes and turned around to find Josh waving you over to where he was standing with another one of his colleagues.

“Excuse me,” you said to the older man, making sure to seem as unaffected as possible.

“Sure thing,” you heard him murmur, the whisper of his hand on your lower back as you passed him, “Princess.”

You decided that the way your heart skipped a beat could be ignored.  

After all, you never had to meet this man again.

*

As luck would have it, you did see each other again.

It was a few weeks later when summer was slowly morphing into autumn, that Boba had invited his team and their partners and families for a last summer BBQ at his place. You had not felt great as soon as you had woken up but Josh would not hear it, making the point that you could still leave early if you did not feel better.

Not going was not an option.

So you chose your most comfortable dress, threw back a painkiller, and let Josh drive you in his new car to his boss’ place, hardly touching you because “I do not want to catch anything if you’re really sick, darling.”

You bit your lips and

Once you arrived, you felt a little bit better. But not for long.

You were in the middle of a conversation with Josh and one of his boring colleagues when a cramp hit you so strong, you felt like you were going to pass out. And with it the realization that you were not sick.

You were getting your heat.

As if the thought triggered your body, you could feel your blood starting to pulse, the edges of your vision blurring as the only thing you wanted to do was curl up and bury your fingers between your thighs. But you were not home. You were not even with your friends. You were with Josh and his colleagues and his boss and there was nowhere for you to hide.

Without looking at Josh, you turned around, trying to hurry into the house. If you could make it to the bathroom, maybe you could drink something, splash your face with cold water and beg Josh to take you home. Or take a cab.

“Is my presence so insulting that you need to run away from me?”

Shit.

You halted, not wanting to offend your host, but you also couldn’t stay in the garden where the BBQ seemed to burn hotter than before and everyone’s voices were so loud. But when he came to stand in front of you, he seemed to realise

“Woah,” he murmured, his tone shifting and his hand hovering over your shoulder, “You all right there, princess?”

You wanted to snap at him to not call you princess, to not call you anything, but the world was shifting again and a new wave of pain hit your abdomen.

“No,” you brought out, “I’m a little dizzy that’s all. I – I’ll be fine.”

You could not meet his gaze, too confused to fixate on one point on the floor while you tried to gather yourself. The cramps had set in sooner, and much worse, than you had expected and his presence did not seem to help. But you also did not want him to go.

“You are not okay,” he protested gently and you hated how careful he sounded, “You’re getting your heat. Should’ve stayed home today, princess. Let me get you some water and then –“

“No!” you hissed, your hand grabbing his forearm and you, “P-Please stay.”

Boba stepped closer to you and you were so grateful to be able to rest your weight on him. “Okay,” he murmured, all gentle and warm and you closed your eyes, “I will stay with you. But we need to get you somewhere safe and comfortable, ‘kay? Does that sound good?”

You hummed in agreement, following blindly. When you opened your eyes, you were in the kitchen and Boba filled a glass for you. Your eyes fell on his bare forearms, suntanned and bronze and just peeking out from under the sleeve of his shirt you saw the curling ink from a tattoo.

“Here, drink,” he held the glass up for you and when your hands trembled too much, he helped you take little sips.

“How bad is it?” he asked quietly, setting the glass down and you immediately reached out to touch him again. Touching him seemed to help.

“Bad,” your voice was hoarse, “Worse than I remember.”

“I am so sorry, princess,” he whispered, pulling you in for a hug and despite yourself, you closed your eyes, breathing him in. For a precious few seconds, it was like the pain was gone. Sure, the wetness between your legs was still seeping through your panties but you were no longer in pain. You felt … good.

His big hand was on your back, carefully holding you to him and you could hear him breathe, his chest rising and falling against yours and you tightened your arms around him. There was no logical explanation for why you buried your face in his chest and breathed him in. All you could think of was that he was warm and he smelled of a bonfire in the woods and … and he felt safe.

You had never felt this safe.

The hum he let out felt like a rumble under your ear and you smiled, wanting to shuffle closer still, to try and pick as much of his scent as you could so that maybe your nest could smell exactly like this.

When he pulled away – slowly, with his hands running over your arms and sides – you whimpered, trying to get your bottom lip to stop quivering because you had never felt

“I am sorry,” he apologized, looking pained and sounding genuine, “I shouldn’t have. Not with Josh and everything. You are in your heat and you need to feel safe, not be hugged by some strange, old alpha.”

You looked at him quizzically and it took you a moment to come to the frightening conclusion that – just for a second – you had forgotten who Josh was. The man you had met on countless dates, Josh. The one who was supposed to be your perfect match, Josh. Josh who had joined you in the kitchen now, looking as chipper and unconcerned as always, ignorant to the tense silence between you and the alpha before you, whose body heat you still felt lingering on you.

“What’s up, darling?”

“Seems like she is close to her heat,” Boba answered for you, calm and collected and sounding not at all as affected as you felt, “You better get her home, Josh.”

You did not need to look at him to know Josh was displeased. “You sure?” he asked Boba (not even you!), “It’s just the sun getting to her.”

Whether the tears came from pain or frustration at Josh’s unkindness, you were not sure. Maybe a combination of both. But you did not have the strength to stand up for yourself. To start a debate with Josh in which you knew he would do everything out-talk you and you would give up, defeated and tried and still in so much pain.

Boba looked at you with furrowed brows and you were surprised to find that of the two men in front of you, it was him that seemed to know exactly what you felt.

“I think you should get her settled at home,” Boba repeated, his hand landing on yours where you gripped his forearm, “You are in too much pain, princess, to stay here.”

“Is that true, darling?”

You wanted to yell at him. To ask if he really could not see the pain you were in, if he cared so little about you that he did not even register on a purely platonic level that the omega in front of him was in heat and in pain and needed him.

Well, maybe not him specifically.

Trying to ignore the strange mix of guilt, pain, arousal and frustration that broiled in your belly, you managed to nod your head. “I need to go home, Josh,” you whispered, your throat already parched again, “Please.”

Faced with your clear wording, even Josh had no choice but to agree.

“Can you help me get her to the car?” he asked Boba and you noticed, somewhere in the back of your head, that he was again speaking over you. Like you weren’t even there. Like you were a pet to take care of.

“Sure.”

Boba walked with you to Josh’s car, not saying anything. But you noticed it all, nonetheless. Noticed how he slowed his pace so you could walk comfortably. How he took extra care when it came to the steps, making a few encouraging sounds at the back of his throat when you fought through the pain in your abdomen to make your way down. How he held most of your weight, allowing you to fall back into the car without hurting you too much.

“There you go,” he murmured while Josh was tinkering away somewhere, “Got you all settled. Need anything? More water? Blanket? Food?”

You shook your head, your throat too dry to speak and you worried that Josh would get angry at you leaving a wet patch on his new leather car seat.

“You sure?” Boba checked in again, bowing over you in a way that blocked out the sun and you were glad for the shadow, glad for him so close, “Do you have enough snacks at home? Soft things, too? To tide you over?”

Despite your dislike of him, you found yourself smiling, your eyes closing with exhaustion and relief at finally sitting somewhere. “I promise, I will be all right, alpha,” you mumbled, the words heavy on your tongue, “You do not have to worry about me.”

His chuckle made your heart feel warm. “All right then, princess,” you heard him say, “You stay safe out there, yeah?”

You nodded and the car door closed. Left alone, you closed your eyes and took in a deep breath. The new car smelled like plastic and cleaner and you tried to remember the scent of the woods, of bonfires, of things that made you feel warm and cherished.

“Make sure to help her up the stairs,” you could hear his muffled voice, “She is in a lot of pain.”

“It is not that bad, Boba.” That was Josh. “You worry about nothing. She could have stayed here, I am sure, but maybe a nap is not such a bad idea.”

Silence.

“Just make sure she’s safe okay? The next week is gonna be rough, Josh. She’ll need you.”

Josh did not check up on you once during the next week.

*

It was a month later when you saw Boba Fett again.

And again, it felt like an absolute catastrophe.

You had been on your way to the next town over when a diversion had put you on a country road that snuck its way through the mountains. And your car – your usually so reliable car – decided that the third mountain peak that came with a steep curve was too much and just … stopped working. It was pure luck that there was a stretch of road that was relatively level which allowed you to pull over to the side.

Still, it meant you were left stranded with nowhere to go but to hide under the trees as the rain came pouring down on you. Your fingers were slippery on the display of your phone as you called Josh, who was less than enthused about your interruption but was gracious enough to come and pick you up.

After his meeting was over.

That was twenty minutes ago and you were soaked to the bone now. You debated on returning to your car but the smoke under the hood made you uneasy and you did not understand enough about cars to attempt to fix it yourself. Thunder roared in the clouds and you flinched.

Great. Fucking great.  

As your luck would have it, the first car that passed you stopped immediately and you found yourself hoping that maybe a nice family had stopped, offering to drive you to the next gas station or café where you could wait with a hot cup of tea. Maybe it was not too late to evade the inevitable cold you would catch if you remained in the rain any longer.

But of course, it was not a friendly family in the car, or an elderly couple on their way to their grandkids. No, the figure you spotted emerging from the truck was very familiar.

Your heartbeat picked up, racing in a rhythm all on its own and it was all you could do not to cry in relief. Because seeing Boba Fett walking towards you, wearing a thick flannel and a green jacket on top, his head covered in a beanie, made you feel like all your problems had dissolved into thin air.

“I already called Josh,” you greeted him, too nervous to really speak and unable to put your happiness at seeing him into words. You should not really be happy to see him, after all, especially not happier than seeing Josh. But the way your pulse raced or how your lips threatened to pull up in a smile, there was no denying that you were truly, utterly, happy at seeing Boba Fett make his way towards you. “He’ll be here any minute.” I hope.

“Car break down?” the older man asked, expertly ignoring the mention of Josh, “You okay, princess?”

You nodded, ignoring how your breath hitched. No matter how you tried to twist it, Boba’s presence messed with your body and your mind. And you were scared of slipping up, of letting yourself … feel all of the emotions he caused in you. Stars, even just the mere worried frown on his face made your belly flutter.

“I’m okay,” you mumbled, crossing your arms in front of your chest, “I don’t need your help.”

“Then at least let me wait with you,” Boba insisted, a frown on his face as he talked over the pounding rain, “It's freezing and I won't be able to rest until I know you’re safe.”

It should not make your belly flutter as it did. It should not feel like a bunch of butterflies were throwing a party in your belly, making your heart race and your palms sweat. And yet, you did not feel any unease at his request or at the thought of both of you in a small confined space. The only unease, if you could even call it that, was your own concern at how happy you felt to see him.

“Omega,” he rumbled and you froze. Something pooled in your belly and your breath caught in your throat. Boba did not seem to realize the effect his words had on you. “Please,” he continued calmly, “It is cold and raining and your car looks like it is about to fall apart. Get in my car and you can wait somewhere it's dry and warm. Please.”

“Okay,” you mumbled, still reeling from his words as you made your way towards him. Boba held the door open for you, his warm hand brushing over your back before he hurried to the other side and slid into the driver’s seat.

The raindrops on the windshield echoed in the tiny space and still, all you could hear was Omega. What did this mean? Had it been on purpose? Why would he call you that when –

“You okay?”

His voice sounded still as calm as ever but you swore you heard a tad of concern in there.

“No one called me that before,” you admitted, shrugging out of your jacket to avoid the water seeping into the further layers. And to avoid looking at him.

“Called you what?”

“Omega …” you whispered and rubbed your thumb over the wet fabric in your lap.

“Let me throw that back there,” Boba murmured, gently taking the jacket from you and putting it on the backseat. You wanted to protest that it would ruin his seats but then again, he did not seem to care about his car as much as other people did.

“You are telling me,” he paused a beat when he turned back to you, “You are telling me you and Josh have been seeing each other for a few months and he has never called you by your presentation.”

“He doesn’t believe in it.”

He scoffed, “Believe in what? That you are an omega?”

“He thinks it’s demeaning,” you shrugged, hating how small your voice sounded and hating that you already knew Josh would never call you that, not even when you would tell him you liked it.

“Your presentation is not an insult.”

You were surprised at how agitated he sounded but that confused you only more. Deep down, you knew Boba was right. Being an omega was not an issue. In fact, you liked your existence as it was, thank you very much, and if anyone ever gave you the option to change your presentation, you would refuse.

But Josh was different in that aspect. He was an alpha and while he had searched on The App for an omega as his perfect match, he did not particularly subscribe to the idea that different presentations could have different needs. In fact, he had called himself “modern” on your first date and had impressed you with his views that omegas could do everything betas and alphas could do (that – sadly – were not shared by all the alphas you had gone on dates with) and that he supposed anyone living their “omega truth” (which he had said with a wink and a cheeky smile).

What you had not expected was that by “living your omega truth” he had meant you would live it alone.

“Did he stay with you during your heat at least?”

You pressed your lips tightly together, suppressing a wince at the memories of the five days in your apartment, all alone and desperate, crying into your pillows as you imagined strong hands holding you to a warm body that did not look like Josh’s. It had been one of the worst heats you ever experienced and

“What's it to you anyway?” you snapped yourself out of it, pulling your cardigan closer around you. The rain had gotten worse now, “It’s not like he would have helped.”

“It's not like he would have helped?” Boba repeated incredulously and your gaze flicked to him, finding his lips set in a hard line, the furrow between his brows had reappeared. He looked absolutely menacing.

And yet you were not afraid.

“Are you angry?” you asked instead, completely stunned by this large man worrying about you. Why did he care so much? Why did you want him to care so much?

“I am,” he confirmed, taking a deep breath as if to calm himself, “I am angry.”

“Why?”

“Because you were in pain,” he replied, his voice still all heated and growly, “You were in pain and could barely walk and stars, you needed someone to care for you. What if something had happened? Or – or if the food was not enough? If you had gotten dehydrated? And he was not there for a whole week? Stars, how could he have left you when all you needed was someone to care?”

You said nothing, embarrassment heating your cheeks at having coaxed this reserved alpha out of his shell. Everything he said was true and you knew it. His words brought back the pain of being left alone, the pain of feeling unwanted, for an entire week. But they also brought back your realisation that Josh was one of the first alphas willing to date you. Scratch that, he had been the only one willing to date you without giving the creeps.

At your lack of agreement, Boba’s face of anger morphed into one of disbelief. It was the first time you had seen him openly showing his emotion. It was the first time you could smell them. The woodsy scent and the smoke were still there but now it slightly burned your nose, making you want to curl up into him and brush your fingers over his jaw until the scent morphed into the one that made you want to fall asleep.

“You cannot be serious about him,” he stated, “You cannot truly think he is the best you can do.”

“The – the numbers don’t lie,” you repeated weakly, “Josh is my perfect match.”

“And what about anyone outside of this hellscape on an app?” he demanded gruffly, “What about alphas you get to know the ... the regular way. Ones that maybe aren’t perfect on paper but they love –“

“Boba, nobody wants me okay?!” you shouted, flinching at how loud you were, at how much pain your voice carried. But it was too late now. In for a penny, in for a pound. “I tried so much and no one – no one wants me,” you admitted, tears stinging your eyes but you refused to cry in front of him, “Not with the heats and not with omegas being so high-maintenance and – and the best I can do is someone who doesn’t hate the fact that I need to build nests to feel safe. And if the price I have to pay to not be alone most of the time is to be alone during my heats then I,” you held back a sob, “Then I can accept that.”

Your words lingered between you for what felt like an eternity. And when you felt your tears spill over onto your cheeks, you decided that you had humiliated yourself enough for one day.

“Never mind, can you just drive me home, please?” you asked, wiping at your cheeks, “Josh won't show up anyway.”

But Boba did not move.

“Everything you said is wrong,” he said finally.

Thinking he was about to start another discussion, you hurled around, the anger on the tip of your tongue ready to be let free. “How dare you –“

But the look on his face made you stop. There was something there, something you could not quite pinpoint and it made you want to hear him out.

“You are not too much, princess,” he stated again, “Your nests are not too much and neither are your heats. They are a part of who you are and you deserve someone who understands it, who – who helps you with it all when you need it and who supports you when you don’t. Someone who recognizes what an honour it would be to have you in his life. Not someone who leaves you alone at your most vulnerable.” 

He said it so calmly, so assured that he was right, it brought a fresh wave of tears to your eyes.

How were you supposed to answer that? You wanted to reach out and touch him, his hand, his face, his shoulder, anything that would make you feel like he was real. Like he was really sitting in front of you and really had said those words and meant them, too.

But you couldn’t, you wouldn’t, because there was Josh and something in the back of your mind told you that as soon as you touched Boba Fett, something would happen that you would never be able to take back.

“Alright,” he sighed and put his hands on the steering wheel. They were weathered and calloused despite the office job he had and you wondered if he had a hobby that was more hands-on. Maybe carpentry. You could see that. “Let’s get you home, princess.”

Josh texted you twenty minutes after Boba had dropped you off that he would not be able to make it, after all.

*

It was a dinner, this time, that found yourself back in Boba’s home.

Everyone had brought something and you had taken extra care in following your grandma’s recipe for the cherry pie you had made just for this occasion. Now, surrounded by many familiar faces, you were sitting next to Josh while the dinner conversation, fuelled by too many glasses of wine, had shifted to the kind of topics that were sure to escalate into a fight.

“All I am saying,” Josh continued his tirade, one hand around his glass of wine, the other on your knee beneath the table, “Is that the only way to true equality is if we stop looking at what everybody needs and just treat them the safe.”

You had tuned out after he had hit the five-minute mark but you were secretly relieved to see that the majority of guests looked as doubtful as you felt.

“I don’t think that is very effective,” Chants, a fellow omega, piped up, “If we simply assume that everyone is exactly the same, we fail to recognize some fundamental differences that cause these disadvantages.”

You saw Fennec nod and chanced a glance at Boba. He sat half across from you, dressed in a black dress shirt that made you want to pop open the first few buttons so you could see his chest. But what made him look even more striking was the displeased, if amused, look on his face.

Josh made a non-committal sound, waving his hands around and you felt bad that you could relax now that he was not touching you. “It is not only about the job market, though, of course,” he said, effortlessly changing the topic now that someone had confronted him with a different opinion, “It is in relationships too. All this alpha and omega stuff,” he scoffed, “All it is is some leftover idealism from a time long gone where alphas had to pretend omegas were special to get what they wanted. Calling someone by their presentation is just an insulting throwback to a time in which we thought omegas were too stupid to realize it.”

Say what now?

Before you could even open your mouth, you heard a low chuckle from somewhere which got Josh’s attention.

“Do you disagree?” he asked sharply and you had to suppress your smile at how offended he looked. He really was not used to people contradicting him.

Boba did not look the slightest bit intimidated. Instead, he leant back in his chair, the image of pure relaxation. “As a matter of fact, I do,” he said, “I just think you don’t understand what all this ‘alpha and omega stuff’ is about.”

“What is it about then?”

You looked around to find the voice before you realised that you had asked the question.

“It's about taking care of each other,” he replied, looking right at you, “It's about keeping your mate safe – physically and emotionally. Sure, in the past their treatment was questionable at best. But any good alpha knows that finding their omega is the greatest luck there is. Going through life with someone who is truly yours, someone you belong to in the most effortless of ways … That is a happiness only a few have experienced. I cannot imagine a greater honour than helping an omega with her nest, scenting her when she needs it, and making her feel safe and cherished. And receiving this safety in return. Omega is not an insult,” he murmured finally, his voice so low and warm it felt like he was in your head, “it is a love confession.”

A beat of silence. All you could hear was your heart, the blood rushing in your veins in rhythm with his words. He was looking at you and you felt like he was speaking to you too, maybe.

“Well, that is one way to look at it.”

You flinched. Josh’s voice no longer sounded kind to your ears. It sounded grating, and cold, in comparison. “What do you say, darling?”

It all came crashing down on you then. Whatever you had tried to ignore the last few weeks suddenly became crystal clear. Josh was not your perfect match.

I don’t want to be darling, you thought, I don’t want to be your darling.

“Uh, yeah,” you nodded numbly, feeling your legs shake, “I – I need to powder my nose.”

No one paid any attention to you (except for one) and you were grateful to hear that the conversation continued as you made your way down the hall to where you knew the guest bathroom was situated.

His entire house smelled of him and the bathroom was no exception. The little room was snug but it had enough space for you to put your hands on the edge of the sink, leaning your weight forward as you tried to take deep breaths and sort out your thoughts.

Josh was not your perfect match. And even if he was, you would be gladder to remain alone forever than share your life with him. How had it taken you so long to realize that? And how did it take only Boba’s words to make you feel like you did not have to be alone? Like you could follow your feelings and maybe – maybe they were reciprocated and –

A knock at the door.

“It’s open,” you said, taking a shaky breath, trying to brace yourself for the discussion that would be inevitable when you told him that it was over.

But it wasn’t Josh.

Pinewood and smoke filled your nostrils and you felt yourself relax.

“Are you okay?” Boba asked quietly. He still stood in the door, leaving you your space when all you wanted was to have him close. “You were shaking when you left and I was worried …”

You tried to smile, though a look in the mirror revealed it looked more like a grimace and so you stopped. “I feel,” you swallowed, trying to get your trembling hands under control, “I feel –“

The large man stepped inside and closed the door behind him. The click of the lock should have made you jump, should have made you stand up and go back to Josh. The man you were dating, Josh. But you did not jump up, you did not excuse yourself and left Boba alone.

If anything, the knowledge that you were alone and undisturbed made you shiver and your heart race in anticipation.

“I know,” he said quietly, “I am sorry.”

“What is this?” you asked, afraid to know the answer, “Alpha, I –“

“You already know,” he replied, his eyes meeting yours through the mirror. He was looming behind you, the size of him caging you in but it did not scare you. “At least I know,” he continued quietly, “Knew it the moment I saw you step into the room in that flowery dress of yours.”

You turned around, deciding to just fuck it and finally say what you wanted. “Can you touch me?” you asked, “P-Please, I need … something. I don't know, Boba, I need – need …”

“I know what you need,” he whispered, taking a step closer and now you were trapped between the sink behind you and this very large and very warm man in front of you, “Do you trust me?”

You nodded.

His large palms cupped your face and your eyes fluttered close. You thought his mouth was about to be on yours and you were not even surprised to find that you wanted him to kiss you.

But instead, he tilted your head slightly to the side, baring your throat for him and when you felt his breath on your sensitive skin, you knew what he was about to do. The trembling in your body intensified but this time it was from anticipation. From want.

“The first thing I noticed when I met you was that you did not smell of him,” he whispered, the tip of his nose brushing the shell of your ear, “And I thought what a stupid man he was, not scenting the most beautiful omega I had ever seen.”

Your hands shot up, gripping the side of his shirt as if that would keep you from floating away. And then his nose brushed over your scent gland. The feeling was electric, pulsing, warming, coursing through your entire body and making you shiver in the best way.

“Fuck,” you breathed, feeling your nipples pebble under your lace bra.

He chuckled against you, repeating the motion, “No cursing, omega, love, don’t you want to be good for me?”

Omega is not an insult, it is a love confession.

“Alpha,” you whimpered, “Please.”

“Let me,” he protested gently, his hand shifting to the back of your neck, holding you steady as his mouth descended on your neck, “Let me take care of you, princess, I know what you need.”

And you believed him.

It was quiet in the small room save for the sound of your heavy breathing and the rustling of clothes as he stepped between your legs, helping you up on the counter. He was so close, making you feel dizzy with want and you were embarrassed to note that your panties were getting wetter by the second.

“I have never felt like this,” you confessed, your own hands wandering over his strong back, “I – I don’t know what to do.”

“That’s because you have never been properly scented,” Boba murmured against your skin, kissing and licking and sucking on your throat that had your pussy pulsing and your heart warming, “You don’t need to do anything. You just need to tell me what feels good, omega, and I will make you see stars.”

That was certainly something you could do.

You wrapped your legs around his hips, pulling him in and the older man chuckled, his teeth scraping over your neck. “Someone’s needy I see,” he rumbled and you gasped when you felt him stiff against your core, “Finally got a taste of how you are supposed to feel with an alpha?”

“Don’t tease,” you murmured, throwing your head back and grinding against him when his mouth descended down your neck to your neckline, “This is – it’s so good, alpha.”

You had half a mind to pull down your dress for him, to have him. But there was something else you needed first, something that you thought you would get when his mouth came up again, his nose touching yours.

“I cannot kiss you,” he finally whispered against your lips and you whimpered (whimpered!), “Not yet.”

“Why not?” you asked, shifting your hips so you could feel him press right against your core, “Please, alpha …”

He inhaled sharply. “Because if I kiss you,” he murmured, “I won't be able to stop and I have a house full of guests. And because,” he adjusted himself in front of you, winking when he saw your open-mouthed stare at where his hand had disappeared in his pants, “The first time I fuck you won’t be in a tiny bathroom. And I know you wouldn’t want that either. Not when you’re seeing someone else.”

“Josh …” you realised with dread, guilt filling you at the fact that despite all your fears, you still had been intimate with someone else, “I – I need to break things off with him. After the dinner.”

Boba nodded, slowly stepping away from you, his hands running over your shoulders to your hands, lightly squeezing them before leaving you completely. “I will give you a minute alone,” he decided quietly though he looked as reluctant to leave you as you felt at having him gone, “I’m going to call you, ‘kay?” he asked, “After all this is over and – and you feel like you maybe … want to see people.”

“Okay,” you said hoarsely, your heart still threatening to burst out of your chest, “Okay, alpha.”

He threw a look back at you, the door already half closed behind him, “See you in a minute, omega.”

Omega is not an insult, it is a love confession.

*

“You smell odd,” Josh wrinkled his nose on the way home and you looked at him in disbelief. Everything around you reeked of Boba, the scent of pinewood and smoke so clear in the air you were surprised he had not picked it up as soon as you had sat down next to him.

The rest of the dinner had been an absolute disaster with Josh continuing to want to convince everyone he was right about his opinions on the omega problem (as he called it) and you had done your best to occasionally look at someone other than Boba. Boba had looked particularly smug the rest of the night though there was some frowning, too, when Josh had used your relationship as the perfect example of how his theories worked. And all you had wanted to was tell him to shut up. Because he didn’t know you and he certainly didn’t love you. He just loved the fact that he had found someone with an alleged 98% match on The App and had decided that that must be enough for you to love him.

“I got scented,” you heard yourself say, your voice surprisingly strong, “By Boba.”

“Ah yes,” he nodded, “That must be it.”

“Are you – do you not care?” you asked, shocked.

“Of course, I am displeased,” he shrugged, “I never thought you would be the kind of omega that would let herself be scented. But the app says we are a perfect match and the app doesn’t lie.”

You spotted your apartment complex at the end of the street and finally felt free to say what you had wanted to say all evening.

“This is not working,” you announced, “I am sorry. We clearly have very different ideas of what a good relationship looks like and I want – I deserve – someone who takes care of me during my heat. Who picks me up when my car breaks down and who does not decide what kind of omega I am. And what do you even mean by that kind of omega? Like there are good ones and bad ones and if I suppress all my wants and needs and desires and try my hardest to act like I have no presentation at all, I am a good omega? Is that it?”

Josh was clearly taken aback by your outburst but he only said something once he had parked in front of your building.

“There is no need to get hysterical, darling,” he answered, though he did not sound very calm, “You had a long day. Let’s talk again tomorrow.”

“No,” you said firmly, “We are done, Josh. The App does lie because we are not a perfect match. Sorry for wasting your time.”

And with that you went home, feeling ten tons lighter.

[devilat-thedoor]

i know it’s late, but enjoy this fun lil nsfw thanksgiving Jake blurb based on a conversation between @stardustvanfleet and i🤍🦃

Danny made one comment about Jake being “the best cook” and it went straight to his head….

He had an opinion on everything. Stuffing? “Add more sage, love.” The mashed potatoes? “They’re gonna turn out lumpy if you don’t add more milk…”

The comments and critiques started off mild and you let them roll off your back….until Jake decided that he was in charge and it was his way or no way. The arguments came one after the other; “No, babe. The marshmallows don’t go in the sweet potatoes yet!”

You were sick of it. You’d tried your hardest not to fight in front the family but he was becoming insufferable. “Jake, you’re not fucking Gordon Ramsey and this isn’t a Michelin Star establishment! It’s thanksgiving, for fuck’s sakes!” You threw the bag of mini marshmallows on the counter with a growl of frustration.

He stopped stirring the gravy to turn around and face you. “You’re getting mad for no reason. I’m just trying to help with dinner.” His voice was hushed, clearly trying to keep the conversation between the two of you, but you were well past the boiling point.

“Mad for no reason? Are you kidding me?” You were almost yelling, your tone growing louder with each word. “You’re not trying to help, Jake, you’ve completely taken over! Why does everything have to be exactly how you want it?”

Jake turned back to his pot, picking up the spoon to stir again. “Lower your voice. Our guests don’t need to hear us arguing.” His words were meant to be final. He expected you to fall into submission and just let him be the boss.

You released a laugh of disbelief and watched his jaw clench at the sound. “There wouldn’t be anything to argue about if you didn’t fucking criticize every little thing I did!” Now you were shouting out of spite, trying to get under his skin as you began to mock his words, “Ohhh… hey, babe, that’s too much onion. No, wait, you’re gonna dry out the turkey… blah blah fucking blah! I’m so sick of it, Jake! You’re being an ass!”

He cut the burner off and whipped around to glare at you, “We’re not doing this in front of everyone.” He came at you, grabbing your arm and pulling you out of the kitchen, “Let’s go fucking settle this now.” Before you knew it, he was yanking you into the bathroom and locking the door behind you. “What’s your problem? Why are you throwing a temper tantrum?”

“I’m throwing a tantrum? Why does everything have to be your way? You don’t need to have complete fucking control of everything!” You spat the words with venom, looking him straight in the eye. Your composure faltered when you watched his expression darken and you knew he saw the slight shift in your body language.

Jake took a step towards you, his mouth threatening to lift with a smirk. “Keep running that pretty little mouth and we’ll see who’s in control.” He was close enough that you could feel the heat pouring from him and you just couldn’t help yourself…

Dropping your voice low, you leaned forward until your faces were just millimeters apart. “Fuck you, Jake.” You flashed an evil grin and spun around to open the door, but his hand was wrapping around you and pulling you flush against his body.

“That’s what you want, huh? Want me to fuck you? Show you who has control?” His free hand weaved into your hair and pulled, tilting your head back onto his shoulder so he had access to drag his tongue up your neck. “I’ll do it, baby. I’ll fuck you so good…but after I make you cum, I don’t wanna hear another argument for the rest of the day. Understand?”

“And if I make you cum first…” You reached back, palming his cock through the denim of his jeans. “You don’t step foot in the kitchen again until after dinner.” You gave him a firm squeeze, smiling to yourself as he let out a hungry growl.

Seemingly at the speed of light, Jake had you bent over the sink with your chest pressed into the cold marble and your pants around your ankles. “Already, love? This is gonna be easy.” He chuckled condescendingly as he slid his fingers through your soaked folds.

You looked over your shoulder at him and swatted at his hand. “No fucking cheating, Jacob.”

The sound of his zipper echoed through the room before you felt him at your entrance. “If you want my cock that bad, just say the word, baby.” He was pushing into you before you could respond, drawing a moan out of you instead. “That’s all it takes to shut you up, huh? Needy fucking thing.” His fingers dug into your hips as he gave deep, calculated thrusts. Jake kept talking, whispering the dirtiest things to you, because he knew that would drive you to the edge.

“Shut up and just fuck me….please…..” The same way his words worked on you, your begging would work on him, and you used that to your advantage. “God, baby…. deeper….please don’t stop….”

His hand came down hard on your ass, leaving a stinging pain in its wake. “You think I don’t know when you’re faking?” He replaced his grip on your hips and began pulling you back to meet his hips with every thrust. You could hear the smile in his voice when your true moans came back louder, “There she is. That’s my pretty baby… It feels good, doesn’t it? I can fucking feel you getting tighter, love.”

You were never one to concede, but he was meticulously hitting the perfect spot and successfully shoving you closer to your climax and you welcomed it. “F-fuck, Jake… Right there, baby, you’re s-so fucking deep.”

“I wanna be deeper.” He growled the words before pulling out and spinning you around to lift you onto the sink top. Jake hooked your legs around his waist to bury himself back into you with a sigh. “You’re close, love. I know you are. Just let me have it…” He pulled you to the very edge of the counter, fucking you as deep as he could.

Leaning back on your hands, you watched his face while his gaze stayed trained on where your bodies joined. “I am close, baby, so…..fucking close.” It was true…but he was right behind you and you took the opportunity to squeeze around him, making his movements stutter.

His eyes shot up to see your wicked smile and he returned it with a knowing look; almost like he had a secret that you weren’t keen to. “Can you really feel how deep I am, baby?” A patronizing laugh escaped him when you met him with a questioning stare. “Can you feel me…..here?” He pressed a palm against your lower belly, the pressure immediately sending you into a plummet.

Your head dropped back as a cry started to rise in your throat. Jake clamped his palm over your mouth to stifle the sound and you could feel his hand shake as he met his own release, nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck as he spilled into you. The both of you took a few moments to regain composure before he finally pulled out and grabbed the hand towel from the rack. He ran half of the towel under warm water and took his time to wipe you down, the smirk never leaving his face. “Yeah, you fucking won, Jake. I won’t argue anymore.” You held your hands up in surrender as you hopped down from the sink to pull your panties and leggings back on. “We’ll do everything your way, baby.”

He pulled you against him, kissing you softly. “Just the words I wanted to hear. Let’s go finish dinner.” He led you to the bathroom door and pulled it open, revealing Sam on the other side with his fist raised as he was getting ready to knock.

Sammy dropped his hand to his side and bit back his laughter, “We were wondering when you two would be done. Food’s getting cold and we’re all hungry.” He turned away and began walking towards the dining room.

Jake followed him, tugging you along. “What do you mean, I haven’t finished cook-.” His mouth hung open as he took in the buffet of food set across the large table.

Josh came out of the kitchen, then, carrying a handful of serving spoons. “We finished up while you settled whatever tension was going on between you two.” He shrugged as he placed a spoon in each dish.

You looked at Jake’s scowling face, unable to contain your giggles as you slid into the seat that his twin had pulled out for you. “Looks great, guys. I’m starving…”

[arwenlalaith]

Emotional Catharsis, Sex, and Cigarettes

Ship: Tara Lewis/Emily Prentiss

Summary: It was their thing...

Word Count: 1081

Author's Note: Drumroll please - my first ever Temily fic!!!! This fills the Aftercare square on my @cmkinkbingo2024 card and is also dedicated to @gaelic-symphony.

Tara peeled Emily’s jeans off her body from her position on her knees in front of her, then kissed her way back up her leg until her breath was ghosting over the damp fabric covering her drenched cunt.

Emily whined quietly, eyes falling shut as the sight of Tara’s wicked grin from between her legs.

Tara clicked her tongue in scolding. “Ah ah, Baby, eyes on me or I stop,” she demanded. With a petulant little huff, Emily once again met Tara’s gaze, nearly cumming on the spot when Tara proceeded to grip the waistband of her panties between her teeth and drag them down her legs. As if knowing the effect she was having on her, Tara chuckled, drawled, “Feeling particularly needy today, hmm?”

Emily didn’t bother trying to refute the assessment, given that she was barely clinging to the self-control keeping her from whining like a bitch in heat.

Seeming to read her mind, Tara leaned in until her breath was once again warm on her sticky thighs, then paused to catch her gaze again and said, “I want to hear every single sound, Baby. Understood?”

Emily nodded eagerly. Though, to be entirely honest, she would have given in to just about any request so long as Tara finally finally stopped teasing her.

It seemed, though, that Tara wasn’t quite done just yet...

She brushed her thumb against her clit a few times, seemingly testing all the different sounds she could coax past Emily’s lips. She only let up on the teasing when Emily broke down and pleaded, “Don’t tease me! Please...”

“No?” she said, cocking her head as if curious as to what she’d meant. “You want me to stop?”

“No!” she was quick to insist. If she’d had the wherewithal to think critically, she might’ve stopped to wonder how it was that Tara could so easily reduce her to this... As it was, though, she could barely string a conscious thought together.

With a cocky grin, Tara sucked Emily’s clit into her mouth and focused all her attention on reducing any further speech she might’ve made into whimpers and whines. When she’d succeeded in her task, she released her clit, sitting back on her heels to admire her masterpiece: Emily’s soaking wet cunt, clenching around nothing in desperate search of friction.

Blowing a stream of cold air across her clit, Tara watched as the sensitive bundle of nerves twitched. “Such a pretty pussy,” she purred, “All for me, right?”

Emily nodded eagerly, willing to agree to just about anything if Tara would only finish what she started.

Instead, though, she clicked her tongue scoldingly. “I want to hear you, Emily.”

“Yes, Doctor,” she husked in reply...and Tara knew she was desperate to be a good girl for her. With a wicked grin, she finally gave in and gave Emily what she was (no so patiently) waiting for...

______________

Completely spent, Emily sank back into the mattress, cunt still twitching from her climax. She felt the mattress dip beside her as Tara settled next to her, unusually quiet. Panting, Emily turned her head to fix Tara with a concerned glance. “Everything okay?”

She attempted a smile, reached over to tuck a stray lock of hair behind Emily’s ear, but her hand shook as she did so.

Emily had been around the block enough times (not to mention the fact that she knew Tara very well), to recognize the signs of domme drop when she saw it. “Hey,” she said gently, pushing herself to sit up so she could cup Tara’s cheek, “You didn’t do anything I didn’t want. You’re a good, kind, loving, gentle person and I love you. Okay?”

She swallowed thickly around the lump of tears that had taken up residence in her throat, in spite of herself.

“C’mere,” Emily said gently, positioning herself against the headboard and opening her arms so that Tara could fall into her side. With one hand, she manoeuvred through the TiVO to some Looney Toons reruns she’d saved for exactly this reason – it was mindless and occasionally amusing, which was perfect for times like this.

Also for times like this, she’d stashed little Tupperware containers of trail mix (a decidedly not sexy food, but one high in protein and sugar) in the nightstand. Passing Tara one, as well as a bottle of water, she stared pointedly until she opened both.

Once Tara was nestled against her, distracted by the TV, Emily grabbed one of her arms and lightly trailed her fingers along the inside of her forearm. They sat like that for what seemed an impossibly long time, saying nothing, but also saying plenty.

It was something new for Tara – to feel so vulnerable and so seen and so safe and so loved, all at once. She’d experienced domme drop in the past – and it was always scary – but it was the first time she’d had it happen with Emily and she wasn’t sure how she’d react. Then, to have her reaction be one born of complete and utter understanding...

For Emily too, it was a new experience. In past relationships, she’d always felt like she had to be ‘in charge’ – she spent so much of her time being the boss that sometimes it was like she’d forgotten how to be vulnerable, to be submissive. With Tara, though, it was different. Maybe it was because she was older and wiser. Maybe it was because it had taken finding the right person. Maybe it had taken figuring out that she was gay. Probably all three.

“Cigarette?” Emily offered. It struck her then, as she reached into the nightstand and felt around for a minute or two in the drawer in search of her lighter, the drawer cluttered with all the things she’d left at Tara’s over the course of their relationship... And she started laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Tara asked.

“I live here...”

Tara looked around her room, then, and for the first time noticed all the touches of Emily. The robe hanging on the back of her door. The turtleneck visible at the top of her laundry hamper. The fancy perfume bottle on the vanity. The salt water taffy that now lived in her nightstand in case Emily’s POTS flared up.

It hit her square in the chest. She’d sworn to herself after things had ended with Rebecca that she was never going to love anyone again, let alone live with anyone...and here she was: happier than she’d ever been.

[foodsies4me]

Thinking about the fact that Izzy is Robert's favourite child, Jace is Myrese's and max is favoured by both robert and myrese. Alec had to grow up not being anyone's favourite and having to know that everyday.

Everytime i think about how Alec grew up i get sad bc i just know it was so lonely (not like he could complain to izzy or jace about Izzy and Jace being favoured or him getting in trouble bc of them)

The first time someone tells alec that he's their favourite (favourite teacher maybe as i can see a trainee saying it) he tries his best not to get emotional infront of them and goes to his office just to sit bc holy shit he's someones favourite.

This prompt had me screeching immediately because I love it so much, so of course I had to write it (with the usual delay because I am a snail).

You're my favorite. Alec had never been the favored child. He learned early on he'd never be the favored child either. He wasn't smart like Izzy, he couldn't pick up any arbitrary subject and master it by the end of the week. He wasn't like Jace either, the most gifted fighter they had seen in decades if not longer. It didn't mean Alec was inadequate, he was a decent fighter, a decent strategist, a decent student. He just wasn't excellent. Everywhere his siblings excelled, Alec fell short. Decent to their greatness. Not good enough to their just right. Even Max exceeded where Alec failed - hitting milestones trainees twice his age struggle with without ever losing his easy smiles or cheeky remarks. Alec has always been as thankful for that fact as secretly envious. Thankful for it meant their dad paid attention to Izzy even as he continued to forget the rest of them existed. Thankful for it meant their mom praised Jace with the affection he so desperately craved. Thankful it would keep Max safe from the criticism his parents levied at him no matter what he did. Even when the voice grew too loud to ignore, loud enough that it ended with blood and bruises and choked-off breaths, Alec never let his siblings hear it, forbade them from hearing it. Alec promised himself he would never be a source of pain for his siblings and he would keep that promise. Even when it hurt him. Especially when it hurt him. Alec had never been the favored child. He long stopped believing he ever would be. He had been too weak, too ill, too lacking to be anything above decent. Mediocre. Not enough. Alec accepted it as his lot in life. He didn't need to be his parents' favorite. He didn't need to be anyone's favorite, he had his siblings' love and that was enough. Or so he thought. "Thank you, Alec. You're my favorite," Barika mumbles in his neck, small arms curled around his neck. He looks back at his new clothes - his new boy clothes - spread out on his bed, reading some of the slogans written on them, and wipes his cheeks with the back of his hand. He then gives him a shy grin, an expression that is so unlike the rambunctious little menace Alec has come to know and asks him if he wants to help him choose his outfit for their trip today. "Sure." Barika grins, eyes shining with joy. "You're my favorite." Alec smiles, "You're my favorite too." "Not Max?" Alec pinches Barika's nose, laughing at the amused giggle it produces. "You're all my favorite," he assures, feeling the truth behind that statement settle on his shoulders like a warm, comforting cloak. "Now, do you want to wear shorts or jeans?"

[firefly--bright]

peeks and blinders (you know me)

jean kirstein x gender neutral! reader, modern au

summary : being loved required patience and time and hope. luckily, jean provided all of them, without hesitation.

warnings : feelings of being deeply alone, heavy, hurt/comfort but mostly hurt, reader might sort of have depression

a/n : aha. lol. lmao. uhmmm yeah this is incredibly self indulgent and a projection. if you relate to this please PLEASE know that you're a) not alone and also b) I'm here if you ever need anyone to talk to. i wrote this with an unhappy ending in mind but with the poll results (and let's be honest, the aot finale) I decided to make it a happy ending instead. don't worry, everything works out in the end. this fic might just be terrible if you're already sad, so reader discretion is advised! i dont expect anyone to read the whole thing!!! but if you do read it, I hope you like it because I spent way too long on it. the ending might've been a little rushed only because I wanted to get this out as soon as possible so I could move on with a new fic idea ;)

taglist : @mrsnobodynobody @holding-infinity-and-a-book @jeanscremebrulee (side note- thank you for the kind words in my taglist form's criticism/comments question. i truly, deeply appreciate it :) )

masterlist is in pinned post! ✿ requests are open! ✿ likes and reblogs are appreciated! ✿ join my taglist ✿

✿ recommended playlist to listen to while reading ✿

living with someone meant showing yourself, something you weren't afraid of. well, not afraid, more just apprehensive. there was too much of a potential to fucking up a relationship; showing yourself too much in the one place you're allowed to be yourself without restrictions and limitations. you love your friends, you love jean, but sometimes the quietness of being alone was more than welcome because it had to be.

so when jean asked you with eyes that didn't meet your own if you wanted to move in with him, you didn't answer. quiet literally, you paused from eating the slice of pizza in your hand. he continued on with his nervous 'making-up-for-the-lack-of-response' ramble, explaining how you technically already lived together, how he liked finding your toothbrush next to his, and reluctantly admitted that he sometimes used your soap when he wanted to have a good day. a speech that warmed you despite your answer.

because no matter how comfortable you'd be with anyone, sharing the same space with them was a different kind quiet, unrelenting vulnerability. the fact that you existed and let someone percieve you without hinderance was...too much to think about. you had been alone your whole life, not in a pitiable way, but in a way where you didn't have a childhood best friend. you didn't have people stick around, like you were only at a corssroad of people's lives and greeted them with familiarity and comfort that they'd craved, despite your want and desire for it yourself. they'd continue on with their path while you would sit there, patiently, passing time.

jean admitted it to you. indirectly, he had confessed that he wanted to see you vulnerable and bare open in a way that people wouldn't know you normally. in a way where you were simply a locked window that noone had the key to. but there wasn't anything special to hide, no great overview of the city or the sea or rolling hills and valleys and large fields. no, just an unimpressive view of an unmowed backyard. untamed and messy - again, nothing special. just years of neglect while also being looked at. nothing special.

you didn't want him to see it. and technically, he asked you. you stopped spiralling just as he started his own, realising the effect your non verbal answer had on him, you simply said "I'll think about it." and tried to crack jokes along until the end of the night. because if nothing, then jean deserved some peace to balance out the turbulence that came with loving you.

in all honesty, you didn't know what you did. how you comitted the monsterous feat of getting him to love you. how he loved you in your entirety (or lack of it), how he woke up everyday and chose to love you despite everything that you took from him, drawing out his grumbling patience and gentleness because loving you meant waiting. loving you always, somehow, meant not loving you, because there was no way someone would know you, all your stories and opinions and ideas and still choose to love you.

living with you meant knowing your anatomy. not of your physical, breathing body, but the inside of your organs. it meant knowing that your stomach was filled with guilt, that your mouth could only utter whispers of people who once loved you and 'im sorries' to someone who won't know. it meant knowing that your hands were always aching to be held, that your skin was only ever warm when it was loved. it meant knowing that your chest was always heaving, yearning for a breath of relief that would never arrive. it meant knowing that your eyes always wandered off to the weighing scale kept at the back of your closet, always wandered off to find another pair of eyes that would look similar to yours. it meant knowing that your hair was always knotted with the doubts your mouth would never ask. it meant knowing so much about you, about the grey matter in your brain and about what flowed through your veins was nothing but pure doubt and discomfort with the unholy temple that was your body, the temple without a god, the temple that noone went back to. a body without a home.

he wouldn't want to know. he shouldn't want to know, and more importantly, he wouldn't like finding out. it would either be too much or too little, and his fingers would cramp up with the effort it took for him to pry you open, only for no prize to be met with. besides, you were okay just talking to yourself, no matter how insane it sounded. you got through so many years being self-sufficient, right? you didn't know how to handle it, handle someone actually loving you without doubt. you had lived long enough without it. someone loving you was new, something you didn't have a map for, something you didn't have any precautions against.

you and jean slept together that night. in the same bed, breathing the same air, under the same covers. you didn't share the same sleep, however, as his mind made dreams and yours went on like an unfinished painting - a list of unfullfilled answers, no meanings, trying and failing to come together. you found yourself watching him breathe; just his chest moving up and down and up and down, your hands twiching to rest on top of his but you didn't know if that's where they'd belong. if his body would wake itself up because of your touch - everyone was always surprised by how cold your fingers were. you were used to it.

maybe living with him wouldn't be that bad, right? as he said, you already shared the same space to a point where the pair of you felt comfortable enough to not care if your hair was groomed perfectly or if the colours and patterns of your outfit were clashing. but would he like it? would he like just how much more comfortable you could get? just how much you could ask for? just how long you could lock yourself up in the bathroom and try to cry? would he like to know just how long you sometimes spent on your bed, refusing to get up because your heart felt too heavy for your chest? for when your heart felt like it could fall through your back, punch a hole through the ground and bury itself in the earth until it could somehow bonify and fossilize and archeologists would recognise, instantly, that it didn't belong there.

he'd leave. that was something you knew for a fact. your love wouldn't be wasted, ofcourse not, neither would the time, but maybe he'd leave feeling like he'd wasted himself at your expense. or maybe he wouldn't think about you at all.

your night was spent with your brain spiralling - thoughts about how you didn't know how to handle being loved the way he loved you, about how you probably never had a childhood best friend that was still in your life because the phases of your life weren't meant for anyone but yourself to see, about how much your hair fell due to the stress of distracting yourself from overwhelming sadness by studying and creating while also being only slightly average at it. you fell asleep thinking about how the abundance of being alone, to you, meant being not alone at all, because there was no differenciation of company and lonlieness because there hadnt been any company to remind you of the lonliness at all- your eyes had fluttered closed and breathing evened.

jean always wondered if you were hiding something from him. not in a bad way, not in the way where he couldn't say he loves you, but in the way where you'd hesitate. and if he didn't love you as much, he probably wouldn't have even noticed. but fortunately, he did know you. a little too well.

he knew how much you loved the crunchy autumn leaves, so much so that you would alter your paths just to crunch one under your boot, a smile of satisfaction gracing your face after hearing the noise it made. he knew how much your fingers would reach out for his. he knew how much you tried - with everything. he knew of your unsaid struggles, knew when and what made your mood sour. and he loved it, he loved the fact that he knew all of those thing but more importantly, loved that he loved them.

loving you felt like it was a built-in feature.

but despite all of this, he didn't know why. he didn't know why you were the way you were. he knew you tried, but he didn't know why. he knew you struggled, but didn't know why. and it was driving him crazy, especially after last night. he couldn't help himself, even if he could see you, again, trying to diffuse the situation with lighthearted jokes, he couldn't help but think a little too much.

did you not want to? jean had always been honest about how much he struggled with being either too much or too little, about how much the words hurled by his friends when he was young hurt him, about how much his love proved to be uncomfortable and silent and resigned. maybe his honesty was too much for you. maybe you didn't like the burdens he came with, maybe you didn't like knowing how much his father's absence had affected him, or about how much his previous partner altered the way he saw himself to a miserable extent. you hadn't asked for all of this, all of him, all of his parts. maybe you were getting sick of it.

or maybe, if Jean's knowledge about you served right, you were being hesitant again.

he swears he doesn't mind it. you not wanting to move in with him wasn't a problem, but he just wished he knew why. the whole day, the only thing on his mind was how he could feel less hesitant towards him, god, anyone but him. he knew, firsthand, how it felt being so overwhelmed by inconsequencial doubt where he was left with so many regrettable unanswered questions engraved into the palm of his hands because he kept them hidden in his fist for too long, where he wishes, prays, and hopes for an answer that he knows will never arrive even if he doesn't look for it.

there are many things jean wishes and prays and hopes for. you're not one of them. but only because you're here. he doesn't need any other wish to be fulfilled or prayer to be answered or hope to sparkle. you are, inadvertently, all of them. a love without doubt, a wish without a cost, a prayer without a sacrifice, a hope without desperation. you're all of them. you're everything.

but he knows that if he's hesitant this time, if he doesn't reach out to grab you, if he doesn't do something, no matter how desperate, he will most ceratinly feel a deeper regret than he has ever felt before. and yes he may be exxagerating it, but he doesn't care. he'd learnt not to care when he was with you - he's learnt to be comfortable with you and around you. he wants to tell you that it's okay if you don't want to move in with him because his home is wherever you would be, his home is his hand on your thigh, his home is watching you blink in thought, his home is the sound of your footsteps. his home is anywhere with you. you are the only person who has the right to know that.

he makes his familiar way over to your apartment. you're not home yet, sasha informs him with a sleepy voice and messed up hair, "but you can wait in their room." she says because everyone knows that you wouldn't mind him waiting in your room. including him.

he does your routine - the one he's seen you do countless of times when you enter your room - take off his coat and hang it on the back of your door where one of the hooks is kept empty for him, shoulder his bag off and put it down on the spot next to your desk, turn on the desk lamp and the night lamp because you refused to turn the overhead lights on, because "they are so hideous why would I want to turn them on," according to you, and then finally occupy the space on your bed, laying his back down and his hands resting on his stomach as he waited for you.

staring at the cracking paint on the ceiling of your bedroom, jean thinks. from his pending homework that he's mentally figuring out how to schedule to how he's going to conduct this new group project with people he has never talked to before to how is it already the second last year of University because it felt like the first day was yesterday, until finally his thoughts landed on you. of course it would always lead to you.

it started from him thinking about University, then about how he met you on the second day, seeing you in one of his classes, sitting diagonaly across him, how you conducted yourself, slipping your bag off and checking your phone. then it turned to him seeing you at the freshers party where he saw his now ex-partner with someone he knew he shouldve questioned more. how he stormed off of the party with half tears of sadness and half of anger, catching a glimpse of you in the corner of the room, looking kind of lost. he saw you multiple times after that but never talked to you. he saw you at an ice-cream parlor once. he wanted to talk to you, but Connie had loudly confirmed the tickets to this new concert, which took away Jean's attention from you. but then he was introduced to you by Marco, because of course it would be Marco who had the pleasure to befriend amazing people. he met you then, properly, when you introduced yourself, and he nodded at you with little regard.

jean shook his head with a little smile. he had been so stupid, that day. he barely looked in your direction as you got acquainted with Marco, Connie and sasha, but he didn't disregard the fact that you looked less lost than you were at the party.

you had a way of sticking around, jean found out after that. he didn't realise when you had slipped into his life, hiding in plain sight. one night he found himself awake the same time as you and the next, he found himself saving a seat for you in the class you shared with him. soon enough, you knew him as well as he knew you, and there was softness in the recognition your eyes held when they met with his. the same appreciation of his existence, something he hadn't felt before. he couldn't say that he knew you as well as the back of his hand, because really, he knew you like the back of your hand, because he'd looked at your hands more than he'd ever looked at his, noticing all the little creases and scars and veins and hairs. he knew what warmth they held, he'd felt it after your hands made their way into his while walking back to your dorm on a cold night. a night jean would never forget because he had frantically knocked on your door right after leaving you there, because his senses had finally worked and he had finally found out that he wanted to kiss you. and he did, and you kissed back, and jean swore he had never been happier even while he could hear sasha and Connie and Marco cheering for the both of you. he kissed your forehead as a goodnight that night. you were in his shirt.

you were his home before he even knew what his home was, before he could find out for himself. you became an answer with a question.

he sighed, hearing your footsteps make their way through the tiny apartment, saying a small "hi," to sasha who was sleeping on the couch. the door to your room swung open just as jean sat up, his weight resting on his forearms on your mattress. you didn't seem surprised that he was there, just flashing a smile at him before removing your bag and placing it down, and jean felt his heart flutter with comfort as your presence filled the room.

his eyes trailed you as you did the same thing he did a few moments ago, plopping yourself down right next to him. your breathing evened out with his as the two of you lay in silent comfort before jean spoke.

his voice was a low hum. the words were barely different, but you understood them anyway. "yknow you can talk to me about anything, right? even if it's sad or not funny or not...I don't know, not remarkable. you can say it. i won't laugh unless you want me to." he says. it's a flimsy promise, but you know his words hold a meaning that you can't quiet grasp.

his palm lays on top of the back of your hand.

he's warm. scarily so, because why would someone hold so much warmth towards you? more importantly, jean extended his hand without even meaning to, like muscle memory, which was, again, terrifying, because loving you as habitual purpose was scarier than you having to prove yourself for it.

your shoulders relax almost instantly; habitually and with purpose. was the purpose of it to not have a purpose at all? was the meaning of your being to not have any meaning at all? was it just to love despite it?

you wanted to do good. not in a special or overly remarkable way, because you knew you would never reach that mark because you never had, but in the way where you'd be recognized. in crowded rooms, you'd be sought out for because of your "goodness" - be it reliability, comfort, all the things you usually associated with jean. which was ironic, because noone who didn't know him like you did would ever think of jean in that way.

"i.." you say, trailing off. you want to say that you know, but it'd be a lie. it'd be a false promise, and jean didn't need that any more than he needed you. so you say, "I'll keep that in mind."

jean doesn't buy it. his hand squeezes yours, stubbornly. "no, i don't want you to keep that in mind, I want you to want to do it." he says. his head turns towards you, watching the side of your face with an expression you know better than anything. the slight furrow of his brows, slightest scowl on his face that was masked by a layer of genuine concern.

"what I mean is.... you don't have to be so hesitant with me." he says. you want to blink back surprise, except that it's not really surprising. he's seen you, more so than anyone ever has, so it's not surprising that he'd see if one day was affecting you worse than the other days. it makes you want to scream because you don't know how to deal with it.

you close your eyes as if that would help. it wasn't like you were good at running away from affection, mostly because you never needed to. if anything, you were used to running towards it, desperately, just trying. but here it was, now, the resolution of it all, of all of the aches and creakings of your deepest yearnings, yet you couldn't seem to look at it. look at him - at jean, your best friend, someone you'd do anything for - with eyes that matched his.

you sigh. there's a deep silence, and jean isn't anticipating anything. his hand is still on yours and he feels you squeeze it tightly, but he isn't going anywhere for you to hold on to him. even if he wasn't tethered to you, he'd want to stay by your side, without any precautions or promise of a fruitful result. he'd stay with you regardless.

he isn't waiting for you to say anything, because being with you feels more than adequate, like it's instinct, like his shoulders relaxing when it's just the two of you, or like that tingly feeling in his chest when you kiss his cheek after a long day.

but when you do speak, it's with resignation and certain grief. "i dont think you'll like me. if I... if we move in together, I think, realistically, you won't like it."

"how can you be so sure?" he asks. it's not a serious question, but he thinks it's a start. you're doing it, you're being less hesitant, and atleast that's somewhere to begin.

"i just am." you say, shrugging. but it's not a fact, atleast, it shouldn't be. it isn't to jean. he's rolling his eyes now, but he's not annoyed or digusted. "how?" he presses, because he knows there's more, there always had been with you.

"i get too much. and then too little. like none of it is ever just right. and I'm scared that you'll see it and...I don't know, get frustrated at my lack of everything." you say. there's truth in every word even though you desperately wish there wasn't. you're still hesitating, but it's less so. your hand is still in his, still squeezing it. it was predictable - something you found yourself relying on - the warmth of his palm and the way his hand would also engulf yours with the same echoing softness it always had. even if his fingers were calloused and a little rough, it didn't matter. they still held you the same.

he's clinging onto every word you're saying, every small explanation, every twitch of your eyebrows. he knows what's going to come, he knows there's going to be an admission of guilt coming on soon enough but he also knows, more importantly, that he'll be there to tell you that no, he does not regret loving you, and yes, he will keep doing it over and over and over again.

"I've never been... wanted like this. or like anything, I guess. and I'm so scared," you breathe in deeply, keeping your tears at bay. jean pushed himself onto his forearm, looking at you in a way you've never been looked at before. "I'm so scared of disappointing you because I think that's all I've ever done. that's all I know how to do." the box is open now, and it's not forced or pried with effort. jean has always known how to open it, you think, you just didn't let him. he does it now, with the same hands you find comfort in, the same gentleness that his eyes have always held for you.

you're crying. you don't have anything else to add to your statements, and they hang in the air as if waiting for you to complete them, expecting you to do something. but you don't and you can't and jean is holding you, his hands are at your sides and your nose is buried into his shoulder and you think the words and the expectations can wait for now, or for however long jean is willing to take care of you.

your shoulders shake. jean is whispering into your ear, asking you to breathe. he's saying it so kindly that you feel the need to comply, and when your lungs finally calm, he rewards you with a kiss on your forehead.

you think if how much of a liability all of this is. about how much you weigh in emotions when you're this open and vulnerable. not even like an open, unhealing wound, but more like that feeling you get when you finally decide to read an unread text message that had been sitting there for a month, but you're the person who both sent the text and also the one replying to it and also the one who was watching it unfold. you caused this, you were the only one who was replying, and you were also the witness to all of this.

but now jean was here. it was unusal and strange - someone being there, actually, physically and mentally present instead of those placating "you'll get over its" that were repeated to you by the few people you decided to open up to.

the two of you are silent now, only broken up by deep, almost heaving breaths from you, something you wish you would stop doing. instead of you digging your nails into your palms like all the other times, your nails are clinging onto jeans clothes, and he doesn't seem to mind. instead of it being your blankets like all the other times, it was Jean's soft heat wrapped around you, moving with each breath you took until your chest didn't feel as heavy anymore.

"i know." he says, finally. he doesn't expect you to answer, ofcourse, but he knows you're listening because you shift slightly in his arms. "i know...too well, what it's like. i know that moving in means more to you than it means to people in general. i know that it's not even about moving in together. i.." he's being hesitant. finding the right words, but for once, Jean's happy about this trait of his. he's glad he rethinks decisions and the next time when he tries again, he's more sure of it. hes sure that he loves you, hes sure that he wasn't made to love you but he grew into it because there's that choosing again, the fact that yes, he did probably have a choice, but he would never even consider it. he doesn't want to consider it and maybe that's more important than there even being a choice. he wishes he could put it into words that would make sense.

instead, he opts to say, "I am so sorry you had to think all of this all alone for so long. but I'm...I'm here now. i know that won't solve everything instantly, ofcourse it won't, but I will be here until it will. i will wait."

there's promise in his voice, a conviction that you hadn't heard before. you trust him, you always have, but you don't know if you trust yourself with this. you don't trust yourself to be someone he loves. he's quick to quiet your concerns after yet another peck on your forehead.

"but don't you think I take too much?" you ask. its doubtful, the steps you're taking on the usually thick ice that has turned too thin too fast. you're afraid you're going to offend him, but you stand no chance against Jean's all-knowing sigh. it's not a tired sound, not one anyone gives before they're about to give up. you're not sure what kind of sigh it is, but jean doesn't let you figure it out for yourself because he's answering.

the ice turns into concrete. he's become your footing, the reason you're still standing and not under numerous feet of cold water. "i dont think you're taking. your....your love doesn't ask to take. you love despite everything, not because of it. everyone, including me, focuses on how to be loved, on how to be a perfect image that probably won't last for too long, but you..... you focus on shaping your love, the love you give. i dont know if you've noticed it, but you do. you don't take too much, you give without expectations. you give with hope. it's beautiful." he pauses. "you're beautiful." he says. he's not looking anywhere else but your eyes that are welling up with familiar tears.

you suck in a breath. "im not used to sweet words, jean," you say, the breath you held releasing with a bittersweet smile. "i dont know how to handle all of this love you're giving me. i think... i think you love me too much." another tear down your cheek and onto the mattress. jean wipes away it's remnants.

"i dont love you nearly enough." he says with the same laugh you had given him, "but you'll grow into it. just like how you grew into everything else, you'll grow into being loved. i grew into it too," he says. his forehead touches yours. the proximity makes you shiver. "i grew into just how much you love me. and I wanna keep growing into it because I love loving you. i love you loving me, as selfish as it sounds."

you take a moment to register his words. yes, you weren't used to being so vehemently and stubbornly loved and taken care of, but you could. you could get used to it, get used to crying in your beloved's arms, being fed spoonfuls of carefully heated up soup that would settle into your belly, being looked at for more than a split second. you couldn't fathom it now, sure, only because you could've never believed it before, but that could change. you could grow into loving love, into accepting it just as freely as you had given it.

jean wasn't holding you with a death grip because he knew that you wouldn't leave, atleast, he didn'tanymore. he would've done it, he had all the reasons to. if he were still fifeteen, he would've thought that he had to come beg and cling on to love to make it stay. he had to do something spectacular, something entirely not himself in order to prove that he was atleast worth giving a try but with you...he didn't have to beg. he didn't even have to ask. for a while it felt undeserved, all of this care you were giving his somehow beating heart, all of this ointment you were providing to his broken bones, but he somehow, miraculously, grew into it, because he let you in. he let you see him with the eyes that would rival the ones he was sure the gods had, he let you see him and all his unknown and unsaid sins and let you love him anyway because you wanted to, because you didn't see something in him - a potential of something greater - but you saw him as he was. as he is. and nothing in your smile changed. and if you could do that, then he'd be damned if he didn't love you the same.

no words were said after that, only Jean's heartbeat mingling with your own in your ear. both of your eyes were closed, his hands relaxed on your back, your chest no longer heaving, commanding you to pay attention to it.

you fell asleep in the silence of promise.

---

the promise continued even a week later, turning into two, turning into four, wherein jean kept loving you despite and because of, unafraid and unwavering and for the first time, without any hesitance.

you were keeping up on your promise too. trying to accept it - all of this affection, his affection - without hesitance. it was hard but mundane things usually are and you continued to grow and mend and try, above all else, which was more than jean hoped for.

he's passing you the brush he had slathered the perfect amount of toothpaste on, slipping into the comfort of the cool night warmed by the heat of your previously taken shower in your bathroom. you smile at him as a thanks, and he nods as a welcome, and no words are spoken. no words need to be spoken, and his right hand makes its way to the small of your back, his left brushing his teeth as you start brushing yours and you think that maybe everything is uncertain. everything always has been and always will be, and loving someone has always been uncertain, too. being loved has always come with doubt and guilt and shame. but the only difference was that now, both of you hoped. you hoped that everything would be alright in the end, jean hoped that he'd get to share the same bed as you in the end.

hope was flimsy and hopeless, too optimistic, but now it served as something you both shared. the shared sentiment of hoping that you'd have eachother till the end was more important than the uncertainty. it meant that both of you would keep trying. you don't need to be sitting, waiting patiently and hopelessly at the same crossroad now, because Jean's hand is on the small of your back, the watch on his wrist is still and unticking, and you're walking down the same road with the same landmarks and the same gravel because you want to. you've moved from your old spot on the pavement because you want to. you're learning how to love the sound of your own footsteps, how to love the action of one foot infront of the other, and the best part is, Jean's learning too.

loving isn't a reciprocal or a transaction or a grand 'aha!' it's an act of hope. hoping they'll see you the same. hoping they'll have the same hopes as you. hoping they'll want to be loved by you, because hope doesn't require anything grand, hoping doesn't require a god to pray to or a cost to pay. it requires soft, undettered, unsaid patience. something jean, persistently, had. something you, stubbornly, held.

you paused from brushing your teeth to look at your love. you were wearing his old t-shirt that had faint stains of ink and old paint on it, and he was donning the headband you had owned for years to keep his hair out of his face. he glances at you through the mirror, then turns to you, nodding to you, eyebrows arching in a question.

you spit out the toothpaste into the sink. looking back to him, you say, with all the conviction and hope you can muster up, "I want to move in with you."

jeans mouth turns upwards, still full of toothpaste. he doesn't say anything. he doesn't need to say anything.

everything's already been said, already been understood.

because he knows you. and he couldn't be more happier to.

(when you pick the curtains for your new home, you are held up by jean, who's hands grasp the ladder you're on. you're looking down on him after the work is done and he's smiling, and you're smiling, and at night you're using the same stove to make the same dinner that the two of you will share along with some old wine and old stories. he holds you when you fall asleep, and your arms are around his torso as he snores softly. your love is stored in the blood of his veins. his love is stored in the palm of your hands, and even if you don't hold it, it still stays there, unmoving, growing, attached.)

✿

[what-am-i-outside-my-google-tabs]

You watch Bang Brave Bang Bravern and you ask yourself, how much of this was intentional and how much casual.

The girl in the box is an actual child. We see her grown up in the future, and her face and body changed, she is a child and she get adopted and watch cartoon and does not have a romantic relationship with one of the leads. But her body is still sexy, and in the beach episode she have a bikini and low waist jeans, and her tits giggle, and it is normal for tits to giggle, but was this fanservice for the classic mecha public, was it a critic to how these character are represented. She is a baby, but we see a shot of her ass, and we are not sure if the very cis very male director didn't do this scene as a consolation price to the men forced to draw oiled abs and men grinding on each others.

The CIA waterboard the protagonist, and it is a traumatic experience not even being saved and thanked can cancel out. There are two other waterboarding scenes after, one against a child and one against a giant robot. They both play comedically, because they both fail. It is just to show how the genre of the story changed, from real robot to super robot, or does it means more? Is it a critic to the system of torturing people to get information, because it will never function, and maybe waterboarding a giant robot will not get you anything, or is it just for laugh?

And you ask yourself, why are you asking these questions on a gay mecha anime, and well, i would not ask these questions if it was not a gay mecha anime.

It is a show decided to change genre three times and mix real robot and super robots in a gay romance that save the worls, and it is meant to be a love story to the old super robot genre, and to aks the question of why these type of stories exists. Maybe i should ask myself these questions.

They reference evangelion, but they are not able to give a woman character space, and you have no idea if it is for parody or for being unable to do it. There is an autistic fujoshi, and she is only an autistic fujoshi. There is the woman love the protagonist, and she save his life, but she is not important to the plot to she stay on the sideline. They tell you the military is not that bad, and you close your eyes to it because it is set in a not so far future and maybe things have changed, and than they give you two men singing a love song to each others shirtless.

And then the story tell you that the desire to die honorably, the very japanese feeling of getting out in a spectacle, is not good. It is actually what the evil guys want, to die honorably. You deserve to live, and you deserve to want to live. You can say no and hope in a future with the men you love. And if you want to live any diegetic explication for the super robot effects will disappear, and people will be able to transfer you the energy to resuscitate the commands and transform in the final gold form, and your hairs get longer and you can now defeat the final main guy, a giant angel created from the deaths of your other enemies. And since now everything does not need anymore to make sense, your partner is send to you again, for a third time, and you want to kill him for what he put you thought but you take his hand and the sky is blue and everyone is happy and the world is saved.

Where does the comedy end. Where do the serious thoughts start. How does the fanservice, and which kind of fanservice, control the plot. And it is a gay mecha show.

[abbyslev]

𝑰𝑺 𝑻𝑯𝑬𝑹𝑬 𝑺𝑶𝑴𝑬𝑶𝑵𝑬 𝑬𝑳𝑺𝑬- 𝑨𝑵𝑵𝑰𝑬 𝑳𝑬𝑶𝑵𝑯𝑨𝑹𝑻, 𝑺𝑨𝑺𝑯𝑨 𝑩𝑹𝑨𝑼𝑺 𝑿 𝑹𝑬𝑨𝑫𝑬𝑹

WARNINGS: smut towards the end! toxic relationships, cheating?, fighting, alcohol, weed. Lmk if i missed any!

A/N: THIS IS MY FIRST NSFW PLS BE NICE, and any constructive criticism will be appreciated! Needed some toxic annie in my life fr. I hope everyone enjoys this! this was finished late asf so pls excuse the bad grammar and stuff.

wc: 5.2k

It was always the same. Annie texted you, letting you know she wanted to see you and every time you fell for her lies.

It was always after her group workouts or a bad hookup. Everyone knew when someone had slept with Annie. It was hard to even talk to her in the first place, so hooking up with her was just crazy. Annie had an eye on you when your roommate, who was a teammate of Annies, invited her over for a smoke. Annie was intrigued by you the whole time. The way you sat on the couch and how your legs crossed over each other while you ate your ramen and staring down at your computer.

Annie never took you out on a date after that. She just wanted to fuck or get high. She walked past you in the hallways, ignored you at parties unless she needed someone to get her a blunt or a drinking buddy, and she simply acted like you two didn't have anything. It hurt, considering you really liked Annie.

You imagined supporting Annie at her games, going out to dinner to celebrate, spending afternoons just in bed with her. Annie had other plans. She looked at you as a fuck buddy. You should have known as soon as you heard she fucked a girl in the bathroom a week after she took you on a date. You liked Annie so much you were willing to keep your stupid dream alive.

That all changed when you met Sasha. She played volleyball and she was one of the sweetest people you had ever met. Sasha and you met at a party, where Sasha coughed her lungs out in the corner while a friend of yours, Connie, laughed his ass off. He invited you over and Sasha fell in love as soon as she saw you.

You two got to talking, and soon enough you guys were inseparable. Connie and Jean tease you two all the time. When Annie got a hold of this information, she was fuming. You had never taken Annie for the jealous type. Sure, she claimed you were all hers and made you promise that no one would ever touch you like Annie does, but those words were only spoken when you were deep in the mattress while Annie had an angry expression plastered onto her face.

Sasha made you cute baskets full of goodies all the time, took you on dates, never let you pay, slept over and cried when you wore a hoodie with her number on it. It was just meant to be and you two knew it. That was until Annie had a change of plans.

A light knock on your door made you look up from your phone. Sasha was currently spamming you with messages about what color nails you should get. You smiled, setting your phone down on your couch. Opening the door, Annie appeared with the same empty expression on her face.

“Oh. Hi, annie.” You waved, your smile dropping. You hadn't answered her messages for a while. You had been avoiding her ever since she got mad at you for becoming friends with sasha. “You didn’t answer my message.” Annie invited herself in, closing the door behind herself. “I-i didn’t see them. Sorry. Ash isn't here, she’s out of town.” You mention, but you knew she wasn't here for your roommate.

“Stop being stupid, you know I'm not here for Ash.” Annie pins you against the door, her lips close to yours. You look down, the blood rushing to your face. “You’ve been avoiding me.” Annie grabbed you chin, making you look into her cold eyes. “I hope it’s not because of Sasha.” Annie said her name with disgust. “I wasn’t trying to. I was just…busy.” You pulled away from her grasp. “Oh please. You don’t do anything but stay in this sad ass dorm all day.” Annie scoffed.

Your phone pinged. Annie’s head snapped back as it continued to ping, her face scrunching. She backed away from you, rushing towards your couch. “Annie.” You followed her, watching as she grabbed your phone, her eyebrows furrowing with every message you received, “We should get some coffee?” Annie read out loud. “Annie, please.” You tried to grab your phone, but she just snatched it away reading more. “Where’d you go, babe? Are you ok? I think you should get these nails. Can I swoop by?” Annie read in an impressed tone, her eyebrows raised. “Oh, cute. She sent you a hundred dollars for your nails.” Annie handed you your phone as your eyes filled with tears.

“So are we nothing?” Annie sat on your couch, taking a hit from her pen. “I never said we had anything.” You said through your teeth, feeling humiliated. “Better answer your girlfriend, don't wanna make her stress out too much.” Annie shrugged. “It’s not like that. Maybe if you actually paid attention to me and didnt treat me like shit, we could have been something.” you muttered.

“Are you saying you wanted to be something?” Annie shifted positions. You stayed silent. Annie stood up, pulling you forward by your hips. She pressed her lips aggressively against yours, her intentions filled with anger and lust.

You melted under her touch, sitting down on her lap. You straddled her, a whimper leaving your mouth as she left sloppy kisses down your jaw. You tilted your head, Annie’s hands pulling your hair, giving her more access to wherever she wanted. She trailed down your neck, getting that one spot she always abused. She knew it was your weak spot. You grind your hips against hers, begging for more. Annie smiled at the way she was able to manipulate you so easily.

“Hey, are you-” a gasp escaped someone's lips. You looked up, seeing Sasha holding two cups of iced coffee and a couple of movies tucked in her arm. “Okay…” Sasha finished her question quietly, setting down the drinks. “Sasha! I didn't know you were coming over.” You frantically rushed towards her, fixing yourself while you did. “Yeah. You didn't answer your messages and you kinda left without saying anything so i thought i’d come by. Wrong time, though.” Sasha whispered, her eyes glossy.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn't have done that. Annie came by unexpectedly. She was just about to leave, right Annie?” You turned around, eyeing the door. “Huh? Oh no, I'm staying here for a little bit longer.” Annie smiled from her place on the couch. You felt your heart drop. “It’s ok. I’m sorry again. Just call me if you need anything.” Sasha muttered sadly, walking out. She didn’t kiss you or make her stupid jokes like she always did.

“You’re such a fucking ass! You knew she was coming, didnt you?” you yelled at Annie. “What are you talking about? Why are you always accusing me of things? And why does she have a key to your dorm?” Annie stood up, leaning against the kitchen island. “Why do you care? All you wanna do is fuck and smoke. It feels nice to have someone actually care about me.” You sniffled.

“You don't think I care about you? After everything I've done for us?” Annie muttered, her eyes softening. “What have you ever done for us?” You opened your door, leaving it wide open. You gave Annie a hard stare, watching as she walked out. “Text me later.” She mumbled, putting on her headphones as she disappeared down the hallway.

-

You knocked on Sasha’s dorm, biting your lip. You hope she wasn’t upset or mad. You always assured her Annie was no one, and now you made Sasha sad.

You held on to the bag of food, hoping Sasha would cheer up. It was her favorite, taco bell. Sasha would always take you around two in the morning and she always got the same thing. You laughed every time as Sasha would bite out of your food, asking to taste it even though you two got the same thing. Connie opened the door, his smile dropping. “Hi.” He shut the door a bit, so only his head peeked out.

“Hey, Con. Is Sasha here?” You looked down, seeing his shoulder had a wet spot. Your heart dropped. “Yeah but she’s… busy.” He pursed his lips. “Oh. Well tell her i apologize for earlier and i got her some food. Tell her i love her and that i’ll call her tonight.” You handed him the bag and the drinks. You got two, assuming it would have been just you and Sasha, but Connie could just take yours.

“Yeah. Thanks. And also,” Connie softened his voice. “She’s really upset and won't stop crying. Come by tomorrow after team workouts and she’ll be willing to talk. Give her a break.” Connie gave you a small smile. “Okay.” You nodded, waving. You fucked up bad and you knew it, but now the problem was how to fix it.

Annie knew she could easily control you, and now you were aware of that fact. It was scary to see how she could easily make you angry and desperate so quickly. You walked to your building in silence, the light rain seeping into your clothes. You had to cut off Annie in all ways if you wanted to keep things going with Sasha. Your phone vibrated, breaking you from the world you were in. Once you were inside your dorm, you checked it.

Annie had sent you a message asking if you wanted to go on a date. So she had caught on? You turned off your phone, heading to bed. That was something to deal with tomorrow.

-

Again, here you were in the same position you always were.

Annie was so unbelievably irresistible and you knew it. You had just come back from Sasha’s house, and Annie waited in your dorm with that stupid smirk on her face.

After an hour of Annie humiliating you mixed in with “She doesn’t make you feel like this, huh?” You were done for. You knew you couldn’t be with Sasha when Annie had you mesmerized like this.

You scrolled through your phone, your eyes trailing up to the message you had received. “Hey, I know you just left but wanna get coffee?” You muttered to yourself, pursing your lips. Yeah you missed Sasha, but Annie would make the biggest deal out if it.

You replied back “Hey Sash, i came home and took some sleep meds. I’ll be up in a few tho. I’ll text you later. I love you:)” You sent the message, turning your phone off. “Who were you texting?” Annie hugged your waist, kissing your jaw. “Ash. She asked if I watered her plants.” You lied. “Ash doesn’t have her phone on her right now.” Annie dug her nails into your waist.

You swallowed, trying to play it off. “How would you know?” You smartly replied, rolling your eyes. “Because she told me she wouldn’t be able to text back so I had to let the coach know she wouldn’t be here for another week.” Annie whispered, her fingers tracing down your hip. “So let me ask you again, who were you texting?” She stopped her movements completely, watching as you blushed hard trying to find another lie.

Of course, your phone pinged from under your pillow. Annie grabbed it, sitting up. “Annie.” You muttered, not wanting a repeat of last time. “Okay angel, text me when you're up. Connies having a big party later and you’re coming with. I love you.” Annie smiled to herself, nodding.

“Am i invited?” She looked up, her eyes trailing over your horrified face. “Give it back!” You grabbed your phone, very clearly upset. “Why’d you have to lie? Am I not trusting enough?” Annie’s snarky smile was gone, replaced with that emotionless, manipulative look. “You know why, Annie.” You laid back down, your back facing her,

“Is that why you turned down my date?” “Smoking and fucking isnt a date.” You replied, responding back to Sasha. “Oh, so you’re going to the party?” Annie shrugged, getting up. You ignored her, now texting the groupchat with you, Connie, Sasha, and Jean.

Annie opened the door, shutting it behind her loudly. You know she just wanted attention so you deprived her from that exactly. Two can play that game. You tossed back and forth, deciding to maybe start getting ready.

-

“God, how many people does Connie know?” You pushed through the entrance, Sasha beside you.

“Half of these are just people he sells to, and the other half are randoms. It's an open invite.” Sasha yelled in your ear. Open invite, which meant Annie would probably be here. No, she would rather spend her time at the gym, hopefully. “Hey!” Connie squeezed through the people, his eyes blazing red. He handed you the blunt, bringing Sasha in for a hug.

You took a drag, dapping up Connie. You handed it back to him, arm around Sasha’s waist. “Get a drink, Jean and I are by the music.” Connie jokingly punches Sasha’s shoulder, disappearing into the crowd of people.

You dont let go of Sasha as you make her a drink, her eyes watching you carefully. “I don't want one.” Sasha shook her head as you grabbed another cup. You gave her a side-eye, your face disappointed. “Hey, someones gotta be the sober one here.” She laughed. You gave her a sip of your drink, watching as she made a face at it. You laughed, pressing a kiss to her lips.

“Let’s go with Connie.” She pulled your arm, taking you through the crowds of people. “Hey! you made it!” Jean pulled you into a hug. “Yup.” You nodded, seeing as Sasha talked to Connie, her mind on another world. Jean joined them, leaving you to yourself.

You watched the crowd, laughing at how idiotic the people were. They were throwing themselves off tables, smoke everywhere, and dancing bodies yelling at the people on the table to backflip off of it. Connie could surely throw a party.

Sasha had your cup, seeing it was already empty. And she claimed to be the sober one. You leaned down to her height, lips touching her ear. “I’m gonna get us some drinks. Stay here.” You press a light kiss against her ear, Sasha nodding and smiling.

You were pouring the soda when a tall guy leaned against the counter. You ignored him, mentally gagging at his actions. “Hey. Need some help?” He smirked at you. “No, thanks.” You grabbed the second cup, pouring some more soda. “You seem lonely.” He scooted closer, smiling.

“I’m here with some people actually.” You snapped back, grabbing the alcohol. He inched closer, and you could smell the beer off of him. He was now beside you, watching your hands move quickly. “Mind if I join?” He lowered his head to your level.” “Yeah, I do.” “No need to be so snappy, baby.”

You cringed again, but you continued to make your drinks. “Names Bryan. What’s yours?” He slid his hand over to yours. A small, pale hand grasped him, crushing it. He wheezed, his eyes trailing down to the small girl behind you both. Annie kept her dead stare at him, watching as he scoffed and walked away.

“You know, you should keep Jean around. Creeps stay away.” She picked up a cup, drinking it. “That wasn’t for you.” You muttered. “Did I ask?” Annie drowned the rest of the drink. You couldn’t even do that, and you drank every chance you got.

“I know you're here with Sasha.” Annie pushed your back up against the island. Her arms on either side of your waist, she stared into you. “Meet me in the car.” She muttered, walking away. You were speechless. Are you really gonna ditch them for Annie?

You left your cup on the counter, walking out the front door. You rushed to Annie's car, getting in just as she was turning it on. “So you listened?” Annie smiled, pulling out of the house. She drove down the crowded street quietly, the music in the back filling in the silence.

Hey

Whwred yiu go

Babbbyyyy

Youte nit at thr drinks

arw yoi okau

You look down at your phone, seeing Sasha was already drunk. Her spelling was horrible. You shook your head, typing back. Suddenly, your phone was snatched and thrown into the back seat. “Annie, what the fuck? You always do this.” You looked at her in disbelief. “Stop texting your girlfriend.” Annie shrugged.

Your phone vibrated. She must be calling you. You reached back, grabbing it, Annie grabbed your wrist, her eyes not leaving the road. You took the phone in your opposite hand, answering.

“Finally! Are you ok? Where are you?” Sasha yelled. “I had to go home, Ash had a family emergency and I had to talk to her teammate! I’m so sorry, I should have told you before but I'm ok.” You lied. Annie’s grasp on your wrist got tighter, hurting you.

You tried to wiggle out of it, but Annie made it worse. “Oh. Ok. Well, text me when you're all home and safe. I love you!” Sasha hung up, not waiting for a response.

Annie released your wrist, now placing her hand on your thigh. “Just take me home.” You muttered angrily, facing the window. Annie scoffed, rolling her eyes. “What if we come over to mine?” Annie turned onto the highway, watching as you nodded.

-

“You really need Hitch to help you decorate.” You muttered, eyeing her room.

It was the same as always, just her bed, side table, dresser and the tv that sat on it. Her clothes scattered across her floor along with random items entangled into it. “What’s the point? She’s gonna overdo it.” Annie laid on her bed, leaving you a spot.

You laid next to her, allowing her to snake her arm around your waist. “I missed you.” She whispered in your ear, kissing your jaw slowly. “Annie.” You pushed yourself away, standing up. “What?” She pushed herself up, sitting against the wall. “Are you so fucking serious right now?” Your eyes widened, mouth slightly open.

“What did I do?” She seemed genuinely confused, but she always did this when she knew she was wrong. “You brought me here to fuck. I thought you just wanted to hang out!” You blinked in frustration, huffing. “What, so I can't kiss you?” Annie groaned, getting on her phone. You grabbed it, throwing it against the floor.

“Annie, I need you to look at me and tell me you want something with me. If you can’t say that and promise me i’m more than a fuck buddy then we are done. We are so done and you won’t see me ever again.” You yelled, tears welling up at your eyes.

Annie was quick on her feet, pushing you against the bathroom door. “Don’t touch my shit like that again, understood? You knew as soon as we started talking that I didn't want shit.” Annie held your wrist down. “I hate you. I hate you so much, you’re nothing but a fucking liar. You’re nothing but worthless shit.” You pushed her off, leaving her room.

“Hey.” Annie followed, grabbing your hand. “Don’t touch me! I’m done with you. You’re so unbelievable.” You cried, feeling like you couldn’t breathe. “Just stay.” Annie toned her voice down, those sad eyes on her face again. “I can’t. I’m just gonna go home.” You opened the door to her dorm, walking out. “Let me drive you home. It’s late.” Annie stalked after you, placing her body in front of yours. “I can’t Annie. We both know where that’s gonna lead to and I cannot afford to have that again.” You looked down, watching your test drops fall onto Annie’s hand.

“I love you.” Annie whispered. That really set it off. You knew she said this only when she wanted something. You brushed past her, leaving her in the middle of the hallway by herself.

-

TWO MONTHS LATER

After Connie was begging on his knees with Jean behind him, you agreed to go to his party.

As much as you avoided parties, how could you say no to Connie? He was your friend and plus, he sold you the best of the best for a low price. He never misses your events, and you agreed to have some fun.

Sasha grabbed your hand, backing her body up onto yours. You laughed, shaking your head. “Isn’t this fun? Leaving your dorm for once?” Jean asked. “Hm not really.” You mumbled. Your arms wrapped around Sasha’s waist, kissing her bare shoulder. “You’re having fun. Shut up.” Connie held his hand out.

You grabbed the pen, inhaling the smoke. You turned Sasha over, kissing her. The smoke blew into her mouth, who took it in with ease. “Someone’s learned.” You laughed, leaning back against the wall. Sasha drank out of her cup, dancing to the rhythm. You smiled at her, eyes focused only on Sasha dancing.

“Can you get me another drink? I’m gonna pee.” Sasha handed you her cup. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?” You grabbed her waist, rubbing them against her. “I’ll be…okay.” She smiled slowly. Her words were slow and she smelled of alcohol. “Okay. Be back here soon.” You pressed a small kiss to her lips.

You made Sasha another drink, grabbing yourself a beer. “Hey!” You heard from behind you. You turned around, smiling as you saw Reiner. “Hey, Rei!” You were embraced in his hug. “How have you been?” You leaned against the counter, taking a sip from your beer.

“Good. Football season is over so wrestling is next. And you?” He took a sip of his own drink. “Oh, just been in class and stuff. I’m so ready for winter break.” You laughed. “Fuck yeah. Do you have any plans?” “I think Connie’s renting out a house and we’re just gonna party.” You nodded. “Sick. Anyway, my friends are waiting for me. It was so nice seeing you.” He fist bumped you. You said your goodbyes, slipping past the people back to your corner.

Connie looked at you, then back down at his phone. Jean was gone, and Sasha wasn’t back. “Hey, where’s Sash and Jean?” You set down her drink, looking around. “Jean took her home.” He shrugged. “Why?” “Cause she came back from the bathroom sobbing and begging Jean to take her home. I dunno.” He went back to texting someone.

“Oh. Well, I'm gonna go by her house, make sure she’s ok.” You set down your beer, grabbing your phone. “You sure you can drive?” He laughed. “Fuck you, I'm sober. I think.” You walked away, laughing. You wondered why Sasha would randomly leave. You shook those thoughts, deciding to talk to Sasha about it in person.

-

“Sasha?” You peeked into her room, watching as she curled up next to her stuffed animals, sobbing.

“Hey.” You closed the door behind you, setting down your bag. “Are you ok?” You slowly approached her bed, unsure if she even knew you were there. “Who let you in?” She sat up, wiping her face. “I have your key, angel.” You smiled. “Just go.” She stood up. She still wore the dress from earlier and her makeup was cried off. She stumbled forward, causing your hands to grasp her waist. She flinched, pushing you off of her.

“Sasha, are you ok? What’d I do?” You stood in front of her path, your heart dropping. “You know exactly what you did! You do it every single time! Why can’t I just be enough?” She cried, his hands uncontrollably shaking. You took them in your hands, pulling her closer. “Why can’t you just love me? Why does she have to be involved?” Sasha hiccuped, her tears on your sweatshirt.

“Who, Sasha? It's just been us. You know that.” You were so confused. What had you done to make Sasha hate you? “Annie! She literally told me you two left that party together and ever since have been a thing! Even before that, when I walked into you two, all those times you hung out with me and went straight to her dorm after, the way you still text her. All of that pissed me off. That’s why you haven’t asked me out yet, because you’re so hung up on Annie you can’t see that you’re hurting me.”

“Sasha, I never meant to hurt you. I want to ask you out, I'm just in a bad spot right now.” You pushed her hair back behind her ears, tears pricking your own eyes. “I know what you’re trying to do and I'm not gonna have it. We are done.” Sasha pushed you off. “Sasha, stop.” You went after her. “I said stop! Get out!” She screeched, pointing at the door.

“You’re drunk.” You muttered. “No, I'm not drunk. I wasn’t drunk last week when I watched you and Annie walk to your dorm together. I wasn’t drunk when you texted Annie while I ordered our food, I wasn't drunk while I was crying my eyes out to Connie wishing that you would just notice me for once in your goddamn life.” Sasha sat on the edge of her bed.

“Just leave.” Sasha grabbed a white cap off of her nightstand, swallowing the pills with some water. “My head is killing me.” She whispered. “Leave.” She said to you, starting to take down her hair. You obliged, closing her door.

You walked out of her dorm, making sure to lock it on your way out. Instead of anger or confusion, you were filled with rage. Why would Annie lie like that? You two weren’t a thing. You two hooked up whenever and called it a day. You rarely spoke.

Your feet took you to a different floor, fist pounding on the door. It all happened so fast. “Annie, you better open this fucking door.” You jiggled it. A blonde in her sports bra and shorts. “What?” She rubbed her eyes.

“You ruined my chances with Sasha. What the fuck is wrong with you?” You pushed yourself inside her dorm, shutting her door. “It’s three in the fucking morning.” Annie walked back to her room. “Don’t ignore me like that. You know what you did and i’ll fucking kill you.”

“You’ll what?” Annie turned around, pinning you against her wall. Her tired eyes watched yours, carefully inspecting your face. “You didn’t want her that bad. You would have asked her ages ago.” Annie placed one hand on your waist, her dead face still staring you down.

She was right. Annie was the only person keeping you from Sasha. “So tell me, am I really in the wrong here?” Annie pressed her lips against yours before you could answer. Your knees gave in, your hands tangling themselves in her hair. Annie slotted her thigh in between your legs, making you sit on it.

She moved your hair, kissing down your jaw and neck. “You thought you were so slick letting Sasha dance on your like that.” Annie mumbled before kissing that one spot again. You rubbed yourself on Annie’s thigh, your head against the wall. “Annie.” You whispered, needing more.

“This is mine.” Annie trailed her hand down your waist and onto the band of your sweats, playing with it. Annie kissed your lips again, slipping her hand inside your underwear. You moaned against her lips, not being able to say anything else. “You can’t be a slut for Sasha like this, can you?” Annie rubbed your clit in circular motions, eye contact strong as she watched you unravel beneath her.

“I asked you a question.” She shot a finger in you. You moaned loudly, shaking your head. “Words.” Annie whispered in your ear. “N-no, she doesn’t.” You whimpered as Annie fingered you faster. “Look at how pathetic you look. Weren’t you just gonna kill me and now you’re willing to do anything for more?” Annie slowed down. “Annie.” You whispered, just needing her even more.

She took off your sweater in a quick motion, placing a harsh kiss on your lips after she threw your hoodie somewhere in the room. She pushed you against her bed, hands working on your bra. “You’re so pretty.” Annie took off your bra, licking her lips.

You bucked your hips forward, needing some sort of friction. “Needy, aren’t we?” Annie pulled your sweatpants and underwear down, smiling as she saw the excitement in your eyes. Annie pried your legs open, pressing wet kisses up your thighs. You grabbed a fistful of her hair, biting down on your lip.

A loud moan slipped past your mouth as Annie pressed a wet kiss on your clit. Her tongue slipped through your folds, slowly watching you moan and cry. Her tongue continued sucking and kissing your clit, small vibrations from her chuckles making you arch your back.

Annie held down your hips, having you into a moaning mess. “Annie.” Your chest heaved up and down, thighs closing around her head. Annie looked up from position, placing her fingers in your mouth. Your tongue swirled around them, your eyes never leaving hers.

She placed her dripping fingers inside of you. “Oh my god, Annie.” You shut your eyes closed, biting down on your lips. “So wet, just for me.” Annie kissed your bud, speeding up her pace. Your hands let go of her hair, grabbing your breast.

“Atta girl.” Annie mumbled against you. That knot formed in your stomach, clenching around Annie’s fingers. Annie slowed her pace, teasing your dripping hole. “Annie, please.” You wrapped your thighs around her head again. Annie used one hand to push them apart, placing it onto your lower stomach after.

She quickened her pace, your eyes rolling to the back of your head. Uncontrollable moans and cries left your mouth, her name was all you could remember. Your climax hit you hard, a string of curse words mixed leaving your mouth. Annie continued to lick you, cleaning you up.

She straddled you, opening your mouth. She spit your cum in your mouth, smirking as you swallowed it. “Good girl. Don’t let me see you around Sasha again.” Annie pressed a kiss against your lips, flipping you over. You smiled to yourself, excited for what was planned in Annie’s mind.

-

Your eyes opened, Annie’s voice echoing through the bathroom.

“She was just so drunk and came up on me, Sasha. It was all her. I’m not even messing with her, she came onto me. Don’t call me a liar. She said she was done with you.” Annie huffed. You sat up, eyes wide. Was she seriously lying?

You collected your stuff, throwing on your clothes as quickly as you could. Grabbing your phone, you stormed out of her room and down her hall. Of course she would lie to get you and Sasha apart. You didn’t even want to hear the rest of her lies, you were done with her and you were sure of it this time.

Or were you?

[not-5-rats]

More Chester Angst Lore :D

(Tw! Abuse <Physical & Mental>, Manipulation, Alcoholism, Insanity, Violence <Quite Harsh>)

So after Milos death many things changed around the house, their Mother went a bit crazy, she had never said it out loud but it was obvious that Milo was her favourite child and now that he was dead...she didn't know how to cope. She spent days locked in her room cradling the slowly rotting head of what she once called her son. Their Father wasn't much better, he saw what was happening to his wife and instead of offering help or support he decided to comfort himself with alcohol, he became a drunk who didn't speak to his kids or wife, only yelled when they stepped a toe out of line.

As their parents disintegrated that left alot of responsibility on the kids, they began being responsible for the bills, the upkeep of the house, everything that the adults were meant to do. They also has to take care of Fran and Daisy, not just take care of them...protect them. Protect them from the endless criticisms from their Father. Protect them from the deranged madness of their Mother. It was hard, on all of them and it made them become more protective of, not just the 2 youngest, but of all their other siblings. They were all hurting, they all knew this, and they hated the idea of anymore hurt coming to any of them at this time.

Having this much responsibility thrown so suddenly onto them at once it meant the siblings shut down in a way, they didn't talk about their own feelings anymore because they knew the others were struggling and they didn't want to add to that. They used to be so open with one another, no secrets, no suffering in silence and now...the air was always tense, tense with things people wanted, needed, to say but couldn't bring themselves to do so. So many things they wanted to express, pain, hurt, anger, all these emotions that were suffocating them yet still they could not say anything. None of them could.

When Chester looks back on this time of his life, he wonders, maybe, if things had been different...would that bitch still have gotten away with what he was doing for as long as he did or would she have said something sooner

The siblings changed as a group but they also changed individually, one more noticeably than the others, Chester himself. He knew it was mostly his fault, what happened to Milo, he should have done more to stop him from leaving, he should have forced him to stay. He wasn't going to let the same mistake happen twice so became very protective of all his siblings, he was going to protect the ones he had left with everything he had. Another thing that changed was that he found it alot harder to control his actions, he became impulsive, acted on his emotions instead of thinking it through like he used to do. (You'll understand why this is important in a moment)

They worried about each other but they all felt less of a need to worry about Audrey, the second oldest, as she had somebody else she could talk about all of this to. Her boyfriend, Erik. None of them knew much about Erik as they had only met him a few times but he seemed like an alright guy, always cracking jokes, getting on well with Felix, remembering the little ones birthdays. He seemed like a great guy who made Audrey happy. Well she seemed happy. Sometimes when he came over she was a bit...off? She looked anxious, like there was something she was hiding, something she couldn't stand getting out. But whenever somebody asked her about it she just said she was anxious they would judge Erik, nothing else...and they believed her, something they now regretted.

Chester and Felix had been noticing signs that something was wrong for months now, she hadn't been home as much lately, her wardrobe of shorts & short sleeves had been swapped for turtle necks & loose jeans and she began to wince anytime somebody did something as soft as prod her. They knew they had to find out what was wrong, they couldn't let their sisters struggle like this

So they kept an eye on her, at first they achieved nothing but finally they started to catch a few hints of what may be going on. Audrey had absent-mindedly rolled her sleeves up and before noticing what she had done Chester noticed that her arms were bruised & scared some of the scars suspiciously fresh. Another time Felix had went to get Audrey from Erik's house when he heard Erik shouting from outside and Audrey seemed tense when she came out. This and a couple other incidents meant that the brothers were quite sure they knew what was going on and their suspicions were confirmed when Chester witnessed something he definitely wanst meant to see.

He had been in Audrey's room, snatching some spare paper since he didn't have any left, when he saw the door begin to open. Chester panicked and ducked into the closet just as the door opened. Erik stormed in, Audrey meakly following after him, Chester held his breath and the second they had closed the door Erik began to shout

"What was that??? I specifically told you not to talk to that twat Atlas anymore!"

"Erik- he's my brothers boyfriend I can't really avoid h-"

"I DON'T GIVE A FUCK WHO HE IS, I TOLD YOU NOT TO TALK TO HIM ANYMORE AND YOU FUCKING IGNORED ME"

Audrey tried to defend herself, to explain that Felkx would be concerned if she didn't respond when his boyfriend said hello, but Erik wasn't having it and hit her across the face. She instantly fell silent and the sound of impact echoed throughout the room. Chester could just see the tears prickling in his sisters eyes as the skin om her cheek began to puff. Erik yelled for a while longer before leaving the room, slamming the door behind him. Audrey broke down, tears streaming from her face. Chester considered coming out and comforting her...but he knew he would just make it worse. He felt awful for having not noticed earlier, he was upset, worried, hurt but more than anything he was angry. He couldn't believe that dick thought he could treat Audrey like that, she was one of the best sisters in the world and she deserved nothing less than the world! He wasn't going to let his older sister, the person who helped him be who he is, be treated like that, so he came up with a plan.

He waited for Audrey to leave the room, as soon as she was out he slid out of the closet and made his way back to his room. He searched his drawers until he found what he needed, he put on a dark top and left the house. Luckily Erik hadn't gone far, even if he had Chester knew the route he took home...he could have found him no matter what way he went. He followed the path and soon enough he saw him

"Erik! Hey! It's Chester!!"

Erik jumped at the noise, he spin around and offered a smiled as he stopped walking so that Chester could catch up

"Ah!! Chezington! How you doing? Why you out so late?"

Chester shrugged as he finally caught up

"Just felt like getting some fresh air, heard you and Audrey had a night out, how was it?"

"Yeah! It was great, I'm really lucky to have somebody like her"

Chester had to bite his tongue to stop himself from saying something, he had to stay calm and play along, just for now

"Mhm, Audrey's great"

They walked along for a while till they were far enough from Chesters house but not very close to Erik's house, somewhere in the middle. Chester decided this was the perfect spot, this was where he would do it.

"Ah! Just gotta fix my shoes! You keep going"

Erik gave him a thumbs up and kept walking. Chester paused for a moment, he slowly pulled the dagger out of his pouch before cautiously approaching Erik from behind. He let out a deep breath and grabbed Erik, pressing the dagger blade to his throat whilst trapping his wrists behind his back

"Agh! Chester??? What the fu-"

"Shut up"

"What! Don't tal-"

"I said, shut. up"

He pressed the knife into Erik's throat making him freak out. Chester waited for a moment before speaking again

"You really thought you could hurt my sister and simply...get away with it? You genuinely thought there wouldn't be consequences?"

He sighed, shaking his head

"You're more of a morron than I ever could have guessed"

Erik began to shout, he told Chester to let him go, that he would kill him for scaring him this much but when he realised he wasn't gonna get out of Chesters grasp, despite being older than him, he began to beg, he cried begging Chester to let him go. He said he was sorry, said he didn't mean to cause this much harm, begged for Chester to be merciful

"...you're pathetic Erik. Willing to put others through hell and worse but not willing to experience the pain you cause. I hope you see this as a lesson and I hope if re-birth is real, you'll have learned how to act in your next life"

And with that he slit Erik's throat, he threw the man to the floor as he coughed and spluttered blood onto the damp, grassy ground. With a stamp to the back of the neck Erik finally stopped breathing.

Chester stared at the corpse, he felt no remorse for what he had done, it was the right thing to do. A man like that was nothing but a plague to the Earth and needed to be removed. He cleaned his blade in the river nearby before making his way home.

[starlitangels]

Red Button-Down

This... got a lot longer than I meant for it to... More brotherly brainrot. It continues to rot my brain 2.7k words

—

Elliott sighed sharply in frustration and yanked the shirt off, throwing it in the pile of discarded shirts on his bed. He reached into his closet and grabbed another one. He inspected it quizzically and yanked it on over his head. Once it was adjusted, he scrunched up his nose and looked at himself in the mirror hanging off the back of his closet door.

In the reflection of the mirror, a familiar figure appeared, leaning one shoulder on the doorframe to his bedroom, arms folded.

“Mom said you’re going on a date,” Aaron said flatly.

Elliott raised a brow. “And?”

“And you’re wearing that?” Aaron gestured to the outfit. The purple Converse hi-tops, grey skinny jeans, the green sweater, and the grey beanie almost the same shade as the skinny jeans.

Elliott scoffed. “You’re home from college for one long weekend and you’re wasting your time criticizing my fashion sense?”

“Or lack thereof,” Aaron retorted.

Elliott flipped him off.

“Eli!” their mom shouted from down the hall in the laundry room.

“What?” Elliott protested defensively.

“We don’t use rude gestures in this house!”

“You didn’t see me do anything!”

“Your immediate silence was damning.”

Elliott scowled. “Sorry, Mom,” he said. “Won’t happen again.” When you’re around, anyway, he added silently.

“It better not.”

Aaron grinned at the exchange, then his face went back to being serious. “You’re really wearing that?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” Elliott snapped.

Aaron inhaled deeply and pushed off the doorframe. “Move,” he said.

“What?”

“Move. Let me look at your closet.”

“Why?”

“Just do it, you—” He barely cut himself off from calling his younger brother something unflattering as he remembered their mom was close enough to hear and would yell at him too if he did. He rolled his eyes. “Just do it.”

Grumbling, Elliott stepped aside. He stripped the green sweater off. It joined the discard pile.

Aaron quickly shuffled through Elliott’s closet, skipping a few shirts at a time—the T-shirts—and looking only at the nicer ones. Under his breath, he was muttering, “No… no… absolutely not… oh he—eck no.” He finished looking through pretty much every shirt Elliott owned and then spun around. “How is your wardrobe this… ugh?”

“Hey! I like it!”

“You look like a kid barely coming out of an emo phase and still haven’t fully let the aesthetic go.” Aaron reached around Elliott’s head and popped the beanie off.

“Hey!” Elliott whirled and tried to snatch it out of his brother’s hand.

“There is no way you are wearing this stupid thing out on a date.”

“But my hair—”

Aaron scoffed and whipped the beanie out of his brother’s reach and shoved it in his pocket. “No. Now come on. Your shirts aren’t going to do. You’re wearing one of mine.”

“Ew. I don’t want—”

“Do you want to impress your date?”

“Uh…”

“Come on.” Aaron grabbed Elliott by the arm and started to drag him out of his room.

“Aaron? What are you doing?” their mom asked, poking her head out of the laundry room with the measuring cup partially filled with detergent in one hand.

“Elliott’s wardrobe has nothing in it suitable for a date. He’s wearing something of mine.”

Their mom started to laugh. “Yeah, good luck with that, honey,” she said.

Aaron pushed Elliott into his old bedroom. “Sit,” he said, giving his younger brother a good shove toward the bed. Still grumbling, Elliott stumbled under the force of the push—but did as he was told. Making an effort to show how unhappy he was about it. Aaron threw open the closet to show all the shirts he’d left behind for when he visited home from college. “You know I told you that you could take whichever of these you wanted when I left.”

Elliott crossed his arms over his bare torso. “Mmhmm. Did it ever occur to you that I didn’t want any of them?”

Aaron rolled his eyes and withdrew a checked, short-sleeve button-down. Red and white with a pocket on each side of the chest. He held it in one hand and went to his dresser, rummaging in one of the drawers. “If you want to still look like you’re coming out of your emo phase, give this a try.” He threw a heathered, grey T-shirt at his brother’s face. Elliott managed to snatch it out of the air, still scowling. But he put the T-shirt on. Then accepted the button down when Aaron slid it off the hanger and shoved it in his face. He pulled it on over the T-shirt. “Nah-ah. Don’t button it up. Leaving it hanging open is the point of having the T-shirt under it.”

Elliott raised a brow and leaned to look in the mirror hanging off the back of Aaron’s closet door. “Does it have to be red?”

“What’s wrong with red?!” Aaron demanded.

Elliott shrugged and gestured vaguely. “I don’t know. I just like purple better.”

Aaron scoffed loudly and rolled his eyes. “Whatever. What do you think?”

“I look like you.”

“Is that a problem, Elliott?” Aaron’s already-sour expression turned even more so.

“I’d just rather look like me.”

At that moment, their mom appeared in the doorframe. “Well, Eli. Don’t you just look all… dapper,” she said. “You should wear that tonight!”

Elliott groaned, lolling his head back. “Can I at least have my hat back?”

“No,” Aaron said.

“Eli, honey, your hair is so nice without it,” their mom agreed, stepping into the room to adjust one of Elliott’s curls on his forehead. “I don’t know why you don’t show it off more.”

“I like my hat,” he muttered.

Their mom gave him a sympathetic look. “Just try one date without it?”

He sighed. “Fine. One.”

—

“Hi! Elliott, right?”

“That’s me! You must be Izzy.”

“That I am.” They smiled. “I like whatever you did to your hair.”

Elliott gestured vaguely. “It’s always like this. Never been able to do anything about the curls.”

“Well they look really nice.”

Elliott felt his face turning red. “Thanks. I like your your patches.” His date preened a little at the compliment. He dug the tickets to the aquarium out of his pocket. “Shall we head in?”

“Sure!” Izzy smiled again.

Elliott drifted a bit behind his date, exchanging the tickets with the attendant through the plexiglass window for some map pamphlets that had an activity on them and letting Izzy push through the turnstiles first before following. “Where do you want to start?” He pointed to the signs. “Each section is dedicated to a biome, by the looks of it.”

“Let’s head for that Amazon river section.”

Elliott nodded and followed them through a curtain of strings beaded with wood tubes. Humidity smacked into him so potently he had to cough in surprise.

“I will admit,” Izzy remarked, “you look a little different than the pictures on your profile. Like, your face is the same it’s just… something’s different.”

Elliott felt his brain floundering. “Well, all those pictures are how I usually dress when I’m not on a date,” he said. “I usually wear beanies to tame my hair and this—” He fluffed the checked button down hanging open. “—really isn’t my usual style. Not a big fan of red against my skin tone, honestly.” He glanced down at the purple Converse he’d refused to compromise on. Aaron had tried to coerce him—when he was already halfway out the door—into wearing dressier shoes, but Elliott had refused.

“What? I think the red looks nice on you.”

“… Thanks.”

He tried to make conversation, and quickly discovered that Izzy had nothing really in common with him. They’d played a handful of the same video games—which had prompted him to try asking them out after matching with them on the app in the first place—but their similarities seemed to stop there.

“So… what are you going to college for?” Elliott tried again somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean section.

“Oh. It’s a, uh, a Liberal Arts degree that probably wouldn’t make any sense to you.”

Elliott bounced an eyebrow. “Go on. Try me. I’m pretty smart.”

“No, really. It’s complicated. I’ve never been able to make it make sense to someone in a different program.”

That’s because you don’t understand it well enough yourself, Elliott thought to himself. He pursed his lips in thought for a moment. “Alright then,” he relented. He waited, pretending to read a plaque about how lionfish were an invasive species in most biomes, to see if Izzy would turn the question on him in an attempt to get to know him better. After he skimmed the plaque twice and nothing, he turned in their direction. “I’m going to school to become an architect.” Of a sort, he added silently. Izzy was unempowered and he knew better than to break covert.

“Wow. Sounds difficult,” Izzy said. There was a certain disinterest in their tone that Elliott picked up on with how flat they spoke. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep his frustration to himself.

Well… we’ll see if it’s all up or down from here, he thought.

He also found out that Izzy loved talking about themself, but seemed to never consider reciprocating questions.

By the time the two of them had scoured the whole aquarium and filled out the activity on the map pamphlet, Elliott decided that one date with this person was enough. He bid them a polite farewell and went to head for the multi-system public transportation station where the commuter train, inner-city light rail, and buses all converged. Rush hour was nearing its end, but the next light rail wouldn’t pull in for another twenty-five minutes. He’d missed the previous one by five.

He found an empty bench and sat down with a disappointed sigh. “That could have gone better,” he muttered under his breath.

A text from his mom came through. How’d it go, Eli?

Meh.

That bad, huh? I’m sorry, son. But hey, there are… plenty of fish in the sea, as it were.

Elliott snorted. You should tell that to Aaron. See if his eyes finally get stuck like that when he rolls them so hard.

A few more people drifted into the station. Mostly people who appeared to have just got off work after the main rush hour.

And then a group of four barreled onto the light rail platform like a hurricane. All of them had backpacks slung over one or both shoulders. Two wore hoodies for the local university, and the other two had different lanyards but with the same logo and design. They were all laughing and pulling at each other’s backpack straps, rowdy and carefree.

And he recognized one of them

Elliott slunk lower on the bench, tucking his Converse under the bench, wishing he had his beanie to pull down and hide himself better. It wasn’t that he hadn’t liked Hayden in high school—it was just that they hadn’t spoken at all in three years and he didn’t really care to.

Maybe I’ll get lucky and he’ll be so distracted by his friends that he won’t notice me and we won’t have to talk, he thought. Or maybe he will see and remember me but not want to say anything. That works too, I guess. Maybe—

“Elliott?”

He swore internally. Never mind.

Looking up, he pretended not to have seen his old acquaintance. “Oh. Hi Hayden. How’s things?”

“Same old, same old. How are you?”

“Not bad.” Elliott nodded.

One of Hayden’s friends—the person on his left, not in a university hoodie—gasped. “Did you just come back from the aquarium?!”

The confusion that knit Elliott’s eyebrows together prompted them to point at his chest. He glanced down. He forgot he put the stupid map pamphlet in the stupid pocket on the chest of the stupid red button down. “Oh. Yeah,” he said.

Hayden laughed as his friend dodged around him to come stand by Elliott. “Aaand there they go,” he muttered to the other two. “Off to make a new friend.”

“I haven’t been to an aquarium in ages. Is that new one cool?” Hayden’s friend asked.

Elliott thought back on the actual facility, rather than the milquetoast company. “Yeah. Yeah, the new one’s cool,” he decided.

Their smile was like a ray of sunlight. “Awesome! I’ll have to go sometime soon.” Their face dropped. “Oh! By the way. I’m—” They had to wrangle their hand out of the pocket of their jacket, where it appeared to be stuck in their lanyard, before they held it out and offered him their name. Smiling the whole time.

He found himself smiling too. Really smiling for the first time in ages. “I’m Elliott. Friends call me Eli. Nice to meet you, sunshine.”

They shook hands and this ray of sunlight plopped down on the bench next to him, taking their backpack off. “Nice to meet you too! How do you know Hayden?”

“We went to high school together. You?”

“Met in college. Had a class together. I thought he was cool. Tried to set him up with my roommate but that was a disaster. But at least I tried. You still in school?”

“Yeah.”

“What are you going to school for?”

“Architecture.”

“Oh, that’s so cool!” There was that bright smile again. “What kind of architecture are you thinking? Like houses or more like big buildings?”

“Everything, really. I just like building.”

“That’s so awesome!” They hadn’t stopped smiling. Then nodded again at his chest pocket. “So, do you go places like that often? The aquarium?”

“Not really.”

“Have you been to the planetarium downtown?” They gestured toward the south of the station.

“No, but I love space.”

“Me too! You should go to the Planetarium! Most of it is free. A couple of the shows they do in the dome are and the three-D one in the regular theater are paid but everything else is free!”

Elliott smiled, matching theirs. “I’m only going to the planetarium if you go with me,” he said, putting a little bit of flirtation in his tone and winking dramatically to show he was messing around.

They laughed, throwing their head back. “Deal!”

The two of them talked the entire rest of the wait for the light rail to show up. And for the whole ride. It turned out, they got off at the same stop he did on their way back to their apartment after classes were done. But where he went left, they went right. He found out their major, explaining the project they were working on for their senior capstone-thesis… thing. He wasn’t sure what to call it, and they weren’t either. They’d asked him a lot of questions about his schoolwork, and he’d managed to talk around the whole “dream architecture is not at all bound to the laws of reality” thing.

He’d flirted a little, and they definitely flirted back—but Elliott wasn’t seeking anything. If he came away from this interaction with a new friend, that was just as amazing.

Though, he also came away from the interaction with their number.

When he ducked into the house, his face was hurting from how much he was smiling. He hadn’t smiled that much in… years. They were pulling him out of the haze he’d been drifting through, and they didn’t even know it.

Aaron was leaning against the kitchen counter, looking insufferably smug about something. “Good date?”

Elliott shook his head, immediately yanking off the stupid red button down and snatching the beanie his brother held out to him. He jammed it on over his curls. “Mediocre at best. But I made a friend on the trip home that made it worth it.”

Aaron grunted. “Hmm.”

Later that night, he got a video chat call from his new friend. “Hi!” they greeted brightly when he answered. “I like the beanie! Looks good on you!”

He chuckled. “Thanks, sunshine.”

[destroyusall]

✦ Naming Conventions

Denizens names pull from many things both old and new. While any one of them can be named anything, they tend to follow a system.

Humanoids tend to be named after concepts, and when they eventually have children with someone else, they will name the children based off of those concepts.

For example — Urgency + Criticality = Intensive Care, Deadline, Flaregun / Cupid /

Kreyati can have two recognised names. The first is a personal name, usually given upon birth, and the second is an earned title, solidified by witnesses to their deeds. Many with titles defend them to their dying breath.

For example — Dominic the Great, Saraa the White, The Engineer (Issac), Beloved Sisota Jean

Mythocuerta names tend to be fickle. They by far boast the most languages under their belt, and names brought from these can either be brought about through vocalisation, colours, etc., and they take great pains to do so. They tend to appreciate names that meant a lot in the Old World such as majour cities, that denizens no longer recognise.

For example — Sweden, Quetlztabbine, Laa;haa, Ran'dii, Saturn

Pets of denizens happen to be named adverbs, and it is seen as odd to name them / a child otherwise. These names also tend to be the subject of jokes :)

For example — Always, Overseas, Bodly, Finally

════ .✾. ════

[iamthecatwhotypes]

the letter (bts)

It started with an unsigned letter...

💘Pairing: Fem!OC x Yongbok/Secret Admirer | Sincerely AU 📚Genre: Sincerely... AU (m.list) | Romantic Angst 🔞Rating: 18+ ⌨Word Count: 4.4k ✋🏽Warnings: Unhealthy relationship (edging on neglect; quick to anger) 🗣Summary: Jinju's birthday started out rough... but a curious letter from a secret admirer gives her new hope. The problem is, which of her friends has a crush on her? 💌A/N: Hi! I'm new, but have been lurking for a while. I've had this idea in my head for a while and wanted to give this a try. If you have any constructive criticism or anything you want to say about this, please feel free to reach out. I'd love to hear from you! 😁If you want to read on AO3, you can! 🥰 I know a lot of people prefer to read a whole story when it's done. If you want me to tag you when this series is finished, let me know and I'll tag you when the finale drops.

There was something in the air that Friday night.

It felt… maybe a bit romantic, really. The sky had faded to a soft blue with fluffy clouds bathed in pastel pinks and oranges while the horizon was aglow in dazzling gold. Chasing after the cotton candy clouds from the east was a storm the color of spilled ink. They sprinted along the sky, gobbling up the half moon that hung low and bright.

Rainy nights were my favorite. I was convinced they washed away all the negativity of the day or week and left me with a clean slate.

Maybe it’ll sound a little crazy or overdramatic, but it felt like there was something fated in the crisp breeze that whipped through my hair. It felt like I was on the precipice of something exciting and new starting.

I loved the way it seemed like everyone around me was so happy while being bathed in the soft glow of the street lights that were flipping on one street at a time.

I loved nights like this. They made me think of home when I was young. I'd sit with my mom and brother and watch the lightning until either the storm ended, or I fell asleep. 

In my moment of nostalgia, I looked around for my boyfriend, Yongbok, hoping to wrap my hands around his arm and walk tucked up against him, but saw him already so far ahead of me that he was almost to the restaurant we were going to meet our friends at. 

I paused for a moment, my shoulders slumping against the sudden brunt of disappointment. My jaw went slack as my heart slid down my ribs into my gut and dissolved in its bath of acid.

Why was he so far ahead? He almost always walked with me. I mean, yeah, he was a much faster walker than I was, but he had a bit of height on me and naturally had a longer stride.

I blamed my outfit. I didn’t often wear skirts or heeled sandals. Even though the long champagne colored skirt I wore had a slit up to the middle of my leg, I felt awkward walking in it. It felt almost alien to dress this feminine. The bag I had brought was bulkier than I was used to as well.

I guess I felt a bit like a puppy that had yet to grow into its paws.

Despite all of that, he should have been walking beside me like a proper boyfriend would.

Although… we have been going through sort of a rough patch, I guess. We’d made plans to go out tonight to celebrate my birthday months ago. Maybe he felt like if he didn’t show up tonight, then all our friends would know we were having problems and he didn’t want them to notice. 

I hoped that meant he still wanted to try and work things out with me.

I heaved a sigh and hurried after him, nearly breaking into a sprint in order to meet him at the door. He held it open with his foot and tucked his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

A small part of me was worried he'd started to be embarrassed by me. I had gained a bit of weight since I stopped doing my normal dance classes. I didn't think it had been a lot, but I had caught him looking at my tummy a couple of times.

Maybe he was just excited for everything that we had planned to do tonight. 

I felt myself get excited at the idea he'd gotten me something nice.

Maybe he was going to finally propose and was just nervous.

Why would he be nervous though? It wasn't like I would say no!

I smiled up at him sheepishly when I lowered my head and slipped past him and into the restaurant.

I loved this restaurant. The walls were black and the lights that hung overhead were low. It smelled of meat and fish and spices.

It reminded me of how my family's house had smelled when I was a child and my grandmother was cooking.

I looked around, plastering a smile on my face and searching for my friends.

I spotted Namjoon’s freshly dyed purple hair in a far corner and grabbed Yongbok's wrist, pulling him along with me as I navigated towards the group, my smile full and authentic now. 

Yongbok pulled his hand from mine and skirted past me, almost bumping into a waitress with a tray full of sushi, gimbap, and a delightful smelling udon. 

She gasped and steadied the tray with her free hand, her mouth agape as I waved her on, apologizing quietly for his rudeness.

Why was he acting like this? He was being so rude and embarrassing!

I scowled at him and walked over to the table, forcing the smile to grace my face again as almost everyone looked over at me.

I could almost feel the judgement in their eyes as Jimin pulled a chair out for me and pushed it in as I sat while everyone at the table wished me a happy birthday. I smiled shyly at them and bowed my head several times in gratitude while holding my hands together in thanks.

Even though it should have been Yongbok seating me, I thanked Jimin anyway. 

He was always a gentleman.

I looked at Yongbok and sighed again when I saw him already deep in conversation with Jungkook who had just started getting a full sleeve of tattoos and, of course, Yongbok was curious about it. He’d wanted to get tattoos for a while now and Jungkook had been the only one in our friend group brave enough to start.

The tattoos I could see on his knuckles were hard to read in the quick moment I looked at, but they looked crisp enough to look decent.

“Look at you!” My best friend, Chaeyoung leaned close to whisper into my ear as she took my bag and admired it for a moment before hanging it from a hook under the table I didn’t know existed. “I bet Yongbok is just itching to get his hands on you tonight!”

She hid her giggle with her long, slender hand. I did my best to laugh along with her to avoid suspicion. It’d been such a long time since Yongbok had touched me… since he’d hugged me… I thought I would probably erupt with joy as soon as he even so much as held my hand.

“Well, you look stunning.” Chaeyoung continued sincerely before letting her eyes gaze at the candles flickering in the center of the table. She went far away for a moment. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but I am a little jealous you have a boyfriend on your birthday. Mine was so lonely.”

I looked her over and scoffed. She was always so elegant with her high cheekbones, small forehead, and full hips that swung like a pendulum when she walked. She was everything I considered to be perfect. I couldn’t understand why she was still single. “You’ll find the right guy soon!”

“I hope so.” Her shoulders slumped enough for her collarbone to peek out from under the sleeveless black cocktail dress she wore.

I nudged her with my arm and leaned close, glancing around the table quickly to see who was watching us. “Have you told… you know… how you feel?”

Her eyes flicked up to the man who sat quietly on the other side of the table, between Jungkook and Namjoon, staring at a glass of water that was sitting in a pool of its own condensation. She shook her head and pulled her waist length black hair behind her ear. “No. If he likes me, he needs to approach me.”

“What if he’s shy?”

She gave a nonchalant shrug and took a sip of her red wine, the glint of the candles catching her long, almond nails painted in a nude shade. She thought carefully for a moment and met my eyes. “I think he likes someone. He’s been acting differently recently.”

I nudged her again as a pair of waitresses came around, setting steaming bowls of clear soup in front of us and taking our entree orders. “It could be you.”

She offered me a smile. “I hope so.”

We giggled together before beginning to eat our soups.

I looked around the table at everyone laughing together and sat back with a smile. 

I hadn't known anyone when I moved to Seoul as a teenager. It was only once I had met Yongbok that anyone at this table came into my life.

My life had become so rich and full with everything everyone brought to share with me.

I couldn't imagine my life without them.

“So… Jinju….” Jimin rubbed his hands on his trousers and looked over at me with a smile. I met his gaze and raised a brow, waiting for him to continue, watching as he ran a hand through his thick blond hair and cleared his throat. He shifted his weight and turned towards me. “What… um… what are we doing afterwards? I think it's been kept a surprise from us when, really, we should have been the ones to surprise you.”

I laughed as he ran his tongue across his bottom lip, his eyes roving my face. 

His sudden attention on me was a little confusing for me. Jimin had always been kind, but I had written it off as him being polite to his friend's girlfriend. 

I couldn't lie though, it was nice to have a man talk to me so kindly.

Yongbok looked up at us too. His large eyes narrowed suspiciously while going from Jimin to me and back again.

That was odd. 

Was he jealous or had he just forgotten our plans? I couldn't be sure. 

I came back to myself and put on my friendliest smile while laying my hands on the wood table.

“But I love surprising you all! I hope you don't mind.”

I dipped my head shyly. I hoped I hadn't inadvertently caused offense. I really didn't think anyone would mind. I had never been a fan of birthdays and really just wanted the attention to be off of me.

Jimin chuckled and ran a hand down the black blazer he wore, waving the other to dispel my worry. He softened his hand and offered a gentle smile. “Of course not. 

“I thought that since we were so close to Lotte World, that we could go there after we eat and do a scavenger hunt. I have a little gift for the winner.” I had gifts hidden away in my purse for everyone though, but I wasn’t going to admit that now. 

“It’s raining now though, my dear.” Yongbok interjected, his deep voice tinged with a gravelly undertone, hinting that I was being ridiculous. He used the endearment to try and soften his tone.

“I…,” I didn’t have much time to respond before Taehyung piped up, his eyes still on his glass.

“I drove.” He pushed his white linen napkin along the edge of the glass before looking up at me first then quickly around the table and back to his glass again. He swallowed hard and shrugged a shoulder as the weight of the collective stare went to him. “I can’t fit everyone, but….”

He let his words fall away, thankfully saved by the waitresses and a pair of runners who came up to our table and laid our meals out before us.

I couldn’t help but notice Yongbok glower at him for a moment before whipping open his napkin and laying it over his lap.

What was wrong with him?

I glanced at Chaeyoung to see if maybe I was overreacting, but she was watching me worriedly as she plucked up a piece of beef.

I tried to give her a reassuring smile, but I knew it was hollow. I couldn’t lie to her very well.

We fell into eating a bit quieter than before.

I appreciated Taehyung stepping up to help keep my birthday perfect. At some point in time, without me even realizing, he and Jimin had become my friends too… genuinely.

I didn’t know what I had done to earn that, but I was very grateful. 

The world felt a little smaller and less scary with them in it.

Eventually, we finished our meals and looked outside to see the rain had become so heavy that the street was practically empty save for a few stragglers who were drenched and huddled into their jackets and wincing against the elements.

Jungkook was the first to speak, always quick and eager to help in any way he could. “I think we should take Jinju to the zoo tomorrow. Or… maybe the aquarium.”

Namjoon nodded, pointing at him as he clasped his hands together and rested his elbows on the table. “Namdaemun would be cool too.”

“Oh… the Seosomun Museum is close to there.” Jimin chirped, glancing at me as he crossed his legs and sat back in his chair. “We could make a day of it if we wanted to.”

“Oh!” Chaeyoung cried out and leaned forward, her brow pinched and her eyes narrowed. “We could go to Sky Pizza!” She turned to me and put her hand on my arm. “That’s Bong Joon-Ho’s restaurant in Parasite!”

“We’re taking a tour of Seoul tomorrow.” Yoongi suddenly spoke with a breathy, deep laugh. “We may as well go to the National Park Mountain Museum.”

“Where is that?” Chaeyoung pulled her phone from her purse and tapped the name into her map app then looked up with wide eyes. “Bro! That’s so far away!”

Namjoon smiled until his eyes were half moons and shook Yoongi’s hand. “I see you’re getting out more.”

“That’s almost in Gyeonggi! That’s like an hour away!”

I was about to say that I loved getting out of the city, but Yoongi spoke again, waving his hand, his pinky slightly curved.

“Jinju, what would you like to do tomorrow?”

Everyone’s eyes shifted over to me and it was suddenly hard to breathe. I blinked rapidly and felt my mouth grow dry as my jaw went slack.

I couldn’t choose the museum Yoongi had suggested even though it sounded wonderful. Chaeyoung would be too miserable travelling that far. I made a note to go there later on my own. I sat up straight with a bright smile, watching subconsciously as almost everyone mirrored my movement. “I think we should go to the aquarium, Seosomun Museum, and Sky Pizza. If that’s okay?”

I looked over at Chaeyoung as she wrapped her arms around mine with a giggle. “That’s gonna be so fun!”

“Let’s see if it’s still raining tomorrow.” Yongbok’s voice was drowned out by Taehyung and Jimin offering to drive all of us, which made him roll his eyes.

Part of me felt bad for him to be ignored. I knew he hated it, but maybe the others were ignoring him since he was in such a foul mood.

I tried to compensate for him by being the brighter one.

“I’m really excited. It’ll be nice to do some new things.” I smiled at no one in particular.

My eyes flicked to Yongbok as he clinked his shot glass together with Jungkook’s and threw his drink back. I hadn’t even realized the grapefruit soju on the table. Yongbok locked eyes with me and pointed at me with a grin on his full lips then poured himself another shot. He raised it towards me, waiting for a moment for our bewildered friends to quickly follow suit when they realized there was going to be an impromptu toast. 

“Here’s to our beautiful Jinju on her birthday.” Yongbok smiled and gave a chuckle, the mood brightening for a moment as our friends broke into a smile and parroted him before he continued, interrupting a few of them. “May we all be so accommodating.”

I thought I heard a hint of sourness to his tone that the others seemed to gloss over. 

I smiled and bowed my head in thanks to my friends before a crack of thunder shook the building and made the lights flicker. We jumped and looked to see if the building had been hit.

“I think that's our signal to go.” Namjoon finished off his beer and stood with the rest of the table following suit quickly. We followed him to the counter to pay.

“Thank you all for such a lovely evening.” I bowed to the group at the large double doors that were painted black with an ornate design painted gold in the center of both of them. “It was good to see you all again and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow!”

I gladly accepted a hug from Chaeyoung, Jimin and Taehyung then shook hands with Namjoon and Jimin. Yoongi and Jungkook both gave me a small bow before looking out the windows as a flash of lightning illuminated the sky for a moment.

“I'll drive you home, Namjoon.” Taehyung patted the man on his shoulder as Jungkook fished his keys from the pocket of his black trousers and Yoongi pulled his black blazer over his tight black turtleneck.

“You two walked, right?” Jimin turned to us, raising his brow as Yongbok nodded, a sense of disappointment seeming to wash over him as his shoulders drooped a little. “I'll drive you home.”

I stepped up to him with a smile and held my hands demurely before me. “Thank you for your help, Jimin. Yongbok and I appreciate it very much.”

The tips of his ears grew red as he tipped his head away with a smile and ran his hand through his hair again as Yoongi swung the door open for us, his hand up to shield himself from the rain.

“Thank you!” I put my hand on his shoulder as I brushed past him, my skirt quickly becoming plastered to my thighs as the rain threatened to drench me entirely. He nodded and gave the fastest smile I had ever seen before looking away. 

Yongbok put his hand on my waist, pulling me close and guiding me quickly to Jimin’s car. He pulled away and sat in the front, leaving me to start to slip in the back before remembering I didn't have my purse.

“I forgot my bag!” I stood despite Yongbok's grunt of disgust and shielded my eyes with my hand as a waitress came out with my bag. I took it from her with a bow. “Thank you!”

“Jinju! Get in the car!” Yongbok yelled through the window at me as I opened the door and dropped inside, thankful for the quickly heated interior.

“Sorry.”

“It’s…”

“Next time be more mindful.” Yongbok barked over Jimin, glowering at me from his spot as I sank into the back of my seat with wide eyes. “You're ruining the interior.”

My jaw went slack.

I was so confused.

He’d never berated me in front of other people before, let alone his closest friends. 

I don’t think he’s even ever raised his voice to me before. Why was he being so cruel? And on my birthday too. 

It made my heart drop as I lowered my head while Jimin stared at him, his playful, sweet eyes now dark and hard.

He moved his jaw from side to side before taking a deep breath and holding his hand up, palm down, trying to diffuse the situation. “Let’s not let a little rain ruin tonight. This car’s been through much worse than this.” He laughed, bringing me, at least, a little lightness and I relaxed. “I was getting the car washed one time and forgot to roll my window up until I was being sprayed in my ear.”

“Bro… you did what?” Yongbok stared in confusion at Jimin as he covered his face with his hands and laughed. 

Perhaps it was mean of me, but it was nice to see him be humbled after being rude to me.

“Yeah, I drove home with all the windows down to try and dry it out.” Jimin sighed and looked back at me when I covered my mouth as I giggled. “But anyway, don’t even worry about it. You’re fine, I’m not mad.”

I smiled and looked up at him through my lashes. “Thank you, Jimin.”

Jimin tried to get a conversation going, but with Yongbok’s mood, the short trip to our apartment felt like an eternity.

Jimin pulled up to the curb and put the car into park, twisting in his seat and reaching back to smile at me. “Happy birthday, Jinju. I’m sorry it rained, but hopefully tomorrow will be better.”

“I'm sure it will be. Thank you again for coming out with us and driving us home.”

Yongbok was out of the car and opening my door suddenly, his voice . “Remember your purse this time.”

I tried to smile but my lips refused to pretend.

I grabbed my purse and stepped out of the car, waving to Jimin before hurrying to catch up with Yongbok who was practically at the door of our building already. 

“What's wrong with you?” I glared up at him, watching as he threw his hands up and walked away. He went through the door to the stairs and let it slam behind him. 

I stood staring after him.

What happened? What had I done?

All I wanted to do was cry. 

I felt my chin tremble and remembered that my clothes were still wet. Even if my heart was breaking, I had to go take care of myself.

I went to the elevator and trudged my way to our door and tapped in the code. I slipped inside and stepped out of my shoes, holding my purse to my chest.

It only took a moment for me to hear him playing a video game loud enough that I was sure our neighbors would hear the woman screaming alongside the gunfire.

I felt so completely defeated. This wasn’t how I planned on my birthday going.

I had been so hopeful that today we would play nice and maybe it would start feeling like we were a couple again.

I wiped my eyes and went to the closet, dropping my bag into its place in the corner of my side. I went into the bathroom and began to draw a hot bath with a healthy scoop of lavender epsom salt.

I sank into the hot water carefully and sighed as I laid my head against the pillow, completely encased in the water.

I stared up at the ceiling and sighed. 

What was I supposed to do? Was there anything I could do to save the relationship?

It was just a rough patch. All couples go through rough patches. I did love him. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. I didn’t want to just throw it away without trying.

The next morning as we were rushing to get out the door to meet with Jimin and the others he had picked up, I remembered at the last moment that I had forgotten my wallet inside my purse. When I grabbed it and yanked it free from my bag, a sloppily folded piece of paper fell to my feet.

What was this?

I crouched down and picked it up, tipping my head as I unfolded it, thinking it was a receipt.

Hello darling,

The words met me in a neat hand.

I drew a deep breath and glanced over my shoulder. It wasn’t Yongbok’s handwriting. Even when he did his best handwriting, this was remarkably different.

I continued to read it, grateful for the brevity of it.

I know I shouldn’t be writing this to you, but I feel that if I don’t do something to give me freedom from you, I’ll go mad. So, here’s the truth: I’ve liked you for a long time and wish you all the happiness and love in your life. You deserve the best life and to be treated like a queen. You inspire me to be a better man and I thank you for that. Although I don’t think you’ll ever know who I am, I am grateful to have you in my life.

My mind raced and my heart thundered.

Someone had… what? A crush? On me?

Who could this be? Why did they choose now to tell me? When had they put this in my bag? Had it been there for long and I just hadn’t noticed it?

No. It had to have been from last night since it was on top of my wallet.

I blinked several times as Yongbok called for me.

Someone from last night had a crush on me. One of my friends felt something for me.

Had they sensed things hadn’t been well between Yongbok and I and was aligning himself up to be my next beau?

Who was it?

I was going to end it there and wish you all the best, but my soul won’t let me sleep without saying the deepest secret I have. I know you’re taken and I am sorry to drop this in your lap now, but please forgive a poor, heartsick man because I do wish you were mine. Will I give this to you? I know I shouldn’t, but the thought that maybe, just maybe, one day it could happen, is to strong to resist. We’ll see what happens, I guess. But, for now, I am happy to have you as a friend. Take care. Eat well. Sleep well. Study well. You are loved.

It ended there without any mark of the sender.

I swallowed hard and felt my eyes prick with warm tears. I trembled as I brushed them away and stuffed the letter into my everyday bag.

I should have thrown it away. I should have been loyal to Yongbok, especially if I wanted to keep our relationship alive.

Why did I keep it?

I brushed past Yongbok, staring at his thin, well-shaped jawline and cool eyes and went out to Jimin’s car that was idling by the curb.

I looked up at the fluffy white clouds in the brilliant blue sky. 

Someone who loved me was looking at those same clouds.

What a strange and wonderful thought.

[henrioakley]

❝ i guess that's just the way them wild horses run ❞

Age: 35

Gender identification: Cis woman, she/her

Residential area: Downtown

Occupation: pharmacist, part-time roper & barrel racer

Two positive traits: Passionate & adventurous

Two negative traits: Headstrong & hot-tempered

Length of time in Briar Ridge: 35 years

Faceclaim: Kylie Bunbury

haunted eyes and vacant stares, mismatched furniture, leaving texts on read and not answering the phone, well worn jeans and boots, a fridge full of beer, shiny buckles displayed on a disorganized mantle, burning off secrets in hot baths, a longing to be anywhere but here, disassociation with the family name

parental neglect tw, drug dealing tw

Born and raised in Briar Ridge she turned out to be everything her mother didn't want her to be. Half the time she would criticize Henri for being more like a boy rather than the daughter she'd always hoped for.

The house she grew up in Briar Ridge Hills had always been too big and empty for her tastes. Too well put together and always kept immaculately clean. Nothing felt real in her childhood home. Like it was an image rather than a life.

With her mother a politician Henri always had to be on her best behavior because whatever she did reflected on her mother. For the most part as a child she abided by that. It wasn't until she hit her teens and when her father skipped out on the family that Henri rebelled.

She'd always been jealous of her school friends and neighborhood friends who got to play and have fun while she had either piano lessons or dance class. She also had extra school work because her mother wanted her to take on more because she was meant for some big ivy league.

What she wanted the most was a horse and to work at a stable so that she could learn her way about what Henri was obsessed with.

She'd been drawn to horses and the rodeo since she was a small child. One of her childhood friends had invited her to come along to a rodeo event and from then on she'd been hooked.

There were hardly any women in any of the events and that had only motivated her more. She was tough, strong, and incredibly athletic with all her training so she knew she could do it.

When she was sixteen her mother went off to the state capital and left local politics behind. For some reason her mother thought it was fine to leave her own child behind. An aunt moved in but what little control Henri's mother had on her soon evaporated.

Not only did she get herself in with some of the cowboy crews, they also taught her to ride and the ways around the lifestyle.

Henri began traveling with them and helping out. Even before she was fully good enough to give competing a go she tried anyway, thinking it was the best and quickest way to learn.

Turned out to be the hardest and most brutal but she wouldn't have changed it for anything.

When her mother found out what Henri was doing the threats came that she would cut her off if she didn't straighten out and the fear of being further abandoned hanging over her head sent Henri to university where over time she worked to become a pharmacist.

Aside from her uni work, pharmacy tech job, Henri continued to rodeo whenever she could. There was something wild in her heart that couldn't be contained.

Once Henri finally became a pharmacist after extensive schooling she found herself a lucrative side business of selling medication on the side. It's all going into a savings to eventually buy herself a ranch and support her real passion in life.

potential connections:

childhood friends — anyone within age range that she could've grown up with. either they got along or didn't but would love to have some historic connections!

side hustle customers — anyone that would buy prescription meds off of her. she doesn't judge and can keep a secret if they can.

uni buddies — easy one here! people she met through the local uni.

rodeo family — whether they're apart of the scene as a fan and supporter or a competitor as well gimmie all of this!

neighbors — unfortunately until she can buy her dream property for her ranch she's suck in a townhouse downtown.

fwb/flings/hookups — a casual thing here as she has no real interest in a serious relationship. it's pretty much stuck in her head that all relationships/connections are fleeting and that everyone will eventually leave at some point.

don't come near me at all — the person she's in love with but she's kind of an asshole to them to keep them at a distance. last thing she wants is to become vulnerable and get herself disappointed and hurt. something to be plotted out!

more to come! this is just a jump off point!